Happy Arbor Day

Is Arbor Day observed all over the country or just in Nebr.?  I should know that, but I'll have to look it up.  I like to say that as a librarian I don't really need to know anything, I just need to know how to look it up. :)  Update:  Just read that it's observed around the globe. Thanks, Mike Johanns.


There hasn't been too much going on around here except the ordinary, every-day stuff so you haven't seen much from me. Tuesday & Wednesday were beautiful days so I got some quilts washed and hung on the line outside, including these two QOV quilts that will be sent off as soon as I get a third one ready to go. (The box holds three, and it's cheaper to send them all at once instead of one or two at a time.)

That third one is in pieces on the sewing machine table so it will be a while before it's ready to go.  At my last Quilt Club meeting I demonstrated making the block in the first picture above. Since then I've made enough more blocks to get another top finished and got it loaded on the machine Wednesday, ready to start quilting today if the thunderstorms hold off so I don't have to unplug the machine.

I'm keeping this one. It will be my "back of the couch" quilt.

Tuesday night was Book Club at the library. (Don't you just love the original names of these clubs?) My book was American Sniper by Chris Kyle & co-authors Scott McEwan and Jim DeFelice.  It's the story of the Navy SEAL who has had the most sniper kills in U.S. military history....all during his four deployments to Iraq.

I really liked it and breezed through it in a couple of days. I thought it was refreshing to read a book about the Iraq war by someone who was actually  on the ground fighting and isn't afraid to tell it like it is, though I think he toned it down a bit to make it more palatable for the reading public. That said, if you can't handle guns and some bad language, this may not be the book for you.

Bad Day

Yesterday was certainly a crazy weather day throughout the middle part of the country. We were lucky once again and only got some rain, which is much needed. Other places not so far away weren't so lucky. Here are some pictures of the hail in Norfolk, NE.

Hail drifts near Woodland Park

Hail on 13th St near McDonald's

Our son's house on the acreage south of Meadow Grove also got hit badly.

The pictures show the north & west sides of his house. The outside of the house was totally redone last summer and fall. Only one window on the north side was left intact.  The new shingles are full of holes too and will have to be replaced.  His 5th wheel was so badly battered that he figures the insurance co. will total it. I only hope he gets enough out of it to finish paying for it. His brother-in-law's travel trailer was parked out there too and also got trashed.

It's so sad to see all the work he put in last year destroyed. They had hoped to get the inside finished by mid-summer so they could move in, but now they will be back to working on the outside again.  It would be good if the rain quit now, until he gets a new roof on, so it doesn't leak and ruin the insulation and drywall he just got up in the upstairs.

Keep you eyes on the sky, everyone.

Easter Greetings

Nice Surprise

Today, as I was inspecting the contents of the dairy case at the local grocery store, I got the nicest surprise. One of the owners came over and handed me an envelope, telling me I had won the March drawing for a $50 gift certificate. Nice!!

As you can see, it's already spent. The certificate never even made it home with me.

Got the taxes all e-filed today and the checks written. I'd sure like for us to get a nice big refund back some year like so many people do.  I started out using the same free site I used last year for the federal form. Input all the information and when I hit the "e-file" button they wanted $39.95. No way!!  So I deleted that and went to the IRS fill-in-able forms that can be e-filed.....and it actually WAS free.  Then did the state free e-file. I just can't see paying for the privilege of finding out how much money we have to send the "guvmints."

Big Day

Whoo Hoo, today the 1940 U.S. Census was released. Genealogists have been eagerly waiting for this. As a matter of fact, they were so eager and wrote so much about it on their blogs that I got a little sick of reading about it. Now the great day is here and the blogs are saying the hosting servers were overwhelmed and getting blank screens wasn't unusual.

I want to see if a couple great-uncles are in the census, but I think I'll wait a while to check until all the furor dies down a little. Those great-uncles aren't going anywhere.

Here's the next quilt all loaded on the machine and just waiting for me to make that first pass.

I always like pictures on blog posts, don't you?

Little Old Proofreader Me

Anyone who's known me for any length of time has probably heard me comment on complain about the errors I find in books and newspapers. I'm more forgiving of the newspapers because they do need to do things quickly. Still, journalists should know better than to use the wrong form of a word such as to instead of too, or my personal favorite, peak instead of peek or pique. Too many errors in books just plain irritate me. Typos are bad enough, but when the characters are mixed up and nobody notices, that is just uncalled for. Don't publishers employ proofreaders any more? For some things, the grammar and spell checkers in word processing programs just don't quite cut it.

Now I've gotten my very own chance at proofreading something other than my own writing....a friend's masters thesis. I don't know anything about the subject, but I can spell, punctuate, find repetitions and sense when something is off with the timeline... or at least I hope so. :) One thing I'm learning is that it is much slower going when actually looking for errors than it is when just reading along and stumbling on them.

New experiences are good, right?