Thursday, September 22, 2016

Really Random Thursday, 9/22/16

It's been awhile since I've posted anything remotely random. Or posted at all, for that matter. So I'll try to catch up from the last few weeks.

According to the pictures on my phone, there is not much to report.

We officially celebrated Mark's retirement with lunch at a Fuddruckers in Modesto, CA, with good friends, George and Cheri. This is significant because over thirty years ago, over lunch at Fuddruckers in Fresno, Mark was approached about coming to work for a new cabinet company in town. So even though it was a different restaurant in a different town, the two meals seemed to bookend his thirty-year career in kitchen design and cabinet sales quite nicely.

And wow, do they make great hamburgers!
The second half of summer has been a difficult one for our family. My father suffered a stroke the beginning of August, which essentially completely took away his memory, to the point where two weeks ago, he was placed in a memory care facility. For those of you who have gone through this, we were completely unprepared for the speed at which my father's health changed, almost literally overnight. He went from driving the car, to not remembering anything. To this point, he still recognizes us, but that's about it. He doesn't like being where he is, but it's a lovely facility and he is being well taken care of.
Ruby and Gabe were over for the afternoon last week. And the weather was so nice that we sat outside. I even broke out my brand new box of Prismacolor colored pencils. For 4-year-olds. :)
What's the point of having someone take your picture if you can't make a goofy face?
After drawing some great pictures, they asked if they could use our phones and take pictures around the yard. You never know quite what you are going to get, but actually they are pretty good photographers, and it's fun to see things from their perspective.
Also, Gabe took this great picture of the two of us.

I've done some English paper piecing. Given my dad's health, I haven't had much time in my sewing room. But doing hand piecing has been good therapy.



However, I did get a bee block done, for our Spelling Bee block exchange. This month, Rachel is requesting words all having to do with honeybees.
I saw this in the pharmacy while standing in line to pick up a prescription for my father. Truth.
This is what my horoscope said a couple of days ago. I'm saving it in a new journal I have started for an exciting new project I will be beginning soon. That thing about wasting time...yeah, that's the hard part.
Hope your week is a good one.

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Really Random Thursday, 9/1/16

Welcome to September, that time of the year when it starts to feel like fall.

Oh, wait. We live in Central California. We won't know that feeling until, well, maybe November...

In preparation for Mark's retirement, we had to buy another vehicle, as he had been driving a company truck for years. We bought a Subaru Forester. It has lots of great techie stuff that we are not used to.

However, we were not expecting this. A reminder about Mark's birthday.
That message flashed on the screen every single time we turned the car on for about two weeks.

And then on the day of his birthday, it changed to this message, complete with ribbon.
We love our car. :)

Maybe some of you know I collect Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts, which will eventually be blocks in a quilt, aka the most expensive quilt ever. With the exception of a couple of special editions I have collected over the years, all of the t-shirts are the classic white version.

Katy, who lives in Scotland, offered to get me one from Glasgow. I don't have it yet, but she sent me a picture. Isn't this awesome??! I think it will be the center block. I love it!

I've been working on my New Hexagon Millefiore quilt and I have finished all the pieces for Rosette 6. As I played around with them, I realized that by changing the orientation of the hexies around the center, the look changed dramatically. The pattern was written with the hexies oriented like this.
But for fun, I rotated them 180 degrees. I think I'm going with this version. I posted both versions on Instagram, and the one below was the overwhelming favorite.
Mark brought me flowers today. He felt like I needed a pick-me-up and that orange would do the trick. He was right about that.
And because I can't resist the Waterlogue app on my phone...
After much thought, my Kona color card has been cut into pieces. As my hands have been so sore lately, Mark did all the cutting. Wow, is it nice having him around now that he is retired. Being able to move the colors around sure makes quilt planning much easier.
I will be teaching a class in November on My Swedish Ex. The store where I'm teaching (Authorized Vac and Sew) puts out an amazing class catalog, where all the upcoming projects are professionally photographed. Here is my quilt. Such a cool photo!

I'm an introvert. But for many years, even I misunderstood what that meant.
But now I understand myself so much more.
And because Mark and I have had a lot of social gatherings on our calendar in the last couple of weeks, I have been drinking out of this mug a lot!

Happy weekend, everyone!