She will survive...

...maybe.

I would blame this illness on Sam, but I know this is not the kind of virus that travels through the net wires. DH had it first and his doctor had this diagnosis yesterday, "Oh, you've got that bad thing that takes forever to get rid of."

What a guy!

I did drag myself to work yesterday and today because I was showing a video for two days. I figured I could sit through two days of Lewis & Clark as well as any sub and save myself two sick days.

I am now, however, officially wiped out and headed to my recliner to put my heating blanket over me. Once I rest up I might even feel like picking up a needle.

Or maybe not.

Success!

Found it, Chiloe! I was worried. The Borders near my mom didn't have it yesterday. Today I went to the Barnes & Noble in the opposite direction and I thought they didn't have it, but then found it in the quilting magazines. What's up with that?

Give me a snail mail address and I'll send it to you.

Great Meme

Chiasmata had this meme which was really fun to "read" and looks like fun to do, too. She was very disciplined, but there's no way I can do this without "talking."


Age you will be next birthday



[I've been on this freeway! In Southern California we have names for our freeways in addition to numbers which is very confusing but that's how it is. The 101 is the Ventura Fwy until it gets to Los Angeles, at which point it is the Hollywood Freeway; the 5 is the Golden State and the 405 is the San Diego and so on. The 57 is called the Orange Freeway and is touted as being a good alternative to the 5 through Los Angeles but all the times I've been on it it's been pretty hellish so I avoid it.]

A place you would like to visit



I would like to visit Tokyo to meet and spend time with my DIL's family, but I hope they don't mind if I take a few days to explore Disneyland Tokyo, especially Disney Sea.

One of your favourite places



Big Sur, Central California coast, USA. CA Hwy 1 meanders along the edge of these cliffs. I've driven it once, been on it many times as a passenger (I prefer to drive it myself) and I never get over the beauty of it. It's less than 30 miles of road but it takes me hours because I have to pull over at every viewpoint for pictures.

Your favourite object



'Nuff said.


Favourite Food



Chili verde burrito, no rice, no beans (only pork in tomatillo sauce with cheese), wet.


Favourite Animal



My favorite animal ever was our Akita. There wasn't a picture of him on Google images (he was show quality in conformation - a walking work of art - but very submissive and did not like the show ring. That's OK, neither did we.) Anyway, Kuro, his mother (with the breeder) did pop up. Our Tremor was also black and white but MUCH bigger with a huge head and chest. Until Tremor I never had an animal who was a comedian. He would do silly things just to make us laugh, then, once we were laughing, stop and grin at us. He's been gone for four years and I still miss him.


Favourite Colour



Name of a Past Pet



The last one. Himalayan cat named after this song. Love The Cat (singer, not animal).

Where do you live?



When we moved into our house, we could climb up on the roof and see this island in the distance. Now it's grown up too much around us (not to mention we are too old, fat and out of shape to climb up on the roof.)

1st grade teacher's name



Also one of my family names.

Your Middle Name




Bad Habit



I'm forever setting something down "for a minute" then getting distracted before I put it away.

Favourite Flower




Favourite Holiday

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Don't Love Ya...

Tomorrow promises to be a bitch.

First work. Our school counselor, a sweet young thing in the second year of her first full-time job, seemed genuinely shocked that I no longer like teaching. Give it a few years, dearie, especially in our district. Fortunately, it's test day so they will be occupied and quiet.

I have to tear out the door at 3:00 (and hope nobody notices that I'm leaving before my contract time is over) to dash home for a shower, then to the neighboring town for a mammogram. Oh boy, oh boy! Must remember to take deodorant with me because after the mammo, I race back to my town for a union meeting for which I will be an hour late or more, then afterward a late night at the Board of Trustees meeting.

Ugh. And it will only be Thursday.

I have no idea what I will do on Friday. I should do something about Dr. King since Monday is the holiday, but I don't really have anything. Maybe he wouldn't mind if I showed my Rosa Parks video?

Fortunately, Saturday is scrapbooking with my Mom and sister ALL DAY. This is our special time together and we didn't get to do it last month. Always fun to catch up on news, share needlework patterns and - oh yeah - work on our scrapbooks.

I think I finally have just about hit the end of post-Christmas purchases. I got three batiks from Batiks-Plus. You can read about my dilemma with this quilt if you want. I got a couple of batiks that I can use for the mountainside, which means I can get the backing and so on and so on. The last item in my list of online purchases is a pint of rubber cement thinner. California has banned heptane from the state. So what? Heptane is the substance from which a product called Un-du was manufactured. Un-du would remove stickers from my scrapbook pages, and since I can't seem to put together a page without removing things multiple times, I considered it a necessary tool. Now that Un-du is gone (I've read that so many states have banned heptane that they've stopped making Un-du), someone shared that rubber cement thinner works for the same purpose so I ordered a pint from Dick Blick to give it a try. Once it arrives my credit card will take a long winter's nap so that the smoke can clear.

In stitching I've been working on the embroidery on the "What Color is Spring?" quilt. I look forward to showing you a completed center sampler. Need to finish the pansies, then the daisies and am done and can move on to the sashing!

By the way, be sure to check out the Shepherd's Bush blog. They've been enjoying the snow (sort of).

Solution Revealed

I'm so surprised!

My youngest got me hooked on the NBC Series Heroes just in time for the writers' strike. I bought the Season One dvd set and he and I watched several episodes together. This was great fun for me and he seemed to enjoy it, too. We used to spend a lot of time together when I was a band mom and would drive him all over Southern California to competitions and performances, but now that he's grown (26) we don't have as much in common.

Anyway, here's what we were waiting for.

For those who've never seen it, Heroes is the story of a group of people who discover that they have "powers." One of them is an artist named Isaac Mendez. Mendez's power is that he can paint the future, and his paintings are an important element to the overall story of the series. I had commented to DS2 that this was my favorite of the Mendez paintings, and he did a Google search to see if prints were available anywhere. He purchased this from an Ebay seller in the UK. It's a print on canvas and I love it. In the show most of Mendez's paintings are not framed, so I will hang this in my room as is.

In our conversation the issue of copyright came up and I could see byDS2's face that it didn't occur to him to be concerned. My guess is that this seller is not paying the requisite royalties for use of the image. I'll check before I buy another (there are two or three more I would love to have).

But I'm not giving this one back, regardless.

Now we look forward to a fair and equitable settlement for the writers. We can't wait for the series to continue!

Preserving the History

I guess I can't say enough how much I enjoy sidebar surfing. VerOn!c@ was kind enough to respond to my tag in the previous post. After reading through her chosen posts I decided to visit one new person (just one, I have a lot to do today) from her sidebar. Since I'm developing a new appreciation for the French designs I decided to visit Lili in France. Her most recent post is about what happens to the pieces that we so lovingly gift upon our friends and family, or to those that we leave stored in boxes. As I started to comment I realized I had a rant coming on, so rather than bore her with it decided to move it here (and bore you with it!)

I'm a historian. I was a historian first, then I went and got a degree in it, then I started teaching it. I only say that to give first the idea that I love people's stories. I also love the stories of things and value the stories of the past. Which was why I almost burst into tears one day in an antique store when I saw someone's antique photo album full of family portraits broken down and for sale at $1 per page. THIS WAS SOMEONE'S FAMILY, for sale cheap to someone who wanted to do who-knows-what with antique portraits (decoupage them onto a papier mache box?)

Not that I can blame the person who wanted to use the photos to create. But somewhere there is someone who cares about those people, who would LOVE to have those pictures. Why don't they? Because the person who ended up with the album had NO IDEA who those people are; not only was there no history included with the pictures, they weren't even labeled with the names of the people.

I am the keeper of the family photographs on two sides, mine and my husband's. As people in the families heard that I was interested in the hiSTORY of their families they started pulling out photos. Some they gave to me. Some they let me borrow to copy. And one of my continuing projects is researching the history of these families and connecting the history to the photographs. It's been very challenging but incredibly rewarding.

However, as related to stitchery, I had not taken it to this level of thought until I read Lili's post. Is it enough to sign our work? Sign and date it? Hmmm...

Every year I make my students compile a project called "My History is America's History." Partly it's to make the point (again and again and again...) that today's America is a country that would not exist without immigration and that every person living here is part of that history. But more importantly, it's to get them to get the stories of their three "oldest living relatives" before they lose them. They also do some activities about themselves (autobiographical incident, favorite things and so on). I even make them document a favorite family recipe!

I make them do this because, in 1982 when I first started delving into family history, my husband's aunt gave me a copy of a document that she had received from a cousin (who I had never and have still never met.) It was written by a man named Robert L. Bamford (b. 1826) and was dated 1912. Mr Bamford had written down everything he could ever remember hearing about his family's history. For him the story only went back three generations. He even says that maybe nobody will ever care, but maybe someday someone will so here it is. Robert L. Bamford was the brother of my husband's great-great-grandmother. He was certainly not thinking about ME, but I was THRILLED to get this story which told of his ancestors migrating into the early American west (even crossing the river on a "ferry" raft which is where his ancestor met her husband.)

Thanks to Lili, I now realize that I have many things, but especially the lovingly stitched "heirlooms" that have been given to me, that need more documentation. I won't bore us all (especially me) with the rest of the thought process but will jump to what I'm going to do.

I'm going to buy some really lovely envelopes. You know the kind where the flap has a lovely design on it? Then I'm going to write a short (short, Debi, SHORT) autobiography. I will print out a ONE PAGE family tree (ONE PAGE, Debi). Maybe I'll do all of this on something pretty. Finally, I will document the piece. Who designed the chart? What about it appealed to me? If it was a gift (especially for family), who was it for and why are they so important to me that I would make this for them. For gifts I might even make this a "Dear So-and-So" letter, very personal. I will include a photo of myself and a photo of the piece (maybe a photo of me holding the piece). I will put all of this into the pretty envelope, then, I will include this document with the piece. If it's framed, I will glue the piece to the backing board at the back of the piece (just don't use bulky paper, Deb). If it's something made into a quilt or pillow, I'll just include it with the piece.

The point is, somewhere down the line, someone will find this piece. If I've done it right it should last several generations. Maybe my great-grandchildren will find it in a box and say, "Why did Dad keep this ugly thing?" But maybe, when they find the envelope and make the connection, they will decide to keep it after all rather than give it to the thrift shop.

And for Lili, if you decided to pop over and read this. One day I had a garage sale. As a shopper was going through the stuff she found a piece of crewel. On the back was a "To From" statement and the shopper brought it to me and asked, "Did you really want to sell this?" It was a piece my mother-in-law had made for me. I had met my in-laws in the fall of 1971. I married my husband in June of 1972. Fourteen months later my MIL had a massive stroke and his father a nervous breakdown; He lived for four more years, she for thirteen. My husband did everything to take care of them from finding (and moving them into) multiple homes, fighting with insurance companies and, for the eight years his mother lived in our town, visiting her every Saturday and being at her beck and call. All for a woman who was a hypocrite, who neglected her sons when they were growing up and allowed her husband to emotionally abuse them, all while preserving her standing as the daughter of an evangelist and the wife of an Air Force chaplain. My husband hated his father and despised his mother, but he took care of them anyway. The rest of DH's story is not mine to tell here, but I will say that by the time she died and we were selling off what we didn't want of their belongings, I had no love left for the woman and did not want that reminder in my home. Would my children have appreciated having that connection to the grandmother they really never knew and don't remember? I don't know, but at that point it wasn't worth thinking about.

And now I must get back to work. Speaking of things of the past, I'm going through stuff from the attic. Some I don't even remember owning (easy to pitch out). Some I'm thrilled to find. For example, I was beginning to question my memory. I THINK I was in a junior high drill team when I was in the ninth grade, but I can pull up no memory of it. Was I in it or not? Well, one of the things I found was my old uniform from that experience, which brought back a little bit of memory. Whew!

I love self-absorption.

I was reading through my sidebar and noted that someone got tagged with a meme that sounded like fun. I thought about trying it out, but decided the chores of the day were calling so I'd better not. When I came back during a break, Marita had tagged me for the same meme.

Guess I'll get to do it after all!

So I'm supposed to link to five of my previously written posts and they have to relate to these five words:

Family: I chose this post about taking my parents to the Happiest Homecoming on Earth (aka Disneyland's 50th Anniversary.) They took us once a year starting the year the park opened and since this trip I've taken them many times.

Friend: This one is really hard. I decided to include this link because it talks a little about a special group of online friends of mine at www.visionsfantastic.com. One of those friends has a very special job that she really enjoys.

Yourself: I often reflect on how much I enjoyed this meme when it came around and am still amazed that I was able to come up with enough to complete it.

Your love: This one was hard, too, because - well, let's face it - my blog is pretty much all about me. But DH is my love (and he's such a good man even if he is a slob) and our best times are when we are in Eden so here's a post about one of our visits which, sorry to say, is mostly about me.

Anything you like: This was one of my favorite days at Disneyland.


So, it was fun, Marita, to go back. As I reread my posts it was good to note that some of the overwhelming problems worked out fine. There's a lesson there.

I'm now supposed to tag someone else. Here are MY rules about tagging for memes. No pressure. If you don't want to do it, don't. Life's too short to do things that aren't fun for you, especially in a blog, which is supposed to be fun for you.

Now, let me go see if there's anyone in my sidebar that might have a clue who I am...

Let's send this around the world, shall we?

New friends - VerOn!c@ (Malaysia) and Chiasmata (Australia)
Old Friends - Judith (Netherlands). Missy (Treehugger's Wife in Saipan) and Sam (Mad Fabriholic in USA who is on vacation and recovering from a bad illness. I'm sure she'll be so thrilled to get this.)

Have fun! And if it's not fun, don't do it!

How do you...

...learn new stitches?

I admit it. I'm really intimidated by these new charts by The Victoria Sampler. They are chock full of specialty stitches. Frankly, I've never had much interest in learning fancy-pantsy stitches and, most of the time, I don't even like the bulk they add to a piece. When I ordered the two charts I figured I'd just leave all the specialties out. But the more I look at this chart (I'm looking at the Heirloom Family chart pictured below) the more intrigued I am. The specialty stitches are designed into the piece beautifully (rather than look clumpy and out-of-place they really do add dimension to this piece). And in the Jingle Belles Xmas Tree Farm the trees are made up of these specialty stitches! So, now I'm thinking I need to expand my repertoire (did I spell that right?) and learn some new stitches.

All the stitches are demonstrated in the chart. So, if you've ever done a chart with these stitches, have you just figured them out using the chart, or have you taken a class or do you go to your lns for help or did your gramma teach you or ???

Ah, the suspense

The Christmas Gift package cost £12.67 to ship and is marked "Printed Matter." Oh, yeah, and it was posted December 12, so my mean comment about the seller not shipping until after Christmas wasn't warranted. DS2 has been working a lot (he is a substitute letter carrier for the USPS and delivers pizza at night) so I probably won't be able to tear into this until Sunday.

'S OK. It's kind of fun to suffer.