Tolentreasures

is huffing and puffing. It thinks that it has just ran a marathon. I finally finished the tops of these quilts for the boys. What started as simple block bedspreads really morphed into something way bigger than I normally take on. I am sort of an "instant gratification crafter " and these were way out of my league. I was planning in the early stages to tie tack them but right now I have a call in to a machine quilter that I am hoping will take them on and get them done before Christmas. Is that too much to ask? For right now I am going to give my machine a little cool down while I put away the basket of laundry that has been sitting here since Friday, run the sweeper, straighten up the house, get a shower and then it is back to the sewing room to make the curtains for the boys' bedroom, maybe some curtains for my sewing room, work on my ornaments for church, and oh how about the 15 or so painting orders that I took on for before Christmas. All that UNLESS the quilting lad...

Thanksgiving brought a joyous announcement to our home. We are expecting grandchild number FIVE next summer!!!!! Dianna and Travis announced the happy news Wednesday night. She reminded me that she is keeping her end up with what I asked for, a new baby every year for Christmas for the next eight years. I am such a glutton! How truly blessed I have been to have this loving, growing family. Thanksgiving brought crafts to Gramma's this year. I found these foam trees at Pat Catan's a couple of weeks ago and thought that the kids would like them. I hope that this can continue as a tradition, it was fun. Of course we had to strip down to diapers and underwear for this event. Glitter Glue would have to be hard on clothing. How can she sit like this for so long? I would be in traction. Tyler is probably the perfect age for this. He was so excited with craft time. And Logan loved the Glitter Glue, making big piles of it on his tree. Even Kendall got thrown in to the acti...

It really can't be only Wednesday, and AM at that. There has been enough jammed into my three days that I think I could call it a week. Most of it lots of fun though. I would try to put this in chronological order, but I can't even remember it that way. Yesterday, Molly and Kim came for lunch, something I rarely get to do, have lunch with the girls. I felt so bad when it was cut short by the arrival of my neighbor's family with lots of questions. Kim brought me all this fabric and goodies and this morning I woke up at 4 and all I could think was that I wanted to go through it all! That and because we have our Thanksgiving tonight, I needed it moved out of the family room also. Thank-you, Thank-you, THANK-YOU Kim!!!! It was so fun to go through and divide up between my Mom, Shawnee and I. I can see so many projects in it already! Now to get it all to my sewing room. Wool pieces and blankets and even a quilt top! Stacks of homespun and just in time, our stash was d...

These words always manage to strike fear in my husband. "I found this recipe..." This time was not an exception. I found this recipe, or rather my MIL found this recipe and since the computer that she found it on will no longer link to the printer, (long story involving a four year old that wanted to print out his Imagination Mover pictures that he created online) she sent it to my email for me to print out. Actually to be honest, she sent several recipes, a JC Penney online purchase receipt and a Walmart site to store pick-up paper all while I am trying to print out a five color seperation job for shirts that needed done last week, and NEEDED them immediately as only a 70 plus year old prioritizes. Can't wait until I get there. Not to digress, but while I am glad that my MIL stays current and can surf the web, shop online and keep up with about 100 friends on Facebook, there has to be a special jewel in the crown in heaven for anyone that teaches someone over 70 years...

This picture disappeared from the bottom of the page and since I have no idea how to move these pics we'll just have to deal with it here. Let's see, a week ago, this was to be my almost "free" weekend. Those are very rare around here. The only thing planned was the girls and I had tickets for the Rockettes last night and dinner in Pittsburgh. Friday night, nothing, Saturday AM, nothing, Sunday, church and then nothing. Getting the picture? I had wanted to have Gracelyn this week and the week just got away from me. I did see her on Tuesday when Shawnee and I took the kids bowling but it seems like I never get enough "alone" time with her so when Shawnee called at 4:30 on Friday asking for a last minute babysitter, I jumped at the chance to have Gracelyn and enjoy her. Saturday AM, should have found me cleaning house for the company that is showing up later today but instead I ran Gracelyn home and then on to town for the list that had been compiling here an...

A chain of events lead to this happening. My closet that I normally stash the Christmas presents in was completely full of all the generous donations of yarn for the Dominican Republic. In order to stash the Christmas presents, I had to clean out the yarn, so last night we (my knitting friends, Carol and Tina and myself) proceeded to pack the yarn. It was actually fun to touch it all and we packed it in "projects" matching skeins and putting them in large ziploc bags, using our own form of vacuum packing which led Tina to wish that she had worn sweatpants. Please note that there are no pics of the calisthenics required by somewhat middle aged women to kneel, press and contort to get all the air out of ziploc bags. Packed and ready to go. I just have to tag them with what is in them for customs and they can be "stored" at the church until the trip in January! Thank-you to everyone that so generously donated yarn and supplies! I really appreciate your tak...

Do you want to hear God laugh? Tell him your plans. Well that would be the theme of last Wednesday through Sunday in my life. Update on my neighbor: After I contacted the sister from the name in her cell phone, I started receiving calls from the family that she was estranged from and to their credit, they took over and on Saturday they came and took Kelly (the dog) back with them. Not before I was calling myself the Dog Whisperer. Kelly is old and was not in good shape on Wednesday was even worse, but through water and food (I found out she really liked tuna fish and eggs) and lots of talking and petting and conversation, by Friday she was coming to the door when I called her and going into the house at the end of the day on her own. It required lots of Lysol wipes, air freshener, hand sanitizer, Vicks up my nose and many showers and washing of my hair. On Friday, Tyler looked at me and said "Grandma Cathy, what is wrong with your hair? Do you need a haircut?" Childre...

why I cannot view some blogs and cannot post on others? I want to leave comments and read all about what everyone is doing. The first blog that I click on comes up and sometimes I can leave a comment on that one. Another might open and by then will not take comments. By the time that I try to open the third one, it freezes the computer. I close each one before I open another one. Just as a side note, it is doing this on the laptop and my desktop. What the heck is going on? In the spirit of that question, I would like to relate part of my day yesterday. At 7 in the morning I was cleaning a guest room for our friend, Bob. John had to make a run to Zanesville , Ohio to pick up an order early this AM and Bob was going to ride along to keep him company. Back to the story, I hear this exceptionally loud banging on my door. I run to the door in cleaning apparel, arms crossed to cover the front of my shirt, you guessed it, no bra cleaning that was and it is a member of the fire com...

Some of these may be slight repeats from the last post, but we did manage to pull it all together and the show was a success! By Sunday AM, our three room display had shrunk to one room and everything was well picked over. We learned a lot and plan to do it bigger and better next year. It was a great experience, but tired? I was in bed at 7:40 last night and I think that I might have slipped into a bit of a coma! Highlights: 1. I was able to meet two blogging friends face to face, Lois and Nina, it was great to meet both of you. Nina, your grandsons are adorable, I can only imagine how fun it would be to have them together with my grandsons, a little exhausting, but fun! Lois, hope that you had a great bike ride home, it was such a beautiful day. 2. The girls now have the crafting "bug" and are planning for next year and what fun to have a family project to work on. 3. The nice comments from everyone about how they were happy to buy handcrafted items and not Made in Chi...