Thursday, April 30, 2009

We are BAAAAAAAAACK

We arrived home at 2 a.m. Sunday morning. The hedge in front of my bed room has bloomed. There was a HUGE bee collecting the stuff bees like when I went out to take this picture before the storm hit. Since I am allergic to bees it was not a real smart idea but the sun was shinning for the first time since we arrived home and I wanted a picture.

I did not go into work on Monday........jet lag (can you have jet lag if you drive?). We had a wonderful time see country we had not seen before and meeting all sorts of nice individuals from different parts of our country and from afar. The gentleman from Brazil was very interesting to converse with as was the tree trimmers and linemen in the area to correct the damage the ice storm caused the area back in February. Funny that the men were more open to talk then the ladies were. I did have an interesting conversation with a lady from Toronto while at the quilt show.

Paducah is a HUGE town. People kept saying is was a nice "little" town so I was completely caught off guard when we arrived. The first place I saw of interest was Hancock's of Paducah. We (I) had a blast looking thru that place before we left town. Of course I had to take a small part of the offered products home with me.

Eleanor Burns had the fabric in her store on sale for $4.00 per yard. I picked up nine yards of a beautiful fabric for the backing of my quilt (that I have not started yet). My daughter finally picked the pattern she wants her quilt to be and she purchased the fabric for me to start on it.

I am home from work today with a head ache. I think I will work on my studio so I can start on the quilts. I am just going to cut out some of the parts as I am going to do the quilt along with about 300 hundred other people following "crazy mom quilts" blog.

Off to get some laundry done.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Paducah here we come!

My bags are packed I am ready to go. I am so excited to see all the beautiful quilts and be a part of the excitement of the Paducah show.

The sitter will arrive tomorrow morning to take care of all of the fur babies and insure they are kept well fed and happy.

Since it is unseasonable HOT right now in Oklahoma the sitter very well may have to run the air conditioner! It is not even summer yet.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week end.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Rain, Hail, Floods


This is my neighbors back yard. His raised garden is flooded.


This is a shot of the back of our properties. This is when flooding had just started.

After taking pictures of the front of the house I went into the pole barn in the back. The water came up really fast and I was trapped in the garage. Now I understand how people get trapped in the floods. I rolled up my jeans stepped down into FREEZING cold water up over my ankles. SO shocking! I thought my toes were going to freeze off.


This is the water running down the alley, nice and swift.



I had put my garden sheets on the fence earlier this morning in the sun shine to dry so I could put them up until next spring. We had up to 70 mph winds.




We had hail like I have never seen before. It was coming down so hard & heavy I could not see the barn behind the house. There is still piles of ice in the yard four hours after the storm.





Hail off the front porch with the drip off the roof cutting the line in half.




Ankle deep water with lots of hail floating.





Can't hardly see the black top. Water up in the neighbors yard flowing to the back. I did not expect it to get even higher but of course it did.




Shot of the water out in back.




My poor hostas went down for the count. I wish I had known we were going to get such a bad hail storm I would have put the sheet over the tender plants.
We are still under a severe thunderstorm watch. We had six to eight inches of water standing in the yard and expect more to come during the night with another hail storm (channel 2 weatherman just said) yuck!
The day started out with sun shine. Then dark as pitch. Hail, rain, then floods. Then the sun came out again. Now as evening comes the storms get closer.
I look forward to tomorrow...............sunshine again!








Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Quilt Sampler - Tulsa


I got to shop a bit in the Quilt Sampler, 61st & Sheridan. They close at 5:00 p.m. Unfortunately we arrived at 4:40 so we did not have long to enjoy.



I want to make the above quilt. I love circles. I purchased the templets for the circles, however, I don't have the book with the pattern nor the fabric yet.


Lots of lovely quilts line the walls. We got to hear one of the ladies celebrate when she finished her quilt, the first time she had ever mitered the corners of the binding.



My daughter (my bright shinning star) loves stars. I have been after her for the last year or so to please decide which star pattern she wanted me to use to make her quilt. She still can't decide.



Any one that knows me knows I love cats. I need to find someone to make the above blocks for me in a deep cream to match deep gray/blue fabric I have chosen for my bed quilt. I would love to have a quilt like this on may bed.
The Quilt Sampler has a table in the back of material on clearance for $1.99 a yard. Now that I have had time to think I wished I had purchased the dark gray material with the pink flamingos on it to use as a backing on my bed quilts. Maybe they will have some left the next time I get by there.
I was actually looking for the new Laural Birch jungle fabric. The lady said she did not think it had be released yet. I will have to search the net to see if I can find some.
I hope you enjoyed the eye candy of the Quilt Sampler.


Francy


Monday, April 6, 2009

BEST BBQ IN THE WORLD




Oh my what to eat?



So many different items of goodness.




Dd ordered a two meat plate: ham and bologna with a side of potato salad.




My usual : sweet BBQ bologna sandwich and cole slaw...........YUM! I asked them not to put the onion, pickles and pepper on my plate and they serve the good chips.





Knotty Pine is located 3301 West 5th Street, their phone number is 584.0171 if you need directions. They have been serving the best BBQ in the world since 1952. I am still smiling from its goodness..........and still full :o)
We went to Sam's on Sheridan to see if they had the Charlaine Harris book I was missing. They have all seven of the Sookie Stakehouse series so my dd decided to purchase all of them so she could read them since I have enjoyed them so much. A friend of her has the True Blood series from HBO. DD is going to get it so I can watch them as soon as I finish the books. I can't help but wonder the name of the actor they found to play Bill, Eric and Quinn. I think of a person that is similar to Holly Hunter for Sookie.
While we were out I decided to go by the Quilt shop.......pics tomorrow.











Sunday, April 5, 2009

Good day to read



I fixed a big pot of Chicken Corn Noodle soup after doing all my usual Sunday stuff, then settled in to read another Charlaine Harris book in the Sookie Stackhouse series. I finished up Dead as a Doornail this morning. "Definitely Dead" was the first one I read (actually listened to) so by mid week I will have read all of this series and them have to wait until May for the next installment.

I mentioned on a ladies blog that our library did not have "Dead to the World" and she kindly offered to send me her copy to read. Ya just gotta love bloggers as most of them are so kind.

Tomorrow we are going to Knotty Pine for lunch. I absolutely LOVE their BBQ. It is just the BEST in the world as far as I am concerned. We have not been there for sometime so I hope they are still open.

After lunch I plan to park myself at Barnes and Noble so my daughter can do her running around and I can locate the books missing from the series I am reading. She is off tomorrow and Tuesday so we usually try to spend one day together. I hope she spends her second day off doing her chores .......... a mom can always dream can't she? :o)

My cuz called today to inquire what we plan to do Easter. I was surprised how the holiday snuck up on us. I need to get some special stuff for mom, like an Easter lily for her room and her bunny adult size bib completed. I think while we are running around tomorrow I will drop in to JoAnn's to see what decorations they have or maybe Hobby Lobby. I think I will just make a special supper for mom on Easter as dd has to work until five that Sunday.

Have a good evening I am off to read.........

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Such a beautiful day

Poor baby Carter (above) is still under the weather. The virus going thru the Cat family has affected his voice. He sounds so funny. DD keep harassing him to make him squawk. I will be so happy to see this virus out the door. I have cleaned up more cat puke in the last two weeks than I have had to clean in the last twenty years. My poor fur babies need to get healthy.


On a sadder and scarier note my baby brother was on his was home from a Special Olympics function today when the van he was riding in almost hit a deer. The deer ran out in front of the van, the van swerved to miss the deer, hit an embankment, traveled down into a ditch and then slammed into a tree. Thank goodness it did not turn over.

Everyone was transported to the hospital. A couple of the guys were pretty banged up. My brother has a torn liver. The nurse said to keep him comfortable and control the pain........nothing else to be done. His right side is pretty sore, however, he is proud he handled his self so well while he was being poked and prodded and MRI'd. Scary stuff.

I requested they not tell his mother as she would freak out. There is nothing mom can do from the nursing home except sit and worry............and cry as she is so very prone to do now days.

It was such a beautiful day! I opened up the house while cleaning. It just seems so much easier to clean on sunny days.

Off to finish up my fourth book by Charlaine Harris "Dead as a Doornail". I hope I can locate the rest of the series as I have really enjoyed the story lines.