Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Hmm, trying to remember what's been happening since my last post.  Let's see...I joined a couple of on-line quilting groups - really good ones!  One is Stashbuster - using what we have.  I'm really enjoying the people on that one.  Lots of informative chatter.  

I'm continuing to try to purge stuff from this house!  Especially my sewing room.  On the 18th the Blanketeers visited First Street Mission.  We had a nice thorough tour of the place with a wonderful assistant director.  We liked her and the place a lot.  The Blanketeers took several handmade knitted afghans and baby quilts as a donation.  We gained a lot of useful information about various other items the mission will take and I think our group will be visiting with this mission again in the future with additional donations.  I came home from the mission with a renewed vigor for clearing out stuff and immediately packed a bag with some of the dolls that I do not plan to do anything with - am ready to purge.  Hopefully the children the mission serves will be happy to receive a Dora the Explorer doll along with a couple of American Girl type dolls.  I've also included a couple of other items in that bag.  

After our visit to the mission we went to lunch at Panera Bread and then I went by Joann's.  I picked up only items I need to complete current projects along with the fabrics required to participate in the Blanketeer community project.  Well, I also bought a new 2.5" quilting square!  It was on sale for 50% off, so it was a couple of bucks.  

I've been working on great great niece Brynnan's baby quilt.  Almost have it done.  It's pretty big - about 50 x 42 inches.  It is from a kit I bought at a quilt show a year or two ago.  Cute.  I'll get pictures loaded later.  It is unfinished because I had to stop to clean up the room a bit to have the space to lay out the quilt to trim/clean up the side edges.  Hopefully I will get that done tonight then I can cut the binding strips and get those attached.  I will be so glad to get something done and OUT of this house!  I have a number of unfinished projects and my priority, other than the Blanketeer community row quilt, is to get the unfinished projects completed.  

The NE-TX TOGA will be April 5 and 6 so I'm planning to attend that.  Hopefully we will have the rig up and ready to go by then - I'm planning to take it whether Ken goes or not.  I will need to get 6.5" exchange blocks made for that one.  I'll be in hot water if we have 20-30 people sign up for that exchange - but that would be great to get that many blocks in return!!!

On Monday of this week I made telephone calls and got multiple doc appointments set up for this quarter.  First one is tomorrow with the heart doc.  Just a check up so should be short and sweet. His office called this morning wanting to know if I would be willing to change my appointment from 11 a.m. to 8:45 a.m.  I said no - because folks I'm retired and I don't get up early enough to get ANYWHERE by 8:45 in the morning any more!  I gave that up in December 2011.  For the short period of time I worked for the non-profit this last summer and fall I had to be up at 6 a.m. every day to teach two classes a day...I don't want to do that again.  

Yesterday morning I had to have Bennie to the vet at 11:30 a.m.  Ken was gone when I got up so I had to take him by myself.  Bennie Jo is HEAVY but I managed to lift him.  The hard part was that I couldn't leave Luci at home alone - she was having a fit.  So I had to take both of them with me and that was tough.  Eventually Ken showed up at the vet and that made it a little easier but instead of helping me he got on his cell phone with Medtronics in a discussion about his diabetic pump.  He was still on it when we left the vet and was distracted when Bennie pulled out of his collar.  I'm hoping this is a sign that Bennie is losing a little bit of weight - he was supposed to lose 15 lbs.  I'm thinking he has lost some weight since Maggie died in October - he and Luci are not getting as many snacks as Maggie demanded (her liver/cushings disease made her constantly hungry).  

So, I've set up reservations for both the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Daughters of the American Revolution.  I'm trying to become more active in both chapters.  I've got some paperwork to get photocopied to get to the registrar of the UDC.  She's already got the military paperwork.  I've been a member of the DAR for several years already - just need to get active now that I'm retired.  

FW Genealogy meeting is next Tuesday evening at the FW library...I'm planning to go.  

John Norman (relative) got busy last week and did some digging regarding the family cemetery located out west of here...we were afraid it was going to be included in a development project that is going on.  It is not, but it is located very close by.  We try to pay CLOSE attention since developers destroyed the other family cemetery in 2006/2007 and it took a court case to get things straightened out.  We don't want the same thing to happen to this one.  As descendants of early settlers from here, there are many small family cemeteries located around and we are ever watchful that these are not destroyed.  It would be really nice if we could excavate all of them and move them to Oakwood on the north side of town where many of the other family members are buried.  But the cost would be too much.  So, we depend on the city and county folks to keep us apprised of happenings - often reading about developments in the local newspaper.  

That's about it.  Right now I'm going to do about 30 minutes of picking up/cleaning up in the sewing room to stay in step with getting this room cleaned out, then I'm going to sew for about an hour before bed.  After that I'm going to get some things ready to take to the doc with me tomorrow so I can stop at the post office to mail them on the way back.  Haven't heard from any of my children or grandchldren.  They don't even answer text messages or emails.  I'm very confused.  I don't know what I did this time...

 

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Been holed up here at home most of the time for the past several days because of the flu situation going on in our area.  I've not been able to accept any sub teacher assignments for fear of what I might bring home with me as a gift from the little kids.  And I'm sure they would not want me to teach wearing a mask...which is what I must do right now if I go out.  The one day I ventured out to Walmart to pick up a site-to-store package, I had to not take a shower or wash my hair because I couldn't go out in the weather afterward.  So, I bundled up, took hand sanitizer with me, wore my mask, picked up the package and other things I needed and scurried home.  I haven't been out since.  Ken has been kind enough to stop after work to pick up things from the store if needed.  

I have a lunch date with a friend tomorrow.  Hubby and I have discussed it - may not be the best idea for me to do that but I am going to go.  We are going to an Asian restaurant in her area.  I also need to pick up a sewing machine from her as well as doll clothes patterns and a Scentsy order I purchased back in August!!!

While here in my exile I have continued to try to clear some things out of the house.  I sold two more of my vintage dolls and those have been shipped off...to Maine of all places.  I hope they love the babies and take care of them.  I also managed to make myself throw out some old books from when my own children were very young.  I've been hanging on to them because I can't bear to throw out anything that were remotely connected to my children.  But, I'm determined.  And the books were in really bad shape - written and colored in, dog eared, much loved.  They had seen much better days.  I still have many toys to go through.  I'm quite sure my children do not want any of these old toys.  

At the quilting bee on Sunday I started squaring up some blocks that I had fussy cut from some licensed Disney princess fabric - pink of course.  I'm bordering them with a couple of different pink fabrics, making them come out to 12 inch finished blocks.  At least one of them will be turned on point because the way the princess was cut from the fabric she is corner to corner rather than from top to bottom.  I checked out the internet to see how to calculate the size triangles to cut to make the block on point, and it is relatively simple.  It takes two blocks of the border fabric cut the same size as the center block that will be bordered.  Those border blocks are then cut diagonally across to make two triangles and then sewn onto the center block.  I'll try to remember to post a separate blog showing the process.  

Other than that, I had a couple of over-ripe bananas hanging out in the kitchen so I made a banana cake today and iced it with cream cheese icing -- all from scratch!  Yea, I really can do this!  And it's a dang layer cake, not a sheath cake.  Then, in keeping with our plan to use up what we have and clean out things, I pan fried beef patties for supper, topping each of them with a square of cheese.  I also found a bag of sweet potato fries in the freezer so oven cooked those.  I nuked a can of Ranch Style beans to go with the patties and fries and called it supper.  Kinda hillbilly/redneck, but I am NOT going to the grocery store right now.  I want the refrigerator and freezer cleaned out before we go again.  And that dang pantry.  Ken keeps buying crap food and then doesn't eat it.  I've threatened him and made him promise that from now on if he puts it in the grocery cart he has to eat it.  I'm tired of throwing out food.  

For the past year I've been hanging out at home in my sleep shirt all day because I have no "retiree" clothes.  And I am just not comfortable in jeans.  So, I ordered a pair of those dang pajama jeans.  That's the package I picked up at Walmart.  I haven't tried them on yet - hoping they fit.  I also bought two pairs of cute flannel jammy bottoms, some sport bras, and some leggings.  Now what I need are some shirts/tops.  I didn't see anything at Walmart that I liked - I don't like sweatshirts, can't stand that tightness up around my neck.  I'm probably going to have to go to either Catherine's, Dillards, or Macy's to pick up some shirts.  I'm still looking for some pink shirts as well as some yellow and some blue ones.  

I got the compression socks - they help so much.  I've learned my legs feel so much better when I wear them.  I also got new house shoes.  Cheap ones, but they fit my feet and I can keep them on! I can't wear slip ons, they kick off.  So these are a shoe type.  They feel so good on my stone cold feet.  

That's about it - I've rambled on much more than I planned.  Love to all -  and to my children and grandchildren, you are always on my mind.  

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Nope, did not start the New Year off by going to church today.  Didn't mention it - I've learned not to bother.

Been a few days since I've posted anything here -- not much to post.  Since the day after New Year's I've been beating my brain up trying to accomplish everything the FWISD wants done before this coming Tuesday!  Been attending the online seminars for several hours per day, taking assessments, communicating with FWISD, yada, yada, yada.

Along with all the school work I've managed to list some things on Ebay and some of it actually sold!  So I've been spending time getting shipments ready and sent.

Ken was off work on Thursday, Jan. 3, and he was unable to get the lady at First Street Mission to respond to his phone call or email so we made a day for ourselves out of it.  We've been putting a little bit of $$ aside in preparation of visiting the FW museum to see the Titanic Exhibit before it is gone in March.  We've seen the museum video (not very good in our opinion - Cameron's flick is better) but we didn't want to miss seeing the actual exhibit.  So yea!  We went.  We are both history buffs so this interested both of us.  It is a neat exhibit -- we were disappointed that there were not more of the items found during recovery on display, but the exhibit is still worth visiting.  Some of the display is set up so that visitors actually see what it was like to be in some of the passage ways on the ship.

We cannot remember where we have seen a titanic exhibit previously, but somewhere over the years we have, and there were more of the recovered items displayed.  I think our collective memory is shot!

Friday was a holiday off day for the Lockheed Blanketeers so the ladies met for the January meeting lunch at Gloria's which is located in the old Montgmery Ward Plaza here in FW.  I was not feeling so great when I left the house but went anyway thinking I would feel better if I went on.  I enjoy going to the old plaza area - so much redevelopment has been happening in that area.  It was quite difficult to find a parking place and I waivered between leaving or parking some distance and walking.  I finally decided to park and walk.  I walk very slowly, but the distance was only about a block so by walking slowly and stopping when I needed to it wasn't so bad.  These ladies are so wonderful - so talented, so intelligent, so good to be around - I'm glad I parked and walked.  I always have a wonderful time around these ladies.

My system disagreed with my choice of sour cream chicken enchiladas, no beans, no rice.  But it was good to go anyway.  Therapeutic.  I continued the self therapy by heading to the nail shop afterward for a mani and pedi.  Ah!  Pure heaven.

Ken worked on Friday but left work about 2:30.  He won't be working on Friday from now on...instead he will work Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  That's nice because it will give us 3-day weekends so we can go someplace if we ever decide to!  I don't imagine his working will last too long - possibly a year - but he's enjoying having money to spend.  For instance, yesterday we went to the model/hobby train show and he was able to buy the HO starter train set that he has been wanting plus an additional engine and a few additional cars and tracks.  In the past he wouldn't have been able to do that.  So yea for Ken...it makes him feel a lot better about himself that he's not so dependent on MY income.  (Although he has other income, it mostly goes for bills, monthly expenses, etc.)

So today is Sunday -- wanted to sleep late, but Ken was up early so Luci woke up whining and wanting to get down, too, which woke up Bennie and me.  So, here I am.  This afternoon I'm going to the quilting bee, and after that I go back to studying for FWISD.  I have got to get all this done!  Classes start back on Tuesday (Monday is a teacher service day), and I have to have all these certifications turned in by Tuesday!  They system has already been calling me wanting me to accept class assignments for this next week.  Thus far I haven't.  Since we are off Monday, and I have a lunch and meeting with someone on Friday, that means my work day choices for the week are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.  I'm hoping I can find some half day assignments in either pre-K or kindergarten.

So much for all that - I need to get busy.  Love to all.