It's not raining right now .... hope I didn't jinx it!

It's not raining right now ... hope I didn't jinx it! And that makes it a little easier - at least we can take a walk outside.  We've yet to come across anybody else out there.  DH just came back from a walk and brought me this picture just in time to share it with you!! Thanks Honey!

A friend emailed me that she had given up on a book and moved on to the next. I do the same thing, now ... it's amazing to me.  I almost always finished a book I'd started, even if it was like pulling teeth! (antique analogy!)  But once I retired ... I just quit if the book's not talking to me!!  I've quit on the 3rd page; and I've quit on the next to last chapter!!!  AND I don't miss it!!

Yesterday a British spokesman said, "You're not self quarantining to avoid getting the virus, you're staying home so you don't give it to someone else."  Feels less selfish!

There's no sports on and that's a problem for our household!!We started binge re-watching HBO's The Sopranos.  Tony's mother is such a hoot!  I won't say who she reminds me of ... but we laugh and laugh at her antics!

I've been reading an international book on Hoopla - can't recommend it but it was the last book I needed to finish the whole bingo card-adult reading challenge-from the library. 

The Great Chetco New Year's Resolution Reading Challenge - bingo card

Books published before 1990  Summer of t Dragon  Elizabeth Peters

Author name starts with P  A Small Town  Thomas Perry (love his Jane Whitefield series - a one woman Native American Witness protection program)

Romance Theme  Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn

Female Protagonist  Synapse by Steven James

Country you'd like to visit  The Dry by Jane Harper

Book from New Shelf  Beginner's Guide to Japan  by Pico Iyer

Librarian Recommended  Quiche of Death by  M C Beaton 

Asian Author  Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

1950 -70 timeline  Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher

Book Published  in 2019  Neon Prey by John Sandford

Never Read Author  Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

Biography  Educated by Tara Westover

Friend recommended  Where t Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Reread a book  A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow

Mystery novel  I found you by Lisa Jewell

Translated book  T Adventures of China Iron by G C Camara

Hugo Award Winner  Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Romance Theme  Virgin River by Robyn Carr (watched the Netflix series too!)

NYT Best Seller  The Institute by Stephen King

Young Adult  T Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (saw new movie too!)

Male Protagonist  Bloody Genius by John Sandford (love Virgil Flowers!)

Author died in my lifetime  And then there was none by Agatha Christie

Graphic Novel  Black Canary: Ignite by Meg Cabot? 

Novel in Oregon  Dies A Fire S M Stirling

-BINGO!-

You can call in check out requests to our library, they are open afternoons, and they will bring out the books to your car!!  What series would you like to reread, start at the beginning and read all the way thru?

I'd pick

John Sandford series - Prey, Virgil Flowers ...

S M Stirling?  Dies the Fire  SciFi series, end of the world based in Oregon

Janet Evanovich might be uplifting!!  One for the Money - I think she's on 26(?) now
Sue Grafton  A is for Alibi with Kinsey

I've always been a voracious reader! What were your favorite authors?

Clear Back in the 70s !!  I loved 

Mary Stewart, This Rough Magic  (international romance mystery)

Elizabeth Peters (Amelia Peabody -female archaeologist in Egypt)

Dorothy Gilman  (Mrs Polilfax - sr citizen occasional CIA agent)

Stephen King - but he might be too prophetic for now!

Come to think of it - all those but Stephen King are my self-named "Adult Nancy Drew" series.  I love a Feisty Gal in charge mystery, doesn't everyone??

Well, the sun is still out - at least peeking from behind some clouds.  Going for a walk!!  Stay safe!

Entertaining ourselves during self quarantine days

Let me just say, I am not pleased to be in the targeted group!  Until now I had convinced myself that 67 was not old!

Here are my plans to entertain myself while at home:

Books - hardback, paperback, Kindle, ebook, hoopla (online library sponsored by local library) and deciphering my own handwriting from Japan trip!  What have you read lately?  I LOVED The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. I reread Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  I needed a Hugo Science Fiction Award winner for the adult reading challenge at our library.  My Bingo card is almost filled!

My DH is a sports fanatic.  I've watched alot of sports over the years.  I especially love the Super Bowl Commercials.  I remember a Foot Locker commercial, way back when, picture = the player comes into null gravity, shoes first.  The tag line was something like, "No matter what the game, we've got the shoes!"  It was like finding a secret message into my non-sports world!

Of course, Quilting - you knew that was coming, right!
I have 3 patriotic fish to finish for the Habitat auction/show locally.
I have a spring wall hanging challenge to finish before end of the month guild meeting. (if we're allowed to have it!)
A Quilt of Valor quilt to label and bind.
A hand quilting project that has been in time-out for far too long - now if I can only find the quilting thread I was using.  It's somewhere safe!!!  Help!

And of course, my sewing room is a disaster - home from Finishing School and planning to go to two more retreats, but I'm going to miss at least one of them.  Might as well unpack and reorganize!!

I had a hard time with jet lag after coming home from Japan.  We did everything right and yet, my nights and days were mixed up.  Walked around in a fog for a week.  Then life got busy again.  More about that later - I'll have some time on my hands this week! As will you!!!!

Here's a few favorite pictures from Japan.  I immediately learned how to bow there - I think that's going to come in handy now.

Brick work in a courtyard/alley

Kyoto Station - a nightly light show on a flight of stairs.  You can see a jogger heading up the stairs on the right. Live person - he looked pixelated running up the stairs!  Too cool!

We visited many shrines and temples

Bamboo scaffolding on a temple under repair 

McDonalds!!  They have Chocolate torts in Japan!!!

We’re on a great adventure!

Tokyo by day and night!  View from our room 

The International Quilt show starts in two days - we’re gearing up for it!!

The Ocean is wild this week

High rolling tides - fun to watch - from a window with a hot chocolate!!

We had our first ModSquad meeting of 2020.  We've moved to a new meeting room at the Manley Art Center.  It's going to be great!!  Lots of work space, good lighting, even a bulletin board to pin the projects on!!  Our first challenge for the year was:  VisionBoard.  We got the assignment in November but the majority of the class started working on it after the New Years!  Of course, we were thinking it out during the holidays, but the actual sewing comes later.

I read a lot of 2020 chit-chat on the web.  Glasses came up often with the 2020 vision (perfect eyesight)  BUT I was the only one that had glasses on her challenge piece!!

Next challenge is "Love is in the air" and that was decided before we realized that we would be meeting on Valentine's Day!  Meant to be!!

What a great selection!!

I tried to make a "Candyland-type" game board.  A twisty path thru the year.  The fabric pieces were meaningful steps in 2020.  

Snowflakes - Portland at Christmas

Blue puddles - rainy season

Black is a Japanese fabric. (see below!)  

Hearts - Valentines Day and spending time with loved ones 

Sewing machines

Whales

Peas in a pod - healthier eating

Heart in hands - friendships

Scissors

Pennants - celebrations

The earth - Earth Day and/or will we still be holding together??

Sunny days of summer - Camp Nana/Papa

Patriotic fabric for QOV, Memorial Day, Veterans Day

2 spools of threads - it's always sew, sew, sew before Christmas! 

Sailboats, hoping for smooth sailing!!

And just a sliver of Christmas fabric at the far end of 2020! (Most of it got trimmed off.)

The background is a favorite Sweet Water fabric with event announcements.  And the glasses are combo of 2020 vision (cataract surgery could be this year!) and 'My future's so bright I have to wear shades!'  Raise your hand if you're old enough to remember that song title!!

I've been busy straightening up and packing!  I'm off on Tuesday for a Craft-Tour trip to Japan.  I've never crossed the dateline before.  We'll end up 18 hours ahead of home. So-o will my email that I'm boarding come before or after my email that we've landed???  Time continuum questions!!

We'll be doing some tours, some workshops, visiting temples, a kimono museum, a ride on the bullet train! and TWO days at the Tokyo International Quilt Show!!!  Woot! Woot!!

We'll be in a kaleidoscope class - the spy glass type, not the quilt pattern.  We'll even learn out to make fake food models(?) like the ones outside restaurants internationally!

I've been practicing eating with chopsticks!  It's been interesting, I may come back thinner!!  Will a fork be contraband going thru security????

So excited!!  I'm sure we'll bring back lots of pictures and loads of stories - stay tuned!!

Happy New Year!! It always starts with infinite possibilities ...

We have had a wild ocean this week.  Haven't even been brave enough to walk down to it!  Let alone walk along it.  The waves have been hitting our sea-stacks and roaring up double the stacks size!  Exciting to watch ... from the safety of our condo!  Thank goodness for free images online!!

I love Christmas and decorating.  Not so much the putting away of said decorations!  It just doesn't look right AFTER Christmas!  I used to blame it on presents under the tree.  When they are gone it looks empty.  Well, no room for a tree in this condo.  And it still looks empty after the 25th.  I started when we got back from Portland.  The sun was shining, the porch was dry!  I have to haul in tubs from the porch storage closet.  And every year I think I got everything!

Days later I'll be in a room and suddenly see some Christmas schmutz that I didn't see before!!  This year was no different!  How did I clear the bookcase except for the bottom shelf??  And forgetting one of my favorite wall quilts hanging in the bathroom.  The stack of Christmas CDs in the sewing room, the two wall quilts hanging on the design wall ... the Santa hat on a beach chair door mat ...

 

OK the door mat has to stay until I find our usual one!!  Santa always recoups on the beach after Christmas Eve ... Right???

After Christmas we celebrated our 47th Anniversary!!  Seems impossible!  We celebrated with an Italian dinner down in The Pearl.  R picked the restaurant because it was across the street from our hotel.  It gets cold after dark!!

One of the best meals we've had!!  Top 10 and there is a lot of competition!  47 years worth!  Trattoria Gallo Nero  I had the Beef Filetto on roasted potatoes, R had pasta with Prosciutto.  We shared both and each were a winner.

Now you know me and chocolate!  We had the flourless chocolate cake for dessert and it was so dry.  I drank 3 glasses of water after!!  

Oh well, we had awesome chocolate Lava Cake here in Brookings at O'halleran's here in Brookings the other night.  Yes, we celebrate twice!!

Now to get back to regular life!!  #toomanycookies

Time to Recap 2019!!

You sure didn't get "the rest of the story" on the blog this year!!!  Sorry about that.  I've been playing Wheel of Fortune - too much - and apparently boycotting the rest of the web!

P and I watched a new series on HBO (via BBC One)  Years and Years!  OMGoodness - it was so good.  Slightly in the future with the same political and earth problems.  It was fascinating and slightly scary!!!  One line got my attention.  Paraphrasing here:  "Remember when the political news was boring??  We used to go to the kitchen and get a snack!!!  Art imitates life!!!!

I taught Hand Embroidery last spring and I loved it!  The samplers turned out modern - just as I wanted them to!  Lots of personality in them.  I thought I would teach it again this fall, bought supplies and everything!!  But By My Hand tightened up their store space and there's no longer a classroom.  Sigh!  Oh well, who knows where I would have found the time!

I feel that I was a slacker this year in the sewing room!  The last of the dog-damaged quilts from Portland were made whole again.  And that sucked up alot of the energy in the room.  I am not mentally equipped to repair badly damaged quilts!!  And the dog-lovers have been warned!  Yes, I still love them, even the 4-footed ones!

My 2019 QOV program was ambitious!  We all worked on Sawtooth Stars and I ran an alternate block raffle each month - so making 17 alternate blocks or begging someone else to do it monthly!  We made more money than we thought we would and we did end up with plenty of quilts for the year.  And although I had my doubts about an 'inbred' selection of quilts ... that didn't happen!

Sometimes you couldn't even tell the same star blocks were in them!!  2020's monthly block is a string block aka StashLab's String star.  I'm loving it and the blocks have been coming in like clockwork.  At our December Open Sew weekend I put the first QOV top together - just to be sure it was working!!  And boy-oh-boy did it!!  Gorgeous!!

So my Finished list - 2019 included:

2 repaired quilts
6 wall or baby quilts
4 QOV quilts!!
5 pillowcases for GKids
10 Fabric Post cards for exchanges
1 Queen sized!!
10 ModSquad monthly projects

Not bad for an off-year!!

Just so you don't think I've slowed down too much ... I attended 6 Quilting retreats!!  Finishing School and Bayshore in Bandon;  Brookings Guild and 3 Amigos in Gold Beach; Sisters Week at Black Butte (2nd year!) and 3 Amigos Beach Bums in Crescent City over Labor Day Weekend!!!

P and I joined and worked on Jen Kingwell's BOM thru QuiltMania.  We were keeping up pretty well until they had the reveal ... and we didn't like it!  Darn!  We're going to change it up a bit - or get used to it!!  And oh, my! we bought a boat-load of her fabrics - probably enough to make 5 of the quilts!!!  Oops!

I read 45 books this year. (if I finish the one I'm reading!)  That number is probably a little soft - I have problems writing down the computer books I've finished!  Something about getting them ready to go back to the library helps me keep track!

Favorites:

The Day the World Came to Town  Jim Defede - The Broadway musical was based on this book.  I loved the characters, the story and how good you felt that even on 9-11 there were people in this world that did good deeds for strangers, against all the hate and fear that was blossoming.

Invisible by Andrew Grant  An Army Intelligence Agent goes undercover at the courthouse to solve a murder.

Relic by Alan Dean Foster  SciFi  The last human in the universe is telling our story

The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose  - Fascinating story of the famous performance artist Marina Abramović, who staged a show in NYC.  She sits quietly at a table and audience members can participate by joining her at the table - no talking, no touching.

The Book Artist by Mark Pryor  A spy novel with so many twists and turns you can't put it down!

Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen  SciFi  Set in San Francisco where a time-traveler gets stranded and has to live invisibly to save the future.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles  Our book club read this.  If I had known that Russian literature could be this charming - I would have read more a long time ago! :-)

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens  Another Book Club - fascinating to the last page!!

The Threadbare Heart by Jennie Nash  The description says '...23 tubs of fabric' and I knew that I'd like the main character already!!

We are experiencing a West Coast Winter Storm!  And I am up way too late!  So I may add photos to this later ... or not!  Here's to 2020 where we will do more of our favorite things and pass on the joy of living to everyone we see!!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays from the Boyds

Loads of fun and memories this year.  R and I went to Palm Springs to get out of the rain in January – but it followed us!  February, we loved the award-winning musical, ‘Come From Away’ on tour in Portland.  MARVELOUS!!  If you get the chance … GO!   Then, Yosemite in late spring.  (a picture is above!)  My first visit, and it was awesome!  Waterfalls were in full flow for the first time in years!  And, of course, golfing and quilting kept us busy the rest of the year!

A, J2, D, K and E left on a Great Adventure!  For the next two years J2 will be teaching at The International School in Central America!  We spent time over in Central Oregon, helping sort and pack the house and, of course, we held an extended Camp Nana/Papa before they left.  We ‘skype’ often and so far so good.  It IS hot there – (the boys are always just in underwear!) but doesn’t seem to slow them down!!

I was able to go back to Nebraska in July for my Great-Niece N and H’s wedding.  What a party!  It was great spending time with family.  However, this Oregonian is not up to Nebraska summers anymore!  Can you say "Boiling Hot!"??  It was so-o hot that even Native Nebraskans living there were spent!

M, our 11 yr old!, played on the traveling baseball team this year –we were able to meet up at some of his games.  A weekend at Newport, our first Oregon home!  P, our 13 yr old!, and I bonded over jewelry she was making and shopping the Port between games!  In October, we babysat for a week, while mom and dad got away for their 15^th wedding anniversary! 

Wishing you and yours the best in 2020