Thanksgiving Recap...

Quote for the Day:

"That's what the holidays are for...

for one person to tell the stories and another to dispute 
~Lara Flynn Boyle

This week we celebrated Thanksgiving Day in the USA.  Our son, daughter-in-law and 2 grandsons came in from Georgia last Sunday and just left today.  Even though everyone was in different stages of being sick, including Andy, it was still a good visit.  Of course, I could have done without the gift of their illness that struck me down on Thanksgiving evening after dinner.  

Yep..as if falling down 2 steps onto the hardwood entryway floor on Tuesday (after climbing over the baby gate) wasn't bad enough...I finally succumbed to the crud that has been sweeping across everyone else.  

But onward and upward...since there is no where else to go when you are sick...here are some pictures from their visit...

Andrew I and Andrew III

Little Alex thought it was great fun to go up and down the stairs...

...unfortunately, he's pretty clumsy and rolled down about 10 stairs (thank God they are carpeted) so we had to put a baby gate....

...where he spent much time lamenting his captivity and looking pitiful...

Both of the grandsons LOVE LOVE LOVE playing with Grandpa on the floor...

Paul and his two sons...

Wherever Grandpa is, Andrew will be close by...

Bookend Boston Terriers...their dog, Missy, on the left, and our Ginger on the right...

Our neighbors came over to join us for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and we had a good time chatting and laughing together...

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday!

Loretta

"Easy Street"...

Quote for the Day:

Easy street, Easy street

Where you sleep till noon

Yeah, yeah, yeah

She'd repeat, Easy street

Better get there soon.

Easy street, Easy street

Where the rich folks play

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Move them feet

Move them ever-lovin' feet

To easy street, Easy street.

~ "Easy Street" lyrics, from the musical Annie

DONE!  DONE!  DONE!!!  

The Bonnie Hunter 2012 mystery quilt that I started in November 2012 is FINITO!!   Bonnie named the pattern "Easy Street", but I affectionately refer to it as "Scrap Vomit"...because it looks too busy to me.  

For those who don't know what a "mystery quilt" is, quilt designers give out cutting and sewing instructions for a quilt, step by step.  However, YOU don't know what the final design is until the end when they give you the instructions on how to sew the pieces together at the end.  

Before starting this quilt, I had just finished a Christmas quilt in red, green and cream.  I wanted this quilt to be an autumn quilt, so I picked colors of the fall leaves.  

Unfortunately, while I was hoping for this quilt to be mainly brown, yellow/gold and red, it turned out to have a lot more green than I wanted.  It looked like another Christmas quilt to me.  Because of that, I wasn't terribly pleased with the way it turned out.  

I think that adding the yellow and brown borders did help to tone down the "Christmasy" part a little and did help make it look a little more "fallish".

My daughter-in-law saw the quilt top in my sewing room and raved over it, so I told her she could have it for their guest bedroom when I (finally) got it finished.  They are coming in this weekend for Thanksgiving, so I decided that I would finish it before they arrived so that they could take it home with them!   I finished quilting it last week and finished sewing down the binding 2 days ago!  Just in the nick of time!!  

I put it on the bed in our guestroom...the one they will be using while here. Then when they leave they can take it with them.   Kinda like a "door prize"!  LOL   

Loretta

Catching-Up...

Quote for the Day:

“Being busy is better than being bored. Bored left a long time ago. 

Busy is always around for me."

~ Tabitha Robin

Guess what is FINALLY under my needle!!!

"Easy Street"!!!  This was Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt from 2012! 

I've had the top done for a while, but didn't have border fabric for it.  But when we were in Maine this past March, we went to Marden's and I found the perfect border and backing fabric for it!

I got the quilt top, batting, and backing pin-basted about 2 weeks ago but have been busy with work, so didn't get started quilting on it until today.

I'm using a variegated thread by Coats & Clark called "Fall Leaves"... gold, red, and green.

This past weekend, I attended a 2-day chiropractic conference in New Jersey with Dr. Leonette and Troy, one of the chiropractic assistants from work.  We attended lots of informative lectures and got to see...and try out...some of the newest products to help us help our patients.

(Dr. Barwell lecturing)

 (Troy, a lovely young man that I have the pleasure to work with)

Here I am trying out the Heart Rate Variability test.  This tests just how well your nervous system is working and how well your body is able to recover from stress.  Let's just say...I failed!  :(   My body has worked too long on "high alert" from being a critical care RN for 31 years.  I need to work on learning techniques to deal with stress...meditation, exercise, etc,..and give my autonomic nervous system a break!

Andy went with me to New Jersey and we stayed an extra night so that we could visit my sister, Mary Ellen, who lives in Manhattan.  She came to where we were staying and we spent the evening with her and went to dinner.  We thoroughly enjoyed our visit with her since we hadn't seen each other in almost 3 years!

Loretta