Just gettin' along

It's been over a month since I've checked-in.  Things are going pretty good.  Every day, I miss Bob like mad.  It's been remarked that I seem happy.  I am happy, and I firmly believe that Bob would be pretty upset if I changed and let depression move into my life.

My dogs are one of the reasons I keep going.  They miss Bob, too, but they still need to be feed, to go on walks and to be cared for.  I always feel sorry for people who don't have a pet in their home.  Dog, cat, bird, rabbit, hamster, or even a fish or two.

At the end of September, my cousin Carol and I went on The Ultimate Game Day Weekend tour with the Jay Buckley Baseball Tour Company.  Bob, I, Sharon and Oden have traveled with them previously.  They are a fabulous company and Carol and I had a great time.  We flew into Dallas on Thursday, and stayed there the first night, then we were bussed to Houston to see an Astros game, Astros vs. Rangers.  Their stadium, Minutemaid Park, was great.  The next day, we went to Austin for the UT Austin vs. OSU football game.  It was our first college football game.  It was hot, Texas hot, we had excellent seats, but opted to retreat to the concourse and watch the game on large TV's with all the other sane fans.

On Sunday, we went back to Dallas and attended the Dallas Cowboy football game at AT&T Park.  It was the Atlanta Falcons vs. the Cowboys and it was our first NFL game.  Monday we visited The Sixth Floor Museum, the site of President Kennedy’s assassination, in downtown Dallas, then we went back to AT&T Stadium for a tour of the stadium.  Let me just say that the Jones family did a spectacular job with the design.  What a fabulous football stadium!    That evening we saw the Detroit Tigers play the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Park.  It was another fabulous day.  The only downside was that every home team we saw, lost their game!  Matt, our leader, said we must have been a jinx.

Frisco and I are Dog Obedience Training drop-outs.  Yes, it's true!  We went last Saturday to the first class, held in one of the local parks.  There was only one other doggy pupil, with a very nice Dad and Mom.  We were all there early and used the time to get to know each other.  The instructor was late, so late that I was on my way to my car to leave when she finally showed up.  We did stay for the class, but I was disappointed in her technique, poor communication skills, and the lateness was the cherry on the top.  I mulled it over and decided not to go back.  I was contemplating writing a letter to the Parks and Rec. Dept. but one of my Tai Chi students is one of five Parks Commissioners, and she said she'd make sure it was discussed at their meeting.

I've also been busy making a commissioned quilt.  Today I got the top finished and now I'll work on the quilt back.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

Milestones and my Day Job

In the social media world, I've hit a couple of milestones recently

• On Pinterest, over 6K followers
• On YouTube, over 1,000 people have viewed the Tai Chi Ball videos Bob and I made for Parkinson's patients.

Lately, my time is really not my own.  Once we became empty nesters, I really valued my alone time.  I certainly love being part of a couple, but I also love being fiercely independent.  Bob is much the same way.  He and I really are a good pair.  Cancer has taken away almost all of our ability to be independent.

For the last month I've been the only driver, he's weak and this is a safety issue.  He could certainly drive, but why?  This week he had doctor and test appointments, one to three everyday, I drove him, and went to the doctor appointments, too; except Wednesday.  On Wednesday I cleaned and did errands.

For over 40 years, Bob has always done his own laundry.  All those years ago, he would change his clothes 3 or 4 times a day!  Work, workout(s), relaxing.  I advised him that he needed to take care of his own mountain of dirty clothes, or go naked.  So he learned to do his own laundry.  Now, he can still manage the task, but it takes a day or two, so I do his laundry in a couple of hours.

I am not complaining, change is good, especially to help out a great guy.  The only thing I'm not happy with is lack of quilting/stitching time.  That's been the first thing to go, mainly regulated to the weekends.  I think of Quilting as my Day Job, now Bob is my Day Job!

 

I threw in some photos of recent quilt work, every post needs photos!  Lots of hearts, lately.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

It's about time

I haven't had a moment to spare, lately.  That's probably not true, but that's how I've felt.  If you're a FB friend, you already know that we lost an entire weekend going back and forth to the ER, because Bob had the tiniest injury on his knee, about a 1/16 of an inch, and it wouldn't stop bleeding.  Dripping on the floor bleeding.

What else?  Just normal stuff; Water Aerobics has been kicking my behind 2 or 3 days a week.  I haven't lost any weight, but I've dropped a dress size!  Teaching Tai Chi/QiGong 2 days each week.  Leading Tai Chi Ball for the Parkinson's Support Group.  Going to doctors in San Diego, that takes the whole day.  Reading - the last three books were hard to put down.  I recommend you read them soon.

  

If You Were Here by Alafair Burke
Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin
Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison

I donate my finished books, usually to Murrieta Friends of the Library.  This week I donated the hardbacks from my "read" pile to them, and drove the trade paper copies to West Long Beach Neighborhood Book Swap, it's a cart in the neighborhood I grew up in.  The "old"  neighborhood has changed but, sad to say, I don't think it's improved.

Sewing, I'm making a quilt for one of my grandsons; the one who never ask for anything.  My sewing gets interrupted by life and games.  We live in a small house and I use the dining room as my cutting/design room.  My sewing machine and fabric are in the "office".  We don't really entertain, but we belong to two groups, one plays cards and one plays dominoes.  The groups rotate to each others homes for an evening of fun.  When it's our turn to host, I need to pack all the sewing paraphernalia and clean all the "fabric dust", (it's like faerie dust, but cotton), and get the house back to normal, whatever that is.

Since blogging isn't a business with me, it frequently takes a backseat to life.  I had a few comments in response to my giveaway of the small clutch I'd won.  The winner is Melissa, she doesn't blog anymore, but when she was a young adult, her blog was Mel Growing Up.  I've already emailed her.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

Home Sweet Home

I've been home from NYC for a week.  I jumped right back into my "normal" life.  I started working on a scrappy quilt, then my books came that I picked up at the BEA; only two boxes this year.

I have a cottage/small home, so I had to pick up the quilt blocks to have the space to unpack the books.  As I unpacked, I sorted.

If you're a book person, I'm sure you spotted two that are not "new".  I always find it odd when publishers are touting an author's new book, but decide to give out an old one.

Hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowers.  The plants on my patio are just starting to bloom, so I thought I'd show them off.

I've been posting tons of photos of my New York Trip, over on Murrieta365, if you want to check them out.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

Popular Pins.

I really do love Pinterest.  According to them, these are my most popular pins, this week.

What could I assume from this?  That most of my 3500+ followers are quilters, they are kind and they like dogs, too.  My most popular board is Yummy Sweets, go figure.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

A bit of a catch up

I've been busy, just not posting here on the family blog.  I've pretty much been keeping up with my photo a day project.   All the photos are here.

I've been working on a new quilt, I've called Three Color Sunset Quilt.  Here's the strips, before assembly.  See why I picked the name?  The quilt top should be finished in the next day or two, check here, if you're interested.

I read a really good book, and highly recommend it.

If you like noir, this is a great read.

My Tai Chi class is suddenly taking off.  I've always had about 20-25 people enrolled and any Tuesday or Thursday, 15 to 20 show up.  In the last 30 days I've had 5 new people.  It's pretty amazing.  Two of the new people are Parkinson's patients.  They came because I'm going to speak at the Sept. meeting of the Parkinson's Support Group at the Murrieta Senior Center.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

Wednesday Wisdom

 

source

Yep, Happiness Rocks.

BTW, I received the quilt I won, the photos are over on the quilting blog.  

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

Lucky

I'm pretty lucky.  I'm always getting free ARCs (Advance Reading Copies of books that haven't been published) from publishers, and I frequently win free fabric from other bloggers or straight from a fabric manufacturer.  Free is good, especially as much as I read and quilt.

Today, I won a quilt!  One of the male quilters, Charlie Scott of Qubee Quilts, did a wonderful post in January and asked for donations for his local AIDS walk.  It turned out that everyone donating thru his blog, was entered to win a quilt make by him.  And I won!  Just for doing the right thing!  Yippee!

Here is the pattern, called Gum Wrapper.

This is the only photo I could find about the actual quilt.

~update~ I found a different photo, in fact there's lots of them here.

I will, of course, post my own photo(s), when the actual quilt arrives.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,