Sawyer is 2 and the River is High

Carbon Spot is

quilted and has the binding on it. Now I need to sit in front of the TV and sew it down.

Yesterday was Sawyer's second birthday!  We were at Diane's house in Addis for a crawfish and a party for the kid.

 I gave him the Board I made with all the chains, locks, switches, plugs and levers on it.  I haunted Habitat for Humanity Resale store and Harbor Freight to get all the pieces to put on it.

As cool as this was, Jason gave him a bubble blower...….he LOVED it of course!


I took this photo from the Mississippi River Bridge I have shown you in photos standing on the levee.  You can see the flooded area between the levee and the trees where grass usually is.  If you see the green roof, that is the walkway to the casino and just beyond it, the white object is the American Queen Riverboat that came in mid afternoon Friday.

We went down to the River Saturday morning and talked to several people from the riverboat and took photos of the letters in the levee.

The water is down about 6 feet this weekend.  Slowly going down, but still flooding!

Happy Birthday To Kenny

January is a month of famous birthdays.  Elvis was born on January 8.  My brother shares his birthday with Elvis.  So I called my brother, bought a funny card and a present and went down to have lunch with him and Michelle.

We went to a small refinery town in southern Louisiana toward New Orleans from here called Geismar, LA.  Literally nothing but refineries and chemical plants and the people who work in them.



We also call it Cancer Alley.  But the food is good and Pam and Dale's Restaurant did not disappoint.






I took some pictures of the pipelines that run from plants, across River Road and down to the ships on the Mississippi River.

The first photo shows the river levee as it rises from the road bed.  The mighty Mississippi is on the other side!

The  second shows various pipelines crossing the road, an intricate web of pipes.






The third is a tank, holding who knows what, most likely some sort of oil in some stage of refinement.  There is a cat cracker on site that will separate the oil into various components.

Frank spent his career in these plants.  He has driven these roads for 42 years.  He doesn't miss it a bit!

My brother brought me a king cake.  And once


we got home and cut into it, Frank immediately gets the baby.

The significance of that is when you get the baby in the King Cake you are celebrated as King of the Day.  But, you must bring the King Cake to the next party!

Here is my brother and his wife Michelle.  He is like 6 foot 4 inches tall and fits into this Mini Cooper.

There really isn't anything Mini about Kenny!  But he sure does love that car!

Geez, but he looks like my dad...……...


 

Chaos. Really.

That is the best description of the last 5 days.  Really.  And you know my life, so this is really something to say about these days.  Really.

My computer goes to Tim at his shop, still don't think it is right.  But I really can't explain it.  It is like it just changed overnight.

My digital camera went to the repair shop.  Just weeks before the Iceland/England/Norway trip.  They swear they will get it back to me in time.  Or die trying.

I hit a personal weight loss goal, finally.  Still have one more to go.  But that one I am not so dead set on.  I have the trip and several other things coming up that will just fit in with it.  I have a Performance Fit Testing on Tuesday.  Don't expect to win this one like I did that first one.  I just want to have an appreciable percentage body change again.

At Sawyer's mini-Party thee other day, I used Frank's iPhone
to take photos and plugged his phone into my computer.  Thusly changing his phone's identity to mine.  Which made him appear as Glen QuiltSwissy to all his business contacts.  Who laughed at him! 

Carrie is so creative

So we spent two days going back and forth between ATT, Tim and The Geek Squad.  Oh Lordy!  Two days fighting with getting it straight.  It was a frustrating mess.  When we would get Frank straight, it would mess me up.  When we would get me straight, he would get my texts.  On and on.

Then we had Sawyer's real Birthday Party today to help with at Carrie's house.  The high chair he is in was the one Frank used when he was a baby.  Luckily it survived the flood because it was living in the storage building not at the house. 

In between over the weekend, we had two snakes and a dead mockingbird to pry out of various basset mouths.  Which is never easy.  Once they get a prize they don't like to let it go.  Have you ever pried a 2 foot thin snake chopped up into 3 pieces from the mouth of a dog with a steel plate in her mouth?  She is adept at clamping down and never giving up!

The mockingbird must have randomly died and fallen into the yard.  McGee found it on one of his hourly surveys of the yard and he just took advantage of it.  Chloe was the alert dog only because she wanted it and thought if she could just yell in his ear loudly enough he would give it to her.

I intervened and took it away from both of them.  If Chloe had gotten it, I never would have been able to get the bird.  McGee reluctantly gave it up like a good boy while Frank restrained Chloe with brute strength!

So for the last 5 days of chaos, I have done nothing but deal with computers, phones, snakes, birds, dogs, babies, birthdays, push ups and weight sets.

And I am glad to start the week with the promise of something a bit slower.........

The Birthday Boy

Yesterday I ran errands. And ran errands.  And ran errands.  Seemed like I had an endless list.  And the list kept growing because I couldn't find the the helium tank to blow up all the balloons for the party.

Yes, the  baby is turning one today.  His party is this weekend.  I snuck him out of day care later and Frank and I had our own shebang with him this afternoon.

We let him rip into some tissue paper wrapped toys and throw them around the living room to his heart's content!

Then last night we brought him back home and had dinner with his parents and brought his new birthday present of Star Wars luggage and Disney T-Shirts for him to wear when we take him on his first trip to Disney World with us! 

We traveled across the South and West with Carrie starting her when she could walk.  I am sure we can fit a few trips to some fun places like the mountains or a theme park or two for a kid with a big mouse on his t-shirt.

What a retirement we have planned for this little guy.  Dinosaur digs, museums, Indian reservations out west sprinkled with trees and mountains and snow and cruises.

I can't wait!

Please Don't Eat the Yellow Snow.....

Camouflage!

....cause that's where the Huskies go!  LOL  McGee has found the joy of yellow snow.

We had snow again last night.  Started out with a light misty rain, then the sleet came.  When the streets were wet enough the temperatures cooperated and plunged to the upper teens.  Then the snow mixed in with the sleet and we had intermittent floating bits of snow and the heavier sleet particles.



This morning we woke to a white blanket of what is more like ice crystals than the fluffy snow of the last snowfall.  I guess people who live in snowy places have names for all the types of snow.  We just are amazed at snow...period!

Keep in mind, we are in South Louisiana!






And all on my BIRTHDAY!  I had big plans for the day, most of which is up in the air as to whether it will happen. 











Frank revealed the final gift of the Birthday Week Celebration.


Cheetos! Literally, my favorite food! 
I shall partake later today.

And of course with the snow and interstate shutdowns, the city has cancelled the huge celebration and parades they were going to hold for my birthday. 

I did play with the scraps in the bag Judy gave me.  I am going to have to come up with a name, or even a nickname for them.

I added leftover solids from Sawyer's quilt so the color distribution will be a bit wider.  However I do not have the yellows from that top right block.  I might have to dig a bit further in my stash to grab some of those sunny colors.  But I think I will wait to see how the other blocks play together to see if I want to dump it, make more or use it as a focus block somewhere in the quilt.

I am glad that you want a turquoise added in the La Virgencita.  She has a turquoise blue dress that I toyed with pulling out.  But the colors looked so warm I decided not to throw a cool blast in there.  I will do that today and retake the photo. 




At night I am sleeping under an additional quilt.  The colorful one is from my mates of SSOBB during the flood.  It was quilted by Valerie Purple Boots in Nova Scotia.  And the leaf quilt is appropriately named The Forest of Frozen Sorrows.

I had it packed to finish it at a February Retreat a few years ago when the temps dropped so low that the pipes at the Retreat House broke and flooded the place.  We had to cancel the Retreat of course.

Hence Frozen Sorrows.  It is one of my visual favorites. 

Birthday Eve Festivities

Yesterday he came home with a balloon and a card for me.

This morning he took me to get some designer donuts a a new shop that opened this month. AMAZING Triple Chocolate Madness.  But I have a feeling that anything would have been amazing. 



Then he presented me with two packs of fleece batting for two quilts I have set up for quilting.

And the card was from the dogs....A Big Hug!

Dinner and a movie!

Last night we went to see the Big Short.  There were 7 of us, and we had the movie theater to ourselves.  It wasn't planned that way, but it sort of worked out.

I recommend the movie, I  love the way it was filmed.  The Big Short was about the fraud perpetrated on the public by the housing market and sub prime loans of the early 2000's.  Everyone from the real estate agents to the banks to the loan packagers oversold the instruments.  So much fraud in every level.  There should have been thousands who went to prison; instead there was only one guy.

And thousands of us regular Joes lost jobs, our homes, 401K accounts while they all got fat.  And then the government rewarded the banks by bailing them out!

Just go see it, unless you were in the real estate or mortgage ;market you will understand it!

35 Birthday Celebration and my Stash Report 5-31-15

Tomorrow we start a new month so I guess it is fitting that i get to  declare my purchase this week in the "old" month where it won't taunt me for the entire month of June!

Yes, we had a 35th birthday celebration!  Me? I wish......

CAAWS turned 35 in April, but the day was rained out and this was our alternate day. 

We shared the Raising Cane's Dog Park with Raising Cane's fabulous lemonade and sweet tea with lots of ice -- because it was the only day in months to hit 91 degrees!

We shared the day with BREC's Family Fitness Day and rubbed elbows with the Mayor-President Kip Holden. 

 We had CAAWS dogs who found great and loving homes like Louie the Chocolate Pomeranian.  We had costumes like the Rainbow Tutu. 


We had games.



 We  had birthday cake

And we had PRINCESSES!









Stash Report!  Still in the red!  Yes!  But I can do better!

Used this week	-0.33	Used this month	-21	Used this year	-76
Bought this week	13.00	Bought this month	20.5	Bought this year	54.25
Plus or minus	12.67	Plus or minus	-0.5	Plus or minus	-21.75

The Big Day!

Yesterday we went shopping for my secret birthday present in a new store in the next city over, Denham Springs, LA.  There, in the final stages is a really wonderful new mall called Juban Crossing.  Not the indoor kind but the new type with the stores facing center parking lots.  I wonder why they changed from the old style malls that were all enclosed?  But I digress.

We went in, and he gave me instructions to look at BOOTS!  BOOTS!  He had scoped the store out earlier in the week and found a literal treasure trove of BOOTS!  OMG!  Boot Heaven!  Glen Heaven!

I lamented the dearth of Carlos Santana boots but there was Ralph Lauren in his place.  And so many others!  No fringe boots, Carrie was majorly relieved about that when I told her later.  Well, there was a pair but they were Uggs, and don't think I didn't consider them.......

I tried on a hundred, no two hundred pairs.  I often had one of each on making choices, weaning them down to a handful.  Finally I got to two of the most wonderful pairs.

Then I had to choose.  I chose the black boots with the straps, but I definitely mourned the loss of the brown lace up ones.

So this morning, I see the brown lace up boots!  YES!  BOOTS!  How did he do that?

I love boots!


He was in the dog house earlier this week, but I think he might just have bought his way out with these marvelous Birthday Presents!

It's My Party.......And I'll Bark If I Want To

A couple of weeks ago I did a Doggy Party.  You may (or may not know) in my "other" life I am a dog trainer.  I owned Obedience 101 (hence my email) for 36 years and trained clients and group classes in basic obedience, agility, pack hiking and Rally O.  Loved every minute of it.  When my mother needed more care, I had to give up some of my things and that was one of them.  I still have a few client/friends that I do stuff for.  And Doggy Parties is one of the things we all enjoy!

Here are some photos from the party.

DiNozzo was the only one I had there and he is the brown basset boy.  There were two schnauzers, two shelties, a couple of mixes and a chihuahua.  Chloe the Birthday Girl is the white poodle with the pink toe nails!  She turned 10!  I did her first one at year 1 nine years ago!  Oh My!

Chloe the Poodle's Birthday Party

KerBloom Quilting Moves Over for a Birthday

LOL.  Yes, Patty you are so right!  I used 5 bobbins yesterday, all I had available to fill with black thread.  So I refilled them and used one last night.

Today is Frank's Birthday and he took off.  But didn't tell me.  So everything I had planned went out the window.   He wanted to go to lunch, we went.  For his birthday he wanted a gun that shot a laser and measured temperatures of what you shot.  Like a cold air duct.

I went to my buddies at Ace Hardware and once they stopped laughing, thy special ordered the gun for me.  The Ace guy said he had gotten one for himself.  I asked how much he used it, and he said for the first week he shot the temperature of everything he saw.  After the first week he ran out of things to  shoot and his wife put it away.

I have a feeling the same thing will happen here.  But I figure that I have rulers I use only for one type of block and I don't make that block every day.  And I got it for him.

Right?

How the Birthday Turned Out

Since I was not sure if anyone would be taking a picture of me on my day, I took this selfie with the new camera Frank gave me.  I had decided at some point in the afternoon that I  would grow to love it.

I do so love my cameras, and still mourn the demise of the Canon AE1 I  so loved.  But yes, the digitals are so much better!




There were a slew of people at the restaurant when we arrived.  Frank had talked to all of them before Christmas and they all knew what they were doing.

On our way over to the restaurant, Carrie called on the car phone.  It was crystal clear, but she kept saying, you are breaking up dad.  He says I can hear you fine.  She repeated it, then finally said, would you please pick up the phone!


The most shocking thing was seeing my cousin Karen!  I was  so surprised and glad to see her!

I got a few gifts which I will show you in another post.

It was an amazing night, I was in the middle of my closest and most wonderful  friends!


 Here I am, blowing out my candles.  Not all 60 would fit on the cake!  But you can see it was ablaze anyway!

Oh, Carrie found a Butternut Cream cake from Cake Goddess!  It was amazing!

You Say Its Your Birthday!

Today is my birthday. The Beatles decided to sing me a birthday song and I want to share it with you.

 That is how old I am.  But I really feel much older. And not so special.

Actually, I had my grey hairs dyed yesterday and I told Theresa that today would be my birthday and she tossed out some number that was below my actual age.  And I thought, she is  being so nice.

But when I told her I was 60, she called me a liar several times.  Unfortunately I am not.  But it did make me feel better that the woman who once a month colors my grey didn't think I was that old!

Don't you just love that cake  I showed it to Frank three weeks ago and said that is the cake I want.  LOL.  I am pretty sure I won't get it!  LOL.

Partying at the Brewery

Birthday revelry at my friend's brewery.  A local place where they make the nicest beer!

Carrie brought 67 balloons, stuffed in the back of Frank's van.  Afterward the party she released them into the air.  After spending all that money on balloons, I would have brought them home to die in my living room!




 Why the wall says North, I have no idea.  Although it is correct, that is north.

These are bags of malt ready to be added to the next batch.

 The brewmaster is in the solid shirt.  He gave us free beer and we toured the facility.







They had maybe 15 vats of beer fermenting.


And these are the balloons disappearing into the gorgeous blue sky.