515

This is post number 515.  I guess that's better than giving my age, or calculating the days to my retirement.


Numbers.  Some people have a affinity - like me, I can remember addresses and phone numbers, my grandmother's phone number was Atlantic 2 - 9508.  That was back when exchanges had names, not numbers.  We lived at 1724 Poe Street in Minnesota.  There are 5,280 feet to a mile and 12 inches to a foot.


No, no, I will not make you do the math!  People hate math, especially some women!  I've seen tee shirts that say

I have to laugh because there are so many things that keep us from doing math in our heads anymore...calculators on our phones, registers that give the change amount so you don't have to count back, no one HAS to do math unless they want to.

 

My youngest granddaughter can do math in her head.  It's funny because you can actually see her face change when she does it.  Her sister will look at her and say something like 'oh for goodness sake, just use a piece of paper'.  Her face is kind of glazed over for a minute and then before a pencil can be produced she's got the answer.

I don't understand the new math, or Common Core or whatever way their teaching now, but she certainly does.

When my daughter was in school she took algebra, and she always said there was never going to be a time when she would use it after she graduated.  Many people are of that same opinion.  But now, ask her what a pitcher's ERA is, or how many man-hours a project will take and she can tell you.

I don't tell her it's algebra.

Come to the math side, we have pi.

Add on...

The 2017 Wrap Up

I just wanted to post this picture laden reminder of all the things that DID get done in 2017... I didn't do them all myself but I did have fingers in each and every one of them.




Dori's pillows

Dori's other pillows

The confirmand

Doll coats and mittens

New quilt patterns to teach

Knit hats

Crocheted hats

The parrot quilt

Night shirts

Yellow brick road in blue

The Brown Thing

Cookies!

Apple paper piecing

Pastor Mike's quilt

Baby sweaters!



Charity quilts

More dolly clothes

Auntie's quilts

baby gifts



The pony tail hat

And many more not captured for posterity... I need to resolve to 1. Get the UFOs finished and 2. Get better at documenting the finishes!  Oh, and 3.  Maybe not start as many things as I finish this year.


Good luck with that...  Happy 2018!

Happy New Year! Welcome 2018

It's 2018.  Where has the time gone?  Does it feel like the older you get, the faster it goes?


Today has dawned bright and sunny in southeast Wisconsin.  And cold!!  Brrrr does not do this justice.  It's not like last year's Polar Vortex, or at least that's what the weather people are saying.  But what do they know?  They're only right about half the time.


Last week it was 2 degrees.  In an effort at levity, I asked, can I pick which two??  I'd like 70 or 72 please!

Current conditions say -6 degrees, wind chill at -21.  I've said this before and I'll say it again, I'd be lots happier if they didn't tell me the wind chill!


So stay inside, have some hot chocolate or a cup of tea.  Stay warm!


I'll be in the sewing room, trying to work on my last year's UFOs.

Sew on...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

This Sunday is the last Sunday in Advent AND in the afternoon it's Christmas Eve!  How much better can it get, I ask you!

I remember when the kids were small...

And when we had snow (this is not that year!)

This year our tree looks a lot like it did last year... Thanks, Miss A for decorating!

No Santa sightings yet...

Last year's musical in downtown Milwaukee was so much fun!


The live nativity at Peace Lutheran is at 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. this year.  Please come!  17651 W Small Road, New Berlin WI - all are welcome!


Blessings to all this year and into the new one.


Rock on 2018!!

Holiday Preparation 2018

I love the holidays, and I hate them at the same time!  I know lots of people feel excited about the holiday shopping season, but I dread with every fiber of my being the crush of shoppers in stores and the long lines at the checkouts.


I'm not sure when I started feeling like that.  I guess it might have been while the kids were in high school.  I went to a graduation ceremony for one of them and there was such a crush of people, I started to have a panic attach in the stairwell.  that day I decided I might be just a touch claustrophobic.  There was also an episode at a sale where there were lots of tall people packed front to back and everyone was taller than me and I decided that there wasn't going to be enough air in the room to support us all.


I much prefer to shop early in the morning or late at night, when there aren't as many people in stores as there are during the day.  One night on the way home from somewhere I stopped at a Kohls Department Store and shopped nearly alone for an hour!  It was heavenly!!  When I got to the checkout there were four employees who could not have been more welcoming and friendly.  I looked at my watch and it was 11 p.m.!  (Kohls is now open 24 hours a day until Saturday... in case YOU need to shop.)


My shopping is done.  Now I need to wrap, but that's a whole different ball game.


This weekend I did some baking.  The girls wanted to make cut out cookies, but I wasn't looking forward to standing long enough to do the rolling and cutting.  While stopping at Joann's on Friday night, I noticed the Bake store in the same mall.  If you don't have those where you are, they sell bags of frozen cookie dough of all kinds.  In December they have cut out sugar cookies and gingerbread people and Mexican wedding cookies and lots more.  I think they always have bags of icing and sprinkles. 


I picked up a few bags.  I ended up baking all by myself on Saturday because there was a Sunday School program rehearsal and shopping on their schedules.


Hubster helped with the frosting, and with his level of artistic talent, some of the snowmen looked rather like space aliens.  Might have been the M&Ms I used for eyes, and buttons, and mouth.  Too much the same size??  Oh well.

DH's first pass at icing... he
said "kinda looks like an alien"

More filled in, still kind of odd.

Add caption

They had mini sugar cookies,
and many types of sprinkles!

Mexican wedding cakes.

By the time I had baked all those cookies and iced them I was tired and my back was feeling it.  But I was not happy with the variety -- there wasn't enough!!


Sunday afternoon I pulled the chocolate cookie recipes together because those required greased cookies sheets.  I made toffee squares from the Betty Crocker cookie book.  That poor book has seen better days!  The pages are falling out.  It's one of the first cook books I bought early in my marriage, I don't know the exact year but I know that I used it when my son was small.  Somewhere I have a picture of him helping me bake!  Big smile, covered with flour... I shold find that!


Here's the Sunday line up:




Toffee cookies, cut into squares
while warm.  Yum!

OMG these fudge cookies are
just the best if you like
chocolate

Fudge cookies are from this
cookbook, a legacy from
Aunty Francee, the Christmas
cookie queen!



You cannot go wrong with
chocolate and sweetened
condensed milk!

I have about seven or eight feet of bookshelf in the kitchen, and most of it is filled with cookbooks.  Many of them are from organizations that collected recipes and published a book.  I like those because you can be pretty sure the recipes work and that they're good, because they were someone's favorite.


There are two more things I want to make:  Pecan tassies and potato chip cookies.  Auntie Francee and Shirley made potato chip cookies on the Christmas cookie platter for years and I hope that the recipe in the Gordon Hinckley book is the one they used.  I love the extra crunch in these cookies, and I think the salt on the chips cuts the sweetness just the right amount.


One week to Christmas Eve.  We did the rehearsal for the live nativity at church yesterday.  There is one more Advent supper this week, and then one more Saturday to shop.  Correction, for YOU to shop, since I am done!


On to the knitting...

UFO List 2018

A lot of bloggers are making lists of Unfinished Objects (UFOs) this time of year.  In lieu of New Year's resolutions, they're making lists of things they intend to complete next year.

Me too.

For all the good that will do.  I'm still MUCH better at starting things than I am at finishing.  I'm a process person and once a quilt top is made into a flimsy, there's a part of me that just does not care if it ever gets layered and quilted. 

Sad to admit for a grown woman, right?  LOL!

I work better when there is a purpose for what I'm making and a deadline to make it by... like someone's having a baby or an operation.  Then I seam to be able to buckle down and go to the finish line.

My partial list includes this sweater I started for myself, I'm not saying when...

I need something to work on in the evening that isn't dark colored.  Since it's getting dark so early these days, I need more light.

More about the UFO list later.  I don't want to pull a muscle doing all that typing!

Suffice it to say I have a big quilt pile.  I now have a total of five layered and pinned.  I just have to make myself sit down at the machine and get started.

Sew on...



Gratitude

Today I am thankful for the talents of physical therapists!  After just a couple of sessions with the talented Courtney I am moving, walking, sitting and bending with no pain in my back. 

It's amazing what can be done.  Although I am also thankful that the injury wasn't worse than it was, it was bad enough that I couldn't function normally.  So let's give a cheer to those PTs who save us from ourselves, I guess.

Last time she had me run through all the exercises that she assigned and then added the stationary bike for five minutes.    After that she reminded me how I should be stretching, and how I should be lifting.  Use your legs, not your back!  Yes, I did know that from the last back injury, but we forget, don't we?

 I'm thankful that I can get back to my normal activities, but I'm concerned that I have too much to do!  All that Christmas shopping that I was avoiding is now on a deadline that's shorter than the daylight in Wisconsin in December!

Tuesday I took my favorite auntie to get an amplified phone for her house.  She has hearing aides and can hear her cell phone OK but she doesn't always hear it ring when it's not next to her.  And her home phone (land line) is not loud enough.  She's putting it on speaker and holding it up to her ear! 

Shades of the old-fashioned!

The phone she got is loud and has a loud ringer.  And it has a volume control, an answering machine built in, and it hangs on the wall, all requirements for her.  The only thing that needs to be done now is to hang it up and program it.  I'm letting her call her younger son to do the hanging, because I think drywall repair may be involved.   And wall patching is not in my resume.

I do have a big pile of projects to get to... my UFO bin is scandalous but at least I have a few of them layered and ready to quilt.  Wish me luck! 

and last but not least, here is a gratuitous photo of a cat and her girls...

Sew on...

Oh My Aching Back!!

I've been in some degree of agony with my back and shoulder for several days.  I know, stupid, right?  Yesterday I finally got smart and went to the doctor.  He sent me over for physical therapy since I appear to have strained muscles in my back during Thanksgiving weekend.

It hurt when I did twisty motions like fastening the seatbelt in the car or getting out of bed.  I thought it was the re-injury of a herniated disk from a dozen years ago, but both the doctor and the therapist think it's not. 


So the other night when I was in the sewing room, when I dropped things, they just had to stay there until I could get up and bend over very carefully. 


I told DH that it was all that manual dishwashing I was doing.  From now on, I'll need cleanup staff if they want me to do all that baking!


So today I'm feeling better, although getting out of bed was still a bit of a challenge today.  I have some exercises to do and more therapy for the next couple of weeks.


I really wanted to get some sewing done, but I have to avoid sitting in one place for too long.  Did you know a good limit to put on sitting is 20 minutes?  That doesn't seem like a very long time.  Unless you're back hurts while you're sitting...


I have made some progress on the pile of quilts to quilt.  Two more are now layered and pinned.  Miss A's quilt top and back, both pieced, are now ready to layer and pin.  Now just to get them quilted -- not a good time to be told NOT to sit for longer than 20 minutes I guess!  Ah well...


Sew on...

Thanksgiving, Not Just A Holiday

The great American Thanksgiving weekend is coming up.  It's not just about food and football anymore either.  I'm not sure I'm happy about that.

Thanksgiving is one holiday that I just love because it's about nothing more than the food and the attitude.  Giving Thanks.  Eating the turkey and all the sides, and groaning from the amazing bounty.

It also brings to mind those who don't have such an amazing bounty, and begins what I like to think of as the Season of Giving.  Charitable donations go up, people collect and distribute food to the disadvantaged, friendliness toward our fellow man goes up (not everywhere, but lots of places, keep your eyes open for the opportunities!!)

Of course there's that Black Friday thing going on too... I boycott that big time!  I absolutely abhor that stores are open on THURSDAY for Black Friday.  For goodness sake, what about those retail workers?? Don't they get to enjoy Thanksgiving too?? 

OK, I'm better now.

Thanksgiving used to mean the beginning of the Christmas season.  These days it's stuck in there between Christmas in July and the real deal.  Some people complain that Christmas decorations go up way too soon and the stuff in the stores is out there before Halloween!

I sympathize with them, you want to enjoy each season in turn, right?  But the ATTITUDES of thanks-giving and Christmas should be year round, don't you agree?

We should care for each other and be kind on a daily basis.  Also on a daily basis we should be thankful for everything we have, whether it's little or much.  Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  James 1:17.  This I firmly believe!  I am blessed, and following all these blessings comes the obligation to be a blessing to others.

Opportunities, people.  They exist, look around.  Find one and take it.  You will also benefit in many more ways than you can imagine.  I like Engineers Without Borders, The Salvation Army, the Milwaukee Rescue Mission, my church, my Quilters groups, and others.  You find one or two that you like and see how it works.

One thing I'm not sure I'm thankful for is the endless and I do mean endless stream of mushy Christmas themed movies on the not one but two Hallmark channels that we get.  DH loves Christmas or at least used to love all things Christmas but now loves only certain parts.  He's no longer thrilled with the decorating but that Hallmark Channel!!  Oh, does he love that!

Reindeer Games.  Enchanted Christmas.  A Boyfriend for Christmas. A Bride for Christmas.  A Cookie Cutter Christmas.  A Christmas Detour.  The Sweetest Christmas. The Mistletoe Inn.  Switched for Christmas.  Finding Santa.  The Christmas Train.  On and on.  And on...

Multiple showings, multiple viewings.  By the time Christmas comes, I'll be heartily over it.  Give me a dose of murder and mayhem, quick, before I die of a sugar induced coma!!

I have thus far avoided the radio, with its marathon of holiday tunes.

Not that I am being a scrooge about it.  I do love the holidays.  I just wish that the feeling would be distributed over the whole year instead of all piled up in one two month glut and then nothing.  It's the attitude we need to spread!  Giving Thanks all year round, and keeping Christmas all year too.

I'm working on it!

On a side note, this year I celebrated (?) 20 years of work for the same company, although with mergers and name changes that designation is debatable.  I guess that's what kept it interesting!!

And my Friday Night Sewing Family recently assisted my dear auntie in almost completing an amazing new quilt pattern and technique.  It's a quilt as you go, so finishing will be done in a way none of us has used before.  It should be fun!

Give on...