Holiday Catch-up

I've had a very busy schedule this past week. I worked 6 days in a row, 12+ hr shifts each day, hence no time for blogging. Michelle left the day before I had to go back to work, here she is with her finale quilt, for the "Future Rock Star" baby. She did another out of pinks & lavender that I realize now I never got a picture of.

Here she is modeling her first quilt. I think it turned out a lot better than my first.
I learned a new lesson this past week. When the temperature is -10 degrees F, don't try to put on the plastic stemmed ear muffs that have been out in the car all night.....

I managed to get to Quilt Guild on Thursday. The first time in a couple of months. Here is Mary Lee holding up her latest creation, Tessellating Cats. I thought they were cute. Sorry about the darn chair in front.

I stopped at the Municipal Garden on C St on the way home to take a picture. The bitter cold creates ice fogs, & some beautiful scenery.

Last evening we had our friends John & Mindy & their 2 girls over for dinner. We also had Lillyelen, my orthopedic surgeon Pete's girlfriend. Pete had the flu, so stayed home with his misery while the rest of us had a good time. We had the British Crackers before dinner, & all wore the silly paper crowns, & played with the little prizes.

There was pear salad; curried halibut with garlic spinach on coconut rice; & Grandma's Grape-nut pudding for dessert, along with rich dark beers, & a hot cherry flavored Belgian beer that even I like. (I'm not a drinker by any stretch of the imagination). Below here's Mindy just being funny.

These are 2 plain pencil boxes, that I altered to make them special for the girls, Hope & Christie. They both really loved them. They had a little pen, calendar & sketchpad/note pad inside.

Here is what my DH is giving me for Christmas. This is the floor model at out local Lowe's store. The middle doors on top will be flipped over so that the handles & lattice are on the bottom on mine. These looked upside down to me. My cupboards are sitting in the guestroom unassembled right now, but John said he would come over tomorrow & help Warren put it together. We have to wait for the counter top though, since (in the tradition of Murphy's Law), they sent a 12 foot top for a 4 1/2 foot counter.

It always amazes me when we reach this time of year, to know we are already heading back into long days. The 21st was the shortest day for us (some 5 hours & odd minutes), but in a few weeks we'll have noticeably longer days.

Well I have one last item to pick up for Christmas, & 1 jug of Warren's special eggnog to deliver, then the only thing I have to do is finish my Christmas cards (I know, I'm way late this year), & tomorrow the only errand I have is my friend Mary's dressing change. She had a ruptured appendix a couple of weeks ago. 2 surgeries later, 3 of us Calendar Girls are taking turns changing the dressing for her. Isn't it funny that out of a group of 12 quilters, 3 are nurses? I wonder what the normal ratio is.

I've had a busy week, which I suppose is the norm for this time of year. Every day at work we're flying low ,fast & hard, as the cases seem to just keep coming. It's because of all those people who have met their deductibles, decide to get their elective surgeries done before they have to pay the deductible again. That means the OR is busy until New Years.

The pictures above & 2 below are the samples I just packed up & shipped to Michigan, for Threadpainting & Reverse-A-Purse classes I'll be teaching there next September. I'm not sure if the classes are going to be held in Muskegon or GrandHaven, but it'll be somewhere in the area.

Last weekend I emptied my refrigerator, putting everything in coolers out on the deck. Twice the guys from Lowes attempted to bring the new fridge up the hill on our road to deliver, & twice they didn't make it. So I put everything back in the old fridge. They called again yesterday & said they were trying again. I said fine, but I'm not emptying the fridge until the get here, so of course they made it this time. I was also in the middle of making turkey noodle soup & 3 loaves of bread.

They brought it in & plugged it in. It works fine, but they don't install the door panels, so right now it's a plain white refrigerator. They didn't open the panels for the front, so when we opened them we discovered that the 2 top doors are what we wanted, but the bottom drawer panel is wrong. It seems I have bad appliance Karma. Remember the dishwasher fiasco?

At least it's in & working nicely, & when I get the panels installed I show a picture.

On Thursday my DD Michelle flew in from Seattle. Here she is on the right, with my youngest son Corey in the center, & his girl Tasha on the left. I haven't seen all 3 of my kids together since about 1991, & this is the first time Corey & Michelle have seen each other in about 9 years.

Michelle has spent a little time visiting her girlfriend Debbie, who has been doing battle with breast cancer, but yesterday & this morning she has been working on her FIRST QUILT! She calling it a Punk Rock Baby Quilt. The background fabric is a micro fiber fabric in a dark chocolate brown, that I bought to make purses with, but even with it front & back I still have plenty. I showed her how to fuse web on to the bright fabrics, she drew her funny skull designs, & cut them all out then fused them on,

& we pin basted it all together, now she's quilting the whole thing at once. It's quite cute.

I'll get a shot when she's all done.