new quilt, new songs

Posted on January 24, 2014 by is there any more pie?

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Yes, I like bright quilts. Why do you ask? 🙂

I made this a few years ago, during The Year of the Finger Surgeries. I think the pain pills altered my brain at the time and created my need to buy and sew with very, very bright colors.

I have calmed down a bit, but there are lots and lots of exotic fabrics lining my shelves. I will use them all someday.

The blue Texas quilt is now consigned to the couch, where I’m stitching the binding and trying not to stab myself with the needle and bleed on the white backing while watching television. And I didn’t want to take down my “poor man’s machine quilting set-up” right away, not with the temps in the single digits and while I am still fighting the remnants of the Mysterious Christmas Airline Virus and can’t go anywhere or do anything.

So…time to run another quilt through the machine. Or at least make a start. I like to listen to music while I quilt, so I make playlists and turn the volume way up.

My Friend Jeff introduced me to the wonders of Pandora internet radio (free!!!!) and I’m hearing all sorts of new songs this week.

Today’s hit is “So Long Blues”, by Eileen Jewell. I’m going to teach Banjo Man the harmony and I’m going to teach myself how to play it on the lap steel.

There are advantages to being stuck in the house.

I suppose.

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Posted in music, personal female whining, quilting, rhode island | 2 Comments

making progress

Posted on January 23, 2014 by is there any more pie?

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Most of the quilting on this quilt is finished. I still have some left to do, but I haven’t decided where and how and what color thread to use.

But the binding is stitched to the front. Miles and miles of binding! So on these very cold nights I’ll be on the couch stitching it to the back of the quilt the old-fashioned way, with needle and thread, while Banjo Man and I watch “American Idol” (I love Harry Connick, Jr) and “The Bachelor” (Juan Pablo is highly entertaining but will never marry anyone) and the Super Bowl (Go Seahawks!).

And then the quilt will go to Texas, where it belongs. Hurray!

Posted in quilting | 2 Comments

snowed in

Posted on January 21, 2014 by is there any more pie?

We’re expecting a foot of snow tonight and some pretty cold temperatures for the next five or six days, so we’re hunkered down inside.  It’s winter in Rhode Island after all, and it looks like it’s going to be a long, cold one according to the local weathermen.

My mother is here with us, snug in the basement “apartment”.  She had a bad fall last week and needs some time to recover.

I had a lovely overnight “writers gathering” Saturday in Massachusetts, where three of us solved each other’s writing issues and creative blocks.  Oh, we ate brownies, spinach pie and cranberry coffee cake, too.  And we made fun of Banjo Man’s latest obsession with turmeric.

Great fun.

My ears are still plugged up, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing when playing the violin.

I hope to get the binding on a very, very large quilt before the electricity goes out tomorrow.  But that will take energy, which seems to be missing since the Christmas sinus infection/flu bug.

I really, really, really want some energy.

But it looks like I’m going to get snow instead.

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nebraska…the movie

Posted on January 17, 2014 by is there any more pie?

nebraska film

Banjo Man and Son #2 saw this film in Texas last month and loved it.  They kept waiting for me to feel better so I could go, too, but that moment didn’t come until yesterday, when Banjo Man hustled me out of the house and into the car to make the trip all the way to the Big Suburbs near the airport, 25 miles north of here, to finally see this movie.

I couldn’t believe I was leaving my sewing machine, guitar and violin to go to a certainly germ-filled movie theater where my feet would be cold (Rhode Island has very cold movie theaters).

We were the only ones in the theater for a while.  So we picked the best seats and settled in.  A few other couples straggled in, but despite my cold feet and the couple behind us sniffling, I liked the movie.

Not at first, though.  It’s one of those movies that you have to give some time to.  Let it develop.  Watch the characters.  There isn’t a lot of dialogue.  It’s what is between the lines, what isn’t said.  So what is said matters.

And the road.  Gotta love the road.  From Billings to Nebraska, a road we’ve traveled.  It was all so familiar.  The small town.  The highway.  The faces.  The people.  Bruce Dern was the only actor who looked like an actor, but that was because he was Bruce Dern, and everyone knows he shot John Wayne and was therefore unforgettable.

(I kept wanting to brush his hair.  Why didn’t anyone brush his hair?)

The star of the movie, the star of the story, was the son.

You might think from the reviews, from the trailer, from the ads, that “Nebraska” is a sad story about a old confused man who thinks he has won the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes, who thinks he has to go to Nebraska to collect his million dollars.   His youngest son finally tires of trying to talk his old man out of walking to Nebraska and drives him, but it’s a challenge.

Okay, that’s onlythe set-up.

Kindness.

Compassion.

Love.

That’s what this movie is about.

Click here for more info.

Posted in movies | Tagged | 3 Comments

if it’s good enough for pablo

Posted on January 14, 2014 by is there any more pie?

PICASSO QUOTE

Now that the third book of the trilogy is finished, it is lovely to have time to practice the violin again. Christmas is over (although we have yet to put away the tree–maybe next weekend we’ll have the energy, but I’m making no promises) and our travels are behind us. My ears are still plugged and I can’t tell if I am playing in tune, but I am exercising my fingers and working on my callouses, so it’s all good.

And then there’s the sweet little guitar I bought in September. I bought a new capo and tuner today, after having an appointment for a breathing test at the hospital. I’ve been wheezing since our return to Rhode Island, so perhaps I now have asthma.

Whatever.

I can’t get too worked up over it.

There is a new Patty Griffin song to learn. I have the words and melody down, and now it’s time to try it out on the guitar and see if I can actually sing it. This is my idea of a perfect afternoon: rain, music and a new song I want to sing three hundred times.

Banjo Man has 7 quarts of beans cooking in the crock pot. It’s a new recipe from his Texas cookbook, so the house smells like an Elgin, Texas BBQ joint.

Come on over.

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maybe it was a close call after all…

Posted on January 11, 2014 by is there any more pie?

Banjo Man has discovered his spice-filled luggage was searched at the Austin airport.

His bag of expensive tarragon is missing.

Someone stole it.  Either it’s being analyzed at a lab or someone tried to smoke it.

Thank goodness we weren’t arrested for spice-smuggling as we were leaving Austin.

Can you imagine the police officer trying to explain this to me, a woman with Kleenex-stuffed infected ears?

“Ma’am, you are under arrest.”

“What?”

“You are under arrest.”

“What did you say?  I’m going to sleep on the plane…”

“YOU ARE UNDER ARREST, ALONG WITH YOUR HUSBAND, FOR TRAFFICKING DRUGS DISGUISED AS GROCERY STORE SPICES!!!!”

“Excuse me while I laugh my a** off, officer.  And can I get a picture of you for my blog?”

tarragon

Tarragon

Posted in travel | 1 Comment

can you hear me now?

Posted on January 10, 2014 by is there any more pie?

I’m glad no one saw us yesterday.   We left Austin about an hour and a half late, due to the fact that the Southwest pilots were lost somewhere.

I couldn’t really hear the airport announcements.  The ear infections, remember?  Because I had laryngitis and also couldn’t hear, I was the perfect travel companion.

Banjo Man found an abandoned Wall Street Journal and was content with that and a turkey sandwich.

I struck gold with a slice of double-stuffed pepperoni pizza and a bag of Dark M&M’s.

Banjo Man had filled his suitcase with bags of discount spices from a local supermarket (“Turmeric!  $2.00 a pound!”), and I had teased him about setting off the drug-sniffing dogs and triggering a suitcase search of our checked luggage.

That wasn’t so funny when we were in line to get on the plane and were stopped by a security agent.  He asked to see our i.d.’s and studied them intently before letting us on the plane.  We never did find out why we’d been singled out, but it was a little disconcerting.  I blame Banjo Man’s weird health shakes.

In the meantime I had to put my special prescription ear drops in my ears, but I’d forgotten to buy cotton balls, so I had Kleenex sticking out of my ears and goopy, sticky ear medication running down my neck.  Oh, I was also chewing gum (doctor’s orders).  So attractive.

This would be repeated twenty minutes before every take-off and landing.

I sat on an M&M.  It melted.

My ears hurt.  I went deaf.

We landed in Providence and couldn’t find the receipt for the parking lot.  It was 16 degrees out.  We finally found the receipt, and the coupon, and the phone number to call for the courtesy van.  Only I couldn’t make the phone call and Banjo Man didn’t know how to use my phone.

We were pathetic.

Banjo Man tried to get on the wrong courtesy van.  I stopped him by jumping up and down, and grabbing his coat because I couldn’t talk.

Our driver,  Wayne, thought I was deaf.  Really deaf.

We couldn’t get into our car.  The battery was dead.  I’d expected that.  Banjo Man hadn’t.  Wayne returned and put me back inside the warm van, then went to get battery jumpers.  He got our car started and mimed for me to get out of the van and made smiley faces at me.  I made smiley faces back.

He was very nice.

We were home by midnight.  With Banjo Man’s spices and the rest of our luggage.

I’m so glad our kids didn’t see us.  They’d worry every time we left the house.

Not that we intend to go anywhere for a long time.

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Posted in travel | 6 Comments

christmas vacation is over

Posted on January 10, 2014 by is there any more pie?

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Posted in austin, family | Leave a comment

meanwhile, back on the east coast…

Posted on January 5, 2014 by is there any more pie?
house snow 2

photo by nancy

10″ of fresh powder, 0 degree temps and a whole lot of wind coming off the ocean.
Yikes.

Posted in rhode island | 1 Comment

flu blues news

Posted on January 4, 2014 by is there any more pie?

I may have the flu.  I may have had the flu since last Saturday, a few days after Christmas.

I thought it was just an ear ache and a sore throat.  Allergies.  Austin is famous for allergies.  Everyone says so.

Then I thought I had a sinus infection.

On Thursday a doctor told me I had the flu.  Even though I had a flu shot.  Even though I didn’t feel at all as if I had the flu.  I didn’t feel that sick.  My ear hurt, though.  And I thought I needed antibiotics for the sinus infection.

I never get sinus infections.

I hadn’t had the flu since 1990 and I clearly remember not being able to get out of bed for 2 weeks and wanting to die.  And being afraid I was going to die.  Now that was the flu.

Banjo Man and Son #2 have been taking good care of me here at the condo.  Son #2 made a vat of gourmet chicken soup in the crock pot.  Banjo Man brings me tea and popsicles.  They pretend they’re not worried about getting sick, too, and I hide in the bedroom.

I am not that sick.  I’ve had laryngitis for three days.  But my ear hurts.  My ear hurts a lot.  The doctor looked in my ear, recoiled a bit and said, “Man, that’s an angry ear.”

The worst part of this is being quarantined from my grandson, daughter-in-law and son.  I have certainly already exposed them to some form of the flu, some form of the flu that is resistant to the vaccine.  I feel like Typhoid Mary.

So much for lovely family days together.  The Downton Abbey Watch Party has been cancelled.  We are very sad.

I miss my little family and my funny grandson.

This is a very strange vacation.

Posted in austin, family, personal female whining, travel | 2 Comments