I'm just creating a big old mess...

OK, so now that Satan...aka my sewing machine... allowed me to sew all my fabric strips together, I have to turn on my iron...aka Mr Hottie. That's a lot of seams to press down. Yippee! Fun, fun!
OK, once the seams were pressed, I put off cutting my 6 inch blocks for a while. After all that work sewing everything together, I didn't want to think about cutting everything up so I could sew it together again. It just seemed crazy.
OK, here are the first 18 blocks that I mutilated. Keep in mind that I just tossed the blocks down and I have not actually settled on a layout yet. Hey, I have a crap load of squares to cut out yet. You will notice that some of the blocks seem mish mashed...well its because they are. You see when you cut out all your blocks you sew the scraps together and cut out some more. I'm going to have to do the rest of the cutting when I return from my vaca. More to come...

What I've been doing...

I've been burning the midnight oil. Yep, sewing lots and lots of strips of fabric together. Now I have to iron it, then cut out 6x6 squares and with the leftover scraps, I have to sew them together again and cut out more 6x6 squares. It's called a Cookie Quilt. It's random, there is no order to it at all, just random pieces sewn together. I decided if I liked this brown/tan/golden look, I might go for a black/gray quilt and call it a Burnt Cookie Quilt. Yep and if I like that, I may go for the multi colored look and call it a Sugar Cookie Quilt. LOL, there really isn't an end to what you can name these things.

I'm off to iron. Gag, I hate to iron. More to come...

I about wet myself laughing....

My Cousin Cindy cracks me up. Sometimes she has verbal diareaha. She says things and they come out much worse than you would imagine. Well, she's done it again. OK, so here is the deal. She's new to Facebook. She thought she was being funny when she sent me, her daughter and an old male blogger buddy a Super Poke. She read it wrong and this is what we recieved....lol, "Cindy Kaster has rocked the granny panties with you (and only you)." She thought it would say that "Netter rocked her granny panties." ROFL...I said, Uh, Cindy....that's kind of gross. She was so embarassed, not so much that she sent it to her daughter and cousin...but to our married blogger buddy. The poor thing, she had to send him a message telling him that it was a mistake and that she was embarrassed. lol...oh and that Netter was laughing her pants off over this whole situation. Hey, at 1 AM, anything sounds funny.

Bet you ten bucks that she won't be doing that again.

On top of all that, I have discovered the joy of making my own Facebook Flair. This would be my latest creation. Yes, my cousin Mike, out cold. I think Danielle sent it to me....so if he's going to blame anyone, it should be her for tempting me with such material. Everyone knows that I can't control myself.

More of the Rue Rue.

I have decided that its almost impossible for me to say Rue's name with out saying it twice...unless I refer to her as "THE Rue." It works then. She's a handful, a complete and total joy. Perhaps I feel that way because she's a lot like me....lol, at least I find her entertaining. She's even cute when she's eating and covered in globs of goo.
She's pretty smart too. She knows how to do more than one thing at a time. She multi-tasks like crazy. She puts duplo's together and eats a cracker, adapts, overcomes and gets the job done.
She loves to make people laugh. She's a natural clown. Shoot, I think all clowns are a little bit fun and a little bit evil at the same time...that's my Rue Rue too. You should hear her evil laugh. I know I'm going to be out pranked when she gets big enough to join in on the fun.
The Rue also loves her shades. She sports her multitude of sunglasses and when she needs to, she drops the glasses and flutters those long lashes. Yes, Rue is a flirt and she already knows how to get what she wants. She's a slick operator. Thank goodness she's her Mother's problem when she gets older....lol,

I get to see my Rue again on Sat....and she doesn't even know it. Bet you ten bucks that the first thing she wants to do with me is brush teeth. The kid loves to brush her teeth and of course Aunt Nett lets her brush hers too. Yep, we are teeth brushing buddies. Just the other night, her Mommy took her into the bathroom to brush her teeth and said that Rue Rue was calling me...."Nett!"..."Nett!" But Aunt Nett went back to New York...sigh.

How I spent my weekend...

I was over at the Leach house this weekend and Jim asked me to help him do a little picking in the garden. OMG, talk about a crap load of veggies that needed to be picked. I only did half the beans before Jim decided I should stop and then he sent me over to pick some of the cherry maters that were supposed to be grape maters. He's not happy about the switch but what are you going to do?!
On Saturday afternoon, we went to a church fair. They had a little tag sale going on and I spent a lot of time picking trough crap. I found a huge sewing basket with tons of wooden spools. I have a strange thing for wooden spools. I couldn't just buy the wooden spools and leave the rest, they all went together but I did talk them into letting me have the spools and them keeping the basket to sell to someone else. I said that I would just trash it so they broke up the set.
I'm telling you there were a ton of wooden spools. At least half of the thread, if not more, were on wooden spools. The bowl I have them in is really a large vintage mixing bowl. It's deeper than it looks in the picture above. I also found a glass medicine beaker full of tiny crochet hooks and several bone crochet hooks. They tossed that in with the thread for a buck. I took my finds and high tailed it out of there before they changed their minds.
Ah yes, my favorite....These are Jean's hydrangea's on the side of the house. The lone pink set, the rest of the plants are blue. The blue plants faded early this year but the pink ones have kept their color. I can't walk past them without stopping to admire them. They are my favorite, right after lilacs. Lilacs win the first place spot because they smell so divine.

You won't believe where I'm heading this weekend!

I'll give you a hint...




YES, AGAIN! OK, so this is what happened. This morning, I found out that I have all of next week off. I could dink around out here or I could go home and see my Rue Rue and help Mom with some of the unfinished projects that we didn't get to. I checked around for flights and found one for $500. I said, "Screw it!" and bought it.

Friday's Fill in's

Here we go:



1. I believe whatever doesn't kill you ______....Sure makes you wish that you stayed in bed that morning.

2. If you're good at something, ____....you should use that to your advantage and if possible, make life easier for someone who is challenged in that field.

3. Why so _________....gloomy?

4. Something is out there, it's ______....perhaps he should tuck it in and sip up his fly.

5. If my life were a sitcom, it would be titled _______.Murphy's Law.

6. Sitting on my back porch [if you don't have one, use your imagination] I see ___________....a large bay full of wild life and a shitload of green flies that think I'm lunch.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to _____, tomorrow my plans include _____ and Sunday, I want to _____! the day being over...hanging with the Leaches....sleeping in.

Fridays Feast

Appetizer
When was the last time you had your hair cut/trimmed? Two days after I flew home. It's cheap in Nebrasky. I had two shades of highlights added also.

Soup

Name one thing you miss about being a child. Having nothing better to do than spend my time coming up with things to do that could get me into trouble. Uh, now that I think about it...I still do that, but not as much as I would like.

Salad

Pick one: butter, margarine, olive oil. Butter, no Olive Oil...no butter. Yeah butter. I like popcorn to much to avoid the butter, plus cookies made with olive oil just sounds odd.

Main Course

If you could learn another language, which one would you pick, and why? Well, I have not mastered the English language so I don't think I should move on but if I had to, I guess I'd pick Italian so I could call my pals Family and get them to bug her about not keeping in touch as well as she should. Plus I would want to know Italian and not tell her so when I visit I can see if she really translates everything they say.

Dessert

Finish this sentence: In 5 years I expect to be… Fatter. I don't want to be but I'm just being realistic here. You want me to lie?

Off to Gresham we go....

I try to get together with some of my gal friends from high school every trip home. This time Michelle and her kids couldn't make the trip because Michelle started a new job. We missed them but Tami, her bus load...Hayden, Phillip, Stephanie and Meredith and I managed to find our way to Amy and Bill and Cody's house in Gresham. Bill went to bed because he had to work the late shift at work while the gals and the kids screamed and clanged things together. That man can sleep through anything, I swear.
Amy has the largest Mulberry tree I have ever seen and it has a HUGE tire swing hanging from it. The kids had fun on it. Stephie fell off of it and made the worst sounding thud I have heard in a long time. I was afraid we were going to have to hit the emergency room but she's a tough little girl. Anyway, this is the whole crew. We decided that we are going to get a picture of all of us, each time we get together. Luckily, I know how to use the timer on my camera and Amy has a home propane take sitting in the right place. Not a bad picture really. It's hard to get kids to look at a camera all at once, isn't it. Man it was a bad hair day for me...but what do I expect?! It's Nebrasky in the summer...which means its hot and humid...Gross.
Phillip was so cute. He climbed right into Cody's old toy box. Yep, while Stephie did the pee-pee dance and refused to admit that she had to make a potty break, Phillip found the best place in the house...a place where he wouldn't get stepped on or run over by the big kids. We all know kids hate putting toys away, so that has to be a safe place to hang out.
Oh and I made brownies. Yummy gooey brownies. I decided they needed to be frosted because its summer and everything tastes better with frosting. Well, almost everything. I wouldn't go so far as to claim that hotdogs taste better with frosting. Anyway, I decided we needed a nice beach theme. I frosted everything blue, put crushed graham crackers as the beach and peach gummy rings with Teddy Grahams as swimmers and the sunbathers. I even piped some bikini's on the sunbathers. They sure were good.

Anyway, we had a super fun day.

The kids got some Kaster in her.

Sometimes I look at Rue and think, "Oh Dear, we are going to be in so much trouble...she's going to be a handful. She really can't help it. She's part Kaster after all. Papa already has her in training and of course Aunt Nett encourages her to be ornery too. Life is short, have fun...that's what I always say. So, here is Cindy tickling Rue's tummy while Rue leans on her Grammy aka Ma Maw.
She likes being tickled and loves to get people back. If only you could hear the way she says "Tickle, Tickle, Tickle..." It would crack you up.
Rue's getting Cindy...the sight of that ornery face coming after you saying "tickle, tickle" is enough to crack anyone up. I think this is probably my favorite series of pictures I took while I was home and I took a lot of pictures. Wait, I almost forgot about the neighbor spraying my Dad with the hose while he slept on the patio love seat. More on that later.

Grrrr

For the record...

I was trying to sew on my machine. Yes, I wanted to do a little quilting. Said machine almost ended up through the window so I walked away. It worked fine while I was gone. I return to find my tension off. Way off and I can't figure out why I can't get it just right. I mean, seriously, I have a huge mess with the bobbin underneath. If there were a sewing machine protective service, I'd probably be under investigation right now for machine abuse because, yes, I'll admit it, I smacked it a few times and said some naughty words to it. I think sometimes Singers just need to hear the harsh truth about their performance and let me tell you...today, it SUCKED!

OK, later I promise to go back to the machine and apologize like I mean it. I'll even stroke it gently and whisper sweet nothings in its bobbin case but for now, I'm going to find something else less constructive to do with my time and energy. I'd call my Mother but she's out with the ladies from work. I wonder what Cousin Cindy is doing. Probably scrubbing fish skin off her grill and windshield.

The prank I'm saving for my next trip.

I can write about this because my parent's new neighbors don't read my site. Heck, I don't even think they know I blog....which is a good thing. You see, Chuck is a talker. Oh dear, is he a talker. I think the man talks more than I do! I KNOW... How is that possible? Chuck talks so much that my Pop battles to get a word in edgewise. It's a pretty funny thing to witness. I have a feeling that if Chuck started commenting on my site, I'd have to sneak off and start an new blog. Anyway, Chuck is a character, my Father is a character. Shoot, all their neighbors are characters. I've said it before but I really mean it this time... the neighbors kind of remind me of the characters off "King of the Hill." Any given night, you will find the men standing around in one of the driveways, drinking beer and talking about anything under the sun. They'll try to tell you they are discussing politics but really they are gossiping. Men are always trying to say that women gossip...HA, Men are the biggest gossips on Earth, they just do it in a different way. Shoot, you don't see the women in my parents neighborhood sticking their nose out the window to see what the neighbors are up to...nope, the men do that. I'm not kidding. If something interesting is going on, it won't be long before the neighborhood men show up to get in on the action. I kid you not. Sheesh, MEN!

Anyway, back to my prank. I really wanted to do this before I left but I ran out of time. So I may have to do it at Christmas.

One evening, Chuck pops over to my Parents house to give us the Comics to read. Meanwhile, we are cooking supper on the grill and Chuck's wife, Kathy, is doing the same thing. Kathy spots Chuck heading over to our house and yells at him to leave us alone because we are getting ready to eat. He yells back that he isn't staying, he's just dropping something off. Yeah, Chuck has a reputation. The comic is Shoe. If you want to see the exact comic, just go the website, click on the strip, then flip back to July 2nd. It's the one dealing with the Desperate Dating, Inc. Oh heck, I'll just tell you quickly... A lady at a dating service is talking to a guy, she asks him, "Do you have any hobbies? He replies, "Gardening. She says, "OH? The ladies love that in a guy. What kid of gardening?" He responds "Beer Gardening." Now Chuck thought that was the funniest thing and spend several days saying the was going to take up gardening. Chuck is a big beer drinker, to say the least. One of his favorite sayings is that "you can't bull shit a bull shitter." Yeah, now you know what we are dealing with here. You'd better dig out your hip-waders and clip a clothes pin on your nose, the man is a handful. Shoot, he shows up every week with a bag full of sweet corn "from his garden." Uh, the man doesn't have a garden, he buys it at the store...lol. If you let him, he'd have you believing that he has been sweating away tending his garden. Oh man, he gave a guy a bunch of corn and in return he gave Chuck a bunch of freshly picked cucumbers. Chuck keeps one and gives the rest to us. Later on I see him walking back to his house and he pulls the cucumber out of his pocket and says he "better get that thing home before he's the talk of the town". I said, Yeah, you'll have all the old ladies banging your door down. He replied, "Nope, its pointed the wrong way." Yeah, Chuck keeps the neighbor hood hopping.

OK, meanwhile, the back story is that I had been having Chuck and the rest of the guys save their empty beer cans and bottles for a little plot I had brewing. I won't tell you what that was because I still might use that idea...anyway, once Chuck gave us that comic, my old idea and victim was out the door. I just wish I had the time to do it when I was back...but fear not, it will be done.

So, here is what I plan on doing. I'm going to paint a sign that says "Chuck's Beer Garden" Then I'm going to get a ton of sticks and hot glue some leaves on them from artificial flowers. Then I'm going to top the sticks with beer cans and plant them in straight lines in Chucks front yard. But first...for Christmas, I'm going to give him a bag of beer caps with planting directions. He'll love it. If anyone has any ideas about what I should write about the planting and care directions, feel free to send them my way. I think I'm going to say that planting them in December works best because it keeps the beer chilled.

Oh hey, do you have any extra beer caps you don't want? The way Chuck drinks....he's going to need a BIG garden.

Hmmm, there was something fishy going on...

My Cousin Cindy and her daughter Danielle made the trip up to Nebraska to visit me while I was home. She ended up getting a parking ticket but I told her there was something fishy about it. Who would do such a thing? You find a dead fish or two in the yard...basically because some old man planned a fishing trip while you were back...don't get me started on that...and he catches bait but the ones that didn't make it ended up in the yard instead of the back of his truck or the trash. Yeah, well what's a person to do?! I say pick it up and sticking on your relatives car. I think Cindy got off pretty lucky. If I had known that her doors were unlocked I would have stuck a couple in a baggie with a pin hole in it and placed it in the springs under her seat. I almost didn't want to mention the fish on her grill because he would have easily made it to Kansas. He'd sat there overnight and his skin stuck to the GMC. Oh, yeah, she also had two more "tickets" before morning...but I was nice and removed them before she left. She kept yelling at me because I was trying to sneak the shopping sack with the "tickets" into her backseat. Cindy's a good sport, I must say

Holy Crickets!

OK, so Vickie's home from her vacation and she has discovered the cricket that was placed in her yard thanks to Marianne. I'd say I had nothing to do with it, but everyone would know I was fibbing. Anyway, the Poem that Marianne wrote and that we attached to the cricket is below, if you want to read it. 

Aunt Vickie, The Cricket & Two Pranksters

A friendship developed across the miles

Because of the internet, two blogs and some smiles


Netters and Mare quickly hit it off

Two pranksters whose paths should never have crossed


And then came some crickets of the salt & vinegar kind

Everyone yelled "Gross!!" but Mare thought they tasted just fine


To put it all on YouTube, Marianne had a hunch

Little did anyone know Aunt Vickie would lose her lunch


Feeding on the feast that was Aunt Vickie's demise

Mare & Netters put heads together and the two of them got wise


An iron cricket on a post at a yard sale for half a dollar

What better way to make dear Aunt Vickie hollar


Shipped from Texas to Nebrasky with lots of love

And a little help from the prankster gods above


A yard ornament and a memory that will never be lost

By two pranksters whose paths should never have crossed.

Rue, Papa and the sidewalk chalk

 

Rue's Papa loves to teach her things that he shouldn't be teaching her. For example, he taught her to put sidewalk chalk on herself and others instead of just the sidewalk. Yep, the chalk even ended up in my flip flops. I guess they looked like big toes or something. Oh, she was just having a blast playing, so who cares what she gets chalk on. I just home she doesn't try using the other kids at daycare as her personal canvas. I'd hate for her to get in trouble because of Papa's great ideas. Heck, who am I kidding....the sooner she realizes that her Papa's ideas will usually cause some kid of trouble, the better. Believe me, I learned all about that a long time ago.

I hope you are ready for a bunch of Rue pictures. She's basically all I took pictures of when I was home. OK, I did take some other pictures but Rue is my favorite subject.

I'm back!

Did you miss me?

I'll be posting soon. I have to download all my pictures first. That could take a while.

Man, being on vacation in Nebraska for three weeks is a lot of work. I know I did a lot, it just doesn't feel like I got anything accomplished, but I did, I really did.

More to come. Just warning you.