Monday, November 24, 2008

Weekend entertainment

The past two weekends have been entertaining! Last weekend we went to see the new James Bond movie, then we went to see my niece in a play. This is her senior year and for the past several years the teacher (who was also Jason's high school theatre teacher) has tried to let each senior in the advanced theatre class pick a play and the part they want. Kaitlyn is the only senior this year and she picked 'Over the River'. I was asked to stay afterwards and take pictures. It is really a shame the child is so bashful.


No, this was not a scene from the play - this was after we had done all the set shots and they were just goofing off.

When Jason was a senior, his play was 'True West'. That one was a lot of fun - messy, but fun. You can see pictures of that play here. (along with some other plays from high school) Here is a picture of Jason and Mrs. Grote from the end of the year party

and on graduation day.
Hard to believe that child is one semester shy of graduating from college.
Anyway - this weekend our entertainment was at SFA where we saw 'Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. Baby boy's bride was stage manager for this production and it was a great show. If you are in east Texas and have a chance to see a mainstage performance at SFA they put on some great shows.
I did finally manage to spend a little time with Big Bertha yesterday and I finished up two Christmas gifts. Of course, I can't show them until later. I'm still in a bit of panic mode as far as Christmas goes. I still have things to make plus shopping to do. (I did get one gift purchased this weekend and decided what to get for another - now to watch for that to go on sale - I hope it isn't on sale Friday because I don't do 'Black Friday' shopping!)
Okie dokie - that's it for now!
Have a great week!
















Friday, November 21, 2008

Texas weather

They say if you don't like the weather in Texas, wait a few minutes - it will change. Yesterday we were up in the seventies - perfect if you ask me - unless you are shopping for a new coat - it is really hard to try on coats when it is that warm! (and then there is of course the one particular store where you needed shorts and flip flops! Have no idea how freaking hot it was in there.) So, anyway - we are up to a whopping forty degrees now. I'm not sure exactly how low it went overnight but the first time I looked this morning it was 34. We might make it up to fifty and it is supposed to freeze tonight. (I think the plan to work in the flowerbeds tomorrow just went out the window!) We are supposed to get rain in a few days too. Then of course, when Christmas gets here, we could be wearing shorts again.
So, who would think you could grow these in east Texas?

Someone brought these to me earlier this week. She picked them right off the tree, right here in east Texas. Hope they get them all off the tree before tonight - I don't know how well lemons do when the temp falls below freezing.
Off to do errands - which include mailing off my last ornament exchange - I made it with a couple of days to spare. I might have had a whole week to spare if not for the do-over caused by my inability to count!
Thanks so much for all the birthday wishes for Jason!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Twenty-two

My baby is twenty-two today. Why does time pass so quickly? Seems like just yesterday I was taking him to kindergarten for the first time and now he is one semester away from graduating from college.

I know I have posted this picture before, but it is one of my favorite pics of baby boy and his bride. (this picture was actually taken before they married - but they are still just as happy)
Happy birthday, Jason. I love you with all my heart!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Ducks

Do you have all your ducks in a row? I don't. My ducks aren't even on the same pond these days - in fact, I think I may have misplaced the pond. I just can't seem to get my act together and keep it that way. I think I have all this time to get things done and the next thing I know, the day is over and I haven't even made a decent dent in my list. This is also why the blog posts are so few and far between these days - I keep running out of day! Not that I was 'on the ball' before the time change, but for some reason this year it seems to have really knocked me off schedule. It doesn't usually take more than a few days to adjust but not this year. (it couldn't have anything at all to do with my age!)
In between trying to line up my duckies I've managed a little (but not much) stitching. I'm still working on the exchange ornament. I have a week to finish stitching it and get it made into an ornament and ready to mail. Of course I can't show a picture of that and the only other thing I've done since Houston is make up a couple of pillowcases. I picked up a 'kit' at the quilt show and made one - I liked it so I ordered a mate and made it up so I would have a pair.


I'm still telling myself I am going to get it together, but like most things I also keep telling myself I'll get to that in January. My job is ending as of Christmas (shop is closing) so I'll be home in January and everything keeps getting pushed to then - so far I'm going to have a very busy January!
Better go - I have ducks to wrangle.



Monday, November 10, 2008

Kleenex and cough drops

Stock in those two areas should have made a great leap last week - I even considered buying some! Fortunately I seem to be done with the kleenex for now and the coughing is better. I still have that dry scratchy throat, but at least I don't feel like I'm going to cough up a lung.
So, as you can imagine, I don't have much new to show. Maybe this will be the last 'attic treasure' post. :) If not for these treasures, I might not have any pictures at all!
This is the press plate from the newspaper when the oldest did his Eagle Scout project. It has been rolled up in the attic all this time but hubby wanted me to frame it, so I did. Really hard to get a picture of tin with glass on it and have it come out well! It looks wavy, but it is an illusion!

The picture is of the scouts working in the city park to repair and paint benches. If you look at the story in the upper right corner, you will see that this was the same weekend that Princess Diana died.
The other thing we found in the attic was a total surprise and probably one of the best things. Information. Hubby was going through a box of stuff he had brought over after his dad passed away in 2000 and found a piece of paper his dad had written on all wadded up in there. When he opened it to read it it was about his grandfather (hubby's great grandfather) being born in Czechoslovakia in 1858. He was two when he came to the US with his parents and they settled in Michigan. He went to the University of Michigan and could read and write seven different languages. After college he and some of his siblings moved to Nebraska (I don't know how many siblings he had) He married sometime around 1182-1885 and had 7 children. Hubby's grandfather was born in 1892 and married in 1919. FIL was born in 1920 and his sister was born in 1928. Their mother died in 1929 and his father married again in 1934. That is where he stopped writing. I hope, somewhere, there is more information that we will come across. We have one picture of hubby's grandfather and I'm hoping to come across more when the time comes to clean out his mother's house (she is living with his sister and her house is on the market) I would love to have a picture of hubby's grandmother, but I don't know if one exists. His grandfather had passed away years before I met hubby but his (step) grandmother was still living and I met her once before she passed away. She lived in Iowa (where hubby's aunt still lives) and we took a trip up there about 20 years ago to visit. There is a lot of corn in Iowa.
I did get a little stitching done - I started the ornament for the exchange over again because I made a major counting error. I'm stitching with a dark thread on light fabric so I didn't want to take it out - I'll fudge on it later and keep it for myself, but I want the one that I send for the exchange to be right!
I guess that is it for now.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

More attic treasures

Are you tired of seeing things I found in the attic? I hope not! I might have one more post left! :)


If these little guys look a bit crowded, well, they are. They are now on a shelf in the guest room. My grandmother made all of these for my kids.. (mr. bunny on the far right needs a new nose - I'll get to that) The 'cabbage patch' style doll on the left - in camo - was made for my oldest son (he is now 29) His daddy wasn't too fond of him playing with dolls, but this one was okay! She bought the face somewhere then made the rest of the him along with his camo clothes and orange hat.


Then, she signed her name on his little hiney. I had forgotten that was there until I took his clothes off to wash them. Brain named him 'Hunter'. Cute, no?


I knew this picnic basket was up there - it was just a matter of getting to it. When we were little (my brother, sister and I) we used to go on lots of picnics. We would meet my grandparents and/or various aunts, uncles and cousins at a park in Little Rock and have picnics. This is the picnic basket we used. My mother gave it to me and we used it to take our kids on picnics (although not as often as when I was a kid) I have it sitting on top of the hutch in my dining room now.
Okay - I'm off to get stuff marked for a garage sale. I may not be back to post until Sunday - or Monday - depends on how the weekend goes!
Hope you have a great weekend!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Just doing my part

to keep the economy afloat. Doesn't really look like all that much all spread out on the bed like that, but it sure felt like a lot when I was toting it around the convention center!


The girlfriends and I had a great time at the quilt festival. After getting off to a bit of a late start on Thursday, the rest of the weekend went great. We stopped at 3 Stitches (in Spring) on the way into Houston and shopped a bit. I picked up a couple of charts, some fabric and some new Sampler Threads. Since we had started a bit late, we were heading to downtown Houston in late afternoon traffic, but we made it fine. Got checked in and didn't move the car again until time to leave on Saturday. We were up and at 'em early Friday morning. We walked from the hotel to the show and were waiting in line for the doors to open at 10:00. We shopped 'till we dropped' and left around 6:00 - we took the shuttle bus back to the hotel! I picked up a couple of xs charts at The Silver Needle booth, a mini version of my little pink bucket that sits by my stitching chair (it is always too full to take with me anywhere, so this should make a great travel bucket!), a walking foot for Big Bertha, some misc. fabrics (just because I thought they were pretty), some fabrics for a couple of quilt tops and a few other misc. things.
I'm not sure how attendance was, but it felt like there were more people this year than last. That could be either because it was so freaking hot in there or just that my claustrophobia is getting worse. Several times I had to fight my way to the end of an isle just so I could breathe.
Our pink t-shirts (pic in last post) were a hit! We had a lot of people stop us and ask where we got them. It sure did make it easy to find each other when we got separated.
I've been trying to catch up on blog reading but you are posting faster than I can read! I had 350 feeds when I got home Saturday night (along with 95 emails) and every time I read a few, more show up! I still have over 300 (I'm not complaining - I love reading them, it just doesn't give me a lot of time to comment!) I'll probably be even farther behind by this time next week as we are planning to have a garage sale this weekend (to get rid of some of that stuff we cleaned out of the attic and hopefully make enough to cover what I spent last weekend!) and I haven't even started pricing stuff yet. I'll post as I can. Hopefully by next week I can get back on track.
Have a great week!