The work load I have chosen for myself does get over whelming at times.

As of today:
The packed boxes that my sister, Jan, will take to my Mother and to a recently married niece, Meghan, have been dropped off. Methan gets a quilted-table-top set and cookbooks for her wedding presents and Mother is getting some fabric remnants for her tote-bag designs.

Jan and Rich leave this afternoon for Tulsa, Ponca City, OK and then to St. Joseph, Missouri where they will, in order, visit a Remington Museum, attend a wedding reception and stay with Mom. When they return to NC, Mother comes with them for an extended visit here. Jan and I spent some time yesterday looking a the calendar for Mother's visit and deciding who gets to do what with her each day.

That's one quilting project done and the next deadline is not far off. Jen and Doug's quilt has been on the dining room table for two weeks and still needs binding and labels for the Quilt Show; deadline is Monday, October 13. Actually Mother will be here that same weekend and can see all the fantastic quilts.

Two weekends ago I was consumed by a quilt workshop with Gayle Bong of Wisconsin. Her "thirtysomething" workshop was a great learning experience. While I have no plans for making a triangular pieced top at this time, I did learn how-to so I will not be so timid about triangles in the future.

Progress continues on PowerPoint 2007, and bookmarking DVD's for the DANCE IN AMERICAN FILM lecture series planned for January 09. I have declined to be in the OLLI catalog for the Winter term as I am just not ready to announce. I was helped last week by Robin and Corinna at the Seymour Senior Center's theater but had so many problems and technical notes that I forgot to test out PowerPoint. The SSC theater is so great that is what inspired me to begin this project in the first place. Out of six lectures, 1 and 2 are sill loose, 3 is just beginning to get attention and I wanted to have the first three "in the can" before announcing. Back up will be the listing in the Senior Times for the first-quarter calendar, and on the OLLI Spotlight E-news for the OLLI members. Those deadlines come in November and that gives me a couple more months to perfect my slides, film clips and research.

But I swear, if I have to get one more "something for Dummies" to understand how to pull this off, I'll - - - scream! Have just arrived at the point where I feel comfortable doing outlines and new slides in PowerPoint, but still working on importing still frames from the movie scenes. Soon!

This week has seen two doctors appointments. Monday the dentist replaced an old filling and added a 'porcelain boot' to the upper right molar. Thankfully the pain in that side of mouth is gone. Today I had a thorough review at the eye doctor's. Next up, a trial for a different contact lens and a new left glass lens. Both doctors have confirmed that body parts get old long before we are ready. And my husband reminds me of the Medicare deductible which we will undoubtedly exceed this year.

Tomorrow, Thursday, is Dance Day at UNC Wellness. Thursdays have become my mega workout day with two of Claudia's classes. First is a continuation of the jazz class, followed immediately by the new Tap dance class. Yes I bought new tap shoes (first in 50 years), and am hoofing into a new routine. That means my legs will ache Thursday nights and I will be stiff on Friday morning but I like that better than walking four miles (not going to happen). I put a lot of energy into this and that gets me through the weekend. This came about after the center's Pilates teacher left, just when I was getting up to speed. Bummer.

Back to the study of dance musicals from mid-century. Loving Gene Kelly, James Cagney, Fred Astaire and learning mucho-info about choreographers.

Did you watch DANCING WITH THE STARS? They were not kind to Cloris but I was impressed with Susan Lucci and Tony Delovoni (sp?), she chose the right red dress.

Thought for today: Life is what happens while you are making other plans. John Lennon.


until later, b

GONE FOREVER. . .

The woes of last week are over, I hope. The long-lost wallet is gone forever. I got to spend an hour and half in the DMV getting a duplicate driver's license, replacing the American Express card and re-arranging the Volvo for important identity, car papers, shopping purse, shopping bags (canvass), and emergency items.
The latter includes the insulated "car bag," containing water, spray bottle, pills, iced tea and usually a couple of hard-boiled eggs. This is the life-support-system that is necessary for women of a certain age....those of you who have reached that point will know whereof I speak.

Back to the gym this morning for a really tough workout - long overdue. I missed Friday morning because of the car and lost wallet; missed Saturday's aquacise class because of a quilting workshop and was feeling the stiffness this morning.

Now to my real topic of this post. All this weekend, quilter and author Gayle Bong of Wisconsin is teaching three workshops to the DOQ membership. I could only engage in one but I picked, in my opinion, the best one. Bong is the author of "thirtysomething," a book about cutting and piecing thirty-degree angles for patchwork. Why, you might ask. Understand that the triangles most commonly used in piecing are a) half-square triangles. From a square, any size, cut across the opposing corners and you will get two half-square triangle (right angle or 90 degrees to geometry majors). From a square any size, cut across the opposing corners, and cut again across the 'other' two corners and you will get four quarter-square triangles (pyramid shape). Those are basically the ONLY two triangle shapes I have ever worked with as cutting preciesly to 60 degrees or some weird math combination is way beyond me.

Thanks to Gayle, I am triangle-challenged no more. I learned more at yesterday's workshop than I have experienced in most workshops ever taken and I have taken lots. First Gayle defines rectangular sizes, then for First Fabric she cuts across opposing corners to create half-rectangle triangles (one right and one left). For Second Fabric: a larger rectangle, cut same way, ignore the right and left, just keep right sides facing UP.

Now for the hard part. The success of this lesson is based on a hand-out diagram with the first two triangles positioned to either side of the larger, A, B or either side of C. Keeping them in this position, sewing first the A's and then the B's and following the process exactly you will get a three piece patch that when cut to the defined square size (3.5" in this case) results in a PERFECT patch with a 30-degree triangle centered on a 45-degree angle. Sill with me?

A short break for photography.
Here's the proof of what I mastered.











The second phase of the class dealt with 60 degree, or shallow, triangles used mostly for edging blocks (borders). Gayle's line up of 4x4-patch blocks (that's a 16-patch to non-quilters), offered a myriad of ideas about creating square blocks out of 3.5" squares. Not that I am going to begin yet another quilt that I will not live to finish, but the option of being able to make triangle 'wedges' with our sweat, tears and messy mascara is a tremendous feeling of accomplishment.









Last item today. Who watched "Coco" last night on Lifetime television? Did something change in the time-slot? TiVo was set to record the program, I was drowsy and sleepy and missed a good part of it, then realized that TiVo had shut off and the movie had not yet ended. What's the story? I missed the ending completely and Coco Chanel's fashions are something I have long admired. I could tell you more, but not today.