Peanut Butter and Crackers and Stuffed Armadillos

For the last few days, I've been eating nothing but peanut butter and crackers for lunch. Emergency rations that live in my desk drawer with my dark chocolate M&Ms. Better than starving but it's not exactly fine dining or a balanced meal. And do you know WHY I've been eating peanut butter and crackers for lunch? Well, darn it, I get so caught up in reading all the blogs during my lunch hour that I forget to go pick up lunch. And in the morning before work, ditto--no time to scrounge around the cupboards and fridge to make my lunch.

Yesterday, Paula tagged me for the Thinking Blogger Award. I'm sure most of you have seen it going around. Each person who is nominated then tags five other bloggers whose blogs make them think. I am greatly honored by Paula's nomination for a number of reasons, but one of the reasons that stands out in my mind is the fact that I'm a new blogger, having resided here in blogland for only a little over a month, and I didn't think there were many people reading my blog, particularly since I don't belong to a webring. So, I'm just tickled as can be! Thank you, Paula!

Watching this Thinking Blogger Award go around, I've found many more blogs to add to my list of sites to read--what I guess you could call recommended reading. I hope in the coming days to become more familiar with the ones I didn't know about before. (Note to self: Do something about planning better lunches.)

Because so many of the blogs I read have already been nominated--some several times--for the Thinking Blogger Award, I think I won't "formally" nominate anyone, but I would like to share with you a few blogs that are among my favorites and the reasons why, just in case you don't already know about them.

On my sidebar you'll see my two friends, Kairle and Patty. Kairle was the first of the three of us to begin a blog some time ago, but for a number of reasons, she quit blogging about a year ago and has only just started again. Patty, although she didn't have a blog of her own, kept up with the lives of many bloggers and told us about some of the "must read" blogs. I love reading both of their blogs. Check them out if you get a chance.

Since many bloggers only post once or twice a week and I've only been seriously reading blogs since I started my own, I'm not very familiar with many of them yet. But I can tell you about three blogs I've been reading off and on for the last year or so.

First is Thee Handworks. Many of her posts are deep and touching and when she's funny, she's very, very funny. The first blog entry I read was about a stuffed armadillo her husband's client gave him and what she thought she might do with it. The photos were hilarious! If I remember correctly, there was even one of the little critter laying on its back, holding a beer bottle! LOL! I wish I could link you back to that entry, but she changed from Blogger to Typepad and I'm not sure if or where they might be archived. This was what got me started reading blogs--and my friend Patty was the one who told me about the stuffed armadillo.

Two other "old friends" are Vicky at LA Quilter and Melanie at Covered Porches and Screen Doors. Of course, they don't know me, but I feel like I've known them for a long time. Both of them write sincerely from the heart. On occasion, Vicky has me rolling on the floor laughing--her post about her ordeal at McDonalds is just a riot! I hope you'll visit these blogs if you haven't already and enjoy them as much as I do.

Of course, this only touches the surface of the many wonderful blogs that are out there, and I’ve found several other bloggers in the past few weeks whose blogs I look forward to visiting regularly.

On the quilting front, I attended my monthly Thimbleberries Club meeting last night and had a wonderful time visiting with that group of ladies and seeing what everyone has been up to. I think I may expand on my cherry tea towel project and make some matching placemats and maybe a potholder or two.

When I got home last night after club, I decided to rummage around in my stash and start pulling fabrics for the applique quilt Patty and I will be working on. The photo below shows the fabrics I pulled out for the first block I designed (see yesterday’s post). Spike, my younger cat, kept me company and had a wonderful time digging in my pile of fabric scraps I pulled out of the scrap drawer although she was no real help in selecting fabrics. Her tastes are so eclectic!

I did notice my scrap drawer was getting to the point where it could hardly be closed, so I think some serious stripping may be in my future.

Thanks again, Paula, for nominating me and everyone else who stops by to see what I’m up to!