For Your Listening and Viewing Pleasure

Thought I'd share a couple things here before I go spend time in my sewing room for the first time in many days.

New music from The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band, from his new CD, "How I Go."  This'll fire the week off to a good start!



And these are especially for Sarah, but I think others will enjoy too:





And we can't forget our hardworking Wisconsin guys either (no, these were not my landscapers):



Time to sew! Enjoy the day!

Sunday Sundry - Vol. 38

Yay, it's raining!!  That means I won't have to stand outside and water the ding-dong new plants and grass seed for an hour this evening...maybe.

I'm not complaining, really.  The landscaping got done this week by Larry the Landscaper (LtL) and his sidekick.  When I wrote that last blog post about two young men, I must have been hallucinating, because apparently there was only one, and he was a baby!  Well, not a real baby, of course, but barely out of his teens.  Still, he did become shirtless in short order, and yes I did open some window shades at that point and offer him a cold bottle of water because I felt sorry for his hardworking, sweaty young self.  And he was so polite and such a babe (in a pale blue blanket kind of way) that I almost wanted to adopt a son right then and there.  Hello, and welcome to my fluctuating midlife hormones.

And that boy worked 10 hours straight.  I didn't even see him take a lunch break, although I did ask at one point and he told me he had some sandwiches in the car.  LtL had to leave for a few hours and do some estimates or something, but Boy Wonder just kept on going by himself with the paving stones and sand and rocks and dirt and landscape fabric.  And then I bet he went home and fell fast asleep in his crib for the night.

(In the time it took to write those couple paragraphs, the rain has stopped and the sun is now shining.  I may have to water again later anyway.)

Other Good Things This Week
- Since my little herb garden is growing like crazy, I made salmon with homemade basil and parsley pesto.  Oh, it was so good.  Norm will eat one piece of salmon and then he's done with salmon for the next two months, thank-you-very-much.  I conveniently forget this every time I make it, so I had a lot left over to eat cold the next day (and the next), which was even better!

- Also made spareribs with homemade BBQ sauce, which I tweaked by adding about a cup of sweet cherries (pitted, cooked down and pureed) to the sauce.  Yum.

- Movie recommendation (now on DVD):  Source Code.  I love a good mind-bender.  Plus? Jake Gyllenhaal.

- Elizabeth sent me an early birthday present, bless her heart, along with some fabulous machine quilting thread (above) that I had bought from her.  Isn't this little notebook sweet?  

And she's having a giveaway on her blog for one, in honor of her 500th blog post, so be sure to check that out before the Tuesday 8/9 deadline!

A Legend in His Own Mind
We went to see my brother's band play last Saturday night at an establishment in the lower Fox Valley, an area of the state where one can still occasionally spot a more primitive type man, identifiable by his endangered 'do known as the Wisconsin Waterfall, and where listening to The House of Hair on Saturdays is de rigueur.

The band was good (and loud, holy crap), and the crowd seemed to respond well to the energy, especially one well-lubricated fellow.  I mean, this guy was really into it, head-bobbing and weaving his way around the crowd while generally trying not to spill his beverage.  

He disappeared between sets, only to return some 30 minutes later—get this—wearing a long, curly, platinum blonde mullet wig.  We wondered whether he had ventured up the road to procure the piece, or whether it came from his private collection at home.  At any rate, he bops back in, grinning from ear to ear, and proceeds to stand about six feet from the band and play air guitar to Every. Single. Song.  After a particularly rousing version of Crazy Train or some such homage to '80s metal, he high-fives my brother (the lead guitar player), as if to say, "DUDE, WE ARE SO AWESOME!!"  Highly entertaining, indeed.

Hope you have the kind of day that rocks your world!

What's Outside Your Window?

As of this moment, there is a crew of landscapers digging, raking, pounding, and shoveling within 10 feet of me here at the computer.  It's a little disconcerting, but that's my problem.  

I am glad they're here, and glad, for their sakes, it's not 90-something degrees and 90 percent humidity like it was yesterday.  Although I wouldn't know for sure how hot it was because my thermometer broke.  But so hot that it felt like opening the door to a sauna when I said good morning to Larry the Landscaper, who showed up at 6:45 a.m. yesterday.  SIX FORTY-FIVE.  I heard the truck in the driveway and bolted out of bed, making a mad dash for clothing and a hairbrush.  Adrenaline, anyone?

Larry brought reinforcements today, two strapping young men who look like they've been lifting paving stones, swinging sledgehammers, and shoveling rock all summer.  One of them will probably have to crawl up under the deck to do some work at some point today, for which I am so sorry.  I bet they shoot rock-paper-scissors for that job.  Or maybe compare biceps measurements.

Because all my windows in the parts of the house I inhabit during the day—office, kitchen, basement sewing room—all face the area where the guys are working directly outside said windows, I have done what any reasonable person would do:  Pull the shades.  

It's not so much that I'm skeeved out by the possibility of these guys looking in on me (okay, there is that), but I'm sitting here on my duff in air-conditioned comfort, sipping coffee and staring at a screen, while they're toiling in the blazing sun.

If their shirts come off, I may have to reconsider.

Y'all Ready for This?

I got the kaleidoscope quilt top finished this morning.  Wa-hoo!

It's certainly an explosion of color, but I do like it (though, in all honesty, working on the final blocks over the weekend, I was beginning to fall out of love with it).  

I learned some things in making this quilt for the Kaleidoscope Quilt Along, largely as a result of frustration early on, getting some helpful advice, reworking several  of the blocks (right up until the very last one I fiddled with yesterday), as well as seeing what worked for other fellow QAL-ers.  If you haven't checked out the Flickr group for this quilt-along, you should; there's some serious eye candy over there.  It's amazing how different this quilt looks from one to the next, and beautiful in all its many variations.

I stayed with my original fabric choices instead of finding others that might up the contrast, etc.  But I think I'm going to do another one with the kit of FQs I found in my stash.  Figured I'd work up nine or so blocks to see if it achieves the look I'd like, and then go from there.  I think the second attempt may yield the effect I am looking for (i.e., making the "halos" brighter).  So until then, I will hold off on giving this one a name.

And now I need a nap!  :)

Me-Me-Meme: A-Z

While work on the kaleidoscope blocks continues at a pace of a couple blocks a day, I thought I'd borrow Elizabeth's A-Z meme.  Don't want to burn you all out on blocks in progress—or do you like progress pics?  Well, here's one I really like:

 

I'm planning to have the top done by the first part of next week.  Please stay tuned.

Anyway, meme.  A to Z, which just refers to the alphabet and not everything you ever wanted to know, because, well, that's what Facebook is for, right?  Not that I'd know.  I'm one of those relics who doesn't have a Facebook page.

Age:  "I am every age that I have ever been."  ~Madeleine L'Engle

Bed size:  Queen (and all mine!)

Chore that you hate:  Cleaning the tub/shower, followed closely by floors.

Dogs:  Dogs are great.  I just don't like to hear them barking nonstop (see Pet Peeve).

Essential start to your day:  The internet.

Favorite color:  Teal blue and peacock blue.  I guess that's two, but they're pretty close.

Gold or Silver:  Gold, but silver is nice too.  I'm not that much of a jewelry wearer anymore, but I admire it on others.

Height:  6'2-3/4" (which I reserve the right to round down to 6'2").

Instruments you play:  Piano and guitar, although not regularly anymore. Someone once told me that playing an instrument was like walking up an escalator that's going down—you've got to keep at it to get anywhere.  So true of many things.

Job title:  I peck out a living.  Okay, that's a description not a title.  So I'm a pecker?  No, that doesn't sound right.

Kids:  One lovely, young adult daughter.

Live:  In a house.  On a street.  In a town.  Sounds like the voiceover for a movie trailer, doesn't it?

Mother's name:  A rather unique one that rhymed with three of her four sisters.  She didn't use her first name either, just the initial.

Nicknames:  As if I'd tell!

Overnight hospital stays:  One or two as a child, and another for a C-section.

Pet peeve:  Sounds that show no sign of ending soon:  Incessant barking, snoring, colicky babies, blatherers, trance music, repetitive electronica, and Enya, to name a few.  Also, over-the-top action sequences in movies; I tend to zone out.

Quote from a movie:  "That rug really tied the room together."  ~The Big Lebowski

Right or left handed:  Right.

Siblings:  One older sister, two younger brothers.  I am a middle child.

Time you wake up:  When peeing seems like an important thing to do.

Underwear:  You betcha.

Vegetable you hate:  I would say that although I don't hate them, radishes do not particularly like me.

What makes you run late:  I am pretty punctual, but when I'm late it's due to my own lollygagging.

X-Rays you've had:  Head, teeth, chest, hands, pelvis, kidneys-ureter-bladder, lumbar spine, knees.  The least fun was the pelvic after a long labor and hours of pushing.  I may or may not have arm-wrestled a nurse in an effort to hold someone's hand.  You try holding still when everything in you is contracting.  Breathe, my butt.  Thankfully, this proved the necessity for a C-section.  And I have never looked forward to general anesthesia so much.

Yummy food that you make:  Most everything.  Except those blueberry scones I made recently.  

Zoo animal:  Big cats—lions, tigers, pumas, leopards, etc.  But not when I recurrently dream about them in my house, and they're acting like they own the place.  I'm sure there's some deeper meaning there, but I don't know what it is!

If this isn't already TMI, ask me a burning question in the comments and I'll try to answer it (within reason, of course).  And feel free to borrow the meme!