Playing Catch-up

Well, has been a good long time since I have posted here.  Jan keeps telling me I need to.  So here I am.  She and I went this past weekend to another quilt retreat, up by Wagoner OK this time and it was great!!  Tiring, but GREAT!!  Took lots of quilt pics but have not yet downloaded any, so that will have to be later. 

Lots has been happening here and not enough time or energy in the fingers today to list it all.  Some good, some not so good.  But I thoroughly enjoy reading the posts from the people I am subscribed to on here that post regularly, Polly, Ina.  Their posts are very inspiring and uplifting.  Mine is just ... well, I write alot.  

I noticed that my friend Diana signed up on her and never posted, much like me.  Would love to hear from her more too.  Yet I have no room to talk.   

I have been working on lots of quilts, the round robin project in particular.  It has been such!!! fun!!!!!!  The various quilts are so pretty and hopefully soon, we will have pics of all of them to post here.  I will try to post some of the ones that I have worked on soon as I remember to bring my camera and download the pics.  I should receive the last one any day now and am looking forward to working on it.  Jan has already worked on this one and I saw it when she had it.  It was gorgeous then, so I cannot begin to imagine what else has been added.  I have an idea already what I want to add, but will have to wait and see what is there since seeing it last.  I enjoy quilting soooooooo much and do not have enough time to get everything done that I want to do.  If I could just stay home and quilt all the time.  Guess it is a good thing that my boss does not subscribe (or even begin to know how) to this thing.  I would love to quit working and just stay at home and sew and spend time with my Toby and with all my grandkids.  They are growing up and I have had so little time with them.  When I was young and raising my own two kids, it was tough enough, but now that I am older and slower, and tire much more quickly, I just don't have the energy to keep up with them.  And of course, they all have their own lives now too.  The two oldest (girls) are both teens now and busy with their friends and school activities, etc.  Thank God they are not yet old enough to date, but that is not far off.  One year for Kiersten and two more for Shai.  I need to post some pics of them, they are gorgeous, as are all my kiddos. 

Well, guess I will sign off here for now and see how long it takes me to post again.  I enjoy reading these from others, hopefully I will be more diligent in keeping things posted for others to see about me.  But then again, my life is so ordinary and boring ...

See ya' later,  Bye-ee

Quilt Retreat - Quartz Mtn. Resort, Oklahoma

I hope no one passes out for having seen that I posted two days in a row.  I have more pictures.  Some of you may see these same pictures on Jan's Xanga site, but some don't go there, so ... we shared pictures this time.  I had my camera, but hers works better than mine.

DSCN2883.JPG  This is the resort where the retreat was held.  It is in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma, very close to Altus.  Beautiful location.

Notice the arbor and "tree stumps".  They were setting things up for a wedding on Saturday evening.  They added chairs, branches to the arbor and candles on the stumps.  I didn't go look but some did and said it was a beautiful wedding. This was the view from our room.

This is me with the sewing machine I won for the door prize.  I was so excited.    It will be perfect for taking to classes, retreats, etc. 

Next is one of the quilts done by the guest speaker/teacher.  She has some wonderful quilts, great techniques.  I seriously doubt that I will ever master anything like this, not exactly my style, but she had one quilt (in her book) that I would love to try.  It is boxes that look like a cross.  It was beautiful.  She designs these things on paper, then machine appliques them.  Her name is Barbara Olsen.  She was very interesting and a good teacher.  I took her Photo Inspiration class, where you take a favorite photo of a lampscape or whatever you want to do, and turn it into a stained glass quilt.  It is fun, but not likely to be something that I will do a lot of. 

She does lots of things with spirals and lots of bright colors, lots of squares and triangle points.  But some of it looks like things (points, for example) that she has sewn, but is in fact, just a fabric with points. 

Jan and I at dinner on Saturday evening.

Jan and I with the teacher, Barbara Olsen

The remaining pictures are morning sunrise pictures taken from our room.

We had a great time.  God blessed us with safe travel, great weather, and a restful learning time.  Until Jan got sick. but it was just a short thing, she is fine now. 

And now it is time to get to work, unfortunately.  More next time.

Catching Up

  It has been nearly two full months since I last posted anything here.  I cannot believe that much time has gone by without my having written anything here.  I have some pictures to post and I don't know that I even remember how to post them.  I enjoy these sites so much, the ones I am subscribed to come to my email inbox daily and love to read them and see all the pictures.  I have decided I must go to Delaware and to Mississippi to meet Polly and Julia.  And their friend Inna? as well.  They are all so busy and keep up with things so well, they put me to shame.

We went to Kentuck on Sept. 12th to the National Quartet Convention.  We had a wonderful time, heard lots of great, great gospel music.  It was so good to finally be able to get away for a vacation.  We are looking forward to next year already, but have decided to go some place different next time.  We have been to the convention six times and we love to go, but our bodies complained this time, sitting for six or seven hours at a one stretch is pushing the old body to its limits.  Have lots of places yet we want to see, so ... will try something else next time for a change. 

I have been working on this round robin project with Polly and Julia as well as four other wonderful ladies as well.  I am thoroughly enjoying it!  It has re-awakened my passion for quilting.  Jan and I just returned from a weekend quilting retreat and it was so much fun.  I learned some new things, renewed a friendship or two, spent some much needed time with my sister and sewed.  It was wonderful, except for the part when Jan got sick and was throwing up at all hours of the morning, keeping me awake.  I just figured out why she did that, she said I was keeping her awake snoring, so I guess she needed to pay me back.  (lol)  I realize that I do snore, I wake myself sometimes too, but I didn't realize it was that bad.  I think she was just awake so she could be sick and heard me snoring "slightly" and blew that all way out of proportion.    But anyway, we had a great time.  Now I have to go home tonight and clean up my sewing room, get everything all put away.  People are coming to see our "for sale" house in the morning and everything I took to the retreat is still in the middle of the room, taking up the entire floor.  Oh, on top of all the fun and sewing that was enjoyed, I also won the "best" door prize too.  It is a sewing machine, a small one, only sews a straight stitch and a simple zig-zag stitch, but it is small and light-weight, great for taking to retreats and classes like this one.  Jan was saying it would be nice for me to win for Shai (my granddaughter who says she wants to learn to sew, but ... we shall see) but I decided it was better for me to keep to carry around to classes.  Shai will just have to get her own. 

I have been getting acquainted with a friend from my high school days.  He (yes I said "he" and yes my husband is aware of this new found relationship) was a senior when I was a sophomore.  Mike asked me out for a date, but mother would not let me go.  But now we are getting acquainted and we are having a great time, remembering things from the past and learning new things as well.  He lives in Colorado, is married to Sarah, who is a cancer survivor (this I mention to give credit to the Lord).  They have been missionaries to various places and are thinking of returning to the field again.   I hope to meet them both sometime in the near future, before they go off over seas again.   

Well, let me see if I can remember how to post the pictures. 

    Hey, I remembered.  This is Corban, Andrea's youngest son on his fifth birthday in August.  He loves Sponge Bob Square Pants.  He is in kindergarten this year and is doing really well!!!

This is a quilt that I made called Mini Trips Around the World.  Not my best, my first or my latest, but I love it because it is the last quilt that my Mother sewed on.  She helped me with the quilting and as you can see, most of the stitches are pretty big.  But I would not change it for the world, as someone suggested I do.  Mother did it, so it is just fine!!   I am starting to take pictures of my quilts for "posterity" and record keeping (insurance and such), but Jan told me to wait till she gets her new gadget to hang them from for taking pictures.  Better than the wall or whatever.  So ... this is it, except for the next one which is really small.  It is Julia's (she has seen it already, so it is okay to post it here) in the Round Robin project.  It is gorgeous, by the way. 

The colors are red, black, green, gold, purples, it is so pretty.  I did the last border, green/gold & black/gold.  It took forever for me to decide what to put there, but I finally got it done.  This project is such fun.

Well, guess I will close for now, have some more emails to catch up on.  Maybe I will be better about keeping this up to date now.  But don't be surprised if I don't. 

Good Day to All.

Hi to everyone out there today. 

This is not such a bad day here today, still in the low 90s but not nearly as bad as it has been.  Below is a picture of a dahlia that was growing in the flower bed by my front porch, thought I would share it with you all.  Louie is such a good gardner, I enjoy viewing his work so much, but I don't work outside much.  Of late, I have been found pulling grass out of the beds, but only for a short time when I take Toby out for his constitutional. 

The purples were so vibrant and beautiful.  Wish I could get a quilt to look this pretty.  Maybe with the right fabrics and technique, but ...

Am looking forward to the next round of "adding" on the round robin project.  It has been lots of fun thus far and I can hardly wait to see the finished products. 

Toby is pestering me to play so guess I will.  He is really good to be patient about that while we are here at work.  But when we get home, he is non-stop.  He wants to play constantly and must realize we are no longer at work and that we should have time to play. 

Trying to Learn

This is a photo of my father-in-law that just passed away.  He was a sweety!!!

This is Louie (my husband) with both his parents at their 60th Anniversary party.  We left here and went to the hospital where he remained with us another 8 days.  We will really miss him.

Guess what, I figured this out, now you get to see more than you probably wanted to.  Yeah!!!!  This is a pic of Jan (left) my sis, our beautiful Mother, and me (right).  This was at my house on Mother's 80th birthday party.

This is Mother with her 3 remaining sisters, Mother, bottom left, Theda, next to her, Willene, back left and Mary Lee.  She has two sisters who have gone on to be with Jesus and has one living brother, somewhere.  No one can keep up with him.  He is a truck driver and is gone all the time.

Mother at age 16.  Isn't she pretty!!!

Now this!! This is my lovely granddaughter, Shai-Lea Larrianna Brower.  She is our beauty queen.  Won more than 7 trophies in her first state contest.   Isn't she just too gorgeous, and I am not the least bit prejudiced am I?   

These are her two brother, Dawon (left) and Corban.  They are watching tv between sets at the beauty pageant in Georgia.  They were very bored.  (I have other grandchildren but no pics of them as yet on the digital.  Aren't you glad!!!)

This is my wonderful husband.  He was bringing in the car ice chest on some trip or another, don't remember which.

And here he is again being goofy in the elevator at the Brown Hotel in Louisville Kentucky at the National Quartet Convention.  We will be going there again this year in September, can't wait!!!!!

This is my Toby right after we got him.  He weighed about 3.5 pounds in this pic.  Now he is up to about 5.5 and is a bit bigger.  Isn't he just precious!!!

Well, as you can see  I figured this thing out , but it sure is messing up right now so I guess I will quit.  This is such fun!!!    Now you know a bit more about me, or rather who some of the people are in my family.   So, I will take some pics of my quilts and things next and put them here for you to hopefully enjoy. 

Will sign off again, for now.  Have a great day and God bless

See you later, bye-ee