Walking Again

Since I’m back attending Weight Watchers meetings regularly, I am also trying to get back into walking daily.  I have a serious case of inertia right now.  But I did get out for a little while yesterday and today both, so I guess that’s pretty good progress.  We had a little rain here last week and are expecting a little more this weekend, but I’ve noticed that our ponds are precariously low.  This guy has pretty long legs, but he shouldn’t be able to walk across the whole pond!

And I snapped this shot of a little shelf fungus because St Patrick’s Day is coming soon and I thought these would make nice condos for leprechauns – or at least shelters!

Here’s a before and after of a few begonias.  They were planted and then there was a brief cold spell and they were taking it hard.  Now some of them are actually recovering nicely.  I thought they were goners.

After cold spell

Bounding back!

But back to the quilty side … I have now laid out both the positive and negative 9-patch tops.  I’m pretty happy with the darker one and ready to sew the rows, but the lighter one still needs work.  Maybe more scrappy 9-patches.  I think I’m just trying to be too matchy-matchy.  I’ll work on that!

Ready to sew rows

Needs something ...

Today is National Dog Day

A great day to celebrate the dog and to promote dog rescue!

I RESCUED A HUMAN TODAY

Her eyes met mine as she walked down the corridor peering apprehensively into the kennels. I felt her need instantly and knew I had to help her. I wagged my tail, not too exuberantly, so she wouldn't be afraid.

As she stopped at my kennel I blocked her view from a little accident I had in the back of my cage. I didn't want her to know that I hadn't been walked today. Sometimes the shelter keepers get too busy and I didn't want her to think poorly of them.

As she read my kennel card I hoped that she wouldn't feel sad about my past. I only have the future to look forward to and want to make a difference in someone's life.

She got down on her knees and made little kissy sounds at me. I shoved my shoulder and side of my head up against the bars to comfort her. Gentle fingertips caressed my neck; she was desperate for companionship.

A tear fell down her cheek and I raised my paw to assure her that all would be well. Soon my kennel door opened and her smile was so bright that I instantly jumped into her arms. I would promise to keep her safe. I would promise to always be by her side. I would promise to do everything I could to see that radiant smile and sparkle in her eyes. I was so fortunate that she came down my corridor. So many more are out there who haven't walked the corridors. So many more to be saved. At least I could save one.

I RESCUED A HUMAN TODAY​

And this is my rescued Australian Shepherd Mix:

What a sweetheart!

I Must Be Crazy ...

Yes, I must be crazy.  It is 95^◦ in FL this time of year (with a heat index of 102^◦) and I went out and played golf again today.  I was doing great on the front nine and fell apart on the back nine.  It wasn’t my fault … no, really!  I was totally demoralized when a big black crow stole my favorite Kashi crackers right out of my cart.  I was going to bite into their crunchy goodness right after that hole …

They were unopened and I even had them hidden under a golf towel, but the little bugger found them and flew off with them.  Bummer.  At least this Roseate Spoonbill didn’t laugh at me – my husband certainly did.  This Spoonbill might be young since its head is still very white.  It was the only one on the course and they usually hang out in groups.

 

Then on another hole I hit a very excellent shot off the tee and another very excellent shot that was going right for the flag – wait – wait for it – until it hit the edge of the concrete cart path and bounced like a rock back at me, hit the top of the golf cart by my side and landed 50 yards behind where I started.  Again, my very supportive DH nearly laughed himself sick.  These Coots were hiding their heads in shame for me … or were they laughing, too?!

Now you tell me how any of that could possibly be my fault?!!  I think I’m going to go take a nap …

But first, I’ll have to show you my finished Quilts of Valor Mystery Quilt top - this is #24 from Persimmon Quilts:

It is HUGE (72 x 72).  I’m used to making 40 x 60 child-sized quilts and this was a monster to work with.  But I think it turned out really well.  Another member of my QOV group was making the same Mystery quilt and I hope she brings it to our meeting tomorrow – I’ll be sure to snap a picture!

Happy Friday the 13th!

No, I don’t think that Friday the 13^th is particularly unlucky – but just in case, I picked up a half-pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream at the grocery this morning to ward off evil – the French Vanilla ought to do it!

We did our best to work off the ice cream in advance yesterday when we played golf at a little executive course nearby.

I had received some new woods for my birthday and wanted to make sure my 5-wood was working properly (the 3 and 7 were doing fine).  And it was - except maybe for this shot:

Thank you, Caddy!

There were lots of little beggars on the golf course:

By the side of the cart!

Muscovy ducks everywhere

And since it’s been raining every afternoon (our usual late afternoon pattern), I helped them with a handout now and then from my granola bar (I’ll bet the golf course hates that!).

I’ve been trying to finish up some swap blocks and making pretty good progress:

Block called "Fair and Square"

Block called "Cathy's Campfire"

Tomorrow, we’ll be getting the last clue for the Quilts of Valor Mystery Quilt (#24), so that’s the plan for this weekend.  I found out that another member of my QOV group is doing this same mystery, so it’ll be fun to compare our results and fabric choices next month.

Saturday - A Day to Repent

I went for a walk this morning.  I had to.  You see, I ate an ENTIRE bag of Voortman’s Mini Coconut Crunch cookies in two days.  They were good.  Very, very good.  I enjoyed every minute, except the part where my husband said I was worse than a little kid.  Well, I guess that part didn’t bother me too much because I polished that bag right off.

I have been in Weight Watchers for three years now.  I lost the weight in one year and have been trying to maintain the loss for two years.  The cookie bag counted for 48 WW Points.  The Plan lets you have 49 Weekly Allowance Points that are extra you can use for special occasions.  I felt pretty Special.  But today I went for a walk, so there!

The quilt with the cute kitty fabric is getting its borders put on.  Here’s some progress:

And here are the sandhill cranes that I saw recently.

They are usually found in family groups (the young stay with their parents until about 10 months) or in pairs like these two.  They are monogamous.  Our population of Florida Sandhill Cranes increases in the winter when Northern Sandhill Cranes migrate down from more northern states to winter in Florida.  Yep.  More Snowbirds for us.  Although they are found in fields, pastures and marshes, they do not “fish”  like other cranes and herons.  They eat seeds, grains, berries, insects, earthworms and small lizards, etc.; in other words, a little bit of everything.  Unfortunately, they seem to be oblivious to cars and will cross the road slowly with no thought to their safety.  I guess that means that it’s up to us to be on the lookout for these majestic creatures.

I'm Back Sewing!!

My sewing machine is back home and currently working well.  I’m not getting my hopes up yet because the problem took 3-4 days to show back up again the last time I thought it had been repaired.  But I was able to accomplish something yesterday and I’m in a good mood again – that’s a plus!

I made bindings for the quilts waiting for them – I added the border quilting on one quilt and I got the binding sewn down on another … I’m on a roll now, but I am being careful with my machine.

Bindings-in-waiting



(left) Borders Quilted and (right) Bound

Of course, I took the opportunity when I picked my machine up to select and purchase a few more homespun fabrics – lighter colors that I was lacking.  Can’t let those good 40-50% off coupons go to waste …

More Homespun Fabric

Spoiler Alert:

I’m about to describe a few walks and at the end I have a picture of a snake – so if you don’t like snakes at all, stop reading after the two bird pictures (you won’t see the snake picture because there is text first)!

So to continue -  I guess the silver lining to the machine being down was that I did take a few extra long walks.  I went to a new neighborhood where the sidewalk became a wooden walkway through a wetlands area then came back out and went back to being concrete.  It was very pretty (and much cooler!) in the cypress woods and I took a few pictures:

Fall foliage on the boardwalk thru the wetlands

Ibis

 

White Heron

 

Gorgeous day with a breeze blowing the palms

A new pond with a dock (that's an Ibis, too)

And now for the little guy I saw on the way back.  This Peninsula Ribbon snake is semi-aquatic and totally harmless.  It has brown and cream color alternating ribbon markings down the length of its body with a cream color belly.  It feeds on small fishes, frogs, salamanders and earthworms.  It is often found in marshes and cypress stands like the one that I saw this one in.

It has a very pretty round eye that is black surrounded by a gold ring then a rusty brown color.

This guy stayed motionless and tried to act nonchalant until he saw I wasn’t going to threaten him and then he went on his merry way and disappeared in search of dinner.  If I can’t have a nice Black Snake (they eat venomous snakes and other creepy undesirables around your house), then I like this guy that helps to keep populations in balance.  To read more (yes, some of you do) go to:

  http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/herpetology/herpetology.htm

Oh, and I can't forget that I have this fun Lil' Twister project waiting for me!

Quilts for Kids

My kit from Quilts for Kids came in the mail today!  The makers of Downy fabric softener are still affiliated with this great group and sending out a free kit for a child-size quilt for the asking.  They request that you make up their kit and also make up a quilt from your own fabric and send them both back to them to be distributed to hospitals associated with the Children’s Miracle Network.  Of course, if you have a local chapter of Quilts for Kids, your quilts will remain in your local community.

This is the fabric I received:

And this is the teen-girl’s quilt top that I finished and will send back with my finished kit. 

I’ll also send the teen-boy’s quilt (with USAF airplanes fabric) that I have posted about earlier.  These quilts are only about 38” x 45” so they don’t take that long to make … it’s the quilting itself that holds me up.  But knowing that a child in the hospital will be cheered up by receiving one of these quilts will spur me on.

My dog (just off to the left in this photo) found a friend in the garden today.  She stuck her nose right up to this Giant Swallowtail and it didn’t faze it a bit.  It just fluttered from flower to flower, as happy as could be.  Those purple flowers must be tasty!

And how do I know it was a Giant Swallowtail?  I looked it up, of course!  This is one of my favorite sites for identifying butterflies:

http://www.gardenswithwings.com/identify-butterflies.html

There’s also a page there to tell you what butterflies you can attract to your garden by entering your zip code for your part of the country.  Happy planting to attract butterflies!

Tuesdays and Turtles

Another rainy day forecast here so I made sure to get my walk in early.  I was expecting the overcast sky to get darker and to get caught in the rain, but unfortunately, it started to break up with some blue sky and got hotter so I had to take the full walk.  Just my luck …

But I did see this cute little guy in the road:

I don’t know if he was escaping all of the accumulated water or what – this is one of the usually dry and grassy ditches near me that shows how wet it's been the last couple of days:

So I *rescued* the box turtle and put him on the grass to save him from being run over (although it wasn’t such a busy road, there are teenage drivers near there that have lead feet,  if you know what I mean):

Anyway, he was still where I put him on my way back by 15 minutes later (with his head out), so he must have thought his new spot was ok.

On a quilty note, one of my on-line quilt guild members posted a great link to a YouTube video tutorial put out by the Missouri Quilt Company:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJCSoljKnqU

The lesson is for making quick, scrappy 4-patches.  Well, I’m always up for a new technique that promises to be faster than my current methods so I thought I’d try this one out with a kit that I had purchased with a 50% off coupon.  The kit had 10 different tropical-type floral prints so first I selected some solids that would blend or match to get a more scrappy look:

Second, I cut 5” squares and sewed them on two sides per the tutorial, then I pressed them and cut them in half per the instructions: 

Before cutting them into the rectangles for 4-patches, I thought I’d lay them out to see if I was achieving the scrappy look:

Hey!  I kind of like the rectangles as they are.  I have enough fabric to make a top with rectangles and then continue on to make one with 4-patches.  I might just do that!  We’ll see what develops …

Just Plain Cute!

This photo has nothing to do with quilting - or does it?!!  Maybe quilts are all about comfort and this picture is just too cute not to love.  Thanks to http://www.snuzzy.com/ for this cute photo.

And this was the recent finish of the teenage-boy quilt top that I wanted to make.  It has all types of US Air Force aircraft in the print fabric - I'm hoping it will find a teen at Quilts for Kids that is an airplane nut!  I'll finish quilting it soon and get it mailed off.

Progress on Rainbow Challenge

I was working on my red scraps this morning for the 2011 Rainbow Scrap Challenge, but it was such a nice day that I didn’t finish, but went out to take a walk instead.  This was how far I had gotten on the challenge.  The hearts will be sewn down, then each rectangle will be cut in half from top to bottom to make mirror images that will be sewn to another block.  I expect I’ll finish this up this week:

I forgot to take my camera on my walk so, of course, I saw something to take a picture of for a change.  We have giant Pileated Woodpeckers in our conservation areas that have loud calls that would make Woody the cartoon woodpecker proud.  These very large birds are surely descended from dinosaurs as their wingspans can be about 29 inches.  They are gorgeous.  Their preferred food is carpenter ants and beetles and you can hear them excavating in dead trees for a long distance. Their pecking chops up the wood and helps to decompose it and return the nutrients to the forest.

I saw another one awhile back that I tried to take a picture of when I did have the camera with me and the bugger snuck behind the tree when I snapped the pic.  Here’s the swamp-shot where you can’t find the bird and a stock photo from http://www.geekphilosopher.com/

The area where the woodpecker was spotted



Stock Photo of Pileated Woodpecker