Ups and Downs

It's been a long weekend. Poor Ernie is so sick....some days I think it will be his last and other days he acts like a puppy. Today was a puppy day - yesterday was a bad day. My poor kids call and don't know whether I will be laughing or crying. One particularly bad day Abby sent me some cheery flowers - it made me feel much better! Who wouldn't be happy with such a smiley face and flowers!

Today was an arts and crafts day. I spent most of the morning working on the bright colored quilt. It is still not my favorite, so I made it about the size of a table and will use it as a picnic table cloth. Once it is done, I'll take a picture of it.

This afternoon, I went to my friend Richard Bailey's art open house. We did some painting of flowers and played around with color all afternoon. Of course, there was wine and cheese - the wine to make us more creative!!! Tomorrow I head over there to take a lesson with Richard. We're going to experiment with different mediums and he will show me the Bob Ross method of painting.

Once home, I decided to work a little on my newest quilt. It is using 30's fabric and I found the pattern in a quilting magazine that I get. I thought it would be different than what I usually do, and would look nice on the bed at our new apartment! These are pictures of some of the nine patches that I did. They aren't sewed together as the pattern is different than the picture to the right.

I sure do miss Mike, Shari, Audrey and Jamie. It's very quiet out here without them. Can't wait to head back to the Chicagoland area. We have a small apartment in Arlington Heights....will be quite something to go from 2,000 square feet to 900 sf. Can't wait to see all my friends and Audrey again!

The castle.....

Audrey was happy that we finally were off to the castle....(the Excaliber). She has been wanting to go for a long time! We started at NYNY and then moved onto the tram to the Mandalay Bay. We rode the tram back and forth about 12 times. One of the few free rides in Vegas! This is a picture of her mommy and her on the tram....

We went to the M&M store, the MGM Lion Habitat, the Titanic exhibit at the Luxor and back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on the tram from the Excaliber to the Mandalay Bay.

All in all, it was a fun day - and we had one tired, grouchy baby when we left the Strip. She wanted to stay at the castle, because, after all - she is a princess!

Countdown.....

It's been a rough couple of weeks around this house. Ernie (my 15 year old Yorkie) has been diagnosed with diabetes and it is so hard to make the decision on how to treat him. We have decided that as long as he feels ok, we will not euthanize him. Yesterday he started on insulin and he seemed to feel much better today. However, he IS 15 years old, and whatever is causing the diabetes will not likely get better. So we take each day at a time, and enjoy him while we have him.


Chewbacca will not know what to do with himself without Ernest. He has been low dog on the totem pole all his life, he even lets the cats bully him around. However, no more dogs for us....the cats are much easier to care for - especially since Mike and I travel so much.


In line with all that's happening, I started working on an angel quilt. I hope that this will give me some of the extra strength I need to handle Ernie, Mike being in Chicago and Shari and the baby leaving next week. If that doesn't work, there is always pills!


This is a picture of my latest "angel". She's a garden angel and I really enjoyed making her. There are twelve of them to make and then they go together in a quilt! It's alot of fun adding accessories to her clothing. The flowers and bees are buttons and her shoes have little black beads on them! I'll post the new ones as they come!


Shari and Audrey leave on Thursday. I"ll miss that baby (and her mother) but can't wait for them to get back together as a family. It's been too long apart for all of them. Mike will come home on Thursday and then, if Ernie is OK, we will head to Scottsdale for a much needed vacation. We're going to cheer Proteus on in his first horse show. Pictures will follow!

Monday, Monday

Well, it started out kinda slow. Didn't wake up till it was time to take Audrey to day care, so late we were. Saw a dead cat on the way to day care, so I knew it was going to be a challenging day.


It was, of course, a typical Monday....worked like a demon getting my eStyle books and records ready for the new year. We had our storage unit broken into and all my business records were stolen so 2008 will be the only records I have. Bad news. Hopefully business will start to pick up - right now we are very slow. This evening we threw out the couch Audrey has been sleeping in. She will sleep with her mother until it is time for her to go back to Indiana (which should be within the next three weeks). The good news is that in removing the couch (garbage), we made room to set up my quilting table. Until I can afford a new table, this will work for me.

Mike leaves for his new job in Illinois next week. I can't wait till I can join him back in the midwest. In the meantime, I'll let him contend with the ice and snow! I'll stay in sunny Las Vegas!

January.....

Today was a lazy Sunday. Spent most of the morning working on a January wall-hanging. This is a series that has a hanging for every month. Since I have a spot in my living room to hang quilts, I thought this would be fun! Molly is supervising - she had to get in the picture! I still need to quilt it and put the backing on it - then it will be ready to hang!

Later in the day Shari and I went to the Christmas Goose. The Goose is my favorite quilt store in Las Vegas. I love the people that own it and my friend Mary and I spend an awful lot of time (and money) there! Mary is my best Las Vegas friend and one of the main reasons I quilt as well as I do! She is a phenomenal quilter and shares her knowledge freely!

Shari worked on a table runner for her new apartment. She is almost finished, but has to put on the binding and backing.

I got a small purse that hangs on a belt - that is my next small project. I cut the fabric, but either I'm dyslexic or crazy - the directions make NO sense to me at all. Pitiful really!!! I also have the February wall-hanging to get started on as well as a new project on ANGELS to work on for one or both of my Angels (Josh's fiancee and Joe's wife). All in all, a productive day!

Go Giants Go!!!

While not a big football fan, Shari and I spent the day working on my son Joe's Holiday quilt. Of course, it has a New York Giants theme. It's a BQ quilt - I made the same one for my grandson Joey - his had a fish theme. If you want to make a quilt in a day, this is the one for you. Of course, it is really a twin size or lap quilt. On Monday, it will go to Abby's house for quilting. Tomorrow I will go to the Christmas Goose to make a pillowcase to go with it! It was fun and easy - and I can just see Joe sitting on his couch watching the football game with this and Weenie dog in his lap.

It took Shari and me about 9 hours to make the quilt and we have one little problem that we have to fix - if we can't, then Abby will do it for us! We still have a problem with our seams not always coming together....when the quilt gets heavy it pulls the bottom layer out. We don't always catch it and it leaves a gap in the quilt. Hopefully we will get better and better and this won't be a problem!

Tomorrow Shari will work on her quilt as she only has a couple of months to finish it. She doesn't get a chance to work on it every day and hers will be a large queen sized quilt.

Now off to bed with a good book - or should I say The Good Book. I am reading the Bible from cover to cover and I'm in 1 Kings. Sometimes its fast reading and sometimes slow - right now, SLOW.

Christmas on the Strip

Mike and I spent alot of Christmas Day wandering up and down the Strip. We went to the new opening of Wynn's newest casino - Encore. It is truly beautiful, but I am partial to the flagship Wynn Casino. From there we went to the Wynn, then across the street to the new Palazzo. It was quite nice, but again, I am partial to the flagstrip Venetian Hotel. Once we were done at the Venetian (where we had a delicious Sabrett hot dog and cream soda), we moved on to Ceasars Palace. We meandered around there a bit and sat and had a wonderful capaccino and cookie! One thing that we did notice is that there was a decided lack of Christmas decorations in the casinos. We were there last year, and there were many more elaborate decorations. Plus the crowds were down from last year. It looks like hard economic times until next year.

Finally we headed home, and as we were leaving Treasure Island (where we had parked) we had to head past a Pearl place. You pick an oyster, and open it to find a pearl! I picked a nice sized pearl and had it made into a ring! What fun it was!!! I was given another choice, and I picked a pearl of the same size! We did hoop and holler and attracted quite the crowd!

All in all, a great day was had by all! Poor Shari, Jamie and Audrey were all sitting home sick with a fever and sore throat.

We ended the evening by watching the new Indiana Jones movie. I sat and worked on the binding of my Women of Grace and Charm quilt. I watched the whole movie and only got one half of the quilt done! Pitiful!!!

Mike got me a beautiful mizpah (sp). It's a necklace that is broken in half - he wears one and I wear one. I love it and it was a beautiful thought on his part!

Merry Christmas 2008!