Dark days are behind us, PLEASE!

Ah the innocence of the last post.... the frivolity, the carefree nature...

Little did I know that only one day later the dreaded gastroenteritis would darken our doors... leaving no grown-up unscathed. It has been a dark, dark time...Let us return to a happier time, when a kind mail person came right to the door and delivered all of these wonderful presents...a BEAUTIFUL quilt from the famous Quilt Dad (I have now been the lucky recipient of 2 of his fabulous quilts...  I knew that these memories would cheer me up).  He was my secret partner for Doll Quilt Swap #6.  (a great, fabulous group of quilters.)

And he totally spoiled me with a whole slew of presents...  It was a really nice way to start a Saturday.  One of my favorite things was a little notebook that says "Trust your crazy ideas" it is full of graph paper!!!  What a great idea for a quilter!  I am going to keep my eyes open for little notebooks like this in the future.  Thanks John!  I would happily be your partner anytime!!!
Here is my next stop as I walk down swap memory lane....  a lovely chocolate and pink log cabin/courthouse steps mini from Mari, one of my Flickr friends from this swap.  I really like the pink in it.  Thanks Mari!

I was going through my stash today to prepare for my month of Another Quilting Bee and I realized that I just don't have that much pink fabric.  I guess there are so many pinks that are too treacly and sweeeeeet (with kind of a screech at the end) and so I am just not drawn to them.  I was surprised at how much orange and green I have.  I never thought of myself as an orange and green type of person, but apparently I am attracted to those colors of fabric.  

One thing I was able to do the past few days besides lay around with the pukes was read "The Host" by Stephanie Meyer (of "Twilight" fame)  It was great sci-fi for me.  I couldn't stop reading it and that is always nice when you are to weak and sore to get out of bed.  I also just finished Maeve Binchy's latest "Heart and Soul" and it was classic Maeve.... the colorful Irish, some immigrants thrown in for good measure, old characters mixed with new ones, just a nice, easy, entertaining read.

So, today I am doing pretty good, I hope you are too.

JMB

There and back again...

Can I do anything but a collage of pictures these days?? I don't know.
I have been going a little heavy on the fabric shopping...must stop...now!
I read this in like a day and a half at the beach. I hate to say it because EVERYONE is reading it, but I LOVE IT! Like brain candy, finally a book I could finish, I don't know why, but yum!

I had been reading this...which EVERYONE is reading also...BUT it is not holding my interest. I love Barbara Kingslover's fiction, but her prose seems a bit heavy handed and just not "good"(I know that I am going to be unpopular for writing that...sorry.) I will finish it, but I felt like this was a FAR better commentary on America's eating habits and modes of procurement. I liked the parts that she wrote about her own garden (I thought that this was going to be the "meat" of the book, but it just wasn't for me.) I like the factual articles that her husband had in the book. Maybe it is because I am truly a scientist and gardener at heart, but I felt that she oversimplified things to make her points and that her audience is actually smarter than she gave them credit for. All of my piss and vinegar aside, I totally support what she was/is trying to do and say. I live in a "crazy-environmental-liberal-hot bed" type of town so perhaps I am not her target audience...I can accept that.

***NOTE! I just looked at her web site and it does seems like she is also trying to make a community for people interested in the local food movement and THAT is something that I can really back....so I am a picky crab, I still liked "The Omnivore's Dilemma" better.

SO to sum up, I plan on blogging more as the days shorten. I am still trying to milk the sweet parts of summer, so that when the dark, crispness of fall rolls in, my memories will be full of laughter and times with friends in the sunshine. Hopefully this will keep me satiated through the our wet Oregon winter. The blogging will wait.
JMB

A few good things...

Three things, just three things today that I really, really enjoy:

1)Eating breakfast Al fresco on my "new to me" tablecloth courtesy of my wonderful Grandma. It is terry cloth in turquoise checks with orange and yellow flowers. I remembered having picnics in the R.V. days on it as a child and she just handed it over. I love it.
2)"The Book of Lost Things" by John Connolly...weird, darkly funny, fairy tales with a twist, a fantastic summer read....A fast read.
3)Toss up--a super fun dice game that you can twitter away a summer afternoon playing with your five year old. There is counting and I lost every time. It was so fun that it was 2:58 p.m. before I realized that we should probably get out of our Pjs.

Summer is a good time around these parts.
JMB

no picture today....

I have been in no-woman's land...as in so sick that no woman would want to change places with me. To let me kvetch a bit....It is way worse to be ill in the height of summer than in the wintertime...hands down!

Looking outside, when you are well enough to stand...

Watching the weeds grow in the garden that you have been trying to breathe back to life...(I felt slightly better today due to some antibiotics, and attempted some weeding...bad idea,within two minutes, I was drenched in that sickly kind of sweat that you get all clammy from when your body really isn't doing it's whole "temperature regulation" thing)

(oh well, I am sure the bindweed will be waiting for me tomorrow, and Sunset isn't coming for their spread until early August...)

Trying to figure out how you can use your "sick" time...but wait when you are the mom, that is hard currency to come by...

A person kind of just has to fall over or something, then they notice what a martyr you truly are. Then your husband might do something sweet, like buy you Harry Potter #5, because you can't find your old copy...and you have to reread #5 and #6 before #7 comes out on Sunday...(those were the two that were published post birth of kids #1 & #2...need I say more? My memory is shot)

To turn around the grumping, I am so glad that I am rereading these books!!! I have become the joke around here this week because of all my exclamations of "Wow, I don't remember THAT happening..." and "NOW that makes so much more sense to me."

My recommendation is for people to read....I know that some people don't like the H.P. franchise, for whatever reason. But despite the illness thing, this week was palatable because I was able to get lost in another reality, a story, a great book.

I was just thinking... one of my other middle school friends, and now a blog friend recommends books on her blog, I could too.

A really good book that I just finished was Master Butcher's Singing Club by Louise Erdrich, I got lost in this one too.
JMB