MICHAEL'S BACK!

Here are the brothers at the Whuhan airport right before Michael left to return stateside. After three planes he arrived about an hour early in Nashville but we were there to pick him up. Jennifer was home with her girls -- they were asleep. Matty and I and Avery went to the airport and Christy was there too. Avery was so excited -- when we saw him coming down the walk way she took off running -- Daddy! Daddy! she was hollering and he started grinning from hear to ear! It was great. I left this afternoon a little before four and got home abut 11:30 thanks to a wreck on Interstate 40. Traffic was backed up about 10 miles and it took about two hours to cover that ten miles but after that -- smooth sailing all the way.

I enjoyed my visit and was able to get most of the fabrics I needed to be able to do G'mas family tree quilt top. I still need to find something to use for the sky part but I think I can find something on line. Well, that coke I drank is wearing off and it is 1:30 am. I'm going to bed. Tomorrow I'll try to put up a couple of pictures if I get a chance.
Call me sentimental but I just love my boys (all of 'em)

TIRED WITH A CAPITAL "T"

We had a wonderful week -- who wouldn't with these two sweeties :) We played, went for walks, sat on the patio, went to Wally World and Punkin Patch and ate at the Mexican Restaurant. Saturday we met Matty in Memphis, I got my car back and came on home. They met some friends there and went home on Sunday.










When I got home I decided to do some embroidering. I did a towel for Jack -- broke a needle -- had to restart the machine and try to get the design back in the same spot. Almost but it is off just a hair.















After that, I went on and worked on my senior gifts. Most were throws with names embroidered on them. One is a set of monogrammed towels.


They are in the washer so I don't have a picture of them yet.


On top of that we've had a funeral visitation and then the funeral today for an elderly man at our congretation - JT Sartain. He was such a good Christian man.




Anyway, I'm extra tired so I'm off to bed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY "JOHN RYAN"

I'm a day late (and probably a dollar short but this month is passing way too quickly!! I can't believe my one and only (for now anyway) grandson was a year old yesterday. He is such a handsome boy -- like his Dad :) He's been walking for a couple of months and gets around really well. He is definitely tall and is curious about everything. When he visits he loves to follow Toby around after he warms up to him. He is a little afraid of him at first and then all of a sudden he's his best buddy. He loves his sisters and is almost always smiling. Jack is so laid back and I know Stace appreciates that :)


Sorry you were sick on your birthday Jack but you'll have many more to celebrate in high fashion. Feel better soon.


Happy first birthday!

love,

Grams

THE BEST SURPRISE!!

I got a phone call yesterday at 3:00 and at 4:30 I left for Memphis to meet up with Jen and Matty. After a short pit stop, Matty took my car and headed back to Nashville and Jen, Vail, Katy and I came back to Cleveland. They are keeping me company for the whole week. Saturday morning we will head back up to Memphis to meet Matthew and then they are going to spend the night there and maybe go to the zoo that afternoon or something. It was a spur of the moment thought on their part and a great surprise for me -- even though I have to go to school during the day. Just wish it was a little warmer.

Hope everyone enjoys their week. I know I will :)))

FUN ON A FRIDAY NIGHT

Well, I opted for a different kind of occasion last night. It's called run out of gas for the grill and have a sub host while you go somewhere else to cook the burgers. It worked out rather well :)

I was going to have the burgers all done before anyone got here so about 5:15 I lit the grill and about 5:20 I put the burgers on. The fire was going nicely and all was good. I sat down and read the first couple of pages of the paper for about 10 minutes -- maybe a little longer. At one point during that time I checked the burgers -- everything was fine. I went out about twenty to six to flip them over and --- NO FIRE -- where's the devil when you really need him???? So, I called Carolyn who luckily lives two doors down (but doesn't have a gas grill) and asked if she would come over a few minutes earlier than six and then called Aunt Donna (barely caught them before they walked out the door to go whereever they were going) and Lowell lit the grill and I piled the burgers (15) into a baking dish and went the couple of blocks to their house. Got back about 6:25 and everybody was sitting around talking and enjoying each others company. We got the food out of the fridge -- everything was prepared and already on plates or in bowls ---- put the buns in a basket and the burgers on a platter and sat down to eat. I think everybody had a good time and got to know Tim and Debbie a little better.

After everyone left, about 9 or so I was wanting to go somewhere (don't ask me why) so Toby and I went to WallyWorld to pick up a couple of things and then came home about 10 and I finished the hand sewing on the binding of the nursery rhyme quilt and watched Without A Trace that I recorded Thurs. Night -- didn't go to bed til about 1. It was probably the coke I drank at 10. Anyway. knowing I would sleep til at least 9 this morning I was wide awake at 6:30. So I finally got up, swept and rearranged the patio, emptied the dishwasher, took Toby for a walk ate some yogurt and bacon and will go get a refill for the gas grill and some lead washers to hopefully keep my shutter from blowing down everytime the wind picks up.

It's a beautiful day though a little cool.

48 DOWN 0TO GO!

All the blocks are finished and I've laid them out to see the pattern. I'm sure I'll switch a few after I look at it for awhile but you can see how the color design works. I think it will be really pretty.

COMFORT ZONE

We all have a comfort zone. Mine has gotten very small since Bob died, at least in respect to hospitality (family is discluded from this). He has been gone ten years now and I don't think I've had people in my home for a meal ten times since then. The few times I have, I've always had grandmother come too so there would be an even number or maybe I thought I needed a chaperone. It's not like we were going to play cards or something. Anyway, I've invited three couples over for a hamburger cookout on Friday. One of the couples is our new preacher and his wife. I really like both of them and so I thought I'd help them get to know some of the other folks by having them over. Someone is bringing a desert, someone else chips and then I'm doing the burgers, buns and condiments. (That makes me think of the time we were collecting things for hurricane ? when the kids were young teens. We had labels on tables in our fellowship hall so things would be sorted and easier to pack up to take on a truck to Louisiana. Well, one label said condiments and Mr. Lyn kind of hyperventilated when he first saw it because I guess his glasses needed cleaning or something. Anyway it was funny when it happened.) Enough digressing -- hopefully this cookout will be a step in the right direction toward enlarging my comfort zone back to what it used to be.


UPDATE ON THE CHURCH DIRECTORY: The copying thing is not going to work. So, we are going to have to get people to stay after church to have their pictures made. I think I'm just going to say that for three weeks I will have my camera with me at every service (that will be a total of 9 times if you count Wed. night) and will stay and take pictures as long as there are people there -- after that they will either have to email me a picture or just not have a picture in the directory. That should be enough time. It dragged out for six weeks before -- kind of ridiculous when there are only 50 something familys involved.

Michael leaves for Nashville next Wednesday. I won't be there to see him off but I will be there to welcome him back on the 26th. Can't wait!! Well, I'm off to bed but before I go, I did do three more log cabin squares so I've only got three more to go -- Yipee!!!

ONLY SIX TO GO

I'm down to six squares -- I've got 42 finished of my log cabin quilt. I'll have them done by the weekend if I don't get sidetracked. One thing I've figured out is that you should not buy your quilt backing for a log cabin quilt until you get at least some of your blocks put together. There are 24 fabrics used in this quilt and I think what I got for the backing is really too busy. It needs to be toned down. The fabric I got has a light background full of tiny flowers. Now I'm thinking that will be way too light. There are a couple of the greens that I really like or even the red that is the center of all the blue and green squares. I think I'm going to see if the store where I bought the fabric still has any of that fabric left. I can use the light for another quilt. Or, maybe, after I get the top made, I'll like the light fabric for the back and won't worry about it any more. Off to bed.

PROGRESS AND SETBACKS

This has been a week full of working on my computer and finally this weekend -- some sewing :)

I got my Dell back on Monday -- it had to be reformatted so the good news was that everything I had moved over to it was still on cd's so I still had that data and pictures. But, every new file and picture I had saved on the hard drive since I got the computer in Sept. was lost. I realized yesterday that included all the pictures and pages I had completed for the Church Directory -- not good. I think we have figured out a way to finish our work without having to redo pictures. Hopefully we can reenter the information (I still have the sheets everyone filled out) and then our preachers wife who is an avid scrapbooker has offered to cut out the pictures from the copy I had printed out for proofing purposes and glue - paste- whatever to the page. We are going to try one and see if the printer will copy it to see if it will look good. If it passes that will be our solution-if not i guess we'll spend six more Sundays trying to get everyone to retake pictures. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Here are all the squares completed for Jens rag quilt. All I have to do now is sew the squares together and then do all the snipping that turns it into a rag quilt. The other picture is a sample of the three different color squares that are going into the log cabin quilt. I've completed 36 of the 48 squares. I'm excited to be close to the finish line on completing the squares. Then I'll get the quilt top together. Once I do that I will probably put it aside to begin working on the quilt for grandmother.

Here is a picture of the quilt I'm going to do for g'ma. It will be a first for me. It comes with a full size pattern for the tree, the sky background and the ground. It also has a pattern for the leaf. My plan is to use a machine applique/embroidery pattern for a leaf I found (very similar to the one in the photo) and do the leaves totally with my embroidery attachment. That will be easier than having to "steer" around the leaf myself. Plus I'll be embroidering names and birthdays on the leaves anyway . You can see pictures on the leaves in the photo but I'm not doing that -- just names and birthdays. So there will be 40 + leaves including a few blank ones to full in spaces. I'm going to start looking for a good "tree bark" fabric and one for the sky too. For the leaves I'll probably use some sort of batiks in fall colors -- gold, red, yellow. What you see in the photo is actually a wall hanging -- comes in two different sizes. I'm going to make the larger one and then add a border or two and bind it as a throw size quilt.

SOME PICTURES

Here are some pictures Itook of the quilt label I embroidered and a dish towel I did. The label is a little dark but I like it. It turned out kind of like a badge. The flowers on the towel are just an outline stitch. The towel is a bright turquoise -- doesn't look like it in the picture to me.