I Like #115

Welcome to things to like this week.

1.  One upside to the constant rain is that everything is growing well outside (weeds included).  I'm thrilled though that my dahlias are almost all growing nicely.  Hooray!  The blackberries are also flourishing so I went ahead and put netting over them.  I've never done that before and I'm not sure how well I accomplished it, but it's better than nothing!

2. We had a fun potluck at work this week to celebrate some milestones here, and unfortunately while I was out of the room for just a second Blue took the opportunity to taste the cake.  Luckily (for his health and my sanity) I came back before he got anything more than a little icing.  I wiped off that part and re-frosted it, and then I made sure I ate the dog-tasted piece, but I was aggravated all the same.  Alas.  It only takes a second.  He's fine though and the cake was very tasty.

3.  We're having a baby shower for a friend from work next week so I took the opportunity this week to finish a baby quilt for her.  I think it turned out nicely.  You can see a little of my big art quilt in the background; unfortunately my design walls were all full so there was no clear place to take a picture of the baby quilt.

4. This weekend was citywide garage sale weekend so lots of people were having garage sales.  I don't usually go to them, mostly because I already have plenty of stuff, but while out running errands this chair caught my eye in someone's yard.  It's so fabulously 70s.  I'm not even one particularly interested in retro furniture, but it gave me a really strong pull to my Great Grandpa Cliff or my Grandma's house from when I was a really little. I couldn't resist stopping, and for only 5$ I had to snap it up.  It's in really good shape, and the velour upholstery isn't stained or damaged or anything.  It doesn't go with anything in my house, but I smile every time I look at it.  Also I think it's too small for Blue to sit in, so it should stay mud and dog hair free.

5.  Driving home from a visit to a friend on Monday this yard caught my eye.  The flamingo family watching over the gnomes made me smile.

I hope everyone has a great week!  Click on over to LeeAnna's for more things to like.

I Like #114

Welcome to another week of things to like!

1.  This weekend was the OKC Memorial Marathon.  It's a memorial for the tragic Oklahoma City Federal Building Bombing that occurred in 1995.  I was teenager then, and I remember I was staying with my grandparents because my mom and dad were on a trip.  I've never participated in the Memorial Marathon before, but this year we got together two relay teams from work.  For the relay, you have five people that run the full marathon distance, so I only had to run a 10k leg.  For me, even that was a lot, but the whole event was really fun.  There were 25,000 runners all together, and it's a really big deal here.  Next year I think my friend and sister and I are all going to run the half, which is only a little more than two 10ks. The marathon starts right outside the bombing memorial downtown and is very moving.

2.

2. Evidently one of the bags of potting soil I bought for my most recent set of houseplants must have been infested with the eggs of fungus gnats, because I have a terrible infestation of them.  I've had them before, but never this bad.  This year, they're only in newly potted plants too which is why I think it must be the soil.  Unfortunately, most of those newly potted plants were destined for my office, so now there are swarms of gnats in my office.  My next door neighbor is about to kill me because even though he has no plants they're migrating into his office.  I've tried bug killing sprays which worked before, but that hasn't been enough to eliminate the infestation, so now I've but these yellow sticky traps everywhere.  Unfortunately, they seem to be drawn both to people and to the light of my computer monitor so they tend to swarm around my head while I try to work.  In case you were confused, this is not and "I Like".  It's a testament to how much I love my plants that I'm going to such desperate lengths.  Any suggestion for fungus gnats (different from fruit flies), I'm all ears.

3.  It's been raining buckets and buckets and then raining some more (we lucked out SOOOOO MUCH for the marathon), so of course my back yard is a giant mud swimming pool, but on the upside, these cool mushrooms are growing in one of my pots of bulbs.  Nifty!  And almost all my dahlias have sprouted (not in this picture) so bonus there too!

4.  Here's a look at one of the quilts I've been working on; I cut out all those little squares to use as musical notes.  It turned out I didn't need that many, so now I have extras to use as decoration in the borders.  I love the array of colors.  Lots of them are from hand dyed or hand painted fabrics, so up close there's lots more variation than you can see here.

5.  The tiny Bullett bush has a clump of beautiful pink flowers!  I'm so excited, I think that means I will have one elderberry!

6.  And the cacti are growing well.  They're starting to develop secondary groups of spines (rather than just the ones on top).

7.  I really liked these two recent history posts.  One was on the British Library blog and is a short article about an exhibit on the history of writing (so cool).  The second is from the history blog and is about some new 3D reconstructions of neolithic dogs and the role they played in neolithic society (even cooler).

Add https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2019/04/writing-the-story-of-writing-a-new-exhibition.html

http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/54982

And now, I'm going off to the microscope, largely because I need to get out of the swarms of gnats in my office.  Wishing everyone a happy Thursday!  Click over to LeeAnnas for more I like!

I Like #113

Welcome to another week of I likes!

1. This weekend was Easter and it was truly wonderful and joyous.  We had a saxophone quartet accompany the choir and organ at church, and it was fabulous to break out the Alleluia's and great Easter hymns.  The weather was perfect here too, sunny, springy, breezy but not windy, and warm but not hot.  Really perfect, it felt like a genuine blessing.  My friend Trish and I wore our matching dresses, and I also coordinated with my friend Clois!

2. My blackberries are blooming!  Hooray!  Hopefully that means good fruit this year.  I think I will have to net them; I've never done that before but everyone around here who wants the fruit (duh) does it, otherwise the birds get everything.

3.  I have a tulip blooming!  It's so far a really pretty pale white/yellow with pinkish edges.  So cool.  There are a couple more coming up, I hope they will bloom.  The hyacinths didn't really do very well.  One bloomed for a quick second and then promptly wilted, and the second one only bloomed halfway and is already starting to wilt.  Not sure what's up with that.

4.I got out and balled up some fun yarn I bought last year at the Kellyville Fiber Festival,  It's a hand-dye superwash merino (75/25) for making socks.  It's half black have rainbow speckle (sorry for the crummy picture).  I still haven't finished my shawl, but I want to get the socks started because they'll be more transportable for my upcoming Scotland trip.  I think it'll make up into fun stripey socks.  Very witchy-meets-rainbow!

5. My two tesseract quilts are currently at a contemporary fiber show called Exploring the Twisted Nature of All Things at the Las Vegas City Hall.  I couldn't go see it, but the kind arts curator sent me a picture of my quilts hanging up-  it looks like a great venue.  The quilts had a bit of a hard time arriving, so I'm grateful they got there.  Unfortunately I don't know who the other two pieces in the photo belong too.  The show will be hanging for a couple of months so anyone in or traveling through Las Vegas should go see it!

6.  Betty Busby, Cynthia Sanchez and the SAQA New Mexico crew also just got the latest SAQA NM show (Out of the Blue) hung at the NM State Capitol.  I made the catalog for the show and it also has some really great pieces, so anyone in Santa Fe this summer should go see it.  Here are some shots taken while they were still hanging it.

From left to right:  Betty Busby, Willow Revisited; Cynthia Fowler, First Light; Shannon Conley, 33°20'N, 105°33'W

Jean Neblett, Ref. 18-On the Slough; Shannon Conley, Peace be with you

Ann Anastasio, Nothing but Blue Skies, Betty Busby (I think?), and Vicki Conley, Water

It's kind of hard to see everything here, but on the left behind the man is one by Judith Roderick, and on the right is one by Lynn Welsch.


I hope everyone has a great week!  Click on over to LeeAnna's for more things to like.

I Like #112

Welcome back to another week of I likes!

1.  I like that my mother of thousands plant is starting to make leaf babies again.  It has grown very large but for a long time the leaves were just normal.  I was so excited to see some new babies on the leave edge when I looked at it the other day.

2. The monsters! I love them!  So much!  They are such good snugglers...

3. I loved this display of all different kinds of flamingo decor.  I saw it and it made me think of our fearless leader LeeAnna!

4.  I drive past this field of cows and calves napping in the spring sun the other day and it made me smile.

5.  So did these bins of baby chicks!  While at Tractor Supply getting some birdseed I saw them.  They were so cute and momentarily made me want to start raising chickens until I remembered that Blue and Bentley would not agree and I don't need any more mess. 

6.  I made two new flower beds this week.  I dug them out and planted dahlias and covered them with mulch.  I don't know whether anything will grow, but they look nice right now!

7.  I started a new illuminated quilt this week too.  It's going to feature a sung version of the Lord's prayer with music written by my good friend Linda. 

I hope you guys are having a good week and that spring might be in sight!  I keep seeing reports of late snowstorms!  Click on over to LeeAnna's for more positive things!

I like #111

Spring is still springing around here, and lots is blooming.  It's wonderful walking around.  Some of my bulbs are finally coming up and at the moment
I have some baby hyacinths that are making me happy!!

The crabapple blossoms from last week have opened and are having one of their best showings in years.

The apple trees are blooming wonderfully too.  Hopefully I can get some fruit before the birds snatch it all.

I went down to Becky's on Sunday, just for the day, and had a wonderful time hanging out with her and Andrew and the kids.  Becky and I took a nice hike in the morning around lake grapevine.  It was a lovely trail and so good to see her and spend time with them all.

I was so happy last week to discover that the Bullett bush survived the winter.  You may recall that when I lost him last year, it was the hottest part of the summer.  A terrible time to plant shrubs, and of course the only shrub left at the store was already on clearance for being mostly dead.  I thought I might have to plant something new this spring, but low and behold, down at the very bottom, there's beautiful new growth.  I miss him so much- he was such a good little dog.

And here's a Bentley for good measure. 

I hope you all have a good week!  Click on over to LeeAnna's for more wonderful things to like!

I Like #110

Hello again! 

Mostly springy things to like this week-  I didn't do much that was terribly exciting (filing taxes doesn't count), but there are still things to like.

My crabapple tree is blooming!  We had a late freeze last weekend, but I think it came through ok.

My redbud tree is blooming!  So pretty!

Over Christmas, my mom showed us some cute little quilted bowls she made for the purpose of holding onto your hot bowl as it came out of the microwave or oven or whatever.  I thought they were really fun, perfect for oatmeal or hot soup or something and figured I would make some.  But then I realized I already had the perfect thing!  I have a whole stack of these simple crocheted mats that my great grandmother made.  They're acrylic so you can't use them as true potholders for super hot stuff, but I typically use them under vases of flowers or something.  But some of them weren't flat, I guess she just didn't increase enough while crocheting or something and I'd never known what to do with those.  As it happens, they're perfect for preventing me from burning my hands on my Malto-Meal!  Thanks Gigi!

I haven't been very productive at home lately on the quilting front;  I've been stressed at work and by the time I get home usually just fall into my chair.  I did finish the banner for Becky this week though.  This is the back as I was getting ready to stitch the binding.  This week I've been building a stand for it and will take it all down to her on Sunday.  I think it came out really nice and I hope to get a full post up on it next week sometime.

So the birds are back and I finally got some pictures.  They'd been going through the food at a prodigious rate, and I realized why once I took some pictures.  There have been a few little cute ones, but mostly just hoards and hoards of voracious grackles.  The grackles are so pretty- black and purple and turquoise metallicky in color, but they're mean and chase off everything else.  I guess I need to switch bird food or something.

The pups are fine.  Blue didn't want me to sweep-  I think he was worried I was going to take outside all the dirt he had so patiently brought in.  No worries Blue, you'll bring back in just as much by tomorrow.

No tulips yet, but I think I have a pre-tulip!

Have a great week and check out LeeAnna's blog for more things to like.