Birthdays

Just sending a picture of the new paint job on the house. It was really weathered wood before and we have put close to 40 gallons of paint on the interior and exterior combined. Happy birthday house!

Actually, my sister, Twyla had a birthday this month and came yesterday for a short visit. I had baked her a cake and she thankfully took half of it home with her. Like I need another piece of cake on my butt!!! But it has caused me to reflect on Birthdays over the years. My first memory of a birthday party was at some point in time when I was a little girl and classmates were invited to my home. I only remember being in total awe (evidently my mom planned it for me) when these kids from school showed up. I think only one boy came. I don't remember ever having another party like that. Mostly it was just family, but there was always a cake for us and at least one gift to open. We always had ice cream as we had a cow and dad made ice cream a lot for us.

We have lots of pictures of the Mr. and his brothers and cousins with birthday cakes and candles. Just a bunch of hick kids in overalls and blue jeans and bare feet, but his mother also made sure that birthdays were special days.

Our two children were as different about birthdays as two kids could be. Mike had lots of birthday parties and was always ready for a party...especially when he was a teenager and it didn't have to be a birthday party. If there was a party....he was there it seemed. Erica hated birthday parties. What mother doesn't want to pamper and dress up her little girl? Her grandmother bought her the cutest dresses when she was little and I got away with it 'til she started school. We didn't see her legs after that until 8th grade graduation. We had a slumber party for her when she first started school and she hated it! The girls fought and wanted to go home.....not a pretty scene. She wouldn't even let me take cupcakes to school for her birthday. She didn't want anyone to know it was her birthday. (Now she calls me every year on her birthday to thank me for giving birth to her.)

The Mr. threw me a surprise birthday party one year and he invited my co-workers to have dinner at the Hotel Wolf and it was a wonderful birthday. He had help from a friend and we had a huge cake. Great fun!!

I love birthdays!!! I plan to have a lot more of them!!

~ "Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most LIVE THE LONGEST."----Larry Lorenzoni

Tools of the Trade

Tuesday was my first quilt class and there were two other women and a man in the class. I was so relieved to find that the instructor was relaxed and open to the creativity students. Although she used precise directions and demonstrations, she encouraged experimentation with fabrics and I found that she made the class a fun experience. The tools, a cutting mat, rotary cutter and ruler and how to use each was clearly demonstrated. Sooooo....from those previous fabrics I showed, I cut 3 1/4" strips from both the light and dark fabrics. Then they were stitched with exactly 1/4 inch seams in strips of 3 lights, then 3 darks.
Here is the 1/4 inch seam. This has always
been a puzzle to me...but with "teachers" help, we measured on the ruler so that the needle touched the 1/4 in line, and drew a mark along the edge of the ruler on a piece of masking tape which had previously been laid down on the machine. Simple! That is as long as the fabric is fed so that the line is on the edge of the fabric. Then we stitched 3 pieces of fabric together, pressed the seams and were ready for the next step. More to follow!!

Today, the Mr. and I worked at painting the outside of the abode. We battled the wind, but the temperature was moderate so at least the
paint didn't freeze. I will try to get a picture tomorrow. We got really brave I think in choosing the colors for the exterior. We chose a light olive for the main color, a mossy green for the trim and a reddish brown for the accent.

The trees are turning and this year we have so many trees with leaves on still as late as it is. Usually we have had a couple of major snow storms and quite often the trees don't get a chance to turn colors. The heavy cold snow simply causes them to fall.

This post may be a little dull reading, but I really want to document this quilt project and will post something a little different next time. Thanks for hangin' in there.

~"Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused."....
Anonymous (That's me!)

Quilting

Look at this stash! I signed up for a real quilt class and these are the fabrics I have chosen, with of course, the experts pointing me in the right direction. The quilt pattern is "Venetian Tiles" and I had to choose 15 darks and at least 6 lights. I needed a break between paint jobs. I will continue to document this project and have my first class this week. Wish me luck!

I did a little "googling" and found a lot of information on Pawnee Buttes (Colorado) and used those 3 key words for my search. Rather than put a link here, check it out if you like. It has become a real spot of interest apparently and we thought it was just a secret place our Dad used to take us!!!

Today is Twyla's birthday...Happy Birthday Girl!! We got snow finally today and as I compose this little bit of twitter it must really be nasty on the summit between Laramie and Cheyenne as the scanner is on and the WHP is really busy with accidents.

I spoke with a couple of dear friends this week. Moving has put a little distance between old friends, but we will remain dear friends and will cry and laugh together. There are others I need to call and will eventually get that done. If you have a friend to call...do it...cry and laugh together.

~ "Laughter is the shortest distane between two people."...Victor Borge

Pinto

Being from a very western community, we have lots of livestock, lots of horses etc. Some areas of town (I think we are about 53,000 pop.) are apparently grandfathered in or like us, not in the city limits. Yep, we are in the county! So you can see pastures with horses near the mall. I don't know the difference between a paint or a pinto. Surely there is one, but all of my life, the words have been used to describe a spotted horse. This shouldn't be confused with an Appaloosa which can also be spotted. That is what the ol' homestead looks like. It has been scraped, caulked and primed in spots. If the weather holds, the Mr. may get the rest of the primer on tomorrow. We took the day off to take care of some business. We will probably regret that when the snow arrives this weekend. Here you can vote early, we registered last week, but weren't prepared to vote that day, so we arranged for ballots to be mailed today. We also got flu shots, bought 10 gallons of paint, got birthday cards, (had lunch), found the Mr's location for pool league tonight and hit the grocery store. That took the better part of the day. I will start painting on the livingroom and hallway tomorrow. In yesterday's local paper was an article about Pawnee Buttes. It is really in Colorado and I should have taken the time to put a link here. Maybe I will do that another time. It brought back so many fond memories of our father. He used to take us on trips to the prairie in northeastern Colorado as that was where he spent a lot of his younger days. He was quite an educator, if you were interested in the plains and the history of the early pioneers. I only wish I could remember more of his stories. I know that as a teenager and during the great depression, he spent time with his sister's family there on the drylands. There was no work for most and he would tell us about the jackrabbits and cottontails that he hunted so that they would have food. Another time he told of the same sister's child who died as a result of a rattlesnake bite. They had so far to go to a Dr. that by horse and buggy, they couldn't get her to town in time. Times were difficult, and as we face our current economic situation, I can't help but reflect on some of those tales and draw from the strength of our parents and grandparents. The will to survive tough times runs in my blood and I know that what we need and what we think we need are two very different things.

~"What we need are more people who specialize in the impossible."....Theodore Roethke

Decisions

I don't think I posted the finished vintage chair and glider that I finally finished just before the move so here it is and if I did....sorry. What can I say-I'm getting old and forgetful. I am finding it a great excuse, the getting old part. My new neighbor, Ingrid, is 79 and really struggling with health problems. She has such a sense of humor though and when I ask her how she is, she just replies "I can't breath and my bones are falling apart, but other than that, I can't complain." I can still breath and my bones are not too bad, but the memory thing ....I am not sure about. We are needing to get new carpeting in the entire house, but for now are doing the living room, guest and master bedroom and hallway. These rooms are big and that is a lot of carpet and making the decision on type and color are almost overwhelming. In addition, we are starting to get the primer on the exterior. The Mr. has used about 9 tubes of caulking and we bought more today. It has been so time consuming to scrape and caulk for the Mr. and the house is so tall on half of it that this is a major project. Will post pictures later. I have to make decisions now on paint for the interior, based on the carpet I choose and wallpaper for the wall that I am stripping...still. This about day 6 I think and I am hoping to be finished tomorrow with that project. Yuk!! Who puts wallpaper on an unpainted, un-primed wall. We have however made a decision on the exterior paint colors, if we ever get to that point and really, I shouldn't say "we" as the Mr. has been doing that. This post is just to let all know that we are still alive, haven't had the time to call anyone this week, but please be sure that we think of you.