We got a light snow last night…maybe 2 to 3 inches.  When I took Widgeon out last night at 9, it was almost like a frozen mist coming down it was so fine.

Here is what we saw on the upstairs weather station (yep, hubby is a gadget guy….) when we woke up today:

Yes…it was 3.6 degrees (F) outside… that is way below 0 (zero) Centigrade (32 F = 0 C) for those of you outside North America.  Inside, it was 56 (we keep the heat upstairs at 50 unless the boys are home during the day as on the weekends).  Downstairs, we have a fancier weather station (remember what I said about hubby):

As you can see, the timer-thermostat had kicked on the inside temp is up to 63, outside was rounded up to 4, but windchill is at ZERO.  BRRRRRR!  I’ll bet little Widgeon’s little parts nearly froze on morning walkies!

And the Lo temps for the night:

Yes, that is a wind chill of 7 below.  I am very grateful we live in a fairly new, TIGHT house that doesn’t leak cold like a seive.  I don’t know how folks in chinked log cabins survived the winters.  I expect the warmth from the  cows and horses helped…… Fortunately, we have a seriously less stinky alternative:  the wood stove.  As the former voluteer firefighter, Paul is in charge of buidling fires.  So first thing this morning he was chopping kindling on the back porch and getting the banked coals back to a warm toasty fire:

Believe it or not, I also quilt.  It seems like it has been FOREVER since I have had time to make art.  I am still working on the manuscript (and actually got excited yesterday… I appear to be making headway on the tedious “finishing up” stuff.   And, this past week, I had a PHENOMENAL opportunity:  Lisa Chipetine invited me to have Sandra Sider critique one of my quilts.  Never having heard or been in on such a thing, I was only a tad apprehensive.  I knew they would be kind, but I had NO idea how incredibly useful the process would be.  I promise a blogpost soon on that, plus an “after” shot when I get a couple of edits done.  For more info, go here:

http://www.threadplay.com/critiquing.htm

Anyway, that’s it for today…more soon!  And I promise, eventually I really will get back to art and quilting!

Deborah and Hannah…do not look!!!! to the bottom of the post until all packages have arrived in Texas!  There are mid-stream warnings….

Yes, I am still alive, just really busy!  Between (among) Thanksgiving, Mom’s birthday, getting ready for Christmas and whatnot, I’ve been too busy to read let alone write let alone thing.  Sleep?  I remember it fondly.  I’d like more.  LOTS more!

But I did have a wonderful Monday.  Alas, the ice storm that hit the northeast got Hannah….she had been without power for three days, with FOUR daughters ages 3 to 12 or so…. then to add insult to injury, on our meeting day the elementary school in her area closed because (drum roll, sob) there was still no electricity!   So it was just Kate, Kathy and me, and Deborah by phone!  Hannah we missed you! You were certainly there in spirit.

AND, thanks to Kathy, we remembered to take pictures (that cue used to always come from Deborah…now we sometimes forget!).  Here is Kathy’s tree:

and the prezzies under the tree:

And the lovely table Kathy prepared, including critters and a fun plate for Hannah’s youngest daughter, who also didn’t make it since she and mom were home with the three older sisters (wahn! but we understand…been there, done that! and if the power had been out in Camden, I would have been home, too)

Kate’s mother-in-law has a recipe for a fabulous peanut curry soup, and I’d been hankering for it, so Kath made it:

I made scones (didn’t turn out so great…rosemary salt, but they were too close to the bottom of the over and got tough on the bottoms…tasted good, but…), and Kate made Deborah’s steamed cranberry pudding for dessert (sorry, no pics)…..

We opened gifties before and after… we started with Deborah’s (Hannah… you need to stop here!); her bag was so cute, sewed shut with little felt leaves, that I opened mine from the bottom:

It’s such a hoot… Deborah made Judy Coates Perez’s ornaments from this years Quilting Arts Gifts magazine, and Kate and I had planned to make Judy’s ornaments from LAST year’s issue, but didn’t have the time or couldn’t get the materials in time! I’ll take a picture of my new Frayed Edges ornaments on the tree and post later…..  Here is Kathy looking at the zine Deborah made for a swap;…. I totally love it and am planning an indulgent hour alone with it later this week:

We took a lunch break, and I spotted Kathy’s photo holder:  a string of beads with clips interspersed.  Since we have one of those AWFUL stainless steel fridges that don’t hold magnets but DO hold every fingerprint that ever passed through the house, I think I shall make one of these hangers for next to the fridge:

DEBORAH:  you need to stop here!

After lunch, I fell off the photo wagon and forgot to take pics of Kate’s gift, and mine… so you’ll have to do with a photo of the ornaments I made … took the photo (obviously) before gift wrapping… they are inspired by some cool lobster buoys I saw at Marriner’s (a local diner)…will try to get photos of them, too… but for now here you go:

That’s it for now!

Yep, my mama is now official NINETY…. hard to believe eh?  All things considered, she is doing pretty well and, as we both say from time to time, it beats the alternative!  My dear sister-in-law (soul sister) Joyce (my late half-brother T.J. gets the prize for bringing the best person in the family into the family by marrying her back in the 60s) flew out for a weekend from Los Angeles.  It has been 6 or 7 years since she has been able to visit us and see the boys.  She is their absolute favorite relative, she is SOOOOO good to them!  Anyway, we had a wonderful visit….

Joyce arrived on a COLD Friday (it was late January/February temps…. highs in the low 20s, lows down to ten, plus breezy!) evening, and we gave her the evening tour through all 2 blocks of lit-up downtown Camden, passing the lobster-trap-Christmas-tree (topped by our favorite crustacean) in downtown Rockland en route from the small Knox County airport.  I think Joyce was stunned to be in a 9-seat plane!   I guess we are so used to pipsqueak planes that it seems normal…..

This is a LOVELY picture of Joyce in the frigid air outside Quarry Hill, the retirement community where mom lives (it has independent and assisted living areas, a demetia unit and a small nursing care unit, used mostly for folks who get ill but will recover enough to return to their regular apartments).  That light stuff you see in the middle of the photo is not a camera flare…that’s frozen breath!

On Saturday night, we went out to a lovely restaurant, Atlantica, right on Camden Harbor.  I took my camera.  I forgot to use it!  But we had a lovely dinner, all six of us.  The boys were well behaved, and Mom really seemed to enjoy the outing.  The chef was very kind… it is a seafood restaurant, but mom is vegetarian.  When I called to see about reservations he said “no problem, I’d be glad to make a vegetarian plate for her”.  WONDERFUL!

On Sunday, I fixed dinner for us at home:

Then Eli helped out…he is becoming quite the photographer:

If anyone knows, by the way, someplace that still has the fabric I used in the apron, let me know… I’d love to buy another couple yards!

Joyce gave mom a small watercolor of Bermuda, where mom and dad lived (and I was conceived) when she and my brother first met, and where Joyce and T. vacationed.  I gave mom my 2007 journal quilt because it uses a photo she bought in Japan when she lived and worked there in 1946-47 with the US Occupation Army and which she still has on her dresser, of the little girls.  The photos of  Hiroshima are ones I took when Mom and I visited there in 1996…and she loves the quilt:

After gifties, we did a real birthday cake.  Rather than risk setting the house on fire, I used the boys’ birthday candles to make a “90” (I bought each of them a numeral candle for each year, then we double up those 0-9 candles for their teen years–currently the “1” candles are getting a real workout during the teen years).

And one more of mom:

Joyce departed on Monday, one day before the official birthday.  Because it was SO cold, we decided Mom shouldn’t go out, so we took sandwiches and ate with her at Quarry Hill.   I used the timer on my camera to take this picture on mom’s living room sofa:

This:

(The photo is shot through my glasses so you can see how blind I am!) I couldn’t quite believe my eyes, so I put on my glasses and saw THIS!

Yes, my dear sister in law arrived from Los Angeles last night.  I don’t know how many years it has been since she has seen snow, so this unexpected arrival (a day before the forecasts) must be just for her and for today, which is St. Nicholas Day AND Camden’s Christmas by the Sea celebration weekend (the kick off to the holiday season).  Here’s the front porch and yard… just a dusting, but still…yipppeeeee!

So of course, I  had to have my morning tea in this:

the mug Deborah Boschert gave to us Frayed Edges in 2005 (There’s a remarkably similar photo on my Dec. 27, 2005 blogpost!).  What a perfect morning!   More soon….

With abiding thanks…..

That great whoooshing sound you hear is time whizzing by yet again….since the last blogpost, since  summer 2007 when Joshua got hit and was in the hospital, since this past summer when I finally (in the heat of July) finished both Joshua’s and Eli’s quilts. It took FOREVER to get Joshua to let me take a picture, but I so wanted to thank everyone for their kindness and support for all of us!

Within a few days of Joshua getting hit by the jeep (on July 17, 2007…posts start that week), a kind and thoughtful soul on the Janome 6600 yahoo group had a kind and wonderful idea:  instead of sending get well cards, send blocks!  She chose a simple one:  an 8 inch (finished square) surrounded by 2 inch sashing, to finish at 12 inches.  Fabrics:  something a teenaged boy might like, all colors, scrappy.    A friend relayed the post to the QuiltArt e-list, and eventually more than 75 blocks arrived!  Many folks sent extras, including ones special for Eli, since he too was greatly affected by the accident (and he logged more miles than anyone going to the hospital up in Bangor, nearly 90 minutes each way, almost every single day for three weeks as Paul and I traded off spending the night there with Joshua or coming home to care for Eli and the animals).

Here, at long last—all healed and well, is Joshua doing what he loves best, playing guitar, on his quilt.  When I asked him if he wanted  to use sashing or a border he said no, I want as many blocks as possible!  So his quilt is 6 feet by 8 feet, 48 blocks!

Each of the boys picked their favorites, with Joshua requesting all the musical ones, Eli wanting the one with the orca/lobster, the wolves and the soccer balls!  They both love their quilts, and I am so grateful for the kindness and support these blocks represent at a time that was really kinda scary!   It is a jolt when you are told your healthy-until-4 days ago 13-year old son needs a large transfusion because he is so anemic (from internal blood loss from the three broken leg bones and the consequent loss of red-blood-cell-generating bones), and then needs another one.  We knew he would live, but not if he would keep his leg, or how well he would live.  The  thoughts and kindness of so many were a great support to all of us, and especially to Joshua who kept saying “these are for me?!?”  The blocks came from Australia, Singapore, Europe, Scotland, England, Canada, all over the United States, and I mean ALL over….. If the maker hadn’t signed the block, I wrote her name and city/state/country on each block so we can look at the quilt and say, look, this one is from “xxxx.”

And here is Eli on his bed with his quilt, made from 25 blocks.

Cindy Sissler Simms is a maven at Mariner’s Compass blocks, so she sent two awesome ones, which I made into coordinating pillows, one for each boy.  I love the way they turned out…. I machine quilted them simply with the walking foot, proving that sometimes simple is PERFECT!

Again, thank you (which seems so small and not enough) from the bottom of our hearts, hugs, Sarah