nothing doing

Or doing nothing which is what I did today. For those of you who know us you may find it hard to believe that Ray and have not been out for two days. So doing nothing is what I have been doing. Sitting in my chair waiting for service LOL. That is Ray making sure I have lunch and dinner.
So I waited for breakfast, read my paper, checked out my e mail, watched Perry Mason, had a shower and changed my appliance. Then back to the chair for more TV watching after which I had a long nap to recover from all that sitting and service. Oh and Richard called from Golden high up on the mountains on the way to Calgary. That was my day of doing nothing. Dinner is over and the dishes are washing themselves in the dishwasher and we are watching the news waiting to see what will happen to the USA's fiscal cliff. Not that I really understand what that will mean except higher  taxes.
Still doing nothing but writing this blog but tomorrow we will go back to our regular routine and go out....
Oh and by the way I did get dressed for my day of doing nothing.

Thank you to Michelle from Oklahoma for her lovely comment on last night's blog. Sometimes my efforts in sending out things for you all to do does not quite work out, thanks for letting me know about the Kaye Wood folded hexagon and by all means send me a picture of your new one.
And one comment from my dear friend Anonymous in Delaware. Thank you dear friend .  Lots of snow there?

We had a few flakes of snow here today LOL. Nothing like in Quebec where there are centimeters of snow there , more like meters as far as I could see.

See here for snow....

Outside Jack's living room window. Lots of snow there.

And this is outside the kitchen window. Get the idea? Snow!!

 

So enough of my nothing drivel and on to other things.

Download now as a pdf pattern

Anvil is the name of this block ,two sizes of half square triangles and four squares.

 

 

Friends forever and these two little kittens are just adorable. When we were in Quebec Yohan had his kitten with him at Lynn and Daniel's. It is a Devon Rex an interesting type of cat born without the outer layer of fur so it has just the undercoat of fur which is so soft and doesn't cause the often usual allergy symptoms that people get from cats. I really loved that little cat, it was wonderful However it preferred Ray and spent the evening on his lap.

 


Hmm I should have paid more attention to things.

 

 

 

Lynn made this wall hanging with her friend's assistance and it is lovely. She did beautiful work and I didn't even know she was a quilter. I just loved this pattern/design.

 

 

She also made both of the stockings. Good girl!

 

Here is Lynn's dog whom she calls Cashoo. He also loved Ray and sat by him all one evening. He is a sweet little dog. He goes out in the cold and snow to do his business , never complains. Good puppy.

 

Look at all these friends, isn't it a lovely picture. If we could all be so good to each other all the time. I guess these guys aren't perfect all the time either.

 

This one came off  Craftsy I think but the colours attracted  me. They are not the usual colours I would choose but there it is. I like the way the tree limbs are chosen and placed.Well actually the one on the fourth row , second block should be down on the eighth row , same place. Just my opinion but I am never afraid to express my opinion. That does it.

 

I haven't done any sewing or embroidery since we got back home but I am thinking about it.  I forgive myself as it was not possible to do anything in Quebec , well I could have done some applique. Did not happen. I am going to prepare some applique for my Tuesday group soon. I was thinking about it while resting in my bed after waking up from my nap. Get with it NAN!!!!

Happy to be back with you all and I wish you a Wonderful and Happy New Year in 2013. My thanks to you all for being my readers and friends. You are a great lot!

 

My Richard writes a blog about his journey with ALS. If you care to read it here is his address.

http://richardislivingwithals.blogspot.ca

 

 

Keep healthy and happy .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

back from winter

We're back from Quebec where our Christmas was lovely. I just received a note from Nancy saying Catherine had asked where we got to. We really related to that little girl and she to us despite the fact we both communicated in different languages. There are other ways to communicate even though language is best. Catherine said I love you to me in French , I understood that LOL. I told her I loved her too and she understood what I said. Amazing, she is just 4 years old but very smart.  That little girl has my heart. Too bad we live so many miles apart.

Catherine .

And with her little sister Emilie... squished a bit.

 

On Christmas Eve there is a French tradition of having a big meal at midnight called reveillon with many dishes on the table including Tortieres , meat pies.

Ah some are having a great time LOL.

In the evening Santa comes to the house. It is Daniel dressed up in a Santa suit. He walks doen the street ho ho hoing and ringing his bells. This night a woman driving by in a car jumped out of her car and asked if she could have her picture taken with Santa. Who could say no to that request.

Santa was laughing as he knocked on the door to enter.

All the little girls eyes bulging greeted Santa Claus.

 

 Jolie Anne checking out the chips and trying to decide which ones she wants. She is just three years old and really cute.

 

All the girls on Santa's lap, that is Hailey Rose on the far left. She is the oldest of the bunch at 7 years old.

 

We had a wonderful Christmas dinner, wished we could have it again but it is tomato soup for dinner for Ray and me. Maybe half a sandwich. The holiday seemed to go by so fast. I hope we can make the trip again. On the way home we took a five hour drive through the falling snow. Those Quebecers sure know how to drive in snow.

It was a good drive, we spent the night in a hotel as we had an early pick up for the airport . I always like to stay in a hotel, this one was expensive but not quite up to par. The room was $209  a night, nothing special in the room , the buffet looked as if it was leftovers from lunch and not all that good and we lost in the casino LOL.
After a 6AM wake up call we called for a taxi and took the 35 minute drive to the airport. Our plane left from Ottawa around 7:45 for Toronto and we had a wait for the plane to Vancouver. But it was all good, the flights were excellent and the service wonderful. I needed a wheel chair to get around the airport in time to get from one gate to the next. We even had time for lunch in an Irish restaurant in Toronto. I had a delicious Shepherd's pie and a salad. Excellent!

Richard was here when we got home and it was so great to see him. he just left this morning for Kelowna where he is visiting his cousin . Then he leaves for Calgary. Two friends came with him to help with the drive and his son Ricky is going back to Calgary with him. So the truck will be full on the trip back to his home.
I loved having him here , he is now having to use a wheel chair for any long stretches such as our hallway.  It broke my heart to see that and I cried as he wheeled down the hall. I can only see that my darling baby, little boy and  grown man is in trouble and I can do nothing to help. It is such a tragedy. A wonderful brain in a body that will suffer ruin.

After he and his friends left I was exhausted and lay down for a  nap.


 http://igottacreate.blogspot.com.br/212/02/valentine-heart-cone-tree-tutorial.html

A bit early for Valentines day but it came up on my screen , it is a great and easy project for everyone in the family. If you don't have the punch you can just fold a piece of paper and cut a half heart. Then use your first one as a template.

Now for the Block of the Day from Quilt Pro.


Download now as a pdf pattern

 Fan is the name of this block. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it.

 

I have done nothing as far as hand work is concerned since we went away. Now that the new year is almost here I hope to get up enough energy to start anew. Or not as the case may be. I am in trouble as far as getting to both of my groups on Tuesdays. I need to get Ray to pick me up from Pumpkin Seeds but it is across town and he doesn't want to do that. Because I have so much baggage like a walker and bags for my stitching the bus won't work for me. Maybe I need to try driving my own car . I have not driven it since January 2011 and now it is January 2013. My goodness 2 years since I tried my hand at driving, it is a conundrum. OR I could call a taxi for 30 bucks. LOL.

Now I need to download  all the pictures in my camera. ARRGH!

Well I detoured a bit and had some soup and who knows what else, but now I'm back again.

Pictures, some of them awful and will be erased, are downloaded.

 

I think that's my story for tonight.

Have a wonderful evening folks.

Bon Soir.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming home

Here I am titling my blog coming home, and I haven't even left yet LOL. We will be home on the 28th of December about 4:00.
I am not taking my laptop and am not sure if I can use the computers there but I'll try. I think they might be all in French. However I could change the language if it doen't cause a lot of trouble.   So if you don't hear from me it isn't because I have forgotten you all. I'll be back on the 28th.
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and the best of the season. Many thanks to you all for reading my blog.

 

 

 Car Trash Bag / Reusable Lunch Bag | Craft Buds

www.craftbuds.com

 

 

What do you do to make less of a mess in your car. I have a container of plastic bags - small ones designed especially for the car that I got on one of our trips at a service station. However I am on the last bag. So this pattern is a good one to show up. It can be used and reused.

Weather Report. SNOW this morning. Apparently there will be   more snow tomorrow morning. We'll be going to the airport early 5:00 AM.  and I hope the snow waits until after we have gone.

Been on the phone for a while, Rick called earlier, Adam and Lynn called in the early evening.   Some guy named Mohammed also called but I hung up on him pretty fast. I don't know anyone called Mohammed. LOL.
Mary called too and Rose was growling into the phone. She is walking now. Sorry I'll miss her at Christmas. I must asl Meg and Mary to take photos.

We are watching Vegas right now. I do more than one thing at a time.   But I do neither well LOL.

We went for a haircut this morning , both of us want to look pretty for the family. hahaha....
Then we went over to the pharmacy to pick up a card for Richard and then to lunch at  Subway to share a sandwich and a coffee.
We came home after that and began the ominous task of packing up our suitcases. That is a huge task as we have to carry all my medical supplies plus all the stuff that Ray bought for the kids that we have to take with us. You'd think they had no stores in Quebec LOL. There wasn't much room left for clothes . I might have to buy some while I am away- not a real bad problem to have so I will not complain. )))
I called the cab this morning to reserve it for tomorrow morning. We do that whenever we go away and Adam does too. As soon as I called the knew the address. Comes up on the screen I guess.

Lynn said we will be making bread on Friday. Her bread is so delicious and I really want some of it. I find myself not really caring for bread lately but I sure like her home made bread.

Prepare for later loaves  to come from Quebec. Just pictures folks not the real thing.

 

This love knot quilt block is from Susan , Starwood quilter,. I love this block and the colours are delicious.

 

I wondered about this block's measurements for a few days and then tonight I saw it. 2.5 inch squares. Look across the centre and you can see it. How to put it together is another question that I'll leave to you.Garden Block  . I wonder how that will work in a quilt since the arms of this block reach into the next block. It would be interesting.

Download now as a pdf pattern

 

 

Photo time and the time is short....

Interesting picture isn't it.

 

LOLOL.

 

Ah love is where you find it.

 

And you'll find me at the end of the month but maybe you should keep looking as I may just turn up on Friday.

Have a lovely evening.

Guten Abend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ginger cats

Nancy thanks for the correction.   Nancy said 25% of  ginger cats are females  and here I thought they were all males.

I had a long talk with Richard this afternoon  which ended on a laugh. I told him to wash his hands as we signed off. He said where did that come from and I said from the past when you were young. I just wanted to sound like a mom. We both laughed over that.
He told me that Adam who lives in Louisiana has volunteered to work for the ALS society in Lake Charles La. I am so proud of him for helping Rick out from such a distance. I am very proud of all my sons who have come together over Richard's illness and are helping any way they can. Peter comes to Rick's house several times a week to help him and Jim drives down from Edmonton often to visit him. 

We are getting ready today and tomorrow to fly to Quebec on Wednesday early in the morning. I am not taking my laptop as it is quite heavy and we have enough to carry. In light of that I was looking at a beautiful white iPad but had to turn down the offer to purchase it. LOL. Maybe another time :))

Weather Report: As we were driving to London Drugs we encountered rain  sleet and snow, only the rain stayed LOL. No sun shine.

I am watching Antique Roadshow. It is amazing what things are worth. I wish I had some old stuff in my home LOL . Probably it would be just OLD stuff. Some great things on this show tonight, jewellery , furniture, paintings and this last one is a rocking horse from the 1860s.. Pretty shabby looking at the moment. After some repairs it could be between 1500 to 2000 Dollars.
One lady had a painting that was worth half a million dollars. Amazing as I said at the start of this paragraph.

I cancelled my newspaper. It is so easy to do over the phone, I like it when companies make things easy to do.  That brings me to some of the companies on the internet that make it so difficult to purchase items that I just don't buy.  If I have to go through pages and pages of instruction I get annoyed and just close it down.Sale lost!!

I do buy many embroidery designs on line and they make it fairly easy. I like Emblibrary.com the best and it has a great system for saving my designs on their server. So I can go intot he list and find what I want, it's especially great  if you  have lost one of your designs.


Download now as a pdf pattern

Indian Star is the name of the block . There are so many ways to make a star block but I like the purple , the way it streaks along the diagonal. I'll bet it makes for an interesting quilt.

 

Me too.... any room would make me happy LOL.

 

This little dog has attitude and that makes me laugh.

 

Paul Newman ..    a needle and thread man and that makes him a man for all seasons . I always thought he was handsome and now I think he is beautiful LOL.

 

David, Catherine,Nancy and Emilie all in Quebec and we'll see them this week. I am looking forward to that. We haven't seen Emilie yet except in photos.Of course we won't be able tp talk with the children, they only speak French.

Check the guy in the back doing his little ditty on the piano. I love this picture. and I love my crazy friends too...

Here's another fancy cat, one who takes advantage of whatever is around. LOL.

 

Mother and child, is there anything more beautiful. Not to my mind other than  father and child.

 

I'm done for tonight.

Have a lovely evening.

Good night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why am I late tonight

I'll tell you. I worked at my embroidery machine most of the day  and that takes a lot of time. This is what I made today.

 

 

I embroidered these two towels . My camera does  not pick up the colours very well. I wonder if Santa will bring me a new one LOL. I guess I'll have to ask him. Or maybe just buy it myself , that way I'll get the right one.

Marg came over this afternoon too. I had a book for her, must see if she took it. Did you Margaret?

I had a disaster with my machine today. I wonder why the bobbin makes such a huge racket when it gets about half way finished , and it will no longer work properly. I had to get a new bobbin, a new needle, take the hoop off the machine and smooth out the stabilizers.  It wasn't a complete disaster as I was able to get it fixed. I think it happened because I was talking to Margaret. Machines don't like to be ignored. I have heard other people say that about their embroidery machines. Very temperamental things.
Anyway it is going away for the time being while we are in Quebec. LOL. Punishment, it goes in the corner with a hood on it.

It is hard to believe that it took nearly all day to get those two towels completed. I did notice however the last time I was at a class that those who had a more expensive machine got their project  done a lot faster as the bigger and better machines finished the work much faster.  They had a faster stitch time. But I'll be happy with my little machine and just take the time I need. As Ray tells me it is a hobby not a job.
And it is taking me all this time to write the blog too. What is up with me today. I am on slow speed I am afraid. Oh well that's okay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWordIFbjqs&feature=youtu.be
Tutorials from Missouri Quilt company. They are releasing Applique tutorials all week. Have a good time.

Chocolate Lover's Quilt Block. Lovely isn't it. Susan of Starwood Quilter  posted it. I like these colours pink and brown make a lovely display. Now here is another variation of the same block in different colours .

 

This colour combination looks more like grape juice to me not a chocolate Lover's quilt block.

 

Colour makes such a big difference .

 

Two kitties having a conversation. What do you think they are talking about?

 

Merry Christmas everybody.

 

Cats just can't resist climbing a tree even when they know they'll get stuck up there. But he is a pretty Kitty. I am under the impression that all ginger cats are males. Is that right folks, let me know if you are more aware than I am. Great picture!!

 

Haha I love this snowman. It is such a demonstration of a creative thinker.

 

I'll take a carrot anywhere I can get one.

 

It's time to go folks.

Have a lovely evening .

 

Good night everyone.

 

Dobrou noc. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

error

My apologies for the mistake I made in naming the town where the massacre occured. Linda let me know it was Newtown Conn. not Newport.  I am sorry to have made such a mistake. Thanks Linda for letting me know.

Download now as a pdf pattern

 Mexican Star, seems a bit more complicated than some of the blocks I've seen.

Download now as a pdf pattern

This little block is just the thing to finishe off your Christmas quilt

 

.http://www.conniekresin.com/2012/12/christmas-mug-rug-tutorial.html

Couldn't resist this tutorial on a Christmas mug rug. Not too difficult but really cute.

 

 

Santa making a quilt, what better way to spend your evenings at the North Pole.

 

I love this little project, it reminds me of a series of blocks Diane was making  that were the same idea.

 We didn't do a lot today. I spent the afternoon trying to get my computer to do what I wanted. It was an embroidery design that of which  I wanted to print the colours. Not working , so eventually I shut down the computer and hope it will work right in the morning when I power up again. Some times that is all that is needed.

We did go grocery shopping and then to Purdy's  to buy their wonderful chocolates  for the family in Quebec. We take them Purdy's every time we go there, not that often as it is a big journey.
I wrote and aske Jack if they ate chocolates. Why did I ask them that? Because Jack has diabetes and Margo is on a diet. Margo wrote back to say who doesn't like chocolate LOL so bring them on down. After all it's Christmas.
Lynn and Daniel both love those chocolates as do the granchildren. We bought a small sack of goodies for the little ones.

Yesterday I completed one set of snowman towels. I had hoped to make another one today but that will have to be tomorrow.
Here is the completed set.

Jolly looking snowpeople aren't they.

The designs are from Embroidery Library and were a lot of fun to do. I have many of their designs. Tomorrow I'll do another one of the HIS and HERS  towels.

 

Then Ray asked me to make some macaroni and tomatoes. That is not a difficult meal but one we love to eat, so I did. While that was cooking I washed and cut the celery. I know that is not earth shaking but I love to eat celery so we buy a lot of it. I am the celery queen LOL. However it has no effect on my weight. ;(((

 

Weather Report: There was snow this morning, yes you heard me... It was mixed with rain and soon disappeared. However the rain continued to fall. Temperature was a low 1'  in the early morning. Not a very pleasant day at all.   Lots of snow on the mountains and peolpe getting lost up there. They don't pay attention to the weather reports . I don't like the snow except to look at on the mountains. When I was about 8 years old my little friend went skiing on the mountain ,probably one of the safer mountains , hmm I wonder if the more exciting mountains were even opened up then. She came home with a cast on a broken leg. She was in a lot of pain and confined to bed. I was allowed to visit her as she was very bored with lying in bed day and night. That was the treatment in the 1940s. For some reason that really affected me and I never wanted to ski or go up the mountains. I just like to look at them.

 

Rick called , we had a nice talk and he said he bought himself a cappuccino machine and was just making a cup when I called.

 

 

Katie, his daughter who is going to university in Toronto was stopping off in Calgary on her trip home for the holidays, She along with Peter were coming to visit Richard. He was looking forward to the visit.

Kate in some magical far away land in some fascinating far away season having a wonderful time. Kate is quite the adventurous young woman.

 

Santa comes in all types of critters , human and otherwise.

Wow he could double as a mop LOL. But he is a cutie isn't he.

 

 

What can I say.... It made me laugh.

 

Did I show this one before, if so look at it again. I love this little Singer sewing machine.

 

Haha that's what I call my computer LOLOL!!!

 

On that note I'll call it a night.

Have a great evening folks.

 

Gute nacht ..Good night.

Jingle Bell Rock!! everyone sing LOL.