Preschool and College

Stephanie starts classes at College today....but in this shot she is at the beach. Why? Because Mama isn't at school with her to take the first day of school picture!

And Megan started preschool yesterday! You go girls!
Lily has a few years before she gets to go too.
Megan is doing fabulous after her tonsil-adenoid-eartube-ecc-ta-me. [hey, if i'm gonna mislpell, i might as well do it obviously]
It dawned on me last night that she must have had a constant headache from all the gunk building up in her nasal area. She has a whole new voice too, instead of the nasal-ily scratchy voice she had for months. Monday night Family was very enjoyable and hardly stressful at all now that we don't have to yell for Megan to hear us. How do parents of deaf children do it?

The deer is all stitched on and the chipmunks are added to another area, pix later.

So in my empty nest....

Here is my trike. No I am not on it. I have been riding it, but it's hard to take a picture of yourself.....

I have been doing some applique. I cut these trees from around the deer I had embroidered on the back of a 'work shirt' back in 1978. One of the friends wore it to work on his car and got grease all over it.
I have appliqued the deer to the Pine Lake quilt, leaving some of the blue shirt and my signature/date!
Actually he is all stitched and I am ready to do another addition to the cabin area. Pix later.
This is my neighbors tree in front. I love the colors this turns in the fall....but the flowers are new this year. What the heck is this tree???

Off To College

So this is my baby on her way to U-Dub. [I blocked out the neighbor and his yard sale debris.]

The cat had to help with the last minute trimming on the quilt!
This is the only picture of the 'dorm' that Dan could get. The underground garage...lol. But they had volunteers and great big carts to help with the moving of stuff. Thank you Miss Volunteer!! She said we were the first to ask to get a picture! Sweet. I know Steph thanked her because that's what we do.
And the second shot of my baby leaving. [messed up order, i know] I would have gotten another picture if the neighbor hadn't horned in on our moment. I am pleased to say that Stephanie was bummed about it too.
Have fun at college Steph!

Not Quite An Empty Nest

I don't have the camera to load the 'kid leaving home' photo I took this morning of Stephanie as she 'left for college'. The camera is with Dan who took Steph and is now "Doing the Puyallup" [local fair that is a big deal here in WA]. But I did get camera pix from Stephanie of her dorm room.

Edit to add....Christine, the clock Stephanie created is on the shelf in the above picture!!!
She has already made her bed! With the quilt I finished this morning....well, all I had to do was snip off the ends of the ties. We like comforter type quilts, so I tied the whole thing.

Stephanie is my baby. Now she is starting her adventures away from me....like I have seen much of her since she got a boyfriend. But that is as it should be, right? Luckily she is only across the Puget Sound at U-Dub. [U of W, go Huskies.....hope I got that right....like I really am interested in sports.] I just wish the neighbor guy hadn't decided to hound in on my moment of saying good-bye to my baby. Sorry Steph!

Now I need to go pay attention to the grandbaby waking up.

Monday Night Family

I know this is Wed., but....here are a few things to show you.

Stephanie made herself a clock. She took apart a hard drive, a thrift store clock, and a few other things I think. It works!
Monday Night was family night, especially since Steph will be going to college in 2 days. She might not be here for her B.day, so sister Ashley made her a cake...well, actually Danny made the cake because he was off work on Monday.
Handwork....I am thinking of adding only orange things to this bright turquoise piece of fabric [i dyed it, it's decor fabric]
So while passing my sewing area, I noticed this piece of fish fabric that I believe Christine gave me last year for my Pine Lake Quilt. There is orange on that fish belly. But it's really long, as fish tend to be, so I added a few running stitches and gathered it up. Now it looks like a flower AND it fits!

While figuring out the block placement for her [Steph] quilt, the dog, Page, kept sitting on it...hey that's her job, right? Well Steph was going crazy trying to keep her, Page, off of it. So who should come along to join the fun? Yup, the cat. Page could not understand why she kept getting chased off, and the cat didn't care either way.
What is Monday Night Family without the family picture? Danny, Rhiley's daddy, holding Megan and Rhiley. The smirking female in the background is Stephanie. [meg is the blond, rhiley is the cooing 2 month old....except you can't see her cooing]

Let There Be Peace!

I learned from Dorothy that today is Peace Day. There is a video on her blog you can watch. At the end it asks what you would do for Peace. [forgot the exact wordage.]

I think for me to really understand the violence, I would need to understand the mindset behind it. I don't get that everything has to be so negative. And I sure as shit don't get that doing something so horribly wrong here will get you something so wonderful in the there.

Lack of creative juices....

so.....here i sit at night with my mom in front of the tv. not a single hand work held in my hands. they sit on the design wall, or environs, and they sit on the shelf by my chair. heavy sigh.

but.....the other day i got 2 catalogs in the mail...the snail mail kind....and for me at the moment....the finestkind. the above kats are a cross stitch pattern by Marjorie Sarnat and are in the Nordic Needle catalog. I love this pattern! It has the color and cats and designs-like-fabric that I would love to do. I haven't x-stitched in years! But who cares? I love this for the inspiration it gives me!
And this.....it's knit....something I do even less than x-stitch. Well, to be honest, I don't knit at all. But, again I love it! It's the "Riding Jacket" pattern by Debbie Bliss in her book The Big Easy. It's in the WEBS catalog. So here's hoping the mojo will still be with me this evening!

Widows Peak

For over a year now, there has been 'stuff' going on on a very large area of land up the street from us. Tree removal, clearing, that sort of 'stuff'. Then the builders came in and when I saw what they were building, I laughed....very loudly, in fact I laugh every time I drive by this place. Finally went by with the camera!

[Ok, Ashley had her camera, thank you A!!]

This seems to be a widow's walk....A railed, rooftop platform typically on a coastal house, originally designed to observe vessels at sea.

My guess is they can see the Olympic Mt.'s from

one direction and Mt. Rainier from the other up there on the

roof....because they sure aren't looking at this!

When I asked Ashley to turn around and get a shot of the 'view', she said, "What for? That's nothing to look at." Eggs-actley.

Look at this place! It has COLUMNS for pete's sake!.....room for 3 cars! With covered passage between the 2 buildings! And a widow's walk for the garage too, how quaint. This McMansion is being built in the boonies. We must have more Microsoft Millionaires than I thought....Nah, they live close to the ferries so they can boat across the sound. Might it become a B & B? I will be keeping an eye on this one. I am curious about the view they might have....

Smiling Megan....Say "Cheese"

Megan had her surgery on Monday morning. From the waiting room, mom and dad could hear a screaming child and asked a nurse if that was their child screaming....both pretty sure of the answer. Meg is not one to be messed with, and she lets you know it! She wasn't even totally out of the anesthetic, yet she was fighting the nurses who were trying to remove her IV. It took both parents to get Megan calmed enough to let the nurses do what they needed. I thought a picture of the area would be helpful, at least to me, because I couldn't quite picture the eardrum in relations to the adenoids.

This is Megan 2 days later, smiling a 'cheesy' smile, before she gave up and admitted she was tired. She actually played quietly here at my house today, whereas when I saw her yesterday, she was bouncing off the walls. [we have been making clothes for her dolls with scraps, tape and strings, and I gave her ribbon today.]
The camera shy cat got snookered into getting her own 'cheesy' smile, though she wasn't saying cheese, she was saying "mauw".
Not much progress on this side of the deck.....
but look to the left and....ta da!....and look up and.....a roof! A bright tin roof, which I really like.
The mess yard across the street is having a yeard....er...yard sale. It has been a while in the set up.....

Back From The Lost

Hello. Miss me? I miss me too. I have been in Blah Land, do you know of the place? I hope not!

I have been doing some baby watching. But no needlework. Well....I did start Steph's dorm quilt, but just barely. I need to do more today....I hope.

We have Lily tomorrow because Megan is going in for her tonsil removal! We are looking forward to that, believe me! Unfortunately she will miss the first week of preschool, maybe more?, but it can't be helped, those tonsils and junk have got to go! Update on that after tomorrow. I also have Rhiley sometime this week. And maybe Lily some more....or maybe Megan will be here to cuddle with me while she recovers. We aren't sure what all will be happening this next week.

09-09-09

I got coffee today in town. The barista asked me if today's date meant anything to me; I didn't have a clue what she meant even though I like number combos. So I googled it....and found this on eHow....

The last of the single digits for quite a while. 1001 years to be precise. It seems like a good day to celebrate and look forward to.

one thousand and one years??? holey moley....but....you notice the number? 1001...cool.

What have I been doing? Nothing. Creative. Bah.

Pretty in Pink

First mini skirt at 6 weeks. [rhiley, of course]

And this disgusting slab of meat is really a slab of painting.

This is the muscle painting Steph did from a baggie of drying paint. I showed it to you a couple of days [weeks? months?] ago, but it's now finished.

A vision in pink. My mom and her 5th great grandchild.

Steph and her BF were goofing off and he tried on this shirt.....of course I had to grab the camera.

In other news, Megan got to see the ENT doctor and he barely looked in at her tonsils and said, "yup, they gotta go." Her adenoids too as they are blocking her nose, and her ears are affected by them also, so her hearing is about 30% right now and she can't breath through her nose, of course. She will get tubes in her ears at the time of the surgery, so they can drain. By the time the tubes fall out; 6 months or so, she shouldn't need them anymore. I had to shake my head when Ben told me the doc figures Meg has temporarily lost 70% of her hearing!! Doctor says the surgery is done in the out patient offices these days and takes about 15 minutes. Sheesh.

more clunker deals

This time it will be for household appliances, though just freezers and fridges for now.....be interesting to see what other items go up for rebates. Hot water heaters? House heaters/AC units?

I would love to have a solar panel or 2, wonder if we will be offered good deals on those??

On the home front, I found out yesterday that Megan gets to go to preschool....yipee!!!!!!!!!!!!! And Steph got her first speeding ticket. Oops. Hate to see what her insurance will go up to, good thing she has to pay it!!!

Fun Stuff

Stephanie got this pair of shoes, all black, for her prom, but figures she couldn't wear them with anything else, so she painted them.

That should stop traffic!
WTF? Ashley needed a nursing cover-up, so I grabbed a yard of fabric from my stash and made her one. You know the slogan "measure twice, cut once"???? I skipped the measuring all together and just cut. Of course the hole ended up jiii-norrr-mous! But it works.
My youngest grand-girls, Rhiley and Lily. Rhiley is about 10 pounds now, and Lily is....Lily. Hey check it out, you can almost see Rhiley's eyebrows! I have noticed that eyebrows don't have much to do during this early stage of life. So they lay dormant. I am going to keep my eye on them.

Edit to add....Stephanie got home very stressed last night, after spending the night At College. She couldn't get signed up for her classes until she had been to orientation, and of course most are full by now, so....and to get financial aid, she has to take 12 credits.....we tried to figure it out last night, but with not much luck. It seems that classes now have an extra "quiz" period, kinda like a 'lab', that is separate from the regular class times. The one class she really wants {Art!} has a quiz time in the middle of Friday that screwed up every other class she tried to sign up for! it couldn't have been on a T or TH, when she has no classes, oh no!

Step 32- Steph Goes To College

Big brother Ben took little sister Stephanie to Seattle yesterday to attend the orientation to/of/at/? College. She spent the night because it is a 2 day process! Today she picks her classes; more on that later when I know more. So this makes her a Freshman....right? {i haven't been very good at the names for the grades/years in high school/college}

I got to stay here with Megan and Lily. And mom. Lots of responsibility there!! Lily {1} does go for her nap easily these days. So does mom {88}. Megan got to go play with the neighbor kids. I managed to get nothing else done....I think. Ben is taking Megan with him when he goes back for Steph, and they will get to go check out her dorm room because she finally got that assignment yesterday. Room # 414....good numbers! I will be here with Lily and Mom.

Dan managed to get lots done on the deck yesterday....with Ben's help, they got the bottom pad for the ramp all poured....18 bags of cement all mixed one at a time because the wheelbarrow we have is a small one. Sheesh.