Boy, That Hurts

I had my initial physical therapy visit today.  It was like seeing old friends! 

Trinity did the workup  and found all the places that hurt.  We did range of motion and found that I had less range (uh-huh) in the bad hip.  She also  decided that the muscles were pulling my spine out of alignment and causing some of the problem so we will work on that as well.

About 8 years ago my vet cousin who is also an animal acupuncturist was helping me with Bonnie Doon's bad hips.  I wanted to see what Bonnie was feeling so I scheduled myself some Chinese acupuncture on my hand.  It helped some, I eventually had to have the tendon sheath cut to relieve the pressure. 

So this was not my first exposure to the needles when Trinity did the dry needling technique.  Immediately my muscles released around the spine.  Now, a couple of those places and a few in my hip are pretty sore from the needles.

The needles are inserted into a pain trigger point and will cause the muscle to twitch.  The needle insertion doesn't hurt, although I could feel when it hit that twitch point.  And the twitch doesn't hurt either; it is an involuntary response.  I really couldn't feel it as a twitch, more of a buzz.


Have you had dry needling done before?  The procedure has a high efficacy rate, which means it works. 

Friday we start with the exercises. 

I am thinking of working one of the baby bird photos to create a piece I can have printed on a larger canvas to threadpaint.  I need to as one of my artist friends they get their prints done.  I think I know where I am going to take it though from previous conversations.

Maybe this one, but there are some other possibilities.  Not sure how much it costs, but I want to try one at first.

Fledging Day

At least two of the babies are fledging today.  I don't know what has happened to the third baby.  I was going to look at the nest this morning, and lo and behold!  There was a baby on to of the nest bush.  It wasn't until later I saw the second one inside the bush but away from  the nest.

Dad found a worm and came to the nest bush to feed Baby #2 still hidden from my camera.  

The Baby #1 sat there for a long time, while mom and dad flew around.  I guess they were encouraging it to take the flight.  When it finally did, I was not prepared for that.  My camera had just gone into shut down mode!

Baby #1 flew over the fence and into  the crepe myrtle.  Immediately a blue jay showed up!  Wow!

Mom and dad went into battle mode!  They drove that jay off with a flurry of wings and actual body hits.  I never saw where the baby had flown to.

I also saw mom fly to to the wooden fence where she could see Baby #2 still in the nest bush and see Baby #1 in the tree.

The jay is now aware the babies are there.  He has flown into the patio where Baby #2 is still sitting in the nest bush.  Momma drove him away this time.

I guess the Blue Jays kill the new cardinal babies.  Classic battle of red and blue.  Mom is in the nest bush now feeding Baby #2 again.  I am sure it is harder now that the fledglings have split up into different trees.  I wonder if they will come back to the nest tonight?

I wondered about that third baby.  Remember he was not as responsive as the rest when I would look at  the nest?  I expected to see a dead thing in the nest, but when I held the camera up to snap the photo, it showed an empty nest!  I hope that means they all were able to make it!  If so, I imagine the one still in bush is that third last baby.  And the fact the parents are still feeding it is a good thing.

I am glad the babies are out of the nest.  They took the next step in life, and it was a huge one.

Maybe next year I will see one of the babies here raising a nest full of grandchildren!

Cotton Robin Reveal

Cotton Robin 2017 Reveal

Please click on the above link to see the Big Reveal from this year's Cotton Robin.

This day is like Christmas to me!  It is always so exciting.  I worked on Sophie's quilt, and the two Terry/Terri's quilts.

All were vastly different, all needed specific design attention and all were challenging to create.

A big thanks goes out to Julie for keeping it all going. And bigger yet, for keeping me in the fun this year by creating a block for me when I had no sewing room!  My Modern Robin people unveiled their little quilts last week, but didn't include me this year.  I guess they just didn't love me as much! 

My Cotton Robin quilt arrived yesterday.  You can see my house, perched on the edge of the rising water.   But notice it does come back to being a house again......

In other news,

I finished the top for the Diamond Dogs.  And am auditioning borders.  I
wasn't going to put borders on it, but it does need some to keep the triangles in check.

I sent off an Eagles t-shirt I found for Patty the Quilt Lady.   But first I cut off the sleeves, I lusted after those sleeves!  I doodled quilting designs on the back of her package.  Maybe I should have included the three mandarins for her in there too!

She uses Rock t-shirts to make quilts for the Akron Art show she enters every year.  Her heavily hand worked quilts have made quite a name for themselves and she has been invited to participate several other venues with them.  If you have any rock band t-shirts you want to get rid of, I will make sure they will get to her. 

The cardinal chicks are growing fast.  I am afraid one may not make it though.  When you look in, only two raise their heads and those are the ones the parents will feed.  The third chick doesn't look smaller though, so maybe it is getting food.

Not to be connected to the birds above, but I made Chicken and Dumplings in the InstaPot last night.  OMG........Amazing.  And easy.  

And I got mail from Germany!  I will tell you about it tomorrow!

Baby Chicks and Diamond Dogs

I got the mountains quilt completely bound.  Now I need a label......forgot the label.

I worked on the Diamond Dogs quilt.  Got the background cut and will decide how to create the edges some time today.  I don't know how I want to make the edges look.  I have a limited amount of background dogs, so I actually can make the outside diamonds a different color, like a tan or a darker color more toward brown.

I made low carb, low fat, low sugar chia donuts.  They actually taste pretty good. 
These are frosted but they do have a nutmeg glaze that I didn't make because I thought they might stick together if I stored them.  And I would have to eat them all at one sitting, you know.

I also painted my window sill grey.  It was beige and I wanted it grey. In Louisiana, we will often call that a window seal.  Yep, we do.  I envision the orking, flipper slapping fish eating seal.  In a window of course.

Baby bonus!


We have new babies just outside my den window.  I mean Brand New Babies!

The daddy is a big red cardinal.  I see him coming and feeding, but I haven't seen the momma.  She must come when I am not watching.

Aren't they totally cute and awesome?