I'd almost finished the second Halloween placemat yesterday 

(it still needs a little echo quilting around the clouds) 

when Marcie called, ready to join me on a trip to 35th Ave.    Got to see her first 90" row of the Escher quilt up on her design wall.  

I had my coupon printed and ready - but never used it since 35th Ave. didn't have either notion I was looking for: a strip stick, and a replacement plastic cover for sending the cutting templates through the Accququilt.  Not only that, they didn't have what Marcie needed, numbered pins, so we headed over to Mulqueens, where at least I did find the plastic cover (and we bumped into Yolanda and Gloria at an embroidery class.)  I wisely also bought another package of machine needles (yesterday I broke two) but NO fabric!

Hoping the 3rd time would be the charm, we drove over to The Other Quilt Shoppe, but Sheri didn't carry the strip stick (though she's had numerous requests lately and this is going to start stocking them again) or the pins.

Marcie treated me to lunch at King Gyro for chauffeuring her around (which of course was totally unnecessary) where I enjoyed a falafel pita.  Once home I pawed through my stuffed "pins and needles" tub.  Didn't have numbered pins as I'd thought, but did have a large stash of the ones with large flat tops which I was able to number and should work.  (If she needs numbers past 20 to help keep her on the 'straight and narrow' I still have plenty of those pins left.  It's crucial for this project that she keep all her small triangle pieces correctly oriented!)

I'd let Myra and Cheri know I was going to skip Book Club last night (good thing, because I ended up napping for a couple of hours in the afternoon until 6:00, past the time Myra would have been picking me up!)  While I was a little bummed to have missed all the book reports on Historical Fiction books (I'd planned to recommend Painter of Souls, the novel we read for Book Club in Colorado this summer) I do expect to find a list from Cheri in an e-mail one of these days.  (Of course it's not like I'm at a loss for books to read...)

Alex arrived home for a couple of days (he left his truck in CA and drove the Rockstar van) and joined us for dinner last night.  He's going hiking this morning, and since none of his friends could join him ("they all have to work") he invited me to go along - even knowing I would most certainly slow him down considerably.  But I have a doc appointment this morning, when I'll find out the results of the blood tests from those 7 vials that were drawn a couple of weeks ago.  

Maybe Alex and I will finally play some racquetball this afternoon instead?

In the meantime, I did a search for dog-friendly hikes in the area now that the weather has begun to cool off.  It's only going to be 93 for the next several days - though they are threatening a return to triple digits after that.