What a night!

Sometimes you just finish a wonderful evening saying, "It just doesn't get any better than this." That is the kind of day we had. We had plans for friends to come and help us officially welcome "Gus the Bus" into the fleet. We had drinks and hors d'oeuvres in Gus and then we came in to the house for supper which was wonderful salad, cheesey garlic bread, great taco soup and a wonderful french silk pie. The guys have all known each other for over 40 years so it was a great evening of good memories. One couple is leaving on Wednesday for their annual trip south for the next few months and the rest of us are just getting into that phase of our lives.

We laughed about memories of college, of children, of grandchildren and even a tear escaped a time or two as we remembered past choices good and bad. It was the best of times.

Finally . . .

It has been a long month since we bought the motorhome. It has been quite a learning experience, but we are finally here to pick it up today. Our good friends from Helena came with us yesterday and we are so enjoying the trip and the company.

We have a 3 to 4 hour class this morning and then we are going back to Missoula for the night before heading home tomorrow. The picture is from the day we bought it a month ago as I didn't bring my cable to download pics to my computer - what is up with that?

We named it "Gus". When we got to Helena to pick up our friends, they had a wonderful "goodie basket" ready for us with some things we would need. They are experienced RVers. And, Ken had written a poem to welcome us to the RV world. The last line was "so, get on the bus, Gus". That is one of my favorite songs so we just had to name the coach "Gus". We are now thinking of acronyms for that - could be "grandparents under stress" - but we will keep having fun with it.

Too good not to repeat here . . .

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky." Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Poet, Philosopher)

Wednesday morning . . .

I wanted to share some pictures from an adventure I took last night. A few months ago, Judy Laquidara shared a tutorial on how she sews the binding down on both sides with the sewing machine. There is a link to it in the right hand column of her blog under "General Info". I loved it then and last night I tried it on a practice piece as I have a bunch of placemats to bind. I don't mind doing binding by hand, but I am working a few minutes here and there on a customer quilt binding so one hand binding at a time is enough for me.

The first picture is just of the pile of placemats and the second one is of the practice piece - I quilted one lone block that was leftover. You can see it from the front and the last picture is a close up of the back. I am so impressed. If you haven't tried her guidelines for doing it this way, you really should. It is perfect!

I woke this morning at almost 9 - not sure why as I never and I mean NEVER sleep that late. I was deep in a dream about the motorhome when the phone rang. It should be done this week and the weather is looking good so we are hoping to go get it on Sunday and Monday. In the dream, it ended up at a car dealer's and everyone was going through it. You had to climb up a ladder to get in and once in, it was a disaster. There was blue stuff running down the walls in the bathroom and the bed was on a pedastal that you had to climb up stairs to get on. It is a good thing the phone rang, huh? I hope it is not prophetic of what is to come. We are so looking forward to getting it, but had no idea it would take this long and we have had to solve a few problems along the way already. I think that will be the norm from what we hear with a motorhome.

Sicky weekend . . .

Feeling better today, but I was down with the achy, runny nose crud all weekend. And - I missed the Homecoming activities for Montana State University here in Bozeman. Not so good! We always enjoy seeing lots of old friends - so it will have to wait for another year.

I did get some work done - between naps, nose blowing, and feeling sorry for myself. I quilted the placemats using Debra Geissler's "Swirls" on Hoke. I like the way they turned out. I also got the binding on the quilt I took off and now need to hand turn it to the back. I will do some of that tonight when I watch "Dancing with the Stars" - hope it is good.

The centers of the placemats are made by cutting squares on the bias from strips sewn together. I took the scraps left over and just sewed them together randomly as it was mindless work and I didn't have much for a mind that was working. This is what I ended up with. I will quilt it with the last couple placemats later today.

Things to sell . . . things to consider . . .

I am starting to get interested in selling some stuff on eBay. It is time to thin out! I ordered a couple books from Amazon that will arrive by Saturday and I heading off to become an eBay seller. Any readers out there selling stuff this way? Any advice? Most of my personal stuff is sewing and quilting related - patterns, books, fabric, sewing machines and not Miss Daisy or Hoke - yet anyway. We also have tons of clothes, collectibles, art, decorator items, dishes, etc. Bob has lots of tools and sh*& in the garage that he is interested in moving out as well. I would rather do a few things at a time than drag it all out for a garage sale. And we live in the country so traffic at a garage sale is not always so good. So - stay tuned in for my next adventure. LOL!

Our "Spokane and Back" trip was good - the weather there was wonderful. We are having snow and very cold temps here (highs in the 20's and lows near 0). This is supposed to last through the next 3 or 4 days and then we will be back to more normal temps. The problem with this is - no fall colors this year and they are my favorite. The leaves will just be brown and hang on the trees until a good wind hits. Not what you might call "autumn eye candy".

So - I said - "let's move to Spokane". It is half way between Portland and Bozeman where the grands are and they have a bit less winter. It is also closer to Seattle which I love and we have so many good friends there and it is actually a bit closer to Missoula than we are now. But, I really need to get high behind and thin out. We will do the motorhome thing this year - travel a bit into warmer weather through the winter time. But, we will focus on getting things thinned out and then make a moving decision next summer. We feel like kids again and the whole world is our "oyster". Isn't life grand?

More for today . . .

The snow has ended - at least until Wednesday and then more is on the way with unusually cold temps for this time of year by weekend. And - it is Homecoming at our Montana State U here - brrrr - may have to watch that game on TV.

Anyway - I like the way this turned out so I wanted to share. I am also doing the binding. I tried "tucking" a little curved crosshatching in behind the feathers at the corners and I like it okay. Click on it for a closer look - it is all freehand - needed to let Hoke (my IQ) have a vacation and keep my freehand sharp. I am going to let Hoke do the driving on the next one.

We are off to Coeur d'Alene tomorrow and Wednesday - need to do some "motorhome" stuff. We had a repair list and they are having trouble getting the necessary parts. It is nothing major, but we need to go visit it and try to get some alternative options in place - or else decide to just park it in northern Idaho and use it as a condo as we pass through. Hmmm - with all this snow, that may not be too bad an idea for this year. We also want to get some things changed on the suspension that is our choice. The roads are okay once out of the mountains here.