A Little "Taste"

Remember those stacks of red and white strips? Well, I can't show you the quilt top just yet because it's a gift, but I CAN show you just a bit of it. There's a center piece that you can't see (except for a bit of the border at the top of the photo) because I think that would give away who it's for, but I took a photo of the bottom section that I'm working on quilting to give you a little idea. I'm quilting free-form feathers in each of the braid sections. I'm HUGELY pleased with the way this is turning out and I'll show you a picture of the full quilt by the weekend.

We had a lovely time at Lisa's house on Saturday night. The food was good, the company was excellent--what more could you ask for? The younger generation had to listen to some of our old stories once again, but I think they enjoy it, and we have a good time remembering and laughing.

Now it's back to work today for me. I think I'll be spending lunch hours this week running in and out of stores, shopping for Christmas gifts, and spending evenings quilting. Thanks for coming by to visit me today!

Ups and Downs

This past weekend was really one of ups and downs, good and bad. I think I'm glad it's over. Or at least I WOULD be if I didn't have to go to work and could stay home and play instead.

Thursday night, we discovered our older cat had some kind of sore on the side of her head/neck but she wouldn't stay still long enough for us to check it out. Friday night, we had a better chance and found she had some type of weeping, oozy sore. Saturday morning, she went to the vet, who suspected she had been bitten by another animal--presumably a cat (hopefully not OUR other cat!)--and she has two abcesses. She's not too happy at being kept in the house. She's even less happy that I have to shove antibiotics down her throat twice a day. Yeah, I'm not too happy about that one either, since she chomped down on my fingers pretty good a couple times last night. Did you know that cats have sharp teeth?!

Friday night we went to see a play at a terrific local theater owned by Timothy Busfield (30-Something/West Wing/Studio 60) and his brother Buck. One of the partners at my office couldn't use his tickets, so my husband and I benefitted. The play was very enjoyable. Unfortunately, the handicapped parking was full, so we had to park a block and a half away and negotiate my husband's wheelchair around potholes in the dark. Although my husband called the theater the day before about handicapped seating, we ended up being seated in the way when the actors and props were entering and exiting, so they had to shift us around a bit. We're just starting to adjust to the whole wheelchair thing, and it's not very easy.

Saturday I cleaned house. Definitely a "down." What more can I say?!

Saturday night we went out to a great dinner with friends at PF Chang's. After dinner we visited Starbucks and then Barnes & Noble. Most definitely one of the "up" parts of the weekend. My husband had been feeling pretty down, and the evening cheered him up. Spending time with friends is great, isn't it?

And why had my husband been feeling so down? Well, Sunday we had to have one of our dogs put to sleep. It was sad for both of us but more so for him. Ashley had arthritis in her knees and had been getting progressively worse despite our attempts to try things like glucosamine. Most recently, she had started to lose bowel control due to the pain and her inability to get up and down. When my husband made the appointment for our cat on Saturday, he also made an appointment for Ashley on Sunday. We've known it was coming and were somewhat prepared, but what I realized in the last week or so was that my husband, with his muscular dystrophy and his own trouble getting around, had been identifying with the poor dog, so there was a whole lot of psychological stuff going on there besides losing a dog, poor guy!

Sunday afternoon I sewed and my husband watched some football, but neither of us was content or settled in what we were doing. I decided I needed to get out of the house for awhile and invited him to come along, but he elected to stay home. A couple hours in Michael's improved my mood and stimulated my creativity a bit--well, that and stopping to pick up a latte at Starbucks and dinner at El Pollo Loco on the way home!--so by evening, I was feeling more positive. My husband seemed to be doing a little better too. Now that Ashley's deteriorating heath and the problems we had to face have been resolved, I think he'll be able to move on--this has been a huge worry for him for the last few months.

Last night, I was ready to go back to sewing and I got the second mini put together--that's a photo at the top. I still have a bunch of those fence rail style blocks littering my sewing table, so I'll tackle them tonight. And I'm already looking forward to next weekend, which I hope will be much less stressful!

Bits and Pieces

I thought today I'd just talk about the bits and pieces of things going on in my little world here in Sacramento, so grab yourself a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, and let's chat.

I'm getting kinda tired of quilting my monster quilt. Okay, a lot tired! I still have quite a way to go though. Of course, I have gotten quite a bit done too, so at least I'm seeing progress. Maybe I'll get a photo of my progress in the next few days so I can show you how it's coming along.

I've got my next applique block designed for the Americana quilt. I need to draw up a clean copy and once I do, I'll get a photo of that to show you too. This one has an apple theme. Remember I mentioned I was thinking about apples and apple pie? What could be more American?! LOL!

7/7/07 wasn't such a great day for me in some ways. If you haven't been reading my blog for very long, I'll give you a quick recap. If you have, just skip ahead. Back in March, a couple weeks after I started this blog, my parents were in an auto versus tree single-car accident when my dad became confused and couldn't move his foot from the gas onto the brake pedal. My mom had the worst injuries with broken ribs and other problems, but my dad developed a bleed in his brain and passed away about a month later.

Since my dad's death, my brother and I have been helping my mom out with all the necessary arrangements and financial matters, and as of Mother's Day, my mom told us she wanted to stay in their mobile home for a year before making any decisions. About two weeks later, she sold it and nearly all its contents without talking to me or my brother. We're still not sure exactly what made her change her mind, but she's moving at the end of the month down to Salinas to live with her childhood best friend who is also a widow. I'm pretty sure they're going to drive each other nuts, and then what will my mom do? She really has no plan beyond this and all she has besides her monthly Social Security check is the money from the sale of her home.

Personally, I'm sure my mom's getting ripped off on this deal. She won't say exactly how much she's getting for all her furnishings and we're trying not to push, but it's apparently something in the range of $1,000 to $4,000. Yesterday, my husband and I went up to Oroville to get a few of the things she didn't sell in the deal. It practically broke my heart to look around at all the furniture and wonderful things she's had all my life and know that they belong to someone else at a fraction of their worth. It's hard to put a realistic price on everything, but I have to guess it would be somewhere around $50,000 because she has some very nice quality furnishings as well as some vintage pieces of this and that that would be in high demand on eBay or anywhere else.

As if that weren't upsetting enough, while we were there loading these few things that my mom did keep for me into my husband's van, a neighbor from across the street came hurrying over to make sure my mom wasn't letting us take anything that was part of the sale--turns out his brother is the one buying the mobile home. That was a needlessly unpleasant experience at a difficult time!

There are things that have been sold that my brother and I would like to have had passed down to us given the opportunity, but it's too late now. My mom did keep a few things out of the sale for us that she knew we wanted, and we have our choice of other items that the new owners didn't want. As my husband and I keep reminding ourselves, the mobile home and all my mom's possessions are hers to do whatever she wants with--I just wish she had gotten some impartial advice and/or at least talked it over with my brother and me before making such a big decision.

In any event, I was able to get two of my mom's paintings. That, in itself, is a whole other long story, but I'll sum it up by saying that for some reason, my mom seems perfectly happy to give her paintings to everyone but me, so ending up with two of them was quite a feat. And I am, by the way, grateful and pleased with the things I was able to bring home with me yesterday, so the day wasn't too bad, all things considered.

The painting that's been my favorite since my mom painted it in my teens is one of the two I brought home with me, and it's now hanging in my livingroom. Here's a photo--sorry about the bit of glare:

The other one she pulled out of the closet as an afterthought. It looks great in my daughter's former room, although I need to have it reframed. Here's a photo of that one:

My mom's artistic period was short-lived; just about all of her pieces were painted in a span of about ten years during my pre-teen and teenage years. She claims that my dad didn't want her to paint anymore; I think, though, that she just got caught up in her alcoholism and lost interest. For Mother's Day, I bought her some art supplies so she can get back into sketching but I'm not sure she ever will.

Besides the two paintings, I brought home a little sewing cabinet that was my grandmother's. It's not very old as these things go--probably from the 1950s or early 1960s--but it was something I remember my grandmother keeping close by her chair in the living room for doing her mending, so it has sentimental value to me. If you push on the right side of the top "drawer," it spins out to reveal pegs to hold spools of thread.

I also brought home some of my grandmother's linens, and I got those washed and folded today. I know many people like to starch and iron their linens before putting them away, but I prefer to do that when I know I'm going to be using them. I understand that bugs are attracted to and will eat starch, so besides not wanting to stand around ironing for hours and hours, I figure it's best that they aren't starched ahead of time anyway. Any input on that? I'm curious about whether I'm the only one breaking tradition!

Two other pieces I brought home were a somewhat large, round end table and a tea cart. The round table fits perfectly between two chairs in my living room. The tea cart is wooden with colonial style spoked wheels, so I think it was probably made in the 1950s. Although it's solid wood, the top and folding sides were made from strips of wood rather than a solid piece, and those strips are cracking at the seams. I'd like to get that repaired one of these days. In the meantime, I gave all the wooden pieces a good washing with Murphy's Oil Soap and then I used a good wood food/wax on them, hoping to restore a little bit of the moisture to the wood.

Remember my post from a few days ago about that wonderful book by Susan Branch, The Summer Book? Last night I tried out the lemon linguini recipe and it was absolutely WONDERFUL! She has a basic recipe using linguini, lemon zest, lemon juice, parmesan, green onions, parsley, and olive oil. Then she gives several suggestions for additions to that recipe. I used one of her suggestions and added chopped tomato, slivered fresh basil, and toasted pine nuts. I swear it's to die for and well worth the price of the book for that recipe alone! I'm going to toss some of the leftovers with some cold grilled chicken breast and romaine for a nice dinner salad tomorrow night, I think.

Today, I've mostly worked on the monster quilt. For dinner, I made a pot of Mimi's corn chowder soup--yum! Now we have meals already made--or close to it--for another few nights.

Oh, and I wanted to mention in connection with yesterday's post about Uncle Charlie. A couple of you commented on my weird family. While I certainly DO have a weird family, Uncle Charlie wasn't one of them. Lisa is a very close friend--she and my sister-in-law might as well be the sisters I never had, although I'm not related to Lisa by blood--just by heart. I can just about always count on Lisa to either do or say something pretty entertaining when we get together. Sometimes I can share those things with you, and sometimes . . . well, maybe not! Although Lisa doesn't normally read my blog, she didn't seem to mind me telling you about Uncle Charlie when I mentioned the idea to her. I did tell her, though, that if she ever decides to run for President of the US, none of you would hold any of these stories against her or tell anyone else, right?!

I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend!

Meet Linda

About a year or so before I married my husband, I was in need of a roommate. I had been living alone in an apartment, but the rent was going up and I came to the realization that I would need to move and find someone to share the costs. At about the same time, Linda and her boyfriend were splitting up and she needed a place to live.

Linda was the sister-in-law of the administrator of the law firm where I worked and was fairly new to the firm, working as a receptionist. She had moved up to San Jose from the Los Angeles area with her boyfriend a few months before. I didn't know her very well, but she seemed fun and had a good sense of humor, so I thought it was worth a try. Couldn't hurt to get on the administrator's good side by taking his sister-in-law in either, could it?

As it turned out, Linda was quite a character. As with most roommates it seems, she had her good points and bad points. One of her bad points was the fact that she smoked marijuana quite a lot. Pretty much non-stop in fact. She told me her mother grew it and sent it to her. Okay, whatever. Having grown up in the Bay Area during the 60s and 70s, smoking marijuana was not something that shocked or surprised me. I tended not to be home a whole lot anyway, spending most of my time at my future husband's place. One of Linda's good points was that when she got stoned, she'd clean. Several times I'd come home and find her polishing the copper bottoms of my pots. Sometimes I think it's a wonder there were any copper bottoms left to the pots, but then we only lived together for a year. I still have those pots, but the bottoms have never looked quite as nice since they had Linda to care for them.

Linda was quite creative. Her artistic medium was ink and she'd spend the hours when she wasn't cleaning, shut in her room, making "wonderful" ink--uh, I'm not sure exactly what you'd call them. "Pictures" isn't right. Neither is "drawings." Have you ever seen spin art where you drop paint onto a spinning piece of paper, and the paint pattern fans out from the center? Well, Linda's art was a little like that, but not quite as nice. When we first moved in together, she very seriously told me about her technique. It seems she would mix different inks with varying amounts of spit, drop it on the paper, and tilt the paper or blow on the ink to make patterns. All I can say is that these creations were certainly conversation pieces. She put one up in our hallway to cover the gray metal door of the utility box, and while it was a slight improvement, everyone who visited felt compelled to lift up the edge to see what was so much worse that we needed to cover it with her "painting."

I have a couple very memorable stories of Linda that I'll share with you in the next few days. Since I'm working on quilting this large quilt, I have very little "quilty" news to tell you about or show you, so I'll let Linda entertain you for a bit--I know she entertained me!

I'm not quite sure what happened to Linda. After she moved out and I married my husband, I lost contact with her. The last I heard, she was working at a temp job, having been fired from our firm by her brother-in-law. The final straw was when she came back to work drunk after lunch one day, and got onto the overhead page system. She tried to page one of the attorneys but kept mispronouncing his name and started giggling uncontrollably. Quite a character, that Linda! If nothing else, she made things interesting!

Welcome to my Neighborhood

It's getting to be that time of the year when we get a little nervous around here. Graduations and the 4th of July mean firecrackers, and the sudden explosions make us a bit jumpy. Back when I was telling you this little story, I mentioned my husband sometimes gets just a tad alarmed by sudden loud noises, and I'll tell you why.

We live in a working class neighborhood. Our home was our "starter house," the first--and only--one we've bought. Our plan was to move to a nicer, larger house once the kids were out of elementary school, but the real estate market was in a slump, and although we had the house on the market for the better part of two years, it never did sell, so we decided to stay here until our kids graduated from high school. For several reasons, once that happened, we just decided to stay put for the time being. So here we still are, 21 years later.

Most of us in this neighborhood are fairly quiet. Although none of us has much money to spare, we own our homes and maintain them fairly well. For the most part, we are law-abiding citizens. Occasionally, though, we get renters in the neighborhood who seem to live to a different standard. The kids run around in the street and glare angrily at any cars that dare interrupt their games. The parents argue with each other and scream at their kids--sometimes outside in the front yard or in the house with all the windows open. For whatever odd reason, some put old couches in their garages and sit out there all night long with the garage doors open, smoking and drinking. I could go on and on, but I'm sure you recognize the type.

The house above is situated across the street from ours and slightly to the right. It has been a rental property for the past ten to fifteen years, and believe me, we've had our share of troublesome neighbors. A new family moved in a few months ago--husband, wife, and two kids, I believe. So far, they seem to fit right into our neighborhood. They keep the yard neat, they are reasonably quiet, and although they have a couple kids, we don't see them running wild in the yard and street. Thank goodness!

Before that, there was a single mom with several kids and a steady parade of men living there for short periods of time. Last year, we purchased new living room furniture, and the mom asked if they could have our old couch and recliner because they didn't have much. Sure, we said, and the woman sent her kids over to move the old furniture across the street and into the garage, so they could sit out there all night long with the door open, smoking, drinking, and arguing. But really, all in all, that family was an improvement over the one before.

The family before consisted of another single mom with a bunch of kids and a steady parade of men living there for short periods of time. Sound familiar? They actually lived in the house for quite a few years, and when they first moved in, the kids were cute and little and the mom was friendly with the neighbors. They took reasonably good care of the house, and other than the occasional yelling and screaming, they didn't present much of a problem. As the kids grew into teenagers and the cars outside multiplied, living across the street from this family became a bit difficult to say the least. Somehow the woman had gotten ahold of a large camping trailer. Although there was a cement pad on the side of the house where she could park it, it seemed to end up parked in front of our house much of the time. The several other cars owned by people living in the house meant that parking on the street anywhere near our house was often difficult, and we had two teenagers with their own cars as well. Again, as the kids across the street grew, the garage was turned into a family room, and much of the time, there were several teens and their friends hanging out in the garage and yard making a fair amount of noise.

One particular evening about two years ago, my husband and I were sitting in the living room, watching TV. My son had come home with a new girlfriend, and they were in his room, also watching TV. Loud voices from these neighbors across the street distracted us from whatever we were watching, and the voices grew louder. I turned to look out the window but it was starting to get dark, and it was difficult to see what was going on. My husband got up from his recliner and went to the front door and out onto the porch in time to see the mom hurrying down the street, yelling to her kids to get in the house. Before we could make sense of all the commotion, a car drove slowly down the street, and as it passed from our right to our left, gun fire erupted.

Somewhat belatedly, I dove for the floor, worried all the time about my husband who was standing out on the porch. I learned later that several of the neighbors had also come outside to see what all the yelling was about, and they called 9-1-1. The incident, of course, was over in seconds.

We learned a bit later that the shots did not come from the passing car but rather were directed AT the car by one of the kids either living at or visiting the house across the street. No one was hit by the bullets, thank God, but our neighbors to our left had two bullet holes in their house and, in a somewhat ironic twist, the idiot with the gun shot holes in the mom's van that was parked in their driveway.

Just after the shooting, having heard all the commotion, my son came out of his room to see what was happening. The poor girlfriend he had brought home got hysterical and we never did see her again.

I thought I was okay until I went to work the next day and burst into tears as I was telling my boss what had happened. For the next hour, I couldn't seem to stop crying, so the office manager suggested I take the day off.

My husband seemed less emotional about the experience. To him, it seemed like a good story to tell his friends and co-workers. We all handle things differently, and maybe telling the story over and over was his way of working through his emotions. But he still jumps at firecrackers and other loud, sudden noises.

The police never did find the gun, because following the shooting, some of the kids took off and presumably took the gun with them. My husband was a witness, having seen one of the kids raise the gun and fire, but he couldn't identify the shooter because it was fairly dark. Although he gave a statement to the police and another to the district attorney prosecuting the case, they must have pled out or dismissed the charges because my husband never did have to testify in court.

After the shooting, the neighbors met to discuss what could be done to get this woman and her family out of the neighborhood. We spoke with the police, who suggested we call them any time we saw anything slightly suspicious going on. Finally, though, the neighbors on the other side of this rental filed a lawsuit against the owner of the home, and that seemed to be the final straw. Within a few months, the family moved out.

With summer coming, I hope the new renters continue to be model neighbors. And I hope there aren't too many firecrackers between now and the 4th of July!

Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

What's your outlook on life? Do you look at the future in an optimistic, hopeful way? Or do you think the best times of your life have already passed you by? Do you expect the best? Or do you hope for the best, but prepare yourself for the worst?

Is the glass half empty, or is the glass half full? This is a question I posed to my friend Kairle the other day, although maybe not quite in the same way. She got me thinking along these lines though.

In my life, when things aren't necessarily going well, I try to look ahead, past whatever unhappy or unpleasant things are taking place, because I know eventually, things will turn around. I try to see the good in people. And, perhaps most importantly, I try to see the humor in the little things, because it makes the big things easier to handle.

So, do you see the glass as being half empty, or do you see the glass as being half full?

I've devised a little quilt-related personality test, if you will, to reveal your outlook on life. Study carefully the fabric below and then answer the question that follows.

Okay, here it is:

ARE THE COWBOYS HALF DRESSED? OR ARE THE COWBOYS HALF NAKED?

Life--it's all a matter of perspective, mixed with a little humor!

NOTE: Take a look at these cute purses made from this fabric: http://morahquilts.blogspot.com/2007/05/myoh-my.html

The fabric is called Wranglers by Alexander Henry.

Decisions, Decisions

The other day I was in the grocery store. Among several other items, I needed toothpaste. Now I’ve always been a Colgate kinda gal. My mom was a dental assistant back in the 50s and 60s, and her boss preferred Colgate, so that was good enough for our family. Of course, back then, there really were only two major brands: Colgate and Crest, so it was a fairly simple decision. Have you shopped for toothpaste lately?

Most of us would choose a quilt shop that carries 5,000 bolts over one that carries 50 bolts. And most of us would shop for shoes at a store that carries a wide array of styles, colors, and sizes rather than one that carries only a few pair. Choice can be good. Choice helps us develop our own style, separate and apart from everyone else around us. But toothpaste?

There I was, in the grocery store, staring at the huge and varied selection of toothpaste. I had already narrowed it down to Colgate, which should have made it easier, but it wasn’t. When did we become a society that demands so many choices in toothpaste? And why? Did I want paste or gel? What flavor did I want? Toothpaste with baking soda? Why? In case I want to use it to bake a peppermint flavored cake? And, oddest of all, I thought, was the decision about what I wanted my toothpaste to do. Now I can see a customer needing a special toothpaste for sensitive teeth. It’s kind of like dandruff shampoo that way–something that is needed by some but not by all. But what’s the deal with tartar control versus whitening? Do people want one and not the other? "Oh, no thank you, I DO want my teeth to be white, but I don’t care if I have tartar build up." Or, "Thank goodness I can get rid of that horrible tartar without changing the nice yellow color of my teeth." Why not a toothpaste that does it all? Why make it so hard?

Life is full of choices and decisions, and right now I’m tired of it–not life; just some of the stupid decisions that have to be made. I need a secretary, a wife, and/or a housekeeper to take care of all this mundane garbage without bothering me. Frankly, between my father’s passing, helping my mom to take care of all that needs to be done, and concern about some medical issues that my husband is dealing with, I’m already on mental overload and heading toward depression. Hey, Colgate-Palmolive, if you're reading this, here's an idea for you: How about Colgate with Whitening AND Prozac? I bet it would sell like hot cakes!