Time flies, whether you're having fun or not!

Actually, I have been having fun, at least for the most part, aside from a couple of days from hell at work. But I won't bore you with the details of how I love what I do but hate my job because of the lack of effective management. I can't believe we are into November already. I guess I lived in Wisconsin so long that I need the seasonal weather cues. Somehow 80º just doesn't say fall to me.

I had a great time at the International Quilt Festival. A few friends came into town to join me. Here is my friend Nancy with the Charm Party Tote she made using the new Mary Engelbreit Recipe for Friendship fabric from Moda. It really turned out cute!

After that I was really itching to sew. I did buy a few things at the show, which I'll show you later. What I decided to sew was the Cabbage Rose Quilting Kaffe Fassett & Friends Mystery BOM block kits I had. I hadn't really looked at them and was kind of put off by the fabrics...not anything I would have ever chosen (orange and purple?)

These remind me of some old slipcovers my grandmother had, and not in a good way.

But I decide to go ahead with them anyway since I have made the investment. It will be interesting to see what future months hold. Purrkins seemed to like the choices and decided that he needed to "help" me.

And he definitely approved of the finished blocks...

I made it...

Had a fabulous time on my Grand Canyon adventure. Carolyn is still there...boating down the Colorado river and camping on its banks. I am still readjusting to the civilized world but wanted to share a few shots of us on the trip. This is at the start of our trip at Lee's Ferry.



Carolyn just enjoying the ride...



Carolyn body surfing down the Little Colorado River...



Here we are after hiking into the "horizontal waterfall." I will go back over the map and figure out where exactly this is.



And here am I, after the 10 mile hike out of the canyon, taken by a kindly Polish tourist.



If you would like to see all 744 photos I took on the trip (unedited) they are here.

Pam and Carolyn's Excellent Adventure

On Tuesday I am leaving for a week's trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. I am going with my cousin Carolyn for her 70th birthday. She is actually doing the full Canyon, which takes 15 days. When she asked me to go with her, I asked Mike if this was something he would ever want to do (spend 1-2 weeks on a small boat going down the river, including white water rapids, sleep in tents, pee in the river, etc.) his answer was a resounding "no!" So I decided go with her, if only for a week. She is probably the coolest person I have ever met, and undoubtedly the most well traveled. She has been all over the world, to every continent (yes, even Antarctica), so to travel with her will be an honor.

I have had second thoughts about only doing the first half of the trip, mainly because of the fact that I have to hike out of the Grand Canyon. Apparently if you do the whole thing you end up somewhere that a van can pick you up and take you back to Flagstaff. This is the info on the hike out:

"Hiking up to the South Rim on the Bright Angel Trail
The hike from Phantom Ranch to the South Rim is a serious, long (9.7 miles) and strenuous hike. This hike takes you out of one of the deepest canyons in the world with an elevation increase of more than 4500 feet. People almost inevitably underestimate the difficulty of climbing the Bright Angel Trail. Temperatures on the trail can easily reach 110 degrees or more during the summer months. Transport of your personal gear by mule is provided, but you still need to make the hike carrying a daypack holding your water bottles, lunch, camera, etc. The extra weight of your daypack significantly increases the stress and amount of effort exerted. You need to take the time to get into very good physical condition before you begin your trip. The hike to the rim generally takes 6-9 hours. Please Note: This hike should only be undertaken by those in very good physical condition. It is not recommended for anyone in poor general health, who is elderly, has heart or lung disease, is overweight, or is not physically fit. If you have any of these conditions or are unsure whether you are in good enough shape for this hike, we strongly urge you to get your physician's approval for this trip."

Kinda scary, huh? I have been spending a lot of time on the treadmill with the incline ramped all the way up. I am used to spending 12 hours on my feet at work, too, so I guess I am prepared. I have made a couple of trips to REI to purchase all sorts of things I will probably never use again, but hey, this is a once in a lifetime trip (unless it is so fabulous that I insist on taking Mike for his 70th birthday in a few years :-) I even bought a waterproof digital camera to be able to take pictures while we are going over "19 major rapids rated 5 or above on the Grand Canyon scale of 1 to 10."

So, dear readers, I won't be posting for a couple of weeks. Hopefully, when I get back I will have lots to share with you. Early voting doesn't start here until the 20th, so I have instructed Mike, in the event that I drown, fall off a cliff or get bitten by a rattlesnake, to have someone take my voter registration card, pretend to be me and cast my vote for Obama!

100 more days

Gosh, when I posted a hundred days ago, I couldn't imagine that things could get any worse. Boy was I wrong! There may only be 100 more days of the "current occupant" but the results of his failed policies are going to be with us all for a long time.

Torta della Nonna

We had a small dinner party last night for one of the Hitachi engineers with whom Mike has been working at the PTC.
Hitachi has officially turned the project over to M.D. Anderson and Mr. Nakagawa is returning home to Japan after spending 4 years in Houston. (His next project may be in Milan, so we made him promise to keep Mike in mind as a consultant :-) My mom had given Mike this cookbook for his birthday last month and I used a couple of recipes from it, as well a few old stand-bys. For dessert I decide to make the Torta della Nonna. The crust contains flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla, melted butter and olive oil.



It was supposed to be made in a 10" tart pan, but since I don't have one,
I used a 10" springform instead. The bottom crust is pressed into the pan.



The filling is eggs, sugar, lemon zest & juice, fresh ricotta and pine nuts.



The top crust is rolled out and put on very carefully...


baked for 40 minutes...



released from the pan...



and served on a pretty plate.



It was quite tasty, not too sweet or rich, a good thing after braised lamb shanks,
saffron risotto and caramelized brussels sprouts.

Hey, so it's not Rolling Stone

Mike gets numerous publications in the mail including the ACR Bulletin. He had paged through this issue and said he was getting ready to toss it into the recycle bin when he took another look at the cover. You may recall that we went to the RTOG meeting in Philadelphia last June. While we were there we went to a black tie gala to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Well, most of these photos were taken at the party, including the one in the lower left corner...that's us with our friends Wendy and Julia (I don't know who the dark haired woman on the right is...) There were probably at least 300 people there, so I was excited that we made the cover. Mike has been chair of their Physics committee for at least 15 years...although I like to think it was because we made such a handsome couple :-)

One down, 99 to go...

Works in progress that is. I was glad when the lights (and A/C) came back on so I could get back to some projects. I don't really have 99 things in the works...but at least 9, and fabric/yarn/embroidery kits for at least 90 more. I finally finished putting the binding on this quilt. I wanted to use my usual technique of hanging it on the clothesline to photograph, but wait, I don't have a clothesline since the maple tree is gone. So here it is on the kitchen table.

The problem with quilts on the table (other than the whole spillage issue) is cats on the table. They think that any place with a quilt is a place for a cat.


I sewed one of my cute labels into the binding. I know...I am so easily amused :-)


Speaking of the labels, I received this email from them today...20% off everything!

Go to www.namemaker.com to take 20% off all items in the store.

Use the coupon code octobersale on the final summary page when you check out. Make sure you enter it in all lowercase letters.

This coupon expires Friday, October 10, 2008 at midnight EST. This coupon can only be used once per customer. Coupon can not be used retroactively for orders purchased prior to this sale. Coupon is only valid for web orders and can not be used over the phone or by mail.

For questions, Please call us at 800-241-2890

Are YOU registered to vote?

My daughter, Kate, posted this on her blog and I was just going to post a link, but it is so good that I decided to post it myself. Watch it all the way through...it's great!

More tales from the hurricane

So, as you may recall, the cats and I were ready to "hunker down" for the storm at home, while Mike, as a member of the ride-out team was ready to spend the night at MD Anderson. I came down with a terrible cold on the Wednesday prior to the storm, and after watching 3 episodes of Big Love (during which we had a couple of momentary power outages), I made a pot of coffee for the next morning and took a healthy dose of Nyquil and went to sleep. I woke up around 2 a.m. to the sound of the power going off (lots of beeps followed by silence from the A/C and ceiling fans). When I got up at about 6 a.m. it was still raining hard with a fair amount of wind. In retrospect, I am really disappointed that I slept through it. Looking at all the havoc it wreaked I wish I could have experienced this once in a lifetime occurrence. I discovered that in addition to having no power (I was really glad I had made that coffee the night before) our phone was out as well. After it stopped raining I took these pictures. This is another view of the 30+ foot tall maple tree that was on the house.

What was so impressive is that it was actually uprooted. You can see here how it disrupted the pavers in our patio.

And this is what the front yard looked like. The pole for the basketball hoop just snapped off at the base.

In talking with the neighbors later I learned that they had phone service, so when I was at work the following Monday, I got online and reported our problem. I received an email from AT&T saying that there was an outage in our area (duh!) and that it would be repaired by September 29. On the 24th I decided to check on status of the repair and learned that my "trouble report had been closed." Needless, to say, I was a little upset! It was bad enough that I had been without electricity for 11 days at that point, but for AT&T to close my trouble report without even attempting to fix the problem almost put me over the edge. I immediately filed another report, and someone was out to fix the problem (a tree limb on the line, among other things) on Saturday morning. I was relieved that when the electricity came back on, my DSL would be working too. Almost 16 days without electricity is not something I would wish on anyone, but fortunately the weather wasn't too hot. I'd like to say I got a lot of stitching done, but the light wasn't the best, and it was too warm to knit. I'm just happy that I only had to make one trip to the laundromat!

Go Brewers!

The last time the Milwaukee Brewers were in the playoffs was 1982, when they made it all the way to the World Series. This is a picture of Kate and me on our way to Game 4...she slept through the 7th inning while the Brewers scored six runs! Let's hope the Brew Crew makes it all the way again!

Where to begin?

Let me start off by saying that yes, finally, after almost 16 days without electricity, it's back!!! We spent last night at the Hotel Zaza. We had been invited to a black tie dinner there and when I heard that we probably wouldn't have power, I booked us a room. I refused to get all dressed up in the dark with no A/C, and figured that after after two weeks with no power we deserved a night in a nice hotel. We went to the party and had a lovely evening. We stopped at Katz's for breakfast before heading home around noon. We were a few blocks from home when I noticed that someone had their sprinkler system on, but tried not to get my hopes up (our neighbors across the street had power back on Friday evening). After we turned on to our block, I noticed a neighbor had their garage door open and the overhead garage light was on. As we pulled into our driveway, I thought, "Dare I hope?" and pressed the garage door opener. Mike says I let out a whoop when the door opened. I spent an hour or so in a state of shock, turning things on, resetting clocks, etc. Since then, I have done two loads of laundry, updated our checking account in Quicken, talked on the newly charged up cordless phone and ejected the DVD I was watching on the night of the storm (Big Love: Season 1: Disc 3). Lots more about the hurricane experience that I will share with you all now that I have electricity and phone (that's another story), but for now, I just want to thank you all again for your concern during this trying time and also to please keep those who have lost so much more in your thoughts and prayers.

Gratitudes

After 12 days with no phone or electricity (the latest estimate for power is Sunday), I must remind myself that things could be a whole lot worse. When my patience starts to wear thin, I remind myself of all that I have to be thankful for in the midst of all this...

• We came through the storm with no bodily harm and only minor damage to our house.
• My refrigerator hasn't been this clean since it was new.
• Ditto the freezer.
• Our electric bill will be really low this month.
• Ditto the phone bill.
• We never lost water or gas.
• It could be a LOT hotter outside.
• I got my iPhone when I did.
• When I went into the garden to survey the damage I found this...

Top Ten Reasons Hurricane Season Is Like Christmas

Number 10:
Decorating the house (with plywood).
Number 9:
Dragging out boxes that haven't been used since last season.
Number 8:
Last minute shopping in crowded stores.
Number 7:
Regular TV shows pre-empted for 'Specials'.
Number 6:
Family coming to stay with you.
Number 5:
Family and friends from out of state calling you.
Number 4:
Buying food you don't normally buy . . . and in large quantities.
Number 2:
Days off from work.
Number 2:
Candles.
And the Number 1 reason Hurricane Season is like Christmas:
At some point you're probably going to have a tree in your house!

Thanks to my friend Noni for this. Just trying to maintain my sense of humor on our 11th day without phone or electricity :-)

Thank you...

...to everyone for your concern and kind comments. We are still without phone or electricity. Mike left yesterday to go to Boston for the ASTRO meeting. I was originally supposed to go with him, but thought better of leaving the house with no power and this tree on our roof.


He left me his laptop so I am enjoying the A/C and WiFi at Barnes and Noble, and feeling better that some nice men from New York and North Carolina came and cut down the tree this morning. Our backyard looks a lot different than it did here. I am hoping to replace the maple tree with a large Meyer lemon. We'll see what the insurance covers.

I have been going to sleep and waking up early. It has been unseasonably cool, but that is coming to an end. Fortunately it has been cooling off at night, so I can open the windows and cool down the house. Then I close it up in the morning and it stays tolerable downstairs. Upstairs is another story. Thank goodness for our downstairs guest room. I have been doing a bit of knitting and a little stitching, although the lack of good light is not very conducive to that. The cats are fine. They don't mind the heat, don't miss the internet or the sewing machine and they can see in the dark!

One week down...

...still no phone or electricity. They say maybe on Tuesday...

Blogging from my iPhone

Survived the storm with minimal damage, aside from an uprooted 30' maple tree that is lying on the roof of the house. No phone or electricity, but thank goodness for my iPhone! Mike is still at the hospital...hopefully he will come home tomorrow. Will post pictures when the power comes back on.

Sunny for now...

No question, it's coming...


And we are right smack in the middle of the path. (See that little inlet in the center of "red zone?" That's Galveston Bay, 50 miles SE of us).


But for now, the sun is still shining.

And the sky is still blue, although there are clouds forming and a breeze is picking up.

We spent last evening moving everything into the garage that could possibly become a projectile in 100+ mph winds...potted plants, lawn furniture, barbecue grills. Mike is on the ride-out team at MD Anderson, so he has gone to spend the next 36 hours or so at the hospital. The cats and I are ready to "hunker down," whatever that means. I wonder where hummingbirds go during a hurricane?

Only in Texas...

...can you go to your neighborhood grocery store and find this many choices in the barbecue sauce aisle!



Sorry for the poor quality photo...I took it with my iPhone while I was trying to decide which one of these to buy. I finally decided on this one:

Who says cats don't do tricks?

Purrkins is an expert at "playing dead."

We're back...

We were in Milwaukee last weekend for the wedding of the son of some friends. It was the first time Mike and I had been back together since moving away six years ago. I must admit that I had a twinge of homesickness, especially when we drove past our old house. It looks pretty much the same from the street (minus the snow), although the new owners have painted the front door a brick red. And the Mary Engelbreit mailbox was an exclusion when we sold the house, so it is safe here in Texas.

Also visiting Milwaukee were 70,000 Harley-Davidson owners celebrating the company's 105th anniversary.
Here are just a few of them, heading east on Wisconsin Avenue toward the Milwaukee Art Museum.
On Thursday we ate dinner at Three Brothers, a great old Serbian restaurant.


Not fancy, but lots of character and great food.


I had the Serbian salad

and the sarma, my favorite.


On Friday we wanted to go out for a fish fry and decided to head away from the bikers, so we went to the Golden Mast out on Okauchee Lake. I promised Mike I would stop taking pictures of our food, but I did snap this one of him in front of the lake.

The wedding was Saturday night. It turns out that we knew several people there, including Kate's third grade teacher, whose daughter is good friends with the bride's sister.

On Sunday we drove up to Minneapolis to visit the kids and flew back home yesterday. When we were checking our luggage the woman at the desk asked us if we had been at the convention. I said "No, visiting our children. And if we had been at a convention, it would have been the one in Denver!"

This is...my favorite fabric shop

Sorry for the small image, but it is the only one they have on their website. Cabbage Rose Quilting in Fort Worth is a place I have only been to few times, but it is a wonderfully cute place with an awesome assortment of fabrics and really friendly people working there. Here in Houston I like It's a Stitch, Quilt 'n Sew and Quakertown. Unfortunately, none of them are anywhere near me :-(

Thanks to handmaiden for this week’s topic, and three buttons for this is

this is...my favorite children's book

This was my favorite book as a child, and I am fortunate enough to still have it. I remember my mother reading it to me and me reading it to Kate. I could probably recite it from memory if I had to.




I'm sure that this book is part of the reason that Paris is my favorite city in the world and was why I chose to study French.


I look forward to reading it to a granddaughter some day...

Thanks to Potty Mouth Mama for this week’s topic, and three buttons for this is

I just can't help myself...

What happened to my no new projects mantra? My first real day off in ages and I had to start something. The good news is that I finished the same day! When I was in Minneapolis earlier this month, Kate and I went to Crafty Planet, a great little shop in northeast. We found this really cute fabric. Unbeknownst to me, my son-in-law Kyle apparently loves octopi. I myself am partial to mermaids. So I bought a piece of each of these and made them into pillowcases. I used the Amy Butler stripe that was the backing on their wedding quilt as the contrast. Okay, now back to machine quilting this, or binding this!

Bluebirds of happiness

I posted this last month on Thrift Thursday, but wanted to share it here as well. Isn't it just the sweetest thing you have ever seen? Something about it just makes me happy when I look at it.