break time?

Looks like Lucy has decided it was time for me to take a break.

My memories of the World Trade Center.

The tragedy of September 11, 2001 can never be minimized or forgotten. I did not personally know any of the thousands who lost their lives but I still feel the loss.

I have a different memory of the World Trade Center. The complex was built by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. My mother was a purchasing agent for the PA and was the supervising buyer. It was her responsibility to buy every nut, bolt, lighting fixture, piece of furniture, etc. that went into those buildings. She awarded the contracts for those who did the construction. I watched those structures as they were erected with awe and fascination. I remember when the PA moved into the towers. The elevators were a unique experience. The view from my mothers office was breathtaking. I would visit often. I remember the opening of the Windows on the World restaurant... my mother had enough clout to secure a reservation the first week... after all, she bought everything in the place. We sat next to Walter Cronkite that evening and were graced with the spectacular view of twinkling lights and stars. It was a magical night.
My mother retired in the mid 80's and other than using the PATH, I no longer spent much time there. There were a few visits back to the restaurant.. it went through several incarnations, and sometimes just a visit to the bar to wait for friends or have lunch. My mother passed away in 1995 and in 1997 I moved to Arizona.

A little after 6:00 a.m. (local time) on September 11, 2001 my phone rang. No one calls me that early so I knew something bad happened. My ex called me and told me I had better turn on my TV. ... a plane flew into one of the towers. Not long after that my daughter called me as well. She worked in lower midtown and her office faced the south tower. She could not see the north tower but could see smoke. While I was on the phone with her, all of a sudden I heard her gasp and scream. She said she could see another plane and it flew into tower two. She was 22 years old and like most of us, naive to such hatred and violence. She walked more than 50 blocks to get back to her apartment.

I felt like I had lost a best friend.... memories. I was glad my mother was not around to see this. It would have killed her. These were her children.
For many years we lived in a condo on the Jersey side of the Hudson river. The view from our windows was a sweep from the Verazano bridge to the GW bridge. I saw the lights of the towers every night.
I remember my next trip back to NY and driving across the George Washington bridge from New Jersey into NY. I always loved seeing the towers in the distance. This time, there was nothing but a huge gap where they should have stood. I started crying. I had to pull off the road when I got off the bridge... I could not contain my tears. For years I averted my eyes when I made the crossing. My daughter and friends have moved and I no longer take that route into NY.

To memories.... of people and places.

Winner of "Masters Art Quilts, vol 2"

Drum roll please....... I want to thank everyone who left a comment on my blog for this giveaway. Thank you for looking around and I hope some of you saw things you liked and will come back for another visit. There were 51 comments left on the correct blog entry and at least 8 others left on incorrect blogs. I used a random number generator and the lucky winner is...Dianne Koppisch Hricko. Please contact me via the "contact Me" button on the right side of the blog and send me your snail mail address so Lark can send the book out to you. Congratulations.

I am calling this one Drunk Driving

.... I think. The top is now completely pieced together. I have to do some trimming and I think I will add black around all the edges... or not...then it will be ready for quilting... the part I hate. I think I am going to quilt this in sections so maybe it won't be so stressful. I don't think I am going to do another one like this. Since none of it was really planned, I don't think I have the value variations required to not make it boring. I will see what happens when I quilt it. Sometimes these pieces grow on me. If nothing else, it has gotten me out of my slump.

Not so random piece

The more I worked on this piece the more I realized that I am not a random type of gal. It finally even occurred to me that the fabrics I had chosen weren't so random either. I wound up with 10 large squares that I chopped up a bit. I have spent the last 2 days putting them up on my design wall... the result so far is not random either. It still needs some more chopping. I am hoping to have it all sewn together in the next day or two. Now just have to figure out how to quilt the damn thing.
While this is not a brilliant piece, at least I am back to doing something. ..... which actually encourages the creative process. Sometimes even the mundane is a good thing.

Givaway!

OK folks, today is the start of the giveaway for the mouthwatering copy of "Masters Art Quilts, vol 2".
There is a twist to this one though. ... You need to leave a comment ON THIS POST about a different post on my blog. Since you are here anyway, you might as well look around :-). I will draw a random name on Saturday.
Good luck! And don't forget to make sure there is some way for me to contact you if you are the lucky winner. If there is NO email address associated with your name I cannot find you.

Teaser

Leslie Gabrielse

Tomorrow I am giving away a copy of "Masters Art Quilts vol 2". I am posting pictures of some of the quilts in this wonderful book. Enjoy.

Elizabeth Busch

Jan Meyers-Newbury

I have too many favorites but these 3 are indicative of the scope of the works in this book.

Come back tomorrow (Tuesday) and leave a comment  .... but there is a twist to this one. Tomorrow I shall tell you what the twist is.

On some other notes... my diet is going fine... I had some added help (not wanted) in the form of a very bad UR infection that kept me in bed for days. I only sound like I am dieing now... with the help of some antibiotics, I think I avoided the dreaded bronchitis. I am going to try to get back to the project I started several weeks ago... if I have enough energy. This sucks.

Till tomorrow!

Grandma has turned mushy

Is he adorable or what?

Lost more weight

Woot! Lost another 2 pounds... and I managed to do it while away. We were at a bridge tournament last week and keeping to my diet was a challenge. I hit the gym 3 mornings and did the best I could with eating. Now that I am more aware of what I can and cannot eat, it is easier. The hard part was finding places to eat that were not all fast food. I have now lost more than 7.5 lbs and am halfway to my goal. Yeah!

Anniversary

I almost missed it. I just passed my 14th anniversary. Life is good.

Dinner 8/14

I was very good today! I walked a bit over 3 miles and walked off 350 calories (that should have taken care of last night's dessert!).
Tonight's dinner was steak on the grill, one half of a luscious heirloom tomato (the best I have had this season), and some steamed asparagus. Total carbs.... 5. Total for the day is 11. I will  have some blueberries for a snack later. 

A splurge

Just so no one thinks I am perfect.... we went out to dinner last night with a friend and I shared a piece of flourless chocolate cake 3 ways for dessert... plus about 6 oz of wine. I was really good on the carbs all day and even with the rich dessert, I think I was still within my limits... or 1 or 2 over. Gotta have some treats some of the time! This was my first splurge in 2 weeks. I figured I earned it. I was worth it.

What was for dinner tonight?

Tonight's dinner.... Ned made sea scallops with a caper sauce and I sauteed up some bok choy... add an heirloom tomato and a glass of Chardonnay and the total carbs come to 17. Weird thing this morning... something is off with our scale. I weighed 1.2 lbs more than I did yesterday.. when I got on it again this afternoon, fully clothed and having eaten 2 meals and lots of water I weighed the same as this morning. Ned weighed 1.5 lbs more this morning than he did yesterday. Maybe the battery is going. I am well under the carb and calorie counts for the past few days so something is really screwy.... but my pants are looser!

Ok, so I couldn't resist.

He is so adorable! Love the red hair he got from me ( the young me).

Random? Maybe not.

I have a few ideas for my next project percolating in my head but I not quite ready to start them yet. In the meantime so I wasn't quite fiddling my thumbs, I decided to just sew. I cut a fair number of strips from my leftover piles and thought I would just sew them together randomly. Nope, not happening that way. I noticed that after the first few strips I was not grabbing random pieces. I was actually looking at how the next strip fit with what was there. This did not start out as a conscious effort but rather developed the more strips I had sewn.

Has anyone else found themselves doing this or do you actually just close your eyes, reach for a piece and sew it next?

Tonight's dinner

It is hot out.... Ned and I were both lazy and didn't want to cook. We settled on hamburger from Whole Foods. Add a slice of heirloom tomato, slice of onion, slice of pickle, a bit of ketchup and some broccoli to about 3 oz of Zinfandel and we had a tasty and easy dinner. Total carbs.... 15. I am way below my total for the day. I have also lost 4+ lbs. This is working!

Update on my diet

Sorry, no pics... meals are good but boring. I am getting the hang of this low carb thing and it is not so bad. There really are a lot of good foods that I love that I can eat. The strangest thing is that my craving for sweets has gone away and I am not willing to kill for pasta. The diet is also working. I am down almost 4 lbs which is slow but fine. I eat at least one salad a day but filled with goodies so it is not bland. I am also finding that I am eating fewer calories per day. I suspect that my weight loss will pick up a bit. I have only been getting on the treadmill every other day, but I will add some extra days this week. Since I don't feel like I am starving myself, I have stopped whining. I don't have to suck my gut in to get my pants closed, but I do want to go down at least one size since I went up 2! I may even aim for down 2. What I really want to do is find a way of eating that keeps my weight off but allows me to splurge every once in a while.

Great customer service!

I have something nice to share about a company with superb customer service. In April I bought one of those hippy dippy coffee brewers by Keurig. I don't use it very often but decided today I wanted an iced drink. Worked fine this morning. I went to do it again and got an error message. Went through the troubleshooting directions to the letter and it still did not work. Since today was Sunday I figured I would either have to leave a message or get a recording to call back during regular business hours. Much to my surprise a live body (who spoke American) answered!!! He ran me through the troubleshooting instructions again and decided the machine had died. They are sending me a NEW one with a new full year warranty. How good is that???

I am surviving the low carb diet

What was for dinner tonight? Tilapia, green beans, Bufala Mozzarella with tomato, and since I was good with carbs today, a glass of Chardonnay. Total carbs 12, calories 566, and 86 gms of protein. I am well under my limits for the day. Never got to those rasperries... maybe snack before bed.

Low carb diet

OK, I finally bit the bullet and hit the low carb diet route. I hate it... I am a carb junkie, but it does work. I started it about a week ago and have lost 3+ lbs already. I also get on the treadmill 3X a week. This was my lunch today.... kept it to 10 carbs. I made chicken salad from the left over roast chicken from Costco.