Home Again~

I am happy to have this guy back home! He was a shop sample for five months, it sold 12 kits and a lot of fabric off the bolts to make those little basket blocks!

which are 5 in, and those half square triangles measure out at 1 in! The littlest I have made to date!

And these ended up coming home with a certain Young Man who has admired Ostrich for a long long time! The color shows them being kind of blue but they are more on the grey side and look 'smokin on the ole' (young) boy!

Did I mention he got them HALF off!! He went and bought himself a couple new pair of jeans to enhance the look!

Back in the day when I had time I would make home~made tortillas for all the little peoples daily enjoyment, they were all wanting some and there wasn't/isn't a spare moment for such luxuries so it was time to break out the well patina'd rolling pins and griddle!

The catch though is it wasn't going to be me doing all the work and they thought I would be more involved, as in taking over and doing it myself because it would be quicker and so much easier!

Sadly for them, I didn't fall for it!!!

I told them to each grab a bowl and all the needed ingredients and THEY went to work! I hollored out the directions while loading a quilt, and so to keep it friendly the 2 boys each had their own batch to make, nothing like a little friendly competition! And I did show up to show them how they wanted their dough to feel, then a quick demonstration on kneading, and once the dough was rested how to roll 'em out. I did one for each and the rest was on their own!

They did pretty good! Manchild 1 had some interesting shapes, but once the butter melted on it didn't matter what they looked like! The taste was scrumptious!

Then here is Manchild 2 with his batch, I did start them off 20 minutes apart so there would be no room for wrestling, especially once the rolling pins came out!

Perfection! Right from the get go! His dough was just perfect!

And he kept cranking out perfect ones, one after another! Then he wanted to see just how big he could make one, and we shared it! Little bit of butter with a little bit of sugar sprinkled on and we had the best treat!

Manchild 3 wasn't up to the task this round but later in the week he got a hankering for some, and out came all the ingredients, but this time his experienced big brothers gave him a helping hand! Cheese tortillas and fajitas were on the menu!

On the work side, we are now through the 3rd weekend of Retreats, phew! This was a busy group, 16 came in from California, all friends, and man were the machines flying, I lost count of all the projects they completed, and in their down time they were shopping for future projects! All in all it was a great time but Saturday was a 12 hour day for me keeping the shop running smoothly and helping take care of these gals, needless to say I am still on the wiped out side, but this is the last weekend and I am actually looking forward to seeing that the end is in sight!

Sigh~

Good News is these two are officially in the completed category! Yay! Happy Day Happy Day! Ahhhhh~ I have to get the photos into the computer yet but here is just a shot of what the flange I was dealing with, turns out it really wasn't all that, but it was the first time to do one and those first timers can really put a hurtin' on ya!

Then this one! Boy's!

That about sums it up~ the three have been enjoying the skate/bike park in Boulder City and had been accident free 122 days! The new count date has been reset~

He landed on his hand, and after icing wrapping and more icing, and google searches on hand injuries we decided to don the Dr.'s hat.

We pressed, pulled and prayed and in the end he is back up and running! There were even directions on doing stretches once the swelling went down, but believe you me~ I was watching it like a hawk!

These colorful beauties showed up about 3 days later, I still cringe at the thought. Two weeks have past and it is all looking good. Until last night~ when he decided to do a little workout on the punching bag, Boy's~ sigh~

On the quilting front, I just completed 4 table runners, 3 full size quilts, 2 shams, and 1 wall hanging since Monday morning, I am pooped and calling it a week, now it is time to pack up and head to Boulder to put in my 3 days there, and the Annual Retreat the shop sponsors is starting up this weekend, the first of 4 so it should be pretty steady there, kind of funny by the time I leave here I am ready to rest up at the shop and play a little there, after the 3 days there I am ready to get home and rest up and get some quilting done! Sad sad sad~

Online Again~

Wow! It has been a long time since having rain like we had this past week. Six straight days of the glorious liquid, there were snowflakes but thankfully they didn't stick around and cause even more havoc.

That's about the only downside about living in the mountains, the storms tend to mess with our phone lines, which messes with our Internet, which messes with our cell phones.

Then my HP has decided to go wonky, so have had to crash course learn how to set up my cell phone to take emails. I decided to go with Apples Mac Computers this past year but again I failed to get everything swapped over to them so when an email would come through to the pc I would forward it to the mac from my cell, then when I would try to respond I would send the emails back to myself! Sigh~ So, we are powered back up, I am investigating how to make everything work on the mac's and it will be a glorious day when it all happens!!

Now for some fun, my Sister in Law lives in Vegas and she Longarms also, she has a Gammill with a Statler system, she is an amazingly talented woman, she has always been into the embroidery machines but when she seen the Gammill and Statler stitching it was like an embroidery machine on steroids so took the plunge, purchased one and loves it. She is slowly getting into more piecing of the quilts but she just has fun with others for now.

She was contacted by an Upholstery Company that was doing some remodeling on two of the rooms at the Mirage to see if she could quilt on leather. Since she has on her embroidery machines she thought sure why not!! Wow! Is all I can say, they called on Friday and she had to digitize the design they wanted and have them delivered by Wednesday of the next week! This is the shot that one of the guys sent her after getting it hung. B-e-a-utiful!

These are some more Christmas Quilts that got accomplished in time for going under the tree~

There are a lot of paisleys in the fabric so that was the inspiration to use one for the quilting.

Alice is one of my favorite customers! She pieces with absolute precision and she is just a lovely lovely Lady! She has been taking care of her Mom who lived right behind her for many years. At one of the Bee's Alice asked if I could take a rush job, we all know the answer to that! So she was going to bring it to me next bee~ She wasn't there that one nor the next, her Mom who was 102 had passed. This past week she brought it to me and she was disappointed that it wouldn't be done in time for Christmas as it was going to be for her niece, well I for sure didn't want her to be unhappy and certainly not her niece so as soon as I got in the door I loaded it up and let IQ work its magic and took it right back to her so she could get the binding on and get it wrapped up!

She shed some happy tears and it just did my heart good to be able to bring happiness to her!

Now I am able to get refocused and get to some obligations I have been putting off~I did make it to town today to mail some packages off and get some last minute goodies from JC Penney's for the Boy's, now to finish up some binding and all will be good!

Silly People~

The things they can get their Dad to go along with! Not sure where the other goofy pics went of the rest of da' hood!

Can't see any of the quilting here but just the idea of how BIG it all is, the blocks are made using the half log cabin and the variations are endless like its Parent. If I'm not mistaken it is a memory quilt using a gal's husbands shirts.

One of my favorite designs, simple and classy, The Paisley~

On another front, a way cute baby quilt! The main fabrics all had outdoor themes going on so I thought all over Kites with Clouds would be cute! And what is that peeking on the floor to the bottom left? Triangles? They seem to be in every picture I take!

Thought our problems were over with the well scene, not so! Like any simple home improvement job once you start it just keeps snowballing into something else! We do have water, thanks to our Waterboy Willy, he goes and manually turns the well on so we can take care of business then shuts it back down, the problem is with the lighting in the well house but it does effect being able to keep the whole thing running. Don is back to work until Saturday and just so happens to have a couple of electricians at his fingertips to ask questions to, he has already called twice to have Waterboy Willy check this or that.

Been a busy day in the studio and am pleased at everything accomplished thus far!

Dat's My Baby!~

I am a very proud Mama! He happened to be at the right place at the right time for this photo opp! He had been out in the field and of course Kingman being desert his boots was the first thing he thought of when he seen what was going on! He had been in the office working on paperwork, he had hoped they wouldn't show, not so, I think he looks pretty groovy!(another favorite saying) and I don't think anyone will notice them unless they are pointed out! My Bad! hehehehe!

Slowly I am learning how to use the different button functions on the apple, very cool indeed and I can proudly say I am starting to be truly Y2K compliant~Where do they come up with these sayings?! And how do they manage to worm their way into everyday conversations? ~smile~

Edit~ Well, I guess we can honestly say that last statement was false! Not only did the article I so cleverly copy and pasted not copy and paste, I managed to change the font in part and delete that whole section from the original post. Sigh, anyone care to join me in the pride before the fall? Guess who uses that?

Fun Quilt~

My friend gave me one of her very first quilts to play with, what is crazy is I had the hardest time picking out just the right pattern to use. I finally decided on Butterfly Feathers, then came the thread, and again the agony of the right shade of creme..............

I am very happy with the results, and can't wait to give it to her this next week!

She's not expecting it so will be fun to watch her reaction to getting it!

It is pomegranate season, and DH and the boy's brought home 90lbs worth! They had a scale and weighed them~

They will get to eat to their hearts content then we will juice the rest to make some jelly and syrup when I get back home.................

Yes, my Man Child #5 is about as close to bald as he could get, he was actually full skin a couple weeks ago and it was a little much for me but he talked me into letting him cut it almost to the skin. Sigh.......... Kids, gotta love 'em! He will definitely need a beanie to keep his noggin' warm as it has been cold cold cold!

Some Visions of the Past~

My Dad passed on October 1st of 2009, I hate to say that I really haven't quite taken the time to actually deal with all that went on during that time period. Having had many other things going on at the same time just kept taking priority to my being able to just stop and work through my feelings, thoughts and just how it really has affected my life.

Then 3 months to the day, January 1st, 2010 I recieved a phone call that my Step-Brother had died, he was my Dad's wife Ann's son, say that three times! Daddy lived in Sandy Utah which is a solid 8 hours from my home in Arizona, and although we weren't close the 20 years my Dad was part of this family we did form a bond the two weeks we were in Utah during my Dad's passing.

So 3 of my boys took the drive with me to Honor Herbie, as fate would have it he was going to rest right next to my Dad and it his marker the boys are standing over. sigh...............


I love this quilt! A simple log cabin, I used Judy Allen's Royal Plumes Panto and it just made the quilt come alive!!

It now hangs in my studio over a book cabinet and when I gander across at it, it just gives that warm fuzzy feeling inside!

What's crazy is I am finding all kinds of photos that were taken that I have just put out of mind! So in time I will get them resurfaced and put in their proper place!

Another Thank You to all who have helped me clear things out! It is such a nice feeling to not only purge some of this stuff but to be able to keep it alive by passing it on!

The rulers are dragging me down though ~smile~ so I am dropping the package deal to $250 for the lot of them! I have kept my favorite but again~enough is enough!!

And the rest of the pantos listed a little bit down are now the remaining 8 for $50! And there is still more dvd's and books! sigh...........

Well, with a flurry of getting caught up we are now heading out for a week to get our wood cutting accomplished! After the possibility of having to burn my bird feeder and mailbox stand we decided it would be wise to get a good head start this year!

The area we go to is in the forest of Williams, such a beautiful area and one of our favorite places to go, our plan is to take the boys fishing early in the morning and load the trailer during the time the fish aren't biting, bring the load home and return to the campsite. We let the quads do the bulk of the work and I will have fun getting pictures of our process!

Whats even nicer is the fact that I get to shower each time we bring a load in! A washcloth bath only goes so far! ~smile~

Vacation Time~

Well, now that I have done an overload of updates, that really has only scratched the surface but we are about all packed up and ready to head out the door at four in the morning!

We haven't taken a family vacation in quite awhile and although this ding-dong won't be able to go because of his work schedule it will be comforting to know the house will be guarded and the animals tended too!

I even think that he may have chosen to stay behind to watch after his little girl Mookie the Chinchilla. These two are too funny to watch together, Levia gifted him with her when he graduated from the academy six months ago and have they ever bonded!

This is Kaa, Donnie's Ball Python. He is Mookie's close neighbor, he is actually quite a bit bigger now than this photo, he is shedding right now so didn't want to disturb him while he does his thing so will just use an older shot of him! We have aged him to how long we have had him which is about 3 years now.

And he has found ways to escape every now and then and since Mookie moved in we all tend to check around her cage to make sure she isn't getting a nice neighborly squeeze from him.

About two weeks ago he got out and we couldn't find him anywhere, started getting a little nervous when two days went by, then around midnight I hear Scottie holler out to Donnie, not by his nickname either, it was the full blown including middle and Jr! Kaa, was cuddled in his dirty laundry and startled him, too funny! But he was able to sleep comfortably knowing that he was back in lock down.

And this represents a favorite birthday meal! The chops cook on low all day in the sauerkraut then we make a ton of potato dumplings to enjoy along with.

This is the pot loaded up and I wish I had a scale to measure it on, the pot itself weighs at least ten pounds, then there was ten pounds of kraut, and those two huge packages of chops, I kept a close eye on the oven rack just knowing it was going to cave!

The celebration was for Blake, who 12 on November 16th, he is such a sweet boy! He is the one in this posting with his nose in the pumpkin pie, not really, he was just joshing around!

We will have the meal again mid January as we have a slew of birthdays coming up and we will do a one big celebration when we can schedule everyone together. It will cover five birthdays, Scottie is the end of December, the Donnie, Levia and Chad are in January with DH coming up February 3rd.

Which leads to our trip, it is going to cover Christmas and all the birthdays, except for Scottie, he wants a satellite radio system for his unit that we are going to get him. We are heading to Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada via the Love Boat! It is something we have planned since the beginning of the year and everyone is beyond excited, the boys are looking forward to the all you can eat and we will enjoy watching them put it away!

The cameras are charged and I have two projects to work on. I am also very excited to be visiting the Fat Quarter Quilt Shop that is in the area and maybe even possibly Rosie's, oh yeah!!

Until next weekend!

Home away from Home

Yes, she is a goof ball!

Here we are all set up, it isn't the prettiest campground site but it is the biggest and it easily accomodates the three tents, we were down one from last year, Scottie wasn't able to make it, there is one site that I would love to get that overlooks a meadow and in the distance you can see the elk and deer grazing, one year it will be mine.........................~smile~

This is Little Man's first time out in a kayak and he did phenominal! His first time out he went to the other side of the lake and back, we were all impressed! Fishing wasn't so great though, it was on the hot side so they had fun collecting the crawdad's but decided to let them go instead of cooking them.

And Mandi was just a trooper the whole way! She allowed the fellow kiddy campers to walk her around on the leash only so far, she was not going to be taken out of sight of her people, and as soon as we pulled in it was a minor search for her leash as we knew she had to be on one and of course the campground hosts were right there to let us know that she would be picked up if we didn't get one on her asap! Since she would not go wandering from us I deemed her 'on a leash' so this is how she got around!

And once it was time to load back up and she was utterly pooped out and promptly plopped herself in the cool shade!

It was probably the most relaxed camping trip that we have taken, now that the kids are old enough to get around it made for an extra nice time, they would just hop on a quad and go to the lake or just ride around some of the trails that we know and enjoy the scenery, William wasn't to sure if he would be able to get around well on his dirtbike but he did just fine and was thrilled to be able to go with the big boys!

We did make a quick run into Flagstaff to Target, Levia decided she wanted a new tent and it just happened to be across the street from the Campus Coffee Shop and the Breve was just like I remembered! Delicious!!