Head Above Water!! Feet on the Ground!! Onward!!

Here is how we are living, my friends. Week 7 after the flood.

This is how the children and I deal with it.

The house, empty, now has an echo which delights them.

Someone does Tik-Tok and drama....her daddy's hat and her grandma's reading glasses.

The other one is on his game set absolutely screaming at the machine...OMG

Here is Aoife and her daddy enjoying their new house.

When a lovely package of Australian fabric comes from Dawn....this is their response to fabric....all fabric packages....they get excited to see a package....and it is FABRIC  ha ha ha!!

Of course they do clutch the cookies...and all this when dear Dawn included presents for them which they loved.

This treat from Cabbage Rose in Texas...going out of  business sale...is the fault of Marie.

She sent me a text from Iowa so I would not miss out on the sale...friends!!!!

Wabi-sabi quilts shared this interesting video Furoshiko Wrapping Cloths

Think I am going around the bend.  This is the second post I totally deleted by mistake....I had even saved it.  Where is my mind/?????  Send it back if you find it.!!

About my daughter.  The family is not moving to Ireland.  This is a summer home they bought when the family's neighbor moved to a nursing home..They are fixing it up to rent out for Air B&B.  Slow progress with a baby. I love watching the process.  It brings joy to my heart.

Meantime, the storm continues, as my only brother celebrates his 69th birthday in the hospital. He has cellulitis which has gone into the blood stream. He is on IV antibiotics.  I cannot do a thing about it...actually I cannot do a thing about most things, it seems...

I have not sewn nor read a book in a few weeks...I am sharing a few of Linda's Show and Tell.

Her repro is stunning..

A house warming present with meaning for the doggie they lost

And a DONE of a group quilt forever ago...

Coming home after the children's Karate, my  neighbors all out to meet me.

Life's miracles do shore us up.

Charlotte summer, 90 degrees and so humid.

Never mind says our Christmas (Thanksgiving ) cactus.. put out to pasture for two months already....

And, so it goes......

Shoshu....you are a dear to miss me. 

 If you send me your email address I can thank you properly

xo

PS...A phone call this evening...painters coming by tomorrow at 8 am to collect my paint chips and start taking down the fake paneling....Wahoo...I see the sun may shine this week.  Perfect timing as the children are off to the beach.

Another PS  I just heard back from my brother's wife.  They took his TV privileges away as he has no money...Can you believe that...OMG  I am disgusted...They moved him to a room with no TV.

Grandma O'Quilts Loves her Grands and her Daughter's New Irish House.

First born darling is Evan...turning 16 in two weeks.

Working his first job at Cici's pizza

Dylan, 11...showing off the hat, relaxing after cutting the grass...again.

In his banana shirt!!

My sweet Lynsey is 12 and a half...not 13, but me thinks she is precocious that way!!!

 Here is Dylan in his first Karate uniform, by then he had  turned 4

He starts Karate again tomorrow, thanks to God and a God-like friend.

He was trying this on for size!!

Irish cousins meeting for the first time. Aoife born in July and Abbey born the following January.

The Irish house

Aoife and her daddy show off their old Irish kitchen...IKEA kitchen has already arrived...in boxes.

Family is cutting the grass and arranging things. It is so lovely, I wish I was there.

(Of course, this is Ireland in the summer!!!!)

Emily said that they have their own Bay leaf tree in the  yard.

That is great since she and her man are marvelous cooks.

PS..for the love of family, I am including my "step grand"

She is not really mine, but then...she is a lovely part of our family.

Three year old Ava.

I love my family xo

Grandma O'Quilts is Humming A lot Lately

Humming relaxes the body and the mind.  I so need that!!

Excess baggage allotment ...From Portland to Seattle to Amsterdam to Cork, Ireland.

Bye Bye home....Hello adventure.

Which passport is tastier???  Aoife has dual citizenship.

She is an American....and Irish...as you can tell from her pink cheeks and Irish blue eyes.

The deconstruction of my house from the flood 5 weeks ago continues.

Here, Stitch supervises.  Evidently, he followed the workers from room to room

My empty spool holder, my empty heart.

For me distraction and the happy is

finding something fun in the mailbox.

Sure enough, it was my grunge from Whittles.

With fabric prices soaring to $13 a yard and more, it was a joy to find grunge fabric for a much cheaper price at Whittles, online.

A lovely sit and sew at Marie's today.

So very nice to see everyone after so much time apart...and to hug and to laugh.

Here is some of our "Show and Tell":

Sherry's Quilt

Marie's Quilt (her husband said it was the ugliest quilt he ever saw, because he said it looked unfinished).

Terri's Quilt....one of the nicest T-shirt quilts I have seen.

I love the quilted rows between the T-shirts.

While Grandma was gone, new garage doors replaced my 45 year old broken ones.

My DIL came with the children to help clean some of the mess inside the house.

Both made me so very happy!!!

And....:

Hello Ireland!!!  Aoife arrives in Cork with her dimples and her smile.

Guess she is a born traveler.  Good job Aoife!!!

Nothing Lasts Forever

 Stitch knew....He knew that today was the day.  He is saying goodbye to the piano.

This morning, I called Junk Raiders. $299 to come take away our piano.

Frustrated that no one wanted it...even for free...no one.

The average useful age of a piano is 30 to 50  years..Who would have known?

An upright piano like ours weights from 500 to 1000 pounds.

Our piano was 125 years old. I had thought it would last forever.

Guess it had been used up quite awhile ago.

Junk Raiders came with just an hour's notice.

Bye bye to my man's beloved piano and many good times around it.

My husband would have been sad, but he would have realized it was over for the piano.

Sigh......

My girl appreciates her family.  Lovely man and lovely baby.

Here, lovely dog heads up onto the doggie camp school bus.

She was so excited that she forgot to say good bye to Emily and Aoife

Evidently she remembered other fun times.

This time it will be 6 weeks on the grassy plains running with other dogs.

Aoife will have her first birthday in Cork, Ireland.

My guess is that she will take her first steps there too.

I wish I had sent her a Saint Christopher's  medal...patron saint of safe travels.

Tomorrow the State Farm folks are packing up my sewing room and rest of the first floor of my newly floorless house.

I try to remember that this too shall pass....It is hard though......

I have put sewing things in the downstairs handicap bathroom for my upcoming ordeal.

I am sure I will be desperate about missing something.

Was the quote, "This too will pass"??

Not much sewing in my mess.  I am going to a sit and sew on Wednesday  TBTG

High lighted gift of today....a dead baby squirrel brought home with love from Stitch.

Lynsey buried it in the front yard goldfish cemetery..  

Dinner tonight:  left over Bojangles biscuit with butter and honey...preparing not to lose my Covid weight...

Think I will just go to bed.

And Sew it Goes...

 

Two beauties above.  

Then I found out that Lynsey and her mother decided to dye Lynsey's hair blonde!!

Oh, this old, out of touch, grandmother is beside herself...Lynsey is 12.

Above my native plant blooms...gifted to me by my fellow traveler, Lisa.

(I do not dare mention the name, Red Bud)

Below from a stunning zoom lecture by....

quilt artist, Paula Nadelstern

For the past 8 years, I have been out of focus, no energy. Now, the house is de-constructed due to flood.

There is a smell about the construction that pushes my asthma.  The dog is incontinent.  Without the children, I cannot get the diaper on her.  In disgust, I went to bed at 9:30 last night...Me, the one am snoozer.   Kids are home now, helping move things for more deconstruction.  The workers want to put everything on my first floor into boxes in air conditioned storage.  I want to throw up. 

Instead, I snapped a picture of my Endless Summer Hydrangea.

 Stunning by my front window.

For lunch, as a treat, I told the children we would go out to eat.  First choice, Azteca.  There we found a long line as they were short on servers.  We left for Taco Bell...all closed due to no servers nor cooks.  On to Bojangles.  No dark meat and no inside dining.  Drive thru closed at 3 pm...you guessed it...staff shortage.  We are going to figure out a way to cook at home, even in the mess.

I do have wonderful grands...so sweet and so helpful and so kind.  Lynsey is doing her own laundry tonight.  Dylan put the back seats into my car from the garage...

Aoife's first trip to the beach outside Portland.  She loved it.

Not so much having all the sand washed off..

The children have a lot of anxiety since their father left.

They are angry and hurt.

They wanted me to order fidgets for them.

How could I say no....

We got this one for me.  They came today...just in time.

Summer reading started the other night.  Lynsey read the first chapter.  Tonight I read the second chapter.  It is a wonderful book...Wahoo to Halli Gomez.  This is book is her first!!

Thank you Karen for your comment.  You are right..hard to get help

The door in our screened in porch has a hole.  I am going to get 11 year old Dylan and google to see if we can re-screen it ourselves....Stay tuned.

And sew it goes with the O'Quilt family.

Lucky Mrs. O'Quilts

Aoife enjoys the beach at the river in Portland.

My daughter has Aoife's lunch all ready for when she is hungry!

The awful noisy drying machines left yesterday morning..TBTG

My darlings left too...to spend time with their mother and her other family.

Pearl will not go away.  Me thinks it is my son's fault. Pearl wants to move in to this house.

Poor Pitiful Pearl is more stubborn that anyone else I know.

It doesn't help that I have to go outside to sew.

Like a breathe of  fresh air came this picture of cheer..

After lunch we saw Old Mother Goose.  In the very busy parking lot at the Arboretum.

Really, it was unbelievable.....nature just happening right there.. Some kind soul had slid a bit of water in her direction.

Someone had a birthday today  We celebrated at Le Peeps.

I am flattered that she would spend her birthday lunch with me.

Workers are desperately needed at that restaurant...

It is also my 41st wedding anniversary...

Sometimes it is so hard to ask for help.  I had to ask my neighbor to come over and plug in my computer speakers....and, to move a piece of furniture just 4 inches so I could walk to the kitchen from my sewing room.  She came bearing gifts:

Calico Mountains  above

Woofs and Wags above

Without my son here there are so many little things that need being done.

My sewing room ceiling fan is making a new noise...Really??

A screen on my porch is ripped...letting in mosquitos. That discourages sewing outside.

Going crazy here waiting for the next stage in my home repair....putting down new wood floors.

If I could get the sewing room somewhat in order...that would help

At least the audio is back on so I can watch The Quilt Show....Thanks to Cousin Ann for the gift and my neighbor Lindsey for the plug in.

It is so hard to ask for help.

People are offering to help me and cheer me with fabric.

I am so very lucky.  I am so very grateful.

They make me so happy, that I even did some of my PT exercises tonight.

Next on the agenda, before the new flooring comes, is gifting Mr.O'Quilts 125 year old piano.

Offering it free....no one wants it.  They love to look at it in my house, but it is too heavy to move...sigh. No one here is musical. 

 Now I find that I will have to pay $350 to "gift it" to the piano cemetery.  

The Mr. would have been horrified.

Our mantra above...Thank you Susan!!!

I will work tomorrow on trying to move my machine into place xo