Shopping.....good or bad?????

I'm not much of a shopper. Just don't enjoy it like some people do. But when I need to go shopping, I POWER shop. Cruise through the stores, find what I want and get the heck out of there. One thing about shopping in O'Neill, there aren't that many stores to cruise through so it goes pretty fast. Left home about 9:30 and was back by 1:00.

I had a gift certificate to the Quilter's Candy Shoppe from Christmas that's been burning a hole in my pocket so that was a priority stop and I enhanced my already extensive stash quite nicely:




That fabric on the top of the pile in the upper left is a Bonnie cheddar on steriods, maybe almost a little too bright, but I just had to have it. Under it are a couple yards each of black and white tone-on-tones to make 4-patches for Bricks & Stepping Stones quilts, and a kind of muted orange plaid that I just had to have. Maybe I'll use it in a Fall or Halloween quilt. The rest are mostly half-yard pieces/FQs of lights to replenish my supply and some yellows w/blue that will be good in Heartstrings blocks.

And I didn't just buy fabric. LOL I also got some Roundup to battle the weeds, several new spring tops for work and a pair of walking shoes. Women's shoe's are always a little skimpy through the toe area so I got a pair of men's. Actually they were the only pair I saw that I liked and they fit really well. Bought some men's socks too. Go ahead and laugh, but I like to be comfortable and I'm old enough to not care about what's "supposed to be."

And here's the latest photo of my pretty kitty. It's very hard to get any kind of picture of her, she's so solidly black. Her eyes are glowing nicely here.



For some reason she loves hanging out in her carrier. You'd think she would hate it since it's what she gets put in to go to the vet. Cats are strange sometimes. But then, aren't we all?? LOL

Electrical problem solved

Remember when I posted about some strange electrical problems we had the day of the "BIG WIND"? It cropped up again a few days later about 2hrs. after the electric co. workers were here to check things out, so they had to come back. It turned out that a wire had burned off out at the pole near the back corner of our yard. They thought a squirrel had chewed off the insulation and with the wind blowing the wires around...poof!! I just hope we don't have appliances go out because they were getting low voltage.

Just life....

There hasn't been a whole lot to write about. I admire the bloggers who always seem to find something in their day that's worthy of a post.

Last weekend we were dog sitting for our DS & DDIL while they went on a quick trip to Colorado with her parents to visit her brother. That's kind of the way it goes....they go to Yellowstone, we dog-sit; they go to Colo., we dog-sit; our daughter's family goes on a trip, we dog-sit; DD & her DH go on a trip, we baby-sit AND dog-sit. They OWE us!! LOLOL Now I just have to think of something in the way of getting paid back.



Sunday we celebrated our grandson Tyler's 7th birthday, and his Daddy's too. Doesn't seem like that little guy should be 7 already. They grow up so fast.



And I'm in love!! With my new HP 21 1/2" widescreen, flat panel monitor with built in speakers. It looks good and the speakers are actually pretty good too.



What's not to love?

Another one quilted

Here's a picture of the quilt I finished quilting yesterday. I used Mountain Mist poly and the "Halcyon" panto. Pretty, cuddly and light-weight. I know some quilters will only use cotton batting, but I like poly because of the light weight. A cotton batting in a large quilt can be quite heavy.



Last night was our Quilt Club meeting. We worked on small quilts for a group that provides quilts to at-risk newborns. Sadly, those who don't survive are often buried in their quilt.

Other activities recently have included cleaning viruses and other assorted crap off computers. This latest crop of "rogue" viruses that pretend to be anti-virus programs are a real problem. Real anti-virus programs like McAfee and Norton don't seem to detect them so specialized tools are needed. I find too that they often include other nasties like rootkits, worms, hijackers and obfuscators, all to hide themselves from the real security programs. Not to mention the trojans that let other stuff download onto your computer. Just let me say that if you suddenly get a popup on your screen saying you are infected and it's not from your security program, you ARE infected & need to take your computer to someone experienced at removing these things. Most of the time it is NOT necessary to wipe out everything on your computer & reinstall Windows, so be sure the person you take it too is willing to try everything else before taking that drastic step. Losing all your pictures, music, etc. is NOT a good feeling. It's a good time to be faithfully backing up anything that means anything to you.

And, I must mention the crazy wind we had yesterday. It blew so hard one could hardly stand up in it. I think our newspaper got sucked out of the box the minute it was delivered, it's probably in South Dakota by now. The digital clock on my kitchen range was wonky and around 11 last night a couple of electrical circuits in the house went out. I checked the breakers, none seemed to be tripped, but I reset them all anyway and things came back on. Weird. Especially since the one circuit had nothing on it but two lamps. It's the one the air conditioner gets plugged into & is a dedicated circuit. This morning everything is back to normal. I talked to a guy from the power co. and he said the lines may have gotten to bouncing on the insulators in the high winds and caused some fluctuation in power levels. Like I said, weird. Since there was recently a house fire in town caused by the electric wires coming into the house, and one near miss, it all made me a little nervous.

Well.......now it's later!

I hope everyone had a nice Easter. We had Easter dinner at our daughter's sister-in-law's home. The two of them trade off having Easter dinner. It was really nice, but just not the same as when DD's mother-in-law was still living & it was always at her house. Now when it's at the SIL's all her DH's family is there too.....lots of people we only see every other year and never really get to know. Didn't get to see our son & DIL at all....Guess they went to her side of the family.

Remember the other day when I said I'd been pushing buttons and would report on that later? Yep, it's later and here's a photo of the damages....96 1/2 yds. worth of damages to be exact. Somehow it doesn't LOOK like that much.



I'm really glad I'm not reporting on Judy L.'s stashbusting report. It would look really bad.

Red...White...Blue

Yesterday afternoon I pulled fabric & cut strips. Today, for a few hours, I sewed, pressed, trimmed....and here we are. A batch of signature blocks for a project in Lincoln. Julia, these will be on their way to you after Easter.



There's a chance I may have gotten a little carried away with the rotary cutter. Looks like there are plenty of strips here for another quilt. LOL



The thought has occurred to me that I'm procrastinating on getting going on the painting project in my kitchen. Actually I'm pretty sure I am...have been for two years now. LOL It's not the painting I'm dragging my feet on, it's all the SCRUBBING that has to be done before repainting in a kitchen and the wallpaper removal.

And in the mean time, there's somebody that lives here that thinks I should always drop everything and COOK for him just because the clock says lunchtime or suppertime. What's wrong with sandwiches or burgers & fries or a pizza? They work for me. (And I'm seriously thinking about smashing every clock in the house!!!)