Sewing Festival and A New Truck

Long ago I thought nothing of being up at 4am and out the door by 5am heading for some operating room somewhere.  But, I’m retired and 4am is dang early for this girl any more!  In order to have Michael at the place for picking up the new to us truck and to have Jeane and me at the Sewing Festival by 8:30, 4am it was, YUK!  We dropped Emmi at Nat’s, picked up Jeane at Nat’s and off we went!  And typical Montana weather, heater in the morning, air conditioner in the afternoon.

We left Michael to conduct the truck business as Jeane and I made our way to the Shrine Auditorium for the annual Billings Sewing Festival.  Jeane was taking a class—making a pillow using serger techniques.  I was taking two classes; techniques for using this wonderful product called Texture Magic and another class on needle punch embroidery.  I learned so much and Jeane thinks we should come back next year and take more classes—I agree.

Finished up the classes just at lunch time and headed to downtown Billings to a favorite place of ours, Bin 119.  We both ordered Ruebens, delicious!!  Then it was off to run some errands—you know the kind—craft stores, Coldwater Creek, and of course the quilt store, Fiberworks.  Costco was our final stop before heading home. 

It was a fabulous day spent with a very good friend, too fun!

Michael made it home with his new truck and is very pleased.  Emmi was just glad when both her people got home!

Smoke, Wind, And Dinner

Once again when we got up this morning we were engulfed in nasty, thick smoke.

And tonight the wind is blowing hard, lets hope some of those smoldering slash piles don’t flare. 

Michael worked on the diesel pickup again today and after lunch took the big backhoe down the East Boulder to dig some difficult post holes for a friend.  Remember this spring how we were complaining so bitterly about all the rain we were getting.  Well, the faucet was turned off about mid-July and it is very, very dry around here.  All the moisture compacted the ground and then the heat baked it making it hard as a rock for digging.

I got a quilt loaded onto the quilting frame—I love listening to my iPod and audiobooks while working in the studio.  I am currently listening to The Help, I read it a couple years ago when it first came out and loved the book, now that I am listening to someone read the book to me I am hearing parts I missed and once again, I can’t put the book down!

Lonn and LoraLee came for dinner tonight and we had a great evening.  I made ribs, oven fried potatoes and spinach salad.  And, I was bad—I made homemade brownies.  A delicious meal and a good time with family.

An early morning tomorrow, very early! 

Busy, Busy, Busy

After a walk with Emmi and some photo taking of fall colors I got started on all my chores, YUK!  Phone calls needed to be made to doctor’s offices that couldn’t seem to figure out how to file insurance claims and get them paid.  I researched companies selling embroidery thread.

After my lunch of tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and bread I washed the bumble bee jeep, vacuumed and cleaned the inside—looks great now.

Did some reading of the manual for my new sewing machine—I broke a plastic pressure foot the other day while doing that little embroidery project—Jeane got me a new one over in Livingston but I won’t have it until Thursday.  I’m anxious to try again!

The RV Goddess had a simply wonderful recipe for roasted tomato and garlic pasta sauce in her blog a couple days ago.  I thought it was delicious, Michael preferred my tomato sauce with red pepper.

This doe loves to hang out in our sawmill shed—when Emmi and I walked by she seemed to be saying, “what, what do you want?”  I wasn’t 25 feet from her!

Off To Billings

Michael was perusing the Craigslist ads this morning and saw a truck he might like and so after lunch off we went headed to Billings, leaving Miss Emmi with Nat much to his delight.  I didn’t get much accomplished this morning except some phone calls and emails.

We bought the truck, a 2002 gasoline F250 Ford, an extended cab, plain Jane, Angie and Ralph type truck.  We gave our friends such grief over their plain Jane Dodge diesel pickup, complaining every time we got out of the truck, “oh, geez, we have to lock our own doors!”  This is the first gasoline powered truck Michael has owned in years and he is hoping to have better luck with it than with the diesels.  We will see.

Stopped at Billings RV to get some new light bulbs for the motorhome—I am so excited—while I very much enjoy boondocking I am also looking forward to having full hookups this winter.  A change in scenery and a change in the parking method!

A quick stop at Fiberworks, the quilt shop to pick up supplies for my class I am taking at the Billings Sewing Festival on Thursday then off to Jake’s for a wonderful dinner.  Costco then home.

The smoke is just about unbearably thick tonight, YUK, it is past time for this stupid “controlled burn” to end.

Now Judy, I think this bird is a magpie and I’m pretty sure I have that one right!! The smoke does make for pretty sunrises and sunsets.

Short And Sweet

Another too warm day with too much smoke here in Montana.  I think it is fall, isn’t it??  And if we didn’t have the weather to talk about what would we talk about??

Nat came for lunch—meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes and spinach salad.  I made some cookies to send home with him and the rest I took to our dinner hostess tonight.  Poor Michael only got two of the warm cookies at lunch.

Tonight we had the pleasure of having dinner at Bill and Myrna’s who live over on the West Boulder and have no smoke.  Three years ago we traveled in our fifth wheel to Alamos, Sonora, Mexico where Bill and Myrna own a home.  They were so gracious to us introducing us to all their friends and to their town.  Myrna is originally from Oklahoma and speaks Southern with me.  Our friends Boo and Terry were also there as well as Barbara and Bob.  It was a perfectly delightful evening and we are very late getting home.

Before we went to dinner we darted over to Lonn and LoraLee’s for a quick visit and to pick up the mail that they collected while we were in Canada.  They have a sweet new puppy, a tiny little yorkie/poo named Buddy.  He is so tiny and cute. 

One little dog was very glad to see her people, she howled her distinct displeasure at being left home alone for so many hours!

The Wind Changed and An Update

This is the scene to which we woke this morning—heavy, thick smoke.  The clothes we wore while walking Emmi actually smelled like smoke—YUK!  Hope this goes away soon or we may be firing up that motorhome again!

There is a black cloud hovering over our vehicles—the old ranch truck died yesterday too but at least it isn’t too difficult a fix—a slave cylinder???  I drove to town this afternoon and got a new one plus some groceries.

I finished Dava’s name embroidery project early this morning and she was up here just after 8am to pick them up.  The rest of the day I have puttered and quilted.

On our walk this morning Michael noticed some baling twine on the ground—he picked it up to take it to the stove.  Emmi kept jumping up trying to grab the wad of string and he finally threw it like a ball for her—she tried to “kill” it once she got her teeth into it.

 

UPDATE:  And we saw a beautiful golden eagle this morning.  Judy (the bird lady of blogland) says this is not an eagle, dang it, it is a red tail hawk, I always get those confused, but whatever he was one big bird!

The New Sewing Machine

I think it is smarter than me!  If I could just remember how I did each step!!  It is smarter than me!!  A friend from up the road, Dava called me this morning.  She saw on Facebook where I had a new embroidery machine and had a project for me.  WHAT???  I haven’t even turned on the machine Dava!  I let her talk me into this small project involving embroidering some names onto cotton fabric, oh, and by the way she needs it by Saturday morning!

So, this afternoon I had no excuses and off I went to try the new machine.  Sewed some beautiful straight stitches, loaded the embroidery stuff, hit the sew button and promptly broke a needle.  YIKES!!!  Called the shop where I purchased the machine and she walked me through some steps—was able to get to sewing once again and I actually finished two of the names—only took me 3 hours!!! Four more to go!

Emmi and I took a nice walk this morning, no billowing smoke early in the day but the smoke sure was hanging in the valley

 

Michael worked over on the West Boulder all day today, didn’t come home until after 6pm.  It is just wonderful that he feels like working—a year ago this time he wasn’t feeling so great!

Went down late this afternoon to pick up the mail and geez, the smoke was really billowing then and I was able to get a great shot of one of the helicopters.