Getting Caught Up

I'm trying to get a few of the things that I like, quilted and done. If only I could stay cleaned up. This is a quilt I did for the table. It was a technique we learned at my quilt groups spring retreat. And now it's almost time for our fall one. I even cleared off the table and bought a pedestal candle, so it would look like a grown-up house.

And here it is today. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to keep my quilting projects in one room. I hate being in my quilt room downstairs all the time, especially when Ken is home. I like to listen to him play his quitar while I sew. Don't you think that's a noble enough reason to excuse me from keeping things all neat and tidy?

"Spirits Having A Human Experience"

I have finally finished a quilt I've been working on for 2 years. It is a depiction of a near death experience I had in 1991. I'm sure I'll still be tweeking with a few hairbows and such...

Kim's amazing ability to put form to a concept just unified the whole quilt. I love the rocky path we sometimes travel on in life.

The little Island Seas dude in blue with his dreadlocks is one of my favorite. I've worked on this for so long they all seem like people I have grown to know. Can you say I have no life????

The awesome guy in blue has a hairstyle fashioned on the doo's of Canyon & Auggie. Kenzie girl is the one in pink on the picture above this one.... and I got to style her hair any way I wanted...

I guess I better post about our week with Mackenzie before another week goes by. She declared her terms of visitation right up front. She would not be taking any pictures (I got just a few) since she had to take soooo..... many during the wedding. She also would not be doing her hair....because Mom & Dad make her beautiful every day and she needed a break from being beautiful. So we pretty much honored her requests since we were only going to be in Gma & Gpa mode.

Keatley came down for the week and really helped our week be a pleasant one. She came over at about 9:00 in the morning and stayed until she couldn't take it anymore..... really she was wonderful and we really appreciated all the games she played with Kenzie. I loved Keatley more every morning when I heard Kenzie say..... let's play hide n' seek. Much as I love that girl, I can only take about 5 minutes of that game and she can play for an hour.

She just loves Abbey & I was amazed at how patient Abbey was with her. She considers her another cousin.

The girls had fun cooking. One night they made their own pizza's. And made chocolate chip cookies. Notice the hair in all the pictures.

Some of the other highlights of the week were jumping at the Kangaroo Zoo...... Uncle Paul hosted a campout at his house. They cooked hot dogs in the firepit, went on a hike to the waterfall, and slept in the tent trailer and went swimming at Lindon's new pool with Erica. What fun times. It is really a bonus in life to have a brother that loves kids. Thanks, Paul.

The Wedding

We just got home from Maine..... where Tyler & Lindsay had their wedding. Lindsay gave new meaning to the phrase, beautiful bride. We enjoyed meeting all of her family and especially love having Lindsay as a part of our family.... she brings out the best in little miss kenziken, who just loves her mommy. Who ever dreamed that when Tyler moved alone to Maine with a bed and a TV he would return home with a family. You did good, son.

Kenzie was the perfect little flower girl and did a good job throwing out one petal at a time, even though she was "so nervous"

Ryan and Tyler. Ryan was his best man... and has been his best brother for all of his life. It was so nice to have all of our kids together.

Jana and Andrea.... beautiful sisters. As Mackenzie told Jana.... your eyes are all shiny, it makes you beautiful.

Ryan & Alissa..... just newlyweds themselves.

We all slept the day after on the way home. We will have Mackenzie for the week while Tyler and Lindsay honeymoon in the Florida Keyes.

Round Robin

This year our quilt group did a Round Robin. We had groups of five. Each person brought a quilt block that is the center..... then each month, each block would rotate to a different person who put a border around it. In five months we had then put a border on each block and we had a finished project. Most of them were wall hanging size, but some of them were a little bigger. For mine I printed out one of my favorite sayings and put just a black border around it. It was amazing how creative everyone was and I loved how mine turned out. I'm going to have Kim do some fancy quilting on it and then I'm going to frame it.

One Must Learn To Love
One must learn to love. -- This is what happens to us in music. First one has to learn to hear a figure and melody at all, to detect and distinguish it, to isolate it and delimit it as a separate life. Then it requires some exertion and good will to tolerate it in spite of its strangeness, to be patient with its appearance and expression, and kindhearted about its oddity. Finally there comes a moment when we are used to it, when we wait for it, when we sense that we should miss it if it were missing: and now it continues to compel and enchant us relentlessly until we have become its humble and enraptured lovers who desire nothing better from the world than it and only it.

But that is what happens to us not only in music. That is how we have learned to love all things that we now love. In the end we are always rewarded for our good will, our patience, fairmindedness, and gentleness with what is strange: gradually, it sheds its veil and turns out to be a new and indescribable beauty. That is its thanks for our hospitality. Even those who love themselves will have learned it in this way; for there is no other way. Love, too, has to be learned.
-– Friedrich Nietzsche

Annie & Abbey at Silverlake

Since I hardly ever go out and have fun.... and Annie never updates her blog..... I will live vicariously through her and post her updates. Today her and Abbey hiked to Silver Lake above Tibble Resevoir. She said they had the trail all to themselves..... and when she got to the top she had a message for the member of our family who should have been a meteroligist and maybe was one in a previous life.... he has prevented all of us from getting frostbite in blinding snowstorms..... perishing in hailstorms.... drowning in tsunamis... and in general, been around to update us every hour on the hour about what mother nature has in store for us next.

One happy dog...

Morning Glory Muffins

So Grandma has been talking to me all week about this great muffin recipe she got from Barbara and how I should make some.... yeah, yeah, I will. But apparently I didn't do it soon enough because yesterday she went to the store and got all of the ingredients..... and when Ken took her coffee this morning she told him about these awesome muffins I was going to make. Ken came home and told me.... it looks like you're making muffins today. And so I did. If any of you are persistant and stick with something until you get or achieve it.... you need wonder no longer.... it is Grandma Porter Erickson trait. Love ya, mom.

Morning Glory Muffins
Mix together:
1 Cup plain yogurt
1 Cup mashed ripe banana
1 egg

Mix together and add to above:
1 Cup whole wheat flour
½ Cup white flour
1 Cup regular oats
¾ Cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp. wheat bran
3 Tbsp. flaxseed meal
2 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt

Then add:
1 Cup chopped dates (or raisins)
½ Cup dried pineapple
¾ Cup walnuts
Bake at 350 for 20 min.

No wonder they are called Morning Glory…. they will make you wake up singing an aria. They are a rich muffin and very, very good. Next time I’m going to cut down on the brown sugar. Also I only cooked them for 15 min.