ahhhh Saturday!

During the school year Saturday is the only day of week that we can have a leisurely morning. We all woke up early this morning, but well rested. Blonde rascal, the little chef, loves to help Daddy cook eggs.

That was the scene bright and early this morning.


I was determined to get some stuff done today that I had been putting off. So I told myself that I would not be doing this...

Sure, who wouldn't want to lay on the couch amongst the pillows and quilts? But today only princess Missy was afforded that luxury. Yes, Mamma got off her rump and down to business!


Things had gone somewhat haywire in our closet and I, for one, had just about had enough. Since we are all friends here, I will show you a dark, distant "before" picture of our closet...

Hey, don't judge!!! At least not until you let me see a picture of your closet!!!! But wait... look what I accomplished today!


And those are the bags going off to Goodwill. I purged and it feels soooo good! I won't show you hubs side of the closet...he is not into "purging" like I am. He is borderline being worse than a clothes hog female. His side of the closet is downright shameful! But gee isn't my side purdy?
I think we Americans are excessive to a flaw. Why do we need so many clothes? Don't you agree that there is only a handful of clothes in your closet that you actually wear? If we got rid of: everything that we had not worn in the past year, or what didn't fit well (and never will) or that color that looks bad, or the clothes we just really don't like but hang onto in case we "might" need them and of course that pair of pants that makes your butt look like the side of a barn... wouldn't our lives would be much simpler? We have too many choices that bog us down in our big messy closets! Simplify America, simplify! That is my suggestion for the day!
Then to end my day I put our old Nintendo 64 and some of my perfume collection on E-bay! Someone else can buy my excess and fill their house with it!!!

Sewing Room Rules

I was puttering around in my sewing room yesterday afternoon gathering supplies for my quilting class, which starts tomorrow. Blonde rascal wants to be in there with me because, well...well because I am just a darn fun mom! So he and pup Missy, who insists on being a part of any and all gatherings, are rolling around together on the floor of the sewing room while I am rummaging about looking for the rotary cutter, pins, etc... to take to my class. Blonde rascal starts on his list of all the quilts he wants me to make, which I love to hear. It always starts out with one for him, then one for dad, one depicting each of our animals (domestic, feral, equine and bovine), Santa quilts, quilts for his teacher, and how about one of his match box car collection too. I cherish having these conversations with him, hearing his imagination run wild. His perception of my quilt making talent is quite grandiose!
He then runs off to his room and starts making signs for the sewing room door.


A whole collection of "I love you Mommy" masterpieces! In a 7 year olds world if a little scotch tape will do, then an arms length is even better!!!! These are displayed on the back of the door and here is what is on the front...


It says "No boys allowd but Zach and Daddy!" Priceless! He made that sign on day one of the transformation from brown haired teenage rascals room to sewing room. On that particular day I had donned my haz-mat suit and gone in to rid the room of all smells, unidentified objects and articles relating to teenage boys! Blonde rascal recognized what a momentous undertaking this was and felt that particular sign was in order!

Then the conversation switches to blonde rascal's sewing room rules. He decreed that in the sewing room....
1. You can take your shoes off. (After my explantion of pins stuck in your feet or rotary cutter mishaps where toes could be instantly amputated, we included an addendum of "unless you are cutting or sewing"
2. You can burp! Sadly, in this house full of males ( and one easily entertained female) burping happens!
3. You can wear pajamas! I believe that you should wear your pajamas as long as humanly possible each day! My son knows me so well!
The rules took a somewhat silly turn after that (yes even more silly than the ones already listed!) so I won't bore you with those. I wanted to add a "drinking margaritas" rule but thought I would keep it rated G while blonde rascal was reciting the rules. If not, here is what he would be telling his teacher right now...."My mom wears her pajamas all day in her sewing room while she drinks margaritas" Gasp, I would certainly be kicked out of the PTA for that! Besides all that, what I do in the sewing room after he goes to bed is none of his business! (giggle giggle!)
Yes, I start my 6 week quilt class tomorrow, 3 hours each Thursday morning. We are making a sampler, somewhere between the size of a table runner and a lap quilt. I am going to call it a "table throw". I chose Christmas fabric and I can just see the finished product tossed across the coffee table with some cute Christmas bauble on top of it. Here is my fabric...

I'll keep you posted with my weekly progress!

Beautiful Chicago

We returned from Chicago yesterday afternoon. It was a complete and total blast. I was a dyed in the wool NYC fan...but I have to say Chicago knocked my socks off!

I am knee deep in the post vacation laundry and recovery effort but I will share a few photographic highlights from our trip.



I was shocked at how beautiful Chicago was. It was so clean and the landscaping was fantastic. Flowers everywhere, simply gorgeous.


The Sears Tower...



Score!

The Chinatown designer knockoff mission was a successful one!



While the men were in meetings us girls went to see Wicked!

Talk about fantastic! Don't miss seeing it if you get the chance!



We went to "The House of Blues" which was sooooo cool!







Things may have gone a bit down hill from there....












What happens in Chicago, stays in Chicago!

He makes my world complete!

This is my blonde rascal and yes this is how he looks most of the time. Muddy, silly, dirty seven year old boy! Yesterday I had one of those moments, that all moms know, where all the chaos and struggles of motherhood are forgotten and you think "this is my perfect child".
I had some minor dental work done yesterday. An old bridge replaced with mini implants. ( I will show the before and after pictures in a few weeks, it is fun stuff!) Not a big deal, but the Dr. prescribed a sedative for me beforehand so I would not remember it. Then I was slightly sore afterward so I took a pain killer. (Can I get a "yeehaw" for prescription drugs?!?) Hubs is having crazy days both yesterday and today at work since we are leaving for Chicago tomorrow, so sweet M-I-L took me to the dentist and back home. Then she kindly picked up blonde rascal from school for me, so I could veg on the couch. I told him when he got home that I needed rest for a while and asked him if he could chill. Normally after school there is the whirlwind release of energy with the manic need for food, running, noise and so on and so forth. He granted my wish for "chill" and complied by calmly snacking and then he quietly laid on the floor watching TV while I drooled on the couch. Granted he found the "Speed" channel on satellite and watched a few hours of monster trucks and dirt bikes...but hey, he was quiet!
Then we proceeded with dinner and shower time WITHOUT the usual chaos of..."sit down, finish that, no cookies until you eat all of that, use your napkin, pick that up, don't smack your food....which then carries on through shower time with..."quite fooling around, turn off the water in the sink, make sure you close the shower curtain all the way, did you use soap, why are your fingernails still dirty, you have to brush your teeth longer than that..." you moms know the drill. I did have to remind him to pick up his dirty clothes off the bathroom floor and put them in the laundry basket, but hey that was only one minor offense! I thought bless his sweet heart he recognized that I needed some down time today and he pulled it off with flying colors. The evening ended with my clean smelling, "Cars" pajama wearing little boy curling up in my lap with the book he picked from the library. It was a book about Neptune, yes the planet. I loved hearing the little guy read about Neptune. He was fascinated. He wondered aloud why it was made up of gases and promptly answered himself with "because God made it that way." I love this kid! Then I got to hear his 7 year old logic on how the Hubble (sp?) telescope takes pictures of Neptune and gets them back to earth. Probably not the scientific explanation of this, but I personally thought it was perfectly brilliant! In all of the dirt, noise and busyness that my boy consists of, there is a calm and caring soul that knows how to take care of his mom. He fills my heart up to the brim!
I'll stop with the mushy, lovey mom stuff now. I will be signing off for a few days as we leave for Chicago tomorrow. I'll be back with hopefully some fun filled stories of brushes with the Mafia, a new "Chi-town" tattoo, a bulging belly full of all the deep dish pizza I chowed on and those fab fake Chanel sunglasses!

Just another day...

It was just another day for the victims of 9/11. They were going along with their morning routines, just as they had the day before. Being the victim of a terrorist plot was certainly not on their agenda. Being the victim of a tragedy is not on my agenda for today or any day. But who knows? Only the Lord knows the number of my days, so until that time comes I want to live each day to its fullest and make sure not a day goes by that the people that I love KNOW without a doubt that I love and care for them.

We visited NYC last summer. Hubs and I agree that seeing the WTC site was definitely the most poignant part of the trip. Walking up out of the subway directly onto the site took our breath away. It bombards you with emotions. At my very first glance, as my brain tried to process the sum of the devastation, my eyes were instantly brimming with tears. My heart simultaneously ached for the victims and their families and yet made me feel ferociously proud to be an American.











I pray God grants peace and comfort to all who lost a loved one on that tragic day.


On a happy note....Happy Birthday Mary, you ancient & crusty 30 year old!!!

Back home!

Hubs and I spent a glorious weekend at a golf resort in Ruidoso, N.M. He and a couple of coworkers took a client and all spouses for a fun filled golf weekend. Well, the boys golfed and the girls....shopped, duh what else would we do?!?! And we all ate like complete pigs. The makings of a perfect weekend!


Here is the view from our balcony.



A little foggy that morning but still a gorgeous view of the lake, golf course and mountains. We had a wonderfully huge suite, with this tv armoire.




What was so interesting about this armoire? Check out this book, the one on top, that was on the shelf....



Of course hubs and I giggled about this! Then I got to thinking, where do they get these books? Does the decorator go online at Half-Price Books and order every "5 for $1" used book they have? Or do they just deposit the ones left behind by guests on the shelves? If so, they better keep all records of that particular guest!!!

There is a fungus among us!

We have a barn. We have cattle. We have horses. We have hay. In all of that fun stuff there are mice. When the neighbor barn cat had kittens we said bring a few over when they are weaned. Nice neighbor brought over three. Cutest things you ever did see! Now the thing with barn cats is you want them to stay somewhat wild. You need them hungry enough to kill mice and whatever else lurks in the barn. So we feed them every other day or so. Not to mention I personally don’t want to get too attached to them because it is often the fate of barn cats to become part of the food chain. Hey, coyotes have to eat too you know. We instructed blonde rascal NOT to pick them up so they won’t become sissy,lazy, fat, worthless cats, you know like the 2 cats in the house. I think the temptation was too much for him, I mean they are really cute and all. At the same time blonde rascal was loving the kitties on the sly, his sidekick Missy, the killer miniature Dachshund, was herself loving the fact that there was finally animals around that were her own size. She promptly took to wrestling with the kitties. All good clean fun down on the ranch, yes? NO!! Those wild rogue kitties had ringworm and it IS contagious folks! Here are the scoundrels now...




This is Patrick.







This is Sandy.




There is one more somewhere. "Here kitty, kitty, kitty...."
















whoopsies! Sorry, that is not a cat.







OK here he is...



This is Gary. He must be the brains behind the whole operation because look, even he has sense enough to be disgusted by ringworm!




(Those of you with young rascals might recognize the names of the kitties...yes, the kitties were christened with Sponge Bob names, sadly without any consideration for the sex of the kitties.) Where did blonde rascal end up with ringworm you ask? Right smack dab on the back of his adorable neck! On the first day of school no less! My meticulously clean, primped, scrubbed, sweet smelling little boy starts the first day of 2nd grade with a case of ringworm! I researched this little predicament on the internet and found while very contagious among animals and children, adults generally are immune to it. Well thank goodness at least for that! And then there is sweet puppy Missy with her ringworm. With her pink velvet blingy collar and her cute little longhaired self....to have a big blob of ringworm on the inside of one of her legs is just.....just a total disgrace! Despite its perfectly horrible name, there is no actual worm involved it is just a skin fungus. Apply a regular treatment of Lotrimin AF, ok for pets too by the way, and you are good as new. As it turns out, 19 year old brown haired rascal’s girlfriend, cute sweet little thing, grew up on a ranch and said that as children they often got ringworm from one ranch beast or another and used Crest to kill it! Who knew? Cavity control and fungus eliminator all in one handy tube. And then in fact, as I was on the phone with good friend Lori the other day, relaying all of the gory details of this fungus predicament going on at our house.....oops, wait..... I let it slip. You see when good friend Lori caught wind of me thinking of starting my blog she immediately demanded that she have an alias, a nom de plume if you will, should she be mentioned in any of my blogging. Perhaps she did not want to be affiliated with and/or incriminated by any of my foolishness? Maybe, but she really just likes to keep a low profile that Lori does. Why, you ask? Who knows. One could guess... mail fraud, possible mafia involvement or maybe she tore the tags off of her mattresses. It’s hard to say. That Lori, she keeps it on the down low, that’s just how she rolls, so we love her despite her delusions of being in the witness protection program! I digress... so anyway my good friend Jennifer, Jennifer Aniston, comforted me by saying that one of her sons got ringworm in kindergarten and it was nothing to be concerned about. I am so thankful for friends like Jennifer who are there for you through good times and bad.

Now don’t you worry, kind readers, we have this ringworm thing whipped. All people and pets line up in the front yard every morning and I dump a few cans of Lortimin AF into the pressure washer and give everyone a good dousing.

So anyway, enough of all that gross highly contagious fungus talk. The guest room is open, who wants to come stay at our house this weekend? tee hee tee hee!

Bliss

My neighbor delivered a beautiful baby girl last week. They named her Bliss. Isn't that cool and sweet, all at the same time? Bliss is as good as it gets. That is how I feel about this time of year. It is bliss to me. I like cold. Weird, yes I know. You see I grew up in Houston where it is NEVER cold. Wearing shorts at Christmas, seriously that is sad. Just oppressive, wheezing, living in a plastic bag type of heat & humidity. And quite frankly that ruined me. As God as my witness I will be never be...hot again!!!!! I was born and raised in Houston but my Dad got transferred when I was 11 and we moved to Cleveland, OH. He then got transferred back to Houston when I was 16. I LOVED Cleveland! I know that whole "mistake on the lake" thing, but I disagree. It was a great place to live. My youth group at church was fantastic, I had wonderful friends and snow! Just one of those happy memorable times in my life. I loved the cold winters. Now fast forward 20 years and I am in West Texas where it is more of a desert you might say. No humidity, thank you Lord. Of course no trees, or hills, or scenery for that matter...but hey I will take the dry heat over any of those minor details! We do however have winter and some snow. Mom & Dad still live in Houston and they cringe when we visit because I insist that the a/c be on like 55 the entire time. My inheritance is probably wasting away as they have to pay the electric bill after we leave!
Labor Day weekend I'll admit is a little sad because you know it is back to the grindstone of school, homework, baths and regular bedtimes as you kiss summer goodbye. This morning we awoke to fog and just a little cooler air, a hint of what is to come. Oh bliss, cooler air... then the time change, then cozy evenings in our home. That is what it boils down to guys, when it is dark and cold outside then it is warm and cozy on the inside with the family I love. Plus say a pot of chili on the stove, cornbread in the oven, a good book, a fire in the fireplace and a nice cuddly quilt never hurts!

So for our last hooray yesterday, hubs, the blonde rascal and I played 9 holes of golf. My score was somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 over par but I think I did manage to hit this bird...









Seriously, hitting a ball into a tiny hole on a long fairway...where is the challenge there? Try hitting a bird and a tree in the opposite direction of the fairway, then we'll talk. I won't be winning any tournaments soon... or ever for that matter, but here is my ace in the hole...




Yes sir that is my "Tiger" blonde rascal. I see tournaments and large winnings in his future. Then he'll take care of momma in style!

I guess I should explain

Warning: if you are not a quilt lover...or my mom who will lovingly read whatever drivel I compose...don't read this because you will be bored silly!


Does my blog title, Quilty Chick, imply that I am a quilter? When exactly can you call yourself an "official" quilter? Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to name my blog "novice quilty chick" or "tenderfoot quilty chick" or "fledgling quilty chick"....well you get the idea. I'll come clean right now. I have made one quilt! Here it is...



This is my nine patch lap quilt. An award winner? Not a chance, but I love it all the same! What I love the most about it...the blonde rascal chooses it every time for a snuggle while reading a book or watching a movie. Who needs a ribbon from a stuffy judge when the most important critic in my world loves it!!!! I machine pieced it and then little ol' me hand quilted it. Hand quilting is not gonna be my thing but being that it was my first quilt I wanted to experience it all. Now I must give credit where credit is due, my aunt by marriage...but never-mind that because I am claiming her as all mine... Aunt Gay very kindly and patiently taught me step by step. From picking out the fabric all the way to attaching the binding. Gay lives 4 1/2 hours away so these lessons took place over about 4 different weekend visits. Gay has made countless gorgeous quilts and I am blessed to have her as my very own private muse!

I did not grow up in a quilting family. My grandmothers neither one were quilters. My mom taught me how to cross stitch and crochet. It was in college where I learned to sew. Two of my roommates sewed, this was 1991 and they were making some righteous wrap skirts. You know the ones, you loved them too...admit it! What college kid has extra money for clothes? So I called dear old mom and told her I wanted a sewing machine. No doubt relieved that I was asking for something worthy she excitedly said yes. Enter my trusty base model Singer from Best Products. Still humming along today the old Singer is!

I married into the quilts and girls this was the way to do it let me tell you. It was 1995 and my sweet, attentive and romantic betrothed... was a poor police officer. BUT he came from a long line of quilting grandmas and there were stacks and stacks of quilts just waiting to adorn our cute little first apartment! Word of advice to all you young girlies...who cares about money, marry for the heirloom quilts!!!

The quilts you can buy at the dept. store today, sure they are functional and look pretty and all, but where is the love? When you lay in bed under a handmade quilt it is like a hug from the person who made it. The quilts that hubs grandmas' made, some dating back to the early 1900's, were not made for grins or just because the fabric was pretty. No, it was a necessity to keep the family warm or decorate their simple home the only way they could afford to. There was not a beautiful fabric line by Moda at the store waiting to be made into a quilt, instead there were feed sacks and old dresses. I love these old quilts, whether on the bed to keep my family warm or an older tattered one to gently wrap a glorious new piece of furniture coming home in the back of the pickup. The only sad thing is that there are no labels on these old quilts so the story of who put so much time and love into them is lost. I want to pass on a legacy of love to my family and friends through quilts!

I have seen so many talented quilters in these blogs. I'll be watching you, adoring your work and more than likely pestering you with questions as I travel down my beginners road!