Sittin' on a Ritz

It's hard to get back into the rhythm of everything after the heat wave. It's finally over and the temperature is back to normal. It's just hard to pick up where you left off.




Lots of weird things can happen in unusual weather. This is one of the things that happened at our house. It's made of Ritz and pepperoni and toothpicks.

Too Hot

It's been too hot to do much. The computer overheats during the day. Can't use it much. Yesterday Joseph and I went to see the movie Cars, just to be out of the heat. We went to McDonald's for lunch, but it was hot and crowded in there, so we went back to the maul to the food court and it was hot and crowded there too. We had lamb curry and then went back to see another movie: Monster House.

Last week was Cub Scout Camp at Lake Cunningham. That was hot, but not as hot as this weekend. He caught a summer cold, but pulled through to win the Den One 1st place and the Webelos (4th and 5th grade) first place in both BB Guns and Archery. Friday night he developed pink eye and we were on the phone and to the pharmacy within an hour getting eye drops.

Ferm went to the vet on Saturday with lethargy, it doesn't look so good for him, then I spent the rest of the day in bed with a migraine.

There was a grass fire started by heat near Ed Levin Park and a lot of people at Indian Hill were worried for their horses. The Dept of Forestry and the fire dept had the road blocked so you couldn't get to the barn anyway. The only people who could do anything were the people who were already there. The helicopters got the fire out before it got close to the barn. Sunday morning there was still some smoldering. Driving past it was enough to embed the smell into the car for the rest of the day.

Well, Ferm is howling over a fur mouse, so he must be feeling better.

Nancy's Quilt Progress

here it is in a further stage of progress. It is still a little further than this picture shows. It has a border and a machine quilting flange. The flange is a temporary piece of fabric to made it easer to quilt the edges. I will be removed before binding. The binding is selected, but not cut yet.
I had a quilt top from Community Quilts to quilt first. I have not machine quilted in a while and the community quilts piece will help me get my sea legs back.

Janow remains his peachy self and I love him dearly. I'm reaching him to bow, against my better judgment. Everyday I give him a bite of carrot and hold it behind his knee so he has to reach back to get it. I have been doing it in his stall, so he wouldn't anticipate and molest me at other times and places. Right now it is making it hard to clean his stall. Nothing like being in a 12x12 room with a 900 pound pirate who wants 4 grams of carrot that you happen to have in your hand. I guess I need to move this activity to the paddock.

Joseph went to a birthday party as Raging Waters waterslide park yesterday from 10:30 until 5:00. Dave thought this was a long time to be at Raging Waters. Joseph didn't. He had a blast. He knew a lot of kids at the party, and he met some kids he had met at last week's rock climbing camp.

Paula and Chicka pretty mush know their jobs by now. When they have been out long enough and you go out to get them, first you check the food and water in the coop, then get the chickens. They are very likley to go in by themselves while you are fixing the food and water. In August, we will have to add a nesting box to the coop.

I have been looking half heartedly for a Creative Memories consultant to do little informals at The Little Table. So far, no lick. I looked a little bit into stamping up but them heed a water supply and that will not be good. The cafe has is, but it is for food.

Ideas are welcome in the comments section here.

blah blah......

It's up! My gallery for the All-For-One doll challenge for Folk of Art Friends. We all made the ssame doll with the same pattern, just to see how differently each dollmaker would treat the same instructions. The variety is amazing! I didn't even make a doll, I made a skirt.
Click on my banner to see it.


The pattern we used was Pioneer Girl, from AntyMs Garden. She has an ebay store where you can buy the pattern if you like it. It is available as an e-pattern that you can download and print out at home, or as a snail mail pattern that will arrive in your mailbox. Click on the banner to go there.



More USS Hornet pictures for friends and relations.
Here is Joe, getting into a fighter plane. It was just the nose of the plane, but he got to sit in the cockpit.
Fighter pilot's briefing room, fully restored.


On the flight deck with Lou. He really was a fighter pilot. He gave a great tour!


Here is Nancy's quilt on my design wall. It's further along than this, but this is the most recent photo.

USS Hornet

Cub Scout Pack 92 just completed the Live Aboard on the USS Hornet, a WWll aircraft carrier docked in Alameda. It's an historical landmark and museum.

We got to go after hours for many tours, eat in the mess, and sleep in the bunks. In the morning, after breakfst, we got more tours and an award and patch before the museum opened.

It was a great experience!

These pictures are of the flight deck, on the top of the carrier, and the hanger deck, just below it. There are huge elevators to lift the planes, and smaller, but still big elevators, for bombs. The pilots had an escalator.

Wall Eyed

Here is my design wall showing further progress.
This one turns out to be pretty tricky to get the right pieces in the right places. If you know what to look for, you can see some mistakes in this picture that I had to go back and fix.
It's actually a lot further along than this, but I haven't been posting the pictures because of many things, like

--Getting Shanghai- into marching in the 4th of July parade

--Someone else using our computer to actually MAKE money

--Going back and fixing more mistakes in this quilt than the picture shows

--Being Owner/Operator of Mom's Taxi Co., a not-for-profit organization





Oh Yeah, and Wall Eyed, in a horse, is a blaze or white marking big enough to include an eye and turn it blue. I had a horse like this(good ol' Frix), and it takes getting used to. Horses have horizontal pupils, like goats, but usually you don't see them because the eyes have a lot of dark brown pigmentation.
You still can't tell what they are looking at from the eyes, the ears tell all. They can be paying attention to two different things and have an ear swivelled toward each. I guess not having a corpus colosum has benefits.

Misk

Here they are: Chica Chicken and Paula Pullet. They are growing. They discovered worms and how to scratch in the dirt to get worms. Then they discovered daffodil bulbs. You get those from scratching in the dirt where the worms are.

Dave finally figured out that Joseph and I were serious when we said "You have to catch Paula first." If you catch Chica, Paula knows the jig is up and then she is hard to catch. If you catch Paula first, then Chica knows its time to get caught and comes over to be picked up. But....Chica is easier to catch, so Dave always caught her first.
Here is my design wall. This is for Nancy.

Pictures, finally.

Here are the two batiks. Finally I can upload pictures. I don't know what happened, but now it works.

These birds are about 2 feet square. Sort of.



...and here are the two sleeping engineers we came home to.

Frame

I wanted to put pictures of the batiks here, but Blogspot is having problems right now. Yesterday too. I don't know when it will be fixed.

Well, the deadline for the fair is the 7th, if the entries are mailed in, the 8th if you can deliver them. It's about a 2 hour drive, freeway all the way.

I had the batik I wanted almost done Wednesday, all I had to do was iron the wax out on Thursday morning. I started at 6:30 am. There was a back up piece that was so close to done that I did one more wax and dye to it and ironed the wax out or it too. Turns out I like it better.

So after the barn,-- No Aaron, Joe was with me hoping his friend Aaron would be there but he wasn't-- We went up to Fremont to the framing gallery there. We looked and looked at frames and mats and couldn't find one that I was really happy with. Thanks to the 44oz Super Big Gulp from 7-11, Joe had to use the bathroom three times, but the bathroom at the gallery was funked out and we had to walk around the corner and down the street to Mission Coffee and use that one.

We finally found a frame that I liked. Cost? Over $500! Could have knocked me down. I said "I could never sell it for that." (That means "It's not worth that" in a way that was difficult to argue) So the frame store guy got really weird and started showing me all the "cheapest" stuff that was not suitable. Joseph asked why we were trying to get a "cheapo" one. That was exactly what I needed him to say. I replied to Joe that we weren't trying to go cheapo, but we needed to compromise and find middle ground. By telling Joe, I could also tell the frame store guy indirectly.
So we did. and we costed it out at just over $200. Better. SO I asked "How soon can you do it?" Well, the frame store guy was pissed at spending hours on a $200 sale and told me he was backlogged with work(which is why he wasn't working when we got there) and gave me a long lead time. Well, If I miss the deadline there is not point in doing it at all. So we left, everybody pleasantly pissed.

From there we went to Micheal's at McCarthy Ranch in Milpitas. Inexpensive custom framing with limited capabilities. If the computer program isn't set up to take that option, they cant do it. But.....they just has a sale last week and are backlogged and can't do it in time. So I figured we would go to Marshall's mega outlet dept store and buy a picture in a frame I liked. Dave could cut it to the right size, skip the mat. The framing lady at Michael's said, "You could do that here." So we did, and the frame I selected was on sale, so I got two, one for each piece. They are a little bit primitive, so mat-less suits them fine. Two frames, under $80.

And only 4 1/2 hours later. I told Joseph that it was a long day for him and he was very good and patient and I thought that merited 40 extra minutes of XBox time.
We stopped at Blockbuster to rent a game with the gift card he got for his birthday and he had just enough left on the card to join a new game club for a month. He can have an unlimited number of games for 30 days, just one at a time. He can trade the one he has for another one as many times as he wants.

He was happy, I was happy. When we got home, both Dave and Ferm were crashed On the couch. They looked happy too.

Doll For One

It's almost done, and early too. Launch is set for July 9 (I hope I remember it right) Wait 'til AuntyM sees what I did with her pattern!

Click on the logo to see all of AntyM's Primitive Folk Art patterns



Yesterday I had a migraine and spent the day in bed. I got new glasses for indoors and I think they gave me a headache that started in the back of my head. Joe and Dave were at the San jose Giants baseball game and my old indoor glasses were in the car they took to the game, so I had to wait until they came back. If I had known the headache would turn into a migraine, I would have taken the new glasses off and been blind for a while. I've had that prescription in my sunglasses for a year, so it's not that, it's the glasses. I'm really sensitive to having the pupil distance correct.

These swallow pictures are from the day before yesterday. I was sure the babies would have flown out by the time I got my camera, but they were still at home. You can easily see that all five eggs hatched and survived.








"Dad, Stacy's pushing me off the edge!"



"Well....Steffie won't poop over the side, and Steve stepped in it............ and then he touched me with his foot!"


"I did not!"

...............Mom!

"Mom, Steve's standing on my head!"

"Mom, Scott's poking me in the wing!"

"Mom, Sam's hogging all the food!"

WIP One For All Doll

The FOAF group is having a challenge. They are mostly doll makers, so it is a doll challenge.

The rules:
Everyone uses the same pattern (Pioneer Girl from AntyMs Garden store on eBay)
The torso and head must be made according to the pattern.
Target date is July 6th for listing the doll for sale on Ebay.

The front.












The back.

The dress.
Getting the dress on. Right here it looks like one of those hopsital gowns that opens in the back.

The bloomers go all the way to the top. I don't know why people always check to make sure dolls are wearing panties, but they do. Some are blatant about checking, some are secretive. Maybe we can get Geraldo to do a show on it.

Welcome Harley

Hamster aquisition is complete.

It only took two years of asking. But if your are 10 and you have been wanting something for two years, you must really want it.

So I said he could get a hamster when school was out this year.Before school was out, he was ready.

He'd been to the library and checked out books on hamsters, which he read.

He comparison shopped all the pet stores in Milpitas and two in Fremont for hamsters and supplies. He recieved some things for his birthday and purchased others.

He took good care of Liz the lizard, and bought her a new cage and water dish and a heated rock.

He helped with Paula and Chicka even though they have icky poop(A bird characteristic, they can't help their heritage,) so I said he could have a hamster on the last day of school, a Friday.

On Monday evening, he wanted to go early, since it WAS practically the last day. Nope. On Tuesday evening, he wanted to go early since it was practically the last day. Nope. On Wednesday evening, he wanted to go early since it was practically the last day. I said it was a possibility, but I couldn't promise anything because it depended how the morning went with Janow and batik.

On Thurday morning he was trying to get me to say that I had promised to go that day after school, but I said "Maybe. It's a possibility. I can't make a promise." Finally he asked
"Is that a confirmed 'maybe?"

So Thurdsay after school we went to the selected pet shop and he chose one. He was very quick, he knew as soon as he looked that he wanted this one.

This is Harley, he is a baby. He was very frightened to be in a big new cage all alone, so it was hard to let him alone to adjust. He's very active and a little squirrely, so it will take patience to tame him. But he IS cute!

Mindy Hewitt

Mindy makes primitive folk art Americana. This piece is clever. It's Uncle Sam, of course, but on his day off. He's dressed for the greatest American sport. You can see details and read about him by clicking below on where it says "Mindy's Art." He is for sale this week on eBay. He would be a great housewarming gift for the people you dump your kids off with for a week this summer!

This link:
Mindy's art
will take you to a list of everything Mindy has right now. As I write, Uncle Sam is the only piece, but, knowing Mindy, that won't last for long!

Running Out of Space!

Here are the baby sparrows, yesterday. They are running out of nest space.

Today, they were clinbing over each other and stretching their wings. Tomorrow, they may be gone.

The parents fly in and fly out very fast. I tried to get a picture of feeding, but it was impossible. If I had a fancy camera, I could do better, but then I'd have to give up a fancy something else I want more.

When the babies were smaller, the parents would give a little bit to this one, a little bit to that one. Now that they are bigger, one bite from the parents feeds one chick.

Mr. Oblivious. "Don't bother me, I'm eating."

I'm SO bored!

Yesterday was the last day of school. I picked Joe up at 12:30. He didn't know what he wanted to do with his whole long afternoon. He gave me an ultimatum, we do this, or we do this, or I have a meltdown. Well, neither one was a possibility, so I told him not to waste so much energy before the summer even got started. At 1:40, he said:

"I'm bored! I'm SO bored!"

This does not bode well.

I almost told him that the best way to make summer vacation seem longer was to sit and do nothing except think about how bored you are, but I decided not to risk it.

Forty-five and finally learning when to keep my mouth shut.


This picture is from June 11th.

Hard Eggs

You thought eggs were hard!

It gets even harder after they hatch! This is how they looked on Wednesday. These demanding beaks have the parents flying in and out delivering food as fast as they can.

There are three Kildeer just in back of the paddock, each defending it's nest of pebbles and eggs on the ground. I haven't seen the nests, but every time I look there is frantic cheeping and running around to divert my attention from the nest locations. This season is for birds what the Christmas season is for retail sales.

...and oh yeah.....

..........and on top of everything else, the deadline for entries to California State Fair was Friday but I couldn't access the website or reach anyone by phone or email. Finally got a call back and the deadline was extended to today due to website problems, which I somehow remembered in time to complete and mail in!

Weak from last week

Last week was the week nobody hopes for. Janow colicked Monday afternoon and after some Banamine muscle relaxer pain killer, it looked like he would be better. Not so. More phone calls to the vet, who finally came out at midnight and found a large impaction on its way to becoming a torsion. Torsion means surgery or death.

Lots of mineral oil and fluids, both into the stomach and IV, and getting a mothballed trailer out in the dark for safety inspection at first light. More painkiller for Janow and no sleep for me, and we were off on a two hour drive to the equine hospital.

When we got there, the impaction had improved, but he still needed treatment. I was upfront in saying that I would not have colic surgery. It's to hard on the horse for too long a recovery. It's something I decided years and years ago, but had never actually believed I would have to say for Janow. I said it for Frix and that was hard.

Janow pulled through without surgery. I drove back the next day to visit, and then again Thursday to pick him up and bring him home.

The Cub Scout two night camp out at Ed Levin began on Friday afternoon. Fortunately, Ed Levin Park is the one adjacent to the stable where we ride when we ride out. You have to actually drive through part of the park to get to the barn, so I was close enough to pop up the road to look after Janow. Dave and I took turns popping down the road to give Ferm Cat his pills and look after Mary Shelley, Chicka and Paula.

Saturday night we had s'mores and campfire skits. Joseph read a spooky story outloud to the whole pack and did a super job. He reads outloud better than most adults. I was really proud of him.

Sunday was the Bridging Ceremony and Den 3 stepped up from Webelos 1 to Webelos 2. Next Fall they will visit Boy Scout troops and pick the one they want to join. Then step up to Boy Scouts at the Blue and Gold Banquet.

After two nights in a tent, we came home to find that our huge Mimosa tree in the back yard had fallen and missed the house by a narrow margin. Dave worked on that for a while and then decided it wasn't an emergency so he came inside and fell asleep on the floor.

Today is the first day of the last week of school, and after drop off and checking on Janow, I have to drive to Walnut Creek, about an hour, for an MRI.

You should see the heap of laundry! Also the empty refridgerator and the cat hair dust balls, a pile of unread mail and newspapers.....but a healthy horse and a Webelos 2.....and half a bottle of Dalmane.

Clothes Horse

Here is a vest I made. It was for "Theme Week" in the group Horsin Around with Hoof Art. It was the first time I participated in one of their events. Probably the last. They prefer listing in a catagory that has low sales, and using a search term for the group that gets you all kinds of gag gifts, many crude, unless you limit your search to that catagory, which seems to have few serious buyers.
Needless to say, I had to list it again in a different catagory. Hardly anyone even looked at it.

It's a size Large, the exact measurements are in the listing and on my website.

It's unique One-Of-A-Kind, and sure to get a lot of compliments.


You can find it by clicking here.

And there is a link to it from my site

Just click on the sign.

It's on the New Things page.