Fun and Times

Fun times had by all for the last five days.  

Wednesday was ice skating - only one injury.

Thursday was Thanksgiving down at Maddy and Campbell's house.  I don't know what the final count was, but somewhere around 24-28 people.  Excellent food and my contribution was the usual sweet potatoes extraordinaire and chocolate pecan pie fantastic.  Ta-da on my November quilt.

Friday the kids and I went with family to the Air and Space Museum.  We went to the big museum out at Dulles airport.  It is wonderful place to spend the day.  I know nothing about airpplanes, but love the colors, shapes and histories. We saw a great experiment showing the pressure of air.  I did not know that astronauts grow three inches in space and then shrink back.  They often have back problems the rest or their lives, it is also why astronauts can't do too many missions. 

I took a picture of different satellites that have orbited, they were so colorful.  Too bad the picture doesn't show the vivid colors, especially the copper.

"A Christmas Carol" was awesome. The ghost of Christmas future was quite scary- great set and costumes.  At intermission Ellen announced (loudly of course), "this isn't like the Muppets."  We got to meet Scrooge after the show.

Saturday we hung out with family, until they all started home.  We headed back to Baltimore and went to Kenilworth for trains and pizza with Uncle Tim.  Each year those trains get more elaborate, more and more buttons to push.

Sunday we met a friend for coffee and then went to the Walters Museum to see the Walter Wick exhibit.  Walter Wick makes the "I Spy" books.  The exhibit showed how he makes them.  I can't even begin to understand how he creates the allusions, my brain does not work that way.   This is the actual model for one of the books, Puss in Boots is really only a few feet from the castle.  It is a wonderful study of scale.  The exhibit also showed some science photos he took, we are going to try this experiment. If you go slowly, a pin will float on the surface of water.

We also went and looked at the knights, the hall of wonders and the mummies.  Down in the basement the kids made board games.  This was a huge hit, I was really surprised how many age groups loved this activity.  Ned made all these little airplanes to go with his game.

Neddy has had a friend over, it has been a lovely Thanksgiving holiday.  I am off to build a fire in the fireplace and watch movies.  Ellen just informed me the Muppet's Christmas Carol is on - whoohoo!

I have one last picture to add.  I finished the white baby quilt, it is not easy to see.  It turned out great and was a nice challenge for me.  I prefer working with color.  Ian's comment was, "maybe next time they could afford to buy fabric with a color."  It is a dandelion blowing in the wind.

A secret to building a good fire.....open the flue.  Good grief!!

Phew

PHEW to the following:

One mouse caught by the kitten.
Leaves blown into the woods.
White quilt almost finished, rounding final corner on the binding.
November quilt completed and I think it might be my favorite.  I am too lazy to look for the phone and cord - picture to follow.
Dr. Fetting's quilt just needs the binding stitched down.
Bathrooms clean. Laundry clean.  Kid's rooms clean.  Catbox clean.
A perfect fire in the fireplace and all is quiet.  Ellen is watching tv and the boys are playing bandits.  It is good to have dress-ups.
New dog beds, disgusting old ones thrown away.
It is almost bedtime, I am worn out.  I did a lot this weekend.
It is almost peppermint joejoe time,  I have been waiting all year.  Santa I have been good.
No chemo for the holidays.
The Harry Potter movie was not a let down.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Big Eggplants and Richard Simmons

I am back on this big fruit/vegetable kick.  I ordered two eggplants from Peapod thinking they would be normal sized.  I have this great recipe for cream of eggplant soup.  This is what arrived.....

I ran a quick errand the other night to Joanne's and because I had the boys along it took forever.  They were complaining, fussing and whacking each other with rolls of wrapping paper.  It was 8:00 on a Tuesday evening and twenty people were at the cutting counter, it was painful.  We get up to the check out counter and the clerk was Richard Simmons, total doppelganger.  He was even wearing a headband.  Of course he thinks I want to chat, moms shopping with small boys always want to chat.  He says, "that blond-haired boy could be famous with that hair.  He could be in "Children of the Corn"." Ewww, I hate scary movies.  I think I was doing my blank stare, because then he elaborates, "the original movie, not the remake from a couple of years ago."   That made all the difference.  I really think I need to start doing internet shopping!

I have the top pieced for the raven quilt and I do have the little triangles that I wanted.  I was so surprised when they appeared, I didn't goof it up!  Today I am working on a baby quilt for a co-workers grandbaby.  It is all white and so far going smoothly.  I had to lock the kitten out of the room to lay it out.

Famous People and My Disintegration Project

Houston was a gigantic success, except I really needed to have been there one more day.  I just wasn't ready to leave, I didn't get to see everything.  I did not buy many things, but what I bought was very cool.  I bought fusible, metallic bias tape; a beadazzler type thing; a hand-marbled scarf and a tiny bit of fabric.  I arrived late Thursday evening to a very nice hotel, but with only a smoking room - truly gross.  They moved us the next morning fortunately. Friday morning Teri and I took a silk collage class.  It was a three hour class, but really needed to be longer.  I enjoyed it.  I worked on the quilt today in the oncology office.

We met up with my friend Amanda at lunch time and then wandered around the quilt exhibition hall.  The special exhibit was Baltimore Album quilts.  If you are not familiar with these quilts look them up on the internet.  The quilts take years to make and are all done by hand - piecing and quilting.  The other exhibits were diverse, technical and flawless.  It is a real coup to get a quilt in this show.   After viewing the quilts, Teri and I went to the Houston Opera house to see "Madame Butterfly".  I don't really like opera, possibly it would help if I knew anything about it.  I find the constant singing wearying.  The set and costumes were beautiful, it had a revolving stage.  I just couldn't get past a story of a Japanese woman and American man being sung all in Italian.  It was a nice experience though.

Saturday we met Cheryl and Amanda for breakfast and then went over to see all the vendors.  We made pillowcases in the charity section and viewed more quilts.  Teri and I happened to be be on hand for Kafe Facett's talk on his quilts.  He is a famous designer and can also be looked up on the internet.  For quilters it is like meeting Elvis.  The other famous person we saw was my friend Cheryl, she got to demo her light up quilts.  She is a clever, talented artist.  Each of the quilts has LED lights.  I then went to dinner at my friend Mari and Shawn's house.  They have a beautiful home in the suburbs of Houston.  Their house was warm, inviting and lovely.  I found out that Houston has NO zoning laws, so you can build a gas station next to a mansion.  They have moved into a planned community, that way they can't have that happen.  It is always nice to see college friends.

I left early Sunday morning.  It was too short of a time to spend with Teri and see all that needed to be seen.

I have added a pictures of my disintegration artwork.   The leaves here are almost finished, but the Crepe Myrtle is always the last to turn.  The project on the right, that is hard to see, fell on the ground and I had to rehang it.  It got so heavy from the rains.

We have been making pumpkin pies quite a bit, yummy for breakfast.  My grandma would always take the extra crust and make little cinnamon rolls.  I like making them for the kids, it reminds me of grandma.  She also gave me a love of sugar cookies, fudge and fried egg sandwiches.  We lived with my grandma most of my life until I was 21. I miss her.

Candy and Cat Sweaters

Halloween time around here was busy.  We trickortreated with friends not far from here and came home with the following:

Ned- 8.5lbs of candy, the grim reaper
Ian - 8 lbs of candy, the grim reaper
Ellen - 8lbs of candy, glam witch

We have a whole lot of candy, coincidentally the kids had dentist appointments last night.  I am still trying to recover from a root canowwww!  I may have to go back in, it is feeling only incrementally better. 

The rest of the post is somewhat miscellaneous that starts with a cat sweater.  Teri's enormous cat has a nervous disorder and is licking off her fur.  Since they live in AK and the pet sweater selection is slim, I told her I would look around here.  Last week at PetSmart I was browsing the dog sweaters, now this is not my kind of aisle.  I think dog sweaters, dog's in sweaters, owners who buy sweaters and dog sweater designers are ridiculous, what a waste of money.  I am in the aisle with surprising to me, a lot of other shoppers.  I kept saying excuse me to this woman standing in the middle of the aisle and she wouldn't move.  I tried to go around her and bumped her foot.  She turns around and starts glaring at me, she then starts doing mad sign language.  Why am I the only person to have a mad, silent altercation with a deaf woman in the dog sweater aisle?  Big dogs rule!  p.s. no dog sweater for a cat was purchased.

We had a stray dog escapade Sunday into Monday.  It all ended well, but the cats haven't entirely recovered.  We found a beagle mix in the yard with a shock collar, she had obviously run through it.  She went trickortreating with us.  She was very sweet, but I was glad when we found her owner.  She (no lie, I have 3 witnesses) could jump straight up onto the counter.  It was amazing and also impossible to corral her anywhere.  She had quite a howl as well.  We discovered on her inside leg a MDSPCA #, so we returned her. 

Ellen and I have spent quite a bit of time together completing her stream study.  I did not do it for her, but kept her on task.  We had a number of setbacks, but it has been emailed to her teacher.    She had a sentence that read, "I saw lots of squirrels and squirrels are stupid."  Observation and research does not come naturally to her.  I don't even want to think about what the next project will be.

The first of November is turkey time.  I had the turkey on the table for two minutes before the kitten started chewing on it.   Christmas decorations might be tricky this year.  This is a tradition my 90 year old neighbor started for us 9 years ago.  The kids were so happy to see it. 

I voted today and once again witnessed the "old lady phenomena", let me know if this is unique to my area.  The polling center has a huge line and these old ladies walk to the front of the line and announce "I can't sit down." They would just walk up and cut in front of the first person, even if that person was talking to the poll official.  They failed to notice that no one was sitting down, we were all "standing" in line.   People around me were cracking jokes about it.  I was bummed, because the Girl Scouts had run out of Thin Mints. 

Teri and I made a quilt for my new nephew.  Now new means he was born in July, we are only 6 months behind.  I say we but really mean me.  Teri and I sent it back and forth, I've had it since Sept.  After I completed it, it sat on the dining room table for 2 weeks and then sat in my car for another 2 weeks.  It is really cute and finally on the way!

I want to close with a thank you to October, I am ahead on the oil budget.  The mild weather was greatly appreciated, today it has been quite cold in the house.

I also want to thank whatever stars aligned this evening and no one has homework!!  One great phrase, "Mom, I have no homework!"  Too bad we are racing out the door to lacrosse.

Thursday I head to Houston for the quilt show - whoohoo!  Pictures and post to follow!