scripture memory here I come!

Okay, so I know - two posts in one night????  But, this is different subject matter to the previous and will be short, I think.  So, like last week (?) I was looking at the Beth Moore blog and was thrilled to see that she made up a little spiral notebook for the upcoming year for scripture memory verses.  Eeeek!  I know I'm pretty much a dork -but a special spiral notebook?  With "Siesta" written on the cover?  I had to have one.  I've checked the mailbox like twice every day since I ordered it just in case I've gotten it that quickly.  The funny thing is that I'm not the only one who HAD to have a notebook - 6,000 other ladies have ordered them so far so they are on back order!  So either 6,000 other people just wanted a cool notebook or 6,000 other people are going to be memorizing scripture all together next year!  I'm hoping for the latter.  So I'm pretty stoked because I had just really gotten it in my head that this next year I need to memorize more scripture.  Then, I just popped over to her blog only to see that she will be hostessing the scripture memory verses again this year!  Perfect.  The accountability will be good.  That's it, just kind of excited to start a new year with a good purpose and a fun new notebook!

Klamath to Chico and back again

This past weekend I drove down to Chico to visit my Mom for an early Christmas.  I soooo didn't want to try and drive down on a holiday weekend!  So, picked the weekend before and that seemed to work well.  Not too much traffic on the way down and like none on Monday!  Perfect :)  We had a good time visiting and shopping and I gave her her gift - a scrapbook of our time in Florida.  Saturday we went to the mall and Kohl's and the grocery store.  Why would we go to the grocery store?  Well, I was on a mission to find persimmons!  And I did - loads of them, all pretty much perfectly ripe!!!!  Ya-hoooo.  So, the funny part was that I looked at the sign and it said .68 cents.  Dang, what a great price per pound!  So I filled the bag and had about 5lbs.  Got to the register and the girl asked me how many I had, hmmmm I don't know?  Ding, ding, ding!  I dawned on me that it was .68cents each, not per pound!  Oh, well - $8.16 for perfectly ripe beautiful orange persimmons - I've spent money on worse things.  I plan to make cookies and hopefully bread, yum.

Sunday we went to Barnes and Noble, grabbed a bunch of magazines and parked it in the Starbuck's. It was fab. We both love the UK and Australian magazines and there was no shortage of selection. Then, on to Olive Garden to meet her good friend Nelly for dinner. It was deeeeelish! I haven't been to OG in like over a year or more! There isn't one here and I hardly get over to Medford.
I also got to meet my best friend Jeannette for lunch, that was really nice as well. I hadn't seen her since Summer, I think?
Here is my Mom's cat, Minerva. Whenever we couldn't find her, we'd look in the guest room on my bed, and there she'd be! She was very reluctant to move.

Okay, so these next two pictures are for my Mom. It's hard to explain what "wet" snow is. On the drive home it snowed basically from Mt. Shasta city all the way past Weed, which really isn't too far. I could tell from the snow on the side of the road that it had definitely snowed over the weekend, but it wasn't bad on the road. So, here is the view while driving. Don't mind the crack in my old school car window :)

Looks yucky, but the road is just wet like it's been raining. Now, if I were driving on this at night it would possibly be black ice.
Then, as I drive through Weed towards Hwy 97 which will take me home, the skies start clearing and this is the view I have:

Wacky, huh??? I just looks like it may have rained at some point during the day, no snow in sight! Beautiful drive the rest of the way home.
So, it definitely dumped snow over the weekend while I was gone, because I left my yard grass and came home to snow:

and my walkway after shoveling:

So, truly you never can tell what the weather will do up here! Today was freezing and windy all day, as I type it is 34 degrees. It will for sure freeze and be icy tonight. I am so thankful for my heater!!!!

weekend finishes

So, here is the finished pickledish, from the quilt-a-long pattern from Comforstitching. I must say, very user friendly, easy to follow, way better than the wedding ring quilt square - erm, circle. Yesterday was my friend Jan's birthday and this was what I gave her. She decorates her house for each season and her theme for Christmas is "Who-ville" inspired.
Back view:

I was a little on the fence about the printed binding but I like the way it turned out!
Okay, so remember how I was going to make myself finish the squares for November and December??? Done and done. The November block was very tricky for me, my shoulders were soooo tense! But, it is finished. The whites don't match perfectly but frankly I can't figure out how to make them match.....so, this is what turned out.

After the stress of that block I really couldn't even make myself do another Saturday. I made a "tomte" instead :) I just drew out basically how I thought it should look, added seam allowances and went to work. Really not work at all though because it made me so happy to make him! And then I knitted him his little scarf. Here he is sitting on my little entryway table. Love.

Yesterday I got down to real business and made December's square. Actually not hard, very easy. She asked for color in the middle with white edges. Quilting as you go is a little time consuming and overall I'm not sure how it works, but I hope she likes it :)

BTW, isn't this the cutest picture ever of June Balloon????  She is always pretty much right next to me while I sew and I had to sneak this picture of her!

drizzly Saturday

Here's what I've decided:  I absolutely need to make one of these "tomte's".  It's from a book called Scandinavian Stitches, I looked for the book at Joann's and Michael's yesterday with no luck.  Her blog is also nice to look at.  But, I can't wait to order a book online so therefore I will do what I've been known to do in the past and WING it!  It shouldn't be too hard.  I don't know why but I've been hiding a little bit from doing my bee squares for last month and this month!  It could be that I'm a little intimidated by them.  Like I've let that stop me before, right?  I will make myself sew them before I can make a tomte.  Yeah, yeah that's the ticket.

So today is rainy and chilly and so I have a soup on in the crock pot :)  I love when I can get up and get something in the crock pot nice and early, and have all the ingredients on hand.  That's really the ticket there - no preplanning involved.

Friday ramblings

Okay, so you know how there's a million zillion tutorials on taking a shirt, skirt or whatever and you trace around it and allegedly it turns out brilliantly???  I haven't been too keen on those because mine doesn't ever turn out very well.  BUT, today I thought I'd take one of my fleece pullovers and trace around it and just see.  The front and back are on a fold - easy peasy.  The sleeves were easy enough to trace around and then I just added hems and ribbon around the neckline!  Sorry, no picts.  You'll just have to take my word for it that it turned out well.  In fact, I'm wearing it right now.  The other best part is that it only used like a yard and half of fleece!  Bonus!

So, since it is my birthday and I kind of count this as my new year instead of January 1st, I thought I'd share some of my resolutions. 

1.  Continue with the weight loss.  I got a little side tracked about August but thankfully have just stayed steady, no losing any more.  I think I might even consult the trainer at the gym since I think it is part of my membership fee about what kind of weight training I should add.  This week I had a sort of epiphany of sorts.  Sometimes it's hard to get out of work in time to make it to spin class, so I just didn't do anything.  Ding dong!  I realized I should at least go and do something, it's better than nothing.  Not the most brilliant epiphany, I'll admit :)

2.  Finish the quilt with all the squares I've received from the quilting bee.  I was sort of waiting for one more person who hasn't sent me her square, but you know what???  I think she's not sending it so I'm just moving on.  And, if she ever does send it, I'll just make it into a matching pillow.

3.  Maybe, maybe, maybe make stuff to participate in a craft fair/bazaar next year.  That's a BIG maybe. 

4.  Pray every day.  Several times.  And try not to get distracted by lists I start in my head, or what I will do when I get to work, or whatever else starts to distract me.

5.  Be better about keeping in touch with people.  I get so caught up with the day to day, and trust me I'm not even a very busy person - it just slips my mind.  Then, I rationalize that it's too late to call, or I have nothing to say so what's the point?  Really I just need to DO it because it's not about me.

That's it for now, what about you???  What are your plans for the weekend?

Keeping cozy

So, Thursday it literally snowed alllll day long!  Even with all that snow, the roads have not been too bad, mostly clear - hooray for snow plows!  This is what my car looked like when I went out to warm it up:

Brrrr.  Yesterday June and I took it easy, as we did today too.  Who am I kidding?  We'll probably chill out all weekend :)  So, what have I been working on?  You'll remember that I tried my hand at the single wedding ring, and was not too thrilled with the results although the ladies at work thought I had gone mental.  So, I tried the tutorial, quilt-a-long from Comfortstitching, the pickle dish.  Results very similar to the wedding ring square (circle?) but a little bit more user friendly.  Only tricky thing was pressing the seams away from the white - the seam automatically wants to go to the white part!

I haven't quilted or anything else yet, but here's what I have so far.  I have a nice bit of advice for someone trying the paper piecing type thing - I used old Joann's flyers for my templates.  The paper is easy to tear away once you've gotten done with it, and it's kind of like recycling a bit :)  So, what do you think?  Not comletely round, but not bad.  There is one spot that didn't want to match up, and I'm going to try reaaaalllly hard to not point it out. 

I put up some Christmas decorations this morning as well, that's always fun to do!   A couple weeks ago Jan invited me over to scrapbook, but I just couldn't scrapbook so I worked on this wreath instead :)  I think it turned out pretty good!  I LOVE these vintage deer and pick them up at the thrift or wherever whenever I can and thought it was pretty much perfect to do a little Christmas wreath vignette.

What about you?  Have you started to put up decorations yet???  Getting in the Christmas spirit?  I pretty much listen to Christmas music all year long, mostly Bing Crosby, so I'm thrilled that it's the proper season to listen to Christmas music!

In other news, I noticed that Beverly Lewis has a new book out!  I'm hoping that the library will get it.....or I might even break down and buy it! 

so nice

I just have to share the nicest thing that someone said to me today.  Whether or not she was just trying to be nice and not completely honest, at this point I really don't care!  lol.  I went to the doctor this morning and she was telling me about taking calcium with vitamin D and then said "you're fair but I can tell I don't have to tell you about sunscreen because there is not a line on your face".  What????  Pretty much, I know my wrinkles but I'm taking the compliment and running with it :)