I Like #144

A little late posting this morning because I had to take my (brand new) car in to have its windshield replaced after a rock hit it over thanksgiving.  Sigh.  But there's good stuff all the same this week!

1. I laughed at this present I got at the work silly santa game.  Yes,  it really is a 16 oz mason jar filled with silver glitter.  My department chair opened it, but after several rounds of steals I wound up with it.  Definitely silly, and definitely something I at least have the potential to use (unlike my chair).  He wound up with the laser that projects christmas patterns on your house which was a much cooler gift but I didn't mind "taking one for the team".

2. I liked these silly soda flavors I saw at the grocery store the other day!  In addition to "Dog drool" and "Kitty piddle"  there were also "Bug barf", "Alien snot", "Worm ooze" and several others.  No idea what they taste like, but they made me smile.

3.  I was entertained by this coloring book in the glass place!  It's a little local coloring book with coloring pages interspersed with ads.  But the ads are for grownup things like lawyers and body shops and banks and tree trimming services, so not the kinds of things kids in the coloring book would be interested in.  Just made me giggle.

4. I love this cookbook my friend gave me!  It's filled with pretty and delicious cookies and it's exciting to have some new cookie recipes to try.  I made two recipes out of it last week, and both tasted great but I think I would have been kicked off of the baking show because they looked terrible!  I need to work on my decorating skill.  The first batch was lemon and orange with chocolate accent, and I managed to get chocolate everywhere.  On the wall and canisters and in my hair.  Really a mess! :)  Clearly I need some practice.

5.  I loved this Christmas tree at the hospital at our university!  It's a children's hospital and the tree is covered with handknitted hats donated by staff and others.  They're free to the kids and babies that come to be treated there.

6.  I got very excited the other day when I went to the post office to get stamps and mail some packages.  They had dogs!!! (military service dogs), and T-rexes!!!!!, and  dragons!!!!  It was a fantastic stamp trifecta.

7.  And of course I love the pups.  They really did not want to share the chair, but I insisted, and when I sat down on that tiny portion of cushion available, Blue just buried his face under my leg. 

8.  I loved this mini-trailer from the Griswolds that my neighbor put up between our houses.  It's decorated with Christmas lights and makes me smile.  It might be time for a re-watch of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation!

I hope you're all having a great week!  Have a very Merry Christmas!!!  Click over to Lee Anna's for more great things to like!

I like #143

It's been a good week around here,  not filled with very much productivity on long term stuff but filled with lots of joyous interactions with friends and with lots of prep for Christmas.  I love advent, and my list is always a million miles long.  The past couple of years I've let up on the self-induced pressure to make progress on bigger quilt projects during advent; acknowledging that it's ok to have a month of other crafty stuff taking priority.  A lot of that I can't share yet, but still lots of goodness to put out into the world.

1. I like my Christmas tree!  So far the dogs have been leaving it (and the ornaments alone) and I've been enjoying looking at it while snuggling them at the end of the day.  So many fun memories in all the ornaments!

2.  I love my Christmas cacti!  They're blooming again,  I'll have to take some pictures of the smaller one too, but my big red/fuschia one is always so gorgeous!  Love!  The batteries in the electronic lock on my studio died last night so I had to crawl in through a window and I almost knocked over my precious euphorbia, but I managed to avoid it.  It's so tall and tippy,  I'll have to share some more pictures of it at some point.

3.  I love my pups!  Somehow Blue has decided it's not enough to sit on the sofa, he has to sit up on the back of the sofa.  Bullett used to do this, but he was 1/3 the size of Blue!  The couch is very squashed now, but that's ok.  :)

4.  I love making small crafty gifts for other people.  This week I was putting together the gifts for my Santa Ministry names, all elderly people who are shutins or in nursing homes. They typically supply a list of things they'd like or need. One lady requested pillows, so to go with those I made her some fun bright pillowcases.  Another gentleman requested toiletries and hygiene supplies, so to go with those, I crocheted him a soft washcloth.  It always seems to make the presents a bit more personal (especially because we never meet the people) to have a little something handmade in the box.

5.  Another sunrise-  they've really been spectacular lately, and I liked seeing my lit up front yard tree with the sunrise!

6.  I liked this fabric!  My mom gave me a bag of random fabric she'd accumulated that was what she considered "me" fabric,  mostly stuff made out of weird fiber she wouldn't use.  I went through it yesterday and found this barbie pink satin cow fabric.  I love it!  I cannot imagine what I or anyone else would ever do with it, but my life is better for having satin pink cow fabric in it.

Wishing you all a great week!  Click over to Lee Anna's for more stuff to like!

I like #142

I was gone most of this last week, first for the Thanksgiving holiday and then for a work trip to Houston, so now that I'm back I'm playing catch up!  But there are still tons of great things to like, so here we go.

1. I love my mom's plant room!  She has the best plant room and it stays warm and moist because of her pool.  Swoon!

2.  I loved getting to meet Dana's hedgehog!  I'd never met a hedgehog before and he was so cute!  Dana works for my mom and brought him down for us to visit with.  His name is Harper.

3.  I loved getting to visit all the other dogs there.  Blue had a blast playing with everyone and of course Bentley got tons of snuggles. 

This is Swatch (named for Swatch of Project Runway fame)

Here's Blue sharing a dog bed with Shooter, always my girl!

This is Tilly, she belongs to my grandparents.  Super snuggly as long as you're next to Grandpa.

And my cousin Queston snuggling Blue and Bentley-  it was so fantastic to see Queston and Mandy and the other cousins!!

I tried unsuccessfully to take a selfie with Blue while Chrsistmas Tree Hunting.  Alas.

Auto (one of my sister's dogs) looks adorable, but mostly wanted everyone to throw his disgusting ball.

4.  I love Christmas tree hunting!  We got our trees up in the mountains and I was excited to get it into the car.  So much better than blowing around on top for 550 miles!  I haven't decorated it yet (tonight) but I got it in the house and up and so far the dogs haven't knocked it over.

5.  I love helping my mom decorate.  We got all her stuff put up last weekend while there and the kids did most of the tree decorating.  Wonderful.  Even my dad sat with us and grumped (much better than when he wanders off).

It was so wonderful to see all my family,  I'm ready to go back already.  I hope you all had a good week!  Click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!

I Like #141

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  I hope you all are able to celebrate with friends or family today.  I'm extremely grateful for this fantastic online community of bloggy friends that help make Thanksgiving and things to like every week!  Yay LeeAnna!!

I'm super excited to be home with all my family this weekend to celebrate the holiday, so just a short check in today.

1.  I like being with the kids!  I just got here yesterday but we've already had hours of fun and games.  It snowed yesterday and the kids loved playing outside in it.

2.  Unofortunately this week the dogs unstuffed the footstool again, but I love them anyway.  Look how proud they are of their "work"

3.  I saw this restaurant sign on the way driving yesterday and it made me laugh.  I love velvet but I'm not sure about a velvet taco!

4.  Bentley is so attached to my mom!  As soon as I get here he jumps right up with her and doesn't want to move!

5.  And I loved this artist Shauna Richardson.  She makes beautiful Crocheted-dermy sculptures.  Click on through to see them.  http://www.shaunarichardson.com/contact.php

Happy Thanksgiving to all and head over to LeeAnna's for things to like.

I like #140

I'm a bit late getting things together today, but there are still a bunch of great things to like this week.

1.  I loved getting to work on some quilts this week!  I finished this one (except for the good pictures and the blog post), and I worked on another one that is mid-process.  Super fun!  And I'm about to the time of getting to start something new which is always fun.

2. One of our bloggy friends (sorry I can't remember who it was) shared some great pictures of a granddaughter dressed up as Raggedy Ann and it reminded me of the dolls my mom made me! EDITED:  It was Roseanne's darling Addison who was Raggedy Ann!  My mom was always a great sewer, and back in the early 80s she made several dolls for me and my sister.  Often they were in pairs, or one memorable time she made them with one of her good friends, so all four of us kids had coordinating dolls.  Raggedy Ann is there on the left, Martha is there in the middle (Martha is my middle name), and Linda is on the right.  Martha was really cool because she's real baby size and has articulated arms and legs and wore regular baby clothes.  The story is that the dress she's wearing now is actually the dress I was baptized in, but I'm not sure whether that's true.  The dress Linda is wearing was also one mom made.  These three ladies live in my studio on my bookshelf, and it makes me happy to get them down and share them;  I have lots of fun memories of playing with them, and they remind me that my mom is awesome.

3.  I love my Christmas Cactus!  With just a few flower free weeks since the end of never-ending Dahlia pictures, we're almost to the time of never-ending Christmas cactus pictures.  It makes me so happy every year when the buds come back, I always breathe a sigh of relief.  I'm not sure why, since the Christmas cacti are fairly low maintenance and always bloom, but it's just gratifying when the buds pop up.

4.  I just got my copy of Magic and Memories: 45 Years of International Quilt Festival.  It's a beautiful hardback book written by my bloggy friend Teresa Duryea Wong and chronicles the history of IQF.  I haven't had a chance to fully read it, but it's filled with tons of gorgeous quilt pictures as well as what looks like excellent history and storytelling related to IQF.  Super fantastic!

5.  Got some good snuggle time and walking time with the pups this week.  We also did our annual let's-all-try-to-get-in-the-picture for the Christmas card picture.  Pretty much a fiasco, but at least there is this cute picture of Bentley.

6.  The sunrise was gorgeous earlier this week-  this pic is straight out of my iphone- no editing at all (too bad it's a little out of focus).  The colors were super vibrant and it made me happy to see them.

7.  I really enjoyed looking through the Nikon Small World winners for this year.  It's an annual microscopy contest and that may sound boring but the pictures are gorgeous and really really cool.  Take a look here.

I hope everyone is having a good week!!  Click over to Lee Anna's for more things to like!

I Like #139

Hi Everyone!  Welcome to another week of things to like!


1.  I like my Sam bush!  It's at it's most glorious right now, a bright intense red with almost pink undertones.  The Bullett bush is behind it but is only about 3 inches high and has two leaves.  I really think it might die, it didn't wind up growing at all this year, but I'll plant a new one in the spring if I need to.  In any case, the Sam bush is fantastic.  Loving memories of them both!

2.  I like getting outside!  I got to take Blue on a nice hike around lake Arcadia this Saturday.  After a week of cold (and followed by another week of cold), the temperature hit 70 on Saturday so the hiking was fantastic.

3. I like this begonia!  This is my fourth begonia (I think)- it's my plant nemesis; I always manage to kill them.  But surprise surprise, at the moment this one is doing really well!  It even bloomed while I wasn't looking.  It's the only thing blooming right now, so was a cheery spot of color.  Keep your fingers crossed it continues to do well!

4. I blogged about a second fall quilt I just finished,  I love the way it turned out.  You can check it out here.

5.  I really enjoyed this article on the blog of my friend Teresa Duryea Wong.  It's about an army veteran who took up quilting with his wife after returning from several tours of duty overseas.  There's a lot of great stuff in there; the story was very moving, but I especially like how at the end she talks about how he's now a long haul truck driver (and a National Guardsman) and has set up a mini-quilting studio in his rig!  Definitely worth a read, and very timely this week as we all remember and honor those who serve(d) our nation in the armed forces!

I hope you all had a wonderful week, and hope you will click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!