I found this great blog this morning and have been shopping for free samples ever since$5.00 Dinners I went there to check our her amazing coupon binder and stayed for the link that went toFree Stuff 4 free
I can't wait to read some more!!
During the month of April the Breast Cancer site (in addition to funding mammograms) will donate $10,000 for research if clicks on the site total 200 mammograms. As of this posting they are at 71% of their goal with only 8 days left! Please go there every day and click. Tell your friends and family! During these times it's hard for any of us to donate money so this is a wonderful way to help out. It costs you nothing but a few seconds of your time! You can click 1 time per day. I also have a link on my blog. Please continue to click even after April to help fund mammograms.
This question was posted on Running With Quills. This is a blog written by some of my favorite authors. I enjoy reading their insights. Sometimes they make me think. The question is:
What brings you the most happiness, the greatest sense of peace. Do you remember one particular day, or series of days in your life with more joy than any others?
So I am thinking. There are some obvious ones, the birth of my boys, their milestones, family reunions... and some not so obvious and these are ones that tend to creep into your mind when you really aren't trying to think of the answer to a question!
Some of my favorite days with my boys were when they were little. When the days weren't a constant rush of we have to be here, do this, go there. On beautiful days I would pack us a picnic lunch, take a blanket outside and park us under a tree. We would blow bubbles, color, read books, do a puzzle. We would eat outside! Why is that, such a common thing, such a treat? We would lay on our backs and watch clouds, close our eyes and listen to birds, watch a spider spin a web and listen for frogs in the pond. Looking back, we didn't have nearly as many of those days as I would have liked.
We read. We read a lot. I hope that is a gift that I gave my children that they will pass on. Before Harry Potter was the craze that it became, I tried to get my oldest to read it. Nothing doing. The youngest was too young to read that yet so I decided we were going to read it every night. We shut off the TV, curled up together on the couch and I read out loud. Eventually #1 son did some of the reading too. We loved those nights. We couldn't wait for the next books. They drew pictures of the things we "saw" in the books. By the end of the series, everyone was fighting over who would get the books first! :-) We still talk about those nights and we have all read the books over and over. My copies are all about worn out.
Remembering things like that give me peace and joy. I also get joy from the things my hands create. I would love to be an artist but that is not my gift I guess. My needlework is as close as I get to creating works of art and they are works that someone else has designed and dozens of others recreate as well. In lots of my projects I have made little changes that make them "mine". There is a peace that comes over me when I pick up a needle. It is a peace that may have been passed down for many generations since I come from a long line of needle workers. I like to think that I am just another knot in the thread.
Then there are things like:
Quiet days on the beach
The smell of apple blossoms coming in my kitchen window
The first violets I find in the grass every year (spring is HERE!)
My golden yellow dog sleeping in the sun in the bright green grass
The first time I hear our spring peepers
Finding a robin's nest in my bushes where I can watch the miracle!
Fresh baked bread
Sheets drying on the line
A good book
My son dressed in his Army uniform, the other son dressed for his first semi-formal (be still my heart)
Summer rain
Tomatoes warm from the garden
I guess life is pretty good huh?
It was pretty nice here today, a little chilly but the sun made an appearance. Things are really green and poppin'! I pulled out last year's mandevilla and prepped the space for the wisteria that I bought. I am planning on having the family build a pergola over the patio for my mother's day/birthday present I think I can train the wisteria to go up the side of the pergola and across the top which will be pretty and shady!
I found a few fun things too. These wood violets are in full bloom along the edge of my property and are also scattered all through my yard.
My daffodils are about finished but a few are still showing their pretty faces.
The Bleeding Hearts are some of my very favorites
When I tried to take pictures of the bleeding hearts I discovered a secret. I have a little mama! I was going to trim back these butterfly bushes and trim out the little invasive tree but I found this nest with a single egg in it. Mom has been sitting in it (now that I found it I can watch and avoid) and I can't wait to see the baby robin.
Of course now I can't do any trimming!
I lost a great deal of my apple tree this fall when we had a tremendous wind storm. I have very few flowers at all but these are so pretty. I will sure miss the sweet scent of a tree full of them outside my kitchen window.
I have made spicy beef and potato burritos for dinner and a kahlua cake for dessert. All in all, not a bad day! :-)
It opened today at 2 PM at and already I have found a designer who is new to me and something I want to put on my wish list. I have been on the site approximately 5 minutes. This designer is Brenda E. Kocher and the design is Grandma's Rose Garden.
here is another one I really like, DebBee's DesignsDiamond Delight IV
From Rouge Du RhinShells and Shellfish
From Nancy's Needle (I just love her stuff...Tigerlily Tiles Liberty StarsEvening Star and yes, I could go on! lol
I won't even bother to list the stuff from Keslyn's
Well I will quit there so I can finish watching Criminal Minds. More tomorrow probably!
Holy Hannah I have had a heck of a time the last few months. I am rarely if ever sick. First I end up at the doctor and he thinks I have kidney stones. Two CT scans and a KUB X-ray and not only did I have kidney stones, I had gall stones. I ended up at a urologist and he wanted to break up one stone since it was supposedly too large to pass on its own. In the meantime, I had been scheduled to have my gall bladder out which I did and it went well. The night before I am supposed to go back to work the unpassable stone decided to pass and I ended up in the emergency room. The stone passed (thankfully) and I went back to work. I made it through the entire week and was grateful to have Easter Sunday off. I got up feeling queasy but managed to get lunch made and get #1 son to work. By 4 PM all you know what broke loose and I have been sicker than a dog ever since. About 8 this morning I started being able to keep down liquids but I still feel awful, ache everywhere and just want to sleep... and cry. I missed another day of work too.
I started a new blog today and will update it again this afternoon. I decided that I want a seperate blog for my books so Too Few Bookshelves is it. Take a look and see what you may want to add. I welcome your additions and recommendations!
A friend of mine made this little goodie and brought it to work for breakfast a couple of weeks ago. I thought it would make a great, quick Easter breakfast and boy howdy it sure does. My boys are inhaling it as I type. It is quick and easy and starts with good old Pillsbury Crescent rolls.
You need:
a tube of Crescent rolls
4 eggs
about a pound of cooked breakfast meat (ham chopped small, sausage or bacon, crumbled)
grated cheese of your choice
a tablespoon of milk
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
Spray or grease a 9X13 baking dish. Unroll your crescent rolls and lay them in the bottom of the dish, flattening it enough to fill the bottom and close the seams.
Add your cooked meat on top of the crescent rolls.
Scramble the eggs with the milk and pour them on top of the meat. Tilt the dish a bit as needed to make the eggs even.
Top with your favorite shredded or grated cheese. I didn't add an amount because frankly I rarely measure things like that.
Bake for 15 minutes, remove from the oven and let sit for about 5 minutes.
As Rachael Ray would say, Yum-o!
I would show you a picture but well, most of it is gone now. I made it with breakfast sausage and sharp cheddar this morning but I may make it again tomorrow with leftover ham and I have yet to figure out what cheese I would lke. I think it would be equally good with just your favorite veggies too. I have asparagus and mushrooms here and a yummy 4 Italian cheese blend that is calling me. Ok, I am going to grab me a piece before it disappears! Enjoy!
I got a good amount of work done on the Sunflower Star from Laura J. Perin's American Quilt Collection. I love the colors in this piece and once I got the pattern set in my head, it has progressed very quickly. I will try and post a picture when I get home tonight. I have all the gold sunflowers in the center complete and the first quadrent of colors done. I just need more hours in the day. I am already picking out my next one but keep changing my mind! There are so many pretty ones. Right now I am stuck between Indian Autumn, Celtic Knots,Triple Irish Chain,and Delectable Mountains. I will probably end up flipping a coin. I haven't even started thinking about her Secret Garden Collection! LOL
She also has a beautiful new piece on her blog. You can find her blog in my blog roll at The Two Handed Stitcher. Enjoy.
Ok, off to work so I can come home and stitch. It is supposed to be a rainy night so that is a perfect way to spend it!
I went to work again today even though I probably stayed home. Oh well, I am still in one piece even if I am tired. I came home and was just putzing around on the computer when I decided I would check out the CakeWrecks blog. I am not sure what is funnier, the pictures of cakes gone horribly wrong or the commentary. In any case, my gloomy mood has been dismissed with several hearty laughs. My dog thinks I am nuts sitting here laughing at nothing she can see (or hear) but that's nothing new. *grin*
I am listening to Tess Gerritsen's The Keepsake on my Zune and I didn't want to get out of the car when I got home. It just gets creepier and creepier! I have a couple of hours left to myself this afternoon so I think I will take it and my sewing outside and sit in the sun. I am also actually reading James Patterson's Cross Country I love all his Alex Cross books and am currently waiting for his New Murder Club book The 8th Confession which comes out April 27th. All this murder and mayhem makes my life look a lot more stable! :-)
and some days you are the bug. Today was a bug kind of day. DH had to work overnight and wouldn't you know, I started with another kidney stone at 3 AM. It woke me from a sound sleep and it was bad. Now stupid me, I have some pain meds from my surgery that I never used but do you think I thought to take any? You would be correct if you guessed no. At 4:30 I woke my oldest son to tell him I was getting in the shower and if I wasn't out in say 1/2 an hour, please check on me. I sent a text to my husband which he didn't realize he got after all why would I be texting if I was asleep? #2 son got up and sent to school before hubby got home from work. By 7 AM I was on my way to the ER.
The normal paperwork ensued. I was so nauseaous I wondered if I needed to grab their garbage can. The nurse tried two times to start an IV and ended up blowing out the vein in my left arm. That is extremely painful but thankfully distracted me from my throbbing gut. After the second non-productive stick I asked for another nurse who had my IV up and going in a matter of seconds. *sigh* a minute after that I got both anti-nausea and pain meds. I could now finally think and string together a coherent sentence. The X-Rays showed that my 5mm stone that was on the last x-rays was now missing or had shrank to 2mm. Since they don't shrink we allowed as how I probably passed it. That leaves just one small stone thankfully. Needless to say I will not now be going for the lithotripsy.
The long and the short of it is I missed what was supposed to be my first day back from work. I came home and slept since I didn't get much last night so my day was pretty much a loss. I did go and pick up my son and 2 of his friends from football practice and they made me laugh on the way home. They are a funny group of guys.
We just got home and I called for a couple of pizzas and I am chilling for the rest of the evening.
The piece at the top is the Desert Star piece I posted about yesterday. I finally got it to upload today!
I finished my canvas piece last night. Then I cried. I wanted to show it to Pam. I'd upload it but I can't get pictures to upload to blogger right now so it will have to wait.
I got out Laura J Perin Designs' Sunflower Star and have it all ready to go on the frame. I have sepnt the morning running errands and getting trash together for the clean up crew so now I can spend the rest of the day sewing if I want. DS#1 is at the mall with his friends, DH is sleeping since he has to work overnight tonight and DS#2 is doing whatever... he wants to be out driving. He is a driving fool. :-)
I feel like I am moving in slow motion today. I know it is because I am still in shock. My eyes are raw from crying so much yesterday and the tears are still ready to flow today. I am so lucky to have had her in my life. It will be so dreary now without my red headed friend from Texas. God sure got a handful when he took her home! :-)
I received a call a couple of hours ago that my dear friend Pam had died. She was just 62. She was planning on retiring in a month. She had finally found balance in her life again, was loving time with her husband, her kids and her darling grandkids. She had survived a major medical mistake, gone through hell before it could be fixed and came out on the other end. She found peace with not being able to sue the idiots that screwed her up. She landed a job she really enjoyed after being treated like dirt by an employer that never learned what a gem he had.
Pam was my stitching buddy, my enabler, my motivator. Pam was my sounding board. There was nothing we could not and did not talk about. Pam picked me up when I thought I would never get up again. Pam saved my life when I didn't want to get up again.
Very few days went by when we weren't in touch in some way even if we just swapped places on wordscraper. There were hundreds of emails over the years, silly cards, little gifts. We were so alike we could have been twins.
I feel like a part of me is gone. I am sitting here looking at the canvas piece I am almost finished with and I know now she will never see it. I almost called her this morning because it is Saturday and I was going to give her heck about not answering my email from yesterday. I thought she would check in to make she I was still at it :-)
I will never get to make and give her the sunflower canvas I bought for her. She loved sunflowers. I waited too long, I was just too slow.
I know I have learned over the years that life changes in an instant. It still never fails to knock me to my knees when I blink and part of my life has changed forever.
One thing I am happy about, she knew how much she meant to me and I know what I meant to her. We were good about telling each other that. It still leaves a hole though.
Goodbye my friend, until we meet again. I love you and always will.
Maria
