July 18, 2009 Storm in the desert

We had an amazing storm blow through here last night. I won't even bother to tag each picture, just look, enjoy and even perhaps be happy you were not here. As for BB and me, we danced in the rain and tried to stay out of the lightenings path.

Old age and Peek-a-boo

No pictures today, I am too tired to fool with trying to find the proper one to post.
Old age and peek-a-boo? Here is the relation. Peek-a-boo, meaning that diabetes is playing peek-a-boo with my body. I have been very healthy all my life. Now that I readily admit to being an old lady, I have to admit that he body is not what I wish it would be. I have had a couple of blood test, the first when having my yearly physical. The second was a follow up on the results of the first test. I won't bore you with the numbers on the glucose test but the doctor didn't like them. I am not a huge sweet eater but do indulge when an occasion arises. I have cut out the honey in my oatmeat every morning and try not to be tempted with other sweets. I have started walking 1.8 miles every day that I can. The second test showed that I had knocked the number down about 11 points and the doctor said 'No treatment needed at this time and see me in 6 months". Yeah! But oh boy! That walking is sure hard on me. My body tried to lose about 3 lbs but I am fighting the weight loss,
I put it right back on again. Sad. I walk every day that I can. Sometimes I just can't make myself get out that door. Too tired,(go to bed tired, get up tired) too hot,(it was 106 degrees when I went to bed at night, no way was I going to walk last evening) not time enought today,(Church) but I will keep trying because I have a dear sweet friend/neighbor that is a nurse and tells me that just a bit of excercise with beat back the disease.

Tomorrow, if I don't find an excuse not to walk, I will take you on my walk with me with my camera.

Hodge Podge of pictures

Here is another picture of the esteemed graduate and a friend at the reception at the school where he graduated.




This is my AZ granddaughter and my China Doll stretching her neck to be sure to get in the picture




Lily and one of Spencer's best friends. Note the hat. In Music City area the kids pretty well set the style. Whatever appeals to them at the moment is what they wear I suppose. He is a cutie. I know someone who wanted to get better acquainted with him but I won't tell you who she is.



I like to call this picture, "Show me the way to go home..." Some of you may remember the words to that song.



Spence




My favorite TN son-in-law, Kala's sweet dad. Sadly I didn't get any pictures of Kala's mom at all. At least none that she would appreciate me showing the whole world.



This is a picture of all my baby chicks and one duck who thinks it is a chick. They are all fully grown now. This picture was taken the early part of June. My baby bro and my favorite AZ son-in-law both have jobs at grammer school's (I don't know what grammer school is called these days. When I mentioned something about the grammer school I attended my AZ granddaughter ask me if I was especially poor in grammer and had to go to a special school) At any rate, as a science project it is a common practice in grammer schools here to hatch chickens and the teachers have to find homes for the new babies. We have them :-)

New pictures

Below is 'Sam the Man' with chocolate on mouth and I don't know what the hand sign is for. It was in another picture I took also




Below is Lily, our Little China Doll, modeling a back pack I crocheted for her. The hat was supposed to be for Sam but he declared it was much too babish for him to wear for crazy hat day. He wants one with crocheted spikes. I am going to have to figure out how to do that.







My almost 19 y/o high school graduate. Looks like a college grad doesn't he?



My sweet daughter, her very sweet hubby, proud parents of the grad



The loving and lovely older sister of the grad



Whoops. A bit out of order. I zipped you up to Indianapolis. This is my 94 y/o mom-in-law. She will be 95 in December.



This is of course me and my oldest granddaughter. Wish I had her back in Marana with me. I don't believe that will ever happen but I can dream can't I? She was MINE, MINE, MINE for two years while she went to school here and many people at church came to love her and often ask about her.

There you have it for today. Maybe I will get back to 'farm' issues tomorrow.

Dust storms

A long time friend who lives in OR ask me to discribe a dust storm because of a comment I made on my Facebook page. I typed in 'dust storm' on google and clicked on 'pictures' and found that most of the pictures were in a far away desert and the storms there are much more daunting than the ones we have here.

I am remember a great and very fun dust storm 2 or 3 years ago because I was seeing in thru my grand daughters eyes. Kala is very excited about weather. Extreme wheather that is. This was one of the finer dust storms. It came right across our part of my desert. People with swimming pools hate dust storms. It brings in all kinds of contaminates along with the dust and does a nasty number on swimming pools.

In my desert you can see where it is raining a long way off. God sends a column from His Heaven down to the earth and you KNOW there is a lot of rain falling in that area.

A little aside: When my husband and I and two of our kids were traveling from CT to CA on our motorcycles (Suzuki 850 full dress touring bikes) we got to AZ and here was a column like I described above. I zipped up to him and yelled "I am NOT riding into that" and he zipped away yelling, "Give HIM a moving target". Silly me, I followed

Anyway, when there is a dust storm, caused by a lot of wind in the storm, starts kicking up you can see that column but it is a dirty brown instead of the cloudy gray that is usually there in just rain.

When Kala was here, after the storm passed by (does that remind you of a song?) we looked at the sky in it's passing and the sky was fuschia and lavender and purple in color and very beautiful. I am happy to say that Kala didn's sprout wings and fly away from me nor get very much dust under her contacts.

There Idy, hope that is enough description for you. I wish I knew where the pictures were of that mighty & beautiful dust storm.

Since I don't know where those pictures are I will give you a little eye candy. This picture is right outside my kitchen door. Are you jealous?

I am still learning to use this new computer with the new thing-a-ma-jiggie picture doo-dad. Below is one many of you will have seen already because it is on my Facebook page. It is a picture of me and my AZ granddaughter. She and her brother are going to summer school. She had a project to do and the subject she choose was pirates. So of course I had to try the hat on. This was a Sunday night after church. Sun. a.m. Sun p.m. Wed p.m. and some in between. Bet many of you haven't attended a church that has that many services in a week in many a year. We have a new minister who is only 58 years old and is very old school and I like that. We have a new web site that is in the 'construction' stage right now. You might like to take a look.
www.lwbcm.org

The Ol' Desert Dweller

So sorry my good friends, I have not been a good friend to some of you for a long time. My youngest daughter set me up with Facebook over a year ago and though I didn't believe I would be interested in it I spend my recreation computer time there which is at the very minimum about an hour a day. I have caught up with MANY friend, some whom I have not seen in over 40 years! Most of the time I play Facebook Scrabble with several different people, one of whom is my TN daughter. It is so nice to have contact with her even if it is only a sentence or two each day.

I have a new computer, compliments of my AZ daughter and her sweet hubby BUT I don't have it all set up completely yet. I started to put some pictures of my trip to TN and my family there but can't (or don't know how) to do it yet.

I have all my pictures from my last computer on a disk and will try to figure out how to put some of them on here for you (and just to see if I can do it.

Bare with me while I get the computer figured out and also until I get real tired of Facebook.




HA! I did it :-) The picture is of Spencer (Kala's brother to some of you) It is his graduation picture from high school. Looks like it should be his graduation picture from college, right?

That is all for now. I will try to get this computer set up so I can get more pictures to you sometime in the future.

Guess who

Yep, it is I. After having been absent since Mar. 24th here I am again. I guess I have switched my sentiments from blogging to Facebook. I play Scrabble every day with my Tennessee Songbird and having that bit of connection each day is wonderful.

I have a new computer, a gift from my AZ son-in-law and daughter. He couldn't stand it anymore having me have such an old relic of a computer that is even slower than this ol' lady. They knew I wouldn't buy one for myself because the old one worked and I learned to deal with it. This new one is amazingly fast and I can't seem to tear myself away from it. I guess that is why I am entering something on my blog.
I can't put any pictures on my blog yet because the computer is not completely set up, so no pictures yet.

I went to Fresno, CA the last of May for a 3 day Southern Gospel concert. Loved it.

In June, my daughter and her two children and I went to TN to see my oldest grandsons graduation from high school. I spent about 2 weeks there and then the 4 of us journeyed on to IN to visit with my 93 y/o mom-in-law and my sis-in-law and family. We were there almost a week then I put daughter and kids on the plane for home and I followed in my car. I would so much rather drive than fly. I love driving and hate flying. When my computer is all set up I will put some pictures of our trip for you to see. For now, look for me but don't hold your breath :-)

Never too late.

The following is part of a note I received from a friend of mine in Phoenix. This is something worth sharing...........
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Oh ... I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you this: My mother was out here with Claudia and I since December, and recently returned on March 10th. Since living in NJ she has been attending a Christian Church, and had come to the realization that she should be baptized by immersion (she was sprinkled as a child). So, we made arrangements for her baptism. Wouldn't you know it, my sister decided she wanted to be baptized as well, so she flew out her for the baptism. But before their baptism, Claudia and Albert decided they wanted to re-affirm their faith and be baptized as well. So, on Saturday, March 7th, I had the privilege of baptizing my mother, my sister, my wife, Albert ... and at the last minute a fellow from our Monday night Prayer Group decided he wanted to be re-baptized as well ... so I also baptized Richard ------. There were about 24 people that came from the church to witness the baptisms. What an incredible evening that was. Mom will be 90 this year ... which goes to show you it's never too late to get baptized!

Let's start at the very beginning......

I have discovered, after making maybe three crazy quilts and starting in a fourth, that I LOVE making crazy quilts. I told a friend of mine in TN the other day that these are the reasons I enjoy making crazy quilts but not the structured ones.


1. I am accomplishing something with a goal in mind
2. I am very GREEN! I never throw away scraps of material. I make them into quilts
3. It is not repetitive. It is a different thing with every seam sewed.
4. It is like watching a flower bloom. You don't know what it is going to look
like until it is completed.

If you are a neat freak this would drive you batty. It doesn't bother me. I don't
expect any company. Only those around me who love and accept me the way they find me



The mess you see in the first picture is a pile of scraps and threads that is only about 1/3 the heap it was in the beginning. I emptied my 3 boxes of scraps, sorted double knit from woven and light weight from heavy. Then started matching sides and sizes.





I love my Baby Lock machine when it is behaving. It is very tempermental and sometime I would love to toss it through the window but it is working beautifully right now.

The first seam goes together on the Babylock which works with 4 threads and trims every seam very nicely at the same time.



The next step is ironing the seam but I know you don't need to see my beautiful new iron I bought at a yard sale a few weeks ago. It is the greatest iron I have ever had. I love it.

After ironing the first seam I head for my Bernina and top stitch with the Chicken Foot stitch Then back to the ironing board and then the cutting table to match up where the new seam is going to be, trim it on my new table. Well, maybe not so new. The school where BB works discarded it and he brought it home to me. Great cutting table. Keeps the mess out of my big kitchen.




This is all repeated over and over and ..... until the quilt is completed.

The last two pictures are of the block growing and growing, soon to become my Summer Crazy Quilt. It will be nothing more than the top of the quilt which is light weight and backed with a sheet. That is all I will need on the bed all Summer. I will take a picture of it when I am finished.

Hope most of you didn't get too bored with this blog.

Too Funny

After seeing all the PJ bottoms and pairs I made for me and Kala, BB decided he would like a pair. He chose the material from my stash. He thought the blue denim stripe looked pretty OK for himself. I made them yesterday. Problem: Most of the stuff in my stash came from garage sales, thrift stores, yard sales. You get the picture. When I laid the material out I found there was not enough to make the PJ pants unless... :-) You can see. :-D :-D We all thought they were hilarious. I decided to go ahead and make them up anyway because I didn't have a man pattern. I cut them from my pattern, took out some of the curvey hip, made them for straight up and down and longer. I needed to make them up to see what I need to do to make the next pair. Everyone was over here for dinner last night (huge, everything in it, salad and Pasta with the sauce on it that I call 'heart attack on a plate' I never remember the name of that sauce. All butter, cream and something Regiano cheese. I have holes in my mind. Not to worry, I have had those holes for a long time. It just involves proper names. ANYWAY, BB put on the PJ pants, we all had our guffaws, son-in-law had his trusty whatchamacallit phone with all the bells and whistles, as he always does and took the picture, zipped it right back to me as soon as he got home and now you can see the reason for all the laughter. I will make BB another pair (or two) with enough yardage for a better pair, I will make the adjustments to make them fit a bit better and he will be all comfy when he kicks

back for the evening.

Best Birthday Party EVER!

I was relating this story to a friend a few days (weeks?) ago and decided it would be a good story to put on my blog. Story:
My husband of 40 years died on Dec. 18th 2000. Some time after that, months? I don't remember, I was sitting in the choir loft and had a melt down. I am not a cryer and didn't have the time to grieve in a timely manner ( what is the proper time?) and right there in front of God and everbody, a grief thingie kicked in. I couldn't stop crying. Bad bad. When my birthday came up in the very next week, I was feeling sorry for myself and sitting at the kitchen table feeding my invalid mother, who was not able to do anything at all for herself, a failed casserole. Edible, but definately a failure. I looked up and in the back door came marching all my friends from my Sunday school class, hands full of GOOD food and with smiles on their faces. What a wonderful gift.

Those of you who were there........thank you....you might not know what a wonderful gift and a long standing good memory you provided.

Enjoyable week

I have had a very enjoyable. Last week I put on my favorite pair of pants, wore them all day, came home and slipped into a pair of quickly made cotton pants that I had recently made but not worn yet and vowed to make many more. PLOP, PLOP, FIZZ, FIZZ, OH WHAT A RELIEF IT IS. Some of you who are close to my age might remember that old Alka Selzer commercial. Well, those pants reminded me of that commercial. I made a pattern from the old 'Stretch and Sew' basic pattern. Light weight cotton, ELASTIC WAIST :-) That company came into play back in the days when we all wore that nasty double knit made with polyester. (Someday the future people are going to find that indistructable fabric in the digs and wonder what kind of people lived here). At any rate, I called up CO to the Stretch and Sew company some years ago and was told the patterns are adaptable to woven fabric simply by making 1 size larger. I made two pair of those pants, wore 1 pair to choir practice, got home and MC said, "Oh, I see you have some pajama pants'. I WORE PJ PANTS TO CHURCH! I didn't know I was making pj pants. Don't care. When they get laundried/laundryed??????? I will wear them out again. Those pants got me into my sewing room again. I have been so occupied with yarn I had forgotten thread. I got busy and MADE PJ's. I had such fun making things from my stash. I thought I was making them for me. Don't need them. #1 granddaughter needs them. They get wrapped and put in the mail as soon as this computer will release me.
DON'T TELL KALA, IT IS A SUPRISE. teehee. She will see this anyway. Enjoy Kala. Love you. Grammy

Uninvited guest

Yesterday, as I was closing the shades against the sun, preparing to head for town I looked out my window and on the front porch was this big fellow/girl?? MC has dispatched several of these even though it is illegal to do so in AZ because she has several animal and fowl she wants to keep safe. Most of the time this happens in the early morning when it is still cool and the snakes are a bit slow. This fellow was on the very warm porch (it reached 93 degrees at the peak of the heat yesterday) and snakes are NOT slow when it is not cool. I usually am not unusally afraid of snakes but this one gave me goosebumps...really! It was very large around the middle. Just eaten? Pregnant? We don't know. Becky called the fire department and we stayed and visited with the snake until the fire truck got there. Every time the snake felt safe and started to move I would stamp my feet on the porch or throw a walnut shell (I had not swept up the shells after cracking the CA walnuts my oldest brother had gotten to me) and it would make the snake nervous again and it stayed coiled and ready to strike. It took the firemen about 30-45 minutes to get to my house even though they are only 1/2 mile away. They was fighting a fire someplace and still smelled smokey. By the way Kala, one of them was the cute fireman we hoped were at the fire station. ;-) My oldest granddaughter and I thought about going to the fire house when it was first established, taking cookies to them in welcome and checking out the cute? firemen in uniform. Never did it but I found out our cookies could not have been accepted. They are supposed to take the snake and release it only a mile from where they find it. They took it out to a road just a tiny bite farther than a mile (thank you cute firemen), I left for my errands in town but stopped at a wonderfully yummy Mexican fast food restaurant which is 11 miles from my house and the closest establishment from me. The firemen walked in to get lunch. I walked over to them with a $20 and told them I would like to buy them lunch. I got a BIG AND VERY FIRM "no thank you". Another granddaughter who lives next door to me told me that there were some officials (Police??) visiting their school one time and told them they were allow to accept NO gifts at all.

I hope this uninvited guest doesn't find it's way back here.

I will post something else when I find something you would be interested.

Don't forget to click on the pictures so that you can see the guest a bit better.