A Quilt on The Way!

Okay, I chose the next quilt to go to Carol the long armed quilter!! This is my 1" postage stamp quilt. I am showing it laying on the batting, so I hope you can see that the quilt ends with colored squares. Part of me would like to make this quilt larger, but it is amazing the weight already with all that thread! These are all floral squares. It will be a good lap quilt, or wall quilt sized for spring since it is so pink! Loved using up all those 1 1/2" strips I had been saving.
Now that I have my backing and batting out, I might just package up a few more. For those of you who don't know, I always use a plain neutral flannel on my quilt backs. I buy the wide, so my backs are one piece. And most important, require no further sewing to create it!! I do sew some of the remnants together to make another back, but that's it.
Rain, wind, dark skies today. Ethan and I have spent a lot of the day just cuddling, and he is taking a siesta now, so I need to get him up so we can go and meet Jillian's bus.

A Few Random Thoughts

Just to get them out there.....
The story about the big baby being denied medical care because he was obese......a bunch of crap!! Mostly because the chart they are referring too, has nothing to do with obesity. It basically graphs where the baby is at that time in comparison to other babies the same age. 99% just means that this baby is heavier than 99% of babies this age! The importance of graphing height, weight and head circumference is to see that the baby is growing appropriately. All three of my boys were in the 90+% during their growing years. Imagine if they denied insurance because they were too long!! Can't really call it tall, since they aren't yet standing - LOL!
The health insurance industry is only interested in keeping their shareholders and high paid administrators happy. And they will continue to cut services and raise costs to patients until that is forced to change.
I had an insurance fiasco, ended up in collections for a $66.00 bill to a hospital for a mammogram. My insurance covered in full routine annual mammograms. However since I had been diagnosed and treated for breast cancer 10 years before that, the routine annual screen got coded as a "diagnostic" screen instead of "routine" and the insurance doesn't cover that. Imagine.....if you NEED a mammogram because you are a survivor, they don't want to pay for it. It happened again when my husband went in for a routine colonoscopy. Our insurance covers it at age 50. However, during the screening some polyps were found and removed so the coding went in as a diagnostic colonoscopy, no longer "routine" since polyps were found. They were benign, thankfully, but COME ON! So if you have the test and they don't FIND anything then okay, they will pay for the test. But if something is FOUND, forget it.....Can you imagine????? I battled and won that one, thankfully. Yes I am 100% behind health care insurance reform and I believe the public option is the right way to go. I wish there was a public option for auto insurance.
I think Glenn Beck is nuts. He is a showman. But a dangerous one. I get why my conservative female friends like him. He is like a pillsbury dough boy, that wears his emotions (when convenient) on his sleeve. But he is nuts. He is dangerous. He is the worst of snake oil salesmen of our generation. He and Rush Limbaugh are 90% responsible for the incredible divide in our country. They will not be satisfied until President Obama is out of office, and it is filled again with a puppet of the extreme right wing of the Republican party.
Okay, I feel better now - LOL!!

Where do their mates go?????

I've been going through my kitchen cabinets, cleaning clearing and reorganizing. I pulled all my plasticware out of that cupboard and all the lids that live in a drawer out, and matched them up.
Now, you'd think there would be missing lids, right? NO! The photo is the array of leftover lids!
I have Krista checking her collection to see if she can match any of these up.
Life has been pretty good here at home. I'm still meeting with my therapist now every other week, and she has been a great listening ear. I think I'm on the "brink" of making a career decision, still doing a bit of research online, and soul wise with a goal of November 1st to decide.
I've done a bit of sewing. It's a little more cleared out in there. So hopefully I'll be making some progress on getting some more things done! I truly have about 10 tops all ready to go to Carol, awaiting the cutting of batting and backing. And budget!! LOL! I'll admit to a new online game obsession, via Facebook. I've been farming there since June and have pretty much run through those games, but now I am into Cafe World....loving it!!!
And love, love, love my DVR. So nice to record those shows I don't want to miss, and then watch them when I want, zipping through commercials!! Plus I have some GREAT old movies recorded that can be watched on a quiet rainy day.....
Back to the kitchen, one more cupboard to do today.

Jeff's Birthday

October 10, 1978......Jeff's birthday. He was due on the 4th, so like his older brother he decided to prolong the pregnancy as long as he could. He was my smallest birth weight baby at 8 pounds 15 ounces and a pretty easy delivery. His head came out, his shoulders came out his arms came out and before the rest of him delivered he had his pointer finger in his mouth. This was before the days of routine ultrasounds, so I'm sure he was sucking that finger long before he was born.
I think this is the only photo I have of him as a toddler sucking that finger, which probably makes him happy, I don't have more!
He was such a contented baby. Amazing blue eyes which he inherited from his paternal grandfather. Of my three boys, when they were little, Jeff was always the "sweet" boy, and the one my friends wanted to take home with them.
He worked really hard in school and was devastated when we moved just before his sophomore year. He did that year at the "new" school and then convinced us he would be happier at the school the rest of his junior high friends had gone to, so we let him transfer. He admitted years later that it was probably not his best decision.
He decided a year after high school that he wanted to be an Army Ranger. Not just in the Army, but a Ranger. This is a photo of the day he left for boot camp in Georgia.

My family was not a big military family so this was really, really hard for me. Lynn and I did go to his graduation, and he did indeed make it into the Rangers and was assigned to Fort Lewis in Tacoma, so that was nice.
He got out of the Army 2 years later and I was so glad. Two months later he let me know that I was going to be a Geema....shock and awe....
He is a great Dad to two beautiful children. He has a heart of gold. And still the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen.
Happy Birthday Jeffrey Poodles, You're So Cutells', How's Your Noodles......

Jeffu

Life Lessons

Dear Geema, (that's me...)
I love you more then flowers
I love you more than drawing
I love you more than reading
What would I do without you?
But best of all your here for
me, I love you!!!!!

This was my note from Jillian today. She will be 8 in November. Totally unprompted. She asked brother Ethan what he wanted to write and his side (in her hand) says I love you Geema!!!

For the days I wonder what am I doing.....why am I the one taking care of these kiddos instead of a daycare.....I could be doing so many other other things with my time....
I will take this love note out and read it again, and again and again and know that I matter because "your here"....