Tuesday, January 26, 2010

These pictures prove that...




...Grandma has lost the feeding baby "solid" food technique, and

...you just can't make a proper pretzel without Grandpa.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Finally!








Today is a finally day.

I'm finally posting.

I'm finally sewing. I have gotten to the point where I have to design what goes into a four isosceles right triangles that are 48 inches on the hypotenuses (hypoteni?) and therefore 33.9 inches on the legs. I need to find (again) the graph paper. My original idea was sort of a half log cabin, but it is a little bit big for that, although I may still use it for a background behind other blocks. I also need to design the borders (which I hope to be a woven/plaid affair).

Then I need to put together all the pieces to another quilt.

And then I will have 4 or 5 queen and twin size quilt tops and a wall hanging to layer, quilt and bind. I have to finish them before starting anything else, I'm running out of room in my sewing cubicle! It is about 6 feet square, including machine, ironing board, dresser with stuff and rolling carts of stuff, and not including project bags. I'm tripping over them.

And (save the best for last!) I finally have some more baby pictures!

That little stinker was perfectly happy all afternoon, until he jerked himself awake from a bad dream and would not stop crying for at least 1 1/2 hours. Hasn't anybody told him that You Don't Do This To Grandmothers? You are supposed to do that to the mother! This is part of my revenge on my daughter for doing that to me! And then, I decided to take him home, and the car ride soothes him to the point that he is perfectly happy when he is home! (next time I try the car ride first!)

Humph.

I still love the car.

Monday, January 11, 2010

It is all over but the shouting.


We got the news Friday about noon that the Mazda has been totalled. We went to a local car place and looked at a 2006 Honda Odyssey with 77,000 miles on it. All the electronics, nice color...but we need to check others out.

We looked at cars.com and found a 2008 for the same price with only 16,000 miles. Called the dealership in Salem, Or and talked to a salesman. Called a cousin in Oregon, made plans to stay with her, and asked why it would still be on the lot? She opined that Oregon has the 5th worst economy in the US and no one is buying. Checked the weather, and there was going to be freezing rain in the gorge that night and Saturday. This was the reason we need to buy a new car in the first place, so we made plans to drive down Sunday night or Monday if the car was still there.

Saturday I started the laundry at 6:30 (just pushed a button and went back to bed.) Discovered there had been no freezing rain anywhere. Got paperwork from the credit union. Called the dealership, the car had not been sold in the last four hours and told them we would probably buy it. And, since we are driving for some 5 hours, could they reserve it for us? Called Enterprise rental and asked about extra charges to leave the rental in Salem. He said he had a car that needed to be driven to the area, give him half an hour and we could switch cars. Plus Jack is coming down with a cold and I wanted him to actually help drive. (He did spend all day Monday on the couch watching TV.)

(We had a basic car for the rental -- no automatic door locks, no clicker, just power steering and power brakes. Really missed all the electronic gewgaws.)

Packed and left. Arrived in Salem about 4:30. The car did not fall apart when we test drove it, so we bought it. Anyone who has ever bought a car knows the time associated with that particular clause is outside of normal time. But I did get to watch part of the Cowboys-Eagles game while waiting. Almost the only football (American, that is) I've been able to watch all year! Even got to see a couple of Dallas TDs. The salesman said that he had been known to stay until midnight to finish a sale. I think he was only about 15 minutes after closing this time. The business manager who finished all the paperwork looks like Jim Carey.

The reason it had not sold was because they had a glut of Odysseys in November and December. They had dropped the price from $24,000 to $18,000 by the time we showed up -- it had been on the lot too long. Plus January is a good time to buy a used car, because people are shopping the clothing sales instead.

We arrived at the cousin's house about 8:00 pm. Had some good talks about the state of Christian music today, which degressed really fast into almost everything else, lasted 3 hours and was fueled by 2 1/2 bottles of wine for 4 of us. Ate breakfast at Sharis, and then left. We had things to do...like stay awake on the drive home. Both of us are into afternoon naps these days, and both of us have colds and were trying not to infect anyone. (Except Tami, who gave them to us!) Plus the laundry is still waiting.

Now we just take care of paperwork with the State of Washington (We still have to pay state sales tax, some $1600!!! They are in dire straights, I hope they don't waste it too badly) and with the insurance agency. They will know by Wednesday if we are covered by uninsured motorist (in which case we pay $15/day for the rental) or if they found the other driver was insured (then we pay nothing).

I LOVE THIS CAR! I think I will name it Patricia.

The lamp post is the one that was missed by a teenage driver whose adventures sliding around in the driveway were described in a previous post. You can also see the trunk of one of the Catalpas that she missed just behind the back bumper.

One of my friends called and asked if I wanted to go look at fabric she found on Craig's List for $3-6 per yard. Do I look like I have any money left? (If it had been $1/yard...)

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Two clowns


While Tami and I were wandering around Seattle, getting plenty of exercise and seeing everything (and she was starving me, see previous post), Jack was taking care of Connie, who was sick.

They watched all the DVDs we got for Christmas. In the same chair. Covered with quilts that I made. And probably getting cracker crumbs on them.

Pair of lazy bums.

Now it is my turn. I have been nursing a cold (thanks, Tami) since Saturday. (I barely got out in time to go bra shopping. There is only one thing worse than bra shopping, when you are overweight, and that is pants shopping.) Came home and got worse and have been avoiding infecting people ever since, except that my family thinks I should still make dinner for them. So dinner is things that you boil for a long time, like soup and spaghetti sauce, in hopes that I kill the germs that I breathed on the chopped onions. I did not watch DVDs. I did computer jigsaw puzzles and conquered the world (Civ 3) instead. Now I know I am getting better, because I am getting antzy about actually accomplishing something. So...I will sew tomorrow.