February's Retreat

After at least two posts with no pictures I may totally overwhelm you with the tons of pictures in this post. Way back at the end of February my friend Kathy and I hosted our 7th annual (or maybe it's our 8th?) retreat at the girl scout camp at Mitre Peak. One of the reasons we love to go there year after year is the beauty of the west Texas mountains . . . .

And sunsets - even though this picture is beautiful, I couldn't get my picture to look anything like the sunset that night no matter how many pictures I took. It was really breathtaking. Lot's of purples, pinks. This picture is showing too much blue and there really wasn't much blue like that in the sky. . . .

and wild life that walks by the windows of our workroom. This year it was only turkeys.

There was a family of wild turkeys that came by at least once a day. We counted a minimum (they were always moving and you didn't know if you counted one twice or not) of twenty turkeys. One large tom turkey kept heard on all the others not letting them come close to us even though you could tell that that wanted to, especially after we threw out some bread for them. They didn't get it that day, but it wasn't there the next day so somebody feasted that night. See him in the picture below keeping watch? He really was a large bird.

This year was Kathy's turn to teach and she taught a scrappy, scrappy Jacob's ladder quilt. Below is a picture of my mother's quilt. It was the only one I had on my camera even though I thought I took pictures of more quilts. If you look closely you will notice the lovely blue painter's tape. One of the bad things about this camp is that you can't put up any flannel backed tablecloths so we have learned that you can put up each individual block with painter's tape and if you are really good, like my mom was below, you can see what your quilt might look like all sewn together. I love the color combination in her blocks. It has a warm inviting feel to it.

I didn't work on that quilt this weekend because I wanted to try out a new pattern. Over the last couple of years, this retreat has kind of been my time to work on new patterns. The quilt I am teaching at Ogallala in a couple of weeks was made at our retreat last year. I have just finished writing the pattern for it and can't wait to introduce it to everyone.
This year, I was working on my mess up of a version of a quilt I saw on the blogs. However, I liked my mess up; so I played with it at this retreat. I am not totally satisfied with the way it looks yet so this is not the end of this quilt top. I haven't had a chance to play around with it since I have been home, so stay tuned on this one. It may be something totally different when I am done with it. Below are two settings for the blocks and then a lot of them up on the wall just to see what it will look like.

That fabric, (can't remember the name of it - let me get back to you on that one) has a lot of pattern and it definitely overwhelms these blocks. The may need to be sashed and that is one thing I am going to look at when I get the chance to put them on the wall here at the house.

Okay, I have had a rough time getting my pictures to do what I want them to do - (note to self: next time just download one picture at a time so it will be easier to move them around.) and it has gotten past my bed time so I will leave you with the last of the "wild" life I saw when I was leaving the camp to return home. I just had to stop and take pictures since they were almost close enough to reach out and pet. They were a little annoyed that I stopped my car, rolled down my window and took their picture. However, it was nice of them to all look into the camera and say cheese.



However, he was not really happy that I was disturbing his Sunday lunch and a chat up with the ladies. Look at the frown on his face!

Cherry Cream Coke!!

Another two weeks have gone by without a post from me. I have got to get better. I come up here - my computer is on the second floor - with the intentions of blogging and then get sucked in by the games! OOOOHHHHHH the games!!!! Tonight, I can't play the games until I blog. (my rule tonight) so, here is today's blog posting.

Those of you that know me, know that I am a frequent visitor to Dairy Queen during their 1/2 price drink happy hour(s). I love - okay, that little bitty "love" just doesn't cut it. Let me try again I *****L O V E ***** (better) me some cherry lime diet coke. It took awhile before they could get it right every time I ordered, but after a couple of years, the oldies already know what I am going to order. Some days when the line outside is way to long, I will go inside to get my "fix" and the drive thru window girl will look up, see me come in the store, make my drink and have it ready for the counter girl before I even order. That is how dedicated - I mean addicted - to the DQ cherry lime diet cokes I am. Anyway, getting back to today, I left school and made my way to my favorite DQ (hello grandview DQ) and there is a tremendous line. I am car number 8 from the speaker and after sitting there for three minutes and not moving - I and 4 other cars (6, 7 and 9) are on the street - I decide that I will go to Target, get some stuff and head back later for my drink. Didn't happen. I spent so much time (and money) in Target that it was way after 5 and the drink specials are over. Even though I love my drink, I am not always willing to pay the big bucks to get it.

Okay, fine, I will go home, eat leftovers and drink water. It's better for me and I really need to start drinking more of it. I come out from Target heading home and realize I am close to Weinerschnitzel. Right then I decide that I had leftovers for lunch and I want a corndog. You know what goes well with corn dogs? Well done onion rings from Sonic. Still planning on drinking water I decide that if I am going to eat all this bad for me food, I might as well order a cherry coke - I don't like their cherry lime diet cokes - and the order taker asks if I want cream with that. WHAT!! I grew up drinking cherry cream cokes. When I first moved to Odessa, nobody - I mean NOBODY - even knew how to make a cherry cream coke. When I would order it, they would just say, "What?" Like they had never heard of them before. "What?" I got tired of hearing that so I would just order a cherry coke and a small ice cream cone and mix my own drink. (that was how Mr. Burger used to make them - with real ice cream, yum) I grew weary of having to mix my own,(plus if you don't drink down enough coke before adding just a bit of the ice cream, you will have a nice foamy mess in your car)so then I taught the people at Walter's how to make them for me. Those workers all quit or weren't at work when I would go by to get a drink and I was stuck either mixing my own or going without. I went without. UNTIL TODAY!! I am sitting here with my cherry cream coke, remembering the good old days of riding my bike to the Dairy Mart in Idalou, Texas on a hot summer day and drinking a delicious cherry cream coke.

Now if I could just make it upstairs with my camera next time so I can download pictures of my retreat and classes with Gwen Marston. Look for that in upcoming blog posts I will try to make it sooner than two weeks.

Cycles go round and round and sometimes straight

I know it has been forever since I have added anything here. I have hosted a quilt retreat, am getting ready to head out to a couple of quilt classes by one of my favorite quilt makers ever and I am trying to get my life cleaned up, picked up, straightened up and back together again. Sometimes it is just too much and all I can do is just one thing at a time.

Speaking of straightening up, I guess I really need to do that because I have been catching myself straightening things everywhere I go. The notebook on the front desk at school - just perfectly in line with the edge of the desk. The staplers and tape dispenser on my desk at school, just touching the desk calendar with the 3 hole hole punch just touching on the other side. The boxes of cake mix today at the store. The library books lined up along the edge of the shelf just perfectly straight and even. Then I come home to chaos!! I don't won't to line anything up. Or else I am totally overwhelmed with everything that needs straightening, cleaning and picking up.