The Race

I have a couple of photos of a quilt I finished last November. I hadn't even photographed it until last week sometime.

But first, a little back story:

I received it back from the Missouri Star Quilt Company the day we left for 10 days over  the week of Thanksgiving. I whipped the binding on it and tossed it in the washing machine and dryer that afternoon. Miraculously, it was all dry about the same time Hubby had our car packed and ready to go. I wanted to take it along to keep warm in the car and I ended up using it while we were at our family reunion. Then we came home and I made two baby quilts and spent a ginormous amount of time preparing the house and a lot of food for Christmas here with the kids.

I guess that's why I hadn't photographed it or blogged about it until today.

Okay, okay enough with the excuses.

Last August while I was watching the Olympics, I worked on a Jelly Roll Race Quilt. (I wrote about it it here.) The method for putting this together is pretty cool. A little quilting lesson here:
A Jelly Roll is a roll of fabric strips cut to 2 1/2 inches wide by the width of fabric which is around 44 inches.

Here's a video tutorial that tells how to make this quilt. It's actually pretty entertaining even if you are not a quilter.

Whew!

Here's what I started with....

It's not the best photo because I took it with my cell phone. Also, what you see is the back of the fabric.

And... the finished product:

I need to add my critical comments here.

Generally, I like the fabric line (Circa 1934 by Moda -- if there are any other fabric nerds out there like me). The colors are great, but for me, not the best prints for this type of quilt. If you look closely at some of the more linear designs...they are not printed on the straight of grain, therefore it is very noticeable on the 2 1/2 inch strip. I know, I know, I'm probably the only one who really notices that. But still. I also should have made that solid cream color border about twice as wide as I did. It would have looked nicer visually. I do like the pieced outer border and the pieced binding.

Before I sent this off to be quilted by the wonderful people at the Missouri Star Quilt Company, I had it pinned up on my design wall and was staring at it and being disappointed in how it turned out. My favorite person came in to my sewing room (Hubby) and I told him all the reasons I didn't like the quilt. Hubby listened and thought a bit and assured me it wasn't as bad as I was thinking. Then he had a suggestion that made it all seem better. He said, "This could be our outside quilt. It would be the quilt we keep in the car in the winter and the quilt we take on picnics." Suddenly I felt better about the whole thing. Silly, I know, but it made a difference.

I did learn some things through the process of making this quilt, so I guess it's not a total loss.

End of January Hodge Podge

1.  In the USA this coming Sunday millions will be watching as the Baltimore Ravens take on the San Francisco 49's in the Superbowl.  What was the last event you attended that could be described as super?

In the last three and a half years I've been to a few quite super events. Two were the weddings of my kids. I don't think anything will ever match that.

On a different level, seeing Wicked in Chicago for my 50th birthday was pretty super. I'd love to go to New York City one day to see a performance on Broadway. If only my birthday wasn't in January.

2.  Share something you're a fan of these days?

Oh Downton Abbey for sure! Before December 24 I had never seen a single episode and wasn't particularly interested. We gave our daughter-in-law the first two seasons on DVD for Christmas and sat down to watch "one or two episodes" on Christmas Eve. Boom. I was hooked. (And so was everyone else that was here.) We ended up watching all of Season 1 before our son and daughter-in-law went back home and had the nerve to take her present with them. Sheesh. ;) Over New Year's weekend, Hubby and I tried to find Season 2 to rent, to no avail, and ended up buying it (and Season 1) at Target. Anyway....Sunday nights find us parked in front of the TV tuned in to PBS. (And can I just say? Last Sunday's episode was heartbreaking!)

3. How do you feel about wings?  What's your preferred seasoning on a wing-hot, mild, teryiaki, sweet and sour, other?  Do you make your own or is there a favorite place you like to go for wings?

It probably sounds cliche, but I like to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. I've had several different things there and several kinds of wings there. My favorite have a chipotle rub on them. I really like spicy food, but not so spicy you can't taste anything but heat and your head is sweating spicy. I've never tried to make my own wings.

4.  As long as we're talking sports today...have you followed the Lance Armstrong story?  Did you watch his interview with Oprah and if so what was your reaction to his confession and subsequent remarks?

It bothers me that Mr. Armstrong cheated and doesn't seem to be remorseful about it. My brain just does not work that way.

5.  What's a question you hate to be asked?  

How do you like living in Small Town? (and related questions) I don't like it here and I don't like answering that question because my answer is not what most people expect to hear or want to hear. It's especially awkward when the person asking is someone who has lived here for a long time.

6. The coaches in this Sunday's big game happen to be real life brothers.  Were you and your sibling(s) competitive?  In what way? Are you still?  If you're an only child how did you handle competition growing up?  

My siblings and I were not very competitive with each other.  I know I don't have a competitive bone in my body. I play Words with Friends and Scrabble on Facebook. I recently told my hubby and a friend that I never look at the statistics of how many games won/lost and they were both astonished. I really don't care if I win or loose. As a matter of fact, if I'm beating someone by a lot of points, I feel kind of bad and try to play words without too many points. (I will say that if I'm beating my hubby -- which happens about once every 42 years -- I try hard to actually win that game.) A game? Oh, it's just for fun!

7.  What's your favorite game involving a ball and when did you last play?

Um....see answer to previous question. I am not a huge sports fan. I will attend an occasional basketball or baseball game. Twelve years ago I took golf lessons and learned that I don't want to play golf. ha.  But to answer the question, my favorite game involving a ball is watching my hubby play golf. Last summer we went golfing quite a bit. He plays. I drive the cart. I like spending time with him like that. And driving the golf cart was my favorite part of the golf lessons, after all. grin

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

Fondue for Two

I have been having a lot of fun trying out some of my new gadgets. With Christmas and my birthday being a little more than two weeks apart, I get blessed seemingly all at once with  more than a couple gifts from my loves ones. I don't mean to brag. Just, you know, one of my love languages is gifts...giving and receiving. So the whole Christmas and birthday things are exciting to me.

For a few years I have talked about wanting to try fondue. I think it would be a fun treat when we have guests. I fondly remember having fondue in the 70s at my parents' house. Pretty sure their fondue pots were a lovely shade of burnt orange and avocado green. :/

This year for my birthday my sweet hubby gave me a fondue set. He couldn't find any in a store (and I looked too) so we ended up ordering one online. A couple of days after it came we decided to try it out.

Our first attempt was meat/oil fondue. I had a pork loin in the freezer, so that got sliced into cubes and marinated.

We read the directions closely and cooked the pieces of pork in the oil. Each fondue fork is a different color on the end of the handle, so when there are a lot of people partaking, it's easy to remember which fork was yours.

I learned that I need to cut the pieces of the meat a little bit smaller so it would cook a little more quickly.

We had some rice and mango salsa with the pork. It was so good!

The next night we tried some cheese fondue.

I think this was my favorite between the two. What's not to like? Hot melty cheese with a little wine mixed in and some homemade crusty artisan bread. Mmmmm!

Next we'll have to try some chocolate fondue. Come visit and make a request!

My Very Own

Last December 5, a questions in the Wednesday Hodgepodge  was whether or not we liked Fruitcake. My answer, in part, was::
"My mom always makes fruitcake and I really like it. She forgets that I like and thinks my brother is the only one who likes it. :) I hope she makes it this year..."

We celebrated Christmas with my side of the family the weekend before Christmas. On Sunday we met everyone at church for worship. My mom walked up to me, unzipped my purse, and proceeded to stuff something wrapped in aluminum foil in there. I looked down and grinned. I knew what was in there.

My very own Fruitcake.

When we got home, I put it in the freezer to save for later. Yesterday I thawed it out and this morning I enjoyed several slices for breakfast.

  Mmmmmm!!!

Thanks, Mom! It's very yummy!

A Hodgepodge of Questions

Time to answer some of Joyce's Wednesday Hodgepodge questions. 

Since it's Wednesday and all, you know.

1. The popular saying, 'All is fair in love and war' is originally credited to English writer John Lyly.  Is he right?
No. If an action is a sin, then it is not "fair" no matter the circumstances.

2. Are you a cereal eater?  What's your favorite kind?
Not typically. If I do eat cereal, I would choose granola.
Interesting tidbit:
When my kids were little and I gave them cereal for breakfast, I gave it to them with no milk only because I didn't want to mess with the wet, goopy mess. To this day, those kids will eat their cereal dry. They have even been known to eat Grape Nuts with no milk. That makes for a loud breakfast!

3. A five year old in Pennsylvania was recently given a ten day school suspension for talking with a friend about shooting one another with a Hello Kitty Bubble gun (the gun blows bubbles).  She did not have the gun with her at school.
A psychological evaluation was also ordered and the incident was recorded on her permanent record.  The suspension was later reduced to two days and her parents are suing to have the incident removed from her file. Your thoughts?  (If you missed the story click here for details).
My thoughts? Just one: Good grief.

4. Whatever happened to_____________________________?
The silver dollars my great-aunt put in my stocking when I was a little girl? I haven't been able to find them and I am just sick about it. I remember one had the date of 1923. I can not figure out where they are.

5.  January 23rd is National Handwriting Day, billed as a day to reacquaint yourself with a pen and pencil.  
Do you like your handwriting? 
I've never been a huge fan of my handwriting, but when I look back at something I wrote twenty years ago I think it looks okay. I think the lack of actual writing of late hasn't helped my handwriting any. Hubby says I have good handwriting.
Do you prefer to print or write in cursive?
If I am writing a list (like a grocery list of a to-do list), I tend to print. If it's something longer, like taking notes in church, or (gasp) writing an actual letter, I write in cursive. I prefer cursive, I think.
This date was chosen because its the birth date of John Hancock. What's the last thing you signed your name to?
I signed my name on the charge at the grocery store yesterday. Although the machine pad I signed was so bad there's no way to tell if it was really my signature. I always feel like I'm a three year old trying to write my name on those things. When I do write my signature on a real piece of paper with a real pen, I'm amazed at how well I can actually write it.
Interesting tidbit: Before I was married, my whole name: first, middle initial and last, was a total of nine letters. I could fill up the whole blank on a check with those nine letters. After I was married, my last name grew to eleven letters long (and no, I don't hyphenate). I learned to start my signature on the checks before the line started.

6. Speaking of John Hancock...ever been to Philadelphia? Do you have any desire to visit the city of Brotherly Love?  

Nope. Never been to Philadelphia. Yep. I'd like to go there some day.

Interesting tidbit regarding John Hancock:

Years ago we went on a wonderful vacation to New Zealand. One of the places (a farm stay) we stayed asked us to sign their guest book. I started to make a comment about putting "my John Hancock" there and then suddenly realized they probably would have no idea what I meant by that. I asked them if they were familiar with that statement and they said no. So I enlightened them with a bit of American history.

(This post is just chock-full of interesting tidbits!) (You're welcome.)

7.  Share something funny you've heard a child say.  

Sadly, I'm not around little ones too much lately. I really miss that. A lot. I'll share what (I saw on Facebook) my nephew's little two year girl calls a fast food place: Chick-a-fway. Kids are awesome. I so love reading about and seeing photos of that little girl on Facebook.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.
Back on December 5, Joyce asked if there was something we wanted to accomplish before the end of the year. I answered that I wanted to read The Hobbit. I had thought I'd read it all before we saw the movie, but that didn't happen. I thought I would finish it before the year ended. That didn't happen. But TODAY I finished reading it! It's pretty clear to me now that the fantasy genre is not my favorite genre. BUT I FINISHED IT!
Interesting tidbit (I just had to add one more!): I first learned the word genre when my son was in the 4th grade. His teacher taught me that. ;)

A Christmas Gift

I have a thing for dishes. When we lived in Singapore I discovered a kind of outlet store for dishes. It was basically a warehouse with the dishes piled on the floor all over the place. What was being sold there were seconds of dishes that were manufactured in Indonesia. Some of them had very obvious flaws, others were more difficult to see. The best thing about those dishes is that they were very inexpensive! A dinner plate was around $1.25, a salad plate was 75 cents. Over the course of the three years we lived there I bought four or five (five or six?) sets of dishes. If you come visit me for a weekend, I can serve you each meal on a different set of dishes.

So you'd think I would stop looking at dishes, huh?

Well...

Last fall I was wandering through a Crate & Barrel store (one of my favorite things to do) and a set of dishes caught my eye. They had an Asian theme to them. On a whim, I added those dishes to my Christmas list and my sweet hubby spoiled indulged me and gave them to me for Christmas.

Last night I fixed Fried Rice with some egg rolls and thought it was a perfect time to use those dishes. (See the bottle of soy sauce with the price tag sticker on top? It's one I bought when we lived in Singapore. I keep refilling it. I left the sticker on the lid because it says "Tanglin Market" the name of the grocery store I shopped at. Call me sentimental.)

Sooo many things I love about the dishes: The green square plate, the ginkgo leaf shaped plate and motif on the other plates, the little ginkgo bowls for sauces.

It just makes meal time fun when the dishes are fun.

(I like Ginkgo trees. I bought an artificial one when we live in Singapore  You can see it behind Megan in this photo.) (She's working hard on a Christmas craft.)

*<:-)

I have just got to show y'all the birthday card my sweet hubby gave me:::

Best. Card. Ever.

I Feel Different

When my sweet daughter turned four years old, she was so excited about it. A friend of mine saw her the week after her birthday and commented that she looked grown up. She proudly announced it was because she was FOUR years old now. It was a cute moment.

By the way, here's a picture of Yours Truly at four years old.

My mom always made us shape cakes for our birthdays. I did the same for our kids.

All of that has nothing to do with much, except that I just celebrated my birthday last week. I've realized that when I turned Fifty a couple of years ago, it was no big deal. But now? Now I am IN my fifties. Sounds old and mature. Yikes. I just feel different, you know?

Hubby and I went to the Twin Cities for the weekend to celebrate and despite the stupid cold weather and the fact that our best friends went and got the flu and canceled our dinner plans, we had a nice time. We found a really nice restaurant for my birthday dinner and even enjoyed some yummy dessert.

Saturday we met up with Hubby's brother and he showed us around the new (to them) church building that their church is working on. It will be interesting to see the end result.

Our hotel had a DVD player and a lot of movies we could borrow so we took advantage of that a couple of evenings. We even saw a movie (The Guilt Trip) in the theater.

Whenever we are in a big city it seems as though we have saved up a lot of shopping. I guess that's the price of living in a tiny rural town. We managed to check several things off our list. And of course we managed to squeeze in a couple of quilt shops. You know, the important things.

Hubby did a great job of spoiling me with gifts like he always does. He got me some really pretty earrings, some beautiful cello music, a fondue pot (well, he couldn't find one in a store, so I ordered it on-line last night) and a Kindle! I've already downloaded so many free books on my Kindle I need to start reading (and finish the two real books I had started before). I look forward to taking the Kindle on trips.

(This post is taking me forever to finish because I keep getting distracted by all the other things to look at on the Internet: Pinterest, other blogs, free books on Amazon, Facebook....)

That sweet daughter (who has grown up, obviously) and her husband sent me some flowers for my birthday.

I took this picture and texted it to them to thank them for the flowers. Megan called me kind of in shock. I think she ordered "colored daisies", not really expecting such colorful daisies. Ha. I like them. They add a lot of cheer on these cold, gray January days.

My son and daughter-in-law sent me some music. Somehow it all happened digitally. I really don't know how. I just got an email, clicked, downloaded, un-zipped, extracted.... and POOF! new music in my iTunes and now on my iPod. I always tell them how much I love the music from their church and this CD has some songs they have sung during worship. So thoughtful of them and I just love it! Maybe I'll even figure out how to burn it on a CD...or is that too much fancy technology for someone my age? ;)

And my birthday isn't complete until I've had a phone call from my parents. They start out with a loud Happy Birthday! (usually with my dad hollering something or other from the background) and then my mom tells me about the morning she went into labor with me. Good thing she did early enough in the morning to stop my dad from traveling 90 miles for some meetings he had scheduled that day. I wonder what she would have done if he was already on the road. I have never asked that question. Hmmm....

I suppose I should wrap this up and get it posted.

A Little New Year's Recap

This was a New Year's for just the two of us. When we realized we wouldn't be spending it with the kids, Hubby did a little research and discovered that our college team was playing a home game on New Year's Day, so we decided to head to Iowa State for the weekend. Well, not actually the college itself, but the town. We drive by there whenever we go visit our kids and often stop for BBQ, but this time we stayed for the weekend. It was a sweet time together.

We saw the movie Parental Guidance and thoroughly enjoyed it. I like to see movies that just make me laugh and maybe even wipe away a tear or two. I'd see it again.

We had a BBQ lunch with a college friend and her son. We always enjoy seeing her and her family and are thankful to have been able to keep in touch through the years. She and Hubby knew each other from the Bible study that was made up of marching band people.

We spent a day in Des Moines doing some shopping and having lunch and a Peppermint Chocolate Chip shake fix from Chick-fil-A. I usually am not a huge fan of shakes, but this one is soooo yummy! It's a seasonal offer, so we try to find a Chick-fil-A a couple of times over Christmas.

I know this isn't sounding very riveting, but we enjoy being together in a bigger town with actual shops and restaurants.

One night at dinner I pulled up on my phone something I had saved in my email that had a list of conversation starter questions. It's not that we have a hard time talking to each other, it's just kind of fun to talk about questions we might not think about on our own. Here's a few examples:  

Think back to your childhood or teenage years. What do you miss doing the most? 
Can you name three qualities that attracted you when you met me/got to know me? 
My funniest memory of our dating days is when ...

I will say it was especially sweet to talk about when we dated in the town we fell in love.

We spent some time driving around town looking at the places we used to live. I spent a lot of years in this dorm. Fourth floor up, second window from the left.

When I think of it now, I just cannot imagine living in a dorm....shudder. I lived in the dorm longer than most because I ended up working 15 hours a week in the food service and it paid for my room and board. My last year there I would take the bus across campus to spend the evening with my sweetheart. He lived in this attractive building:

His apartment was the second floor on the right.

Oh college life.

Anyway...

New Year's Eve we discovered a sweet yummy restaurant with great atmosphere and enjoyed a  very delicious meal. We finished the meal of sharing this:

Yes. It was as good as it looks.

New Year's Eve after we switched rooms because the smoke alarm started malfunctioning and periodically beeping, we watched TV in our new room and enjoyed some treats I had bought earlier in the day.

Then, like I said before, we went to the home basketball game on New Year's Day.

These guys are not the Cyclone players. They are just a bit too short. :)

 Now these players are a little taller:

 

But this little guy next to us thought it was a good idea to bring his blankey to the game. (And with the headache I had, I would have loved to curl up with my blankey.)

Good Grief

It's January 7th and I haven't written a single blog post this year. Yikes. Not the way I intended to start out the year in the blogging world. I blame it on a headache. A headache that started on New Year's Eve with sharp pains in the back of my head and on the left side of my face. New Year's Day I woke up with a splitting headache -- the kind that makes you just want to crawl back in to bed. But that day I couldn't. Hubby and I were out of town for the long weekend and were checking out of the hotel that morning and going to a basketball game at the college we went to. Hubby had really been looking forward to going to the game, that even though he offered to skip the game and just drive home, I just couldn't let him miss the game. I sat through the first half with him and then spent the second half in the bathroom away from the noise. Pathetic, I know.

Sorry, I don't mean to make this a health report, but now my readers know why I haven't been writing.

I had that headache for two more days. Friday was the first day all week that I felt (mostly) okay. Then I had all that laundry to catch up on. And a new quilt to start. And Season 2 of Downton Abbey to watch. And the first show of Season 3 of Downton Abbey to watch.

I will write tomorrow about our New Year's weekend. It was just the two of us, but we enjoyed it.