Thursday, September 20, 2012

long story long

so ... Blogger has gone all new format on me and won't let me use the old interface ... sheesh ... i already overused my brain today trying to figure out the math for a border on the quilt i'm trying to piece ... and now Blogger expects me to use my brain again?!?

anywho ... about the dragon in pieces ... once upon an autumn looooong ago (less than seventeen years, but more than a dozen) i stopped at my favorite garden center in longmont (i don't remember the name - and they didn't reopen the next spring) on my way home ... i was on the Pity Pot ... spending money i didn't have sounded like a great idea ... and everything was on sale ... yeah, sure it was ... i wandered around with a credit card burning a hole in my pocket ... i went up and down every aisle, looking for a mood changer ... nothing ... nothing ... nothing ... then i went outside and wandered around the trees and ornamental grasses and patio furniture ... nothing ... nothing ... nothing ... dragon fountain ... nothing ... nothing ... wait ... back up ... dragon fountain?!? 

dragon fountain?!? shards!!! he's gorgeous!!!

deep breath ... deep breath ... look at the price tag ... gasp!!!

no way you are spending that kind of money that you don't have on a fountain that you can't even drink out of ... no way, dianne ... no.

i got back in the car without spending one penny and drove home.

the next day i drove back, handed over my credit card, and had the big burly garden center guys load him in my car ... i was ecstatic all the way home ... i backed into the driveway, raised the garage door, popped up the window and lowered the tailgate ... i took out his neck - piece of cake ... and his head - groan - kinda heavy ... started to scoot the basin and realized that i was gonna have to take a break before i tried to lower it ... and then came his body ... Oh. My. Aching. Back.
i managed to scoot and rock and slide all of the pieces into the garage ... i hadn't taken into account that i had no place for him in the front yard ... or the back yard ... and no power for the pump that i don't know how to use ... and no money to rectify any of those things ... so i proceeded to stack stuff on top of him for the next umpty-ump years...

this spring i decided that it was time to start fixing the back yard ... i've waited seventeen summers for it to fix itself and it just wasn't happening ... so i hired a couple of hungry people to hurry it along ... out with the old concrete and in with the new ... stack up some landscape blocks and build a couple of walls ... fill them with dirt ... wire an outlet ... and now we have a little patio ... and raised beds for an herb garden and a vegetable garden ... and power ... so i spent a saturday morning digging a hole and filling it with sand and bricks until i had a level surface for my dragon to rest upon ... i borrowed a two wheeler and rolled my dragon's body into the back yard ... but the two wheeler didn't like the dirt and i couldn't find a board wide enough for a ramp, so i had to drag him through the dirt and then lift him onto his foundation ... groan ... and that's as far as i got before my brain got this message from my back...

 No. More.

so my dragon is in bits and pieces ... but he's outta the dark garage ... and that's a start, right?!?

penniless women's paradise

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

happy anniversary

on september 18, 1945...
these two people married each other in Oakland, California

gone ... but not forgotten

Monday, September 10, 2012

oompa loompa

Carrie Nelson of La Vie en Rosie has been busy creating new patterns for Moda Candy ... and last week she had a giveaway ... the only question that needed to be answered was...

What is your favorite kind of candy?

sounds simple, huh?!? 
but...
yes ... there IS always a but...

 nothing is EVER simple ... i think that might be one of the Wizard's Rules ... different circumstances call for different candy ...  i couldn't pick just one ... my comment took a while to type ... and i needed some help remembering some of them...

Auntia knows what she likes ... her comment took about ten seconds for her to type ... and she let the World know that she was wondering if i was EVER gonna finish my list...

which was kinda funny in a disrespectful stinkpot kinda way... 

anywho ... Carrie Nelson thought our comments were funny enough to send BOTH of us some Candy...
Moda Candy and Miss Rosie's Little Bites and other way cool stuff!!!

really way cool!!!
and ... since Auntia cinched it for both of us ... thank you to Carrie and to Auntia!!!
even if what Auntia said was kinda bratty ... i'm just sayin'...

oompa loompa doom pa dee do
i have another puzzle for you
oompa loompa doom pa da dee
if you are wise you will listen to me
who do you blame when your kid is a brat?
pampered and spoiled like a Siamese cat
blaming the kid is a lie and a shame
you know exactly who is to blame...

no ... no ... no ... not the mother!!!

Monday, September 3, 2012

and then...

looooong ago i posted about a quilt flimsy made with
Wintergraphix 2 by Jason Yenter fabric ... waaaaay back here ... anywho ... i wanted to quilt snowflakes all over it ... three years later i finally figured out that i'm just not up to it ... so ... a couple of months ago i sent it off to Liz the Longarm Quilting Wizard ... she worked her magick on it and sent it back ... i trimmed it and did the machine sewing for the binding ... 
and then...

and then...

 and then i decided it was just too doggone hot to hand sew the binding on a quilt and i put all of it away again... 

and then we had one cool day a month or so ago and i sewed down the binding ... so i actually have a finish...

World, meet Polaris...
i am the holder, not the photographer ... Auntia is the photographer and she wasn't terribly interested in taking the picture cuz she was missing Swift Justice ... go figure

the quilting is lovely, but you probably can't see it ... the pattern is Fireworks! by the famous Kim of  Kim's Big Quilting Adventure ... she writes a swell pattern, lemmetellya!
so swell, in fact, that i am gonna make another quilt someday with the same pattern but different fabric ...

and then...

and then i'll tell you all about it...