Tin and Champagne for Mother's Day!

Mother's Day weekend was warm and fuzzy as usual. My daughters and their families always go out of their way to make it meaningful and fun with cards and handmade gifts from grandchildren, hugs and kisses and lots of love.

This time my younger daughter Lisa gave me a rather untraditional gift -- free labor and supplies to finish the kitchen that I tore up a year and a half ago. My small galley kitchen has been through several looks and was due for a major re-do from its green and mauve wallpaper to its green and mauve paint and stencilled cabinets. Having had all the floors redone with a laminate oak, it was time. I tore the reachable parts of the wallpaper down, cleaned the cabinets thoroughly to ready them for painting, and replaced two of the major appliances and then stalled out! Part of the pantry area got primed but mauve and dark green paint still showed through the open gally kitchen.

Now a year and a half later, Lisa announced we were finishing up. We purchased light blue for the walls, apple green for the cupboard doors and some of the woodwork, and tin look-alike panels for the back splash. We also, of course, purchased everything we needed to do the project as well -- it only took three trips to Lowes -- not too bad. After all, it took us three trips to two grocery stores to get everything for our afternoon dinner on Mother's Day.

After our Saturday morning visit to Lowes, we stopped at Kai's baseball game to catch an inning or two, then went home to paint. Approximately seven hours later, we had painted the cupboard doors, the basement door, and woodwork with two coats of apple green, and all the walls with the light blue. We decided it was easier to paint two coats of the blue over the wallpaper than to try to take it down. We went more with a Trading Spaces approach than HGTV with our painting!

We knew the challenge all along would be the tin panels: Lisa had watched it applied on HGTV several times and we had written directions to use as a last resort. How hard could it be? The first surprise was how difficult it was to cut. I had brought home a rotary cutter and mat and was disappointed it didn't even make a dent. This stuff isn't real tin but it's certainly as sturdy. We went to utility knife and the only scissors I had which are actually paper scissors I let Kai and Quinn use when they want to do projects. After trying to measure and mark it, we did read the two sets of directions carefully and discovered a method that worked. We dry fit every piece before going to bed. After a shower, I felt human enough to fall into my bed and was sound asleep by midnight in spite of aching knees and feet.

Bright and early Sunday morning, we were at 8:30 am mass to watch Kai serve. We stopped at Lowes and the grocery store (our third trips) on the way home. Since it was Mother's Day, Lisa had volunteered to prepare all the food except for what Jason would be grilling. We had two hours to prep all the food in my torn up kitchen and be at Laura's by noon. We arrived at 12:15 with hors d'vours and a crustless quiche straight from the oven. While the grill sizzled, everyone relaxed over great food and lemon granita champaigne cocktails. As always, it was lovely.

By 3:30, Lisa and I were back in my kitchen, glueing the panels to the wall. We had dry fit everything the night before; this should be the easy part. And it would have been, except we forgot to cut an opening for one of the electrical outlets and had to cut that piece of tin with glue already on it. Lisa's hands were so sore at this point from cutting the tin and squeezing out the glue, it was not an easy task. She did it though and the tin panels are finished and are brilliant!

I love the re-do and am so grateful to Lisa for inspiring me to finish and carrying the major load of the work. It makes me want to re-do the rest of the house. Are you reading this, Lisa?

Notes to Me

In my purse is a small blue notebook of lined paper; it's a Mary Englebreit product which proclaims "Queen of Everything," on the cover. When it's totally filled up, I will pitch it in a drawer and find another small notebook. I've gone through tons of these, most not as nice as the one I am currently carrying. It's not a diary, it's not a journal, it's just a place to scribble notes that seem important at the time. I keep notes on quilts I want to make, fabrics needed, grocery lists, recipes from novels I am reading, lists of books I want from the library, general to do lists, weekly menus (ha, that never works), Christmas gift lists, notes from meetings. And that's just what's in the current notebook.

Every now and then there's a work of art. Kai when he was younger and now Quinn often wanted something to write on and knew I always had a notebook and writing utensils. Maybe it's from being an English teacher for 30 some years, but I do always have those things in my purse. Their scribbles, pictures, first attempts at writing their names intersperse my more serious note-taking. Looking back through a notebook for something I know I wrote down, I love the surprise of finding their entries even if I don't find that important information I was looking for.

By Appointment Only

At the beginning of each month, I make up a calendar for Joe so he will know the important things in his life, like when I am not cooking dinner, when I will not be home for the evening, when I will not be home for Kai to get off the bus after school. Now, these don't seem too difficult to me but inevitably, even though he has it on a color coded calendar which is lying on his table, he questions me almost daily. Our conversations are amazingly consistent.



"What are we having for dinner?"

"I won't be home; I have a meeting."

"Oh."



"Where are you going now?"

"I have a meeting."

"Where?"

My answers vary between two churches and the shop.

"Oh."



"On your way home, can you stop at Krogers?"

"No, I won't be right home tonight; I have Friday Night Free for All. You need to be there for Kai."

"Oh."



Because of these conversations, I am amazed he can keep track of his substitute teaching days and doctor's appointments. Actually, he has missed a few doctor's appointments, but never a teaching day. It's all me, of course. He has selective memory when it comes to me, as do most husbands; he only remembers what he wants.

Of course, I make the calendar for myself as well. I tend to scribble on it extra information and events as the month progresses, and it becomes even more important to me, helping me remember when quilts are due to be collected or when Lisa is coming to dinner or just that I need to stop at Kroger on the way home.

Joe folds his calendar twice and puts it on one of his two "tables." Joe's tables are not meant for me to clean, and when I do, he gets all huffy about where did I put all his stuff. One table is next to the couch in the living room and the other next to his bed. Both have basically the same stuff, which usually consists of outdated advertisements, the past month's Church newsletters, various pens, crossword puzzle books, newspapers folded to the crossword puzzle, library books (always mysteries and paperbacks because they aren't as heavy to hold up when reading in bed), and other mysterious pieces of folded paper that seem to have no purpose. The table in the bedroom also has a flashlight, a penknife, a phone, and other useless small objects left by the grandchildren. All of their McDonald's and Burger King prizes seem to end up there. Among this detritus is the folded calendar. No wonder when he asks me a question, I have stopped saying, "Did you look at the calendar?"

Ouch!

Ok, taxes are done and paid. It always hurts a bit as being a small business, I never seem to have paid enough ahead. No one is going to bail me out either. We all shudder as April 15th approaches, but it's over, so time to move on to more fun things.

Spring is always filled with watching my 9-year-old grandson play baseball, trying to motivate myself to work more in the yard (I'm a big time garden club dropout), and enjoying 4-year-old Quinn's dance moves. I am going to "gymtastics" watch night this week for the first time.

I have a bit more time to do all these things as, yes, my business is slower than normal this year. Just like everyone else, I am being affected by the economy's downturn. Cutbacks for me will be maybe going to NQA show in June but not taking a class, not buying as much fabric as I would like (Of course, buying as much as I would like is impossible in any economy), and not investing in the business as I usually do with battings and backings available for purchase by my clients. I am also filling my time with more service quilts -- baby quilts for donation to the local hospital and soldiers' quilts for returning wounded.

I have no fears that my business will go under; it just may not pay for my obsession with quilting as it has in past years. But my stash can keep me quilting for quite some time and my friends will keep me company quilting. It's all good.

Loss

I haven't written for a while as the family has been dealing with the loss of our beloved nephew. Only 45, Jeff had fought cancer for the past year and a half but left us on March 25th. He was a wonderful man with a lovely family that stood by him, cared for him in all ways, and will miss him always. The hundreds of people who came to the funeral home and attended the funeral mass can only testify to the loss all feel. It's not my place to memorialize Jeff; his wife, his children, his parents, his brother and sisters, his sisters-in-law and their families, his huge extended family of friends will do it far better than I. But I wanted to take note of his passing and to let any readers know that a man of great worth is gone.

To Do or Not To Do?

I started one day last week with a to do list -- a simple list of quilts to be finished on the longarm, some baby quilts to be pieced for the Guild Kids' Quilts project, and a few computer items that would take only a few minutes to finish. Six hours later, I turned off my laptop and went home. I had contracted the "Antivirus360" virus on my computer which is a nuisance virus that continually tries to convince you that your computer is about to crash and that all of your personal information is being broadcast onto the net. If one ignores the first popup and simply closes it, it goes away. But gullible me, I clicked on it to see what was wrong with my laptop and the virus went everywhere.


I contacted my protection provider after trying for two hours unsuccessfully to get rid of it myself. After chatting with "Aslam" for about fifteen minutes, I admitted defeat and agreed to pay to have him de-virus my laptop and turned it over to him via remote control. Fascinated, I watched my computer screen, as Aslam cleared the virus -- often going into areas of my computer that I would never attempt to enter because I would just make it worse. It took Aslam, the real expert, approximately a half hour to fix my laptop and then he gave me some advice on how to avoid this type of problem. He helped me print it and it's sort of like "protection for dummies." Basically, the biggest thing is "Don't click on any pop-up." That made sense to me as I have a program that supposedly stops all pop-ups so any that make it through must be malware (Aslam's word).

Needless to say, my to do list is still not finished, but my computer is running top-notch!

Got Socks?

I never thought of socks as an edible item but evidently, Lily, the wonder puppy, definitely does; and in spite of great care on the part of her owners, she ate a pair. They were tan with little flowers on them. One sock was immediately thrown up but the other one became lodged in her intestine. After a trip to the vet, it was decided she had to have surgery to remove it. All pet owners are distraught over any situation like this, and my daughter was definitely upset. However, my son-in-law is one of the most tender hearted animal lovers that I know.

A case in point, I was driving in extremely bad weather with Lisa and Jeremy in the back of the van when a deer leaped in front of the car. I kept my car steady and didn't hit the brakes but slowed as much as I could by taking my foot off the accelerator, and we hit the deer. Shaken, Jeremy was sure we should stop in the middle of the ice and snow to check on it. I had to share with Jeremy that if I didn't kill the deer when I hit it with my car, it certainly expired when it cartwheeled away, flew over the bridge abutment, and landed in the Licking River. Now I think deer are gorgeous when they are frolicking in the fields or standing still as stone in the morning frost, but I am a country girl and this isn't the first deer my vehicle has taken out.

Anyway, Lily, a gorgeous 6 month old chocolate lab, is totally different. We all were upset and worried about her. She is fine after surgery and comes home today from the vet's. She is officially their most expensive pet now (the vet was nice enough to neuter her at the same time). She will wear a cone around her neck for a while to keep her from licking the incision; and I am sure Lisa and Jeremy will use even more vigilance in keeping socks away from her.