Happy Birthday LISA!

Today's my friend Lisa's birthday, and I wanted to wish her a very happy day! She doesn't read my blog except on rare occasions, but it's the thought that counts, right? Lisa's just not a blogger--I don't think she stays in one place long enough to read anything.

I've told you some funny stories about Lisa before, but there are a couple I haven't told you. One in particular comes to mind because it took place at this time of the year just about . . . oh, something like 24 years ago, maybe.

Remember how I've told you my husband and I agreed when we first got married to only exchange stocking stuffers at Christmas because we couldn't afford "big" gifts? Well, being a newlywed and all and trying to think of what to get for the stocking of my husband who didn't really have any hobbies, I soon developed a "tradition" of stuffing his stocking with . . . hummmm . . . I'm not sure quite how to say it in a delicate way except to say that I stuffed his stocking with "marital aids." After all, those were the gifts that kept on giving, right?!

Anyway, a couple years into the marriage and Christmas was approaching. One day, in chatting with Lisa about buying Christmas gifts, I told her my shopping plan. She thought it was a great idea and asked if she could come along. "Sure," I said. Now you have to realize that back then, despite being in the midst of the "sexual revolution," there weren't a lot of places of this sort that catered to the female shopper--"adult bookstores" were about the only place to shop for these kinds of things and they weren't exactly classy establishments. Nevertheless, we arranged to meet one Saturday morning in the parking lot of a reasonably decent "adult bookstore."

Although Lisa's about four years younger than I am, even when we first met, she struck me as mature and fairly worldly--more so than me in some ways. I arrived in the parking lot that Saturday morning at the designated time and had to wait a little bit. Soon, though, I saw Lisa's little red BMW pull into the lot, and Lisa got out of the car. Right away, I noticed she was dressed in a suit--kind of a tweedy pleated wool skirt and jacket and fairly conservative pumps. On a Saturday morning. "Do you have to be somewhere later? A meeting or something?," I asked. As it turned out, no, Lisa didn't have anywhere to go but the adult bookstore that morning. In fact, she had worn the suit only because she didn't want to look "scuzzy" and cheap. As I later learned, this was the first time Lisa had ever been to an adult bookstore.

So, picture this. Two women shopping in an adult bookstore at 10 a.m. on a Saturday, one of whom--who just happens to be 6 feet tall--wearing a suit. Yeah, we blended in and weren't at all conspicuous! LOL!

Happy birthday, Lisa, you wild thing, you!

Linda and The Late Night Intruder

Pat and I woke one night to the sound of voices. We could not hear clearly what was being said, nor did the voices seem to be coming from inside the apartment, but they were close. Looking at the clock on the night stand, I saw it was 1:30 a.m. We both had to work the next day.

Pulling on jeans and a shirt, I opened the bedroom door and walked into the livingroom to find Linda pacing back and forth, and just beyond her, the front door stood open. Cautiously approaching the door to see where the voices were coming from, I asked Linda what was going on. Before she had a chance to answer, I saw four Campbell police cars parked downstairs with two officers getting back into one of the cars.

"He was trying to break in," Linda said, "so I called 9-1-1." "Who was trying to break in?," I asked, "And why didn’t you wake us up?" "The guy who lives downstairs," she replied.

We had a fairly new neighbor living directly below us, but we had not met and knew nothing about him. As far as I recall, he didn’t seem to be home very often, and when he was, he kept to himself. This wasn’t making sense to me. But then, by that time, a lot of what Linda did didn’t make a lot of sense. Since the Christmas party, and after losing her job, she seemed even less in control. Much of her time was spent in her room, staying up late, "creating" her spit and ink pictures, or wandering around public parks and gardens during the day, communing with nature. She was smoking marijuana nearly continually.

From what Linda told me that night, she believed our downstairs neighbor was sawing through his ceiling and her floor in order to break into our apartment. She told me she had heard him before, late at night, but on that particular night, it was louder and lasted longer, and she was scared.

While I returned to the bedroom to tell Pat what was going on, Linda talked again with the police. They reported that they had knocked on the man’s door, and it was clear he had been sleeping. They questioned him but didn’t believe he had anything to do with the noise Linda heard, and he had not heard anything himself. The police concluded that the sound was likely caused by roof rats from the trees and vegetation surrounding the four-plex we lived in.

At the time, I thought this incident was pretty hilarious and extremely typical of Linda, but in hindsight, I think Linda was having some fairly serious mental problems. She became a bit more erratic as time passed. We would often hear her in her room, singing along with whatever she was listening to on her headphones or occasionally having arguments with herself. Sometimes we would hear objects striking the wall. Although Linda never frightened me, I learned later that Pat was truly hesitant to leave me alone with her.

A few months after this incident, Pat and I got married and Linda moved out. Between a new job, a new husband, and a soon-to-be new baby, I lost touch with her, but I recall someone told me they thought she had moved back to the L.A. area. Wherever she is, I hope Linda got help and is now living a happy life. She really was a good person to spend time with before things got to be too much for her.

Linda and The Christmas Party

In March of 1976, when my first husband and I were splitting up, I took a job with a large, well established San Jose law firm that practiced primarily insurance defense litigation but also had sections for probate, wills and trusts, corporate, and appellate law, among other things. I worked there for four years, left for a year, and came back and worked four more years before moving my family to Sacramento. Sometime around 1979, we hired a new administrator for the firm, and he in turn hired his sister-in-law, Linda. As I mentioned a couple posts back, Linda and I became roommates.

The firm had a long standing tradition of hosting an annual open house Christmas party for clients, employees, local attorneys, and judges as well as other court personnel. The party spread throughout the entire floor of the office, and at least two of the four corner conference rooms were set up for beverage service. Food was served, buffet style, in the main conference room, which was just off the reception area and looked out across east San Jose to the foothills. From the 13th floor, the view was stunning. Guests mingled in the reception area, in the various conference rooms, and up and down the corridors.

In 1979, I was dating my current husband, Pat, and had invited him to the Christmas party. We had a few drinks and some food and mingled with the rest of the crowd for a couple hours. Around 8 p.m., as the crowd was starting to thin a bit, we left and went back to my apartment. Shortly after we got home, the telephone rang. "Could you come get Linda?," one of the attorneys asked. "She's had a little too much to drink and needs help getting home."

By this time in our friendship, I was all too aware of Linda's tendency to have a little too much to drink or a little too much to smoke. "Moderation" was a word that didn't exist in Linda's vocabulary. With her, it was all or nothing. Apparently on this evening, it had been "all."

Pat and I got in my car, and 20 minutes later, we arrived back at the office, where we took the elevator up to the 13th floor and rejoined the party. The crowds were lighter but the party was still going strong. Pat and I walked through the corridors looking for Linda without any luck. Finally we came across Randy, the attorney who had called, and we asked him if he knew where we could find Linda. Pointing in the direction of the far rear conference room, he led the way, opened the door, and turned on the light. There was Linda, her shoes and legs emerging from under the conference room table with her skirt hiked up on her thighs. The scene looked much like the one from the Wizard of Oz where the house lands on the witch.

"Linda," I called. No response. Slightly louder, I said, "Linda, wake up. Linda!" Still no response. I turned to see Randy looking discretely off in the other direction, back toward the party. I crouched down and pulled the hem of Linda's skirt down as best I could. Pat was watching with a hint of amusement. Yeah, real funny!, I thought. "Linda!" Still no sign of life. I got down on the floor and crawled halfway under the table to see what I could do to rouse her. "Linda," I called, as I shook her shoulder. Her eyelids flickered open, her eyes rolled back in her head, and her eyelids came back down. "Linda!" Louder this time, shaking her shoulder a little harder. "Wake up! We're here to get you home." This time she woke up, and we managed to get her out from under the table and to her feet. With Pat on one side, me on the other, and Randy leading the way, we struggled to get Linda toward the elevator, but she was in no condition to assist us, so it was slow going.

Linda was not a small gal. That's not to say she was fat, but she was about 5'8" and weighed around 160 pounds, making it difficult for me or Pat to do more than try to keep her moving along as best we could. Finally, as we neared the elevators, Randy, who was about 6'2" with a muscular, athletic build, offered to carry Linda the rest of the way to my car. Yep, that worked for me!

Once she was in his arms, Linda snuggled in, in a drunken stupor, for a little nap. Before we reached the ground floor, however, she woke up again, just long enough to puke all over Randy's beautiful suit. "That's okay," he said, and I knew he was just thinking about the fact that he'd be done with this problem as soon as we could get her to my car. Yeah, easy for him! How, I wondered, did I become responsible for my roommate's behavior and well-being?

Once I unlocked the passenger door, Randy loaded Linda into the seat, said a quick goodnight, and walked away, leaving us to get her home. After a great deal of struggle, we managed to wedge Linda in with her head resting on the dash, the locked door on her right, and me, with my arm extended to keep her more or less upright (and block any stray vomit), on her left. Despite the chilly December evening, I rolled down all the windows. Pat had Linda's purse and car keys, and he followed us home in her car.

The drive turned out to be reasonable uneventful but tense, nevertheless. My car was less than a year old, and the last thing I wanted was to clean vomit from the cloth uphostery and dash. Ewww! I drove slowly and after what seemed like an eternity, we pulled into the carport and parked. Ah, home!

Pat and I got out of the cars and came around to look at Linda. Passed out. Dead to the world. With no one conveniently nearby to pry her back out of the car and carry her upstairs to our second floor apartment. I voted to leave her where she was for the night, but Pat has a compassionate heart. We argued back and forth a bit, but visualizing the possibility of puke splashed all over the inside of my car, I finally acquiesced, and we began yet again the process of trying to rouse Linda to a state of semi-consiousness.

About 15 minute later, the three of us had made it 20 feet to the base of the stairs. With a sinking feeling, we realized there was no way Linda was going to be able to climb them. I voted to leave her where she was for the night, but once more Pat prevailed, and we determined the safest way to get Linda up the stairs was on her bottom, moving slowly up one stair at a time, with me leading the way up and Pat below her, cheering her on with each small step.

About half way up, Linda told us she needed to just stay where she was and rest for awhile. I went up the rest of the stairs, unlocked the door, and went into the apartment, leaving Linda and Pat on the stairs. I voted to find some rope and tie her to the stair railing for the rest of the night so she wouldn't fall and hurt herself, but I was overruled once more. Perhaps Linda sensed I was running out of patience. Perhaps she realized she was sitting halfway up the stairs of an apartment looking out onto a busy street with her make up smeared all over her face, torn nylons, and vomit in her hair. Perhaps she just got a second wind. In any event, before too long, progress up the stairs commenced once again and eventually Linda crawled in the door followed closely by Pat, who locked up the apartment for the night. When I last saw Linda that evening, she was slowly making her way, on hands and knees, toward her bedroom.

A few months later, I left the law firm for a new, higher paying job at another firm. Sometime between Christmas and the time I changed jobs, Linda lost her job following her drunken performance on the PA system. In hindsight, I realize Linda had changed over the months I had known her and seemed to be out of control. We talked about it a bit, but I never knew, really, what had changed her.

A year later, I returned to the same firm, where I continued to work for the next four years, first in the word processing department, which provided me flexible hours after our child was born, and later as a paralegal. Oddly enough, I don't recall the firm having any more Christmas parties. I guess there are just some parties you can never hope to top.

Happy Birthday Patty!

Today's my friend Patty's birthday. Go on over and say happy birthday to her if you're so inclined--just click on her name above or the link in the sidebar, and leave a message on her peanut post. I'm not quite sure what's happened to Patty; she's had that peanut post on her blog for weeks now. I hope it wasn't a sudden allergy to peanuts, although I think I might be developing one for all the times I've popped over there to check if there's something new.

The funny thing is that Patty and I started our blogs at about the same time, because Patty thought we should give Kairle a hard time for not posting to her blog for a year. Kairle always has lots of good ideas to share and quilts to drool over, and we were missing out on all that good stuff. So Patty came up with this plan for us all to leave Kairle messages, and the rest is history. Kairle started blogging again and Patty and I started our blogs, except Patty seems to have too much stuff going on in her life to post to her blog very often.

Since I've known Patty--which has been something like four years now--she's come up with several different ideas about what she wants to do when she retires. I'm telling you, when I retire, I'll RETIRE, but not Patty. When I first met her, she had an online quilt shop--something she wanted to get established so she could have a business when she retired. That was all well and good for a couple years, but it really proved to be too much work since she was still working full time--and overtime quite often--so she eventually closed that business. Since then, she's come up with at least two other plans for working in her retirement years, although retirement is still a few years off, I think. Last time I heard from her a few weeks ago, she was talking about taking some classes to learn some new skills so she can work after she retires. That gal never stops!

Patty is often a bundle of ideas and energy, which makes her a lot of fun to be around. She's a great one for motivating her friends. She always comes up with the most entertaining ideas for our online group. Once she organized a Halloween "party" for us. She opened a group site and we all attended "in costume." Each of us took on a different identity with a different e-mail address for the party, and only Patty knew who was who. During the party, which lasted a few hours, we all got online and chatted about ourselves--in character, of course--and the winner was the person who could match the most characters with their true identities. Who could dream up with that kind of idea? Why Patty, of course!

That's Patty in the photo at the top. If you go on over there to her blog and wish her a happy birthday, please grab yourself a handful of those peanuts. Maybe if we eat them all, she'll be forced to post something new!

Goddess Domestique

The weekend's over and another week of work looms ahead. The weekend, though, was full of family, food, and friends.

On Saturday, my husband and I traveled up to Oroville to visit with my mom. I had heard that Oroville had some fun antique and thrift shops, but in the years since my parents moved there, I had never taken the time to hunt them down; in fact, I had never been to the downtown area at all and had no idea where it was. So, encouraged by my mom and with directions from the local phone book, we headed off to see what we could find, and came home with a couple "treasures," including these two small canning jars and the cast iron cornbread mold.

I was really hoping to find something extremely tacky for my friend Lisa, since we were meeting her and her husband for dinner, but as it turned out, most of the thrift stores were closed or getting ready to close by mid-afternoon, so there was little time to search for the absurd. We made it home in time to relax for a bit and freshen up before meeting our friends at a local Mexican restaurant. I've told you a bit about Lisa before and thought I might end up with another story for you (especially when she suggested going for a drink after dinner at the biker bar next door), but the evening was fairly tame. After dinner, we decided instead to head over to Starbucks and sit outside, chatting while we drank our coffee drinks. The weather was beautiful and it was a really nice evening.

Sunday was a stay-at-home day, and I was bitten by the domestic bug. I made some poppyseed muffins for breakfast and a berry cobbler for dessert (photo at the top of the blog). For dinner, I made one of our favorite chicken dishes. It's actually called Chicken Fajitas, although the recipe doesn't call for any of the traditional fajita ingredients like onions and bell peppers. Still, I love it because the key ingredient is the chicken, and it can be used in several dishes. I'll share the recipe with you. We like this chicken in soft tacos with typical taco ingredients like cheese, sour cream, lettuce, and tomato. Sometimes I'll saute onions and bell peppers for a fajita-style taco. The chicken is also great in salads with tomatoes and avocados--something I plan to make with the leftovers. And, best of all, it's fairly low in calories and fat with lots of flavor.

MARINADED CHICKEN

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1/4 cup lime juice

4 tablespoons of diced onion

2 teaspoons of minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon of cumin powder

2 teaspoons of dried oregano

Wash/clean chicken and place in large zip top plastic bag. Add remaining ingredients. "Squish" around to mix ingredients and coat chicken.

Place in refrigerator to marinade for 2 to 24 hours. Broil chicken breasts on both sides until cooked. Slice and serve in a salad or flour tortillas with your favorite fixings.

Enjoy!

The Three Amigas -or- How We Eluded a Serial Killer

I was chatting briefly on the phone last night with my sister-in-law and learned she's been faithfully reading my blog. I guess that means I can't really say anything bad about the family. Not that I'd want to, Kath! Really!

Kathy, Lisa, and I have been friends just about as long as I've known my husband. Kathy and Lisa met while attending dental assisting school, and one day, Kathy brought Lisa along to a party at the beach, where Lisa met Terry, and the rest is history. Lisa and Terry have been honorary members of the family for a long time now, so the three of us have spent a great deal of time together over the years. Of course, had that serial killer gotten us, it would all have turned out differently.

Sometime back in the early 80s, the three of us gals hatched a plan to go away for the weekend, leaving the guys at home to tend to my first born and play poker. Lisa wanted to see a show at the MGM Grand in Reno and made all the arrangements--tickets for the show and a room at the hotel. The plan was to go up to Reno for a Friday night show, spend the night there, and travel back down to my in-laws' vacation cabin in the Nevada City area on Saturday. There we would relax, paint each others toenails, and hit the small town of Nevada City for a rip-roaring Saturday night. On Sunday, after a suitable hangover recovery period, we would drive home.

Shortly after work that Friday, the three of us hopped into Lisa's red BMW and got on the road for the 4-hour or so drive to Reno. We checked into the hotel, got ourselves gussied up, and went to see the show. Afterward, we hit the tables and gambled until the crack of dawn when we realized two things: (1) it was much too late to even try to get any sleep, and (2) we had gambled away a good portion of the money we had brought with us. After a short consultation, we decided it was time to pack up for the next leg of our journey and grab some breakfast in the casino restaurant. The thought was that once we reached the cabin, we could relax and get a little sleep before painting our toenails and going out on the town.

With this plan in mind, on the way out of the casino, we stopped in the gift shop and bought a box of No-Doz which we promptly divided between the three of us before starting the nearly 2 hour drive to the cabin. Looking back, it was the weirdest drive I can remember. By the time we were half way to the cabin, we had come to the conclusion that we were invisible. I can't even recall the number of times we were nearly hit head on by cars passing one another traveling in the opposite direction. When you're operating on little sleep and a third of a box of No-Doz, it can be a little disconcerting, I'll tell ya! Of course, not only did we not sleep at all Friday night, but I'd be willing to bet that each of us stayed up late Thursday night, trying on and discarding clothes and packing everything we could possibly need for the trip.

Eventually, around late morning on Saturday, we arrived at the cabin. Let me take a second here to set the scene for you. As you arrive in the little town of Nevada City, you turn away from the town and head up a narrow road, driving about a half hour into the mountains, until you reach a small residential/vacation community situated near a lake. Each lot is about a quarter acre, and the homes are, for the most part, screened from one another by trees. The road up the hill is much better and a bit faster now, but back then, it was barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and occasionally you'd come across short stretches that weren't even paved. On that particular weekend, we arrived at the cabin and noticed that there were very few weekend occupants in the development--unusual since the weather was nice.

After unloading our things and getting everything put away, the three of us chatted for a bit and then settled down for a nap. About an hour into our slumbers, there was a loud knock at the door that woke us up. Now, in the several years I had been going up to the cabin, I had never had any contact with the security patrol until that day, when some eager but bored security guard decided to investigate the red BMW parked in front of the cabin.

After proving to the security guard's satisfaction that we were who we said we were and that we had every right to be in the cabin, we got rid of him and settled back down to nap for another two or three hours before one of us woke up and decided it was time to start thinking about taking showers and getting ready to go out for something to eat and a night of revelry on the town.

It must have been sometime in the autumn of the year, because I remember it became dark early that evening. As we got ready, the three of us talked about what a weird weekend it had been so far, and somehow that led to a discussion about the remoteness of our surroundings. Here we were, three defenseless girls up in the woods where anything could happen. Suddenly the lights went out! With visions of someone outside cutting the electrical lines, the three of us scurried around the cabin, securing all the doors and windows, upstairs and down. I can't remember whether it was Kathy or Lisa who first noticed that there were lights on in a house some distance away, but it certainly sent a chill of fear through us and confirmed our belief that the power had been deliberately cut. Surely it was just a matter of time before our throats were slit by some mad serial killer!

I can just picture my father-in-law when he got off the phone with Kathy, turning to my mother-in-law, shaking his head and chuckling over those crazy girls up at the cabin who had worked themselves up into a state of panic. No, he had no really helpful advice to offer, other than to remind us that the power goes out every so often up there and that the year-round residents down the street were probably running a generator. Just lock up the house, he advised, light some candles, and find something to do until the lights come back on.

Well, that was all well and good until we started to hear noises outside. We kept looking at each other, reassuring one another that it was probably just a raccoon or a deer, right? But why take chances? Wouldn't it be best if we just packed our stuff up and went down into town for dinner? We could then decide whether to come back up and spend the night or head home.

At this point in the story, I think I need to tell you that back in those days, I was a bit vain. There was absolutely no way in hell I was going to go to town on a Saturday night without looking my absolute best, particularly since I was a little low on money and might need someone else to buy me a drink or two. Kathy and Lisa were packed and ready to abandon the cabin while I was still putting on my make up and fixing my hair. Geez were they annoying! Who can rush beauty? And do you remember big hair? Blow dryers and curling irons were my best friends, but they weren't helping a whole lot that night since we had no power! Eventually, though, I was ready to go and we headed toward the door.

Now I'm not quite sure how it came about, but I have a vague recollection of Lisa telling us to stay inside the cabin door. Before I could ask why, I saw her bobbing and weaving toward the car and emerging with a gun that she had retrieved from the glove compartment; she told us she would "cover" us while we loaded the luggage and ourselves into the car. Wait a minute! What?! A friggin GUN?! Lisa's carrying a GUN for Pete's sake?! Now I really was in a hurry, and not from the thought of a crazed serial killer either. The sooner I got my butt seated in that car, the sooner Lisa was going to put that gun away!

As Lisa stood at the top of the stairs leading down from the porch, ready to shoot anything that moved, I stepped out of the door with Kathy close behind. Suddenly I was jerked back--the handle of my luggage had caught on the screen door knob. Then, when it released, I was propelled forward toward the steps. All that commotion threw Lisa into a bit of a panic, and she wasn't sure whether to keep pointing that gun toward the yard or back toward us. I have to tell you that I'm not sure whether I actually fell down the stairs or was diving for cover, but you really can't manage either very well wearing blue platform shoes with 5" heels. Damn!

I don't remember a lot of the details that followed, but eventually we made it down off that mountain, and the first order of business was to find a mini mart that carried hydrogen peroxide and bandages to administer a little first aid--my precipitous journey down the stairs had resulted in a bloody, scraped up leg and torn nylons. We never did enjoy a night out on the town that night. With all that blood, torn nylons, and adrenaline coursing through our bodies with no where to go, we finally settled for dinner at Denny's.

The whole story is much longer and involves a search for a motel room for the night (one place said they had a room available but it was about 20 miles back into the mountains--NO THANKS!), a drive across a bit of the grounds of a cemetary (narrow, dead-end road and wide U-turn), and an argument on the telephone between Lisa and her ever patient, always reasonable husband back at home (with the other drunken poker-playing guys in the background; apparently they all thought the idea of driving three hours to rescue us in the middle of the night was pretty darn hilarious).

Let's just say that Lisa, Kathy, and I survived the ordeal all in one piece, except for my battered, bandaged leg. But you know what? I really didn't mind being scraped up, because it meant I got a bed to myself, while Kathy and Lisa had to share. And Kath? Sorry about this, but I just have to finish the story. After not having slept much in a couple days, Kathy dreamed about snakes all night long and kept kicking Lisa in her sleep!

Dang those were good times! I'm sure that had Starbucks and cell phones been around in those days, our weekend of female bonding wouldn't have turned out quite the same. We never did get to paint each others toenails, but that's probably just as well. Lisa's youngest kid graduated from high school this week, and we're going to a party at their house tomorrow. Kath will be there too. Want to come? I think we'll have some fun!

Are You Reading This?

If you are, welcome to my blog! If you're not--well, you're missing out on my pearls of wisdom and skewed sense of humor, but maybe you'll find me someday! LOL!

What got me thinking was that I found out today a friend of mine who lives up with the Eskimos and dog sleds in New Brunswick, Canada, reads my blog quite often and I didn't know. Okay, I know she doesn't really live with Eskimos and dog sleds, but we like to tease her and pretend to be dumb Americans!

Speaking of dumb Americans, though, I'm not very knowledgeable about world geography. I just love having the map on my blog so I can see where my visitors are from, but I'll admit that I don't always know exactly WHERE you all are--what country or what part of the country. Or even sometimes--YIKES!--what state! Shame on me! I'm hoping that as I have visitors popping in from all over the world, I'll start to get a better grasp of geography.

If you've read my first blog entry, you know that I ended up with a blog by accident. A couple of us were trying to prod our friend Kairle--the first of us with a blog--to start posting again after a long hiatus. In trying to leave a comment on Kairle's blog, I ended up creating a blog of my own. What I didn't know until I started my own blog is that you can go into a blogger's profile and e-mail them directly instead of leaving a comment (which often requires you to have your own blog or a Google account)--or at least you can if they've chosen to list an e-mail address. So if you read my posts and want to say something but can't leave a comment on the blog, feel free to e-mail me. Just don't e-mail me mean or rude comments; but then I suspect that most people who find my blog are quilters, and quilters are the nicest people I know!

In fact, I thought I'd share with you a photo of a few of the nice people I know, people I've met through quilting. This was taken at a small retreat we had in Utah this past October. Three of the gals came from different parts of Canada, and several of us were from the U.S. No, I'm not in this photo and I won't name names to protect the guilty, but we sure did have a lot of fun shopping and sewing!

Now, just a little follow up on yesterday's blog. My husband served dinner tonight--nothing fancy, just KFC that I picked up on the way home. Remember the "throw away" issue? Tonight we had dinner on--what else?--paper plates. Okay, not just paper plates though. HALLOWEEN paper plates! See, I think he's plotting to get rid of everything in the kitchen. Or do you think maybe it's just because he didn't feel like doing dishes any more than I felt like cooking?! Nah! Conspiracy theories are much more fun!