Grandma's Ready

Well following my granddaughter's direction, I made more dresses. I finished the sweater for my grandson. I have the quilt for John and toys for the kids. We will stop in Ohio to give Mary her anniversary present. I forgot to make peanut butter cookies so I will try and do that tonight before landscape design class. We will probably have lunch with Mary, get to Baltimore late.( We don't travel at breakneck speed.) Then Friday we will go to the Spy Museum in DC with the grandsons and spend the day with John and family. We will head back to Baltimore visit the cats, Arnold and Cleo, and spend the day with Amy and family. We will head back to Michigan with the cats on Sunday. It is very convenient of these children to live in a pattern which make visiting easy. Probably if we had more time we could swing up to Brooklyn and it wouldn't be to far out of the way, certainly not as compared to Birmingham, Alabama or Portland, Oregon. Do you think there was a hidden reason our seven children live in six different states?

La Leccion

Fervor es un gato anaranjado y blanco. El es no gordo. Savannah es un gato muy gordo. Ella es un gato gris y negro. Ellos estan mi casa. Monday is Spanish class. Hubby does a little better with the pronunciation than I do, and his vocabulary is a little larger. The class is fun though. There are seven women and two men in the class so it is small enough to ask questions and get lots of attention. I never thought as a retired person I could be this busy. We have Spanish on Monday, dinner with friends today, lunch with Mom tomorrow and Landscape design tomorrow night and because we leave for Maryland on Thursday we will miss our Tolgate Farm meeting on Thursday. Needless to say something has to give, so we let the housework slide.

Unpacking the Loot

We had such a wonderful time at the quilt show. I came back with lots of fabric for future quilts which I already have in mind. I bought quilting needles (the good kind JoAnn's doesn't carry). I found out the blue pounce stuff for copying quilting patterns can be difficult to remove. The manufacturer assured me I could get it out if I soaked the quilt in vinegar. I decided that was more than I was willing to risk. I also bought a pair of electric scissors that a woman who bought them the previous year, said were wonderful. I bought a souvenir T-shirt for Hubby too. Above is the picture from the front of the shirt. He is at the tire place replacing my tire. Here are some of the fashions from the fashion show. Some were pretty and some....

The Windy City

Well, Carole and I arrived in Chicago after a flat tire on I94 (AAA got there in less than 15 minutes) and getting lost for about an hour near OHare. We did get to the Fashion Show and luncheon on time. (I will try later to put some of the pictures on here). We went to Vince's Italian Restaurant which is the best Italian Restaurant ever. We had been there four years ago.
Today we are going to hit all the exhibitors at the convention. Already I saw some things I want, not the $30,000 quilting machine. Even considering the 30+ quilts I have made I can't see it being cost effective. Besides some of the allure of quilt making to me is the time spent stitching and thinking. I know when I make a wedding quilt I always "stitch" prayers for the couple into the quilt.

Twisted Around my Granddaughter's Finger

I got a letter from my granddaughter the other day. We are planning to visit her next week when we pick up the cats. I even took a picture of the clothes I made for her. Then I got this letter. It took me a while to figure out the "and dresses" part. But I immediately got out the sewing machine.

Tomorrow my friend Carole from work and I are going to Chicago to the International Quilt Show. We have done it twice before and really have a good time. We know a great Italian restaurant and a good Mexican one too. She is also teaching me about truck drivers who "flirt." I'm incredibly niave. She says tongue wiggling is not flirting.

Friends and Family

One of the things that has been so much fun about writing this blog has been the reactions of friends and family members. Some of my children read it. Mary often comments but then of course she is Miss Blog. I am pleased everythime I hear from my aunt in Washington State and her daughter whom I have never met and yet she reads my blog and is surprised at how much alike we are. Yesterday I heard from another cousin in Ohio who is a reader. A friend I used to work with reads my blog and says it's like a mini visit. My brother even says I'm funny and coming from a brother.... I find writing the blog is another one of those exercises to keep my mind active. If you read my blog you know that sometimes takes effort. Oh, and I print up my blog and take it to my Mom who refuses to become computer savy even though I tell her a lot of other 90 year olds are. Hubby was wrong somebody does read my blog and he never misses it for fear I might say something about him.

Hola

Hubby and I started our Spanish class. I was going to ask " How are you?" but I don't know how to make an upsidedown question mark. We learned our color words. Orange is anaranjado. That's a mouth full. Hubby had Spanish in high school and lived for a while in New Mexico. I took Latin in high school and German in college. One time we bought a Spanish lesson book that had stickers you could put around the house to increase your vocabulary. When the kids came home for Christmas they mixed them all up just to be funny. Hubby had a sign on the door to keep the cat in which said " Cierre del puerta, por favor. "