Winter Solstice Quilt Along

Well, while at quilt retreat I did manage to get caught up on our little blogland block of the month quilt-along.  When I came home from quilt retreat I had optimistic plans for getting all the pieced borders completed—NOT—what was I thinking???  By the time this blog is published I will have been gone from home 16 days out of the 31 days in October.  Quilt retreat (major fun), national sales meetings, gathering with girlfriends in West Palm Beach (major fun) and now work—I think I am staying home for the rest of the year until we head south???

If you remember—this sweet little quilt came from the book, Life In The Country.  Those pieced borders are kicking my butt—hundreds of little tiny pieces!! 

 

See, I didn’t get far with the pieced borders!  My favorite sewing machine is an oldie but goodie—a Pfaff Tiptronic, and it sews beautifully.  Up until this last quilt retreat I never had trouble with the needle hole eating the fabric—you place the fabric under the pressure foot and all of a sudden as you start to sew the needle sucks the fabric down into the needle hole—you have to stop, cuss, get the fabric out and start over only to repeat the process!!  I was chain piecing along with the pieced borders when the Pfaff started eating the fabric again—GRRR.  Guess I am going to have to order a single hole needle plate to cure the problem—don’t know why after all this time the machine decided to misbehave! 

My sheep are made of wool and are not stitched down but I brought the quilt top with me on this work trip--maybe on one of these plane rides I can stitch away!

Hello From Virginia Beach, Virginia

A blog written while working isn’t going to be very interesting I’m thinking!  I arrived back in Montana from West Palm Beach at 11pm on Monday evening.  I spent Tuesday at home and at 6am Wednesday I was back on a plane heading here.  I’ve lost some sleep along the way to say the least! 

What am I doing—I’ve accepted this position with TIDI Products—manufacturers of personal protective gear—eyewear, face masks, etc.  My fancy title is Nurse Technical Support Specialist.  What do I do??  I travel with the sales force and provide in-servicing and support for the products made by TIDI.  Today I spent a delightful time in a newer hospital teaching nurses about the importance of wearing protective eyewear when performing certain types of patient care.  The nurses are receptive, fun, respectful—unlike in my previous life!  I work on an as needed basis—I don’t receive pay when not working but when I do work (and I can refuse any assignment if I have a schedule conflict) I am well compensated. 

In life before retirement I was a contract nurse for another huge well known health care manufacturing company.  For 12 years I traveled for this company supporting their sales force, teaching, etc.  This company’s product line was operating room focused meaning I had to deal with OR nurses and surgeons.  Before I met Michael I was an operating room nurse and manager.  I was one of those difficult OR nurses at times and I was not easy to be around.  Surgeons are another whole ball of nasty!  So, it is refreshing to be around non-operating room people! 

I am here until Saturday morning and let’s hope this is the last of my travel for a while!  When working I seldom do more than see the inside of the hospital and my hotel room so no photos, yet! 

A Short Time At Home

Looking at the calendar today by the time I return home on Saturday I will have been gone 16 days out of October—that’s a lot!!  First it was quilt retreat, then a meeting for this company, then a Florida gathering and tomorrow I head for Virginia Beach, VA for a little work.  I hope that’s the last of the travel for this year!

I arrived home last night about 11pm to a very happy husband and an exuberant little dog.  She wasn’t so exuberant this morning when I gave her a bath!  It’s been a day of laundry, unpacking/packing with a trip to town thrown in.  I had to retrieve the results of my blood tests in order to upload those results to Reptrax—the organization which makes sure the people entering hospitals with products are on the up and up.  I was thrilled to see the clinic had all my results ready and waiting for me!

It was 22 degrees this morning, BRRRR!  Still no snow on the horizon—that’s a good thing this time of year.

My friend Kelly is an avid reader and shares her finished books with me.  While we were in Florida, I started the book Me Before You by Jojo Moyes.  It is a novel about a young quadriplegic and assisted suicide—I enjoyed the book immensely but have your box of kleenex handy!

I think the weather in Virginia Beach is going to be good—I’ve never been there!

Almost Over

We arrive so excited and anxious to see each other and the time seems to fly by—today is our last day and evening.  Tomorrow we all fly off to our respective homes—plans are all ready being made for our next gathering!

Our weather has been incredible this weekend, sunny, warm and glorious!

Yesterday we took a drive to check out all the fancy ocean front homes, we did a little shopping and had a wonderful dinner at Seasons 52.  Kelly is from Kansas City so we have been watching the World Series each evening.  Last night we all pooped out before Kansas City got their hats handed to them. 

Today we had a wonderful morning on our balcony and a spectacular afternoon by the pool and beach.  Only one of us developed a strange looking slight sunburn and it wasn’t me!  Tonight we had dinner at The Yard—spectacular!!  It’s going to be hard going back to Big Timber restaurants and hamburgers!

In the morning Kelly and I will head back to the Fort Lauderdale airport, Elaine will take Shirley to the West Palm Beach airport and then Elaine’s husband Mark will arrive and they will spend another week enjoying this fabulous condo.

Michael and Emmi have been having a hard time—their internet has been out since Saturday morning.  In fact, the whole area around us including Big Timber has been without internet—I see on Facebook that it is the cause of a lot of crabbiness!!!  I am ready to see Michael and Emmi!!

West Palm Beach Florida

Yesterday after a very, very long airplane ride from Bozeman to Fort Lauderdale, FL, I crashed in our room provided by my frequent flying friend Kelly—that girl travels all the time, she has elite status with Delta and Marriott, she is good to have around for lots of reasons, not just her frequent flier points!!  After a little nap I headed out to have an early dinner; I spent the rest of the evening fulfilling requirements online for this job I am/am not taking.  I was going to try and wait up for Kelly but after my 2am alarm clock wake up I was fading fast.  I did wake up when she came in about midnight, gave her a hug, chatted a little and went back to sleep. 

We both slept in then tried to make our way to West Palm Beach.  Elaine and her husband Mark lived in Florida for years and years, in West Palm Beach for nine of those years.  They have a time share here and Elaine found an awesome condo for our use this weekend.  There are four of us, we all worked for Kimberly-Clark for many, many years and now try to get together at least once a year.  Kelly is from Kansas City, Elaine now lives in Nashville and Shirley is from Schulenburg, a small town outside Houston. 

Not the greatest photo, a guy at the table next to us took it with Kelly’s iPhone.  Shirley in the fore front on the left then Elaine.  Kelly is sitting beside me.

Before Kelly and I could get over to West Palm Beach my brand new iPhone decided to die.  I could do nothing except make and receive calls.  It would not recognize my Apple ID or password then it locked up completely.  The Verizon store wasn’t much help although they did figure out it was probably a software issue as my Apple ID and password worked on their store computer. 

After spending time on the phone with Apple this afternoon, my phone is now working and yes, it was a software issue.  Seems dear ole Apple issued a software update that had major bugs then quickly issued another one—do I have that correct Rick???—my phone needed the newest update but it was so locked up I couldn’t get it to update.  How many updates does a product need?????  Just another reason for me to love Apple!!

Not too shabby a view!!Here is Elaine and Kelly trying to figure out the selfie thing with an iPad.

What do you see Elaine, can you see the sun??? 

Tonight we walked down to the marina for dinner and were treated to a fabulous sunset—how’s that Paul?? 

Life is good!

And life is really good for our friends Rollie and Gina—their daughter Ashley, her husband Parker and their daughter Jolee welcomed baby Job into their lives today.  Congratulations Ashley and Parker!!!Here’s a couple photos I lifted from Facebook:

Off Again

I'm quickly becoming the world traveler!  I would like to meet the sadistic person who created 6am flights leaving Bozeman,MT when most of population lives more than two hours from any airport!!  Whew that was an early morning wake up!!

This weekend I am gathering in West Palm Beach, FL with three of my best buddies for a girl's fun time!  Will blog and include photos when I have time in between laughing, shopping and maybe a little wine drinking! 

We spent the afternoon yesterday getting new tires on the car and trying to fulfill some medical requirements for my new job. Seems hospitals don't want just anyone entering their facilities anymore!  We both got flu shots and I had some more holes poked in me.

Rick you would be so proud of me, I have figured out how to use my new iPhone for checking in at the airport!  Well I better get going!

Scammed

Do you ever read about people being scammed and think, “that would never happen to me??”  Well, I will admit I do think exactly that when reading about someone falling for a scam such as giving out social security numbers and credit card numbers over the phone.  We are extremely careful about internet shopping, automatic payments, handing out credit information, etc.  And as I wrote in a previous blog, we have our credit frozen to prevent identity theft.  It’s Michael’s job to pay the bills as he enjoys doing it and I don’t.  We use internet banking almost exclusively writing very few paper checks.  But in spite of all this, we’ve been scammed to the tune of over $100. 

Many months ago we received what I thought was an invoice for our subscription to Mother Earth News.

and promptly sent off a check.  As we were preparing to leave for Alaska with Larry and Geri, I noticed another of these invoices on the desk and paid it, not remembering I had paid another invoice just like it only three months prior.  When we returned from Alaska Michael was glancing through the bank statements and said, “did you intend to pay Mother Earth News $109 in six months??”  WHAT???

The next morning I called Mother Earth News only to find out their mailing list data base had been hacked and many other customers were receiving these bogus subscription notices.  I wonder how many other Mother Earth News subscribers were dumb enough to pay one of these invoices not once but twice???

I started the fight to get my money back with a phone call to the number printed on the back of the invoice.  The idiot (borrowing Rick’s word) informed me I could receive a refund for one of the amounts but not the other one—too much time had elapsed or some sort of nonsense.  Well, of course I wasn’t taking no for an answer.  I filed a complaint with the Oregon Department of Justice, the Oregon Better Business Bureau and I also filed a complaint of mail fraud with the US Government.

Shortly after I was contacted by the Oregon Better Business Bureau I received a refund check for one of the amounts I had mailed.  The Oregon Dept. of Justice has been in contact with the organization and has sent me a copy of the mumbo/jumbo letter from them explaining what their business does and saying “refunds had been issued.” 

I will tell you what this organization does—it steals—it stole the data base and it steals money from clueless people such as myself and keeps that money.  The magazines they claim to represent NEVER see ONE penny of the money they collect.  I can just picture an office full of people receiving checks and laughing all the way to the bank!!

I call these idiots about every other day and have been told by three different people, Michael, Nathan and Wade, that my other check was mailed on September 29—the US mail is slow but it isn’t that slow!!  Today I re-filed my complaint with the Oregon Dept. of Justice and the Oregon Better Business Bureau. 

I hate crooks!!

Saturday On The Boulder and a Coyote

There isn’t much going on around here and that’s a good thing as I still am not feeling up to par—ugh!  I did manage to give our house a once over and even washed some windows.  I have a rule about windows—they get washed once in the spring and once in the fall.  I need to do some yard work—clean out the flower beds, etc. but I just didn’t have enough “ump” to get that task done today.

Yesterday we made a run to Billings, I had a hair appointment and we celebrated our anniversary by having a great lunch at CJ’s—although the cowboy had to finish off my lunch.  After a quick Costco stop and a Wal Mart run, we were heading back up the Boulder.  It’s flu shot time and we stopped at the clinic but they were too busy—I want to get my flu shot before I fly again.  Nat was glad to see us and he is excited about his new iPad.  I brought it home with me—the telephone company doesn’t have his internet service going yet—and I wanted to get the iPad programmed with simple icons, turning off as much of Apple’s nonsense as I could so as not to confuse the 92 year old new computer user!!

We are having some incredible weather, very cool mornings but sunshine and low 60’s as the day progresses.  This morning when we stepped outside for our walk we could hear a coyote barking very close by.  This always makes me nervous and we keep a close eye on Emmi.  When we got up into the hay fields Michael spotted him—he’s looking pretty fat and happy isn’t he!

Our leaves are falling fast but you can still spot some fall color around our neck of the woods:

And here’s a beautiful shot of a sunrise Michael took while I was gone to Wisconsin:

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Home Again And Our Twentieth Anniversary

Twenty years ago today by this time of the evening I was married to my cowboy.  Our wedding came as a surprise to many, happening a mere two months after we met.  Twenty years later I count our marriage as one of the smartest and best things I’ve ever done. 

Our wedding day photo, and yes, it was snowing. 

Yesterday morning while touring the manufacturing facility for the company, I was hit with a nasty stomach bug.  I continued to be sick off and on all day—let me tell you, being sick in a busy airport during your three hour layover wasn’t fun!!  All I wanted to do was lie down somewhere but there was a shortage of beds!!!  I landed in Billings last night just before 9pm and had a two hour drive in front of me—also not fun when you feel as nasty as I did!!  Plus when I walked out of the airport I was literally almost blown away and fought that same wind all the way home! 

The cowboy and Emmi were sure glad to see me but all I wanted to do was crawl in bed.  Today I’ve spent a better portion of the day sleeping and seem to be on the mend keeping a couple pieces of toast on my stomach.  I hate to be sick, really hate to be sick—especially that kind of sick!!

The cowboy spent the day doing some maintenance work on the backhoe. 

I still haven’t made up my mind about the job—those alarm clocks are demon critters!!  I have accepted an assignment with the company in last October, traveling to a hospital in Norfolk, VA—I will make up my mind after that trip.

Lambeau Stadium

Yep, I am in Neenah, Wisconsin and one of the perks of cooperate life and national sales meetings-- the companies usually have at least one entertainment night.  A big Greyhound bus pulled up in front of the hotel about 4:30pm, we all boarded and headed the approximate 30 miles to Lambeau Stadium, home to the Green Bay Packers.  Our guide was awesome, a volunteer who obviously lives and breathes Green Bay Packers. I will admit I am not a football fan but I must also admit I truly enjoyed tonight. I learned so much and when our guide took us through the "tunnel" onto Packer field complete with the sound effects of screaming fans it gave me goosebumps!! 

Dinner was served in one of the sky boxes high above the field.  This is a small medical device company with large aspirations.  There was a lot of joking about the company acquiring a sky box if the sales staff meets its goals.  

Tomorrow we will be treated to a tour of the factory then it is off to the airport for me--back to my cowboy and Ms. Emmi!

Fall Quilt Retreat Is In The Books

I rolled up the driveway about 1pm after dropping Shirley and Janet at their homes—I am exhausted!  The retreat started on Wednesday at Medicine Flower Lodge in Red Lodge, MT and that extra day (we usually start retreat on Thursday) was marvelous!!  I finished lots of projects—and am even caught up on my Winter Solstice block of the month project!!

A sweet little Christmas table runner—the pattern and fabric for this project was a birthday gift from my sister, Ann.

The salmon was created from fabric I purchased on our Alaska trip.  I love how it turned out!

Shirley’s red work—isn’t it precious!!

Ladies hard at work!

Mary F. created this masterpiece, the flower blocks are hand appliqued. 

Gay’s cute little Halloween project, she isn’t finished, the boots are decorated with lots more bling!

We laugh a lot at these retreats!

Jeane was busy this past winter—I love this fall penny rug and this precious little winter quilt came home with me for quilting—think Jeane would notice if it didn’t come home??

You’ve seen this one before, Donna’s great-grandmother made the Dresden plate blocks, Donna added the sashing and scalloped borders—I quilted it this summer.

Gay recently inherited some antique quilt tops—I loved this one—anyone out there know the pattern??

This one also came home with me for quilting—think I could keep it too, Jane??Mary F.’s sweet baby quilt.

Donna’s little fall table topper.

Our quilt retreat group is just the best and the location for the retreat can’t be beat! 

I am off to Billings tonight—spending the night as I have an early flight in the morning to Wisconsin.  Will be back Wednesday night—may or may not blog—we will see.  I’ve been offered a job—YIKES—a JOB!!!  I am attending the company national sales meeting and meeting the people with whom I would be working—haven’t made up my mind whether or not to take the job! 

The cowboy and little Emmi are all alone again and not happy about it!

Productive Quilters

As I am typing this post on my iPad, it will be short on words, long on photos. We have four "jelly roll race" quilts finished!  I declined to enter the race!😜

Then there is my talented friend Jeane. She purchased these cute little "sunbonnet" blocks at a junk sale for 25 cents each--I was with her!! Jeane attached the flange and sashing plus she made the Grandma's Flower Garden block--amazing!

There are two of these quilts finished--lots of appliqué!!

We are productive quilters to say the least. We have also been doing a little eating and a little wine drinking.  Back at home the cowboy and Emmi are having fun too, yesterday they went ATVing with Lonn.  Life is good!