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Wednesday, April 25, 2012

A Different Kind of Season

I'm talking about the TV seasons, even though the weather seasons are certainly different, also.  I have been following the Biggest Loser all season and it has been very unique this time.  They brought in couples as in the past but right off the bat they separated them, which upset some.  Then the second week, Kim got to project what her team would lose based on a challenge she won.  Everyone knows that losses plummet the second week but evidently she missed the memo, so her team lost.  I would have sent her home right then and there but she stayed and is now a finalist.  Through the weeks I've come to dislike Conda and Jeremy, a sister-brother team.  Conda was a real whiner from the start, Jeremy seemed to be there because of his sister, they formed an alliance that roared its ugly head numerous times, and neither were very nice to another team that re-entered the competition.  Their bond was a little strange I thought  -  just saying, not making any assumptions.  Anyway, last week was the mutiny where 2 of the guys decided to quit because they didn't like the fact that the eliminated contestants were given a second chance to get back into the show.  They signed the contract so they knew and I say good riddance.  Boo-Hoo!!!  Anyway Jeremy won back his place in the final three  -  I'm not excited about any of them but that's the way it goes.  Now for the real clincher  -  they come back next week for the finale and get weighed in.  Didn't they just all do that this week?  I always enjoyed watching the show after they had been home 2-3 months to see how far they had come.  This should be no surprise at all, except if they starve themselves which is a distinct possibility.  How else could they lose enough to make a real difference?  So because of all this I am very disappointed in the show.

Monday, April 23, 2012

A Tube of Biscuits

The simple things in life, right?  I have learned over almost 39 years of marriage that my best friend can be a tube of biscuits.  Oh, I can make them from scratch and have a very good recipe but what I've realized about myself is that I need a lot of positive feedback to keep making things from scratch.  I used to buy the 4 tubes to a pkg. back when they were a dollar and make regular biscuits, especially when I had hot dogs and beans, mini pizzas, sloppy joe mini sandwiches and an all time favorite, deep fried donut holes.  Of course that was before I sent my deep fryer to the Goodwill, an act I still feel slightly guilty about knowing how bad it is.  We've progressed to the Grands biscuits and made more things that are baked, but they still tend to be a staple of mine.  This week I made something that always strikes a positive note with my hubby  -  cinnamon rolls in muffin tins.  I've made real cinnamon rolls from scratch, too, and also the frozen ones and tube ones, but these still are great.  Sometimes I feel sad he can't appreciate the scratch recipes that I've made but then the simplicity of these win out every time.   

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Trying to Get Back in the Saddle

What I mean is that I'm trying to get back to writing this blog.  Sorry I've been preoccupied.  It's just that I've been busy doing things and haven't wanted to write about them, at least not yet.  One thing i did last week was work on the scrapbook for my daughter's wedding.  I can really get into this sort of thing and am consumed by it.  Things also tend to snowball with this.  I got the pictures copied, from me and the future mil, then set aside last week to do it.  I made a trip to Hobby Lobby (if I knew how to pin this place I would) and stocked up on paper, etc.  In the process I found family tree papers that I thought would be great in the book.  Then I had to look through stuff to find the info and eventually got a 14 day free trial on Ancestry.com.  Now you know where this is going  -  hours looking through census records, newspaper articles, the whole shebang.  Unfortunately, I didn't find much more than others had already found for me.  So I think I can safely end my subscription before my 14 days are up.  I still have some options that I will look into, such as talking to an aunt who's the only one left on my dad's side.  Other than that I'll take a couple more pictures at the upcoming shower and it'll be done. 
Now, this is what I didn't do last week  -  work on my BOM quilt.  This is the first time since I started that I haven't jumped right in to get all that done.  This is a tough one, too, along with being very frustrating for me.  There's 8 blocks but 4 parts to each block.  I have no problem getting each section done except for being totally bored with the same pattern over and over, but it's sewing the units together.  My teacher has pointed out how I'm not being as precise as I should be for the first part.  Then I go to put them together and I'm off, not a lot, but enough to notice.  My other concern is my use of prints and how those are not matching up like I would like them to.  With that comment I'm met with "You shouldn't have been using those anyway".  Dah, if I knew what it would look like I wouldn't have!!!  Anyway, I don't want to get started on that.  So I haven't done anymore blocks or cut out my fabric for next month, but I have looked a few things up online to see what my problem might be.  I've decided it's the paper that's making it hard for me to match things up and someone suggested using paper clips instead of pins.  I'll try that.  I really hate to be so negative this early in the game but I have lost all interest in doing this.  I refuse to beat myself up since I have so many other things to get done right now.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Quilting Update

Thought it was time to give a quilting update for anyone interested.  This week is my BOM class  -  it was moved up 2 weeks because of other things going on in the quilt shop later.  I was not entirely happy with my blocks from last month and hope I'm not totally humiliated in class this week.  This month's block might be even harder.  Anyway, I was off the quilting bandwagon for awhile and working on other things but now I'm back.  I started a new quilt and I'm excited to share.  Years and years ago, when I took a class with a neighbor, I learned how to do the cathedral window block.  I just loved the jewel-like pointed windows on that off-white background and when I retired I vowed to do one of my own.  This is usually a hand stitched quilt done in small pieces and then sewn together to make a quilt but with no batting.  Recently some creative people have developed a machine stitched version and that's what I'm doing.  My magazines only showed 2 versions, one in flannel and the other a table runner but both multi, and I emphasize the word multi, color and print.  Way too much for me because you can't even see the cathedral window itself.  So I scaled it down to 4 colors and made them bigger to make a throw.  Changing the size gets me every time because I always forget the seam allowances, somewhere, but as long as I have enough for a 12 " circle I'm good.  Last night I made the front of the block to get the dimensions of each piece and it looks nice.  I'll keep you posted on the progress and my class.  Wish me luck!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Still Looking

For the last couple of days, my hubby and I have been looking through the 1940 Census pages for our grandparents and others we know.  It's been fascinating to say the least, remembering names and places.  For me though success is not coming easy.  I have yet to find any names in my family but I'm still looking.  I think a phone call to an elderly aunt might be what's needed to verify the address.  It took my hubby a couple of attempts to locate his even though they lived right across the street.  Looking through this stuff can be very time consuming and confusing.  They have divided towns into ed's and the trick is to get the right one. Another thing that is hard is finding a house where there is no house number as in my case.  I don't recall us ever having one since we all had post office boxes.  I'm sure now they do because of delivery services.  Another thing I found interesting was where some people lived when they were getting started and then how they moved on up, so to speak.  There was an area called Crescentdale where I grew up that was kind of like the worst place to live.  Now I realize that back then it must have been nice, affordable housing, kind of like the projects, where people saved some money and then bought a house.  It's strange to see how so many people fit into one house when now we seem to need so much room.  If you get a chance to look, go to census.gov and look up some houses yourself.