First Snowflakes

I looked out the window this morning around 10am and

I saw our first snowflakes of the season!!

Here is what it looked like on Christmas night

2009.......hope we have another

snowy Christmas this year.Isn't there an old saying about the date the first

snow falls on is how many snows you will

have that winter?? Today is the 30th....

so maybe 30 snows!!!

"More Than Ever" By Russ Taff & The Isaacs

This is a song I listen to and I find that it calms my spirit as I travel this journey called life, while living daily with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. There are times that the valleys get very low and the hills are like mountains that I can't seem to climb. When those days hit me, it is at the foot of the cross I turn to, as nothing else can replace what I find there in Christ JESUS.

Design Wall Monday

This last week I was not in front of the sewing

machine much only to work on a binding, so here

is a picture of a project I have started and

plan to work on after the first of the year.These are blocks made from Judy Laquidara's

star block of the month pattern.

Oh To Live a Cats Life, Free of CFS and Worry

This is how I feel.....I'd like to just stick my tongue out

at illness.Look it straight in the face.....without fear.

Crawl in my box....in the sun. Turn my back on the worries and stress.

But, can't do that, must go forward.

I've lost almost a whole week bending to the

demands of illness.

Missed Thanksgiving with family.

Missed the laughter of my grand kids....and

their squabbling.

Missed eating things I love.

But, I will go forward one day at a time and

CFS and illness may be in my life but

it does not own my life.

Design Wall Monday

My 6 1/2" nine patches are an ongoing

project for me. I thought I would

show some of them by the Beatitudes that

are actually what I have on my wall.I am sure there is a way I could work them into

a top with the 9 patches, but the example I saw

at the shop had them placed within a

3 strip rail fence block.

This is how I set my last batch of 9 patches. If you want you can look back on my post and see the whole 9 Patch Scrappy Quilt.

(Link below this picture....not really sure

how to do all this blog stuff yet!!!)

http://thenappingquilter.blogspot.com/2010/09/nine-patch-scrappy-quilt.html

Cousins

This is another of my favorite pictures.

My two middle granddaughters.

They are cousins, now in kindergarten and

first grade, born 8 months apart.

Their homes are around the corner from

each other and their back yards attach.I hope they grow up to be close.

Right now they are either fussing with

each other or they are best friends.

I think it is because they both want

to be the boss. This day, a few years back, they were

best friends playing after church one Sunday.

The View From the Kitchen Window

This is a very common sight when looking out

the kitchen window. The cat begging!!Gladys gets fed twice a day. She does not think

that twice a day is enough. So this happens often.

We almost always give in and take her out some

treats to the back porch.

As soon as she hears the back door open,

she tears down the railing that she is perched on

and heads to her food dish!!

I thought I would post this while it was on

my mind. I got up from an afternoon

nap and am sitting with my lap top

at the kitchen table.....and what do

I see out the window......little black ears!!!

Design Wall Monday

I have a box of red white and blue odds

and ends blocks and decided to get them

out and see what I had.I guess they are like orphan blocks.....except that they

didn't have a destination in the first place. I starting making these earlier this year and

plan to make more R/W/B blocks until I

have enough of ones I like to put together

a quilt top.

This Pineapple Block was one of my first paper pieced attempts. I would really like to pull it from the others and make a whole quilt out of these. Not sure if that will happen......if it does it will take me quite a while to accomplish. This heart was also paper pieced and now I need to get it appliqued to a white background and square it up.

Same Quilt, Different Colors

I saw these two quilts at

the guild meeting I went

to last month.I bought the pattern and it includes

the panel with the scripture blocks.

Comfort of Psalms One Fabric Too! Pattern by Jeanne Cloverdale for Block Party Studios, Inc.

A Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Gramma Can Be Fun

This is my oldest middle grand daughter. She loves

to play with lipstick.

I am not the kind of Gramma I had planned on being.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome changed those plans I had.

I do my best and I try to make fun memories for

the kids and myself.

I try to be creative....that's where the lipstick and the

cans of beads and bracelets come in handy.

I also have a few hats.

You can entertain from a horizontal position if

you own a few cans of beads and a cheap tube of

lipstick.

I have times that it really bothers me that I can not

do all the things with the kids that I would like.

I worry about them understanding why Gramma is

not present at a lot of activities....like other grandparents are.

I can't take the heat, or extreme cold, driving very far

wears me out. Don't have the

energy to make it through a day trip to an amusement park.

Sometimes a trip to McDonald's is all I can do with them and that

may be at the drive thru!!!

We make up songs to sing....you can do that sitting in a car while

Mom is inside Wal Mart, but now they are all in school. Pre School

to 7th grade, so the Wal Mart sitting, I think, has past.

So when one of the kids visits us and asks for the cans

of beads or lipstick.....or breaks out singing our

cat song.....I know I am making happy

memories with them, just not at the amusement

park as I had planned before I was a Gramma with CFS.

Oh, and another thing we can do when I need a rest....

draw the ABC's on the ceiling with flashlights while flopped on the bed

together........they love the flashlights and can use

them at Gramma's house. They tell me

they can't do that at home because Dad says they'll run the

battery down!!

Design Wall Monday

I am trying to figure out how I want

to set these pinwheel blocks so I spread

them out on white tone on tone on the kitchen table.

More often than not my kitchen table turns into

my design wall. These are whirly gig blocks on my design wall. Looks like I have spare thread also to show on my design wall. LOL I have to really pay attention when I go to sew together the whacked up half square triangles or I get them backwards.

Old Singer Sewing Machine

My Mother gave me this last year.

See the little key hanging down on front?

There is a little round hole on the left end of

the case that you put the key

in to unlock the case.It is OLD.

The cat had to snoop, she was not sure what was in that old brown case. It runs smoothly.

I can remember my Mother repairing denim

jeans and overalls on this machine.

I have not sewn any of my quilt projects

on this machine but have gotten it

out and just sewn to see how it

is working.

It was manufactured in Elizabeth, New Jersey on

August 29, 1927.

15000 of this model were made.

I keep it sitting on top of my old Kenmore sewing machine and cabinet. I have sewn a lot on that Kenmore. It was the one Mom taught me to sew on .

Pinwheel Party Quilt

This is a beautiful quilt designed and made by Anina

over at The Twiddletails Blog.

I plan for this to be my next new quilt project.

She has the pattern listed step by step on her blog.http://twiddletails.blogspot.com She has done a beautiful job ......click and enlarge and check out the quilting. I think this would also look pretty good using white as the background instead of black, but I like the black....it makes the pinwheels just pop out at you!!!

A Precious Picture

I took this photo of my next to the

youngest granddaughter three

or so years ago, out in our back yard.

I wonder what was going on

in her little mind and what she

was looking at. I remember she was

on the swing when I took this of her.

She is now a kindergartner and will

quickly tell you what is on her

little mind nowdays!

I would like to think that

her Gramma in heaven, her

Mom's Mom is looking down on her.

She will also tell you her name and

that she is named after her Gramma

that is up in heaven.

To me, that's precious.

A Bright Happy Quilt Top

This is another brown bag or round

robin quilt I worked on.

I am not sure why I only took a picture

of one corner, must not have

had anyone available to hold it up. I ran into the lady that it belongs to and she told me she finally had it quilted. She is supposed to email me a picture of it when she has time. I really like the bright happy colors and patterns on it. Today I need bright happy feelings. Spent way to long on the phone trying to get a bill lined out correctly with AT&T.....Lord I hope I never have to do that again, or at least not for a long time.

Just About Fire Time

November is here and with it the nights are really getting cooler.

A few weeks ago Joe pulled the Earth Stove out of the fireplace

and cleaned the chimney.I could not believe how much had built up in the chimney.

This is the worst pile we have ever cleaned out of there.

I know when it was really super cold last winter,

we had to burn some wood that was not seasoned well

and our seasoned was too wet to mix in.

As usual in our house, this task did not go without supervision!!

It won't be long and we will have a fire going.