Thursday, April 27, 2006

Fell Off the Planet

I really feel like I fell off the planet last week. On Easter, my daughter was admitted to the ICU at Scottish Rite/Children's Healthcare of Atlanta due to severe hypoglycemia and dehydration from an unknown stomach virus. The next 48 hours were spent in the hospital with her, except the three I spent across the street being rehydrated myself. Anyway, we were both given excellent care, and the whole family is healthy again. And, even though I know they aren't reading this blog, I want to thank all the doctors and nurses that worked on and with my baby. They were all great!

More later....

Monday, April 10, 2006

A MeMe

Amy had this on her blog. I thought it was interesting...

You go to Wikipedia and enter your birthday in the search box - just the day, not the year. It pops up with all sorts of things that happened on that day in various years. You list three events, three births, and three deaths that have occurred throughout history on your birthday. My day is February 12.

Events...
1733 - Englishman James Oglethorpe founds the 13th and final American colony of Georgia, and its first city at Savannah. (I put this one because I live in Georgia now.)
1924 - Premiere of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman's Palais Royal Orchestra in Aeolian Hall in New York City
1973 - Ohio becomes the first U.S. state to post distance in SI units on signs. (Being a scientist, I love SI units...)

Births...
1775 - Louisa Adams, First Lady of the United States, wife of John Quincy Adams (d. 1852)
1809 - Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States (d. 1865) (Both a first lady and a President share my birthday.)
1970 - Jim Creeggan, Canadian bassist (Barenaked Ladies) (I love the Barenaked Ladies.)

Deaths...
1554 - Lady Jane Grey, claimant to the throne of England (executed) (b. 1537)
1789 - Ethan Allen, American patriot (b. 1738)
1971 - James C. Penney, American department store founder (b. 1875)

I thought it was fun. Anyone else want to try?

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Four UFO's

Ok, here are my four UFO's for the four UFO challenge.

1. Picnic quilt with heart fabric
2. Niece's quilt
3. Brown Bag Lady quilt
4. Backpack

Ok, the last one is not a quilt, but it is a quilted backpack that I bought the fabric for ages ago. On my niece's quilt, I need to baste and quilt it. The picnic quilt I have the pattern and the fabric for. Since Wes picked #3, I will do the Brown Bag Lady quilt first. The top is done. The top is actually spray basted to the batting. The backing is put together and starched, ready to be basted. I even own the quilting thread.

I will get pictures of them soon. I need to get new batteries for the camera. I had to take the batteries out of the tv remote to take the picture of Ketchup...Snowflakes...

House stuff... Traffic is picking up. We put in new countertops. I really think it is just a matter of timing right now. I know I have over a year before I have to really start worrying. I am having fun seeing how much money I can not spend and how much I can save.

Dave started talking about completely remodeling the kitchen in the new house. I just looked at him like he was crazy. I would like to replace the oven and microwave with a conventional oven/convection oven/microwave combination like my older sister has. I think we will get the cabinets refaced. Although, the other new neighbors had their cabinets replaced, and Dave thinks I will want to do that as soon as I see her kitchen. I am not the type that has to keep up with the Joneses, but we will see. Anyway, we have decided we will move to the new house the first week of June, even if we haven't sold this one. So I need to get back on the wallpaper removal.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Spring Break

I am very excited that it is Spring Break. We aren't going anywhere. Well, we will hang out at the new house a lot so the kids can get to know any neighbors who are also hanging around. We will go to Ledo's Pizza one day. And maybe we will go to the zoo. Maybe not, though. It depends on the weather, which is rather severe right now. I just heard the siren go off.

Quilting-wise, I am going to do March's journal page this week. I finished my Winter Art Image Challenge, although I will probably add some more quilting to it.

"Ketchup is our Vegetable, Snowflakes are our Drugs"
By Julie Runyan Kokan
When I got to making the snowflakes, it reminded me of my senior year of high school. I worked in the school's writing tutoring center one period a day with a bunch of friends. We were the students that were going to schools like Wellesley, Stanford, Georgia Tech, Smith, Williams, and some of the better out of state state schools. So needless to say, that winter was a nailbiting time for many of us. (Not me, I got into the engineering program at Virginia Tech at the beginning of October, but I was still nervous for all my friends.) So we would sit around second period and cut out snowflakes to decorate the room. We didn't do drugs, which were prevalent in our school, but we made snowflakes. I went to middle and high school (and part of elementary school) during the Reagan era. He decided that ketchup could be counted as a vegetable for school lunches. Of course, I am sure he was advised by many people that it would be ok. Most of us were liberals and campaigning for Gore's primary run at the time. Although we had a few Republicans who were working on the Dole Primary Campaign. Anyway, the title of this piece came from an essay someone wrote during that time.

The snowflakes are made the old fashioned way by folding a circle 12 times and cutting it out. They aren't perfect, like real snowflakes. And a couple of them were cut out by my five year old. But it was so much fun and so relaxing. I learned it was better to cut them AFTER removing the paper from the fusible web. I have never made a fusible quilt before, and I found it liberating.

The other thing I will do quilt-wise is make my list of 4 UFO's to finish for the 4 UFO Challenge on the Quilt Studio. I will list them, and then pick them out of a hat so that I will randomly choose the #3 to start with. I need to be in the studio to pick the UFO's, though, and they are at the new house right now.