Where Is My Tumbleweed?

Coming home from the quilt store today, I walked up to the porch and noticed my tumbleweed was gone.  It had been there when I left.  Of course, the Oklahoma wind is howling today!  So Keven and I went in search of it - I mean, it couldn't have gone that far, right?  Well, we finally found it - it had rolled up around the attached garage, down the hill, back around the detached garage, around a storage shed, and out across the yard to our other lot.  It got lodged between and tree and a bush.

We brought it up to the house and lodged it in a corner where we hope it will stay through our windy winters here. 

Who knows - maybe I will set it free in that wind!!!

November and December has been rough for me healthwise.  But tomorrow is a new day, a new year - and while I am not usually big on making resolutions (I usually feel like 5 resolutions are like trying to get on 5 diets all at once - doomed for failure), a friend of mine pointed out that resolutions don't have to be rules or regulations, they can be something you just work toward without being too restrictive.  So tomorrow, I will be posting my New Year's resolutions for 2012 ... changes are a comin' !!!!

Happy New Year !!!
Kat

Christmas Gift-Giving Dilemma

It's the last week before Christmas and I am in the same dilemma I am always in at this time of year - what to give for Christmas to those I care about. 

1.  I never seem to be able to think of things earlier in the month (...year) to get/make for people.  It is like my mind works best under pressure - which I just don't need right before Christmas. 

2.  My family is out to town - (see 1 - overnight postage - expensive !!!)

3.  I don't like crowds, which makes it difficult if I am out at the last minute (see 1 - if I start earlier, no crowds!).

4.  I do not like giving gifts just for the sake of giving...I like giving gifts that have some meaning to the gift-getter - otherwise I would rather wait until I think of something (see 1 and 3 - don't like pressure shopping).

5.  My family is out of town - (see 4 - I don't know what are they "into" these days since I am not around them much - I just don't know!!!)

5.  I would prefer to give handmade gifts - takes time, lots of time.  Well, that just ain't gonna happen (see 1, 2, 4 and consider job and health).  What's worse?  If I do start handmade gifts ahead of time, I usually choose a much more difficult project to make than I need to (read, takes even more time)!

So, here I am, in my dilemma, with only a few days left before Christmas.  I say a quick prayer and head to Hobby Lobby, hoping I can knock out (uh, I mean lovingly and meaningfully select) most of the gifts in one fell-swoop.  The Lord was answering today - got all but a few taken care of (though I am going to do a simple, I hope, homemade gift for a few).   

Oh well, off to the making and wrapping.  Pics of gifts after they are given!!!  Here is our tree this year - I really like it!

Blessings,
Kat

Blog Block Be Gone

I have had a bad case of Blog Block lately (winter blues - cold, dark, wanting only to hibernate) ... sooooooo, instead of blogging myself, I went looking at my favorite blogs and found an online class in something I have been wanting to get more into lately - art lettering (or lettering art - either way)!!!  The artist offering the online class is Joanne Z. Sharpe and the title of her blog is Whimspirations.  I love her lettering art and have been following her blog for a while.  She just announced the online class in the last few days.  It will be the perfect tonic to help me through the blahs that usually get worse in February when the days are not yet long enough, the weather is really cold, the holiday hubbub is long gone, and it is still too early to start gardening.


I have been wanting to add some of my favorite phrases/quotes to my art quilts, but am not real creative when it comes to lettering.  In fact, I have been called the human typewriter - I still print like I learned in 1st grade - very neat, tidy, engineering-like.  Very unimaginative.  But I have been trying to "doodle" artsy letters - getting more used to more swirly, asymmetrical penmanship - but still not comfortable with it.  This online course looks awesome, so come February I will hopefully become an art lettering (and art quilt making) fool !!!

One of my so called "art" lettering attempts

Here's to beating the Winter blues and Blog Block.  Just look for inspirations - or in this case Whimspirations - to give yourself a jump start.


Blessings,
Kat

There Is A Time For Everything...

...and that time is not now for me!  Nor is this a season for every activity under the heavens, for me!  I have been really struggling with migraines (sinus or maybe other), my back being out of alignment, and catching every cold that I come into contact with - I have been exhausted!!!!   Thus blogging had been put on the back burner - didn't even have the strength to say "Be Back Soon".  


And of course with this being the season for every activity under the heavens (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Christmas parties, church pageants, open houses, making Christmas gifts, baking goodies, looking at twinkly lights), I am trying to do what I can to enjoy the activities, but not doing so much of that I am not resting and healing.  This "season crash" usually happens to me every Oct - Nov, but it is definitely dragging out this year.


I am going to put up a few Christmas decorations this weekend to help us get in to the spirit at home.  Trans Siberian Orchestra CDs are in the car, in the CD player, and in the house putting their special spin on this wonderful time on year.  A few simple decorations are going up on the mantle and the walls, including some of my quilts.  Went to a Church Christmas pageant last weekend with our friends in Choctaw - wonderful!!!  Hoping to go to Korn, OK tomorrow for their Barn Home Christmas Tour - Korn is a German Mennonite town west of OKC.  Bet they will be selling some beautiful homemade things.  But it all depends on how I feel. 


Started getting out my Christmas quilts this morning.  Here is one...

I much prefer Father Christmas to Santa Claus!

But, with all the festivities, Christmas frilleries, and lights and food, please do not forget the real Reason for the Season.

Quilt made by me for my Mom in November 1999

Have a very blessed holiday season !!!!
Kat

An Inspiration to Me...

George Washington -

"I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world."

Have a blessed day!

Kat

In Search of... "Simple Living" - Part 3

Simpler – hmmmm?  To some – yes.  To some – no.  I think it all depends on the person, their circumstances and what their definition of the word “simpler” is.

I always thought I loved my creature comforts, modern conveniences and fast-paced life.  ...new cars, vacation trips, furniture, nice house, newest electronic gadgetry, nice clothes, club memberships, quilt store shopping every week...  Life was good, and I had gobs of time to do other things - or so I thought.  I had to work hard at a high stress job with some (sometime lots) of overtime and work-related travel to afford those things, but at least we could afford them - we were the lucky ones.  And to many people that is OK and what makes their life simple - being able to enjoy those comforts and conveniences.

As time has gone by, my heart has chosen a different path.  For me, I definitely felt my life was NOT simpler - I was busy doing what I needed to do to purchase and maintain those things, but it was not settling my restless soul.  I was drawn to the “old ways” of handmade and home-grown, a more “vintage” lifestyle, a slower pace.  All these modern conveniences and the fast pace of my life should allow me to squeeze in more stuff - like hand quilting a baby quilt or growing my own vegetables instead of buying them from the store, right?  

But as I tried to work those "old ways" into my modern life, I just became more and more stressed, and less and less happy.  Sure wasn't feeling like I was living the "simple life"!  Over the last 2 years, as the "old ways" have developed a stronger and stronger pull on me, I have begun my search for true contentment by re-evaluting how to live the elusive "simple life".  

I tried to figure out the error in my thinking - why did these modern conveniences not make it easier for me to do the things I really was wanting to do now - produce everything with my hands, not my wallet.  So I drew this chart out (you can tell I am an analytical person):

This shows me that TIME is the problem here - the need or want for modern conveniences and creature comforts are the driver of your time, where the availability of time allows you to do the handmade/home-grown ways.  Both goals are rewarding on their own (which I will cover in a future Simpler Living blog), but tough to achieve both (unless you have an inheritance and don't have to work) without stressing or sacrificing due to the way TIME fits into each lifestyle. 

This analysis helped me realize that to truly do what I wanted to be doing - and to feel like I was living the "simple life", I had to change the way I use my available time and what the use of that time will enable me to have or achieve, and what I will have to give up.

This may be obvious to you, and you may have a good method of compromising that works for you - that is awesome!!!  But for me, I see it working for me only if I give up a lot of the creature comforts and modern conveniences so that I can live the handmade, home-grown old-way lifestyle that I am now craving. 

Blessings,

Kat

It's a Thanksgiving Tradition - Pops

A slightly embarrassing, but true story...

It started 3 years ago - our niece and two great-nieces came up to Oklahoma from Texas for Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving, while many people were out fighting the crowds on Black Friday, we spent a wonderful afternoon cruising Route 66 with a stop at Pops in Arcadia (not anywhere near as crowded like it usually is). Pops is one of the newest attractions on Route 66 and is known for its unusual "flashback to the 50s then flash-forward to the space age" architecture and its selection of over 500 sodas!!! We left the place with 4 6-packs (yes, that's 24 in total!!) of different sodas.

Our intent was to try many of them out over the weekend before the nieces left for home. So, we sat down at the table on Friday night and started off with two sodas. We each got a glass and had a "shot" of each soda. We discussed their pros and cons in a very culinary, analytical way, and then decided to go for two more.  Then, 8 sodas later, we got a pitcher and put it in the middle of the table and poured the leftover soda from the bottles into the pitcher in a combination I will call the Concoction!  That is when things really got out of control!!!

After about 12 sodas, we were all on a caffeine/sugar high and the Concoction was looking pretty murky, taking on an odd greenish-brown hue.  (And we were determined to try the Concoction at the end of all the soda shots!)  We kept going - 16 sodas, 20 sodas and, finally (this is the embarrassing part), we finished all 24 sodas - stomachs aching, uncontrollable carbonated burps and belching, and way past high and into the giddy/giggling/stupid stage!!! 

We had gone through root beers, colas, ales, fruitys, herbed flavors - through brown, red, orange, purple, blue, chartreuse, yellow, pink colored sodas - from Russia, Jamaica, Mexico, China and many different states - with names like Freaky Dog Watermelon, Love Potion #69, Road Rage, and Rat Bastard Root Beer.

We were soda-plastered. And we still had the Concoction to go - it was still murky, but now with a bluish-green brown color and what I swear was an oily-looking sheen on the top!!! Funny thing is - as, ummm, unusual as some of the individual sodas tasted (many were awesome!), the Concoction was not bad at all!!! (of course by then, our brains, taste buds and stomachs were probably in a soda stupor, unable to really tell what was good and what wasn't). Needless to say - NONE of us slept well that night and NONE of us drank any soda for the rest of the weekend.

But, that didn't stop us the next year - when our niece and 2 great nieces came up again for Thanksgiving, they brought my sister, another niece and two great-nephews. The "newbies" had heard the Pops soda-binge story and they were ready for the experience! While it wasn't quite as much fun for the five of us who knew what was coming, I can proudly say that the "experienced drinkers" were able to "out-drink" the rookies!

So began the tradition of a Pops soda run on Black Friday (or as we call it, Soda Friday) - though we are older and wiser now, and refrain from overindulging! (i.e., drinking all the sodas in one night - been there, done that, got sick! - twice!)  Here are pics of the sodas from this year's adventure -



Chihuahua Cherry and Barkin' Birch Beer

Bug Barf and Zombie Brain Juice

Cream My People, Nuclear Orange Bomb, Seal Ya Later



Buffalo Wing Soda, Bacon Soda, Sweet Corn - the "seasonal" favorites


If you are ever in Arcadia, OK - stop at Pops on Route 66 and have a soda, or 24! Their food is awesome too!
Kat

In Search of... "Simple Living" - Part 2

Continuing my thoughts from my blog a little over a week ago (Sat, 11/12/11), I realized that a Simple Life was more of a picture to me - of material things or activities. And I realized I have most of those things. So why don't I feel like I am living a simple life?   What is wrong? - is my 'stuff' the wrong colors? - is my house not plain enough? - is it not in the right location?  - or the right style? - or the right size? - do I need to spend my time differently? - go different places? - do different things? - bring home different items? - redesign all the rooms? - buy a different car? ........." Jeepers !!!!

But, it is not just material things that make a Simple Life, it is the way life is lived - that is what I have been forgetting much of the time lately! So, what does a Simple Life "feel" like? I took some time to ruminate on that concept - to try and determine how living a Simple Life would make me feel - what are the thoughts or moods those pictures and words evoke in me?

• Nice, long sigh - contentment - maybe not happiness, but definitely feeling OK in my skin
• Unhurried - not feeling that pressure that is so palpable to me today, like another external force acting on my mind and body
• Calm mind leading to a calm body (this is a big one!) - allowing my mind to pick what it wants to think about and block out or ignore all the chaos that typically overwhelms it - thus helping my body to respond in kind
• A deeper, more loving relationship with Keven and a closer relationship to others I care about.
• Truly being at one with the Earth and at peace with God

Art by Kat, saying by Thich Nhat Hanh

OK - so now I know what my goal is - I have a target.  I don't identify with these "spiritual" things much right now. So, while I continue my search for true contentment through simple living, I realize I need to work on both sides of my world - the material and the spiritual.

Blessings,
Kat

A Tumblin' Down

On my drive home from the quilt store Saturday, the wind was crazy strong, even by Oklahoma standards.  Kev called me to tell me there were tumbleweeds on the side of the main street leading to our house, and to be on the lookout for them.  With the way the wind was blowing, I did not doubt that they were true Texas tumbleweeds rolling in from the South!  


So, driving into a headwind with my eyes on the look out to the side of the road for a rolling weed, I top a hill only to be confronted by two rolling right toward my truck, and a car in the opposing lane stopped because of one in the road tucked up against the front of it.  I avoid the two doing a frontal assault on my truck only to get stopped at the bottom of the hill by one doing a sneak attack from off to my right.  I start to go around, but make the decision to pull off the road - I am going to take one home with me!!!  I got out, picked it up and headed to my Element.  Well, those suckers are bigger than I thought (this one was 3ft in diameter - no wonder nobody wants to just run over them).  I tried to put it in the back of my Element - didn't fit.  Back seat - didn't fit.  And if you have ever been in an Element, they have LOTS of room.  Anyway, I finally got the darn thing in the passenger-side front seat by moving the seat all the way back and laying it down a bit.  


Off I go down the last mile to my house with this big tumbleweed as my passenger.  It tickled me so much that I laughed the whole way home.  When I got home, I told Kev I had something to show him.  I don't think he expected a tumbleweed (what a misnomer - tumble bush or tumble bale would be more appropriate).   It is now a wonderful addition to our Fall decor.  

It will probably show up in future blog pictures in a variety of "situations". It has already blocked our front door forcing us to retreat out the back of the house.


Gotta love that Oklahoma wind!  Ooooo-klahoma, where the wind comes and sweeps your house awaaaay -
Kat

Best Fall Ever in Oklahoma !!!

Since we moved to Oklahoma in January 2000, I think this has been the best Fall ever for fall colors and up there for temperatures.  The trees have begun to lose their leaves out here in the country - especially after the few freezes we have already had - here is Wednesday morning's (11/9/11) heavy frost - even bird bath froze.

But the trees still have some fantastic color...

Some close-ups of leaves, a cottonwood branch and some prairie grass (wish our whole yard had this grass!).

Today we had amazing weather!  Temps got up to 80.  Sky was beautiful.  Trees were beautiful.  Kev mowed the grass for the last time this year and dumped some shredded leaves in the garden beds - preparation for next year's plantings.  I did some stuff around the house then sat out on the patio and quilted.  Pure Fall heaven !!!

Oh happy days - thank You, God!!!
Blessings,
Kat

In Search of... "Simple Living" - Part 1

I have been puzzled by my struggle in moving toward a simpler life.  I know I have this preconceived notion of what a simpler life is - but it is more a picture of what I think it should:

• a porch with rocking chairs to sit and enjoy a glass of iced tea on a summer day watching the birds play in the sprinkler
• country land with a vegetable garden (organic of course) and lots of flowers
• homemade quilts and pillows adorning my living room and bedrooms
• sheets hanging on a clothesline, blowing in the wind, absorbing that unmistakable clean air smell
• a nice, old car that is made of metal and can be repaired with duct tape (ha! ok, maybe not duct tape alone) if need be - no computer needed to diagnose it. 

Maybe not quite reminiscent of Little House on the Prairie, but definitely a flashback to my mom and my grandma ironing and canning and talking with the neighbors across the fence and sewing my clothes.

from Romantic Prairie Style by Fifi O'Neill

from Romantic Prairie Style by Fifi O'Neill

 

from Romantic Prairie Style by Fifi O'Neill

 

from Romantic Prairie Style by Fifi O'Neill



from Romantic Prairie Style by Fifi O'Neill


Weird thing is, when I stop and think about it, I have most of those things - and I have so much more.  Hmmmm...

Stay tuned,
Blessings,
Kat

Rescue Me from SAD Quilt

Weather getting colder, days getting shorter, body trying to go into hybernation. I am trying to force myself to keep going at night - TIME changed Sunday night, now my body is ready for bed at 6:30 or 7:00pm. This is the typical time of year when SAD (seasonal affective disorder) starts to set in, every year - and then ramps up to full blown status after the adrenaline rush of the holidays. This year, it seems to be starting earlier.

In the past, I have tried the "day" lights - nope! Have upped my vitamin D - nope! Miscellaneous other "cures' - nope! But, one thing that did work a few years ago was planning, starting and FINISHING a bright, wild, artsy quilt - cheerful, uplifting - made me want to work on it often, so I stayed busy at nights. Actually won 3rd place at the Central Oklahoma Quilt Guild show. Pretty nifty!

So, decided to start my search early for my Rescue-me-from-SAD quilt for this year. It helped that I went to the Houston International Quilt Show this last weekend and saw an infinite amount of SAD-busting quilt patterns and fabrics.  Here is one pattern by Alexia Marcelle Abeg that came home with me - of course it is made with Anna Maria Horner fabric - she rocks my world.

My adrenaline is going just thinking about it.
Blessings,
Kat

Sometimes We Expect More...

Sometimes it is hard to live simply when I feel like this...

- one of the curses of being a "people pleaser".

Are people too BIG in your life?  Well, God is BIGGER !!!  Try to keep that in mind.  "Becoming obsessed about what others think about you is the fastest way to forget what God thinks about you." - quote from FaithEngineer.

Blessings,

Kat

Unveiling My "Refreshed" Living Room

I have been finished with my simple living room remodel - moved my furniture around, made curtains, decorated for Fall, and put up some pictures on the wall that have been leaning against the wall on the floor for way too long.  Now, with the couch facing the fireplace, I am ready to sit and quilt in front of a toasty fire during the winter months.

Before pics:


No curtains, odd furniture placement, no real theme

After pics:



Couch facing fireplace with TV to right



 


Curtains !!!

Ahhh, feels good to have it done -
Kat