Next month

Taking a blogging break of sorts as I visit family. Hope to have lots of pics when I get back!

Odds and Ends

Still looking for the camera, darn those "safe" places. When I die, the kids are going to have a tough time figuring out why I put things where I put them. But the quilt is completely done and ready to take on the trip home. What else has been going on..... oh, last weekend, Mae finally reminded Bill on the weekend about her ceiling fan (instead of reminding him on a Monday). So we picked out a new fan for her room and proceeded to replace the old with the new. First, the electricity had to be turned off, but the switches at the box aren't labelled very well. There was much hollering up and down the stairs - "that one? ..... NO!...... that one?...... NO!" Finally got the right power turned off and proceeded to follow the "easy installation". Ha! That is a flat out misinterpretation of the word "easy", that's all there is to say about that. End of story. 4 hours later, Mae has a working ceiling fan again.

Wednesday, Steven and I went on what I think may be the last college visit. This one was to the University of Delaware. It was about 2 and a half hours away, but involved getting on the Turnpike and 95, which was really blech. Traffic was not lovely. It was even worse coming home. Bumper to bumper at 7 PM. When do those people get home??? Anyway, it was a great visit, the school seems really nice, the campus was lovely, and Steven has rated it as his #2 choice. He's still adamant that he wants to apply early decision to Virginia Tech. We'll be there in a few weeks moving Will back in, and Steven can get one last look before working on his applications.

What else? Oh, I kinda sorta got back into the Singer featherweights. Laura asked me to find one for a friend, and I got carried away on Ebay. Now I have 7. I'll put the rest up for sale at Kindred Quilts after I've given them their tune-ups and whatever repairs were needed. What was I thinking??? I'll be working on those all weekend.

One-Block Wonder quilt- almost done

All I have left is the border and the binding. I hung it up to see how all the quilting of the hexagons looked, and would you believe, you can't see a thing! Oh well. I did end up ripping the stitches out of seven hexagons from the first two rows I quilted and redoing them. And after I said I wasn't going too! Since the variegated thread isn't going to show up, I may just do a simple meander on the borders. Picture coming soon. I put the camera in a safe place......

Wednesday - quilting and such

Ugh, now I remember why I've been sending out my quilts to be quilted all these years. It is dang hard squeezing all that fabric through the little throat of the machine. I started a little to the side of the middle, so that when I get all the way to the end and have to do the other side, I'll have a little less than half to go. That's my little psych trick. The bad thing is that I was very rusty on the first row, but 3 rows later, I'm getting a little creative, getting into the groove, and it looks better. Oh well. I'm not taking anything out now! And at least the quilt will be DONE sooner rather than later. I don't know of any long-arm quilter who doesn't have a backlog of many months. My favorite long-arm quilter has had Will's college quilt for almost a year now. And he's going to be a sophomore next month!!

Tomorrow we go pick up Mae at camp. I can hardly wait to see her. Last night was the toga party and they had a Hawaiian luau on Monday.

Yesterday I took the train to Hoboken to meet Bill for dinner and then the Yankee game. We took the ferry over to Manhattan - wish I had thought to take a camera, it was breathtakingly beautiful outside. I'm not a fan of skyscrapers and the whole urban/city look, but it was a glorious day and the sunlight reflecting off the mirrored buildings was pretty spectacular. We went into Manhattan and ate at Harry's at Hanover Park - it's right smack in the financial district. OMG, what a dinner. If you go on a Wednesday, their special for the past 40 years has been Beef Wellington. Needless to say, that's what we got and it was to die for. Before that, we had this out-of-this-world mushroom cavatelli with truffle oil. Not needed at all, but someone's eyes were bigger than his stomach, was the canadian bacon, and the spring lobster rolls. By the time the entree arrived, we were pretty stuffed, and neither of us could finish the beef. We had a bottle of wine with dinner and a bottle of dessert wine after while we sat and talked. Actually the dessert wine came after we decided to skip the game altogether. Bill gave the tickets to the waiter who scrambled to find someone to go with him! We had such a wonderful relaxing dinner and took our time walking back to the ferry. The return ride was just as delightful watching the shadows and golden glow of the setting sun slide across the buldings. The wind was fierce, but I just wrapped my hair up with a clip. I told Bill that if Mom were here, she would be moaning for a toboggan for her head, hahahaha (wind headaches, you know).