Changing It Up

 If you don't like the weather, just wait a few days.  At 5:00 this morning it was 57 degrees.  Uh oh ... it's going to be a toasty one.  I may have to actually turn my AC on.  Not for long however, because Mother Nature isn't going to let us get away that easily ... it's supposed to rain for the next six days straight.  So much for laying out in the sun!

Mr. Cooper and I were off before the sun came up.  

That didn't last long however since it wasn't windy or even breezy.  That meant it was a good day to spray weeds.  I have called the usual company twice, but they keep telling me it's too early.  By the time they think it's perfect, I'll have a five foot tall jungle in my back yard.  No kidding, the weeds are almost up to an elephant's eye!

This is definitely not my favorite "man" job.  The shoulder straps on this thing are too wide, so it constantly slips off my shoulders.  It doesn't spray enough either, like my old one did.  It works, but takes much longer.  Yes, it's really heavy too ... but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.  It took about an hour to empty it out.

Then I pulled a bunch of weeds in the garden, and admired this beauty.  I had three of these pretty gazanias, but only 1-1/2 remain.  They looked great until winter came.  Maybe it's too cold for them here.  This one made my day!

With that all done, I was off to the fabric shop.  I got a couple of ideas from the Elks crowd and an OK on the new panels.  But first ... I needed fuel.  I always check around town, but no one ever beats the price 15 miles down the road.  It's always jammed with cars and big trucks, mostly because it's $1.00 cheaper than any other station within 50 miles.  So if they can have cheaper fuel, why can't everyone else?  $4.45 today for diesel, down from $5.50 a couple of months ago ... and this is CALIFORNIA.  Land of BIG taxes and trains to nowhere.  

By the way, to get the train from L.A. to San Francisco, about 380 miles, the original price was $33 billion So far they have some bridges completed, hoping to get it just 160 miles from Merced to Bakersfield, which at this point has cost $128 BILLION.  Is that $800 million dollars per MILE?  Too bad they haven't bought any train CARS, or have high speed tracks down yet. Oh but wait .... he needs $100 BILLION MORE to finish it.  I think that would end up costing us $600 million per mile.  Maybe someone should check my math.  

On the other hand, Newsom now has a new $9.1 million dollar mansion to live in on the coast.  Thank goodness the Federal Government said NO MORE MONEY.  Oh, and that's not counting the $3.4 billion he's begging for to replace the Medical money he spent on illegal aliens.  You know, the money California CITIZENS need for THEIR medical care?  Okay, enough of that.

Happy about the reduction in fuel prices, at least a little, I was off to the fabric shop.  I wanted to pick up some solid colors to tone down the "busy-ness" of the quilt panel.  Fabric isn't cheap ... this is $200 worth ... but at least it hasn't gone up in over a year.  

In no time my sewing room was a disaster!!  I tried to get a little organized since I now know I need ten anonymous quilts and ten designated for specific people.  

Here's what I've got so far.  Since those little squares from each branch are now considered antiques, the only ones I could find with a specific branch i.d. were these.  Way down at the bottom you can hardly see Air Force.  See what I mean by busy?  Believe me, it's worse in person.

I thought the best thing I could do was just add several borders to make it the 40 x 50 size required.  

I tried the plain border above, but liked this one a little better.  It adds a little pizzaz to it.  I've now got two complete and two ready to quilt.  Hopefully two more will be added to that pile today.  These go pretty fast.

In the meantime, I am again out of Cooper food.  That kid eats more than I do, so I'll be cooking up a storm today, sewing in between.  Then I'm going outside to watch the weeds die.  How fun is that???