I was thinking about Friends Judi and David, who are now back in Texas, enjoying the warmth and sunlight (send some our way, won't you?).  Most of the time, we get little visits, although they have lived in this area on two separate occasions for a year apiece.  In fact, it was Friend Judi who kept Rachel and fetched Sarah when I went to the hospital to have Abby.

Anyway, this is not making much sense.  What I mean to say is that, for the most part, we have whirlwind visits with them and then they're gone.  I was thinking back to some of the former visits and three were particularly memorable, for some reason.  The first was the first time I met Friend David.

Friend David and Friend Husband have been friends since they were boys.  I only have one friend with whom I've had a relationship since junior high and a few have kept in contact (or re-contacted) since high school.  So I'm amazed that Friend Husband, the most reserved man on the planet, has this friendship of 30+ years' duration. 

Friend Husband and I had a rather whirlwind courtship.  I mean, we'd sort of known each other for a while, but we didn't go out together, as I was engaged to someone else.  So when Someone Else dumped me, Friend Husband jumped on the opportunity to ask me out.  We went out, we fell in love, we got engaged.  Very quickly.  So quickly that I wondered how long it would last.  When I heard that his friend David was coming to town for a visit, I got nervous.  What if David hated me?  Would that cause Doug to see me in a different light and dump me too?  I had been told that David was really really bright and that sort of freaked me out too.  I mean, I'm not completely stupid but really smart people generally make me feel really dumb.

Anyway, so we set out to meet at the University of Texas campus.  I had another meeting right before this one, and I had just gotten rid of that person when David and Doug walked up.  David was neatly dressed, dark and quiet.  We met, we hung out.  I don't remember what we talked about at all but it was a pleasant experience.  I wasn't quite as freaked out about meeting the rest of Doug's friends when we went to California that December.  I had passed the David test.

Another memorable visit (for me, anyway) was when they came to visit in Missouri.  We went to the Missouri State Fair one day and another night sat up half the night playing board games and eating.  Now this is what I remember the most.  You know what we were eating?  Chopped liver and raw chocolate chip cookie dough.  Yeah, now you know why I weigh two tons.  I had made a big bowl of cookie dough, planning to bake cookies and had not gotten around to them.  I made the chopped liver (think of it as cheap paté) for an appetizer.  We sat and ate that stuff all night.  The savoriness of the liver offset the sweet richness of the cookie dough perfectly.  Once you had a bite of one, you had to have a bite of the other.  It was madness. I was very sick the next day.  I wonder how many grams of fat I consumed that night...and I wonder if they remember it too.

We have had many fun visits over the course of the years, including this last one.  I think the one that surprised me most was in June, 1994.  I had had a miscarriage the month before and was extremely depressed.  Doug, Sarah and I went to Texas to visit my family and my mother planned a surprise dinner at The Salt Lick.  She contacted my friend Ann-Marie and David and Judi and they all surprised me at Mother's house before we went out to eat.

(That was also the night that O.J. Simpson went on his famous "low-speed chase".  We watched it for a while when we came home, until Ann-Marie pointed out what a bizarre and idiotic thing it was to do.  Do you remember what you were doing that night?)

So, anyway, I was amusing myself with memories of David and Judi over the years.  I'm no longer afraid of Friend David (although Friend Judi gives me pause sometimes...just kidding, Judi!) and I love seeing them.  It's nice to have friends.

Thirteen quick and dirty things about this week and answers to blog questions   It has been a fun but weird week here.  Friends David and Judi are here visiting and Friend Husband and I haven't been getting much sleep.  We figure that we don't see them much and it's worth it but we're pretty much zombies.  Well, I'm more zombie-like than usual and FH is zombie-like. I had a lot of questions about random things and I thought I'd share the answers with everyone.  Yes, that was an alien in yesterday's dishcloth (or warshrag, if you prefer).  Here is the link to the pattern if you desire to knit that puppy (or alien) all by yourself. I had knitted one in red for Friend Judi (also knitted her one of the state of Texas, where they now live, having escaped Norway) but when I saw that Hobby Lobby actually had the "alien green" that is in the example, I knew I'd be knitting another one.  The second one was the one I had photographed for yesterday and it was really really tightly knitted.  I knitted it on size 6 needles and pulled the stitches tight.  That sucker will last forever.  Or maybe not, since Friend Judi uses bleach to clean.  But it is the most tightly knit thing I've ever done.  My hands and arms ached after I finished. Although some of that achiness was also due to my constant lack of dexterity this week.  I have fallen more this week than I have in the previous month, I think.  On Monday afternoon, I stepped on something unexpected in the living room and pitched forward headlong into the meeting of the two walls in the doorway of my kitchen.  Now it was fortunate that I was able to turn my head, otherwise, I'd probably have broken some bones in my face.  As it was, I landed right on the outer cartilage of my left ear and man did it hurt!  I literally screamed for a full minute, writhing on the ground.  The reactions of the children were classic.  David came over and tried to comfort me.  Abby hid.  Rachel ran into the room and asked if I was ok.  Sarah asked if she needed to call 911 and Keziah stood there watching everything.  When I was down to a whimpering, quivering mass of Mom, I was able to comfort and reassure them but man did it hurt.  And it still does. Then yesterday I tripped on the baby enclosure (affectionately known as the "baby prison") and fell out of my fake Birkenstock shoes.  That wouldn't have been so bad (but for the stubbed toes) but I also stepped back onto the edge of the fake Birks and not only killed the toes but the bottoms of those feet.  When I caught myself, I realized that part of the pain in my arms was due to catching myself on the wall Monday.  I'm just a dex-less mess. Yes, the grad pictures were of me (in 1985) and my mother (in 1965).  I still think my mother is much more beautiful than I'd ever dream of being but I so appreciate the positive comments. Hey, we had spring for a few days!  It was even hot!  Rachel suggested that we pack the winter coats away but I replied in a sinister, knowing voice that it wouldn't last.  And it didn't.  It was 40º again this morning.  That will probably make Friends Judi and David happy that they're going back to Texas, where the bluebonnets are about to be blooming. Ok, in the picture where I sort of look like a nun, that's the pillow I put over my head to block out the noise and light when I'm trying to sleep.  Friend Husband put Zi atop me and I just pushed it up enough to see what was going on.  Then David climbed up on us and that's what that picture was all about. Melanie, Zi wasn't sucking on David's fingers but David was patting her face.  He can be very sweet.  Except when he's not.  Which is often. Ok, the top picture is of Rachel, whom Friend Judi has been affectionately referring to as a "dizzy blonde".  (Friend Judi is a blonde, but not dizzy, so she's always looking for "her people".)  We were all sitting around one night and Rachel picked up the bike tire pump and was playing with it.  I gave her the patented Mom glance which suggested she stop right now and Friend David quipped, "She's getting a refill."  There was a pregnant pause and we all burst into raucous laughter.  Refill...get it?  Ha ha hahahahahahahaaha! Friend David is a total hoot, in a quiet, dry way.  He is the friend after whom we named our own "sweet" little boy, as he is Friend Husband's most longstanding friend.  (Yes, I'm trying desperately to not say "oldest friend".)  Anyway, the twins have been following them around, trying out their names (Aunt Judi and Uncle David), although in standard twin fashion, they don't quite come out accurately and David's name comes out "Uncka Da-did".  After a day and a half of this, he commented that he was "out-da-did".  Again, the pregnant pause and one of my embarrassingly loud guffaws.  When I told Friend Husband later, he also had a pause and a loud guffaw, so I didn't feel quite so ill-bred.  Too bad they can't stick around longer.  I'm sure the guffaws are very good for us. Yesterday, our David did something that ticked off his twin.  She replied, in bell-like tones, "Da-did (insert last name here)!  Bad, Da-did (insert last name here)!"  I didn't even know she knew our last name, much less how to use it. Ah, what else?  I don't know.  Nothing I guess.  This is a Seinfeld TT...a blog about nothing at all.  Happy Thursday!   Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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Currently Reading In a Sunburned Country By Bill Bryson see related

Monday Memories

Today I am going to reminisce about the first time I met Friend Cherylyn in person.  We had known each other through the late, not lamented e-group Lives of Simplicity and through other groups and had really hit it off.  I knew she lived in Oklahoma but, not having much occasion to go to Oklahoma, I didn't think much about being able to meet her in person. That was, until I took the girls to camp one summer (I'm thinking 4 summers ago now) and realized I'd be within driving distance of her house.  Or maybe she realized that.  At any rate, we set up a meeting date and time and looked forward to meeting in person.

Now, I will say that I don't make a point of meeting everyone in person who I like online.  I am a little nervous about that endeavor, depsite the fact that it's always worked out well for me (note the presence of Friends Gina, Diane, Cherylyn, and a few others in my life today).  I had "known" Cherylyn online for a few years and she never sent out any red flags for me in that period of time.  I did take the precaution of leaving the girls at camp with Friend Janet, in case something untoward should happen, but I went off excitedly to meet my friend.

As I was nearing Cherylyn's house, I called Friend Husband to tell him I was on my way.  He questioned me extensively about who it was I was meeting, how I met her, and how it was that I knew she wasn't an axe murderer.  (On a side note, why is it that they always ask about axe murderers?  Why not serial killers or Ginsu knife murderers?  How many axe murderers are there in the world anyway?)  I answered him the best I could, while trying to figure out how to get where I was going and added, "Well, I left the girls at camp with Janet so if I get hacked to death, you don't have to worry about them."

He was not amused.

I signed off with the promise that I'd call him when I left so that he wouldn't worry, parked, and made my way up her tidy sidewalk.  And from then I was engulfed by the energy force that is Cherylyn.

Now she will probably take offense, but that was one of my first impressions of her:  her enormous energy.  That and her big brown eyes, full of humor, intelligence, and interest.  Her three little girls were there and we had a lovely afternoon, chatting and laughing, watching the little girls play.  I left exhausted but happy.  It was a lovely start.

Over the years, Cherylyn has become another sister to me.  It was to her house that I went after leaving Mother in the hospital for the last time.  She has welcomed not only me but my family and even my nasty dogs into her lovely home and always makes me think I'm doing her a favor by letting us stay.  Her home is one of the mainstays in our summer sojourn to Oklahoma.  I'm so lucky to have her in my life and I thank God for her.

Wordless Wednesday

Ok, I'm a bum.  About 1 ½ MONTHS ago, she tagged me for something and I totally forgot about it, so here it is.

From A to Z:

A- Available or married? Married
B- Best Friend? I guess that would be Friend Gina.
C- Cake or Pie? Depends...chocolate cake or lemon or coconut pie

D- Drink of Choice? Depends again:  water, coffee, Diet Pepsi, iced tea
E- Essential Item?  Books
F- Favorite Color?  Green

G- Gummi Bears or Worms? Worms

H- Hometown? Austin, TX

I- Indulgence? Computer time
J- January or February?   Either/neither
K- Kids & names? Sarah, Rachel, Abigail, Keziah, and David (and 2 in Heaven)

L- Life is incomplete without? God
M- Marriage Date? 8/5
N- Number of Siblings? One brother and a half-sister who no longer claims me.

O- Oranges or apples? Oranges or apples from Rouster's Apple House

P -Phobias/Fears? Running out of time.
Q-Favorite Quote? I'm not as stupid as you think I am.
R- Reason to Smile?  When the children are getting along and the sun is shining.

S- Season?  Spring...it's almost here!

T- Tag three people!  I tag everyone...go for it!

U- Unknown fact about me: I don't think there are any unknown facts about me.

W- Worst habit? Procrastinating and/or goofing off.

Y- Your favorite food?  One favorite?  I think not.
Z- Zodiac? Gemini but I don't go for the astrology thing.

Friday Fun Stuff

I had a fabulous time over at Friend Gina's house yesterday, knitting and chatting.  Unfortunately, I should have been paying more attention to my knitting.  I ended up having to rip out about a third of the stitches to bring it back to a logical point.  In other words, the only thing I accomplished yesterday was driving to Gina's and chatting for a few hours.

And then when I got home, I found yet more dropped stitches with which to contend.  This little hat has taught me a few things:

1. I can figure out some knitting patterns on my own.
2. I can knit with 4 dpns.
3. It's much much better on everyone if I don't knit on dpns while the twins are conscious.
4. I can pick up dropped stitches (and it's not even that hard).
5. I learned how to add stripes all on my lonesome!
6. There's something funky I need to learn about sizing because when I cast on, the number of stitches was quite good for Dave's head but now it's way too big.

Speaking of Friend Gina,  well over a week ago she tagged me to answer the "5 reasons why you blog" question.  Here are 5 random reasons.

1.  Comments.  I love comments.  I no longer check every hour or so to see if anyone has responded to my latest post, but I do enjoy the comments.

2.  I like writing and this is a good way to practice (and to get comments on how well--or not--I'm doing). 

3.  I enjoy the interconnectedness of my blogrings, seeing what everyone is up to, and knowing groups of (mostly) women over a period of time.  This is very difficult to do IRL.  Every other woman in our congregation works outside the home, with the exception of the older ones who don't enjoy a lot of "together time" with me and my five children.

4.  I've kept a journal since I was in high school.  I like looking back and remembering what was.  Typing is a lot faster than writing for me.

5.  It's helped me keep a sense of perspective many a day.  Although bad things do happen, often there are worse things happening to people I know online and it helps me think through my reactions to events in my life to remember that.  If nothing else, when something irritating happens, I can reframe it by thinking, "What a great post this will make!"

Thursday Thirteen #41

Thirteen Fortunes We've Recently Received in Fortune Cookies Every important call is a close one. Think of the danger while things are going smoothly. It's a good thing that life is not as serious as it seems to the waiter. You will travel to exotic places on your next trip.  (I hope not!  We were just planning on Florida!) Discipline is wisdom and vice versa. Your mind is filled with new ideas. Genius does what it must and talent does what it can. Generosity will repay itself sooner than you imagine. Under all that we think lives all we believe. Choose your own path. We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give. The good old days were once present too. (This is my favorite...David--one of our twins--got it and we laughed and laughed because it is definitely the twins' credo.)  In unity there is strength. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Mother

8/17/47-3/7/04

It's spring break around here and since Friend Husband is home, I have a lot less time to dottle about on the computer.  I totally missed Monday Memories yesterday as we spent the whole day dealing with the taxes for the year.  This is when I realize that I am hopelessly unorganized and this is when it costs me time and energy.

One of the things we couldn't find was the babies' Social Security numbers.  We were not allowed to count them as deductions last year because the adoption was not finalized in the U.S. until March (although it was finalized in Ethiopia the previous July and they were living in our home from August on).  So we didn't have old tax forms on which to rely, as we do for the girls.  After searching most of the morning, I volunteered to go down to the SSA office (thankfully not the one in downtown Cincinnati) and get replacement cards for them.  Fortunately for me, Sarah went with me and the twins.

Once we got there, we realized that the wait would be long and arduous.  The waiting room was packed with people whose facial expressions ranged from unhappy to belligerent.  I sat down in the back, with the twins in their double stroller, waiting for my number to be called.  After about an hour, the twins got restless and tried to bounce out of their stroller. Rather than annoy my fellow sufferers in the office, I took them outside to stroll up and down the sidewalk in front of and around the building.  I gave the number to Sarah, who stayed in the waiting area, and told her to come get me when they called the number. 

When they finally called the number (after 30 minutes of walking and saying, "Look, green car...red car...silver truck...silver car" and being hit up for small change by a panhandler), I was around the side of the building and Sarah frantically scanned the horizon looking for me.  When I came into the waiting room, the SSA employee looked at me with vast irritation on his face.  Well, excuse me for trying to keep my children occupied quietly while we wait out the afternoon in your nasty waiting room!  He lightened up a bit when one of the twins (I can't remember which one) kept pointing at him and saying, "Dad?"  (They did this to every man in the waiting room yesterday.  I have no idea why.  Most of them did not look like Friend Husband at all and it's not as though they're 9 months old anymore.)  It didn't occur to me until we got home and I was relating to Friend Husband the stories of our trials and travails yesterday that the twins are African-American.  The men in the waiting room had no reason to believe that the twins' dad was caucasian and they're naming all of them off as "Dad".  Somehow that just struck me as hilarious and I rolled on the floor, thinking about it.

Anyway, we finally got the precious slips of paper with the needed numbers on them and proceeded out the door.  As we were leaving, the twins waved to everyone in the open room and said, "Goodbye, Man!  Goodbye, Man!"  The faces were much less grumpy, at least for a while.

I don't know what we're going to do for the rest of spring break.  I'm planning to get the house a little more ready for company (Friends Judi and David from Texas!) and attempt to knit my infuriating KAL dishcloth.  I don't know why I'm having so much trouble with it but I am.  I always end up with the wrong stitch count.  Anyway, those are my plans and I'm sticking to them!

Currently Reading There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children By Melissa Fay Greene see related

My boy

Dave is such a feisty little man (favorite new word:  "NO!") that it's sometimes hard to remember that he's tenderhearted as well.  When any of his sisters cry (except if they cry because of his actions), he's there, patting them on the back and giving them Dave hugs.  He loves babies and even baby dolls.  He will peer into strollers and infant carriers to see who is inside them.  Yesterday he was in transports because our neighbor needed to leave her 3-month old son with us for half an hour while she took Older Son to school.

David bolted down his food (no surprise there) and was down on the floor, stroking Evan's cheek and head, patting his belly, and generally making Evan laugh uproariously.  He wanted to hold Evan and "rock him, Mama" when Evan was tired of being held by toddler arms.  It was so special.  It's nice to see tenderness in my little man, when mostly what I see is just plain oneriness.

Currently Reading Mason-Dixon Knitting: The Curious Knitters' Guide: Stories, Patterns, Advice, Opinions, Questions, Answers, Jokes, and Pictures By Kay Gardiner, Ann Meador Shayne see related

Comeuppance

Ok, Friend Gina will love this one.  I confessed to her this week that I like to read while I'm knitting.  If I'm just knitting away (as on Zi's hat), I will also read.  My hands can generally feel what to do without my constant supervision (although mistakes are made on occasion). So yesterday I was reading (and cackling over, to be quite honest) the Mason-Dixon Knitting Book while I was binding off Zi's scarf.  Binding off is not that hard to do but it is slightly different than the knitting and knitting and (yet more mindless) knitting that I was doing beforehand. 

Rachel came in and watched me for a minute or so and then said, "Mom?  Are you binding off?"

"Mmhm...yeah..."

"Ok, well, because it looks like you're knitting and I was wondering if you were still binding off."

I dragged my eyes from the enchantment of my book and sure enough!  I had knitted about 50 stitches instead of binding off. 

 does not describe how I felt.  I tinked it back to the part where I was truly binding off and finished it (finally).  But I must be more careful when reading while doing "mindless" knitting.

Here's a picture of Zi in her hat and scarf (which she did not take off all afternoon...I know the house is cold but honestly!)  Her brother is wearing a hat from the snowman kit which I will explain presently.

A few people asked about what we used to make the snowman "buttons" and eyes and such.  The in-laws sent us a kit (from Lillian Vernon, I think) that had various snowman accoutrements such as eyes, carrot noses, hats, and scarfs.  The buttons do look like Oreos!

On Monday, I was gently chided by a few of you about not posting pictures of my first quilts.  There's a good reason for that.  Once they passed into the hands of my young, I haven't seen much of them.  Abby still cavorts with hers (she calls it "Twilt" and has since she could talk) and I see it often but Sarah's and Rachel's I haven't seen for a while.  I finally got them to dig them up and photographed them this morning.

When I saw Sarah's, I remembered another mistake I made.  That would be the mistake of not using more highly contrasting colors.  I learned about that after reading a book on Amish quiltmaking and working through a few of the lessons.  I didn't know it with my very first quilt:

Here is Rachel's quilt:

I embroidered or quilted the girls' names on their quilts.  All of our children have 3 names, then the surnames, and I just thought it would be special to have their own names on their quilts.

Here's Abby's quilt:

I wish I'd also taken a picture of the back of Abby's quilt.  Hers is the only quilt that I also pieced the back for.  I knew when I was pregnant that I'd make a Burgoyne Surrounded quilt for the baby because I was way way into the Revolutionary War at that point (which would be one reason why Abigail is Abigail).  That's what the center of the quilt is.  The back is a large Abigail Adams star.

Well, my computer time is up and I still didn't get to do Friend Gina's tag.  Maybe tomorrow.  I hear tell that our spring break is next week...I'd totally forgotten it was...yeehaw!  Have an excellent Friday, everyone!

From this, on Tuesday:

to this, this morning:

To this, just now:

(BTW, her sister Rachel taught her to smile in that goofy way, not me.)

Plus a cat toy made out of the gauge swatch and some catnip I picked and dried last summer.  I don't have a picture of the cat attacking it but he certainly did.

Now he's all mellowed out:

Currently Reading An Old-Fashioned Girl (Puffin Classics) By Louisa May Alcott see related

Monday Memories

I am a dingbat but I am aware that it is Sunday night.  I will not, however, be around tomorrow until possibly very late so I thought I'd throw this out tonight.

BTW, Friend Gina and I had a great time at the knitting guild on Saturday.  We were the youngest folks there (by decades) but we got to know some charming ladies.  We also did a field trip to a knitting store.  I knew it would be interesting and weird to make my first visit to a yarn store.  My first trip to a big quilting store gave me a panic attack.  This didn't give me a panic attack but I felt more like I was in Chinatown in San Francisco and couldn't read the signs.  I saw (and patted) much gorgeous yarn but as I didn't really know what it was all useful for nor how much to get, I didn't lose control like I do at Meijer with yarn at 90% clearance.  I did see some sock yarn that looked quite yummy.  One was knitted into a scrumptious green sock with various patterns attributed to the yarn rather than the knitting.  I started salivating but I did not buy any yarn.  I'm pretty far away from socks at this point and I exercised a bit of self-control there.  But I know where to find my sock yarn when I want it (and it was sheer pleasure to see and handle some of those beauties).  So that, Friend Gina, is why I didn't go off in the yarn store.

Ok, today I am going to remember the first two quilts I made.  I know that those of you who have made scores of quilts will probably think this a ridiculous blog.  I haven't made scads of quilts and it is easy for me to remember my first two because I made them for my first two daughters.

Back when I was young and had been married a few years, Friend Husband and I decided it would be a good time to start our family.  Back then, I was as fertile as a rabbit and it took no time at all to achieve this momentous science experiment.  As I started telling people and enjoying the shocked looks (remember that I was in a very liberal graduate student environment at the time and they thought it was wild enough that I shared my husband's name let alone procreated with him), a dear friend told me that I needed to make something for the baby.  I asked her what she had in mind and she said, "Oh, I don't know, something like a quilt." 

Ok!  I had read Little House on the Prairie repeatedly in my youth and figured that I could do that.  The nine-patch block was mentioned as the first block that most little girls made so I decided (the first of many decisions that led me down the primrose path) that I'd make Sarah's quilt be a nine-patch.

Shall I enumerate all the idiotic decisions I made after the first one (of relying on my memories of LHOTP to help me along with this)?  I shall.  Among them were these:

1. I decided that I wanted to make the quilt to be unbelievably soft for my newborn, so I chose flannel for the fabric.  (Collective groan here, fellow quilters.)  Actually, flannel isn't that bad to work with...if you don't buy it at WalMart, which I did, and if it doesn't have a great big weave to it, which this did.  Nevertheless, I moved on with my flannel.  The other thing you have to know about working with flannel (especially poorly woven WM flannel) is that it stretches, so you have to be careful.
2. I decided that the only way to quilt was to do everything by hand.  After all, that's the way Ma and the girls did it, right?  Dumb dumb dumb.  And dumb.  Especially since I had done precious little hand-sewing at that point in my life.
3. I didn't really measure the squares too well, I just cut them out with a pair of scissors.
4. I didn't remember the concept of seam allowances that Mrs. Baker had tried to inculcate into our feeble little brains in 7th grade.  My seam allowances varied from infinitesimal to ½ inch.  Yeah.  Yuck.
5. I didn't know that you don't generally use cotton blends to make quilts, so I chose a poly-cotton blend to do the sashing.  Easier to hand-sew but totally different from the holey flannel in the rest of it.
6. I didn't know how to hand-quilt (I didn't know how to do any of this, to be quite frank), so I decided to embroider hearts in the 9-patch squares.  That worked for one of the patches, then I got sick of it.  Oh, forgot to mention that I was using a ginormous wooden hoop to quilt in (it was the closest I could get to Ma's quilt frame).  I don't really remember how I got the rest of it quilted, but I did it.
7. I also had no clue how to bind the thing and of course didn't bother to ask someone who might actually know.  I ended up rolling up the edges, sewing them down, and cutting off the parts that stuck out.  Oh, ouch.  This just hurts to confess.

By the time I finished Sarah's quilt, she was 18 months old and I thoroughly hated hated hated quilting.  Unfortunately for me, (well, fortunately, but you'll get the picture here in a minute) I was pregnant with Sarah's sister Rachel.  Every mother knows (until she has several million children like I do) that what you do for one, you have to do for the other.  So I felt obligated to make Rachel a quilt, although I hated hated hated quilting with a passion.

This time, though, I wised up.  I had purchased a book somewhere along the way that had beautiful pictures of quilts and the patterns for how to make them.  Hallelujah, she can be taught!  Of course, they were full-sized quilts, but I decided (there I go deciding again) that I could use their measurements and cut them down to a crib-sized quilt.  I did much better on this one.  The only thing really dumb that I can remember doing is cutting myself with the rotary cutter (see, I graduated from scissors) and using the (admittedly red) piece of fabric that I'd bled on in Rachel's quilt.  The other dumb thing I was doing at that time was taping down (with masking tape) my fabric to the cutting board before I cut it.  I couldn't figure out how to make it stay where I wanted it to otherwise.  But Rachel's quilt was made in much less than the 2 years that it took me to make Sarah's.

I hired an Amish woman to quilt it (it was an Amish-style diamond in the square quilt) and also to bind it off (see, I was very wise by this time) and she did a lovely job.  It was ready and waiting (having already been embroidered with Rachel's name by me) to take her home from the hospital.  What a beautiful memory that was! 

Some day I'll have to blog about other quilts I have made (there haven't been all that many, so I can remember them very well) but those are my memories of the first two quilts I ever made.  By the time I was finished piecing Rachel's quilt, I was merrily ensconced in the world of quilting and I have loved it ever since.

I will mention here that I cast on for my first knitting in the round tonight...a hat for Keziah.  Wish me luck and speedy fingers!

Currently Reading The Friday Night Knitting Club By Kate Jacobs see related

Baby, it's cold outside!

Yes, I am a wuss.  I know that some of my HSB friends deal with this on a regular basis.  But I don't and I am here to tell you that it is officially cold outside.

That's the thermy right outside my very own kitchen door.  Brrrr!

And here's a vision of the sun shining through the icy trees in my back yard last night.

I thought the sunrise was amazing this morning until I realized that I was viewing it through an increasingly foggy glass part of my door as I waved goodbye to Friend Husband yesterday morning.  Once I got a good look at it, I realized it was the standard lovely sunrise as seen through glassy trees.  (When you look at it through the foggy glass, it's pink and blue and yummy.)

So, I've been in the house.  I should should should be quilting.  I am knitting instead.  I decided to knit coasters instead of dishcloths for a couple of my church lady friends (this year I'm giving them all knitted dishcloths for their birthdays.  Except for the ones receiving coasters.)  Those babies just pump right out and they are adorable.  Sadly I don't have a picture of them but I will, soon.  I'm using the Grandmother's Favorite Dishcloth pattern, but only knitting half of it. I even knit in the absolute dark last night on my way (with Friend Husband) to try out a new Indian restaurant.  And I didn't make a mistake.  Yes, I'm gloating.  I like new skills.

And the Indian food was marvelous!  Occasionally I will get a "spice buzz" after eating something wonderful.  I had a good spice buzz going last night.  Oh.  Yum.  Good place:  Bombay City Restaurant on Wooster Pike, just past the Kroger in Mariemont, if any of you live in the area and want to give it a go.

Ta ta!  Have a good weekend!

Wordless Wednesday

Monday Memories

Yesterday I was thinking about Sweet Ronald.  Poor Ronald had to wait 14 long years to be the top dog in the house.  Before that time, his brother Raymond, a more assertive dog, took that position.  But after Raymond went paws up (in the middle of a company Sunday dinner, no less), Ronald moved into the top dog position with vast assurance.

One of the main reasons I was thinking about Ronald was our errand day today.  On Mondays, the girls and I have a half-day off homeschooling during which we do something fun together.  Being girls, they like to shop, so that's what we did.  When Ronald was alive, we'd pack him in the van too.  He loved to go riding.  While we were in the shops, he'd go to sleep in the back of the van.  It was very, very sweet.

Lucy the Wonder Dog is a completely different dog.  She likes to ride, yes, but she likes to bound back and forth between the seats, steal food from the babies, climb into my lap and make herself a general nuisance. Indeed, while we are gone, she is relegated to her crate in the basement.  We haven't tested her ability to do without us in the house.  When we go outside to play and leave her in the house, she jumps on the doors and windows until she tears down the curtains.

Imagine my surprise today when I unlocked the door...to find Lucy, loose.  Oh joy!  I guess the girl who was supposed to crate her didn't latch the latch.  Amazingly enough, she appears not to have torn anything up or done any damage to the house.  Points for Lucy!  I still miss sweet Ron, though.