Chat – Page 34 – Thimbleanna

Random Chit-Chat

33 Comments / August 25, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Chat, Sewing

Thanks for all the birthday love for MeMum and TheFirstChild! BigBoy’s present from SweetiePie was a skydiving adventure with her and four of his friends. They sat around the air field all day on Saturday, but the weather was bad so, they decided to try again on Sunday morning. At 10:57 a.m. on Sunday I sent SweetiePie this text message: “Well? Are we having any luck?” At 12:13 p.m. she replied with “We just landed!!! That was F—ing amazing! Will call in a bit!” SweetiePie never swears, so to get a “F” and three dashes means it was pretty darn incredible!

Remember when Toni sent me some Vegemite? Well I finally got around to trying it. Just like everyone said — with toast and some butter. The good news is I didn’t hate it. The bad news is I didn’t love it. It must be an acquired taste and I probably didn’t love it because I expect something sweet on my toast. It was definitely fun to try it out though — thanks again Toni!

The Very Cool Penny has decided enough is enough. She wants Free Spirit Fabrics to start printing their Flea Market Fancy line again, so she’s started a blog that will act as a petition of sorts and a place to share the Flea Market Fancy love. So, if you’re a Flea Market Fancy Lover, run over to the new Flea Market Fancy Freaks blog, sign up and share the Love with us!

Did you know that The Vintage Workshop has a new blog? I love their clipart for craft projects. If I were smart, I’d wait until September 1st to tell you about them so that you won’t know about their very cool fabric giveaway. But you know I love you, so there ya go.

The Little Red Hen posted an interesting way to quilt fabric with the decorative stitches on her machine. I decided to give it a whirl on some potholders that I made for a friend, and I LOVED it! I used a simple wavy stitch and I’ll definitely be quilting that way again. (Embroidery design from embroidery library.)

Shutter Sisters had an interesting post about Aha Moments the other day, probably just as I was having a huge Aha Moment of my own. But not in a good way. Fortunately, I have my beloved Hester and I can retreat to the dungeon to do a lot of little mending.

And last but by no means least, Don’t Look Now (haha), but ….well, Kellie is having a FANTASTIC giveaway. RUN over there and sign up!!!

Whew! That’s it — thanks for hanging in there. Hope you’re having a good week!

XOXO,
Anna

Oh, p.s. — my e-mailbox filled up on Monday night, so I missed responding to a few of your comments from the last post. Sorry — I’ll catch you next time!

Distracted

52 Comments / June 23, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Books, Chat, Recipes

Well, I’m a little late with a weekend report, but I have a good excuse. I’ve had my nose buried in The Help. I completely avoided the computer last night and sat out on the patio reading until dark, enjoying the last of my peonies and savoring every word.

I couldn’t help myself. I loved this book and haven’t been as excited about a book group book in a long time. I finally finished it today on my lunch break. Fortunately, no one came into my cube to see the tears in my eyes. Yvette commented on my last post about how sad she was to see the book end and I couldn’t have said it better. Except maybe to use PKM’s favorite phrase — it was super delicious. More than super delicious!

Not much else to report from the weekend. Just a teeny little bit of sewing happened, but mostly yard and housework. And we had a Father’s Day cookout on Sunday. The weather was beautiful.

We even had blueberry ice cream using this recipe. Yum Yum! When TheSecondChild was 11 or 12, he wanted an ice cream maker for his birthday, so we gave him one. We’ve hardly ever used it, but making this ice cream was so easy and fast, it won’t be another 10 years before we use it again.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m way behind on blog reading. Hope you’re having a good week!

XOXO,
Anna

Grocery Shopping

63 Comments / June 19, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Books, Chat

Last weekend, TheManoftheHouse came home from his weekly shopping trip (he does the grocery shopping, which works for us — I’d rather be outdoors and, although he wouldn’t admit it, there’s great sightseeing to be had in a grocery store) and told me about this conversation he had with a woman in the checkout line.

She was meticulously placing her groceries in piles on the conveyor belt and he said “Wow, you’re organized.” She explained her system to him and proceeded to show him her shopping list on a sheet of paper torn out of a notebook. So, TheManoftheHouse showed her his shopping book list. He said the lady loved our shopping list, so I thought you might be interested too.

Each January, I buy one of those calendar books that tracks each week in a two-page spread. They’re usually available half-price. Then toward the end of each work week, I plan the meals for the following week. I write the menu for that day right under the day of the week. The groceries are written below the menu, organized by areas of the grocery store (dairy, vegetables, meat, etc.) It’s also a great place to keep notes about recipes, etc.

The book has little tear-corners on each page, so we can always open it up to the correct week. TheManoftheHouse takes the book to the grocery store each week. He keeps a red pen in the spiral spine of the book and he crosses the items off as he puts them in the cart. Then he brings the book home and I use it all week to remember what we’re having for dinner.

It’s been a good system for us for several years now. No lost grocery lists and (in theory) no lost recipes. No standing in front of the pantry after a day at work wondering what we’re going to eat. And when I’m in a menu rut, I can go back to previous years and get some ideas for things we’ve eaten in the past and liked. TheManoftheHouse is an excellent shopper and he’s great at sticking to the list.

How do you handle your menu/shopping? Have any secrets you’d like to share? And while I’m asking questions, do you have any big plans for the weekend? I’m hoping to get a little sewing done and then this sty will need some cleaning as my family is coming over for a Father’s Day cookout. I’m also hoping I don’t get sidetracked — for you readers out there, I’ve just started a new book and I Love it so far — if there’s even a hint of rain, I’m thinking there will be no yardwork and lots of reading. ;-)

Have a great weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

Mail Call

34 Comments / June 5, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Chat, Quilting

Well hello there! Have you all had a good week? Are you ready for the weekend? I’ve had some excitement in my mailbox this week. Looky what’s here:

The Siggy Swap blocks are in the house! I opened them in the car and I had so much fun reading through all of them. They’re all so pretty. I saw old (haha, how old is old in blogland?) imaginary friends in there and a lot of new blogs that I need to check out. I haven’t decided how to set my blocks yet, but I have a few ideas. I’m making myself wait to work on them until I finish a few other projects. (It seems like I’m always saying that. {Sigh}) Thank you Connie for all your hard work on this swap. It’s appreciated much more than you know! And thanks to all the lovely ladies who participated — it’s been a really fun swap.

But Wait! There’s More!!! Look what else the mailman brought me!

OhMyGosh! Can you believe it??? I won Jodi’s Sew Mama Sew giveaway a few days ago. I couldn’t believe it when she e-mailed me to tell me. (There was an audible gasp!) Isn’t it beautiful???

And talk about speedy mail service! When we picked up the mail, I hurried into the house, grabbed some rags to clean the patio table off and ran outside to put this adorable topper on our table. It’s just beautiful outside with all the beautiful greens in our yard. (Those are the very last of my lilacs – boohoo.) I LOVE LOVE LOVE this cute topper Jodi — I really can’t thank you enough. That Darla fabric has been my very favorite fabric this year, so that makes it even MORE exciting! To all of you who didn’t win, you’ll be happy to know that I’m contemplating not entering any giveaways for awhile so that you’ll have a better chance of winning. (I’m embarrassed to say how many giveaways I’ve won in the last month and all from such fabulous women.) And I’m thinking I should run out and buy a lottery ticket — if only the lottery was as easy to win! Anyway, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Jodi — you’re a fabulous imaginary friend!

So…on to the weekend — WooHoo! Hello June and good riddance May. Not sorry to see you gone Miss May — you didn’t give me one free weekend, you old hag! This weekend is MINE. All mine. I’m hoping (no, I WILL) get some sewing in this weekend. I hope you all have a Super weekend too!

XOXO,
Anna

P.S. Thanks for all your thoughts on the pretty egg. Quilty Peep Junie has a nest of Killdeer in her backyard and she thinks our egg looks like hers. And Teresa sent the picture to a biologist and he thinks it’s either an egg from a Red-Tail Hawk or a Red-Winged (Shouldered?) Hawk. It’s definitely not a Cooper’s Hawk’s (which we had nesting in one of our trees last year) egg. Whatever it is, it wasn’t watching it’s egg!

And The Winner Is …

39 Comments / June 1, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Chat

WAIT! First, I have to show you something exciting. Look!

I was mowing this weekend and I found that beautiful speckled egg. Isn’t it pretty? It’s pictured next to a broken robin’s egg I found while walking a few weeks ago and a my thimble that I placed there for scale. The speckled egg is completely in tact and was just sitting at the base of a big tree. I almost ran over it. I looked up in the tree and couldn’t see any nests up there. What do you think it is? Any egg experts out there? We’re thinking maybe it’s a duck egg. No clues as to what it was doing out in the open, completely exposed though. Anyway, sorry — I thought you’d like to see my egg. ;-)

Ok, for the drawing. Do you remember the prize?

I asked The Random ManoftheHouse Generator (yes, I know the words in that phrase are out of order, but they’re random) to pick a number between 1 and 372 (subtracting for duplicate comments — Thank You for all your wonderful comments!) Drumroll please…..

Oh. That’s not a drumroll. It’s the marbles rolling around in TheManoftheHouse’s head. He was still able to come up with a number though.

203!

Is that you? Run over to the comments and count. I’ll wait.

…

Just kidding. I did the counting for you. (Before I found out if I copied the comments into MS Word, it would number them for me. Duh.) It’s Marine_Bio No Blog who said

Love the keep calm motto. Thanks for the great giveaway. Comment by Marine_bio — May 28, 2009.

Now, I’ve been thinking about this whole giveaway thing and it seems that in big giveaways like this one, there should be some sort of way to give a loyalty prize. You know, a prize to someone who comments regularly. So, I decided to look at the last three posts (not counting the actual giveaway post) and if you commented on more than one of those three posts, then I threw your name in for another drawing (the prize will be a posie pie pincushion with some matching fat eigths from these fabrics and the cupcake pendant). I cut and pasted all of those comments into a word document and then deleted anyone who only commented once. Does that make sense? That left 64 comments provided by Jewels (no blog quilty peep), Judy, Elaine, Junie Moon, Dottycookie, Kristy, Tattingchic, Lucy, Kim, Annalea, Susan, Jackie, Brigette, Shawn, Penny, Jean, Gina, Cathy, Cassie, Karen, Jodi, Di, Carol, Periwinkle, MichelleB, Isabelle, Teresa, and Stacy. What a fantastic line-up of loyal commenters, huh?

So, I had The Random ManoftheHouse Generator roll his marbles to choose a number between 1 and 64. He chose #38 which happened to be

Oh my..that’s a lot of wheelbarrels of mulch you have to move. Oh my aching back! Comment by Teresa — May 24, 2009

Congratulations Marine_bio and Teresa! Send me your addresses and I’ll send you your prizes.

Whew! Now I’m off to bed! I wish I could send all of you — especially you loyal readers and commenters — a prize. Thanks for all your great support!

XOXO,
Anna