Preparing for the colorless and cold

Ha! Who am I kidding? I'm not preparing for anything. Life is a blur of work and bad football. Quiet moments with the camera and the cat are rare.

I'm not ready for the colorless and the cold. I'm still busy lamenting the fact that I lost the best of the color and the heat, stuck in bed recovering from my surgery. On the other hand, I got a cold last week that didn't turn into a sinus infection...the surgery was so worth it. Life is such a balance. The colorless and the cold make the color and the heat that much sweeter.


Pistol thinks these concrete edgers are a cat sidewalk. He walks everywhere on them.

What I've been up to...

Sheesh, bad blogger! It's been a very busy month since I last posted. Here's some of what I've been doing the last six weeks:

Went to Seattle 3 times. (Pic is Lake Union from the rooftop terrace at Eastlake Grill)

Returned to Husky Stadium with my dad, a day I've been anticipating since he had double bypass surgery in January.



Finished up my contribution to 2 different swaps. This is a crummy picture of my page in a post-ArtFest fatbook. Colors are more vibrant in RL.


Reconnected with an old friend. OK, this is where I've spent most of my time. ;-)


Hung out with AshLee.
Dyed fabric twice.
Went to the lake.
Soaked up as much sun as possible.

Time really flies when you're having this much fun...

Big (shopping) weekend!

Here's a hint of where mom and I went this weekend:


Shipwreck Beads! They don't have a big sign, so the beaded sidewalk tells you you're in the right place. Here we are inside the store:


We look so happy! The store is bigger than it looks in this picture. It's bigger than I remembered. It's just really really big. And mom wants to say that they make really awesome BLT's.

Here we are at our second destination, Pacific Northwest Quiltfest


I was really pleased with the quality of the show this year. I only noticed a couple of traditional quilts that were made from well-known patterns and, of course, the workmanship on those ones was excellent. There was great variety in the art, pictorial and innovative quilts and more sophisticated use of all the cool techniques and embellishments than I've seen in the past. It seemed like design drove the use of techniques and embellishments more this year, rather than techniques and embellishments driving design.

The exhibit from South African quilters was definitely my favorite part of the show. This quilt, Blood and Fire by Jeanette Gilks really mesmerized me. I felt like it was worth the whole trip just to see this quilt in person.


Here's a closeup. Of course, pictures don't do justice to the incredible layers and details and symbolism of this quilt.


Oh yeah, and there were vendors. Do I really need to say more? ;-)

Here's last weekend's fun...

Now that I'm getting ready for this weekend's fun, I'm finally taking a minute to post a couple of pics of last weekend's fun. Two beautiful sunny colorful days of dying fabric with the Sew Uniquely You crew:


Here I am with my table buddies Pam and Becca. I think my favorite part was when they moved the table into the shade while I was busy doing something else. I turned around and my table had disappeared! LOL!


It was a great weekend: tons of fun and tons of beautiful new fabric to play with! (I'll post some fabric pics next week)

SHOCK-ing

Aren't my parents cute? Saturday night we went to the Spokane Shock (local arena football team) game. It was super-fun in a get-loud-and-silly kind of way.

In other news, my nose is healing really well, but I'm getting really tired of being really tired all the dang time. Apparently the whole anesthetic thing can really mess you up. :-P

Still fuzzy in the middle

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Here's a fun meme I've seen on a couple of blogs, most recently Leah's. I barely ever use flickr, so this was a fun exercise for me, but I don't know why all the photo credits show up as not available.

* Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr search.
* Using only the first page, choose an image.
* Copy and paste each of the URL’s into the mosaic maker over at FD's image maker.

The questions:
What is your first name?
What is your favorite food?
What high school did you attend?
What is your favorite color?
Who is your celebrity crush?
Favorite drink?
Dream vacation?
Favorite dessert?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
What do you love most in life?
One word to describe you.
Your Flickr name

So I had my surgery back on 7/2 and life has mostly been a blur since then. They actually removed a bone spur from inside my nose, so I had a tremendous amount of pain at first. After several days of nothing but eat, take pain meds, sleep, I had the splints removed and immediately got violently ill from the antibiotics I was taking. I'm finally feeling better, although still a bit shaky and rather fuzzy in the middle where my nose is supposed to be. Where my nose is actually, it's just that it doesn't feel nose-ish, it feels fuzzy. But the good news is no pain meds at all for the past several days. No pressure causing the vague headache between the eyes. Fingers crossed that this might just work!

It's a structural problem

So I've got a deviated septum and enlarged turbinates. English translation: I finally know why I have a sinus headache pretty much all of the time. And all of the allergy meds and antibiotics, etc. never do much good because there just isn't much space for air to go up my nose. I'm having surgery in a couple of weeks.

There's been a bit of craftiness going on here, but mostly I've been working and feeling crummy due to my structurally unsound nose. :-/

Boise for the weekend

Mom and I went to Boise for the weekend to watch AshLee compete in the Western Athletic Conference Track and Field Championships. The lovely AshLee, pictured here in blue, ran a personal best in the 400 and helped earn points for her team in the 4x100 and 4x400 relays. The fine young women from Idaho took 2nd place overall!

When we weren't at the track meet, we managed to stay busy shopping. And then we went shopping. We finished things off with more shopping. My excellent friend Sarah introduced us to the wonders of anthropologie, Urban Outfitters and Sephora, all of which are sadly lacking in Spokane. Upon further reflection, I think it's best that there is no anthropologie in this area. If there were I might pack up my little cat and move in there (yes, I know they have a website, but it's not the same). Oh yeah, and then there was the shoe section at Dillards. Oh my goodness.

So now, having fully indulged in a weekend of fun out in the world, I'm ready for a nice quiet weekend at home with my little cat. Kelly Rae Roberts posted on her blog the other day about how she's always been on the cusp of being an extrovert/introvert. And I thought "Yes, exactly!" I love hanging out with family and friends, but my only-child-self also craves time at home alone. I adore puttering around the house, staying in my pjs all day, baking or sewing or reading or napping, just me and Pistol. With that in mind here's my to-do list for this weekend:

Read blogs
Read books
Make stuff
Take naps
Take a walk
Theoretically, I suppose I might do some cleaning. Lord knows, the house could use it.

I think that should make for a very full weekend.