Deborah a year and a day in my life

November 1^st and the clocks back an hour what a great way to begin a new month.

Yesterday was a rather disappointing day for me, in fact, the month of October has been less than perfect, it seemed each week was filled with let downs, or downed ceilings, however beginning with last weekends canceled trip to the Bernheim Arboretum in Kentucky with a side trip to an apple orchard due to necessary auto repairs and Friday evening silly me stubbing my little toe bad enough to keep me off my feet (again). I am happy to see October over and done with.

Yesterday I stumbled my way to the post office and grocery store than hobbled back to my car in agony and drove home without further thought to hitting the Farmer's market.

What was I thinking, I am older now and the bones just don't hold up the way they used to. Several years ago I broke that toe and two others I just stuck my foot in my heels and went off to work and all was fine. The second time I had the toes taped and limped after a day or two. Yesterday after I put the shoe on all felt okay and I managed the post office but after I was planning on a few other errands but my foot was having none of that, me thinks I may have broken the damn toe again.

So how did I spend my Halloween? Well I posted a silly poem and spent a few hours working a wire wrapped stone piece, the stone is one of my favorites, Malachite and silver wire, cut out coupons and looked through a few cooking magazines for recipe ideas and watched DVD on knitting to refresh my humble beginner status.

At the grocery store I came across Spice Islands grinders and grabbed 2 while they were on sale. I have several pepper grinders and mix my own blend of pepper and herbs with spices, but when I saw these I figured I would give them a try. Bad pun alert->to spice things up-tehehehehe!

Oh and here is a nice little piece I found browsing a thrift shop last friday, hours before the toe incident. It's a brooch made from molded carnival glass and rhinestones and is just stunning, my photo does not due it justice, the carnival glass is what caught my eye and I just had to have it.

Well I managed to get the newspaper this morning and the sales papers are full of toys, christmas decorations, and more toys. I was looking through the Toy store ad-you know the store I mean-and I am thinking mostly everything is made of plastic, and every item looked the same as the other item. And how does a child play with a washer and dryer, does it really wash and dry or do you shove in the doll clothes and pretend to wash, dry, iron and fold them. And the dolls are UGLY just plain ugly and thank you but I don't need a doll that eats and shits. WTF?

Well the foot aches so its time to ice and elevate though ice seems to have made things worse.

Pumpkins fat and witches lean

spooky black cats with eyes of green

with all the magic I have seen

my wish to you

HAPPY

HALLOWEEN

Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled.

I am now once again the happy owner of a copy of the 1973 edition of the Betty Crocker cookbook to replace my long ago loaned out copy. I am still looking for the 1969 edition to replace my once cherished copy and someday I will have one.

But for now I am content with the 1973 version which if memory serves me correctly was not much changed if at all from the 1969 volume.

All in all worth waiting for and less than $25.00

The soup is delicious just the right balance of chicken, veggies and egg noodles, not too salty, after skimming the fat off the top before serving I had a rather smooth broth. Tomorrow after the soup has been refrigerated overnight I will skim the fat off once more.

I haven't added noodles to my chicken soup in ages and wanted a change, I was thinking of adding rice or dumplings but decided on the noodles. After the fat is skim tomorrow I will freeze about a quart of the soup for future use.

The great weather is still with us and this morning it was quite chilly outside I love it.

After my walk and buying the Sunday newspapers I picked up a pumpkin spice cappuccino drove home and baked corn muffins for breakfast, while the corn muffins were baking I decided it was a chicken soup making kind of day.

After I pulled the baked muffins out of the oven I was off to the market for carrots, celery, and chicken, etc.

I decided to use a cut up whole chicken and I added some chicken stock in addition to water to kick things up in the kitchen.

Cut and chopped the veggies and put everything in the slow cooker.

Signs of autumn are falling all over my little garden space, and some of the plants are looking a bit withered. The bamboo and hibiscus are thriving and the poinsettia needs to be covered so the plant will turn red. I am not going to cover it though it was such a hassle last year and most of the plant remained green.

The Sycamore leaves have turned brown and crisp and most eventually find their way to my garden area from across the street. I love the sound of the leaves rustling and the crunching sound when I step on them.

I am going to pull out some backing fabric and put together one of the lap quilt tops I have pieced now that the cooler weather has arrived it will be nice and cozy having a quilt across my lap to work.

I am thinking of crocheting a sweater or a vest I haven't made a sweater in years and I think it would be a nice project to begin and maybe socks, I think Joann's has sock yarn on sale this week so I may drive over and take a look.

I woke up to a beautiful autumn morning today. The air crisp and cool it was actually chilly and oh so wonderful. The near all day rain yesterday brought in a cold front, finally.

The weather is supposed to remain cool in the mornings for most of the week so I will add another lap to my morning walk. In fact if the evenings cool as I am hoping I may add an evening walk too.

Right now the crows are calling one another, its so loud you would think the birds were in the next room.

Last night the last of my moon flower plant bloomed, the vine is pretty much bare of leaves and drying out. The last flower as beautiful as the first and I forgot to snap a photo and today it is just a withered memory. Next year I will plant moon flower and morning glory early in the season. I still have not found daffodil bulbs so I may order online.

The Bamboo plant has yet another new growth already over 3 feet tall and the Hibiscus is thriving though not many blooms this year I am sure next year will be better.

I am off for a day of thrift store browsing.

Today I am planning to be in a better mood despite the ceiling falling in and the mess it keeps generating. As soon as I clean up the nasty bits I here more falling so today I am just going to ignore it all and try to enjoy my Sunday newspapers.

I was out early this morning and the humidity again is so sticky, all last week the temps have been climbing and we are back in the mid 90's, hot and humid, the earlier fall days are but a fading memory. Such is the sub-tropical weather of Florida.

I decided not to walk this morning I am just so tired, ennui setting in again and well what the heck let it.

Yesterday evening after the dishes were washed and floor vacuumed once more and the ceiling bits were picked up I had a long phone chat with a friend which helped bring me to a calmer stated, I was really letting the ceiling thing get to me which is useless, so after our phone call I found myself thumbing through some old issues of quilt magazines.

I am talking issues from 1985 through 1995, a friend gave them to me several months ago when she was cleaning out her late aunts stuff. While looking through the issues I began to notice little pen markings, a little star or check mark here, an underline word or passage there. It brought a smile knowing someone else made marks just like I do. It is such a small world when you get down to it.

I never thought I was the only one to make these marks, in fact I doubt I ever gave it a thought at all. It is just nice to know other people make the little marks too. We are not alone in the little quirky things we do. The magazines let me look back to my own early years quilting and I came across patterns and photos of quilts that fueled my own quilting fever.

For me it first began back in the late 1970's when I stumbled on a photo of a Dresden plate quilt in a craft book or magazine I was reading, day after day for a week or so I kept looking at the photo and the pattern, thinking I can make this, I have been sewing by hand since I was 7 years old and had made piles of dolls clothes for Barbie, Tammy, and numerous other fashion dolls.

How hard could a quilt be to make, the flower petals for the Dresden plate were right there I just needed fabric and thread. So it was off to the Mill End shop for calico prints, needles & thread. It was standard procedure for me to buy new needles and thread whenever I began a new project, it didn't matter that I had a small stash of thread and needles (not like I have now) It was just part of the sewing ritual for me.

I was able to find the 20 prints I would use for the Dresden pattern shopping at the Mill End, Fabric King, J. J. Newberry and Woolco requesting ¼ and ½ yard pieces of every print that caught my eye. Pictured is the final result. I had quite a stash leftover that was happily used for other craft and quilt projects over the years and I still have a few ¼ yard pieces not cut.

When I had the pattern piece cut out I traced out each petal onto the fabric with a ball point pen, than with scissors I painfully cut out each piece, 20 petals for 20 blocks plus a few for use in a pillow or border. Tracing and cutting went rather slowly and I was not in a hurry. I pieced the few petals together and did not like the arrangement. Ripped out and laid out the arrangement before stitching.

What I didn't know about quilting back than could fill a book I had no clue what I was doing I only knew I loved that damn pattern and I loved to sew so what the heck. After piecing 3 plates I put the quilt pieces aside.

I would not drag them out until 1980 when I was quite pregnant and in need of some creative stimulation, I had crocheted several sweaters, and blankets all in blue (I dreamed he would be a boy). But I was getting bored with crocheting so I pieced all the Dresden plates but I was stuck. I had no idea where to go from there, I had no clue the process was appliqué, I did not know anyone that sewed let alone quilted so I tucked the plates away determined to figure it out someday, meanwhile I gave birth to the boy I dreamed and began motherhood.

In 1989, I met another quilter in the guise of my sons cub scout leader Sandy, she became a life long friend and my first quilting buddy. We spent many hours shopping for fabrics, going to quilt shows and sharing mishaps with scissors and rotary cutters, which I still can not stand to use. I am a scissors girl all the way.

As the years passed I would now and than pull out the Dresden plates and I recognized my mistake at once: forgotten seam allowance, which could be remedied, but I still did not know how to appliqué, and when I learned I realized I don't like to appliqué, so I could use a fusible web and iron the plates onto the block and sew the raw edges with fancy embroidery, I could dismantle the plates and use the petals for my postage stamp quilt, or I have a keepsake of the first quilt I attempted to make.

Eventually I will figure it out, I am not ready to toss them, 30 years ago this month and the fabric appears just a vibrant as when I first purchased it.   I still don't like appliqué and when I look at the prints of the petals I just think yikes! All this from thumbing through 38 old quilt magazines.

I am off to read the newspapers, I long finished my pumpkin spice cappuccino and I am going to make a hearty meat sauce for pasta today.

I am in a foul mood today, the ceiling in my laundry closet fell in thanks to the very competent work of the AC/Heating repairman's great work, several days ago I called my landlord alerting him there was a wet spot on the ceiling and a slight cracking and he called to send the AC guy over to repair the problem, something in regard to a float tank overflowing.

Well repairman came supposedly fixed the leak and used the wetback to clean out the water. 2 days later he replaces a switch. Thursday I call the landlord and tell him the wet spot has gotten bigger, he says he will send the repairman back, (I say send someone who knows how to fix things). Well he never shows, and this morning I call the landlord to tell him the ceiling is falling through, that was 10 a.m. This morning I call him back at 2 p.m. Telling him the ceiling has fallen through and the ceiling in the bathroom is WET.

He says “didn't the repairman call you? DUH! Well repairman calls and gives me several lies of how he tried calling all yesterday I was here all day, and that he was at the door today at 7:30 this morning, yeah I was having coffee at that time not 6 feet from the only door to my apartment. Just get here and FIX the problem or I am posting the photos of your repairs online along with the name of your business.

What I learned in all of this:

1)-A person does not need to own over a dozen sets of bed linen even if she loves the fact that more than half were now considered vintage ( I purchased half during the 1970's).

2)-A person does not need to own 18 bath sheet sized towels, bath towels and numerous wash cloths.

I was not aware the ceiling was leaking slowly I gather for several months because when I noticed the problem, I found lovely mildew growing on much of the bed linens and towels and most were so bad I had to toss them. 4 sets were salvaged, 12 thrown away and by some luck several sets were fine. I lost 8 bath sheet sized towels, this sucks.

When the ceiling began to fall through the insulation and ceiling bits fell on top of the freshly washed and salvaged sheets and towels that were stacked on the washer, I was making room in another closet to store them when I heard the ceiling begin to collapse, grrrrrrrr I don't think I will ever get the fiberglass insulation out some items so I tossed more bed linens and towels.

Grabbed everything else off the washer and shelf and cover the washer and dryer with plastic drop sheet just in time for the ceiling to fall through completely. The pink basin I stuck under didn't help catch the leak the crack was small I thought it would help, the big whole was a shock.

Needless to say I am angry, but I at least lightened the hoard of bed linens I had accumulated over the last 30 odd years. And this autumn is all getting rid of stuff, though I would have liked to chose the linens and I would have liked to donate them somewhere.

Is it too much to ask for competent work? Because these holes were after the problem was repaired.

Thats all for now I am just too cranky to type anything more.

I began the morning with an early walk at the local track, some of the trees show subtle changes, after my walk it was off to buy the newspapers and a special treat Pumpkin Spice cappuccino, the drive home was great the car filled with the aroma of spices and visions of pumpkin pie and homemade applesauce filled my head, and a few wonderful memories of autumns past came to me in a rush.

Since childhood Autumn has always been my favorite time of year, the first sighting of red, orange and yellow leaves can make my heart soar, the aroma of wood smoke scenting the air from nearby fireplaces, and the scent from endless piles of freshly raked leaves. Mother Natures aromatherapy.

Since those early days of childhood I collected several changed leaves, pressing them between the pages of heavy books, I still make it a point to collect a few of these leaves to keep as a reminder, a rare for me today, when I moved to Florida several years ago I was shocked that everything remained green. I was so homesick for the change of season I felt like a vital part of myself was missing.

My late friend, Sandy would gather leaves and mail them to me, somehow they always arrived just when I needed them, a year after she passed away my friend N sent me box full you can imagine my surprise when I opened the box, there I was staring through tears of joy at leaves of every shape, size and color and for a little while I was taken back to my home town, trekking through the woods picking up my own leaves, shopping with Sandy at our favorite quilt shop in Allentown, having a lunch of split pea soup and rye toast on the way home.

It wasn't until I was here 8 full years that I actually noticed the seasons subtle change, the first thing I noticed was the green leaves fade and looked washed out, and dull. Around November the leaves of the Sycamore tree turn brown and brittle and the leaves fall to the earth in heaps regardless of the warm weather.

We have a few trees that bud in the autumn to a deep red, and others golden yellow, last year we were fortunate enough to have cold spells and the temps dropped into the 30's and several of the trees did indeed change to reds and orange, sometime just half the tree or a section, but it was enough. I hold out hope every year we get cold enough weather for a week just to have the change.

Today, while pulling out some fabric for a quilt my thoughts again turned to Sandy, I came across some scraps she sent me a few months before she died, we had always spoke about my plans to make a postage stamp quilt and she wanted to help me along the way, since she pieced her quilts by machine and made about 20 quilts to my 1, she sent her bits and pieces, many of the scraps were cut into 4 inch squares that my son pieced together when he made his first quilt, smaller cuts of those were put into a box for my postage stamp quilt, I have yet to decide whether I will make it from 1 or 2 inch pieces, these colorful bits of fabric remind me of piles of fallen leaves both bring me wonderful memories of autumn.

Well I am off to read the newspapers and have a cup of tea.

Oh and tonight is the Full Moon, the harvest moon and like any full moon, the Harvest Moon rises at sunset and shines all night long. So what’s special about the Harvest Moon? On the average, the moon rises 50 minutes later every night. But not the Harvest Moon! At mid-northern latitudes, the Harvest Moon rises 25 to 30 minutes later for several evenings in a row. And at far northern latitudes, the Harvest Moon rises 5 to 10 minutes later for several evenings in a row. In the days before electricity, farmers counted on the lamp of the Harvest Moon to gather their crops. Making up for the autumn season’s waning daylight, the Harvest Moon faithfully provides several nights of dusk-till-dawn moonlight. You can bet I will be dancing in the Moon's light tonight.