Done, Done & Done

 It only took two years to finish this quilt. You may remember when I was making it. I'm sure I showed you numerous pictures, because it was part of a Mystery Block of the Month project that I participated in the year we moved to Louisville. The quilt top took a whole year to make and then for several reasons it took me another 2 years to finish. I think to be honest, I was scared to death of this quilt. It's by far the biggest quilt I've ever made, probably the "fanciest" and I just had no idea what to do with it.

 Thank goodness I was given the name of a lovey quilter who makes her living machine quilting other peoples quilts. I dropped this baby off at her house back in September and picked it up a month later. I think she did a fantastic job. I may have almost cried when she showed it to me. 

I was feeling bad about not doing it myself, but after seeing her handiwork I'm so glad I didn't. 

Some things just really need to be left to the professionals.

I am have no idea just where it's going to go. It's actually a bit too big for my bed and do I really want my dirty dog sleeping on it? I'm sure the perfect location will present itself eventually.

Sally

Adventures In Spinning

 I joined a fiber club. Are you just shocked to hear that?. Blue Moon Fiber Arts is the same company that has the Socks that Rock yarn club that I joined a couple of years ago. The thing about clubs is that you never know what you are going to get. Some months you are pleasantly surprised, and others, not so much. When this fiber showed up at my door in August, I have to admit I thought it was a little too "wild and crazy" for me. I wish I had taken a picture of it be for I spun it. Now that it's all spun up and yarn I am totally in love with it. It's just so darn happy. Not sure what I'm going to make with it just yet, Maybe a cowl or a scarf...

 I was going to call this post "Four Bags Full", but now I only have two and a half bags and that just didn't seem right. My good friends Barb and Jorge sent me these gorgeous bags of wool for my birthday back in September. Since I was in the middle of spinning the rainbow stuff above I had plenty of time to enjoy looking at, touching and smelling each of these little 1 oz bundles of loveliness. I have to admit that I wasn't really sure I'd be able to spin them. The preparation is new to me and very raw in a good way.

 All I needed was a little confidence and to just do it. So fun! I just can't tell you what it's like. The fiber is in such a natural state that it just kind of does it's own thing. 

I'm just going with the flow and so far I think it's working pretty well.

 I'm afraid I might be hooked on Farm Genevieve. My next Blue Moon club order should arrive any day, but it's just going to have to wait it's turn. Right now I'm all about the neutral colors.
Sally

Sugar Crush Crazy

It all started with the purchase of this yarn.

Of course I knew that there was a game called Candy Crush that lots and lots of people who shall remain unnamed have been playing on their phones for quite some time.

I obviously do/did not have time for such nonsense.

Then, the yarn arrived and I decided that I should at least compare the colors to the candies in the game. 

 That was a very bad idea.

All I'm going to say is that both Alan and I have spent way too much time trying to get ahead of each other. I will not tell you what levels we are on (he might be winning) because then you will all know how really far behind the times we truly are.

If you have not yet fallen into the Candy Crush void, take my advise and just stay away from it.

This sock may never get finished...

Sally

The Good The Bad And The Ugly

 Saturday morning Alan got up and ran the Great Pumpkin 10K in the freezing rain. He wants me to make sure and let you know that he beat his previous 10K time by a good 8 minutes. Not a bad feat for a 51 year old man who was diagnosed with prostate cancer last week. I'm not going to go in to all of the ugly details other than to just let you all know that he is doing great. He has the best attitude possible and is ready to just deal with the situation. We are not really looking forward to what the next few months will bring, but the early diagnosis and the fact that Alan is generally in pretty darn good shape bodes well for a positive outcome.

I promise to keep you posted. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. 

Right now, everything is just fine.

Sally

PS Just in case you are wondering, George is doing great. He seems to be pretty much back to normal, at least for the time being. We know he has the heart issue, so who knows.

One of Those Weeks

Our sweet Georgie cat got very sick two weekends ago. We took him to the vet and we were told that the enlarged heart problem that we knew about had gotten much worse and that there was really nothing that they could do for him.

 Needless to say we were a bit upset and very sad The vet did give him a shot of something to help make him more comfortable. We took him home and I made Alan call Grace. Grace came home from school on Monday to say her good byes and let me just say that was really hard to watch.

 Since we had been told it was a matter of days, I assumed that Tuesday would be the day. Boy was I ever wrong. Here it is, a week and a day later and George is still with us. Honestly, the whole 9 lives thing must be true. This cat has has got to be on life 8 or 9 by now.  

It's hard to say what is going on with his heart, but he is eating again and spending the nights outside hunting mice and doing who knows what else. I worry that this is just a temporary recovery, but  I have decided to try and just get on with life as normal. I don't know what else to do. 

I was prepared all last week to write and tell you that he had died, and since that is very much not the case I will try to resume blogging about the much more ordinary and mundane things that have been going on around here.

Sally

So Proud

Last Friday Alan and I drove to Lexington for a reception honoring Dean's List recipients from last fall and spring. In all our wildest dreams we never could have imagined our little Grace being on that list. She says that she really hasn't worked all that hard, but we know that she has or at least that she's finally being recognized for how smart she really is.

The reception was very nice and we wouldn't have missed it for the world. Poor Grace had to go up on stage all by herself as she was the only one from Hispanic Studies who attended, but she handled it well. 

It's times like these that I wish all of her past teachers, from preschool through high school who insisted on telling us over and over that "she just wasn't working up to her potential" could see her now. 

She has taken full control of her potential and any thing seems possible for her right now. 

We really are very proud.

Sally

Copy Cat

Most of you probably already know this about me, but for those that don't, I am the biggest Copy Cat ever. I think I always have been. My favorite thing to do is steal an idea from someone else. Tweak it a bit and call it my own. I'm just awful but I can't help myself. My most resent "borrowed" idea came from here . I love reading her blog and I've probably "borrowed' many more ideas from her than I care to mention. This current idea I totally copied exactly. No tweaking was necessary. It's genius!

You can see from the crazy tangled mess above, that my knitting needle situation was out of control. Instead of doing anything about it I just kept buying more needles. I guess that's how I ended up with 5 pairs of size 6 needles and 8 pairs of size 5's. At least now I know what I've got. Hopefully I remember to put them back after I use them....
Sally

The Pumpkins Are Coming

 Today is October 2nd and as you can see from these pictures pumpkins have finally arrived at our house. I promised Alan that I'd wait until October and I never break a promise. OK, so that's not really true. I did buy one small pumpkin at Trader Joe's on September 29th, 

but that one was for the deck so it doesn't count.

 I can't wait to start adding them to the yard. I'm going to hold off until this little heat wave we are currently experiencing passes. I want them to last through November if possible. Between the dog and the squirrels the poor things shouldn't have to worry about being baked as well.

I also made a giant batch of Great Aunt Mary's Granola this morning. I don't know why I think of Granola as a fall thing, but I do.

If you are interested in the recipe, go to the I just love the taste of.... tab at top and scroll all the way down to September 17th 2010. In today's batch I used a package of cranberry trail mix from Trader Joe's. It was full of sunflower seeds, almonds, golden raisins and cranberries.  I also added a bag of pecans because I love them. Everything else was pretty much the same.  This stuff is so good on Greek Yogurt with a drizzle of honey. YUM!

Sally