Note to Self

Here's the note....Next year...in blogland...

Take the month of August off.

August presents a whole long list of transitions/additions that complicate life. These would include but not limited to:

1-Returning home from vacation.

2-Starting a new year of home schooling (my girls 6 and 12).

3-Starting a new year of "go to" schooling (my 15 year old son).

4-Ballet everyday. The round trip travel is 1 hour minimum. My pony is tired.

5-Having a strong desire to "store" nothing in my home...everything must be "everyday useable". I'm even thinking about having only 20 clothing items in my closet. Comments?
6-Baby girl having strep throat for a month...no lie. Started last month in Montreat.

7-My boy looks like he's on the way to having that same strep throat.

8-We have a "Shelter Breakfast" coming up on Saturday....Have I told you about the Shelter?

Maybe not...my husband and children cook and serve (just the 5 of us unless we invite a friend or two to help) 150 women and children at the Atlanta Day Shelter for Women and Children. We do it 1-3 times per month, provide the food and get some great fellowship. That is a very long story about how I got involved with that and I'll save that for a time when we can all put our feet up for awhile.


And the list goes on and on.....

As for quilting...not much to share except that I did the Streak of Lightening block(I did mine in hot pink) 4 times...and finally got it right. I started doing some of the blocks by hand because I can sit at ballet and get a whole one done. I am actually pleased with the results because my points line up like a dream. The applique techniques from Pearl have changed my life! I did the reverse applique on Streak of Lightening which was a little tricky but the results were OK. Applique has opened up a whole new sewing world to me and that is a beautiful thing.

By the way, did anyone see the free pattern on Little Cotton Rabbits from Freebies for Crafters? This woman does beautiful knitted toy animals. (please click that last link....they're so precious) She has an autistic son so there's not a ton of production going on, understandably. Her stuff sells like bananas on her etsy shop. I did order the Debbie Bliss books she talked about.

So ladies, that's just a snippet of my life in the last month...I didn't mention the boating accident of a 9th grade girl at our school (femoral artery and both femurs severed by propeller, flat lined 4 times) or Baby Samuel who is fighting for his life (friends of ours). All I can say is...please pray.

Have a great day!

Heart Lesson #1 HDL and LDL Cholesterol

Welcome to lesson 1 - I hope these will be informative, inspirational, and life changing snippets to get us all into a healthier lifestyle...that's our goal. We will focus on three main parts of reaching our goal everyday: Exercise, Eating and General Heart Healthy Knowledge. So dive in and enjoy the ride with me.


Exercise - First of all don't freak out...don't put all this pressure on yourself to go out and run a marathon the first day or ever. Most of this heart stuff is all about the mind...changing your mind to live a different way.
Homework: Just do something. That's it. It can be one push up or one sit up or 5 minutes of jumping jacks, even walk your stairs an extra time, check the mailbox again even though you know you've already brought it in....it doesn't matter...just so you get in the habit of doing some exercise everyday. There are many days I crawl in bed at night with no exercise done that day. I, then, make myself do a few sit ups right there in the bed. Cheating? Not for me...I did something. There are other days I do yoga or run 20 minutes or only do weight training. But, there are far more days that I just get by with the minimum. It's a process of changing your mind. I'm still working on it.
Bottom Line: Do one thing a day for exercise. Anything.

Eating - for now, let's take it slow and easy....just think God food. By that I mean, whatever you can get from the earth...God made, not man made. This will get you out of the processed food department. At the grocery, shop on the outside walls of the store...the stuff on the inside aisles is mostly packaged....but yes, you will need a little packaged food, not much thought. Mrs. Dash makes a great line of sodium free spice blends. But, for the most part, you'll buy fruit and veggies and meat, or fish.
Bottom Line: Think God, not man.


General Heart Healthy Knowledge - Today, let's talk cholesterol. Did you know that there's good and bad cholesterol. Most folks focus on the total NUMBER....anything below 200. That may be OK but if it's all bad cholesterol...that's not great. The real measure is the RATIO of total cholesterol to good cholesterol. I'll talk more about that later or click here.

For now I want to talk about trucks and trash. Good cholesterol is called HDL or I call it "Happy Cholesterol". These are your trucks...garbage trucks to be exact. Now, LDL is the bad cholesterol or I call it: "Lousy Cholesterol", the garbage. That's the stuff that clogs up your arteries and gives us strokes, heart attacks, etc. The trucks, the HDL, actually carry away the garbage, the LDL. Make sense so far? Your goal is to have more trucks than garbage. Thanks to my statin (cholesterol lowering medicine), I have a ton more trucks than garbage.
Are you with me, so far?
Bottom Line: Think Ford F350 when you're at the grocery store.

This is just the beginning of our heart adventure. There's more to come, recipes, things that work for me and others that didn't, thoughts on doctors etc. Remember, it's all a work in progress and changing the way our minds think about food, health, and how we relate to our environment. That's about how we handle stress. More on that later....for now...just enjoy!

"I Think She's Got It" - C-9 - Jane's Tears

I did it!  I'm so proud of this one!  It's Dear Jane block C-3 called Jane's Tears.  I thought she'd be crying when she saw this one for sure but I think Jane would like this one.  I believe a speech is in order.

"I'd like to thank The Academy, and of course,   Yvette with  BOM Quilter and Carrie P. with  A Passion for Applique, who without their help, I'd be be stuck at Hancock's on a Tuesday night in a beginner sewing class. "

 All kidding aside, Yvette loaned the Pearl P. Pereira DVD to me which was INVALUABLE.  I watched it 6 times and now have it down pat.  Even took notes once.  Carrie, in all her wisdom, held my hand through a few tough Dear Jane blocks and could figure out exactly where I went wrong.  

My next goal is to get all the tools (on her site as well) that make applique a little easier.  Can you say "Stocking Stuffers"?

Thanks, Girls...you're the best applique friends a girl ever had.  

And now, I proudly begin a new label...called...."Applique" - ::::can't you hear the trumpets?::::

We had so much rain in Atlanta while I was gone, so I came home to a lusciousness in my backyard.   Those are my girls' swings....used every single day without fail and a cute little playhouse.  As for the playhouse, I can count the number of times they've been inside it on one hand since we put it in 3 years ago.  

Any suggestions how I can make it more play friendly?

These are my heirloom tomatoes.  I can promise you they did not look like this when I left.  It's almost as if the steroid doctor came by everyday we were gone.  At one point they are over 10 feet tall.  The tomatoes were some of the best I've ever had.

What's your favorite variety of tomato?  This inquiring mind wants to know!

Enjoy!

The Marriage Saver

What is a Marriage Saver?  

Well, when you're in the mountains, folks up there have a different sort of humor than us stuffy city slickers.  At the Saturday fair,  there was the son of an elderly couple selling these.  He said if he sold these it would save his parent's marriage.  Why?  Because his mother buys yarn all the time and doesn't use it up....sounds like a stash to  me.  hee hee.  Guess what my sister said as she laughed her head off.....(he was being funny btw)

"I'll take the whole box!"

He was so thrilled to pack up his box, save his parent's marriage, and take the rest of the day off.  He probably saw her Tory Burch sandles coming from far away...(who wears those to the Saturday Fair?)

These really do make a great scrubber....perfect tough scrubber and luscious latherer at the same time.  Am I making any sense?

Does anyone have a pattern for these novelty items?  I've never seen anything like it before.  It's a dollar store scrubber with knitting/crochet around the edges.  Hysterical!  Especially when you bring it to your next house warming party labeled as "The Marriage Saver".

Let me know if you have a pattern or clue as to how to make one...I couldn't find anything in my extensive research ....of course, nothing was posted under "marriage saver"

Enjoy!

As Promised TWUM

The World's Ugliest Man....I made him in pottery class in Montreat with the hopes of him being some great garden fabulousness.  But nooooo.....he turned on me.  The only place he should go in the garden in UNDER the garden!  

After I got his face done, I said to myself,  "He's so ugly, what can I do to cover him up".....so I put leaves all over one side of his head.  The next thing I saw was the rest of the 8 girls at the table putting leaves on their faces too.....then, the teacher followed suit.  I knew I had no where to turn.   The only saving grace is that he is fired in raku which gives him a nice shiny sheen.

He may be ugly but...he's growing on me every day.  

Oh well!

Heart Disease / Obesity

In a recent issue of Quilter's World magazine, I noticed an insert for women's clothing. It was several pages long and an odd size page from the rest of the magazine....sooo.....I took a peak. I quickly realized it was a larger lady "ish" sort of catalog. I was shocked. Sizes starting at 12W to 44W. I'm not even sure what the "W" stands for.

Are we, quilters, branded as having a certain body type?

It made me realized that possibly we are spending too much time in front of our sewing machines and not enough time "beating the streets" with our "feets". Major industries have marketing departments that know this and focus their marketing accordingly.

Because heart disease is near and dear to my heart, and obesity it somehow linked to the quilting industry, I'm going do a few educational posts regarding eating, exercise and general heart disease knowledge. I learn so much from all of you who are so accomplished in the quilting world, now it's my turn to give back.

I realize this may not be what many of you want to hear but if we take care of ourselves we'll be around for those who love us. We are a great "blogland" community, full of support and friendships galore. I hope we can support each other to be healthy.

I hope you will take the time to read these posts as it can only help us in our fight against aging and poor health. I'll try not to hit you over the head with it but truly mean it for support purposes.

My Goal....that I'll never see another "catalog" in my quilting magazine. Those companies will want to run from OUR industry!

Don't worry, I won't stop blogging about "Jane" or any of my other quilting adventures...I'll just throw the heart stuff in there every now and then.

And....(we all raise our glasses) "Here's to having a Healthy Heart" !!!!!!!!

I'm Back from Montreat

We had such a good time! So much to do and see. It's nice to get out of the city air and enjoy sleeping with the windows open, especially when it rains.

Here's a small list of a few of our fun times:
1- Long walks with the dogs - 3 times a day!
2- Going to "Clubs" every morning and afternoon
3- Skipping rocks on Lake Susan
4-Getting an ice cream at the "Huck"
5- Sunday morning family hikes with Daddy
6- Making pottery at the pottery barn hoping for a masterpiece
7- Blackberry cobbler with friends and s'mores
8- All night "lock in" with the Senior Highs (no sleep...literally)
9- Trout fishing every night at 7:00 - with corn
10-First annual fish fry at Monkey's Bottom - no adults allowed
11- Tennis, tennis, tennis
12-Pottery talk...finding out how hard Davidson really is
13-Making the world's ugliest man...photos to follow
14-Mosquitos bites...enough said
15-Mold, mold and more mold....everything is stays wet in the mountains
16-Bear hunting...in the car, of course
17-"My Father's" pizza - great little restaurant
18- Meeting Baby Logan for the first time (he's 3 but was given a terminal diagnosis at 3 months - doctor declared it a miracle!)
19-Sparklers and barn dances
20-Rock hopping at the Tot Lot

Life, as I know it will resume as usual shortly. School starts in 2 weeks. I will start on my signature blocks nonetheless and dream of a new project. I don't want to get too heavy in to something as I'm saving myself (swoon) for the Spirit Cloth workshop....should be fun.

Have a great day and enjoy the last few days of summer...it was a great one!

Quilt Giveaway

Shock of the century! A whole quilt to be given away! At Marie-Madeline Studio.
Hop on over and enter to win! The quilt is fairly large at 66 x 90. Entries close on August 8th with the winner chosen the next day.... Nice!