Arrrgh!!!

I'm anxious to see the results of your re-do! You have so many projects going, it's amazing that you can figure out where the stuff is that you need to work on each one! It bothers me that I've two projects going. Soon, I hope to have it down to one.

See my blog for HH's Afghan quilt top in its final configuration. Yes, Ma'am, I'll get right back to work on it. That way, I shall have only the small quilt top, that I worked on at your place, in progress.

CC....just ONE project at a time? That sounds just about CRIMINAL!!!

Brava to you! How nice that the spirit moved you to sew like crazy! I wish you had brought the Afghan quilt with when you visited. I'd have like to see it as it progressed.

One day I'll make a list of all the incomplete projects, and the tops waiting to be quilted, and post it.

I assume that Labour Day is the 4th. For us we have a Bank Holiday the last week in August so our Bank Holiday was over and done with a week before you had yours.

I smiled a little about your comment about weeds not growing in the winter. Over here many, many plants, including weeds, seem nowadays not to shut down completely in the winter. Climate Change seems to mean that our winters just aren't as bad or as cold as they used to be. (Having said that I know that at least parts of GB had some snow last winter, but not us.)

P>S> I'm still having computer problems but have sent up a cry for a Rentageek. Soon, I hope, the computer will be working properly and it won't take ages for the computer to do ANYTHING.

Adele, Labor Day is the first Monday of September. It used to be that kids went back to school right after Labor Day, but now Universities down to pre-schools are starting earlier, some in the middle of August. For schools with no air conditioning, that has to be hard.

Please, God......don't let weeds grow here in the winter! Adele, that would drive me crazy, trying to get everything done. I'm sure you're right about the climate changing. I live in the Corn Belt of the US, and that will change if we don't get more precipitation.

Rentageek! *G* We have a version of that service here, too. Please let me know what it's like to have one of them work on your computer. Good luck with the repairs. We miss you!

Adele--Yes, we miss you. Contrary to Buffy's climate in the Chicago area, we have weeds that thrive in the winter. Too late to pray for us.

I'm sure there is a Law that says that the time spent thinking about getting round to doing something is at least 100 (if not 1000) times more than the time taken to actually *do* it.

We all do it though, don't we? :)

(sending Cop Car my bottle of Round-up)

BW...my family is great at making LISTS! Yes...I think about getting things done, A LOT....too bad I don't just get up and do them! *G* I love the Nike ad that says "Just DO IT!"

Right I'm back later than I hoped.Without the use of Rentageek - Michael did things, lots of them, to the computer Sunday and Monday which seem to have helped and it now seems to be working properly - fingers crossed! And I'm aware that I owe you a letter Buffy. I'll e-mail it if you don't mind to save time.

OK, back in the stream of things....

I'm staggered that your schools go back in August. Over here our schools went back last week. Having said that Michael's Autumn term at Cambridge University doesn't start until the beginning of October, although many of our other universities start back somewhat earlier than that.

On the subject of weeds growing in Winter - yes they can do as do other plants. One of our roses was flowering to the end of December last year. And then Spring seems to be starting earlier and earlier too. Rather worrying, as must farmers where you live. Though the papers over here was saying that if the weather continues to get warmer soon Britain's wines will be better and better.

Aren't sons, as IT guys, just the best? I am dependent on Fred's boys to help us when there's a computer problem. (knocking on wood) Luckily, there haven't been many problems for them to work on.

E-mail is fine....write when you have the time.

One of my nieces went to NOrthwestern just yesterday for the start of the fall semester. That seems pretty late to me. Her brother started school in New York almost a month ago! That's the most common range of start dates here. Cambridge seems to start unusually late in the year. Do English schools use semesters or quarters, as we do, to divide the year?

Your weather is amazing, MUCH warmer than it is here. Do you get much snow? I can't imagine a rose blooming in November, much less than in December. I look forward to the break in gardening each year.

Buffy--You are usually "right on"; but, I must take exception to your statement about sons being the best when it comes to IT. In my case, my daughters are the best! (Take that, you sexist thing, you! *grinning*)

Over here schools have three terms a year: from September to Christmas; from the new year until Easter and after Easter until about July. Historically the terms were set to take into account two significant areas in a countryman's life: the most significan religious festivals of the year and the harvest. The start of the school year was always set to be after the harvest was taken in - to allow pupils to take part before they started school.

Oxbridge (the term for Oxford and Cambridge universities) always has shorter terms than any other UK university, I think about 6 weeks per term, but the students are expected to work concentratedly throughout. Michael though does a huge amount of study and revision through every holiday just to keep up with all that's expected of him by the university. It seems to be worth it though - he got a first in his second year exams and if he gets another first in his thrird and final year as an undergraduate he'll end up with a Double First - the most saught after type of degree.

I must admit that I have never heard of the North Western. Is it a college or university?

Over here Clobal Warming is having a very significant effect already on the plants that are surviving our summers and the type of weather we have all the year around, with warmer winters as well as very hot summers. I read the following in the paper yesterday and suspect that it is going to be right: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2355481.html

I have heard it said by experts that the extreme weather conditions some areas of the world are suffering, like hurricanes and tornados in part of the US are a direct effect of Global Warming. Try http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/ and look at the information beyond the front page. Frightening subject - we are all being exhorted to do things like conserve water and recycle everything we can but individually I am not sure if we can do anything.

CopCar,

I agree that I don't want to be sexist but as far as I can tell for every one girl interested in IT one can find at least a dozen boys. It just seems tyo be a subject that"speaks" more to boys than to girls. Seems disappinting to me [sigh].

Yes, Cop Car....that was really sexist of me, wasn't it. It just happens that in this family we have two boys who are very good at computers. I also have a daughter-in-law and two nieces who are very adept, but it's the boys who work on my computer. My apologies if I offended anyone with my comments. *G*

Adele, some of our universities use the quarter system, similar to the divisions you described, although I think our school year starts and ends earlier than yours.

Northwestern University, in Evanston, just north of Chicago, is a famous university in the United States. My niece is enrolled in the Medill School of Journalism, which is quite prestigious. NU may not be as old as either Cambridge or Oxford, but it's an old school by US standards, and is world reknown. (Sorry.....needed to brag a little bit.)

I'll check out the links you've sent on global warming. Unlike some WRONG THINKING jerks, I believe that we are in the throes of warming, and I'm concerned that we are leaving it until too late to clean up our act! (Cop Car....do NOT tell me you don't believe in global warming!)

I don't really know what to say about Global Warming. Last I knew, we were scheduled for another ice age, so maybe the Global Warming thing isn't a bad thing (although, I think it is!) It is difficult to ascribe all of the horrid weather that we've been experiencing to Global Warming, though--but, it might be. I tend to think that climate is subject to a lot larger swings than we have been led to believe--and--that we've had at least a couple of hundred years of unusually placid weather patterns.

Mother Earth really doesn't care much about Global Warming. Animals and plants will survive, or not, and she will just go on spinning along--through warm, through cold, through whatever until a rather large body collides with her or our sun goes to the red dwarf stage and burns her. Talk about Old Man River just rolling along. Mother Earth just spins along. (We people are a bit less durable.)

I tend to agree with you about our having had an unusually long period of placid weather. And, weather statistics are averages of occuring weather, and we've only been keeping statistics for a century or so.

I think we've talked about the possibility of the poles reversing. Is it possible that is having an effect on weather? I can't remember what you said the last time I asked about that.

I guess the point is that we can expect change.

If I wrote anything at all about pole reversal, I don't know what it would have been. I'm pretty ignorant on the subject. Perhaps I can "study up" on it--if you keep reminding me until I actually DO it! Right now, I'm "too busy" trying to get the Afghan quilted. Just spent another hour on it. I'm not very good at the quilting stuff, you know, so it drains me! *grinning* I've decided to do "a bit of this and a bit of that" on the quilting. At least the outline of each block will be stitched in-the-ditch (well, as close as I can make it without spending the rest of my life in the effort); but, I plan to quilt diagonals (in matching thread) on the 5 blocks that are Irish chain blocks (which means that my block-in-error will take a bit of extra trouble) and some sort of visible stitching on most of the other blocks. How can I possibly take the time to study pole reversals???

Cop Car.....you're too rigid in your thinking. Quilt the dark nine patch just as though it was identical to all the others. Don't change your thread. Let it show, but be sure that you do your best quilting in that block. *S*

Nothing like "raising the bar" a bit, hmmm???*G*

Thanks for the permission, Mentor. I like your thinking! Hunky Husband decided, today, that the end of the quilt with the Irish chain blocks should be the "top end". BTW: He likes the bright colors! He had forgotten that the quilt was to be for him, it has been so long in the making.

Whew!! Aren't ya glad he LIKES it???

CopCar, I was watching a tv programme a week or two ago that said that we are still in an Ice Age - because we have polar caps. However we are in one of the warmer phases that frequently happen in every Ice Age. It's just that there's now a fear that we are heading for the end of the current Ice Age.

Global Warming is a subject that worries me, as I suspect you realise. However geologically the fact that the Earth is comfortably warm for us has happened for a ery small period of time compared with the total life of the planet. So the Earth will continue, even if we won't.

Anyway, talk about quilting gets life back into proportion. With me this Wednesday I restart the curtain-making class I did for one term last year before I broke my finger. Silly f me, I am feeling some trepidation about going back as I've done virtually no crafts in the last 9 months since the fracture.

YEA!!!! She's going back to class! NOW we'll all learn the proper way to make curtains!