A Hodge-Podge

The harder I work, the behinder I get.

This saying perfectly describes the chaos around here lately. And you know, I suppose our chaos is really no different from that of other folks - it's just OUR chaos, and we plod happily along, making our way through this crazy, messy life.

We are for the most part done with all the downstairs painting. Kevin is still doing minor touch-ups here and there, but it mostly has been put away and our stuff is returning to all the correct places. That is with the exception of the family room which will be getting new carpet on Thursday - in the mean time, that room is still rather sparse.

After carpet is installed, I will get some pictures on the blog for you to see our "new" downstairs. We are very pleased with the results.

Since I've not blogged for several days, I find that I don't quite know where to start in the way of catching up; I may end up with quite a hodge-podge here today! It seems that we have been so busy that I have tons to share. However, everyone is busy through the Christmas season, so our goings-on are really not significantly different than most people's. I shared the trip to the Columbus Zoo last week, but I have not shared any of the Christmas gatherings I had earlier in the month - card club, Frienzies and the Frankfort Girls.

The ladies I play cards with had a Christmas-themed gathering at the beginning of the month. We were supposed to wear an ugly Christmas sweater or Christmas PJs. Well, look what Dorothy showed up in!

Buddy the Elf has a clone! Dorothy is my neighbor, and also my hairdresser. Her day job is cafeteria lady at our local school district. You visited her house a couple of years ago when they participated in the historical society's holiday home tour. Click here to see; you'll also see a few quilts from my house!

Soon after we card girls met, the Frienzies met for the December gift exchange. This year we added an activity - jewelry making. It was a fantastic morning - but then every time we Frienzies get together we have a fantastic time.

The Frienzies, 2016 version. We met at Pam's house; she is on the far right standing in front of the wall hanging that was my gift to these girls last year. Have I introduced this group before? Front row: Sharon P., Hettie, Lyn and Susan. Back row: Sherrie, me, Kay and Pam. We all taught together at CHS for a number of years and had lunch together every day in the home ec. room - 4 of these gals taught home ec. Sharon and I taught English; Hettie taught Spanish; Lyn taught math. Only two still teach - Hettie and Susan, but Susan is in her final year. All the rest of us have retired; we formed Frienzies so that we could remain in touch as retirement left us disconnected.

My gift this year was a whole lot simpler, and way less stressful. I made everyone some coffee-cake style bread and added a holiday kitchen towel (in the packages, not the bread!). There are a variety of breads here - lemon poppy seed, cranberry, and blueberry.

Our craft, like I said, was jewelry making. Since Pam is the Queen of Projects, she outdid herself with this quick and easy little item. Each of us were given the parts to make this snowman necklace pendant. It took all of about 5 minutes to complete, with the twisting of the top loop as the most challenging bit. After this, we all just went to work on whatever we wanted to attempt. (We'd all been reminded ahead of time to bring whatever jewelry-making supplies we wanted to experiment on.) It became a community property kind of session - someone had this, someone else had that. We all shared and shared alike. It was tons of fun being creative with something we were all relatively new at.

The Frankfort Girls met at Jan's this past Friday morning. We had a gift exchange and a wonderful breakfast. What generous girls these ladies are! I felt absolutely showered with goodies. Jan is quite a party planner, so for her to get the Christmas meeting was a bonus for the rest of us because Jan had a theme - Christmas lights and everything was theme-oriented. Here is her pretty table.

Note the centerpiece with Christmas lights, the garland of Christmas lights, the goodie bag on each of our plates made of Christmas light fabric and a name tag in the shape of a Christmas light. It was impressive how detailed she got with this theme. And quite fun, too.

Afterwards, when all our mess was cleared away, we could see the festive table cloth which Jan made and quilted. She fussy-cut the center block of each star.

 This is a more complete view.

In her formal dining room, she had another table cloth exactly the same pattern, but made with different fabrics. Such a versatile pattern. Below is a zoom-in of one of the stars. I like this star and can see myself making a quilt using a star like this. I find it very appealing.

Well, there's my hodge-podge for today. I will try to have something more focused to share tomorrow.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Another Fun Getaway

You might think all I've done lately is gad about, and possibly that could have a shred of truth to it. After a two-day trip last week with DH to Lake Erie, this week I took a two-day trip to Wooster with Sharon P. to visit our dear friend and former co-worker Dee. We three spent the earliest years of our English teaching careers together, and became quite close. While we haven't spent a lot of time with each other in the intervening years, we did remain in contact, and try to have some form of a visit every year or so.

Wooster, OH, is a really cool town! It is close to Amish Country, and we spent Tuesday afternoon there, where I made some awesome purchases. Then on Wednesday morning we toured downtown Wooster, and then had lunch at a beautiful hillside establishment that was quite a pleasant experience.

Our visit inconvenienced a couple of members of our hostess' household, namely DD Ellen and family pup, Wayne. They don't look too put out, though, resting with this flannel quilt. Sharon and I made the quilt for Ellen several years ago as she was undergoing cancer treatments. She is now cancer-free! And she loves her quilt, by the way. *wink*

 Dee was an English teacher when she worked with Sharon and me; she later returned to school to become certified as a librarian, and worked in public school libraries until her retirement. Now she works at the Wayne County Public Library; she took us on a tour of her workplace, and it is an impressive library.

 This is the spacious central lobby and checkout area.

 And just off that area are these stately curved stairs.  I said it before, but it bears repeating - this library is exceedingly impressive.

 Dee works here in the children's area. She does lots of story times and prepping and planning. They have so much to offer their patrons; I can't imagine that anyone could come away from this library disappointed.

 After touring the library, we walked around downtown Wooster and stopped in at a lot of shops. This one, Local Roots, was particularly intriguing. 

 Another cool shop was this Hungarian pastry shop; we each had a cup of coffee here. The selection of pastries was immense. I didn't want anything, but if I had, I would have had a hard time deciding.

And here are we three - friends since 1979-80. We had a delightful lunch at Pine Tree Barn on the outskirts of Wooster. And we had a delightful visit catching up with our dear friend. I think we will make the effort to do it more frequently.

Now, I mentioned above that we went to Amish Country on Tuesday; I will show you what I purchased in tomorrow's post, so come on back, y'all!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Fun with Frienzies

The Frienzies are a group of women who worked together with me at CHS. The 8 of us had lunch together every day for many years. Then, one by one, we hit retirement. First, Kay, then Sherrie, then we realized that we weren't gettting to see each other as often. So we met for dinner one December about 3 years ago in a local restaurant. We named ourselves the Frienzies as it combines 2 words - friends and frenzy, which most of us felt described the pace of our lives!! It was hard work finding one day each month that everyone would be free to meet for lunch or dinner. We agreed that none of us were so frenzied that we couldn't devote one meal each month to keeping this group together. And so the Frienzies was born! We celebrate whatever needs to be celebrated - birthdays, Christmas, kids' graduations, births of grandbabies, retirements and so on.

In the meantime, Lyn retired, then moi, then Pam. In just a few days, Sharon will join our ranks. That leaves the "young'ns" - Susan and Hettie - among the working.

So our February Frienzie gathering was Saturday at Susan's home; she had prepared a brunch for us followed by an "activity" - her cousin had begun selling cosmetics, and she wanted to do facials on us.

Susan's table was adorable. The food was delicious - muffins, quiche, fresh fruit, and cherry cobbler and ice cream for dessert! YUMM.

Kay had a show and tell - a quilt for her granddaughter which she'd recently had quilted. She and 17-year-old Regan worked together on the piecing process over the course of about 4 years. Now it's quilted and ready to be delivered to Regan later this month. Those fabrics are all batiks, and Regan helped pick them out. I will have to look up the details on the quilt - I know it was on the cover of American Patchwork and Quilting at least 4 years ago.

This is our hostess Susan getting the beauty treatment from her cousin. Next month I will be the hostess and we will be celebrating Sherrie's birthday as well as Sharon's retirement. It will be a fantastic day.

These women are among my dearest friends. They were not only workplace colleagues, but true friends who have shared in some of the highest and lowest points of each other's lives. We truly enjoy the company of one another, and look forward to our Frienzy dates. Girlfriends are one of life's sweetest blessings.