At Busy Bees quilting this morning I showed off the HUGS quilt that the Foothills ladies made for me and surprised me with at our holiday party last month.  

I had planned to show off the quilt at the December meeting - 

except I missed that one because it was the day following Tom's quadruple bypass.

For Show & Tell Melissa brought in this king-sized Log Cabin that she quilted for a customer - it was too big for her to hold up and show all of it, but you get the idea.

Monica is our new Charity Chair, and she displayed a number of the charity quilts that the ladies made last week.  The quilts are destined for various hospitals (there's a new children's hospital opening up on our side of the Valley that surely is not yet on too many lists) and shelters. 

Peggy made several of these cheery quilts from simple squares.

Betty whipped up a couple of cuties using some panels she had:

Don't know which ladies made these:

For those of us who 'need' yet another project <G> Joni is going to run a year-long Row project from Bee in My Bonnet; she'll give us the instructions for a new row at each business meeting, and the plan is for us to get that row finished before the next meeting.  (We'll see how that goes...!)

 

January's row is the double row of tiny 1" squares at the top of the picture.  But we will use an easy method (which I've been wanting to try) that does not involve sewing with tiny little pieces of fabric.  

As always: WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER!

This afternoon was a trip to the cardiologist, where Tom pretty much got an 'all clear' - he doesn't have to go back again for 3 months!  

And while we're on the subject of heart attacks, ladies, check out this short and entertaining "just a little heart attack" video so you're well aware of the warning symptoms for women:

http://www.surreywellness.com/chiropractic/go-for-red-women-premiere-short-film-just-a-little-heart-attack/

VERY interesting article in the 1/20/13 New York Magazine on why we never 'truly' leave high school; it is lengthy, but well worth the read!  Thank you, Cindy!  

http://nymag.com/news/features/high-school-2013-1/

This photo was posted by a friend on FB

and certainly reminded me of a story.

But I'm wondering if I ever shared that story on my blog.

I did send my horse trailer story in to Country Magazine for their "Embarrassing Moments" column...they 'declined' to publish it

although they did publish my entry for their "Best Birthdays":

Speaking of rejections, it could be interesting to see what's in this collection:

Yesterday just got colder and nastier - Pokey crawled back into her igloo after a very short time, and I crawled into my new snuggly green sweatshirt (it did help keep me toasty!) - and the homemade goulash and bread were much appreciated  when the guys got home from their (less than perfect) training session.  

I think we've had more winter this month alone than in the past 5 (or possibly 10!) years combined.  In a 'perfect world' (although who lives there?) this might mean we'd great a break in the summer.... 

but somehow <G> I doubt that will happen.

Just got a call this morning from my brother "to chat" while he was driving in to work, and got some of the details on his upcoming trip to the Superbowl.  Someone Andy knows (who works for/with the Ravens) had a couple of tickets that he couldn't use (!) and offered them to Andy at face-value.  Apparently getting the tickets was the easiest part of the equation.... getting plane reservations and finding room accommodations turned out to be a tad trickier.   

In any event, I'll be watching for Andy and Ed when the TV cameras scan the stands on Sunday.  

If you want to help me look, that's Ed on the right.  Casey (and Harry and Charlie) will be rooting (no doubt very loudly) from home.  If you listen you might be able to hear them....

And here's a pic of Andy (with Lisa) taken on the family cruise in '09:

After this morning's posting I got busy with my day.  Well before the lab opened I made a trip to the grocery store, then got goulash going in the crockpot and bread in the breadmaker.  After that I started quilting, the day got away from me, and I spaced out calling Apryle.   

Mid-morning I took a break from sewing and went to get my nails filled; the hole in my thumbnail (just one of many injuries from my fall four months ago) has grown out to the end of my nail and I was worried that the entire nail would split.  When I got home Pokey had wandered out to spend a little time in the sun, so I rewarded her bravery with some of the leftover veggies that didn't make it into the goulash.

Then it was back to sewing.  Today I whipped up a panda block to put on the heavy new hooded sweatshirt that I got (on sale, practically for free) a few weeks ago.   

I'm thinking it should come in handy as another layer to help keep me warm at the WPA fireworks in Havasu next month.

To make a long story short, the phone rang at 2:30, and it was Apryle.  She had indeed worried when I didn't show up first thing this morning, but figured something might have come up and she'd wait a bit before calling and 'checking up' on me.  Of course she was glad to hear that everything is fine, and I'm sorry I worried her - but it is nice to be missed!  

SNOW SMILES:

Of course I can smile because I don't have to deal with snow here in Phoenix!

And speaking of smiles, TRY not to laugh at "Sue",
who just loves surprise parties...
http://pinterest.com/pin/101753272802681370/

But should you find yourself in a mood to shake your head in disbelief,
just check out these 10 'science' lessons:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/10-interesting-lessons-from-creationist-inspired-school-books


All of a sudden I've been getting comments from various people about how much my hair has grown 'all of a sudden'.  But I'm thinking it's really just a 'side effect' of all the recent rain & humidity making what (little) I do have puff out more noticably...

Tom and Garry are off this morning for their annual OSHA refresher class.  I'm going to throw some dinner in the crockpot and then quilt (after I call Apryle at the lab to tell her my chemo will be on Thursdays from here on out and not to worry when I don't show up  for my pre-chemo blood draw today!)

(It's that usually that gets us, right?)

I do understand how she feels, which is why I have this "proof" posted prominently where I see it many times daily!

Estera invited me over this evening to meet Julianna, who was born December 3 but only came home from the hospital NICU on Wednesday.            

I brought over some tub toys for 'big' brother Willie (now 17 months?) so he wouldn't get his nose out of joint at the attention his new little sister was getting.

But he was at church with his Daddy and grandmother, so that presentation will have to wait.  (When Alex came home from the hospital, 'he' brought Lisa some tub toys, which were a big hit.)

I did get to hold Julianna very briefly - hard to remember when Lisa and Alex were that small.

                              

Pokey thought she'd stick her nose out and do a weather check - 

but this is as far as she got.

I checked several times and she was still in that same spot, definitely undecided.  Just to make it worth her while I thought I'd treat her to breakfast (almost) in bed: some cantaloupe rinds and strawberry tops.  

No complaints there! 

So many folks I know are sick.  This is how Tracy described it:  

~ Just keep feeling sicker and sicker, even with all of the heavy meds and way too much bed rest..... ugh. I know I'm not dying because I feel too horrible! LOL~  Back to bed............zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

To all of my sick friends/relatives, here's a "feel better soon" hug!

So far Tom and I have been spared the worst of it.  

Don't know how much coughing/sneezing his heart could take at this point!  

It's another wet and slimy day today -
although not like yesterday when we absolutely shattered the rain record.  

At the airport (the official spot, where the amount counts) we got over an inch of rain yesterday.  And other unofficial spots around the Valley reported almost 1.75".  Naturally there were all sorts of outside activities going on (after all, it's usually sunny and warm here in January!) like a 5K to raise money for Special Olympics, and a car wash (!) to raise funds for an injured police officer.  But folks pretty much seemed to take the rain in stride.  

I'm just happy I had no place I had to be this weekend - although if the weather had been better I thought about popping over to Casa Grande, just south of town, for their Bluegrass Festival. Last weekend I skipped the Bluegrass Festival in Blythe because Bonnie and Susie came to visit.  Maybe I'll make it to the one in Marana (just north of Tucson) in April.  

Some time last night it started raining, and is still coming down quite steadily - nothing like the wimpy rain we got on Thursday.  Since we are behind on our annual precipitation amount (and in Phoenix that isn't very much to begin with) rain is (almost) always a good thing here.  Except that it doesn't do my achy bones any favors.

 But between the heating pad and the hot tub, I'm expected to survive... <G>

And of course at least it's not snow... if it'd arrived earlier this month during our outrageous cold spell, we might still be shoveling our way out!

Last evening we watched a 'quirky comedy' on Netflix which neither of us had heard of, Jesus Henry Christ.  

It was entertaining -
and certainly better than most of the stuff on TV these days!

Garry arrives from Ottowa today.  Too bad this weekend's weather isn't like last weekend's balmy sunshine.  But it's still gotta be better than the weather he left behind at home!

Yesterday I finished reading a novel about Princess Louise, Queen Victoria's 'wild child'.  While not great literature it was certainly entertaining and readable - but obviously many liberties (openly admitted by the author) were taken with the available historical facts. Now I've moved on to You Saved Me, Too which promises to be a great book and kept me up way too late last night!  

Since today is a perfect day to just stay inside and curl up with a good book
I expect to get a lot more reading done.