June 2011 Archives

With Father's Day coming up, Dad is on our minds. My-Sister-The-Nurse was visiting with us, and asked for help in scanning a picture of Dad to post on Facebook. We actually chose to use his picture as our profile picture for the week, so that it would be present each time we post.

Dad was an exceptional man. There are a lot of funny stories about him as a teenager. He went to Pillsbury Military Academy at the headwaters of the Mississippi River, in Minnesota, and then on to college in the Chicago area. Dad worked for Public Service, which became Commonwealth Edison, as an electrical engineer. I believe that he worked his way up the ladder to become Testing Engineer for a major area of Illinois, before he retired early to develop his own business.

My parents are survived by their five children: four daughters and one son. My brother followed in Dad's footsteps to become an electrical engineer, and we have a niece who is also an electrical engineer. Education was and is valued in our family. It never occurred to me that there might be other options than going on to college once I finished high school.

I chose to get my first degree in music education, and became a band director. I suppose I knew in the back of my mind that Dad didn't quite understand my choice, but he never said a word about it. As long as I was willing to work hard in my chosen field, it was fine with him to let me choose that field. I joined an adult community band in the northern suburbs of Chicago, and my family came to hear one of the concerts. Dad was seated where he could see my hands as I played, and for some reason, that experience brought home to him what it was for me to be a musician. Having him attend that concert is a memory I hold dear.

We lost Dad more than 25 years ago. I so regret that Dear Husband didn't have the chance to meet Dad. They have the same work ethic, and the same belief in the need for a moral life. Both are nurturing people, able to stand back and let children test their wings, while providing assurance that the rock, the foundation, will always be there.

So, I'd like to share with you one of the last pictures taken of my Dad.

I miss you, Dad!

I love rainy days! I like to hear the rain on the roof, and watch the drops make the leaves on the shrubs and trees dance and shine. The only thing better than a rainy day is one with my family around!

Last night, two of my sisters and a niece joined us. My-Sister-The-Nurse came to visit and have dinner with us, and my youngest sister, Frankie, and her second daughter are here for a couple of days. I love it when we are together, sharing what's been going on in our lives.

Today, we are going to look at a quilt in progress, and see what we need from the fabric store to complete it. My niece is working on a quilt for her sister as a birthday gift, and that birthday is only three weeks away! And, I need some backing fabrics for three of the Scraps on a Mission tops that I've been getting ready to quilt. I can see that we will be wandering the aisles of the fabric store for a bit.

IF we have a break in the rain, we may do a little trimming in the gardens. I need to deadhead the peonies and cut back the oregano and chives. There are still things to plant, but I think the trimming might be the best use of my sister's help. I'm amazed that she is willing to go out there and risk getting drenched, but we are drip dry, after all.

Tonight, Dear Husband is going to share what he knows about glass blowing, or more correctly, glass work, with our niece. She's an artist in training, and he thought she might like to experience one more medium. This is the girl who welded spoons and forks into an incredible owl for a class project. Who knew she could weld!?!

So, I'm going to have a lovely unstructured day with my family, doing two of my favorite things. Life is Good!

Between quilting and rainy days, I have not been in the gardens enough this spring. I had the pleasure of shopping for plants today, and hope to get some "dirt therapy" tomorrow.

The NW corner of the herb garden needs to be weeded and then I can plant the lemon verbena and scented geraniums. I'll check on the seeds that I planted a few weeks ago. From the kitchen window I can see zinnias coming up, but I need to walk out to check the things I've planted in the veggie beds. I wasn't good about keeping them watered, so I might have wasted seeds and time there.

I need more Homestead Purple verbena. I'd like carpets of it in two more parts of the gardens. I want to line the sidewalk with alyssum, and set out pots with lantana and ivy and ornamental peppers in a deep purple shade. I need to get a purple sweet potato vine, too.

I have TONS of weeding to do. Thank goodness we got a lot of rain this week. It will make things easier to pull. It's time to begin working in the gardens between 5:30 and 7:30 in the morning. The heat will drive me inside, as it did earlier this week. Still, it's nice to be able to play in the dirt again!

We've had a couple of rainy days this week. We have had LOTS of gray days, but not a lot of precipitation. We live in this tiny dry micro-climate, and storms frequently slide just north or south of us. I'm sure that I80 and I88 direct the rain away from us.

I live in an area where a subdivision can not be built unless there is room for a retention pond to collect run-off from heavy storms. Whoever designed the ponds immediately to the east of us clearly needs to go back to school and take those lessons again.

The first year the ponds were created it became obvious rather quickly that the series of ponds, which interconnect, do not drain fast enough. Their response to it was to increase the size of the middle pond. All along the northern shoreline of the pond are homes with walk out basements, just waiting to flood.

So, with just two days of occasional heavy rain, the ponds have filled up to the point where you can no longer see the concrete culvert connecting two of the ponds, and with just a little more rain the last two ponds might overflow, and meet each other on the road between them. The homeowners must have interesting conversations with the developer when we finally get rain!

I think the developer might luck out this week. As I came home today, I could see from a ring of trash on the grass that one of the ponds has actually dropped eight inches or more. We've had gray skies, but no rain today, so perhaps it will drop some more.

I'm very surprised that they haven't had to increase the size of the tiles to allow for better drainage. Perhaps something downstream prevents them from opening up the flow. Dear Husband wondered if they have ever cleaned out the drains.

We're not in any danger. Our house sits almost at the top of a rise, and we are higher than the area that will flood. I'm just fascinated at the ineptness of designer of the pond, and the fact that the building department wasn't able to determine that the design was inappropriate. It ticks me off that my taxes pay for a department that allows problems like this to slide by.

Scraps on a Mission met for the first time in 2011 last Tuesday. I had been making kits all winter, putting together pieces for blocks to make the first session easy. I thought if I could present a non-threatening situation to the beginning quilters, we might be able to ease them into a positive experience.

My co-coordinator had called ladies from the church whom we thought might be interested in participating, and she expected five to attend, in addition to the two of us. And, one of my quilting friends has volunteered to join us on occasion, so that brought the total to eight. It was not the rousing turnout that I had hoped for, but it wasn't a bad start.

The reality was something else. We were supposed to begin at 10:00. By 10:30 there were three of us. My quilting friend joined us at 11:00 and one more member from church arrived at noon. The session was to run from 10:00 to 2:00. We stopped for lunch at noon. After lunch, I gave a brief lesson on the basics of piecing to the one lady who arrived at noon. She is the least experienced at piecing of the group.

I was distressed about the lack of turn out, but at the end of the session, we had three tops finished, backings chosen, and batting cut to size. I've spent half my day today working on kits, and I have two more tops completed, and backings cut and pieced for four of tops. I've also cut batting, so that the kits are ready to be basted.

I haven't totaled them up, but I'm fairly sure that we have easily 15 tops done. Our next meeting is at the end of the month, and we will work on basting the quilt packages. I've seen a video of a new way to baste them, to eliminate wrinkles, and I hope to try it before Scraps on a Mission meets again.

If we should have more members attend next time, I will teach a beginning class on assembling the blocks. If not, I'll work on basting the quilt tops. I'm eager to try my hand at quilting with my new sewing machine.

I think we are off to a good start!