It's been awhile since I've written...........

so I have lots of stuff to write about now!

We celebrated Brian's 25th birthday by going to a wine tasting at Bacchus. I made Mint brownies to share with the group.

The picture below was AFTER we did the tasting! See how

all of our faces are a little flushed? See how RED my face and neck are? I can't ever have a drink without getting super red! Oh! and it gets that way after only ONE drink!

What a lightweight!

The night before Easter Mike and I had all of the kids over to celebrate.

We did the traditional Ham dinner.

And while the boys watched TV and drank wine............

The girls colored Easter eggs.

We started a new tradition.

Actually it is a tradition that Ed used to do.

He always colored the very last egg and it was an

Everything Egg.

He dunked the egg into every single dye bath color.

You never knew quite what color the egg would end up.

But that mystery was part of the fun.

Jen finished sewing the last bit of binding on the baby quilt she was making.

Here is the finished product:

Jen learned how to do piecing and applique on this quilt.

She also quilted it on the longarm and applied a piped binding by machine, but finished it up by hand sewing it in place and hand sewing a label.

She really learned alot and is ready for the next project!

We started out our Easter Sunday by going to a sunrise service, taking a carload of stuff over to the new house, having a scrumptious breakfast outside in the beautiful weather, taking another load over, searching for Easter eggs and then going over to Darcy's to have Easter dinner with the extended family.

Tammy, Jenny, Rafael, Jen
Mike & Brian

Easter Sunday April 2009

What a beautiful family!

I am so lucky!

Don't you agree?

We ended the day by moving the last load over to the kids' new house. The kids spent the first night in thier new house on Easter Sunday.

Here are the proud homeowners:

My last post said that we had a case of chicken pox in the house. Well, the Urgent care doc was wrong. After a couple of days of the anti-viral meds Rafael's rash did NOT get any better.......it got WORSE. So I got him into our regular doc and it was diagnosed as another type of rash. He seems to be getting better now. We think it might have come from contact with a rug he was taking out of his NEW HOUSE!

I've been doing alot of quilting lately, but have not taken pictures as of yet. This quilt pictured below is one of a series of three that this quilter has made. The quilt top is made from Route 66 fabric and the quiltmaker wanted me to quilt things on this top that would represent things seen on the road, like cactus, sun, mountains, etc. I added a palm tree, cars, road signs, clouds, birds, a hot air balloon and a couple of "big rigs". Unfortunately on the picture below you cannot see these details.

But here is a detail shot of the back of the quilt:

I have been really monitoring my quilting time.

I finally got word back from my doctor and it seems that I have some disc problems in my neck and back and he wants me to see a specialist.

Reluctantly I made the appointment, but also got on the internet and got more information about this condition.

Looks like the next step is shots and then surgery.

Since I"m not wild about either of these options,

I have been trying to follow some steps to "heal" this bulging disc problem.

I found a site where this chiropractic doctor lists specific steps to do this.

The first being to ice the area frequently.

(I'm icing as I write this post!)

So I have been faithfully icing about 3-4 times a day!

and doing one of the exercises he recommends.

It has made a difference! I quilt for awhile, then ice for 20 minutes, quilt some more, ice some more.

Since I can't see the specialist for another 2 weeks I figure that I have nothing to lose by trying these steps!

AND since I've had to spend a chunk of time sitting and icing.........I READ! A win-win situation in my book! I just finished up the 3rd in the "Twilight" series. I think it might be time to go to the library and get the last of the series!

Phew, I guess I'm done for now!

The Pox

I am trying really hard to get motivated to work today.

It is almost 2:30pm and I have not accomplished much so far.

The morning started at 6:30am

with a vigorous hike on the mountain,

a stop at Jenny and Rafael's house to let in the tile man,

then back home to work/water my garden.

So I am puttering around in the garden when I hear......

"mom? are you out there?"

It was Rafael. His boss had sent him home from work strongly suggesting that he go to Urgent Care to have those suspicious spots on his arms checked out.

The spots had shown up yesterday, but I advised him to just sleep on it and see what happened.

Well, today they really started looking like Chicken Pox.

Sure enough, when we went to urgent care,

that's what the doc confirmed.

I'm keeping my hopes up that all I have heard

about chicken pox as an adult

are not true!

We had an extrememly busy weekend filled with

new house stuff, quilting stuff,

attending a wedding of a dear friend,

celebrating the birthday of a dear friend,

and

celebrating the birthday of my dear son!

who somehow turned 25 this year.

I sure don't know how this can be

when I am only a couple of

years older than that!

Good things come in LARGE packages sometimes!

I am starting on a yucky subject,

but I've kept the best news for last!

After reviewing the results of my MRI my doctor left me a message last week instructing me to go and see a spine specialist. Unfortunately he didn't give me any indication as the WHY he wanted me to see the specialist, so I called his office and left a message asking "WHY?". I really don't want to call this spine specialist without knowing why I need to see him. I've been getting a little disgruntled since there has been no calls returned by the doc, even after I called twice. So I have a decision to make...........Call again with an even firmer request.........Find a new doctor and get my records transferred........Take matters into my own hands and stretch, exercise and take pain pills. For now I think I've taken the third option, but since this problem keeps coming back I think I won't be able to ignore it for very long.

I am slowly working thru the pile of quilts that I have hanging in my closet to do. I"ve been pacing myself by working on the longarm frame and mixing that up with sitting at the sewing machine or doing household chores.

This was a fun quilt to work on:

This is what the back of the quilt looked like: Detail shot:







This quilt had a very traditional feel to it:
Each block had a different beautiful floral embroidery.

Ending on the happiest note possible.............

Jenny and Rafael got the keys to thier new house last night!

They bought a very nice house that is located right next to the mountain that I hike on. It is a sweet little house and will just perfect for them.

Mike gave them thier first housewarming gift:
Every new house needs toilet paper, right?

I know they probably can't wait for work to end today!

50.. Fit and Fabulous!

Well, 50, FIT and Fabulous was what I was shooting for, but I'll settle for 2 out of the 3! LOL! You'll have to guess which 2!

I celebrated the big Five - O on Monday by starting out my day hiking on the mountain with my neighbor and friend Jan. We hiked just over 2 miles and then I came home and did a little work in my garden. So far the day was pretty fabulous! My plans after that were to get cleaned up and then hit a couple of quilt/fabric stores and maybe a 2nd hand store or two. But the day was made even better when my friend Linda called and said that she was going to the very fabric store that I was planning on going to and would I like to go along. Now Linda is also the goddess of 2nd hand shopping! So not only did I get to go to the places I wanted to go to, but I got to share it with a good friend!

The day ended by spending a very wonderful evening at Caramba's with a whole tableful of special friends. Jo had arranged with my bunko group and some of the FNQer's to meet up at Caramba's to celebrate my half century mark. She brought a cake and everything! YUM!

Looks like everyone was having fun!

Jo's dear mother, who has since passed away, had this custom of smearing icing on the lips of the birthday girl/boy. Jo HATED this when she was growing up, but now continues the tradition............

I didn't mind one little bit since the frosting is my FAVORITE part of the cake!

One of the special gifts I received on my birthday was the news that my newlyweds have finally had an offer on a house accepted. They are in their 10 day inspection period. They had a foundation expert over yesterday to check things out since QUITE a few houses in this developement had had problems. I took some pictures while this was happening.

Here is the link to my webshots album:

http://community.webshots.com/user/crz4quilts

If all goes will they will take possesion of the house the first week in April!

Pretty Fabulous DAY!