The ultimate MS State joke

and unfortunately, it isn't a joke. This is a picture we took of the jumbotron during my oldest daughter's college graduation a couple of weeks ago. Six years of tuition to send her to a school where they can't spell "exercises." Sort of sad, isn't it?

As far as I'm concerned, State deserves every bad joke Ole Miss can come up with.

Gumbo and Jake

Gumbo (coolest cat in the world) and Jake the dog. It's pretty amazing these two get along as well as they do since they were introduced to each other when they were both a couple of years old. We got Gumbo (coolest cat in the world) as a kitten and didn't get Jake until a couple of years later, and he was already about 3 years old when we got him. Gumbo (coolest cat in the world) doesn't make any sound, he just makes the mouth movements that look like he should be meowing. He can also open the front door by himself, which totally wigs people out when they're sitting there and the door flings open and in walks the cat. We're working on teaching him to close it behind him but he's apparently a slow learner. We also have a black lab and 2 other cats. They're all pretty laid back and fight less than the kids ever did. One of the funniest things they do is that (my sweet baby) Boo Radley (kitty) will grab Jake around the snout with his little kitty arms and Jake flips his head up with Boo hanging on. That's great sport for them to do that, at least until they start knocking stuff over wrestling around. Boo is pretty entertaining all by himself, racing through the house and flopping around. He also comes on command, but none of that wussy "here, kitty, kitty" crap for him. I just holler "Boo Radley" at him and he comes flying and talking. If it weren't for the fact that he had long, jet black fur you'd think he had some Siamese in him for all the talking he does. He's very skittish around people, but very affectionate towards me. He also loves being a cat more than any other cat I've ever seen. The whole running and jumping and swatting and playing thing is great fun for him. He races me through the house (skidding on the wood floors) leaping over things on the way from my work room to the kitchen, and when he beats me into the kitchen, he flops (that's not an exaggeration either...you can actually hear him hit the floor) down in front of me like he's accomplished something special. He also spends about half his time on his back legs, like a squirrel. He comes to the side of my chair and sits up to be petted, sits up to swat at stuff, and sits up to play with his fox and rabbit. A real fox and rabbit, both from vintage stoles, that look pretty freaky to see him toting them around like trophies until you get used to it.

Ignore the fact that the rug needs vacuuming too.

Finally!

Some actual fabric-related content. Two finished tops that have to be quilted, but at least the tops are done. No idea what possessed me to make these, since I don't usually do fussy, pieced, precise measurement quilts, but they are what they are.

The one with the red is about 45x45 and uses a variety of commercial prints and a square of an African print on a background of Osnaburg. I'm thinking they'll both have very heavy quilting in a matching color and straight lines. Of course, that may change once I start quilting them, but for right now that's my intention. Lots of straight lines and angles for the quilting. You probably can't see it, but the WIDE borders are mitered at the corners, so at least the borders will probably be channel quilted in squares around the outside.

The one with the shiny insets is the Osnaburg again, with a beautiful gold/black block printed ribbon. Each piece of ribbon is surrounded by small black piping, and the small stripes on the left are more piping. The heavier vertical line is an even thicker piping. Top and left edges will have Osnaburg binding, bottom and right edges will have black binding. This one looks MUCH better in person than it does in the picture. It is about 36x45.

Merry Christmas!

HO HO HO! Or whatever sound flamingos make.

Life is........

"Good" is usually the end of that phrase and for the most part that's true, but occasionally, well, "life" interferes and other adjectives take the place of good. Interesting, expensive (in an emergency-visit-to-the-vet sort of way), funny, expensive (in a truck-that-crapped-out sort of way), exhausting, expensive (in a more-was-wrong-with-the-truck-than-they-originally-thought sort of way), exciting and expensive (in a daughter's-broken-tooth sort of way) are all appropriate adjectives this week.



My oldest daughter (not of aforementioned broken tooth fame) graduated from college Friday night in Starkville. She's not actually through with school, but she walked across the stage in the long black dress and got the empty diploma holder. I have no idea why they "walk" before they actually finish school, but I'm not complaining. I'm definitely pushing for the others to time their graduations for the Dec ceremony rather than the May one. Fewer people parading across the stage, less traffic to fight to get to the auditorium and plenty of seats. We got the obligatory pictures of her holding up the empty diploma folder (to be photoshopped at will later) with the tape measure and shots of full face and profile. Yeah, mugshot was the scenario on those. I'm just hoping my parents or sister got real photos instead of the silly ones we were taking. Not hoping for our sake, we're perfectly happy with the mugshots, but down the road somewhere she'll probably be glad to have nice pics of it too. Or not, knowing her. She wanted to dye her hair fuchsia to graduate but my mom stroked out so I caught the daughter and stopped her. Fortunately, I got to her before application of the neon dye, but unfortunately, I didn't get to her until after she'd already stripped and bleached the front of it preparing to dye it. She didn't look horrible with the bright yellow stripes on the sides of her face. Or maybe it wasn't horrible because the hat covered it up.



If she had decided to get a 3-toed sloth tattoo on her right cheek I'd have been OK with that too. She deserves it after all her hard work over the years. Way to go, baby!!!!!

Let it snow....and sleet, and rain, and get nasty....