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

It’s been quite awhile since I had a giveaway, so I’ve decided the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day is as good of a reason as any. And besides, we should probably celebrate the end of the 2009 Mulch Weekend. WooHoo and boy, are we tired. We actually ran out of mulch and I had to go and get a little more. I think those stadiums who have astroturf have the right idea. We should do that at home.

Anyway, on to the giveaway. Sew Mama Sew is hosting a blogland giveaway and all blogs are invited to participate.  (At least I think I’m participating — if I’m not, then I’m having a giveaway anyway.  ;-) )  I’m posting a few hours early — I’ll be at work at the appointed posting time.  I’d like to give away a Posie Pin Pie pincushion, pack of coordinating fat eigths, a few of the “Keep on Quilting” logos, and a Keep Calm pendant.

Just leave a comment by midnight, May 31st and I’ll choose a winner by random ManoftheHouse generator.

And after you’re done, visit Sew Mama Sew and work your way through the jumbo list of blogs that are having giveaways this week. Good Luck in all your blog commenting!

XOXO,
Anna

Not The Good Friday, but a good Friday anyway.  Boy, thanks for all the purse thingy love! You guys are the best.  This week hasn’t yielded any crafty excitement at all.  I’ve been working on a few little things, but nothing is far enough along for show-and-tell.  After goofing off around here this morning, I went to MeMum’s this afternoon and we watched a few episodes of Monarch of the Glen.  Ms. Yummers recommended it to me several months ago and we’re really enjoying the series.  Just the scenery alone makes it all worthwhile…and that’s not even counting the leading man eye candy!

Anyway, as you can see, I didn’t take Paul back to TheSecondChild last weekend.  He’s just having too much fun with TheEmptyNestChild.  And besides, TheSecondChild is fostering a kitty for a friend (she had him in her dorm room and got caught…oops!) until school is out.  We thought we’d save Paul the trauma of a new kitty along with the move he’ll be facing when school is out.  In the meantime, he enjoys watching the sunset from the patio widow with TheEmptyNestChild.

A few random things —

— Check out this cute quilt that Shawn is making.  I really like the interesting technique she’s using…not to mention the cute fabric and the size of the pieces.

— What do you wear when you clean your house?  I wear sweat pants and a t-shirt and look like a total slob.  You must go see THIS adorable outfit.  I LOVE everything about it and I’m hoping to change my ways.  Thanks for the inspiration June!

— Here’s some really cute little posy pushpins that I’d love to make!

— Now, I’m going to whisper.  Psst.  Come closer.  I just don’t get twitter.  Call me a dinosaur.  It just screams TMI (too much information), or information overload or something.  What am I missing???

And finally, here’s a random pile of books in my living room. I’m hoping to read a little this weekend. Our book group has selected Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book for this month’s selection. I loved her Year of Wonders, but for some reason I’m not really excited about this book. We’ll see. Anyway, totally by coincidence, Ms. Brooks will be in town on Monday night to discuss this book. In 17+ years our book group has only ever heard one other author speak and that was Barbara Ehrenreich speaking about her book Nickle and Dimed. That presentation was reasonably interesting, considering I thought her book was a bunch of (please cover your delicate eyes) Crap. I know Ms. Brooks is controversial in some circles too, but I have much higher hopes for her.

Tomorrow is siggy swap day for me.  I must get going on those blocks or they won’t get done.  Think I can knock them out in one day?  Hopefully I’ll at least make a big dent in them.  I hope you all have a great weekend!

XOXO,
Anna