What a Nice Surprise!

Have you been watching Jeopardy like we have? There is this sort of creepy, or maybe I should say rich at this point, guy, who has won every day last week. I'm pretty sure his winnings so far are in the neighborhood of $150,00 because he knows everything, however, he did not know the answer to the website that hosts the most blogs, and neither did I. Turns out it is Tumblr, which reminded me that Matt had me set up a different blog there, and here it is. Only photographs, and just now looking at them, some of them are pretty good, however I never understood really how to navigate Tumblr--not then, and not now!

Can you tell how old we are acting these days? Watching Jeopardy, bird watching, sewing, what's next? Actually, interestingly enough, I've discovered that all of these pastimes are enjoyed by young and old alike. If the sheer number of quilting blogs written by young woman is any indication, sewing is on the uprise. Is that a word? Upswing, that's it. Anyway, being able to make something unique is what I think drives the addiction, oh wait, I meant to say hobby! I was thinking the other day how for most of my life I had to fit sewing into my everyday life, and now I can make sewing my everyday life. Nice.

The throw is complete. Sewing the lines so closely takes not only a lot of hours, but a lot of thread as well. For sewers amongst you, I believe I used four full bobbins! Showing my age again, I should have used the modern term, "sewist."

This one I'm going to keep for our living room. I used quite a bit of the material Jane sent me for Christmas, as well as some others that I had around. This is the first time I've made a border, and in this instance there are two, mostly because I wanted it to be larger and I'd run out of the other fabrics! For the back I used more of my estate sale fabric; how I wish I'd come across something like that again as fabric is now costlier than I can fathom. At the quilt shop it runs around $12.00 a yard. Remember that I had the good fortune to buy about fifteen pieces of fabric, many of them at least two, if not three, yards for $15.00. Now that was most definitely a nice surprise.

Lest you think I'm doing everything right, I decided to put together a baby quilt for donation using some of the squares I'd cut for Nancy's quilt. I'd found a cute little print on sale that I thought would make a good backing. Well, things were going well until I began the quilting. Trying for the first time, invisible thread, from the get go, things were shifting and puckering. I tried everything I know to do. Well, duh! After putting in multiple lines, I discovered that I'd forgotten to put on the special foot I use for quilting! All is not lost, but it is not my best effort.

So none of the above is all that surprising but just wait...here they come. My garden is looking quite nice this year because of volunteers and I don't mean the human kind. All sorts of flowers I've planted over the years are popping up and filling the space nicely. Having a cardinal at the feeder is just a bonus.

Over in no man's land, well, actually where the pool pump and garbage cans are located, I noticed another volunteer--a tomato plant! I dug it up and put it in a pot, not knowing if it would survive. By golly, we've got a little tomato!

As to whether others will join it on the plant remains to be seen.

Continuing the owl stories, Friday morning I rode over and saw no evidence of the owlets. Instead I saw the big guys in the Magnolia tree.

Watching and waiting, before long one flew over to a nearby big oak tree, out in the open I might add, and the other flew over as well.

I was so surprised by what I saw next, so much so I checked the time on my photos when I downloaded them to my computer. Between the Magnolia tree sighting and the above photo was two minutes. Neither owl had a thing in the previous picture so what I saw next was amazing.

Breakfast for the kiddos who did not show up. Eventually I left, riding all over the neighborhood, before circling back and there was still no sign of the owlets. Parent owl patiently waiting.

How and when the mouse, or I think it is a mouse, was scooped up, I'll never know. And that, my friends, is why I do not tire of watching the owls--always interesting.

For more Friday nights than he would want, Bruce's phone rings around 6:30. The call is unwelcome, but he answers it nonetheless. The caller is always the same--the manager of his restaurant in Tyson's saying the make-up air has gone down again. This is a crazy complicated system that I don't fully understand but I do understand that when something cost over $100,00, it should work all of the time! Despite his best efforts, and the countless experts he has consulted with, the problem remains intermittently. Good thing we had not planned on a date night because he ended up spending FOUR hours on phone calls!!

So, instead of Friday night lights, we went for Saturday night lights. Our destination--Johnny's Other Side, so close to home, as well as having decent food and live music. Basically a shorts type place, nothing fancy, but you probably will always find someone you know there. Walking up to find a table, who should we see but Mr. Joseph Martens, who played at the market for at least five years, doing it so well too. He left the market early last year, and it was never the same without him. How wonderful to hear his singing voice again. That is his dog lying there.

These days we still hear his voice as he hosts a radio show called Sunday Morning Coming Down that plays as we drive to church. No sooner had Joseph quit singing for the evening than Kristen showed up with her friend, Joe. Kristen and I worked together at the hospital for years. and one thing we still have in common is. we love to dance. If music is playing, and there was a very good band following Joseph, it is pretty much a given, she and I will dance. I noticed another woman tapping her foot. and we called her to the dance floor. Additionally, an old patient of mine who lives nearby was there with her new "boyfriend." Kathy joined us for a dance too.

I have boyfriend in parentheses because Kathy's husband died about three years ago from jaw cancer. For more than twenty years he drove Tom Petty's bus to all of his tour gigs. As well he did some of the same for Dave Matthews. That's quite a job, huh?  Kathy's new boyfriend is really an old boyfriend from high school who found her on facebook. How many times have you heard that story before? He, too, lost his wife from cancer, and I sure hope they can make each other happy.

So, Bruce's call is not a nice surprise, I hardly need say, but the other sightings were. Wonder what's going to happen tonight? Stay tuned....

Ready for new surprises,

Gail