Almost Back to Normal

We made a quick trip out to Las Vegas last weekend. John Hurley is great in Spamalot, and if you are a fan of Monty Python, you would really enjoy the show! I played the slots on "free" money from Bellagio (for my birthday) and "free" money from the Wynn from joining their players club. All in all, I didn't spend any of MY money, and won about 1800 quarters - which were promptly spent in the spa and at the boutique. We even had time to sit out in the sun, poolside before we came back home!

We had one day back home, and then drove the 8 hour trip to Rochester Minnesota for hubby's appt at Mayo Clinic. He had a liver transplant in 2004 and a kidney transplant in 2005. Now there is an incisional hernia that must be repaired...and since his annual evaluations are already scheduled in June, we are hoping that it can be repaired at that time. That saves us an entire additional trip, so in the meantime, his anti-rejection medications are being adjusted so he can have the surgery. He's feeling great, so perhaps with this last surgery, he can have a great summer for a change!


The weather here has been glorious! Birds chirping, grass growing, mosquitoes biting!

Our grandson, Stephen and Opa have a wonderful time in the yard. Stephen likes anything with motors, and Opa likes to do anything that makes Stephen happy. We have almost two acres, and these two spent the entire morning like this the other day!



I've been putting out my garden ornaments slowly. I found these "Nerdy Nerds" at the hardware store the other day - it seems that Stephen thinks they are real, and he has entire conversations with this one that is by the front patio.


Now, lest you think that I've given up quilting,I want you to think again. I dislike the process of pin basting immensely! Everything else about making the quilt is fine with me, but the pin basting is for the birds! So, this afternoon, I spent doing that dratted chore, and now I have two of the six quilts for Duschene Clinics for this summer ready to run under the machine.




Fabric Karma has been good to me this year, too. The week before we had our whirlwind trip to Las Vegas and MN, a friend from my Bunko group brought me a car trunk load of fabric from her sister-in-law to use for charity quilts. That's what the top quilt is made from, as well as this next picture. It's on my design wall, ready to stitch together tomorrow, and then....sigh.....pin baste. The middle one is the second of two baby quilts gone bad, so I revamped them and I'm using them for these lap quilts. The rest of the year, I am going to make simple single Irish chains for the charity quilts since they make up rather fast, and I can move on to my OWN things!

Her Mother's Daughter

All my life I thought I looked like my father. I thought I acted like my father. He was such a handsome man, and such a strong character. All of his brothers and sisters looked like each other, and more specifically like their mother. My sister looked like my dad, too. So why wouldn't I? Just because I was a fair, towhead girl didn't mean anything did it?

Over the years, occasionally I would be told that I looked just like my mother. Well, that just couldn't be, and I just knew they were only seeing what they wanted to see! I'd been told that my daughter looked like my husband, and he wasn't her biological father, so that just proved my point, didn't it?

During the last two weeks in particular that I was with Mom, her nurses would say something about how alike my mother and I were. Hmmm, I said to myself. Are they seeing what they want to see? Something that would make mother feel good as she was at her business of dying? The last week, a new nurse came on duty early in the morning. She had only seen mom once or twice in the night. I walked up behind her, and touched her on her shoulder. I started to say, "Hi, I'm (Izzy's daughter)", and she finished the sentence with me (that which is in parenthesis). And then we both just laughed. I guess I AM my mother's daughter after all.

This piece was completed for the Kansas Art Quilter's group Altered Views. I had already started a different piece of work, but this one just had to be done. I've not only altered my view of how I look (like my mother), but also several other views of myself have been altered in the last month that I spent with her as well.

The venue for this work is at the Kansas Art Quilter's website in addition to the Covers Blown and other exhibits. Some I have work in, and others, I don't. Enjoy!

We're doing OK

I'm working at getting over a bad bout of pneumonia. The anitbiotics helped tremendously, and I am finally out of bed since last Thursday. Everything I've read says that my resistance is lower after dealing with my mother's death, but I didn't believe it until the doc said, go home and go to bed. So I did.

I've been working on re-vamping my sewing room, with a new sewing center. I've spent only a couple of hours off and on today, but headway is happening. I've got the storage solutions installed, and fabric re-folded. Maybe it wasn't the antibiotics after all, but the fabric fondling that made me feel better.

The picture above is of my four grand-daughters mugging it up to make me smile. Maybe it will make you smile too!

And now it's over

My mother passed away peacefully with a soft sigh early in the morning of April 20, holding my hand, as we both wished.

Since then, I've been absorbed with all the goings on that are necessary to close out the business end of someone's life. Today was the final part - cleaning out her apartment and turning in the keys.

I will miss her dearly.