A Productive Weekend!

Had a great weekend and I was finally very productive! I have several client projects going on right now, all of which need to be finished for Christmas. Plus I wanted to get a baby gift done, among other things. So this weekend I started with a 10 mile walk on Saturday (gotta get that 3-Day training in!), got a movie in (Zombieland for my husband) and did a whole bunch of machine applique. Also finished the baby gift -- other than the hand part of the binding. Here is a picture of my accomplishments. Doesn't look like a lot but it sure feels good!

My latest Memorial Quilt

This is the latest Memorial Quilt I finished. It is made from a man's clothing. It will be loved by his widow and daughter.

We have had a busy summer. Tommy and I have taken several weekend trips and done a lot of day trips. I'll try to post some pictures of our adventures.

Fun Giveaway!

Check it out! HeatherBakes is giving away a jackpot of healthy snacks! Sign up to win at http://heatherbakes.com/2009/08/18/give-it-away/.

To make this a little quilty... I had a fun phone call yesterday. A lady called me wanting a t-shirt quilt made for her daughter for Christmas. She had gotten my name in an interesting way! She was at Central Market in Dallas and saw someone showing off a quilt I had made. This lady went up to the strangers and asked who made it, got my contact information and called me! I was sad to tell her that I just couldn't promise it for Christmas this year. Why not? Because I already have too many quilts lined up! Business is booming again. That's my excuse for no blog updates!

Hope you are having a great summer! It's almost over! How did that happen???

Christmas in July

A group of friends decided last year to have a quilting retreat and to "make" a Christmas in July gift to exchange. This is the table runner I made and gave away as a gift last weekend on retreat.

I'm so lame

Boy, once again it has been too long between posts. My only excuse is that I have been very busy!

The week of July 4, we drove to Toledo to see my youngest son and his family. Haven't seen them in about a year and a half and my granddaughter is growing up too fast! We drove up and had a really nice trip. My mom came along with us.

Last weekend we went to Fredericksburg, TX. Unfortunately I forgot my camera. The really fun part was that I surprised my husband and didn't tell him where we were going. I left work at noon, picked him up and I drove. He didn't have a clue until we were about 20 miles from our destination. Fun, fun.

On a quilting note, I just finished a quilt made from baby clothes for a customer. The picture isn't great, but you can get the idea.....

Weekend fun

Had a good weekend. Yesterday Janie and I sat outside Suzy's Quilts in Garland selling raffle tickets for the 3-Day quilt. We did so-so. I think we sold about (or got donations) to the tune of about $75. But every dollar helps!

Today Tommy and I drove out to Waxahachie. I got him to walk a little over 3 miles with me. Waxahachie has a wonderful walking trail. Then we went to a craft show in the park and had lunch on the square. They had quilts hanging all over the square so it was a lot of fun!

Memorial Day Tradition

We spent an enjoyable LONG Memorial Day Weekend at the Frio River in southwest Texas. We go every year with the local kids and grandkids. This year Tommy and I drove down on Thursday and were able to spend most of Friday at a very quiet river. The kids arrived late Friday afternoon and the rest of the weekend was spent playing in the water, playing with the kids, staying up late drinking and talking and TUBING!! I was the only one that made two tube trips. We have to take turns because of the little kids, but I went both Saturday and Sunday. We drove home on Monday and headed back to work on Tuesday. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Time for catch up

It's been a while since I last posted. I had good intentions on keeping up with this blog, but time gets in my way!

I just finished a quilt for a friend of Meredith's. The friend had bought fabric, planning on doing her own quilt, but never got around to it. So I did!

We are starting to have some pretty flowers around the yard. I just love this hanging basket -- I believe the plant is called a Fuschia. So bright and colorful! I think it likes our back yard.

Weekend with relatives

This past weekend we met my uncle Ray and cousin Karen in Shreveport for a weekend of fun. My mom came along with us. My uncle and cousin live in Austin. I had not seen my cousin for close to 40 years until just last year. My uncle moved to Austin last year to be closer to his daughter. So we are now back in touch with that leg of the family!

I recently took some old reel movies to be transferred to DVD. These were movies taken by my grandfather and we really didn't know what was on them. I was able to pick the DVDs up on our way out of town so we enjoyed watching them with my mom and uncle who were able to identify a lot of the people in the videos. Among them are my great-grandparents! There is even footage of me as a newborn. So the movies are REALLY old! Actually, the oldest portion was probably of my dad when he was about 13 which would make that reel more than 60 years old.

The only downside of the trip was the flat tire we had on our way to Shreveport. Of course we were in the middle of nowhere on a busy interstate and it was raining. It took 2 hours for roadside assistance to arrive. The tire was ruined and we were not able to find replacements in Shreveport so we drove home without a spare. I got to spend this morning at the tire shop getting a new set.

Here we are at breakfast on Sunday morning:

Crystal anyone?

While we were in Ireland, we visited the Dingle Penninsula and went to Dingle Crystal where I was able to purchase a beautiful handmade crystal vase. Every piece is designed, cut, signed and sold by the master craftsman, Sean Daly. Sean was trained for 12 years at the Waterford Crystal Company and then started his own shop in Dingle Town. All the crystal is absolutely beautiful! It was very hard to do, but I managed to pick out my very own piece. We had it shipped here because it is VERY heavy. It finally arrived today and is gracing my dining room table! I absolutely love it!

I'm wiped out!

Holidays at our house are fun and lively. So fun and lively that I get a little exhausted! But it is a good exhaustion. Here are some pictures of Easter at the McBroom house.....

Lily eating her cupcake..

Thomas's is almost gone!

We lucked out and the weatherman was wrong, so we were able to have the Easter egg hunt outside. Here are my grandkids lined up and ready to go hunt eggs. My granddaughter, Madison, is the only one missing. She lives in Ohio and didn't get to join us.

And they're off!

Gotta stop and check out the loot!

Easter Eve

I got up early this morning and my dear husband fixed me a yummy breakfast before I headed off for a walk with my friend, Janie. We went to Grand Prairie and walked down the Fish Creek trail. It is a really nice paved trail along a creek. It stretches for 7 miles through Grand Prairie and Arlington. We walked a total of 7 miles. Training is going good for THE walk!

It is the day before Easter and I'm busy preparing for all the kiddos to come over and hunt eggs and eat. Problem is, the weather man is predicting RAIN!!! Hopefully they will be wrong or it will be all over before the festivities begin. We are having ham, potato salad, green beans, baked beans (Tommy and I couldn't agree on which one to serve), deviled eggs, rolls and banana pudding for dessert. I'm not telling everyone, but the banana pudding will be sugar-free :)

I just finished baking some cupcakes for the kids. They look yummy!!!

I'm a speaker!

Tonight I was asked to speak at a meeting of Delta Kappa Gamma of Ellis County. This is a sorority of women educators. I have never really been a public speaker, but I felt like it went pretty well. The subject was "Memory Quilts" so I spoke a little bit about how I started quilting. Then I talked about my business. I took some of my quilts to show, including my photo quilt and a couple of applique quilts I have done (Christmas and Texas Our Texas). I took two additional quilts, one was the one that I did for my dad when he was going through his chemo treatments. I had my brother, sister and nieces and nephews write something to my dad on a block and I assembled them into a quilt. I also took the quilt that Janie made for me with blocks written by friends and family. People seemed to be interested and enjoyed the program. Thanks to Delta Kappa Gamma for inviting me!

Our last days in Ireland

Ireland, con't.

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Thursday night we went to the pub in Creegh and enjoyed traditional Irish music. Three musicians, a conchatina (sp??) player, a guitar player and a tin whistle/flute player. They were really good and we enjoyed them for a couple hours. Things here always start later than we expect. This was no exception. The music started at "half ten" (10:30 p.m.).

Friday we got up and did a little laundry and then headed for the Burren. It is a rocky, desolate area, but beautiful in its own way. We had another beautiful sunny day, although a little windy. We were able to tour a 1,000 year old ring fort and saw some more castles. It is getting to the point where we say "look, another castle". It is amazing.

Saturday we packed up and left Sean and Allyson. They feel like old friends! we drove to Dublin, stopping at Bunratty Folk Park on our way. It is kind of like Old City Park in Dallas, but the main attraction is a castle from about 1400. It has been restored. There are a lot of period farm houses and other restored buildings around it.
We finally made it to Dublin about 5:00 and turned in the rental car. We took a cab to our hotel, walked around the area a little, had dinner and relaxed in our room. The computer here in the hotel was down all weekend so this is my first chance to be online.

Sunday we got up and caught a tour bus. It is a bus for one fare you can get on and off as much as you want. We got a three day pass which will include our transportation to the airport. On Sunday we toured the Guinness Brewery. We also toured Kilmainham Gaol which is a jail from the 1700s.

Today we caught the tour bus again and went through Trinity College (founded in 1500s) and saw The Book of Kells, an amazing collection of the Gospels transcribed in 800 AD. We then walked through Grafton Street, the shopping district of town and headed to St. Patrick's Cathedral. From there we went to Dublin Castle and toured that. It was built in the 1600s and is where some of the government offices are still housed. It is also where the Presidential Inauguration takes place. From there we went to the train station (Tommy wanted to see it!) and then on to the Jameson Whiskey museum where Tommy got to be an official whiskey taster!

We have had an amazing time. Our flight leaves at 11:00 tomorrow. We will leave the hotel around 7:30, have some breakfast and catch the bus to the airport. We have a layover in DC and then it is on to home. Tomorrow is a long day of travel so we are staying in again tonight.

We saw our first rain of the trip today. I think it sprinkled on us for 10 minutes!

Ireland, con't.

Our Ireland journey continues.....

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On Monday, we toured around the peninsula that we are staying on. Beautiful countryside and cliffs looking out at the Atlantic.

Our "landlord" Allyson, told us that the local village pub was having a "quiz" that night and it should be fun, so off we went. We got there at 7:30 or so, thinking that would be the starting time, being a Monday night -- there were only a couple people at the bar and we were surprised to learn that the quiz didn't start until 9:30! So we had a good time talking to the locals at the bar before the quiz started. Around 9:00, people started filing in and by the time the quiz started there were over 100 people there! There were 22 tables of 4 people and the bar was full. I got drafted to play on Allyson's team. It was a type of trivia game and I wasn't a lot of help as most of the questions were Irish. The quiz lasted until close to 12:30 and we ended up staying at the pub until about 2:30 talking to people and having a good time. We had walked down there and some of our new friends gave us a ride back home.

On Tuesday we had planned to get up and drive to Galway for the St. Paddy's Day Parade, but after our late night, we didn't get up early enough to make the 2 hour drive (the parade started at 12). And what seems like a 2 hour drive here may end up to be a 3 hour drive because you can often get caught behind a tractor. I have learned how to pass on the right though! Instead of Galway, we headed up the coast to the Cliffs of Moher. I can't understand why that is not one of the "wonders of the world." Absolutely beautiful. We were blessed with a beautiful sunshiny day also. We headed a little further to the small town of Doolin for a delicious dinner of fish and chips. The village was packed with celebraters -- we apparently just missed the parade, but the pub was very full. We headed back around 5 and every village we went through had people spilling out of the pubs into the street. We have noticed that every village, no matter how small, has at LEAST one pub!

On Tuesday evening we were told that there would be music in the local village pub. We poked our heads into one and it must have been a room 10x15 feet. We decided it was too small for music and headed back to the one we were at the night before. It was quiet as well. We stayed an hour or so (it was 10 by then) and headed back to our car. I heard music coming out of the small pub so in we went. There was a guitar player, a squeeze box player and some singers. We went in and were serenaded by Irish tenors until about 1:30 am. They sang Happy Birthday to me. People would just start singing from all sides of us and for some songs the whole pub was singing. There were probably 15 or so people there and when they found out we were from Texas, they enjoyed singing all the cowboy songs they know also!

Yesterday we took the ferry to the next peninsula and drove to the tip of it to Dingle -- the western most city in Europe. It is buried between mountains and the sea. It was absolutely beautiful also. The drive was incredible with steep drops down the side of the mountain and sheep grazing in the fields. We actually did something we would never do in America -- we picked up a hitchhiker! There was a man standing in the middle of the road at a turn we made and he flagged us down. We thought he had car trouble so we stopped and he asked if he could have a ride into Dingle. He seemed harmless and Tommy said yes, so he rode with us the last 20 miles or so. Dingle is much more "touristy" and we saw a lot of Americans. We enjoy our area where we are the "oddity". I did buy a piece of beautiful locally made crystal there. The artist autographed it while we watched!

We got back to town around 7:00 and stopped at the store for more breakfast food (we have been cooking all our own breakfasts). Then we decided to get some chinese take out. The Irish apparently love chinese food! We saw a video store and they let us rent a movie so we had a night in last night.

Today we are doing a little more local sightseeing and then there is music in another nearby village --Creegh ("Cree") -- tonight so we will head down there at "half nine" or so. Tomorrow we will pack and do laundry before heading to Dublin on Saturday.

It is sunny again today and Allyson says this is the first sunny week they have had since September, so we are really blessed. Yesterday we were in shirt sleeves and very comfortable -- must have been close to 70 and sunny. Today is a little windy, but still quite warm and sunny. This is the third day in a row with sun which apparently is an oddity here. We have not seen a drop of rain although it often looks like it might rain.