What I have been doing...... instead of surfing...

I am making a rag blue jean quilt.  I have a collection of jeans.   I drug them out and started cutting.

 I am lining it with flannel so I also had to cut lots of flannel.  I just bought a yard of all the different pieces of flannel I could find at Walmart.

This is my stack of cut ready to sew up pieces.   I am planning on 10 rows down, and 10 across, the pieces are about 8x11.  It will be big and heavy and I hope warm.

 Not much left when I get through with jeans.   This is my stack of scraps.  I could salvage some for smaller pieces, but not a lot.

 I now have 6 rows sewn into strips.  This is the flannel side.

 The denim side doesn't look as pretty as this side will "rag" once it is finished and then look neat. ( I hope).  Google rag denim quilts on line for pictures of what I hope happens.  

Yes, that is the pants pocket.  I sewed it shut, but thought it added character to my quilt.  I have several back pockets also.

This morning while I was sewing the girls went to produce, while D9 is behind on school and having to work.  Leaving D12 as an "only" child.  MJ is working with older son.  D12 was busy playing on the carpet beside my sewing machine as we listened to Bible teachings and I sewed.  I looked up to discover him sacked out.   I love how peaceful he looks.

I need to do the 4 more rows then I am going to tack on 1/2 a square to the top of 1/2 of the rows and the bottom of the other half.  That way I will have them staggered on my quilt and won't need to match seams.  I know they wouldn't line up well for me. 

Once it is sewn together then the tough part happens, you have to snip all the seems back as close to the seam as you can so it can ravel faster.  They say that is LOTS of work.   I am also not sure how I will bind the edge.  I need to research how others have done it.  

So if you don't see me on line much you know I am busy doing my quilt. 

Next Chapter in the "Life is Never Dull" saga

Poor Tunia, she found a big snake some where.   Since she tends to hang around close to the house I would guess it was around the house.   As MN pointed out, where there is one snake there are usually 2.    I have given her meds and now it is just time for prayer and the meds to take the swelling down.   We would appreciate your prayers for our silly donkey.

Blog for the week or two :) 7-25

Lots of pictures of life.   I have a new carpet!   I bought it last weekend at the flea market.  For those that know our house I have NO carpet.   It collects way to much dirt.  This one is special.   See: 

It is the new hit of the house.  It gets moved from the living room to the garage, depending on where I am working and what kids are playing on it.  

 

Two littles talking or feeding the bunny.  The rabbit is really sweet and is so good about taking food from fingers and not fingers.   They all love to share apples or apple cores are peelings with her.

Yes, they are all ours!   We went to a birthday party on Thursday.  I was watching almost all of my grandkids that day.  Only one missing was 14 yo.   We joined three other families for lunch.   Total count, 4 adults, 17 kids 15 and under.  

No drinks were spilled, no fights happened.   Kids had fun visiting and chatting with friends and watching over younger siblings and nieces and nephews.   Before we had lunch I had already taken my 9 to Walmart to get stuff to make a quilt, and pick up a few things we needed.   Once lunch was over we had a quiet ride home as all the littles and half the bigger ones napped all the way home.

 Dirty children!   The pictures don't really do them justice.  We had a birthday party for 4 yo grand son yesterday.  Then they went swimming, then they played in the dirt.   The pictures loaded backward so you get to see them backward.   Here is the end results of kids mixed with dirt and water.

No, this really isn't the birthday boy.  Just his uncle.  

 Here is the birthday boy!  Can you tell he just woke up from a nap?   He had ask his mommy for an apple cobbler for his birthday.  Then yesterday morning he ask for a peach cobbler.  So he got a half and half cobbler.

 Doesn't she look thrilled with her hat?  She later got to playing with the on her terms and had fun with it.

 Party fun!

 Daddy helping serve ice cream to all the waiting mouths.

 See the young lady in the back ground she didn't do it!  You can look at her brother and tell she didn't do it.  I don't know what she was doing, but she jumped back and looked guilty about the time I got the picture.

 D9 cutting his own brisket up.  He would like to be babied and not do for himself.  I finally decided if he wanted meat he could cut it up.  He has done quite well at learning to cut his own meat up since then.  

Guess that is a recap of happenings around here.  Life is busy and we don't seem to spend much time on the 'puter or around the camera. 

Slow Week... for Pictures anyway..Ranch Rodeo

The only noteworthy thing we did that I can think of and got pictures of is on Sat. we went to a Ranch Rodeo.  I was the only one that had ever been to one.  It was an all day even.  It was a thank you and fund raiser for all the Vol. Fire Dept. that have fought so many fires this year.   Their funds have been exhausted and the year is only 1/2 over.  

Ranch Rodeo is very different from traditional rodeo.   They have teams of 4 cowboys.   The events are different too.   This was the introduction:

First event was wild cow milking.  This is wild.  They turn a wild cow, think roping steers mama, out and turn 4 cowboys loose with a beer bottle.  The object is to get milk in the bottle then run to a circle in the shortest amount of time.   Their has to be enough milk to pour out of the bottle. 

 D9 really enjoyed the rodeo.  He did amazingly well with not asking for stuff or the bathroom.  After lunch he did crash.

Some of the pictures are blury, iphone and distance don't do well.  Add me moving and well sorry.  

This was goat roping.  Again 4 cowboys, 2 billy goats.  They had to rope and tie it like they do calves in the regular rodeo.  The differance is that calves are easy comparied with big goats, and there are 2 of them that have to stay tied for 6 seconds.  

 The last event was the wild horse race.  They didn't have wild horses, but one of the horses they had used all day.  They take the saddle and bridle off and put a halter on and then one cowboy takes the horse to one end of the arena, while another one with the saddle waits, you have all the horses on one end all the saddles on the other.  They say go and the race is on, they have to take the saddle to the horse, with a buch of wild cowboys trying to spook all the other horses.   They have to saddle and ride to the other end, unsaddle and get in the circle first.   :)   There were many wrecks.  

I didn't get pictures of the cow calf penning or the steer roping.  Both were fun but hard to get pictures that explained it at all. 

Other than that it was a beat the heat type week of hiding inside most of the time.  Please pray for our heat to break and for rain to come to a large section of the south and southwest.  

Week in Review June 29Th-July 4Th!

I look at some of the accomplishments that I caught on camera this week and smile.  Maybe accomplishments isn't the right word.  More like our life in pictures.  

Yes, this child is "caged".  He begged and begged to be put in a cage.   See the pillow under his head?

 The cage is two produce crates.  He wasn't happy when I pulled it off to take his picture!   I wasn't sure he wasn't going to nap in there.   If he had gotten still very long he would have.   Might not have been a comfortable nap.

Oh the face!  He is in trouble and daddy had him sitting.  I missed the elbows on his knees hands on his face.   

 Sunday afternoon DH started a new project.  T was excited to watch him weld. 

 Dh welding supports for the new cat walk along the top of the sea container.  That way we can access the storage area up there without a ladder or the bobcat. 

 This is the cat walk.  It pays to "collect" stuff you may never need.  I don't even remember why we got it but it is the cat walk and ladder off of a tank battery.  It has sat unused for many years.  

 More pictures of preparation. 

 In the mix of this my son ask me Friday if I wanted a baby calf.  That really was a DUMB question.  Sure!  So we have this nice longhorn mix bull calf now.  He is doing great.  The cow hasn't decided he belongs to her yet, so we are keeping him penned.

More work on the cat walk.  Grinding the pieces to weld them.   This was all new to D12.  MJ has helped a tiny bit before. 

 This morning was take back our house day.  The books in the book case has gotten really messed up.  I decided D9 could straighten them.  He needed to learn how.  He did a half hearted job and was "done".  I took a chair and sat down in front of the book case and guided him through doing it right.  I did a good job then.

 While we were taking back our house the two littles were busy playing out side.  I thought this was just to cute not to include.  

 Dh and the boys finished the cat walk yesterday afternoon.  I think they did a super job.  It will be nice to access the canning jars and what ever else gets stuffed up there. 

In other news I have been on a tech spree that hasn't worked out so well.   MN has a computer that has to be replaced before she starts the next grade.  Her good one she broke a while ago.  She was mad.  She had to take a lot of her hard earned $$$ to buy a new very used one.  At this point it needs a lot of help.  Space bar doesn't work and some other things, but she is stuck making do with it until her school for this year is done.  It should be done this week.   Instead of buying her a new one, I decided to buy me a new one and let her have mine.  There are several things about mine I dislike.  One is the size.  It is to big for portability.  The volume control is on the front and I can cut the sound off faster than fast just shifting it in my lap.  Neither of these things will effect her using it.  

I spent several days researching what I wanted.  Went to Best Buy and got it.  I discovered that it had some "issues".  I took it back they kept it three days then called telling me that they would replace it.   I was bummed but it happens.  We drove in Sat. to get the replacement.   They then tell me, "Oh we don't have this one in stock you can choose another similar one or we may can order the same kind."  I was less than happy.   I ended up getting my $$ back and going back to researching.  I think I still want that kind.  I am not sure I will get it at Best Buy.  

I also decided that a new router might help speed and staying connected here.  So I ordered one off Amazon.  It was easy to set up and worked wonderful as long as you were 5 feet or less from it.  Did I mention it was an extended range router?   After a long time chatting with India er tech support it was determined that it was defective.  So I ordered a different brand.  It worked great, for about 24 hours then wouldn't connect any wireless devices.   After visiting with India again we got it up and running.  The next day the power blinked, a common occurance here.  The router was again not letting wireless surf.   After another phone call to India.  I was assured, "No worry, It won't do it again."   Hummm .... nothing changed, but we again reset the IP address, which was what we had done the day before.    She assured me her supervisor said it won't happen again.   Looks like I will be sending this router back to Amazon also.  Wonder if they have a limit on returns?   This is only the 3 return I think in years of shopping.  

In my research and looking I do think I am going to buy a router that has the ability to have an external antenna that I mount outside.   I have the coax already ran from the back of the computer to the roof. I should (maybe) be able to attach an antenna there and maybe my DIL can even have internet at her house.  

We started making vacation plans last night only to put them on hold.  We found out many of the parks in New Mexico or closed and may or may not reopen this summer because of the wildfire danger.   The parks that we like to go to, including Morphy Lake.  We can't decide what we want to do.   We could drive further and go into CO where the drought isn't as bad.  We could go somewhere else, but where?  TX is just as dry.  There is no water to play in.  So we decided to wait about a month and do more praying for rain, for us and New Mexico, really the whole south and southwest.  None of us have any desire to go East.  So we will wait and see what happens.