Heading home

In the morning, Granma and I are heading home. It's a few days later than we expected, but my mom ended up in the hospital on Saturday afternoon and underwent surgery Sunday morning and Monday afternoon. Since we were supposed to leave on Tuesday, we just postponed a few days. Mom was home from the hospital on Tuesday evening and has been resting comfortably while bossing me around asking me for help. I'm glad that I was able to stay on and make sure that she is doing well. And now that she is feeling better, Mom can worry about us driving home through the weather that has been popping up through the Midwest.

In any event, I was able to make a couple of shopping trips before the hospital trips took over and I have replenished my stash of Crocs! I will be set for the next year!



But, I have not gotten my fill of this. I am going to miss all the white and black pups and I think that they are going to miss me, Granma and the strange red pups as well.



And with that, I am off to bed... sniff, sniff!

Oh, Happy Day!

I got a box today with my Christmas and birthday presents from my parents!!

What loot I got!!!

The 2 pairs of the outside are slippers with hard soles. These will be great for walking the dogs during colder weather. They are both comfortable!!

And the middle pair is CROCS!!! They are deck shoes! Very neat! My favorite!



Mom got this book for me. It's Tammy Tadd's book and there are more than 16 projects in it. It is also the book that has a spiral spine and that stands up on it's side. After a quick glance at the projects, there are a few quilts that I would like to do!



And these are potholders for Christmas and Halloween. They are very cool! The piecing is so precise! There is also an Olive Garden gift card. Woo hoo!!! (Barb, are you ready to go for food? lol HOLLLLAAAAA!!)



Maxie says...

"Do they make these in extra, extra, extra narrow?"

Exciting Day

Today, I worked at the shop. We were pretty busy for most of the day, but at one point when there was no one in the shop, Linda and I threw up my Jitterbug blocks.



I can't wait to start sewing them into rows!

We also got some very, very cute fabric in from Robert Kaufman!!



Those strips will make awesome bindings!



And it has turtles!

We got a new outlet store right down the street from my house. A little birdie (Cathy) told me this morning at IHOP that this place had $10 Crocs. I just had to check it out on my way home. I hit pay dirt!



And then, when I got home, my Amazon.com order was waiting for me! Two new quilt books! I am very excited about the Judy Martin book. Even more so after seeing the patterns in the book! It's awesome!



So far, it has been a very eventful day! :)

Happy Feet!!

I got a box today! A delivery from Crocs! I know that a lot of people think that these shoes look dorky, but I love 'em!

Now, I usually wear my shoes for quite a while, but I think that this was a little ridiculous!



New shoe on left, old shoe on right. They are the same size, but I had left the old pair in my car and they got warped and really tight. Note to self - DON'T leave Crocs in the car in the summer!



Old show on left, new on the right. Almost all of the treads on the old pair are gone!



Really, does anything need to be said about this picture? It's no wonder that my back hurts after wearing these for 7 hours a day!

I also got some flip flops.



I have no idea why I waited so long!! The new pairs feel FANTASTIC!!!

Excuse me while I go and wear my new shoes for a while! :)

Sunday's Events - Part 1

Sunday, I got up and the ninjas and I went downstairs to go outside. Max wiggled with delight when he found Mike sleeping on the floor with in face licking range! Turns out that Holly had an accident in the middle of the night and they had to migrate to the family room. I took all the dogs out and then Mike got ready to go and play golf. Jen and I bummed around a bit reading emails and blogs and sewing a little. I spent a bit of time ironing my millions of half square triangles for my Thangles Milky Way quilt.

We started to get a little famished and decided that we needed grub so we called Cindy to see where she was and then finished getting ready while we waited on her to show up. When she got there, we decided to try going to IHOP again and if they were too busy, we would hit the Great Wraps. After we ate, we ran back to the Lang store so that I could get some fuzzy shoes.

While we were in Lang, I was too lazy in a hurry to get the shoes and didn’t remove one shoe from the plastic piece that holds them together. After I almost fell and Jen and Cindy composed themselves, we decided that we should take some videos for prosperity.

Here's Jen:



Here's me on the left and Cindy on the right:



These are the pair that I ended up getting with some Muppets jibbitz.



Once we were done causing a disturbance at Lang’s, we headed to the Bits ‘N Pieces store in Jen’s area. On our way, Jen installed the jibbitz on Cindy’s and my shoes so that we could wear them and show the off.



We met up with Sherry who was going to run around and then sew with us at Jen’s. BNP was cozy, but they didn’t really have anything that we didn’t see at other shops. No one in our group ended up buying anything.

When we left there, we headed back to Patched Works. I think that I forgot to get a picture of the store’s front so you will have to take my word for it that it is a large building! And it’s all quilting! Jen directed me to find fabric for a Stitch’n Chix bag so that she could make it for me. I really wanted to get some Califon fabric to make a Courier bag out of, but all they had was the black and white. I am going to wait and get that from my quilt shop. This is what I ended up getting – sock monkey fabric for pants and batiks for the bag.



The Turtle enjoyed the notions here.



While we were looking at notions, the Jens (oh yeah, we saw Jen V at the shop while we were there) pointed out a couple of thread guides. I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to try them out.



When we were done at Patched Works, we headed back to Jen’s for some sewing!

J3’s Excellent Quilt Adventure – Stops 6 - 10

After we stopped for a very filling lunch, we headed to JJ Stitches. There is no picture of the front of the store because we didn’t want to cross the street to get a full view. And we couldn’t stand in the middle of the street due to the traffic. I have to say that I loved this store. They specialize in reproduction fabric and I am a sucker for it! And it looked like they had the full lines of most of what they had. The only issue was that they rip the fabric and don’t give the extra few inches to make up for it. I will have to mark my purchases and watch what I use them for. The other thing that I really liked was the simple quilting that they had on their quilts. It was mostly a crosshatch that followed the seams in the blocks and it was just stunning!



The turtle wanted some cake since it was National Cupcake Day. Then, they pointed this out to me and asked for a picture with it.

Naughty Turtle!! hee hee

Here is what I bought:



We also went into a small store that was next to JJ’s. It had some yarn, cross stitch and quilting fabric and patterns, but the store wasn’t much to speak of. Plus, there was a creepy guy that was following us around. We got out of there fast! No time even for turtle pictures.

Before I even left town, I had remembered that Jen had been to a Crocs store and I said that since we were driving to Madison, we should stop at the Crocs store on our way back. So we stopped in Jackson Hole (aka Johnson Creek) at the Crocs store.

**As a small side note, while we were driving to the Crocs store, Mike, Jen's hubby, called and asked if he should let my dogs out. I said that he could and to just put them back in their cage if he didn't want to deal with them before we got back. They hung up and after about 10 minutes, I said, "I guess that he didn't have any problems with the little dogs." Just then, Jen's phone rang. My heart stopped! He let us know that he let the dogs out and Maisy got loose and then Max got loose, but he got them back in the house and they were back in the cage. He was not thrilled!**



The Crocs store didn’t have anything that we wanted and nothing that Cathy requested so we didn’t stay long. (Sorry, Cathy!) We had other shops to hit! We did stop for a potty break next to the Crocs store. We walked in and there was a little girl playing with the hand dryer. The dryer was loud and the girl seemed to be standing under the dryer. The Jens and I went into our stalls and commented on the noise of the dryer. Jen finished washing her hands before I did and got to use the dryer first. We then understood why the little girl was playing around. Not only was the dryer loud, but the air was a force not to be reckoned with. It was a bit of an effort to keep your hand in the air stream and when you held your hand steady, it blew all the extra skin around. Awesome! And we forgot to get video of it. It wasn’t until we were halfway to the car that I thought of blowing the air in our faces so that our lips and cheeks would flap around. Jen V wouldn’t let us go back. *Sigh*

Our next stop was Ben Franklin’s. Growing up, we had Ben Franklin’s around here, but they weren’t the greatest stores. I can’t remember when the last one even closed because it’s been so long. On the way to Ben’s, we broke a rule and had cupcakes in Mike’s beloved truck. I mean, it was National Cupcake Day. We really couldn’t not celebrate National Cupcake Day. It would have been close to blasphemy! Of course, Jen didn’t eat her cupcake since she was driving, but Jen V and I certainly enjoyed ours. *giggle*

When we got to BF’s, Jen parked at the back of the lot next to a truck with a dog in the cab of it. I was having another giggle fest over ‘Waun-A-Bowl’ again (really, that got a lot of laughs from me the whole weekend!) and was having a hard time communicating with the Jens. Then, Jen V slipped when she got out of the truck. She was OK, but it didn’t help me at all. When Jen asked from the driver’s side of the truck if Jen V was OK, I turned to her and found the dog in the next truck barking hysterically at Jen and then he threw himself at the door next to Jen. Again, it wasn’t a good combination for me and by the time we got into BF’s, tears were streaming down my face and I was almost hysterical with laughter. It’s a wonder that the Jen’s didn’t take turns smacking me to help me get myself under control.

The BF's had some great quality fabric! Moda Marbles on sale for $5.97 a yard! Unfortunately, I didn't see anything worth buying. But we did manage to sneak a picture of the turtle with some fabric.



There was also some issues with the BF's workers and whether cutting fabric was something that a person who is working in customer service should do it. I was ready to compliment the girl who helped us, but the Jens didn't want to wait for a manager. They were eager to eat in the truck get on the road!

Once we were in the car, Jen called her quilt shop, Patched Works, to let them know that we were on our way since it was close to closing time. By the time we got there, they had already closed the register so we chatted a little and made plans to go back on Sunday. We left Patched Works, dropped Jen V off at her house and then headed back to Jen's place to save the dogs and sew.