sister suzy graduates

One of my reasons for heading back to Kansas in December was for Sister Susy's graduation.

(Not the best picture but considering it is from my little point-n-shot from half-court...)

They had her stand to acknowledge her grade point average.  It was announced to be a 4.0 but final grades were not in yet.  Last class was Friday, graduation ceremony was Saturday, and grades weren't due until the following Tuesday. 

I had to laugh, she is so disgusted because she made an A- in one of her class so her grade point average is 3.999 instead of 4.0.  She said they jinxed her by making her stand for the 4.0 acknowledgment.  I don't think that's too bad considering Hubby passed away a month into the semester, the Saturday after he died she started a full time job and was taken a full load of 15 hour with no fluff courses.  Those last 3 weeks were touch-n-go to get all the papers and projects finished and turned in on time, along with the job.

Afterwards we (family and friends) head over to the local Chinese Buffet for a celebratory meal.

Two of her high school teacher, Kent Harms her Softball Coach and Algebra teacher, Julie McCreight her Theater Director and forgive me I can't remember Julie's daughter's name.

One of the girls she runs around with from high school, Kylsie

One of her cousins, Sami.  I didn't get photos of the rest of the crowd.  Big hugs to you guys for coming and making our day!

Now for Graduate School!  I have my fingers crossed she gets into the program out here with Midwestern because it has a Doctorate Program and all internships are done on campus and are paid.  (Not to mention, I sometimes want to play Helicopter Mom.)  She, of course, is torn between staying in Kansas to be close to friends and the Doctorate Program out here with Midwestern.  Time will tell.

Hope everyone is having a good day!

Judy

the niece's quilt

On to happier topics, the first being, the quilt I finished up for my brother's youngest daughter's wedding.

I really like how this quilt turned out.  It is the combination of three quilting ideas I had.

The lone star block was a twin quilt-top I made years ago while taking a quilting class on how to make lone star quilts.  The border is the border for the lone star quilt-top expanded out to go around a king-size quilt.  I liked the idea of it only being a partial border with the quilting echoing the block pattern for the other two corners.  The twin top had lots of open space that just begged for some beautiful hand-quilting that I was never going to get around to doing.

The big stars were an experiment with blocks following a quilting tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company's you-tube channel.  I loved how the blocks turned out but didn't like the fabric I used for the sashing strips.  The sashing fabric took away instead of enhancing the blocks.  Oh, and be careful when building the blocks because you can get left and right-handed blocks.  I have one oddball block. ; >)

The pinwheels were part of the original idea I had for the quilt.  You can get left and right-handed pinwheels, too!  So pay better attention than I did, when you are setting up your half-square units before sewing into pinwheels.  I have a few extra blocks that are opposites laying around now.

The quilting was stitch-in-the-ditch, running diamonds; echo quilting the colored strip of the border and using a cereal bowl to draw curved lines on the sashing.

For something special, I used some gingham blocks that Mother had made on the back.  I thought she(the niece) would get a kick out of having some of Mother's blocks incorporated into her quilt.

All I did was square up the blocks and I got to spread Mom's love of gingham around to others in the family. : >)

Well the label is on, so it's time to wrap up this post.

I hope everybody is having a good day!

Judy

first the sad part

Psycho Kitty escaped in Liberal, Kansas.  I pulled into the Mickey D's for something to eat and drink.  The bum right-knee is slow to unlock and that first step can be a crap shot after sitting for four hours so she took the opportunity to escape while I was stretching out the leg and seeing if I was going to be able to stand and walk.  I stooped to pick her up; she went off the deep-end, again, and took off running.

To begin the saga, when I tried to put her in the kennel the morning we left, she decided she wasn't interested and took a hunk out of the base of my left thumb.  (I'll probably have a scar.)  I did get her stuffed in the kennel and into the car.  The ride to Alamogordo, NM was not pleasant with her letting me know just how unhappy she was for most of the ride.  Have you ever spent eight hours listening to a cat bitch?

When I got to the motel, I got her all set up with her paraphernalia in the bathroom, so she would be easier to catch the next morning, and let her out of the kennel.  She ate cat treats from my hand, let me pick her up, love on her and acted like she was okay.

When I woke up the next morning I decided not to put her in the kennel and just carry her out to the car thinking maybe her biggest objection might just be the kennel. So I stepped into the bathroom gave her a quick love, put her down and reached for the kennel.

Psycho Cat FREAKED out!  I grabbed a towel and threw it over her so she would have a place to hide and to break eye contact.  I left the bathroom in hopes she would calm back down.  When she got quiet I went back in to get the rest of her stuff to put in the car.  She started in again even though she was still under the towel.  I waited about an hour but she was not having any of it.  I didn't feel like getting bit again and the only safe way for me to handle her was at the end of a capture pole.

So I called the Alamogordo Animal Control and had them come out.  It took thirty minutes to catch her and stuff her in the kennel.  His comments were: A. That is the most pissed-off cat he had ever handled. And B. I needed to get some serious amounts of Dramamine from a vet for her to be calm enough to travel.  If she had figured out how to get through the mesh windows of her kennel she would have tried eating both of us, that's how unhappy she was.  I held the kennel out at arms-length to get her back in the car and covered her up so she would have a dark place to hide.

It took a couple of hours before she got quiet and by the time I got to Tucumcari, NM I decided to let her out because she was calm.  She laid on top of her kennel, let me pet her, purred, drank from a cup of water I had for her (dipped her paw in and licked the water off).  I thought we had made peace with the situation.

All the time trying to figure out how-the-hell I was going to get her into a vet's office to get some Dramamine.  And how-the-hell was I going to hang-on to her and stuff a pill down her throat, anyway?  Or use a syringe with a liquid and get her to swallow it?  Maybe, if the Dramamine came in a gel I could rub it on her nose and she could lick it off like the 'Vaseline on the nose' trick.

So we got to Liberal, I was slow getting out of the car and shutting the door.  Sigh :(

Hope everyone is having a good day!

Judy

I'm back

Got back Tuesday late.  I've been busy trying to get routines reestablished.  Tell you more later.   Judy