You Gotta See This, But Can't

You know the moment, when you say: Oh, I have to take a picture of this!?

Well, what if you can't? Take the photo?
Like when you've been traveling for four hours on a journey that was scheduled for one hour in a foreign land, in the remote countryside at dusk, and you're hungry, tired and lost because the GPS directed you to go the way the crow flies and not the way the smart one drives?

Picture that.
Throw in a grouchy husband whose back has gone out while schlepping boxes of magazines and manning a booth for four days amid 40,000 quilters. Throw it in for good measure or simply for my reality.

As we drove, I shriek, "Oh! I have to get a picture of that!"

All it took was one look. The camera was packed in the back of the jeep. There was no way in this lifetime, that this tired, hungry, broken lost man was going to pull over and dig out a camera for a mere laugh.

One look. Some marriages take decades for telepathy. Not ours.


The nonexistent picture? In North Wales, in the middle of don't-ask-us-where is a house on a roundabout. Seriously, a house on a roundabout in thoroughfare traffic, a real roundabout with four exits. Five if you count the driveway leading to the house.
The family in the house refused to move.
So said the locals, when we finally stopped to ask for directions.

The Car

"Hey, Babydoll, take a few pictures of the car for the blog."









That's what you get when you ask a 7yo to photograph the new car.

lol

Summer's in Swing

Cutiepie on the beach in Cork. Summer fun.
And Babydoll below. Did you know she is Hannah Montana's twin? So she thinks.

I actually managed to get out some quilts out this summer for friends' babies. In my frenzie, I never took photos. Frenzie? ah! these quilts --baby size, I admit--took two years. More like, in my comatosed handling of finishing the quilts.

Lucky for me, my friends take pictures. Besides it's always nicer to see baby quilts WITH the babies!

This one quilt lives in San Francisco. Where my heart is, btw.

And in Florida, this is Natalie with her doll quilt (above).

The idea of doll quilts delayed the first gift for Katherine, her sister here (above) clearly enjoying her quilt! Score!

The final one is baby Ryan, he's also in San Francisco. Home of four Hughes boys and four baby quilts from Ireland!
His oldest brother Harry received my first quilt ever, ever nearly six years ago. Polyester loft wadding and quilt tied. I promised his mommy a new one to better match the other boys' quilts. The last two, incidently, I did two versions of Bento Box patterning, and it was completely by accident!

I'm so glad they enjoy them. Katherine and Natalie's mommy, my good friend Erin was so kind with her compliments as she shared on her blog.

Sniff! Sniff! Makes me homesick for my friends.

Also makes me wish I could go sit and sew and get further on my baby list of quilts!! Today I'm still working --we have a print deadline to make!--but tomorrow, I'm all stitches!

I hope your summer is going great!

xo
<>

Miley, What have you done with my daughter?

Doting mommy: "Babydoll, I'd like you to brush your teeth now."
Babydoll: "Good luck with that."

Stitching after Gardening? Not So Much

The weather here in Ireland has been incredible. It's pretty hard to stay indoors --even though I'd be perfectly fine crouched in my sewing corner.

And yet, there is a very large flower bed just out my window that has become a weed and grass haven. It's been sending SOSs to me all spring. So this week, for one hour an evening I've been breaking my back pulling weed and wrestling free the occasional plant uncovered.

I'm making good progress and hope to have the full bed cleared this week. Once I accomplish that goal, I'll share before and after photos. I'm smart like that--not gonna set myself up for a before shot without knowing the after is a reality!

Today I went crazy and made it halfway across the bed, which is at least 18 feet long in total. Now, I'm very motivated to get it finished. Even DH appreciated the progress, he managed dinner for all so I could keep gardening.

Now this evening I'm comfy on the couch ready to do some hand stitching. Wah! Wah! Oh, my aching hands. Is this old age? I've never had a green thumb, and though I admire the results, this dirty weeding biz is not my cup of tea.

Oh, I plow onward. (no pun intended)

Here I share some machine work I did earlier. Both my nieces are celebrating. One is graduating from high school and one is entering beauty school. These are my celebration post (quiltart) cards for them.



Can you guess which is for whom?

Bless You

Bless those who still believe in me. From my comments on my last post, I see there is life after blogger abductions.

Abductions sound alarming, almost criminal. Again, it's that life keeps getting in the way. I've complained before, I know. My thoughts go dark for a minute, but it doesn't take long to remember, oh, you don't have it that bad. Wimp.

Berrynice the AuPair has gone home for a visit so I've been winging it for the week. Hoping to high goodness I'm not graded or sanctioned for my abilities, or rather, inabilities in her absense. If you want to know how much someone makes a difference in your life, send them away for a week. Me? I knew in the first 24 hours.

Unfortunately, so did Cutiepie.

"Mom, Berrynice does this." "Berrynice does it this way." "But MOM, Berrynice does it like this."

BTW, this was a photo taken before Berrynice ran away left, so catastrophes like leapard print and hot pink does still happen.

I think she finally flipped her 5yo lid on the third morning when, yet again, I asked who wears their gym clothes that day and who does not.

"MOM! We get dressed EVERY single day for EVERY week; don'tcha know by now?"

I would have skyped Berrynice right there and then if I had a minute to spare. At this point I was negative 4 minutes.

And four minutes--well, that's enough to miss the school bus. Since the car is in repair and our family of four is left with a jeep for two, missing the school bus is not an option.

It is funny how in moments of disarray and panic, in a frantic powerstruggle a parent can easily set themselves up.

(DH--bless him too. I must say he makes a better second for Berrynice than I do.) He walks the girls to the bus. ('Cause you sure the heck know I ain't dressed yet.) Today, he had a near miss in saying, "Hurry up or you'll miss the bus. And we have no way of getting you to school!"

Yeah, he might as well have announced there's no school and you can have ice cream for breakfast! Trust me, those girls know when to put on the brakes for the ice cream man!

Luckily I thought quick enough to start crazy screaming over him about some nonsense of homework, shoes and whether Babydoll has knickers on. Thank gawd no one heard his threats.

And me, well at least my crazy-scream nonsense fooled them into thinking I had it all under control.

If only I knew who has gym on Thursdays.

We're Alive, Here's Proof