American Brain Tumor Association

Steve walked in the ABTA's 5k walk/run fundraiser today at Soldier Field in Chicago. He just sent me this clip he made from the pictures he took. The music is by David M. Bailey, who is a 12 year brain tumor survivor and is now going through treatment again because his cancer has returned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tarW-emqRcM

Happy Easter, Belatedly!

AJ declared himself a "handsome boy" in his tie and dress shirt. We had to agree.
Will doesn't care about such things -- just give him a ball and some other toys and he's happy as can be.

We had Easter dinner at our house yesterday afternoon and enjoyed visiting with the kids and grandkids.

We had to have Pita put down last Monday, so it's been a bad week. He was getting old, blind, deaf and arthritic and his heart was bad and he started bleeding from his nose -- the vet thought it was probably a tumor. JR can't figure out what's going on -- he keeps going to Bill's truck as if to say, "let's go get my buddy back."

I've been doing more spring cleaning -- I have the laundry room and the main bath on the second floor finished -- all that's left is the master bedroom and bath upstairs. Problem is, as I finish each area, I come down the stairs and see that the first floor needs to be done as well, so I may be continuing the deep cleaning all summer.

Haven't done much quilting in the past week though, but hopefully will be back at it this week. I have one small quilt to load on the longarm this afternoon and still have a couple to stitch the bindings down and as always, lots of applique projects waiting to be worked on. But nothing has a deadline, so I will be taking my time and enjoying the process.

Gratitudes:

We had a nice Easter and the weather wasn't too bad -- temps in the 50's, but the wind is still quite cold.

Progress in March

My quilt projects in March moved along well. I made two dog fabric quilts, put a border on a quilt Kris gave me, put a border on a panel for a child's quilt and finished my Five and Dime quilt that I made last summer. I quilted all of the above, and bound one dog fabric quilt and gave it to Steph. I finished the bindng on the Five and Dime yesterday (and put a label on the quilt, too), but I'm counting it in March's list. This is Five and Dime (the center squares are raw edge applique). I used a pantograph called Tulip Festival from Lorien Quilting and Willow Leaf Studio.

And here's the back of this quilt. It really wasn't intended to be a reversible quilt; I was just using up stash to piece the backing. But I like the result a lot. It's a great place to put leftover blocks. too.

Spring cleaning- wise: I managed to finish the guest room and I also did the upstairs hallway -- mainly lots of woodwork (there are 3 bedrooms, a bath and double bi-fold doors on the laundry area that open on the hallway, not including the open access to the stairs). I also shampooed the carpet in the hallway twice and the stairs once. I'll do the stairs again when I finish the rest of the upstairs. Next on the list is cleaning out the cabinets in the laundry area - which is basically a large closet and starting on the linen closet in the main bathroom.

Health and weight: My blood sugar is not coming down very quickly. And, I only got in about 4 days of exercise in one and a half weeks. So, of course, to compensate for no exercise, I binged on chocolate and chips! Consequently, I gained and lost the same pound about 2 weeks in a row. I am now back on track!

Gratitudes:

Making some progress on the cleaning projects.

Getting myself back on track to lose the weight.

Actually getting some quilting done!