Saturday, June 30, 2007

Not looking good...

Alinghi 4. Team New Zealand 2. They only need one more win and the cup is theirs....

Marion, bleary eyed and disappointed. (I really thought our boys could do it this time !)

Friday, June 29, 2007

see what I mean

Sorry, oops. take me away for three weeks and all break loose.
oops
grace

the body is home

but I am not so sure whether my mind is yet.We are home about a week now and I still can not seem to get into the natural rhythm. Think I should go back out west and try this trip again. LOL
We had a fantastic time out there and I spend a wonderful afternoon with Jean. I am sure I have not talked as much ever. We seemed to not run out of subjects. Thank you Jean for a great time. We even were going to talk about the retreat for next year and we actually ran out of time. And BTW she looks marvelous with all the lbs she is losing.
Now if I can get my life organized maybe I can try out my sewing machine. It was in the sewing machine hospital for a rest while I was gone. but it is back now so I should really test it.
Haven't caught up with what you are all doing, so I will send hugs to all.
Get better wishes for those who are under the weather. Summer is here, on this continent at least, so whatever ails you should disappear hopefully. For those down under, enjoy the winter to the best of your abilities.
Grace in On

Alinghi 3 Team NZ. 2

"After a superb start from Team NZ. in testing conditions , the challengers struck disaster when their spinnaker burst early in the second leg, handing victory to Alinghi.." quote...

Dramatic viewing , the spinnaker burst like a balloon. NZ got into all sorts of trouble getting the new one up but, when they did get going again , they reduced Alinghi's lead by half. That is encouraging because it shows that Alinghi hasn't necessarily got the edge, spead wise.. First team to win five races gets the cup.... this could be a tiring w/end...

Marion.

The body is home

but I am not so sure whether my mind is yet. We are home about a week now and I still can not seem to get into the natural rhythum . Think I should go back out west and try this again. LOL.
We had a fantastic time out there and I spend a wonderful afternoon with Jean. I am sure I have not talked as much ever. We seemed not to run out of subjects. Thank you Jean for a great time. And BTW she looks marvelous with all that lbs that she is losing.We were going to talk about the retreat for next year and we actually ran out of time.
Now if I can get my life organized maybe I can get to try out my sewing machine. It was in the sewing machine hospital for a rest while I was gone, but it is back now so I really should test it.
Haven't caught up with what you are all doing , so I will send hugs to all.
Get better wishes for those who are under the weather. Summer is here, on this continent at least so whatever ails you should disappear , hopefully. For those down under, enjoy the winter to the best of your abilities.
Grace in Ont.

The body is home

but I am not so sure whether my mind is yet. We are home about a week now and I still can not seem to get into the natural rhythum . Think I should go back out west and try this again. LOL.
We had a fantastic time out there and I spend a wonderful afternoon with Jean. I am sure I have not talked as much ever. We seemed not to run out of subjects. Thank you Jean for a great time. And BTW she looks marvelous with all that lbs that she is losing.We were going to talk about the retreat for next year and we actually ran out of time.
Now if I can get my life organized maybe I can get to try out my sewing machine. It was in the sewing machine hospital for a rest while I was gone, but it is back now so I really should test it.
Haven't caught up with what you are all doing , so I will send hugs to all.
Get better wishes for those who are under the weather. Summer is here, on this continent at least so whatever ails you should disappear , hopefully. For those down under, enjoy the winter to the best of your abilities.
Grace in Ont.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

The America's cup !!

That's what the yachts are racing for ! "Alinghi" (the Swiss boat,) won it off NZ, back in 2003. To earn the right to challenge for it , boats had to compete in the Louis Vuitton cup. Boats from all over the world entered that race.(inc. America, who were expected to win..). NZ competed with Spain in the semi finals, the best of nine races. We won , five nil. The "word" among those who know (?) is that Alinghi is the faster boat and would see NZ off, five / nil , with no difficulty... The score at the moment is two all.... the next race is tonight (NZ time) I'll keep you posted !!

I must refocus and get busy preparing for the arrival of the family on Monday. DD#2, her husband and three children are coming for the holidays.. DSIL will be down on business for the first week but the rest of them will stay for two weeks. It's pouring with rain and very cold at the moment so I am hoping that the weather will improve by next week. 8 and 10 yr old boys need to be able to get out and kick a ball !!! DGD is 11 and easy enough to amuse with sewing and scrapbooking. It will be fun to have them here. It's almost a year since they left to live in Auckland .

Have a good day. I hope it's nicer where you are than it is here today !!

Marion.

Starting again...

Having taken some time off, I am back on the weight loss kick. I started some time off when Grace was here and since then I have had company staying and DH has been home for the last week -- it is harder to eat very simply when one is cooking for other people! DH goes back to work tonight and will be gone another two weeks and I have decided that the young lady who is staying here can fend for herself a little more and I will cook a little less. The happy news is that despite not working at it, I have actually lost most of another pound in the last week! Nine to go to get to the next goal!

Kitten report: The little mom cat has a new home and she will go there as soon as I have her spayed. That appointment is for next week. Her five little kittens are almost weaned now and are unbelievably cute! In about three weeks I will be able to have their spays and neuters done and send them on to the pet shop. Not a moment too soon! It will be hard to see them go!

I really must get back to work myself! I am supposed to be doing payroll right now and not hanging out with my buddies on the computer!

Jean, still complaining about the weather in Mill Bay...

What's the race score?

Marion: Who is winning now? Never having been on a yacht, and most likely will never, I'm interested in which country is ahead. NZ, Spain, is the USA in it?

We have decided to go ahead and do an aditional pond in the back yard. (water/pond/get it?) This one will connect to the smaller one with a stream. I think we will have some young backs do the hard part! Maybe on Saturday we can go over across town to visit the place that builds them. Our local Ace Hwd. has a beautiful one, but the guy who built it no longer works there. I think he's off at University somewhere.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to quit the charity quilt group. I have thought about doing theis for months and months, and always felt so guilty. This week I finally decided that life is too short to feel guilty about something that is supposed to be a volunteer thing. I'm going in a new direction.
With all the floods in Texas, fires in Calif. and Lake Tahoe, hope all our board members are safe out there.
A friend of my niece's will be staying with us for 5 days. I'm to pick her up at the airport tomorrow. She is going to be in town to visit her boyfriend in the Navy. Evidently the niece and she were friends in Venezuela when they were both in high school. They are MK's so guess they are used to traveling. Hope she does OK on her own most of the time. I'm sure she wants to spend time with the BF, so I made her a house key and will let her go to and from as she pleases.
Everybody have a good weekend, will check back on Monday.
Sara in Florida

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Back to square one...

Two all, would you believe....( although NZ has a protest flag flying ...!! ) Thank goodness we have a " rest day" today..

Marion.

Wow, Marion!!

Great news about the races! I will be crossing my fingers that NZ wins, even though I have Swiss blood running through my veins LOL

BEE: How is little Ellie now?

SHELLI: I am the other DUG - 4 of us altogether now - but I live in Sth Australia. Have rellies in NZ though - in Whangarei.

I am about to start my North America quilt, to commemorate our trip over there 3 years ago. I'm going to do a row quilt - one row for each of the 9 states we visited, plus one for Canada. I'm getting really excited as I go through the fabric I collected, plus patterns signifying each state, etc. No idea how long it will take me! In the meantime I'm also planning my NZ quilt, which will be easy - just rectangular blocks of each fat quarter I've collected over the years, using the idea a friend has used. She used dark brown settings throughout and it looks stunning!

Off to heat the house up and settle down for the evening.
Hugs to all
Fran in S.A.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Yachting...

Two /one to New Zealand !!!!
Be still my heart.....

Marion.

Hello Back & Stuff

It's so nice of everyone to say hello. I don,t thing I live very close to Bee or Marion, I live at Foxton Beach which is in the North Island on the west coast, about 8 hours drive from Auckland or 6 and a half if you got a lead foot LOL. Nice to meet the other DUGs :-) . Buy the way, scuse my ignorance, but what is a DUG LOL, I'm picking down under gal, Am I right?

It's been unusually cold here, had some really heavy frosts in early June, don,t usually get those til July. Looks really pretty though all the roofs and fences white, almost like snow. It doesn't snow here. Made chicken soup yesterday, from scratch, pardon the pun. It's very warming on these cold nights and the hubby likes it.

Got some more work done on the design for my central block, it,s starting to come together and I might have to dive into my stash soon and start picking out some fabrics, Well gotta go now got an early start, once again it's great to meet you all and thanks for making me feel so welcome.

Cheers from ShellyQ

Monday, June 25, 2007

Overalls and phones ...!!!

The mind boggles !!!!

Rosey... the yacht racing is taking place in Valencia, Spain .(known over here as Valenzia !) which is why I have to stay up till 3am.... The temperature there is a comfortable 28degs plus ! Nice for some. Lots of NZers have travelled over to enjoy the racing and offer support to the team. If I had given more thought to our own travel plans for this year, we could have incorporated it into our time away... That way I could have seen the new family baby who was born there at the end of April during the Louis Vitton Cup races. My nephew and his wife are still there, watching the racing from their balcony !! They return to UK when the racing finishes...

Marion.

Welcome Shelli Q./stuff/book review

Welcome to another DUG.
It is indeed hard to think of snow, cold, and so on when I'm having 95 degrees and sunshine. I live in Florida, USA. We are generally a polite, nice group here, with all types of quilt interests, as well as other interest.
In case anyone is interested, my Bar-B-Q in the crock pot, and the Brunswick stew in the other crock pot were both hits at last night's dinner. One couple couldn't make it as the DH was having facial swelling and trying to figure out if it was the recent dental work. They had just returned from vacation so were thinking it could be a bug bite. Ouch.
DH and our hired "boy" (son of friend) worked in the yard on Saturday morning cleaning, mowing, cleaning the pond. It needed it, and the weeds got pulled. DH got down the dead poision oak that he had sprayed with Roundup. After my experience with it 3 years ago I don't get close to it. After all that I had to beg our company to go out onto the deck as it was so hot, even at 8:30 PM. They were all kind and went out and sat down while we had ice cream.
I'm hoping DD and her boys will feel like picking blueberries on Wed. morning. The few places left that a person can go to to pick them are fast being taken over by builders. The one on our side of town how has condos on it! What a shame.
The closest place opens at 6:30 AM on Wed. but it will be closer to 8:00AM before the 6 of us could make it there. About 1 hr. of picking is all we need anyway. It should be fun for the boys, and I will get the benefit of being with the grands, and they will get some good muffins.
On a sort-of-quilty note. . Has anyone read a book called "Pain Free 1,2,3" by Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, or his other book? A GF was talking to me about the stiff fingers, arth. etc. and I was wondering if it was going to the book store for. This doctor evidently had Fibromialgia at one time. My DD is suffering, and has been for years. I hate to suggest yet another "treatment" that would be a waste of time and money. TIA.
Sara in Florida

New fangled technology that's not so new!

Welcome to another DUG from New Zealand. I'm glad that you found the chat and bulletin boards. Are you near either Bee or Marion?

Sadly, the two 'old fellows' who own the family cottage on Georgian Bay (Ontario) now have the cottage up for sale and it will likely pass out of the family after their father bought it in 1943. The closure should be around the end of July this year. I drove north last week and spent several days cleaning it up and cleaning it out. I also managed some fun time in visiting old friends and had a wonderful supper with four of them last Wednesday. Having just arrived that morning, I set about to start my 'bottoming-out' and two hours later found the need to visit the loo. As the phone has been removed from the cottage, I had to leave my cell phone on and it was in the pocket of my overalls, not the easiest things to get out when nature calls in a hurry. As they were at half-mast, my pants started 'ringing' to the tune of Arabesque. Man, I got strangled just trying to find my cell phone in and amongst my overalls. Once my conversation with my friend was completed, I set about to clean out the medicine cabinet in the cabin; reached up to the top shelf and out fell on my head a cluster of what I thought were packets of herbal teas. I wondered how in heaven's name anyone would store their herbal teas in the medicine cabinet. Imagine my surprise when I actually read the labels on those little packets.....lol. I'll leave you guessing other than someone will NOT be pregnant because of them. I'll have a few more days to take Sarah and Kirsten and their mom up for a last time at the cottage, next week. We're all sad but there is an ending to everything.

Doris, I've enjoyed your wonderful travelogue and Marion, is it not cold for the racers to be out on the water at this time of year down under?

Rosey

Jinny Beyer

I am currently visiting my brother and his family in the DC area. My SIL knows that I quilt, and tries to watch out for cute quilt shops to take me to when I visit. 10 minutes from their home is a lovely quilt shop; the name is The Jinny Beyer Studio. I was so excited! I've never seen all of her fabric in one place before. The color all over the shop was a treat for the eyes. Her patterns were made up and displayed on the walls. She also had displays, tools, jewelry, thread, and all the usual things you would find in a quilt shop. The books and patterns mostly were her designs.
DSIL had no clue that she had found the lair of one of my favorite quilters in the universe.
I'm having a great time doing tourist stuff. I may post some pix when I get home.
Laura

Welcome to the new DUG !!

Must be the cold weather that's bringing the DUGs to life again !! This one is bleary- eyed but very happy, Team New Zealand won their race against Alighi on Monday night, equaling the score, one race each... This is the best of nine remember so it could go on for awhile !! NZ came from behind to win...just about unheard of in yachting circles !!! A rest day yesterday , but it's all on again tonight so I'll be up again from 1 - 3am.....

DH has gone off to a school reunion ! It's 50 yrs since he was in the First fifteen ( the school Rugby team !) Today they are meeting to celebrate the event ! He'll be out all day and tonight the wives (or partners !) are invited to join "the boys" for dinner... We did all this for the 25yrs on, celebrations, it seems like only yesterday ....

Nippy day again but the Alps do look lovely against the clear blue sky...I must take a photo .

Have a good day.
Marion (the South Island rep !)

Welcome Shelly!!!



Welcome Shelly! You will enjoy these great ladies! (we used to have a guy,hum, what happened?)
This site is chatter & the other is quilty stuff, both are great.

I'm going to try to reload my pictures. They were sooooo important you know, my fruit (almost
gone!) & a goofy cat picture.

Still no go on the pictures....

Another DUG says welcome

also known as the down under girls. I am in Auckland and welcome to a great group of friends. We have a lot of fun here and all the help you will ever need .It is really odd to hear of the girls in the States talk of the lovely warm weather when we are freezing and drowning in the rain. Must make it short today as we have to shop and first we go out for breakfast at the Golden Arches. Hugs Bee in NZ

Welcome Newbie

Welcome Shelli Q. You will get lots of feed back and help on this site. There are others from New Zealand who post and maybe you will live close to at least one. The other side, the WWQP bulletin Board will be the biggest help for sewing as this is mostly chat.

Marge in Louisiana

Help - Newbie - LOL

Hi Everyone

I'm new here and have no idea what I'm doing LOL. I wanted to find a place to chat with other quilters and share news on what we are all working on. I live in New Zealand and am fairly new to the web as well, so it's been a steep learning curve.

I have been quilting for 15 years though and am currently starting work on my long planned baltimore quilt. I've only been mulling it over for 10 years, that's how long ago I bought the background fabric. Mind you looking at it now, I'm not sure it's really what I want for the background. Oh well never mind gives me an excuse to buy more fabric, like I need an excuse LOL

Anyhow hope someone wants to chat, tell me what you are working on or maybe some tips on how to use these blogger thingies

In the mean time happy stitching everyone from ShellyQ

Sunday, June 24, 2007

no pictures for me today

Have tried a few times to add pictures, no luck, maybe busy?
I'll try later, Jill

A nice light rain here in the NW, downpour would be better for the garden.

Doris, love your pictures and travel shorts, esp. for those of us that seem to never get away.
Sounds like it was a very memorable trip.

Picture explains why I never hesitate when asked my favorite season!
I love this brief moment in time when so many fruits are in season at once.
Just threw the chocolates in for fun, a pin cushion made by a quilty friend.

All these gems are great for the diet as long as there's none of that white
fluffy frozen stuff underneath!
Alas, I think it was a couple meals out that did me in this week & no loss, still
at ten pounds.
Seems like all the gardening would use up those calories, but the aches & pains don't burn calories I guess.

Riding high this week as our local kitty hospice shelter is preparing for their annual garage sale & I took them a van full of "what was I thinking when I bought this" stuff. They were thrilled.

Better get some things done, seems quilting is always at the bottom of the list, boo hoo,

Weigh-in

No pounds off this week, but another one and a quarter inches off my measurements, so there is progress being made, trading fluff for muscle. Took my Mom to JoAnn Fabric this week so she could get fabric to make herself a lined cape. She has to wear a Helios oxygen thing all the time except when she's at home and can use the room-air concentrator, and was unhappy with the way coats and jackets fit over it. She's going to be 87 in August, but still makes her own bathing suits and uses them to exercise in the pool, with her Helios thing sitting on the edge of the pool. I bought 2 patterns, Butterick 5048 (a tunic and pants) and Butterick 5049, a simple dress pattern that I've had before but in the larger sizes. I was very happy to find it in the smaller sizes. I had one dress left, but when I wore it last week, it was just too big, so it has to go. My closet is looking very empty now. I don't want to spend a lot on clothes, since I hope to lose a few more sizes, but will make a couple of things to wear while in the process.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Pat in Rockport, TX