Welcome, Snuggles!

Time flies, here's the new baby I keep, who is celebrating 3 months of life this week. I think I've decided on an internet name for him: "Snuggles". Corny, I know, but that's what he is. He's probably the first baby I've ever seen who enjoys snuggling this young. And he is a doll. Eats good, laughs, sleeps pretty well, and is thinking about rolling over. Idgy (his 2 year old big brother) loves him, and Snuggles watches every moves he makes. It's been hard on Idgy after having Dyl Pickle, Jo-Jo, and Diva all summer to just having me and the baby. We aren't near as much fun, apparently.

Speaking of The Pickle, he's doing rather well in first grade. We just finished a round of the flu in this house. Poor Pickle just couldn't seem to get better, but he did recover. He's been reading alot, and I'm liking that very much. Halloween will be spent with Jo-Jo, Diva, Idgy and cousins going around trick or treating. It will be hilarious watching Idgy knock on doors for the first time. Pictures to come later.
Grandma Hunnybunny and Great Aunt Hunnybunny may be making their way north for Thanksgiving. So that means I got make with the bird this year. No worries: Diva's mama gave me her Martha Stewart turkey recipe from last year! It literally melted in our mouths.
I'm still working on the "Lucy in the Sky" quilt for the Legal Adult. What you see to your left are the piano key borders I'm making out of the scraps. I was going to slap some border on it and call it done. But, too much left over fabric made me feel guilty, so I decided to piece one.
Still have so much to do on this. One block at a time.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. I got accepted into school this week in the Allied Health division! I can't declare the whole Nursing major until I complete my CNA and retake the ACT. My scores in math, back in the day, were pretty bad. I'm hoping the almost 30 years that have passed since I took it will play in my favor this time. However, I am getting a study guide and a math tutor!

My Holy Grail

Every quilter, seamstress, dressmaker, crafter, or needleworker has a holy grail. "If only I could get a Bernina," one might say, "or the Singer 221 Featherweight". Mine has been neither of those. For me, it was finding my mother's machine for a price I could afford. The machine I grew up watching and waiting for her to pass to me. I grew up a tomboy, and she was very frustrated with my interests. So, she gave it to one of my neices and it's not been seen since. I was heart broken. My mother did not live long enough to know I had become a quilter. I'm sure she is enjoying watching the process.

This beautiful woman on the right is my mother, Mary Ellen, at 19. (How in the world did anyone expect me to live up to that? No wonder my father fell so hard!)




This is a Singer 301. I have been searching for one for about 5 years. Finally, I find one on Craigslist! The very nice lady was selling it for $100 or best offer. She had acquired it from her grandmother's estate. No one in her family has the time or the inclination.









I thought I was never going to get it to turn over. Alot of oil, and alot of elbow grease. Hunnybunny helped me, believe it or not. It cost me $60. The ones I've priced elsewhere were in the neighborhood of $300. This is the "Big Sister" of the Featherweight, Singer 221. Quilters love it because the feed dogs can drop. That means I can finally free motion on a vintage machine.

Thinking about........

Nursing school! I can see some of you out there....scratching your heads, wondering if I have truly lost it. Just to remind you, that happened LONG AGO, so this isn't a "mental distrubance" as Paulie asked Rocky in the last Rocky film. I've actually been entertaining this thought for a long while, like maybe 1992 or so. Wait, no, even longer than that. My mother BEGGED me to consider nursing school as I was graduating from high school back in 1980. But no, I couldn't possibly do something she thought was a good idea. My best friend in high school, Dee, went on to nursing school and did great. She makes good money, and works her hiney off three days a week as a supervisor. She also has more degrees than you can shake a stick at. In college, I was working in the school infirmary on college work-study. So, some of it will be familiar.
Back in 1997, as a single parent returning to school, I had considered it. Childcare was the major issue, and I was already having a hard time juggling work and paralegal school.
The question has been asked of me: "Why don't you just go back into the legal field?" Truthfully, I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped. Erin Brocovich made it seem like such a great career move as she spent time interviewing people in the movie. As a paralegal, I hardly interacted with the public. Pleadings, letters, phone calls, but no one on one. These past five years at home, well....sort of...have given me time to think about what I'd like to do. I decided a long time ago that I wasn't going to do anything where I had to sit still all day.
I'm still praying about it. I don't want to make an expensive mistake. I went ahead and applied at a community college here, and have requested my transcripts to be evaluated. I'm fairly certain most of them from my A.A. will transfer, except for the Algebra grade....I BARELY passed that class.
Classes start in January, and some are online. We will just see how it all works out.