mighty oaks from little acorns grow

she's a nut

in a rut
she's cra-a-a-zee!
LuLu is six months old today!here she is, my nutty little acorn!
happy half birthday, LuLu!
your tummy is too little, so i hope you don't mind if the rest of us eat some half birthday cake ... you can have a piece six months from today, okay? okay!

Gumdrop and Heart

Gumdrop has been waiting patiently ahem for me to feature her little friend - Heart the Bear ... both of them think that Boxy the Turtle gets too much post time...Heart is left-footed ... just like Gumdrop
...so here is a picture of Heart dressed like Gumdrop when she's playing soccer...get those cleats off the hardwood floor! and leave that door alone before you smash your fingers!
...and a picture of Gumdrop getting ready to go to soccer practice ... she is new to the sport ... the only advice i could offer was pretend like you've just had your nails done (so you don't use your hands) and wear your shin guards ... i'd bubble wrap my little grandbabies - if i could - and protect them from the cold cruel world ... she just sighed and rolled her eyes

three reasons

why i'm no longer married...

*

when a woman stole my husband

there was no better revenge

than to let her keep him

*

i was incomplete until i married

and then

i was finished

*

my marriage was the triumph of my imagination over my intelligence

*

not too

today we were supposed to go to The Quilter's Studio for the Saturday Sampler 3 BOM ... but we missed the meeting this morning because it was snowing ... the roads were icy and slicker than i'm trying to think of another word for snot that isn't even more gross i've seen them in a month of sundays cuz somebody didn't bother to sand them or spray them with magnesium chloride ... we were out bright and early to go to Hallmark for their limited edition ornament event ... ooooh! new Star Trek ornaments! shiny!!!
... and slipped and slid and slipped some more ... by the time we made it out of the store and back onto the streets, it was even icier and most of the metro area was on accident alert ... we decided that paying $5 for the fat quarters and instructions for october's BOM made more sense than risking life and limb ... so we went home and i worked on Mr. Husker's borders while Auntia watched Lie to Me Season One dvds that we rented from Blockbuster Online...just the outer border on Mr. Husker's Homestead and it will be ready to quilt ... woo hoo!!! i had to stand on a foot stool while Auntia took this picture - Mr. Husker is not a short man and needs a nice, long quilt
...i was still waffling on what the outer border should be ...... it needs to be not too wide and not too narrow and not too busy and not too distracting ...... then i looked at the picture... i'm gonna go with more of the red ... of course, i didn't have enough left to go all the way around the quilt one more time ...... by noon the snow had stopped and within an hour most of the streets were cleared ... so i went to Hobby Lobby and bought another yard of the red ... i needed 28 inches but the way i've been with measuring lately it just makes sense to get a couple of inches more ... and i actually walked out of the store having spent less than five dollars! that never happens ... i gotta admit, i was distracted more than once with other cool things that i would have bought on impulse and later asked myself what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks was i thinking?!!? if Auntia hadn't been there to keep me on task ... she was even better than me - she didn't spend any money at all ... at Hobby Lobby ...... but we still had to go to TQS for our SS3 BOM pattern and fat quarters ... and the store wasn't crowded with its usual hustle and bustle of saturday morning quilters ... so we were able to look around a bit ... and Auntia fell in love with a little quilt made with Sherry Berry christmas fabric charms and a bit of yardage...ooooh! i love that little pinwheel quilt!
...she has a quilt top already started using Kim's Fireworks pattern in the same fabric ... but this one spoke to her, too ... sigh ... i didn't argue too much - i wanted the pattern anyway for some charm packs that i have from Stella Bella's giveaway (thank you again, Gretchen!) a few months ago ... anywho, we made our purchases and then stopped at McDonald's for a strawberry milk shake for Little Nonnie...
a swan and posies and the sea and some tulips
...she had her hair done yesterday, but still didn't want her picture taken ... so i told her i would show off her watercolors instead ... after we left Little Nonnie we went to JoAnn's ... Auntia bought three skeins of yarn for scarves for herself...selfish ... selfish ... selfish ...she's already five inches into a scarf to match the periwinkle blue hat that i crocheted for her last winter
and a creepy pumpkin with a skull on it (no picture - too creepy) and a pair of candy corn flip flops (which we used to call thongs ... but now thongs are underwear ... what is this world coming to?!?)
and i bought a little pumpkin made with cheeto-colored daisies that was 60% off - woo hoo! for the kitchen table and some queen-sized bamboo batting with my 50% off coupon...as soon as i took this picture the table was re-piled with all the junk that sits on it most of the time ... sometimes i forget that it has a black top
and then we came home ... most of the snow that fell has already melted and tomorrow is supposed to be a much warmer autumn day instead of old man winter and his little buddy jack frost showing up uninvited when i have things to do ... places to go ... people to see

and baby makes three

this is what happens when i let my guard down...

remember this post about my little fluffy friends?!? well ... i was right to be worried ... now look what they've gone and done!!!
i should never have left them alone ... and the mess from eggshells squashed underfoot was unbelievable...

mistakes have been made ... others will be blamed

my ugly hat

did anyone ever tell you that if your feet are cold you should wear a hat? or that 90% of your body's heat escapes from your head? somebody told me that stuff ... and i told my kids with conviction - although i did not even do so much as a search in Google ... well ... i dunno if it's true ... my feet do seem to be warmer when i have a hat on my head
i don't want anyone i care about to have cold feet ... so i crochet hats for people i love ... lemme rephrase that - i haven't crocheted a hat for every person i love - yet - so don't be sending me any nasty emails asking where your hat is...
anywho, i modified the pattern that i use for preemie hats to make bigger hats for bigger heads ... i always seem to have some yarn left ... not enough to make anything ... not even enough to give to whichever charity calls for donations of discarded household stuff ... but i don't like throwing away perfectly good yarn ... scraps of yarn were starting to pile up ... so i came up with a plan ... i started a scrappy hat ... and each time i had some yarn leftover from a hat for someone else, i crocheted it into this hat...i love my hat ... and no one will ever try to steal it on accounta it's so ugly

...uhm ... yeah ... not much to look at ... i tried to give it to Auntia ... and NoJo ... and Gumdrop ... and Michael Myson ... and the dog next door ... and the crow in the tree across the street ... no takers ... so i think i'm gonna keep this one for me

the black cauldron...

i'd like the eye of newt stew and a side of fried bat wings, please

is stitched ... woo hoo!!! i used glow in the dark thread for the little circles around the open sign - but when i tried to get a picture of them glowing in the dark ... well ... the camera laughed at me ... sigh ... the leaves in the window boxes are DMC #4130 ... i think i might add a few leaves to each of the blocks - i like how they look ... we saw this version of Hocuspocusville at the Quilt Affair...oops! don't want you to get a crick in your neck...
that's better ... now say ooooh! aaaaah!

...this is the third completed HPV (not the virus) that i have seen and the jury inside my head is still out on whether or not i like it better with brights or with more color or with buttons ...... well ... not really on that last one - the button version has been my least favorite ... but my opinion may have be tainted by the quilter ... our conversation went something like this...

i used blah blah blah single strand
uhm ... i'm using two strands of DMC #3371
DMC?!!? floss?!!?? sneer
uhm ... yes
i finished the quilt in three months
well, that's great! good for you!
how long have you been working on it?
uhm ... since february
february??!! and you haven't finished the embroidery??!!
uhm mum mum ... no
really!??!!?

grrrr ... yes ... really ... i'm embroidering - plain old embroidery with a plain old hoop and a plain old sharp needle and plain old embroidery floss - something i haven't done since i was a teenager when rocks were soft and mist was in the air ... and i am enjoying every minute of it ... i'm not running a race and i don't have a timetable ... i'm not stitching Hocuspocusville to impress anybody - i'm stitching it cuz i like it ... and it doesn't much matter to me if it takes six months (not likely) or six years ...... okay ... rant's over ... i feel much better