A Day in My Life

After I figured out that the turtle we found in our yard (see yesterday's post) was a snapper, I wasn't as enamored with it. In fact, it kind of creeped me out. I wonder if it was a mama turtle, burying her eggs in our yard. Maybe, because she wasn't aggressive at all; probably worn out from laying eggs. Also she seems to have skedaddled pretty quickly after finishing whatever task she she was appointed to do in our yard. We have not investigated to see if there are any freshly dug/covered up holes.

Today has been so cold! High was in the low 50s F., and it has been raining all day. I had to put on a wool sweater and wool socks to stay warm. A tragedy happened today not too far from where I used to work and near where Hubby takes his daily walk. At the end of his walk he heard sirens and saw several emergency vehicles arriving in the area... a couple of kids died... it was weather-related. I just feel so terrible for the families. The ferocious tornado in Oklahoma has been on my mind, too. What a terrifying time for them! Life can change in an instant. I was moved to send my adult kids a text reminding them how much I love them. Son responded; daughter probably rolled her eyes. She knows I send texts like that when I watch poignant movies or hear something sad! Sometimes I have a hurting heart. Sending mommy heart hugs to all families who are suffering tonight.

Work was weird today, too. For some reason I just couldn't get my brain engaged. When they made an offer for an early-out this afternoon, I snatched it up. My job is just too hard to attempt when my brain won't cooperate. I'm hoping next time I go to work my brain will be better rested and ready to engage.

I came home early and was able to finish quilting and binding a project for Quilts Beyond Borders. Tomorrow I will send these two quilts in the mail to QBB. Sorry... I've probably posted these pics a million times, but getting them done and in the mail is so exciting. I can't do that without posting pics at my blog!


Both these quilts measure 40" x 60". This quilt is my first Sunshine-related quilt being sent to Quilts Beyond Borders.


This quilt is officially my response to the Hands 2 Help Challenge for Quilts Beyond Borders. I used leftovers from this quilt in the borders of the quilt above.

I finished this block today, too. I followed a picture from someone's blog (do you know who's? I've forgotten). I didn't have the dimensions, so I made up that part. Mine measures about 20". I'm not sure yet where I will use it.



And that's all for today's "day in the life" report. Not the best day, with sadness around me and cold, dreary weather. But I did manage to finish quilts and make a block. Carrying on.

I really hope I don't find a parade of baby snapping turtles in my yard later this summer!

Turtle!

Yesterday Hubby went outside to mow the lawn. He came back in and said "want to see a big turtle?" This big guy was in our lawn, up against the retaining wall. We have never seen turtles in our yard, ever. This is the first, and he's huge! I have never seen a turtle this big in this neighborhood at all. I was shocked! I thought it was so cool that this turtle graced our yard with its visit.


hubby's foot is there for scale


notice its big foot/claw against the wall? Wow!

Hubby went ahead and mowed the lawn, and Turtle sat there patiently. We went back inside the house and several hours later wondered what our turtle was up to. We went ouside to check. He had vanished! I'm so curious about where this thing lives and what it was doing in our yard. There is a lake nearby, but it is probably a quarter mile -- an awfully long walk for a turtle. We have seen turtles around the lake, but only tiny ones. And as I said, never in our yard or anywhere on our street.

Does anyone know anything about turtles? Is this a lake-dweller? I know absolutely nothing about what sort of habitat a turtle like this requires. Where does it spend its days?? I'm very curious. Time to do some research.

Edit -- I did some research and determined that this is a snapping turtle! It seemed extremely unaggressive yesterday, thankfully. Usually they have to eat while in/under water, so I'm not sure what it was doing so far from the lake. Now I'm going to be careful all summer long when going outside without my steel-toed boots!

Earning CEUs

In my profession I am required to earn CEUs in order to keep my certification current. Even though I'm retired, I still work part-time and need to keep up with the changes in the field. Last weekend I went to a conference to earn some CEUs. It was worthwhile, and lots of fun. I had surprising connections with some of the other students and also with some of the workshop staff. I've been in the field so long that I know stuff about some of them when they were babies! Small world. And lots of fun.










Here's the whole crazy bunch.. I'll give you a dollar if you can find me




some of the workshops required putting our whole selves in


couldn't be more fun

H2H Link-Up -- My Progress

I'm linking up to show my progress on my Hands 2 Help challenge quilts. I finished them both!! (Some readers may have already seen these pictures.)

This one has already been sent to Em for Happy Chemo. She photographed it on her porch. Check it out. It looks so cute there.



The next one is made from leftovers of the above quilt. I started out with a jelly roll and made the Happy Chemo quilt. Then with leftovers and stash I made this one, which is going to Quilts Beyond Borders.



I still had some leftovers with which I made nine-patches. I put the nine-patches in the borders of another quilt for QBB. This one isn't done yet, but hopefully will be finished and in the mail very soon.




Go here to see the other link-ups and the quilts other bloggers are working on.

Quilt Show!

There is a new area arts association in a nearby town, and their first-ever quilt show is now up. I have a quilt in the show, and a few other people from my guild do, too. Their building is a former church, now used for community events. I liked the venue, so took some pictures that include the pretty windows or surroundings. Enjoy the show! (If you're near Rosemount, MN, stop on by. The show runs through Sat., May 18.. attendance has been low so far.)

Friday Books: Two

After Easter come sunny days
that will melt all the snow
With a book that I want to read
to the park I will go!

This week I read two short books --

(1) Forever Ours: Real Stories of Immortality and Living from a Forensic Pathologist by Janis Amatuzio. This author is a doctor in Minnesota, and mentions familiar places -- it's fun to be familiar with her setting. 3 stars

(2) A Predator Priest by David Margolick. It's about a Catholic priest who molests boys; I believe it was offered only as a Kindle book. 3.5 stars

Both reviews can be found in my Goodreads shelf in my sidebar.

Lazy Me Enjoying Nature

Exercise: the bane of my existence. As you may recall, I joined a gym this year. I did OK (not great, but OK) at first. Lately I have not been going at all. I even went in and attempted to cancel my membership, but the manager, who is quite a good salesperson, convinced me not to. It does makes sense; I need to exercise for my health and longevity.

So.. since then I have not yet been back to the gym! Of course not! You have to drag me, kicking and screaming, to an exercise session.

This morning I decided to take a walk outside. It's such a pretty morning. Now I'm paying a gym membership so I can walk outside. LOL! Well, when it gets hot and humid, I'll be glad to have an air conditioned space to go to, once I manage to make it through the kicking and screaming stage.

During my walk today, this is what I enjoyed observing: birds! Beautiful lake reflections! Bird songs! Green grass and leaves! What a beautiful day!

I saw a bird like this, almost exactly in this pose in the small lake I walk past. I startled it, and it flew away, which was also a pretty sight. I am not sure what the bird is that I saw.. I think this photo is an egret, but do we have egrets in Minnesota? I don't even know. Maybe what I saw was a heron.



I saw a female wood duck that looked a lot like this:



I saw red-winged blackbirds, and a bunch of others that I could not name. The variety of songs is amazingly beautiful, too.

The lake I walk past was like a mirror this morning, so when birds flew low over it, they looked like this, but even better, with no ripples! So pretty!



If walking could always be this enjoyable, maybe I would keep doing it almost every day. I'll try (again)! Wish me luck!

Why I Quilt the Way I Do

I'm not very good at machine quilting. I mostly do straight lines: stitch in the ditch and straight diagonals. Sometimes I give in and attempt free motion quilting.

I find free motion quilting quite hard to do, and have never mastered the traditional patterns. I don't like meandering much. I have had to develop my own style. One problem I have is that my machine skips stitches when I free-motion. It'll be going along fine, and then suddenly I get three or four half-inch (or even bigger) size stitches. Not good! (I thought I had fixed this by using Quilting Needles, but no such luck. I'm pretty sure one big cause is pilot error.)

The quilting that I show here sort of compensates for skipped stitches. I did wonky concentric circles as you see in the pictures below.

When skipped stitches happened, I backed up and re-stitched that area, or went back around, adding to the circle, and filled in the space with semi-normal size stitches. (Since it's me in the driver's seat, they're not ever really normal.) Later I cut out the large, skipped stitches if possible, or just left them there if they camouflaged by my added stitches.

Here are some examples, from two different quilts. The first examples are on the back of the quilt that is pictured above.







This is a quilt I made a few years ago; these pictures show the front of the quilt.. similar wonky circles..



and my other speciality is wonky star-shapes, like this:



I wonder what people think when I donate quilts that I have finished in this style. Are they surprised it's done in that wonky, break-the-rules style? Do they even realize it's not traditional? Do they care? Do they like it/dislike it? I've had to settle for it in my own mind.. I even sort of like it.. but I do wish I could do some traditional swirlies or feathers and such with a certain level of ease. So far I have not come close. Perhaps my domestic machine will never allow me to quilt anything too fancy. I know I don't want to get heavily involved in long-arm quilting, so for me this is what has to happen. When I want it to look professional and nice, I "quilt by check."

How do you handle this dilemma of how to get your quilts finished?

Tired at End of Weekend

I'm too tired to be creative tonight. Time for my beauty sleep.

I did get two quilts bound, and I quilted another which is now waiting its turn for binding.


Red quilt is finally bound; I love this quilt and decided to keep it. Joy!


The prison quilt is quilted and bound; waiting for word from the coordinator to see where it goes next.

Today I had a fun lunch with daughter and faux SIL, and when I came home son called, and we had a nice chat on the phone. Made for a happy Mother's Day for this mom.

I'm reading a book written by my aunt - her diary of our early years up at the lake, where several family members and friends bought lots and built cabins. It's quite fun to read this old history that I remember so well, but from my 12 year-old experience. I'm now seeing it through an adult's eyes. Interesting!

Sweet dreams, everyone!

Friday Books and a Bit of Quilty News

This week I finally finished Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle by Ingrid Betancourt. It took me over 3 weeks to get through this book. It was a hard, unhappy topic and seemed endless in more ways than one. I liked it, but didn't like it. I found it hard to rate this book and ended up giving it 3 stars. Please see my Goodreads shelf, click on Even Silence Has an End, to read my full review.

In quilty news, yesterday I sent off my orange quilt to Emily for Happy Chemo, satisfying part of my Hands 2 Help Challenge promise. I am working on a quilt for Quilts Beyond Borders which will meet their size requirements. Coincidentally, it is made of the extras and leftovers of this orangey fabrics.



I also dropped off a quilt that will hang in a one-week quilt show, first ever for this venue. I think it's a judged show, though I didn't know that when I registered my quilt. I don't make my quilts to be judged, so we'll see what they have to say about my ugly machine quilting and my hastily attached-by-machine binding.

Happy It's Thursday

This has been a busy week. I'm happy that today is Thursday, which means tomorrow is Friday. Yahoo!

This week I had seveeral meetings, work shifts, an extra tutoring shift, things to pick up, things to drop off, friends to help post-surgery, and amidst it all, I'm still trying to read, knit, and sew.

I gave away a quilt this week. The recipient was busy, so I couldn't get a picture of her with her new quilt.

Here's a pic of Hubby et moi.

A Quilt From Prison

This is the top I put together from the blocks I received recently -- made by male prisoners. I am waiting to hear from the program coordinator; I hope I can help with more top assemblies and also donate some fabrics. I've heard the guys love being in this quilting program, and others are waiting to get in. I am for anything that gives them a positive outlet for their energies.

Today was a beautiful day, and Hubby and I had a nice walk in the sunshine. I think spring has arrived (knock on wood)!

I re-discovered a fun knitting project and started another scarf to make for the Craft Hope Rally For Roma project. Pictures will eventually appear here at my blog.

My self-declared spring break was fun and relaxing. I'm sad to see it come to an end, because this next week is busy with work and several meetings. This is the kind of week that causes retired people to say "I don't know how I used to have time to go to work!" I don't know if I'll have any time to sew or knit this week, but I'll try to squeeze it in.

Ta-ta, all. Have a fabulous week.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday Books

My Spring Break saga continues. On Wednesday I drove up to my mother's town for a short visit. Wednesday was a day to relax at Mom's, chat, knit, and we went to my niece's house for dinner. I had fun trying to get my great-niece and great-nephew to learn some signs (American Sign Language). They were interested in watching me and trying to figure out what I was communicating, but they seemed shy about trying the signs themselves. That surprised me (they are 6 and 9). It's probably because I have not done signs with them before, so it was a surprising, new thing. I should have signed with them from Day One! Why didn't I??

Thursday Mom and I slept in and had a lazy morning, then joined my sister for lunch. As usual, I bought too many books at her lovely bookstore. I just can't resist books!

I accompanied Mom to her cardiologist appointment which was short and sweet. She needs another test, and then the doctor anticipates that she will need an angiogram and stent. He was amazed at how great she looks at age 92. Everyone says that. The clinic's front desk person thought she couldn't possibly be the 2:15 appointment, because that woman is 92, and the woman standing in front of her certainly couldn't be 92! I hope I have my mom's genes!

While I was traveling NW, the poor folks south and east of me were getting dumped on by over a foot of SNOW!! On May 2, some towns had as much as 15-17 inches of snow! It has been a strange year around here. My traveling, with zero snow or even rain, was easy and uneventful (that's nice to say about a long drive).



Friday: time to talk about a book! I read another YA book (I'm on a kid/Young Adult kick lately, sort of by accident). This one is The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. I asked my 7th grade great-niece if she has read it, and she said "no." As I got further into the book, I was glad she has not read it yet. I'm thinking it would be better for senior high and up. There is a fair amount of drugs and sex activity in the story. My review can be found on my Goodreads shelf in my sidebar.

My sister gave me some blocks to put together into a top. The blocks were hand-sewn by male prisoners. I plan to learn more about the program and maybe even participate. At some point when I know more, I will tell you about it. I am eager to make the top and to get more information from the coordinator. I'll work on that today.

And then it's the weekend, and my Arbitrary Spring Break comes to an end. I was too busy doing random, fun things to get any sewing done. I guess that's what Spring Breaks are for.