DJ spent some time yesterday afternoon watching the “Masters” PGA golf tournament. The weather looked glorious on TV, the azaleas lovely, the commentators “commented” blah, blah, woof, woof. All we could think was “look out tomorrow, Augusta. The bad weather we get tonight is probably heading your way next.” DJ said he wasn’t as impressed with the azaleas on TV as he once was either now that he sees them all the time around us in the spring. Still pretty but ours are too.
Both of us had hoped that the rain would put a fire out. You see, we live about 200 yards away and across the road from a privately owned lake. They started clearing some of the underbrush and trees away last week with end loaders, etc. Yesterday we saw why they are doing this work—in one month’s time they are auctioning off 24 lakeside lots. Naturally large piles of brush are accumulating and there is no burning ban here in the county. They keep piling it up and there has been a continuous burn/smolder thing for days now. It can get really smoky outside at times and depending on which way the wind is blowing, it gets in the house. Open the windows, close the windows throughout the day. (Smoke can make my chest feel tight and make it harder to breathe—chronic bronchitis type stuff) Trust me, my husband is not going to turn on the a/c yet so it is irritating that we cannot open our windows to get some fresh air in the house. (That’s another story and another annual complaint.) The ceiling fans help but not when it is getting up to 80 outside, albeit the humidity is not what it will be in the month’s ahead yet. SIGH.
So what did I do yesterday to pass the time? I am working through some of the practice exercises in “Learning Web Design” from a book by Jennifer Niederst and O’Reilly Press. Fooled around with that a bit in the morning and left off at Cascading Style Sheets which is what we use for our blog templates. This may well explain why you can and cannot change things about your font, color, lists and positions. Interesting bedtime reading, LOL? Actually I curled up with a “Nordic Needle” catalog hoping to find some silk ribbon for embroidery and was enthralled by all the various needle arts. I would love to try those someday. I DO love to do redwork, cross stitch, etc and have a dear friend that does bobbin lace so I am familiar with it but there are so many things to tempt one.
I did get a good bit of my mom’s “Lexington Town Square” top quilted yesterday that I spoke about in Busy Weekend This is a top she made for WTIL and donated to the Belles for Girls Ranch. I am just stitching in the ditch and not in some loopy thing as they showed in the magazine as the quilt is a little bit big for me to want to attempt some free motion practice. I’ll finish it today--well, the quilting, not the binding. One of the helpers will probably do that.
Just to take a break and give my “seater” and back a rest after an hour or so of quilting, I headed out to the kitchen to do some prep work for the stir fry we were having for dinner. Still not ready to give up the “Suzy Homemaker” routine, I made a spice cake from scratch since I had some buttermilk on hand to use up. Went back to locking in the blocks on the quilt while it cooled. Later I headed back to make caramel icing for it. LOL, when I gave DJ he said I could just give him a bowl of icing since it was so fudge like. I would say penuche but he wouldn’t have a clue what that was—just that he liked it. Supper wasn’t bad either, BTW. I enjoy cooking when I have time and am feeling creative. Other times, it is a chore or anything old thing, fast, will do.
Since so far this note has been more or less a "slice of life" post--this is my journal, after all-- here is a qult picture to share. Linda S took this one on for the binding and handed it back to me on Thursday. The top is one that Cher brought with her on her last visit east. I had a picture of me quilting it as well in old "gone" blog but won't re-post it now.
Here is raggy quilt that Beverly made that may make my mom smile as many of the flannel bits were leftovers from night gowns she made for my grandmother. Made a nice "girly" quilt!
Guess that's it for me till tomorrow or so-------
oops, I see blogger did not allow an upload for photo yet. We have rain here too-though not tornados thank goodness-hope today sees another quilty finish for you.
ReplyDeleteYou must have caught it right after I published from Word--had to go back to edit in Blogger to add them--that and change the link back to my old post. I figured out what the link was but not before figuring out a work around :-)
ReplyDeleteCome back though Cher as you probably need the picture for your files as well since PP's generated it.
That's really annoying about the burning across the road. I've been in that position, and since I have chronic asthma, it's an issue for me.
ReplyDeleteLuckily no one says when I can or can not start my AC..*VBG*
Love the quilt pictures...they both look like really great snuggle quilts!
What a great post.
ReplyDeleteThey burn the sugar cane fields here before they harvest so I understand about the smoke. They rotate the fields so the smoke happens here frequently.
I'm going back to look at the quilts again. Thank you so much for sharing pics of them.
Darilyn
Enjoyed reading your slice of life. I'd suggest giving a call to your local government and asking them if those folks can't burn all at once, say one day a week, instead of leaving it to smolder for days on end. It'd be worth a try. I really like your quilts. Well done!
ReplyDelete