this one wraps up the first month of 2009.
This is one of my all time favorite songs, just makes me wanna dance with joy.
(even when I am away from home with no hope of returning for days)
Head over to visit Amy @ Signs, Miracles and Wonders for more great music.
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Regrets…
One.
We didn’t buy a generator after a hurricane hit Kentucky in September.
5 days with out power then.
7-10 this time.
biggest difference…in September it was in the 80’s.
now, mid 20’s.
(Hotels rule)
So I could post I made a HUGE milestone…below 180…
As of yesterday AM- I weighed 179.8!
I was so happy I knocked the power out-over 600,000 people in Kentucky are without electricty because I hit a small personal goal.
I am with out power. I don’t have internet.
At last check it was 47 in my house.
I am now at the Fairfield Inn, Downtown Louisville.
The dogs are in the kennel where they can be warm too.
Check out all the pictures of local damage (many from my own yard and house) HERE.
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This weekend I offered tobe a chaperone for a weekend church event for the youth. This was my first youth event as an adult.
I didn’t know what to expect.
I did know that I would spend all day today recovering and for the most part, stuck to that plan. However, God had other plans.
The kids got a snow day, I guess so they could recover too!
I am not going to get down and dirty with the details because:
But here are some things I can share:
If you ever get the chance to see tenth avenue north. Do It.
If Mad Dog and the Englishman come to an event or to your chuch, check those boys out! They are funny. (and one of the highlights for the 14 yr old boys)
And if you EVER are asked to go to a youth event where Reggie Dabbs is speaking. Move heaven and earth to get there. That man was the best thing that could have ever happened to some of the kids that attended this weekend. The way he brought the kids to God for healing.
Incredible.
I will tell you this. When he asked for assistance from all the Mama’s in the house- I was scared. I am not a fan of “helping” when I don’t know what I am signing up for, neither was another mom on the trip with us. But, we did. (OK, she required a bit of coaxing..but IF I AM out of my comfort zone, I am takin’ people down with me!)
The instructions were simple.
Then, he started calling out things that kids might be struggling with- addictions, sucicidal thoughts, divorce, eating disorders. There were hundreds of babies for us to hug.
Even the kids who were not touched directly by some of these issues were weeping and praying for their friends. Not a dry eye in the house.
Some of us mama’s were crying so hard-thinking “what if that were MY baby?” we made noise. Over the music the kids in the back row could hear us, they turned around. Yeah, we didn’t care.
Our hearts broke for those children.
And then…
I was glad, relieved that they were getting some relief from the pain.
I heard some people say they had been holding that all in for years.
Wow.
Yeah, Reggie was the messenger.
God was the message.
People were changed!
(I think I was one of them)
I am a parental chapperone for the church youth group this weekend.
I am not taking my computer.
I will be around twenty some odd 12-15 yr olds.
Pray for me.
Lots.
I will have a full update when I return!
The 14 yr old called me out into the front yard to see this, this morning.
God, I love that kid!
I have saved old t-shirts for my son for about 4 years. Everytime one got a stain or a goofy hole in it, they went into the quilt stack. I thought I needed either 36 or 42 t-shirts to make it a size he would enjoy (I was thinking by college for his dorm room bed) but, once he realized how snuggly it would be, he ramped up the process.
Starting this weekend, I had 37 shirts…the 14 yr old decided he wanted it to be 7 X 7 so he could hibernate in it (and he does) so, he had to come up with 12 more shirts. I sense some shopping in our future, the boy is going to be naked! There are only 2 of my shirts in this whole mix, that Kiss concert T (that he took over as soon as it didn’t look like a dress on him) and my tye dye (above the lion king). The rest of them are his, from his life.
I love this project, because it is not only a great conversation piece and memory preserver, it is also pretty green (and could be even MORE green with a minor modification).
SO, here is what you need for this project:
I cut out all the shirts and the fleece before I started, so I could lay out the rows and plan what shirts would go where, I didn’t want to many black shirts or soccer shirts bunched together on one side.
Once I had those stacks planned, I was ready to sew.
Be sure to line the peices up as close to perfectly as you can, the materials tend to shift a bit while sewing and that makes a difference when you get to sewing the rows together! (You may want to start pinning now, but I didn’t use pins until I got to the row sewing).
If you want all the images and logo’s facing the same way, that takes some planning (back to back and upside down):
Once I had 7 shirts sewn together, I was done with a row and moved on to the next one.
It helps to sew these all in one sitting, if you can, because you get a grove going and don’t forget your “plan” (yes, I had to rip seams on more than on shirts because I stopped and came back and got one upside down AND backward!)
After you have all of your rows sewn, you are ready to sew them together, and this is where I started pinning and if you can sew on a large table to support the weight, you might want to do that as well. The pull from the weight of the shirts got to be a lot to handle.
My son has issues with texture so I put all the seams on the front the back would be smooth with worn shirts, you can reverse the process, but I really ended up liking the look of the frayed edges on the front.
I also planned on finishing the quilt with some knit edgeing, because I just don’t think that blanket sateen edging would work for this…but, I can’t get my son out of it long enough to finish it!
I have more pictures on flickr to show the process if you are interested, you can find them here!
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This song gets me every time.
I hope it gets you too!
Head over to visit Amy @ Signs, Miracles and Wonders for more great music.
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15 years ago this March.
March 12, 1993 my best hippie friend Karen and I had tickets to two Grateful Dead shows in Clevland Ohio, part of spring tour. We never got to go on spring tour because the shows were always so far away, but we got lucky this time.
I remember people talking about there may be snow, I wasn’t worried, I had just inherited my dad’s old Caddy from him and it was a beast, especially in the snow, it was able to make it through spots that police cruisers were immobile. At the time I was working in a restaurant and we decided we would leave after my shift and drive all night. (don’t you remember being young enough to be able to do that!)
After work, we headed to the grocery and picked up a bunch of snacks for the road and ran into a guy who played for a local “dead” cover band, he wanted to go with us, but needed to be back for his show on Sunday, but we were planning on staying for that show too. We also knew of at least 20 other people that would be up for the show and thought he could get a ride home no problem, so the three of us set out on our pilgramage-paying homage to (at the time) our gods, the grateful dead. We were young and idealistic. We had no worries beyond our rent and electric bills getting paid.
Free spirits and nomadic were we.
The snow started just north of Dayton, at first nothing big, small drizzly flakes. The closer we got to Medina, where we were spending the night, the bigger they got. There were times that I wanted to turn around, but I also really wanted the experience. We arrived to our hotel at 6 am, but the room wouldn’t be ready until 10…we had several hours of nothing to do. We were exhausted and slap happy. We sat in Bob Evans driving all the locals nuts until I secretly suspect the restaurant manager went and begged the hotel guy to let us have a room!
The snow continued to fall.
I continued to be optimistic, after all in snows in Cleveland like in July guys! They are NOT going to cancel the show.
But, cancel, they did.
Rumors were that was only the second show that The Dead ever canceled due to weather. I am not a stickler for stats, so I don’t know.
So, my friend, the band guy, just rode in a car for over 10 hours to sit in a hotel with kids half his age drinking near beer because that is all they sold at the store down the street.
At some point we drove to another hotel across town that had a bar and we all sat there for several hours.
There we met several friends and a guy I was living with at the time and I can’t even tell you why he didn’t ride with us-I said we were nomadic right.
Heck, I might not have even told him I was heading up.
As long as we had money for a hotel and food to eat, we didn’t care if we saw a show or not, half of adventure was the community that the Grateful Dead created.
March 14, 1993 the show went on and I do have to say that it was one of my personal favorites and, my last.
I am very glad that I was able to get away and take the time to go, spend that with my friends and have one last hurrah.
The next spring brought news of a baby, a marriage, a huge move across country and Mr. Garcia’s death.
Nothing in my world would ever be the same…
for a lot of that, I am thankful.
Who is watching the biggest loser?
Are you lovin’ it? Is there anyone that you just want to beat with a short stick?
Did you cry at how these people treat each other?
So far, I think this is my favorite season.
There is only one person I am not a fan of and if she keeps being the way she is being, she will be gone soon. And then her friend will take care of her. I told the spouselet, I think they will be finding parts of that woman all over the west coast if she doesn’t make the 30 days. I mean even her teammates are talkin’ about voting her off. That never happens.
Last night when the two girls went down to help Dan walk the rest of the way up the mountain. I cried.
When Dan and Jerry got the lowest number. I cried.
When they were talking about who to keep and who to send home. I cried.
They might be talkin’ about how to win the game and those parts are on the cutting room floor. They all(except for one) seem to know they need help and that they will do whatever it takes to get there.
I was just thinking…if I were on biggest loser, which person would I be most like?
I know I wouldn’t have the “give me more” attitude of Dan (God, I love that kid)- I would pray that I would be that way, but I don’t think that I am.
I am almost as equally sure that I would not be the slacker like Joella, but maybe that is why I don’t like her, I AM like that.
Tara is honestly the closest to my personality, that woman is competitive with a heart. I am competitive, and sometimes for get my heart.
Who do you identify with the most this season?
Who are you wanting to head home like yesterday?
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