Remember when your skin was too tight to do anything fun with?

Isn't this a hoot. I got this card and many others for my birthday this week. I got to celebrate not only my birthday, but Thanksgiving as well. When I was a kid I usually didn't have a birthday cake, but someone would stick candles in a pumpkin pie and call it good. I DID have a wonderful bakery cake on my 10th birthday and I remember a sheet cake with a small doll standing in the top left corner. I have remembered that cake for many years. I also had a 40th cake. This year since I am on weight watchers, I was glad for no cake. HRH did get me a wonderful new large cutting mat though and I love it. I had my old one on the kitchen island and he just slipped the new one over it and waited for me to notice. What I did notice right away was the smell. It had a slight skunky smell and I looked everywhere to see if that darned cat had brought a skunk in. It really wasn't strong enough for that so I kept looking, then I noticed markings on the mat that my old one didn't have and sure enough, that was the smell. I remember now that my old one (15 plus years old) smelled funny when I got it. I have to be glad that I made that one last so long. It had started cracking on the edges and even gorilla glue didn't work and the lines were non existent in places.

My co-workers also gave me lovely gifts, a plant I had been admiring on our walks and hand and foot cream, flavored olive oil for dipping and a plate of yummy brownies that I had a bite of and shared the rest with HRH which pleased him.

Thanksgiving was nice, just our grandson and his dad and his girlfriend and I even had help from hubby doing dishes. I am so thankful for friends and family and the temporal blessings we have been afforded. I am thankful for religious freedom and the other blessings living in this country have allowed me. How about you? What are you thankful for?

Happy birthday baby

Our new great nephew was born today and is a little one! 6.# 19.5 inches. Proud parents were at the hospital when he was born and are staying there tonight, feeding and holding him. We aren't sure when the adoption papers will be signed and they will be allowed to take him back home, but I pray everything goes ok with that. They met the mother and it looks ok.

This quilt was so much fun to make, I'm sorry the picture is so bad, you can't see the fun conversation prints and can hardly make out the star points. We had to run outside between rain showers (downpour really) to get the picture. If you look at the top left of the quilt and see that second row bright blue hexagon, you can kind of see the star that surrounds it. Now to get a label on it and get it sent to Alaska.

Weight Loss

I've been on Weight Watchers now for 5 weeks and lost 6 pounds. I'm having a fairly easy time of it except I usually have points left in the evening when I really don't want to eat anymore. I save them all day it seems so I can have a decent dinner. I need to balance it out a bit more. I was thinking that 6 pounds was nothing then when HRH and I were at the grocery store, I started looking for things that weighed about 6 pounds. I picked up 2 chickens and kind of held one in each hand at chest height and said "what do you think"? I didn't notice the man across from me looking kind of funny at me over his glasses. Yep two chickens were just over 6 pounds. Then I went to the butter isle and two of those big tubs of soft margarine and one small one came to 6 pounds and that really looked and felt like a lot. Then I picked up 6 pounds of butter and showed them to hubby at the same time that I dropped all 6 cartons of butter, then I looked up and the same man was staring at me, he then said, What are you trying to do, butter him up? I tried to explain that I was trying to visualize what 6 pounds would look like. Hubby was rather embarrassed to be with me then told me I was bouncing the items in front of my boobs and it did look rather funny. OK enough, until I got home and saw a brick laying loose and holding some plastic down. "How much do you think this brick weighs, I asked"? He just shook his head and went in the house. Anyway, I don't feel so bad at only losing 6 pounds, it looks like a lot when it's in butter or fleshy chickens.

I had a busy week, sewing (the favorite part), cleaning, running errands, working, visiting a sick friend in a nursing home, reading, cooking. Whew! Sometimes at the end of a week, I look around me and it seems like I haven't accomplished a thing. In looking back over the week, however, there are lots of things I can check off my "list".

I picked up my I Spy quilt from the quilter (I'll post later when I can get HRH to hold it while I take a pic). I really like how it turned out and want to make another one. I have enough conversation prints to do another and can also see that one made in softer colors, like perhaps 30's prints with greens for the star points.

I had my last quilt block of the month ($5.0o quilt) class. This month we had 8 setting blocks to make and they were boring to make. Again, picture to follow. Now I have to get this quilt together as there will be a drawing for a sewing machine for all the finished quilts. Talk about incentive to finish! Yup, I will make it. It has a large center block and 36 other blocks. This is the quilt that I showed blocks in a prior blog.

Now, on to the other fun thing I got to do. A small, quilt show. A friend called me from a quilt show and said, "you've got to get down here". So being a good friend, I got in the car and was glad I did. It was a small show, but a good one. Here are a few of the quilts featured. I would like to make one of those Christmas Tree quilts, does anyone have clues as to the pattern and availability?