LUCY ! !! What did you buy ?!?!

Now Ricky, don't get mad -- I needed this stuff (not really) and it was on sale (nuh uh) -- and Ricky, Ricky, look what pretty things I'll be able to make --- and those Debbie Macomber books -- I just LOVE her books, Ricky -- don't make me send all this great stuff back -- Ricky, PLEEEEEEASE !!!!!!!! You can take it out of my allowance, I'll budget, Ricky, I promise I will ........................

As our heroine continues to whine and beg (a scene all too familiar when it comes to "splaining" my excessive quilt/craft related purchases) let me tell you about all this fun stuff that the mail person (sometimes it's a guy, sometimes it's a gal) brought to my mailbox this week. First is "Living the Dream" quilting, stitchery, scrapbooking book from Leanne's House. I just LOVE her stuff -- she's one of the talented designers from Australia. Next, there's another quilt pattern booklet (also has wool applique projects and punchneedle projects and pillow, and loads of cute, cute stuff) from Need'l Love called Daylily Days. Then there's that darling pattern from Vanilla House Designs "French Laundry" -- isn't that the cutest clothes pin holder!?! (after all, if your going to hang out your dingy socks and underwear, you might as well add a bit of class to the whole scene !) OK, on to our next item --- the "Quick Yo-Yo Maker" from Clover. I can't wait to try this out -- I love making yo-yo's , and this looks like it'll make the whole process go a bit faster. I'll let you know after I get a chance to take it for a spin. My final purchase for the week (well, maybe) are those great Debbie Macomber books -- Can't wait to start reading (although I'm not quite sure when that's gonna happen!)

So....... in conclusion ...... this online shopping is FUN, FUN, FUN !!! but it's killing my budget !!!!(as it stands now, I've probably taken advances on my "allowance" until the year 2057 ..... oh well, I'll just go talk to my best friend Ethel and see if we can come up with some kind of hair brained money making scheme .) (P.S. I'm open to suggestions!)

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

Hey baby, wanna see my obelisk ?

Sounds like that famous pick-up line from college days :"Hey baby, wanna come back to my dorm room and see my etchings?" (what the heck are etchings anyway?) Actually, I've never gotten approached with that line -- usually I was approached with "Hey, you, who's your friend?" .....oh well ..... Anyhow, when I first heard the word "obelisk" I wondered if it was something I had heard way back in anatomy class. So, I hauled out one of my college anatomy books and looked through it ....let's see, olecranon, occiput, auditory ossicles, orbicularis oculi ..... nope, doesn't seem to be an obelisk anywhere in the human body. So, I thought , geometry --- sounds like a geometry word. So, I looked through kid #1's geometry notes from last year .....hmmmmmm.... hexagon, trapezoid, rhombus, octagon ..... nope, not in the geometry notes. So, I looked it up in good ol' Webster's dictionary , and this is what Webster had to say : a 4-sided pillar that tapers toward the top and ends in a pyramid ( with a metal bird on the top --- at least mine has a metal bird on the top!)

Anyhow, I didn't find my obelisk in my anatomy book, or my kid's geometry notes from last year -- but, I did find it (actually I found 2 of them) at Lowe's end of season sale in their garden dept for HALF price !!!! --- and look at the dandy job they're doing holding up my droopy coneflowers ! (which reminds me, I need to go shopping for a new bra ......)

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

Remembering September 11, 2001 .....

Weekend update

Yesterday, Matt (aka Kid #1)had another dirt bike race. There were 32 racers in his class and Matt came in 8th !!!!!!! YEAH MATT !!!! (There's his trophy which he is quite happy with -- I'm quite happy that he came away from yet another race without any injuries -- this sport does nothing to help maintain my youthful appearance -- my hair is turning gray at warp speed!)

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

What I've been up to this weekend .....

Well, let's see .... (now, hold onto your hats -- this just may be too exciting for some of you ...) first, there was laundry (especially a particular soccer uniform). Then, there was a soccer game (the second one this week). There he is,my younger kid, Evan ... #27 in the red shirt , about to kick the ball to his team mates -- they won that game 1-0 ! Yeah Olympians JV soccer !!!! OK, then there was more laundry and some grocery shopping (because , and I quote "we don't have anything good to eat at our house".) Then there was some football game watching --- Penn State beating the pants off of Notre Dame to be exact --- GO PENN STATE !! (there are quite a few die hard Penn Staters in my family -- sorry to any of you who are Notre Dame fans ...)

OK, so that was Saturday -- the excitement continued today. First, there was laundry (BIG sigh.....), then there was paperwork left over from last week that had to get finished today (picture #3). Ummmm, OK, ..... so, as usual, I was procrastinating / easily distracted, whatever -- and was reading this very funny book Stash Envy by Lisa Boyer. This is the second book of hers that I'm reading -- the first one was "That Dorky Homemade Look!" OH!! HOW I CAN RELATE TO EVERYTHING THIS WOMAN WRITES !!! It's like she's hiding behind piles of clutter in my house, spying on me, then writing it all down!!! For example, the title of one of the chapters is "Quilt Interrupted". She goes on and on about how she tries and tries to eek out a chunk of time to spend in her sewing room working on a quilt, but, alas, it's not gonna happen -- everybody and their cousin needs something, can't find something, broke something, spilled something, has some monumental crisis, etc, etc, etc......SHEESH
!!! (well, at least it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who can't seem to get it together!) Anyhow, some of the other chapters are "Grandma's Crummy Quilt Top" , "Ask Not for Whom the Vision Blurs", "Fired from the Quilt Factory" and "I Married a Nerd". OMG -- she CRACKS ME UP !!!! she chuckled me right out of my bored with paperwork and laundry stupor that I find myself in almost every weekend.

OK, on with my exciting Sunday ....next, there was .... (drum roll please.....) yes, you guessed it ---- more laundry ... and a tiny smidgen of sewing (picture #2). Yes, Miss Maura , I was working on your quilt!!(Maura is one of my very patient nieces --- poor kid --- I started a quilt for her about 5 years ago for her First Communion --- and, as usual, I couldn't leave well enough alone and had to keep adding stuff to this once very simple quilt,which could have been finished a couple of years ago -- so, now I'm trying to finish it for her 13th birthday which is coming up VERY SOON in October - - 38 letters appliqued on, only 15 more to go!!!) ANYWAY -- my "thrill - a - minute" weekend continued (yawn) with --- any guesses here? --- if you said laundry, followed by another run to the grocery store, you would unfortunately be correct.

.... but, through it all, I had two of my favorite "friends" keeping me company -- Lucy and Ethel !!!(picture #4) I've seen every one of the "I Love Lucy " shows so many times that I don't usually sit down and actually watch them any more -- but having them on in the background, hearing their voices and ridiculous predicaments they get into is just like sitting down to some comfort food -- ahhh yes, Lucy and Ethel -- just like macaroni and cheese or chicken pot pie served by Grandma !

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

Anyhow,

My swell lunch box !!

This is my swell lunch box !!!(Pat Sloan was talking about lunch boxes over on her blog and she got me thinking about them.) Remember when lunch boxes were always metal with a hinge and came with a matching breakable thermos AND had your favorite super hero or Barbie on the front? (if you don't remember , don't tell me because that means you're younger than me and I don't want to hear it !) Back in the stone age when I was in elementary school there was no cafeteria and everybody brought their lunch (except for the kids that lived within a block of the school -- they went home for lunch.) When the bell rang at Hometown Elementary School (yes, that really is the name of it), we'd walk to the back of the classroom (and yes , there was a classroom for each grade -- this was NOT a one room schoolhouse -- I'm not THAT old, for Pete sake !!) - anyhow, we'd walk to the back of the classroom to the "cloak room" to get our lunch boxes. Then we'd sit at our desks and eat lunch. Sometimes I had a salami sandwich or a turkey sandwich (except on Fridays, we'd always get a PB&J -- no meat on Fridays for us Catholic kids). In the winter, mom would also pack a thermos with hot soup (she didn't need to pack a drink since we all brought our "milk money" and got a carton of milk -- sometimes they even had chocolate milk!) To go with my sandwich, mom would also put in a small bag of chips (Charles Chips !!) , an apple, AND Tastycakes !!( sometimes butterscotch krimpets, sometimes chocolate cupcakes with the cream in the centers!!). After school, when we got off the bus and had to walk down a big hill , those metal lunch boxes doubled as a sled in the winter -- didn't do much for the breakable thermos inside, though -- I went through quite a few of those!

AH, yea, those were the days -- the Beaver Cleaver 1960's elementary school lunch boxes and lunches! Now my every day lunch box (i.e. the one I have to use because my lunch sits in a hot car all day while I drive all over timbucktu to see my homecare patients) is one of those insulated , hi-tech sporty jobs --- and even more depressing is the lunch my ever slowing , hormonal metabolism allows me to eat and not gain a thousand pounds -- a cheese stick , a can of V-8 juice, some blue organic tortilla chips, and a Kashi bar for a snack . (BIG SIGH ......) Maybe, today, just for fun I'll pack up my metal "I Love Lucy" lunchbox with a good ol' PB&J on WHITE BREAD (horrors!), and throw in some butterscotch krimpets for good measure !!! OH BLISS !!!!!

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)

Summer ....going, going ...........gone (sigh)

Well, summer certainly flew by --- I still have my Star Spangled Garland hanging up!(and here it is practically time to put the pumpkins out! -- and if you go by the big chain store calendars, it's time to put Santa and the elves out -- now that really drives me crazy!) ANYHOW, I took those first 2 pictures at Mauch Chunk Lake , which is just a few miles from where I live... and, I really can't believe this , but the other day when I took those pictures was the only time I got to the lake this summer! (and then for only 15 or 20 minutes right as they were closing at 7 PM) -- as I said, the summer FLEW by -- I guess on one hand that's a good thing (i.e. I didn't have to worry about squeezing this body into a bathing suit except for the one time we went swimming in the crick !)

.....AND, just like the fleeting summer didn't give me a chance to get to the lake to swim, it also didn't give me a chance to start yet another bright idea of a project. See that yellow striped tote/beach bag hanging on the life guard chair? I made that last summer. This summer I had planned to make another one . See that shower curtain with the palm trees on it ?(picture #3) -- I bought that at a thrift shop a few years ago. My bright idea was to make another summer tote/beach bag using parts of that palm tree shower curtain and that cute sea shell fabric and green stripe fabric (picture #4) --- oh well, the lake closes as of this Monday -- and.... I guess I'll put that palm tree beach bag project on HOLD , again, until next spring!

Have a fun and safe Labor Day holiday!

Toodles,
Mary Anne (aka Mare)