This morning I went to the Prince George's County School-based Invitational Special Olympic Swim Meet. Kevin was particiapting, this was his his third year.

I found Kevin's classroom teacher and non-swimming classmates and sat by them. I was immediately greeted by one student with "Hi, Kevin's mom!"

The meet opened with the singing and signing of the National Anthem, followed by the athletes' pledge and the coachs' pledge.

Of all the SO events I've been to, it seems the swim meets are the best organized. Kevin and his classmate are escorted to the waiting are for their heat.

Here he comes in the 25 meter freestyle event.

Kevin's classmate, J finishes.

J is awarded a medal for second place.

Kevin gets his medal for finishing first.

What's a mom to do? Cheer like crazy, or take pictures, or wipe the tears from her eyes so she can just see? Somehow I managed all three.

I'm happy to report I'm sitting here in the dark. The GSA guys came yesterday and took the bulbs out over my desk. Nine working days after my paperwork was first received. Nine. Sheesh.

Anyway, no glare and no headaches!

Pictures of my quilts as they hung in my guild's quilt show.

Tiffany Window

The customer service waiting area in Tiffany's Fifth Avenue store is decorated much like a hotel lobby in tones of beige, taupe, tan, with bits of brown and olive. On the tables between the thickly stuffed chairs were white Phalaenopsis orchids, not quite dinner plate-sized, but beautiful just the same. Two walls were lined with ten booths staffed by friendly, efficient, business-like representatives. The necklace I bought back in October had broken and the repair was complimentary. Here is a view from their sixth floor window towards Central Park.

Quilt Show: Day One. I got 14 bundles of hand dyed fabric ready to sell and my four quilts delivered (Thanks Dr. B!). By the time I left at 2pm only one bundle had sold, I'm hoping more sold after I left and more will sell tomorrow. The quilt I made for Miss Kingsfield's daughter is on display and they both came by to see it. A friend of their's was at the show and is a photograper for the Bowie Blade. She took a picture of the quilt with CG's daughter so I'll have to remember to look for the article on Thursday. Tomorrow I'll take pictures to post so those of you who aren't local can see.

I have a question for you parents: Do you ever withhold information from your kids about something you'll be doing just so you don't have to endure 30 minutes of "can I come too"?

Yesterday I went to New York for my semi-annual shearing at Nick Arrojo's Studio and didn't tell anyone. My husband knew, of course, but I didn't tell Fern nor any of my friends. I tried to explain to Fern parents get to do things like that, sans offspring, but she's still mad. She'll get to go when she gets straight A's on her report card, but sometimes I get to go by my self.

sheesh.

 

My new title: Queen of the Red Tape. You've read about my ongoing saga about my overhead lights in my office. I was promised the services division would turn off my lights as soon as they got the request.Uhmm, they got it last Thursday. And the lights are still on. The last I heard was: they (services division) is still waiting to hear back from GSA (building managers).sheesh.

Yesterday I went to the MVA, (aka DMV) to get a temporary handicap parking permit. I had a note written on a prescription pad siting medical reasons. The lady at the desk sent me (hobbling on crutches, don't forget) to window number 15. You need to have a form filled out by the doctor. I have to go back to the Hospital, I can't use this note? You can ask my supervisor at window 9. Ok. Hobble, hobble. Nope, has to be that form.

Back to the hospital where they tell me they can't sign it, it has to be by my primary care physician or a specialist. Well, no, I read the form more closely, actually for a temporary permit practically any doctor can sign it. But no doctor on duty will sign it, only the doctor who saw me, and he won't be back to work until Wednesday night. sheesh.

Meanwhile I'm parking in the next county at work, because, if you remember, the parking garage is closed because of the broken support beam.

The bum ankle.

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I got out the tape measure this morning and the results are in: Kev came in at 66 inches (168cm) and Fern at 58.75 inches (149cm) tall. That up an inch and a half since January. Poor Kev's pants (size 14) are now 4" (10cm) too short. The size 16's are borderline short. Which means size 18's are next. Except he is a size 12 around his waist. He'd never keep them up.

Kevin's been playing with my crutches and leaving all over the house so I can't reach them when I need them. But that's not the disturbing part, it's that he can use them. He must have grown again because they are not too big which puts him at about 5'6" or 5'7." I guess it's growth chart time again to find out.

I rolled my ankle yesterday afternoon falling down a step. I thought I was at the bottom but wasn't. Oops. No broken bones, but during my discharge lecture at the hospital I was told soft tissue can take up to a year to heal properly. It's nice and swollen now, about the size of an orange.

I'm worried about my golf game.

I finished another quilt, this one hangs in my husband's office. Several years ago he got a promotion and with it came a private office. I set out to make this for him and to liven up his walls. I wanted to hand quilt it because I felt only hand quilting could do it justice since the pattern is so intricate. Then I finally realized, as the top sat unquilted for many years, I was never going to have time to hand quilt this piece. I got most of it machine quilted during the retreat and finished it up when I got home. Click to enlarge.

Misheard or misunderstood song lyrics are part of life. Kevin has
several he sings, two I can think of at the moment are:

• "Ear plugs, running down your face" and my favorite
• "All of the elephants grow"

Can you guess the real words?

Murphy's Law. I guess I should have posted my tirade earlier. Soon after I hit "publish" this afternoon, I got a call from my doctor.

1. their phones were on the blink since yesterday.
2. someone will re-fax my letter
3. someone will call me to confirm I got the fax

I did get the fax and the confirmation call and I did get the letter delivered to the disabilities lady in HR. Today was her last day. sheesh. She will leave it for the other woman in that office (the one with whom I spoke in the first place). She was out today. I might need more documentation, but it's up to her when she gets in in the morning. double sheesh. Isn't a headache everyday for two and a half weeks enough documentation? I reported all of this to my Assistant Division Chief who will help me out if I need more for HR. I'm beginning to get some real hope.

Two weeks ago I reported on my new cubicle in our new office building. I am happy to report I'm still getting headaches everyday. In addition to that, I'm extremely pleased to report the adjacent parking garage has a big crack in it from too much snow and ice piled in one place, and therefore is closed. But that's another story.

I finally got to see my doctor last Thursday (first appointment was canceled because of snow) so I can get a note to take to the disabilities office so I can get the headache inducing lights removed from my area. She said she'd have it written by Friday, Monday at the latest. At 3:30 on Monday I got a call from the office manager at the doctor's office telling me "the computers are messed up" and she couldn't get my letter to me until Tuesday. Tuesday at 3:30 I start calling their office again to inquire about my precious letter. The recording says they are out to lunch and lunch lasts an hour and a half. At 5 til 5:00 I finally get a call from the office manager, she has the letter and will fax it to me and rattles off the number. I want to check it since it's new in the new building but she says it's what the doctor wrote down and disconnects. It was the wrong number. I try to call back, but they are still out to lunch. When they are out to lunch, you cannot leave a message.

And they were still out to lunch until almost 2:00 this afternoon. When they finally answered the phone, I learn the office manager is not in today and no one else knows what's going on. And the doctor is with patients. I called again a bit ago, talked to someone new, she didn't know what is going on, will pull my chart and try to find the letter.

I'm tired of my head hurting every day. I'm tired of complaining about this with no results. I'm tired of not being able to get any work done. I'm tired of being tied to the small bit of "land" under this beach umbrella. I like my job, (when I can do it) and don't want to leave my agency, but my future here is a little too bright.

We had a two hour snow delay this morning—from the 4" of snow that fell yesterday—so I had some time to put up this batch hand-dyed fabrics before the kids had to catch their buses. A blend of red-brown to olive green. I'm thinking about making more to sell at our quilt guild's show next month. Should I? Whadiya think? What colors should I dye?

The windows in our church's sanctuary look out on the surrounding woods and with today's snow, it was a beautiful, peaceful landscape to behold. The worship service started normally, but, well, first, let me say I side with the bat.

The youth minister's son's baptism was postponed until after the sermon because not all the family's guests had arrived yet. That threw the organist off.

After about 5 minutes into the pastor's sermon I notice something flying around. I realized it wasn't a bird and nudged Fern and pointed out the bat to her. A few minutes later Reverend James noticed it too and stopped his sermon. We all sat in silence watching it fly in circles around the sanctuary. I wish he had just ignored it and continued with the homily, but didn't. Things went down hill from there when the congregants started throwing coats up at the bat.

What were they expecting to accomplish by throwing coats at this bat? Poor little thing, scared and lost, and now heavy winter coats. It finally got cornered and ushered out and James went on with the baptism, abandoning the sermon altogether.

The service was disjointed and gave me a sense of being incomplete, wonder what the rest of the day will bring? Oh yeah, snow.

Another quilt finished! This is Kevin's Autism quilt as it hangs in his room on the wall.

This is a close-up of the quilting I did in each block. I used mono-poly in a stipple meander in the background fabric and thread to match the star points in the centers of each star.

This is a sink full of hand-dyed fabric the women did at the quilting retreat. I love the colors! Click on any picture to enlarge.

The piggy bank has been washed and the money inside is no longer green. (see previous post.) I was thinking about opening a savings account for Kev while I was "laundering" the coins in his bank. One of the local banks has a free coin counting machine and I could let him take his bank to the bank and have the change counted. He'd love it. He likes putting the quarters in the soda machines when we let him. He gets the concept of money in slots, he's even deposited quarters in the slot of my sewing machine. I don't know if he'd get the whole concept savings accounts, however. I'll have to talk to Dan about it.

Speaking of Dan, he's started a new music blog, posting a song of the day every day, just click over there on the right to get there and listen. I love his taste in music, much more adventurous than mine, guess that's one of the reasons I married him. :)

I'm back from my 3-night quilting retreat. The car is not quite unpacked, but it's getting there. It took 7 trips to get the car loaded from the retreat center, and probably more than that to get it unloaded now into the house.

I got a lot done in addition to leading the mystery quilt and the fabric dyeing workshops. I'm so thrilled the ladies seemed to enjoy both activities. I'll post pictures of the quilts I worked on as soon as I get the car unloaded and the pictures downloaded.

I better check on Kevin, he headed off with a tub of paint and a brush. later.....

I was irritated this morning on my way to work when a woman passed me in the carpool lane. I had seen her first in my rear view mirror without a passenger and as she went past I saw the backseat was also void of any child seats, too. Solo in her plain white car wearing a ball cap. Then was doubly irritated when the woman in the blue car behind me jumped over to the carpool lane. I was going a bit over the speed limit, but apparently not fast enough. She, too, was solo. I saw the woman in the white car check her rear view mirrow and pull back into the regular lane and the blue car drive on.

Now, I've seen enough cop shows on TV in my life to know the plain white car was an unmarked patrol car and was thrilled beyond belief when I got to my exit and saw the ball-cap woman had pulled over the blue car woman, headlights flashing. Ah, the joy!

I'm finished!

I finished the Retreat Quilt last night. I am such a perfectionist when it comes to quilting, I can't stand anything wrong, any seam not lining up, but this one, I just let it go. I didn't trim the batting off exactly the same width all the way round, I didn't even try to make it exactly straight. I sewed the binding on by machine, not a speck of exacting hand work went into it. I'm done and I'm happy.

And it's beautiful!


Close up of one block.


This is about a quarter of the quilt. It's 80" x 90" so I can't show the whole thing at once unless I hang it on a fence or something but it's too icy for that.

Well, I've moved in to my new office space. I got in on Monday and immediately got a headache, went out to lunch with friends and it went away. After lunch the headache was back. I hate these overhead lights. Right now I'm sitting under an umbrella which is propped up over my computer. Yesterday I wore a Panama hat. Any ideas for tomorrow?

To get the lights permanently turned off (like they were in my other office) I have to get the Services office to come by. They won't come by until they get a work order from the Disabilities Office. The Disabilities office won't issue a work order until I get a doctor's note. I can't get a doctor's note until I can get an appointment. I had one for today but the office was closed because of weather. Meanwhile I try to stave off headaches and get work done.

I'm almost unpacked, just a bit of little desk stuff to put away, but I'm waiting to do that because my drawer sticks and the fix-it guys are supposed to come by. I don't want to load up that drawer only to have to unload it when they come.

I've been finding interesting scraps of paper on and in my desk as I clean up to move.

Here's a list:
sponges
tomatoes
tractor battery
gas
lemonade

Here's another:
2 eggs
cake mix
can of pie filling
bundt pan - greased
bake 50 minutes @ 350°
__
German choc & cherries
spice & apple


This one is a to-do list (I hope I did this, I'm throwing this scrap away):

• add target to html url
• take out p
• and/or shipments in warning
• copy

This scrap is the most cryptic:
47.85 head
750 a.m.
345


What does it all mean?

I enjoyed my time at home yesterday morning, mostly because I got to work on my retreat quilt and the kids were having fun on their day off. (I am about half done with quilting the quilt!)

Then I got to work. We're moving to our new office building on Monday, so we have to get packed this week. It's hard to pack and work at the same time: I can't pack that yet, I might need it! or I can't pack that yet, it's got to be on top when I unpack. I've gotten rid of a lot, unearthed lots of "treasures" I'd long forgotten about, and wondered where I'll hang my maps since we have height restrictions now in our new cubicles, nothing can be higher than the glass in partitions. The style police do come by and leave "love" letters if you're out of compliance.

Wonder how many citations I'll get?

There is an inch of show on the ground and school is closed today! Sheesh. Maybe other parts of the county are in bad shape, but it looked like a two-hour delay out my window to me, really only a one-hour delay, but we don't seem to have such things here. Dan headed off to work and I've got the morning shift with the kids. They are still in bed at the moment so I've got quiet time to do more quilting on the retreat quilt. I finished the binding on the cat quilt for CG's daughter last night during American Idol, now I just need to sew the hanging sleeve down and put on a label.

Thank Goodness for broken water pipes! Well, only when they supply water to my office building and I get a day off! I've already loaded and started the dishwasher, took a load of neighbor girls to school, and worked on a quilt.

I have a thermometer in the van that reads the outside temp. It started out at 45°F in the garage and dropped down to 10°F by the time we got to school, the girls counting down the temp like the rocket count-down. They were disappointed it didn't go to single digits. I reminded them 22° below freezing was cold enough. It was interesting to me to "watch" their brains work, sure 10° was cold but 22° below freezing made the cold more real.

The quilt I'm working on this morning has been in progress for almost two years. I started it at quilt retreat in '05, I got the top done last year and got it basted a month ago or so. It is my "retreat" quilt because I needed a quilt for my bed at the retreat center, using a sleeping bag sacrilegious, somehow. The pattern is called "birds in the air" and each set of "birds" are of a different fabric, 56 in all. The background is a geranium print, thus the name of the quilt is Birds in the Geraniums.

Click to enlarge.

Here is a little "Trip Around the World" I made over the weekend from my new hand-dyed fabric. (click to enlarge.) I'm debating whether to put on a border to make it bigger. What do you think?

Ta Da! I finally got this set rinsed out. It only took almost three days. sheesh. I've got a pattern in mind and I'll cut them up tomorrow to start on it. Stay tuned!

Here are my blue-greens after the first rinse. There is still a lot of errant dye in there to get out, so it may take a few attempts to get the water to run clear. The rinsing is the not-so-fun part of dyeing fabric. Sometimes you think the water will never run clear and your hands will always look like you stole them from a smurf. Or, when the water finally does run clean you do a final wash in synthrapol and the water is blue again, way blue.

The furnace guys are installing the new 90% efficient unit today. There was a miscommunication about the humidifier to be installed. I thought it was included with the furnace, but it was only included when I bought a whole system: heat plus air. I didn't want the whole system now, (more like I didn't want to spend that much now) so the humidifier wasn't included. (So it is included with the air conditioner? No.) When I said I only wanted the furnace, I meant I didn't want the air, He thought I meant I only wanted the furnace.

It just made me very, oh jeez, I don't even know the word for it, tricked? What it boils down to, I think, is salesmen. I always feel I've been slimed. Dan and I joined a gym about 10 years ago, we wanted to, but after the whole sales process I felt like I never wanted to go to the gym again and canceled as soon as we could. Ever feel like this?

I finally got around to taking a picture of the purple batch of fabric I dyed last week. It was supposed to be a plum to fuchsia blend, but the fuchsia is so strong not much of the plum shows. You can see bits of the plum in the light spots since the fuchsia reacts so quickly and the purple takes longer to seep in. If I try this blend again I'll have to use more plum powder and half the fuchsia. It's so hard to tell what you're going to get in the end by looking at the bags, these looked like beets in the beginning, but they rinsed out so pink.



I started yet another batch last night, this time using the new dye I ordered from Dharma: peacock blue and kelly green. I did an eight step blend instead of the usual six but the end colors are pure, (there's no green in the strongest blue bag and no blue in the strongest green bag).

Follow my logic here: if the school nurse can send a kid home with pink eye, then she could say it's not, right? Good, so the nurse looked at Kevin's eye and said his lid was swollen and red because of a sty, not conjunctivitis so I didn't have to take the poor boy to the doctor or deal with eye drops!

Happy Dance Time!

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Do you spell-check your posts? Have you noticed how horrid this spell-checker is? I checked the above paragraph and it didn't like sty or conjunctivitis. And, I had them spelled correctly! sheesh.

I got a new pilot light yesterday for the furnace so it was nice and toasty this morning. The bad news is the bearings are about shot in the blower motor and we need a new furnace anyway.

Oh well.

Now I have to pick up my son from school which hasn't even started yet and take him to the doctor to have his eye checked for pink eye. The new furnace I can deal with, it's the prospect of putting eye drops into my autistic son's eyes that pushes me over the edge. I just don't know how that's going to happen.

I never got any quilting done yesterday, boo!, but the house got vacuumed and the laundry is on the home stretch, just down to the sheets and towels. Yay!

It's about 54°F in my house this morning and about 18°F outside. I've got a sick kid upstairs and I'm waiting for the furnace guy to show up. I've turned the oven on the "clean" cycle to generate some heat and I'd say it's a lovely day to get some quilting done! I really should continue on the laundry, got a lot done this weekend, but yet, there is more; and I should get some vacuuming done, too, but that would mean I've got to pick up kevin's pile of letters which I'm not allowed to touch while he's awake in the house. I guess I'll do the Flylady thing and set the time for 15 minutes and alternate between the should do's and wants to's.

Oops, there goes the smoke detector, gotta go.

I just got this text message: Got 100% on exam!

When we got Fern her own mobile phone last summer I hadn't expected to get science grades sent to me, but it is certainly nice!

I was standing in my bathroom in my pajamas at 7:44 yesterday morning when I got a call from my boss. Could I be in by 8:30 for a meeting with Bob? I hadn't showered yet, and I couldn't leave until Kevin's bus came, who wasn't even ready yet. But somehow, Kevin got the bus, and I beat it out of the neighborhood while it was turning around, I got a whole string of green lights in a row, found a decent parking spot and got to the meeting by 8:33. We really needed to meet with Bob and this was the only time he could meet with us. It's things like this that make my life fun, when things just fall into place.

I love those PC and Mac ads on TV, well, mostly because my home laptop is an iBook. The ads are true (although a bit snobby.) Macs are so easy. If a hotel has wireless all I have to do is open the laptop and start surfing. It just finds the network. If it's a secured network it prompts me for a password, it's smart enough to know what's going on.

CG came over this morning to use our wireless so she could submit her work for her new reporter job since her internet connection is still out of commission. She opened her non-Mac laptop and it couldn't find our wireless automatically; it's so convoluted. Nor did she want me trying to force the connection because the laptop then might not find her network when it was working again. yowza. Sorry for the trouble, but get a Mac already ! =)



I finished the second batch of hand-dyes yesterday (batch on right, the ones on the left are from Saturday). They are so pretty! (The top picture was taken right after the pieces came out of the bags.)

I made two test blocks for retreat mystery quilt this morning during our two-hour snow delay. I'm leading that too. Can you believe it! If you want to sew along, let me know and I'll post the directions here, too. I'm trying not to do too much extra stuff, really! I finally finished the Vincenzi books so that's off my plate now; more room for more mischief..........

I couldn't wait until my new dyes came so I dyed a batch last night with dyes from my stash.


This set is Kilt green blended with hollandaise yellow. The green is so strong and very blue you can hardly see the yellow much past the first piece.


This is my second attempt using the kilt green and yellow. This time I used a quarter of the amount of the green dye powder: 1/2 tsp in a cup of water to start. I use half of that in the first bag and fill the cup back up to the cup line. I keep that proceedure going for all six bags. I do the same thing for the yellow using two tablespoons of dye powder to start but put in the bags in reverse order.

Take this test and post your scores.

I'm "Brilliant!"
(Did you expect anything less?)

I love the Internet! I got an email this morning saying my order from Dharma was filled and already on its way to me. So as soon as it gets here I'll do a test run by dyeing some quilting fabric in my new colors. I ordered a bright green and a peacock blue, so I think a 6-way blend of the two will be fabulous! Ooooh, I can't wait. I'll have to start thinking of a watery-like quilt project....

I can't wait for my quilt guild's retreat next month. It's usually a wonderful time, away from the kids and spilt chocolate milk, staying up late, sewing until your hands fall off, starting way too many projects to ever finish.

I volunteered to lead a fabric dyeing workshop one afternoon. I have no idea why I do things like that. Especially since I haven't dyed fabric in about eight years. I've been looking at my old notes and am I'm slowly remembering how to do it, I even placed an order at Dharma for two new colors of dye. I decided I needed to practice dyeing first so I'll round up some of the girls and moms in the neighborhood and lead a class one afternoon. AM said she'd bring her girls. I figured if I could teach them, the adults at the retreat could not be harder, right? My plan is to show them how to do a six-step two-color blend. Is that too much for the girls? Am I crazy? What colors would you blend?

I committed myself to entering four quilts in our guild's show in March. Only one of them is done. Sheesh. I'm entering the green quilt I posted a picture of last week, I've got about a quarter of the binding done. I'm not sure about the fabric choice but I'm not going to change it now, maybe after the show if I'm so inclined. It might be fine once it's all on.

The third quilt is the one I made for GC's daughter for Christmas. I had only one edge bound at gift time and the rest of it was clipped down. Now it's almost half bound. I'll spend American Idol time working on it. I know I really should be doing more constructive things around the house, but AI audition week is so darn captivating, watching others do something badly. Anyway, it's a great time for handwork.

The fourth quilt is the one that's not even quilted yet. It's Kevin's Autism quilt. I'm still not sure how I'm going to quilt it. I'm sure inspiration will strike. Soon. I hope. I plan on working on it at the guild retreat next month.

I'm almost done with the third Penny Vincenzi book, Into Temptation. I always feel this pull when I'm reading a long book and wanting to do other things too. I tried reading during AI last night and it didn't work well. I want to finish the 2000 page saga so I can get on to these committed quilts. I'll be sad when I'm finished though, I've been with these characters since the middle of November. (The illegit kid count is holding at 8, if you were wondering...)

I'm back from Myrtle Beach and I'm sore all over. Dan gave me a two-day golf school for Christmas which was scheduled for this past weekend. I got video-taped and analyzed and made a bazillon practice swings and hit another bazillion balls. I need to go to the practice range to reinforce what I've learned. But I'm too sore. And it's too windy out today. I could go over to Andrew's AFB and hit a bucket at lunch time. Hmm. Have to think about it more. It's tempting...

The weather was great; it was hard to remember it is January. Fern brought a friend along and we spent a couple hours on the beach one morning. Here's my attempt at abstract art:


Another day we went to the Brookgreen Gardens. This series is from a spot in the Children's Garden:





Brookgreen is south of MB, down near Pawley's Island. Delightful place, especially if you like gardens and sculptures. One of the statues:

Have you ever walked out of a hotel room without your key? Or didn't have a pocket to put it in when you went down to the pool?

This past weekend we took the kids to the promised land: Great Wolf Lodge. This time in the Poconos. This promised trip was how we got Kevin out of bed for the past five months, how we got him to take his bath or put his shoes on or do his homework. You get the idea. He was so excited the week before, packing suitcases, squealing, flashing his ever radiant smile. Of course he didn't pack what he really needed. More like what he didn't need, like a suitcase full of things from my lingerie drawer.

We arrived about 3:00 pm Saturday afternoon and our room wasn't ready yet, but we got our wristbands and changed into our suits and hit the waterpark. The indoor waterpark area is bigger there than the GWL in Williamsburg. A while later I got our room keys: more wristbands. These had sensors built in so you waved it next to your door and you got in. No keycards to lose or forget! The kids could even be trusted with their own key. I wonder how'd they go over with the business traveler?

The trip went well and another trip is planned for June. How else do you think we'll be able to get the boy going in the mornings? My only complaint about the trip was the very very low water pressure in the shower. I hate that. One of these days I'm going to take my own wrench and remove the stupid water saver filters. I can't stand taking a shower one drop at a time, taking 20 minutes to rinse your hair, forget the conditioner with a showerhead like that. But that's another blog...

Today I'm pondering blogworthy things: are the little black specs in the ladies' room sink that look a lot like whiskers substantive enough to blog about? Or are they just little things in life that make you go, "Mmm?" Did some guy stumble in there this morning at 6:30 not quite awake enough yet because the coffee shop doesn't open until 7:00 to notice the "Wo" in front of the "Men" sign on the door? Or am I not supposed to make such observations?

On another topic, did you know it takes two and a half to three hours to transfer 9263 songs onto a new iPod? The famous "As seen on CNN" iPod hit the garage floor the other day and was replaced last night with a new 80GB iPod.

I finished Something Dangerous over the weekend and started the third book in the trilogy, Into Temptation and the children out of wedlock count is up to eight, but there is a mystery about one so it could be only seven. Still.

I'm working on the binding of this quilt: I finally settled on a rusty orange for the border. I couldn't find any green I liked. It'll hang in our guild show in March. If I can get the binding done....

CG/AM is going to give me back the quilt I made for her daughter for Christmas so I can finish the binding on that too. (It was given with clips around the edge.) I'm going to hate binding when it's all over. I'll post a picture of it when I'm done.

Are you ready for valentine's day? I got my first glimpse of what's to come when I saw red heart cookies in a bakery window this evening at the mall. Yikes. Red will be everywhere: cookies, candy boxes, underwear. Can you stand it?

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My husband and Fern went to the 'Zards game tonight and Kev and I went to the mall. I had to exchange some headphones at the Apple store, the left ear had gone out. We dined at the food court, he Chick-fil-A, and I chose the chicken salad sandwich at Arby's. He was good, only disappeared a few times, each to a nearby escalator so I knew where he was. When he was about 5 or so we lost him, had no idea where he was. Even got mall security to help us. As it turns out, he had gone into the Right Start baby store. We'd only been in there once before, but he has an astonishing memory and knew they had cool things to look at. Now he hovers around me while I shop and I don't worry too much.

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I'm reading Something Dangerous by Penny Vincenzi these days. It's the second of a British family saga trilogy. The first book, No Angel, covers 1904 to 1920, World War I. This book covers 1928 to 1946, World War II. Vincenzi is a British writer and therefore the spellings are British as well as the language. It's a different language style than the British version of Harry Potter so I can't figure out if that's her regular writing style or she is also using the style of the day, the time frame about which it's written. In any event, they are good reads so far and I recommend them. I'm even keeping a tally of the children conceived out of wedlock so far. (6!)

Merry Christmas to All! My house looks like Kansas after Dorothy got sucked into Oz: piles of presents everywhere, missing gifts, and bits of torn wrapping paper.

My great present this year was a certificate to golf school in South Carolina in a couple weeks from my darling husband. He's a great gift-giver.

I really enjoyed hearing Fern squeal when she opened her gifts. CG/AM got her some saxophone music, big squeal there. The new camera from her grandparents got a squeal too. Kev, on the other hand, doesn't squeal, but you know he likes something when he opens it right away and starts playing despite the pile of unwrapped boxes waiting.

One of the cool unexpected things my husband got was a comment on his blog from the leader of the band he was writing about.

Whew! The loaf of AM's homemade fruitcake is gone. Now maybe the numbers on the scale will reverse their current trend.

Fern and I were window shopping in Ellicot City, MD on Saturday and stopped in a jewelry store. The clerk offered me hot cider or mulled wine and I declined, but Fern said yes to cider. After a couple sips she didn't want any more and gave it to me. Hmm, tastes like wine to me. The clerk was beside herself, embarrassed and apologetic, I didn't mean to give your daughter wine. I was far more amused at the situation than upset with the clerk. And Fern has a fun story to tell.

Ellicot City is home of the oldest railroad station in the country and a nice destination for a day trip, if you like trains or like to shop in an "old town" setting. The rail museum has a nice holiday train layout set up to watch.

Do you watch Survivor? I'm in an office pool and drew Ozzy. During other seasons my pick has gotten eliminated very early, this year I'm hopefull. There are five players left on the show (Ozzy's one of them), and four money slots in the pool, therefore I have an 80% chance of winning money and a 20% chance of winning the whole thing. Statistically. Human nature and television producers can really mess up statistics. The pot is $90 for me if Ozzy wins.

Now that I can see my fish, I added more. Last night I bought 8 large gold neon tetras and 4 cory cats. I think I got a bargain, I keep counting 9 neons, but then again they keep swimming around so I really don't know for sure. The big reason I have a tetra tank is because tetras school and I love seeing groups of fish swimming around together.

Have you ever been in a public restroom stall and your change falls out of your pocket? How far did it roll?

I woke up on Sunday and found that apparently the earth is flat.

My daughter is one strange bird.

My week-long project is finally coming to a close. My 55-gallon fish tank in my bedroom had been overtaken by algae, it was so thick in there I couldn't tell if I had any fish. (I did). I put them in a smaller tank on the floor and drained the water from the big tank and added copious amounts of bleach to kill the algae. The bedroom smelled like a natatorium for the week while I scrubbed the glass in spare bits of time. Everyday Fern would walk in my room and inhale deeply. She couldn't get enough of the smell. I guess I should be glad she's not attracted to the smell of natural gas, she'd have her head in the oven.

Yesterday I moved the little guys back into the main tank and by this morning they were adjusting again and the chlorine smell is dissipating. I made the stupid mistake of sliding the aquarium up against the wall without measuring for enough space behind for the filter (which was on the other tank at the time). Ever try to move a 55 gallon tank with water and rocks on a heavy wooden stand away from the wall without spilling a drop or removing the water? I did, and that's why I get to be Construction Girl's trusty side-kick.

Now that I can actually see my fish, I need to buy more.

It's been a while since I've successfully machine quilted a quilt larger than a wall hanging. (never) I tend to do something easy, like straight lines or meanders. People always say I'm so creative, but the truth is I can follow a pattern so I just look creative, but I can't "see" the way to quilt something so it's not just another pile of boring fabric. I can't look at a quilt/block pattern and "see" plumes of sweeping feathers placed just so, or "see" how to fill an empty space where two blocks meet. I have and browsed many times "Quilting Makes the Quilt" and can see possibilities, but have no talent for transferring examples to ideas for my pieces.

I've been pondering this while working on a quilt I've been commissioned to make for Christmas. I only have two weeks to finish it. My friend picked out the pattern and the fabric and I've put the top together. She wants me to quilt it (as opposed to sending it out to a long-arm quilter). The pattern is 16" sawtooth star blocks with secondary sawtooth stars where four blocks come together. There is plenty of open space for nice quilting patterns which I could buy at the quilt shop (since I can't imagine them on my own). But that's another thing, I'm not sure I've got the skill to machine quilt a pattern without making mistakes. The quilt is for an 8 yo she isn't quilt savvy so it'll pass the 20 yards at a gallop test, but will it pass the "I'm proud of my work" test?
My goal, therefore, becomes: pick out a quilting pattern for this quilt that I can do easily, and be proud of, and is not just straight lines.

I got the quilt layered and pin basted so it's ready to go. I set up my new sewing computer with the chosen thread and the stitch regulator (the reason I bought my new machine in the first place) and made a test piece. I'm still shaky and the lines aren't very smooth. I'm very nervous about starting the actual quilting. How much more practice do I do?

I did a load of "fine washables" this morning. To prevent the straps from tangling and the underwires from bending in the dryer I hung them to dry in the laundry room (a la Marsha Mason & Richard Dreyfuss). Fern walked by, she's 11, and gasped.

Something for her to look forward to....

I need your opinion. There is an annoying commercial on the radio for a housing development. "Come see Brookfield homes today," or something like that, emphasizing the word "home."

I say that structure that people live in, is a house. After you move in and live in it, then it's a home.

Builders don't build homes, they build houses. The commercial just sounds shallow to me.

People make a house a home. What do you think?

Yesterday's good deed:
Last night at the grocery after I paid for my things I saw a neighbor and said hello. He's the husband of Fern's Girl Scout troop leader. (He's also the local rock star, but that's another story.) After a brief exchange I learn he's got over $100 of groceries in his cart and no wallet in his pocket. (He forgot he had replaced his wallet with a screwdriver earlier in the day while working in the house.) So I whip out my checkbook and make out another check to the store.

If you're counting, that's three money-related good deeds I've done in the last couple of weeks. What have you done?

Keyboard test: pop off all the keys on your keyboard and clean under there. (Yuck!) Now, put them back. Do you know where they all go? Did you lose any under your chair? I did OK except those four below the shift key on the right side. And my space key still sticks. ARG!

I drive a minivan. Am I automatically a "soccer mom?" Someone referred to me as one and I balked at the idea. My kids don't play soccer, therefore I'm not a soccer mom, Right?

Today I spent a lot of money on a new sewing machine. No, sorry, scratch that. It's not a sewing machine, the owner's manual calls it a "sewing computer." (Did not come with a sewing mouse, in case you wanted to know.) And another thing, it wasn't new, it was experienced. I was able to get a medium-end used machine for a better price than that of the next lower model brand new.

Experienced. I get a chuckle out of that word. I guess it's the new word for "used." One of the golf mentors at work has a bag of experienced golf balls available for us novices to use. Do they perform better than inexperienced balls?

What other "experienced" things have you experienced?

I, like other bloggers, have a list of other blogs I check and read on a regular basis. I must be caught in a time warp because many of my favorites haven't had new posts in a long time. Where is everybody? Don't tell me I missed the airline sale to someplace warm and sunny. Dernit.

Do you want the good news first or the bad?

The good news is I had a nice birthday on Thursday. CG and my husband conspired about tickets to Movin' Out. He got a pair for Fern and me and CG bought a pair for her daughter and her. The four of us should have a great time. I also got earrings (two pair), mall a gift card, books (all three of a trilogy) and rachet wrenches. Nice haul. Dinner was great, crab legs, yum. Pleasant evening.


The bad news is Petey died last night. Fern's first parakeet. We're not sure what he died of, but the pet shop owner said he had some kind of face mite. I don't if there were other factors or not. He was strong until the end flying around like crazy until yesterday. Rest in peace, Pete.

My dad is becoming a blogger. He's been taking photos most of his life and recently switched over to digital. I love to look at his work but since I don't get to visit that often I've been encouraging him to post them. When he has enough up I'm going to shop his work around. There is a lovely cafe/gallery in Annapolis in which he should show his work. It's far easier to give out a blog address to the cafe owner than to try to get Dad to bring over a portfolio.

Click over on "dad's photos" in the margin, or just click here. Enjoy!

I'm so stressed about the house I'm not sleeping well.

When the painters were here they moved everything to the centers of each room. This process unearthed loads of stuff. junk. debris. crap. The walls are so pretty now I don't want to just put the old stuff back exactly where it came from. I took probably a dozen things off the mantle before painting and now there is a vase and a pair of candlesticks. I don't want to put anything else back up there.

I spent the better part of the weekend putting the family room kitchen back in order. The hearth has been cleaned and vacuumed. I bought a new lamp for the top of the new bookshelf. We have an eight foot cookbook shelf in our kitchen. The painters put all the books and the other school papers that were up there in 3 large bins. Fern and I dusted the books off and put them back up. I purged the collection and marked a large box for give-away. All the loose recipes, school papers, IEP's and report cards are now arranged neatly in metal magazine files. You can actually get something without it falling on your head. When my husband came back from his trip, he just noticed the box of books in the hall.

I'm supposed to be working on a Christmas quilt, but I've lost my enthusiasm about it. This house has zapped the life out of me.

I'm noticing a new level of maturity in my autistic son. On Friday night I dropped him off at Xtreem Teens at the community center. This was not a Special Pop event (activities designed for people with disabilities), but one for regular kids. The activity was tie-dying a shirt and he said he wanted to go. He made it clear he didn't want me hanging around and he could be there in the group by himself.

Then later when I picked him up, I drove through McD's and got him some french fries. His sister asked him for one and he gave her one without complaint. And then another. I was stunned. He was sharing near-sacred fries with his sister?

wow.

Another shot of Times Square from last month.

Yesterday I found a bank check for $5500 on the sidewalk. Today I found a debit card on the floor in a hallway here at work. I knew both owners and their valuables have been returned.

Ever have days like these?

Wonder what I'll find tomorrow, maybe a large bag of $10's and $20's.....

Do you suffer from reality show depression? You know what I mean, you get hooked on a show, you're there every week, same time, same channel. The contestants dwindle to three or four people. Then they crown a winner and the next week at the usual time slot there is a huge void in your life. No show to tune in to. You get attached to these people, you love the way they dis their other house/tribe/team mates. They excel in challenges. You have them in the office pool. Then *poof* it's over.

I've been watching Project Runway, Bachelor Rome, Survivor, Amazing Race, Hell's Kitchen and Top Chef.

What do you watch? Who are you rooting for? Why do the bimbos on Bachelor really care if this guy is a prince? Do British women have princess fixations, or is just us Americans since we don't have our own royality?

Dastardly halloween candy.

Rrrrrr.

I tried to get the gym here at work to start the "Maintain - Not Gain" program before Halloween, but "studies have shown if the program lasts too long it will lose participation." I told them that might be true, but people also need help with candy season. I don't over eat at Christmas and New Year's, just Halloween. I can pass on extra stuffing and pumpkin pie. I can pass on warm rolls and melting butter. I can pass on gravy made from scratch from turkey drippings. I have a hard time passing by an Almond Joy or Butterfinger.

Now I'm hungry.

Sheesh.

I got a new polarizer filter for my camera and this is my first shot with it. I love the depth of the blue you get with one.

These are the square milk cartons I wrote about. Weird, huh?

This was one of the shots I took throught the sun roof of CG's van driving down 7th Ave through Times/Duffy Squares.

I'm home today. I'm supposed to be getting the livingroom ready for the painters. They had been working upstairs and it looks wonderful. Now I need to pick up k'nex and lego creations so the guys can prep the walls.

The van is in the shop, the "check engine" light started flashing, not a good thing. We get a rental at the dealership so I was driving a green-Champaign Taurus over the weekend. I noticed a tag hanging down from the lid of the trunk when I loaded the trunk with groceries. It was a glow-in-the-dark escape release in case you were ever put in the trunk against your will. It gave me an idea.

At our church on the Sunday before Halloween there is a party for the kids which concludes by "Trunk or Treating." In the parking lot the adults hand out candy to the parade of kids from their cars. They often dress up their trunks for the occasion.

I climbed in the trunk with my bags of Reece Cups and Butterfingers and closed the lid just far enough so I could still get my hand out with a candy bar. I wouldn't let go until I heard "Trick or treat," or "thank you" from each child. I had a great time with this "costume." A lot of the other partnets didn't know it was me because it wasn't the car I usually drive. How am I going to top it next year?

Improper grammar drives me nuts. My mother taught high school English. So did my grandmother before she when on to earn her PhD in Botany and taught at the college level. I was raised getting my grammar corrected from both of them.

Now I correct everyone's grammar, from my daughter to the guys on the radio, the preacher and my friends, whether they can hear me or not. I know it drives them crazy and I apologize, my corrections are almost like an involuntary response.

The "I" and "me" personal pronoun error is the most common one I hear. Just yesterday I heard the afternoon guy on the radio say "...email Sue and I your contest entry...." If you take Sue out of the equation then you'd be saying "email I your entry" and you'd know that wasn't correct. Why does the conjunction make it so hard for people?

I knew someone in college who spoke poorly and would not heed my corrections, and would say she could say it correctly if she wanted. She was working on a degree in elementary education. She never got a job teaching. Who would hire a teacher who couldn't speak correctly?

Spelling is another matter entirely, however.

Cupcakes anyone?

Today is my autistic son's 14th birthday. He helped me make cupcakes last night. Maybe I should say I helped him. He's gotten so independent, but I still need to supervise him in the kitchen. He mixed the batter and put the liners in the muffin tins and I poured the batter. I even make a mess doing that. I keep thinking about pouring the batter in a big zip bag and cutting off a corner and squirting it in each cup. But I always think of that after I've started with the scoop.

I'm still trying to eat a low-carb diet so I stayed away from the cupcakes after I pulled them out of the oven. Both kids are wanting one right away. Alright, go ahead, I don't care, burn your mouths, you're old enough to know they are still hot.

About 15 minutes later I go into the kitchen and there are about 5 left of the 24 made. Where did they all go?

As it turns out, my son put a dozen in a tupperware box and frosted them himself. Needless to say, they brought tears to my eyes.

I've been trying to buy pants for Kev for a couple of days now. He's very slender so he could wear size 10's for his waist measurement, but he needs 14's for the length. So I've been looking for 14 slims. I can find 12's, 12 slims, 14's and 14 huskies. Given his autism and indifference to how he looks, my husband and I have to do the best we can so he's not a laughing stock among the other middle schoolers at his school.

The lack of 14 slims in the several stores I've been looking in is frustrating. I bought 2 pairs of regular 14's today with adjustable waists. I hope they fit.

All this looking provokes the question about other kids. Are kids who wear this size just not "slim" any more? Are there so few children who need this size, the manufacturers just don't make them and put in adjustable waists instead? And what about the "husky" kids? Too many video games and snacks I guess.

Choices!
The painters are coming in the morning to start painting most of the rooms in the house and I haven't picked out the colors yet. I have two fan decks, those big books of color chips. Sherwin Williams bought Duron a while back so I have Duron's old colors and their new ones which were Sherwin Williams's old colors.

CG told me she picks colors by the name. "Stone Lion" remninds me of Harry Potter and "Bermuda Grass" reminds me of golfing. "Hiking path" reminds me of mosquitos. I have six rooms to select for. I could go with white in all the rooms, but do you know how many whites there are?

sheesh.

Did you see the Census Bureau's Population Clock flip over to 300,000,000 this morning? I turned on the computer at 7:30 and there were 64 people to go, then forgot to check again until almost 8:00 and I was late by 40 people. Oh well. Mom duties... It's cool to see all those zeros in a row. Here's a screen shot a friend snapped: (Thanks Lisa!)

Click to enlarge.

So Friday morning I look at the number on the scale and I haven't seen that number since I was pregnant. Friday I started a low-carb diet and did pretty well until it was time for dinner on the submarine Saturday evening. They served sandwiches (on sub rolls) and chips (sour cream and chive—my favorite) with lemonade & iced tea (mixed together is one of my favorite beverages) for supper and oreos (another fav) and cheese crackers for bedtime snack.

sheesh. Did I mention pancakes for breakfast?

My daughter's Girl Scout troop sold a bazillion boxes of cookies last spring and part of the money they earned went to camping and this trip to Baltimore to spend the night on the USS Torsk. My brother was a submariner in the Navy and I've been on a sub, so I felt fine saying yes when the leaders said they needed extra adults to go with the girls.

That's all fine and dandy until 0300 when I woke up from the diesel smell and couldn't get back to sleep. (Did I mention this was a 1944 diesel sub and the one I was on back in the 80's was a nuke, so no smell?) All I wanted was a breath of fresh air. I got up and walked around the berthing area and the mess deck a while and tried again to sleep. nada. My mind is warring with itself, fresh air, you're alright, fresh air, you're alright. The hatches were locked from the inside so I conceivably could have opened one and got my lungs satisfied, but I ended up sleeping in the mess hall with the lights on (because we didn't know how to turn them off.) It turned out the benches in the mess hall were padded and quite comfy without the smell of diesel and I could hide my face from the light under the flap of the sleeping bag and get a couple more hours of sleep before wake-up at 0630.

I managed to pass up the sandwich rolls and the chips and the pancakes and handfuls of oreos and as a result the number on the scale this morning was "almost" acceptable. Still above the Mendoza line, but I am much happier about the prospect of not having to buy a new fall wardrobe. Another week of low-carb meals and I'm golden.

I'm so far over my Mendoza line it looks like an actual batting average. No thanks to the food I've consumed in the last several days. CG and her daughter and I went to NYC on Wednesday and back home yesterday. If you've found my blog from hers you've already read about our adventures.

I've been to NYC many times and love it every time I go, but this is the first time I've ever driven in Manhattan. Whew. Not a scared "whew" (I've driven on the beltway around Washington at rushhour), but more like "wow." Our hotel was on 7th Ave so I got to drive right down through Times Square (and Duffy Square if you're being picky) on the way to the Lincoln Tunnel for the journey home. CG had opened the sunroof since it wasn't raining any more and I had one hand on the wheel and the other hand on my camera snapping shots through the roof at every stop light. I guess I need to download them for viewing. I still don't know if they are any good. I saw the Naked Cowboy, but couldn't get a good shot of him from the moving van.

The mower saga continues. First, my husband says I made it sound like I do all the mowing at our house. Did I imply that? Sorry, I just like the lawn tractor because I can't start the push mower so I can't help with the mowing until the tractor is running.

Second, I bought a new battery which I had said before. Yesterday I went out to put it in and the poles are backwards and if I rotate the battery around so the poles are on the right sides, the cables are too short. Now it's back to square one. Gotta buy another new battery. I can't see how to put in new cable without some actual knowledge of engines.

Tomorrow I'm off to NYC to get my semi-annual shearing. CG may post a picture on her site on Thursday night. She's going with me, should be fun.

My pirate name is:

Mad Mary Rackham

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

I hate making phone calls, and I hate it when they don't call me back. We have a lawn tractor and the last time I used it I messed up the front tire when I drove it back in the shed. So I called our mower repair guy. This was summer of '05 by the way. He didn't call back. Over the course of the last year I've called a couple more times and nada. We have a push mower so my husband uses that. I prefer the tractor because

• I can sit and mow at the same time
• I don't get all sweaty
• I can't get enough umph to pull-start the push mower

My husband found an ad for another mower guy who also makes house calls and I finally called him. He came out the next day and tuned up both mowers. When I got home from work I went out to start the tractor. Needless to say I was excited about having it back in working order. But it didn't start. Battery is close to dead. I hooked it up to the charger and the next day the needle on the charger is still sitting on "dead."

Wednesday night I bought a new battery at BJ's for $25. 265 CCA (cold cranking amps). The size that is in there now is 160. I took a car care class about 15 years ago from Pat Goss, the guy on Motor week. One of the things I learned (and remembered) is to put the largest CCA battery in your car that will physically fit. If your owner's manual says you need a 675 and the 900 fits, put it in. You'll have more starting power especially for cold winter starts for longer time. So I bought a much larger battery than needed and hopefully it'll last a while.

Now I just have to get it installed. We had company last night and it's raining today. And the forecast for the weekend doesn't sound good. Oh well. At least the tractor's been tuned up....

I haven't posted in ages. Two weeks ago I took my last project management class. I've taken a series of seven classes through work about project management and I'll be receiving my master's certificate next summer. (There is only one graduation ceremony a year for all graduates at work)

I had to write a paper about my experience in PM for this last class. I was nervous about it since I'm not a PM now and have had no experience doing any of the things we've been learning about. The paper was due on Thursday, so on Wednesday afternoon I finally figured out my topic: quilting! I wrote about how a quilting project can be like work project. I even had footnotes! The instructor enjoyed it, wrote "good paper!" on it, probably because it was about quilting and not like the hundreds of other work-related papers he reads.

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Have you seen those new milk cartons? They don't pour as well as the traditional jugs. They are like a tall square block. I'll post a picture when I have control over the computer and can download one.

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I'm way over my Mendoza line. Have been for weeks. Too much pizza and chestnuts, I guess. I hate it up here. The only thing that fits is jeans and I don't want to wear them to work every day, although they are comfy.