Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Don't you feel that way sometimes?  I sure do.  The issue is usually change.....which of course is often for the better....but can come with difficulties too.  (Need I say it?  Send The Tramp a sympathy card.)

This week Apple released iOS5 with the usual fanfare.  The Tramp promptly updated his iPhone, figured out what would annoy his loving wife about the update, braced himself, then had me update my phone.  

Ok.  I'll admit.  It works, and works well, but you certainly have to jump through a few hoops to re-set everything up how you like it.  (Old dog?  Sigh.)  Worse, after about 12 hours my phone suddenly went dead.  Nothing I did would wake it up.  Oh damn, I thought.  Not. Again.  This is a brand new phone replacing the previous one that imploded.  But all is good.  The Tramp took it away for about five minutes, and returned it to me in working order.  Yay!  My Magic Man.  :-)

So today....in order to take advantage of all the new features iOS5 offers (such as iCloud), The Tramp took a deep breath, girded his loins, and boldly went where no man has gone before.   He updated my MacBook Pro operating system to Lion, Mac OS10.7.  :-)

Well. There are a few cool changes here and there, but for the most part it seems Apple has completely forgotten a large part of their market.  Yep.  Those of us who might possibly have a little gray hair.  The ones who've started wearing reading glasses (dammit).  The ones who's patience with technology might be just a teeny bit shorter than it was just a few years ago.  (Feel free to disagree, but I'm enjoying my rant. :-))  What immediately strikes me is why would they make all the little buttons you have to click on to navigate around even smaller??  Why take away scroll bars??  When scroll bars are enabled it's a thin line with no blue thingy to grab.  It's all gray and hard to see.  (Gray and more gray everywhere.  Yeesh.) And worse, if the scrollie whatchamacallit is at the bottom of the scroll bar you can't grab it and move it up, and it sometimes changes direction without warning.  Huh??   It's all very buggy.

The Tramp has worked hard all day to overcome my frustrations, some of which he has had himself.  To be fair to me (what a sweetie), he says my complaints are voiced by many. (He reads techie news. All. The. Time.  Bless him.) He's found information on how to set things up as I/we like it.  Found some hacks to overcome some of the most annoying new features.  We are still figuring out things like why everything is double-entered in iCal.  (iCal in particular is really frustrating, in lots of ways.)  We've disabled the crazy animations that make me dizzy, but some remain.  Sigh.  The shoe?  That's me afraid of what's going to be frustratingly different when I open the next application.  There are fixes for many things, we just have to find them......and learn to accept the New Way Of Doing Things.  :-) 

Thank you for listening.

Yes I sewed today.  Kept me away from the laptop!  LOL  I made a Jelly Roll 1,600 quilt with the Sherbet Pips Jelly Roll Mom bought for me (so I could make it for Stardust).  I ordered the fabrics for the borders, binding and backing. 

I'm working on a set of placemats for my kitchen after reading Tazzie's tutorial.  Simple, quick and effective.  Thank you Tazzie!   The red is for the binding.  It's the fabric with the running dye.  (last post)

I even used her quilting suggestion.  Nice!

I also covered Ngaire's bed with a nice soft fleece.  None of them liked the new bed because of the kind of slippery fabric on it. It didn't take Maisy long to test it out. 

She's currently over under The Tramp's desk talking up a storm.  Her strong sense of entitlement means it's past our bedtime and where is her nighttime treat??  :-)

Apparently....

it's Fall!  Fabulous weather for walks with the dogs.

Misty mornings on the pond.

The creek is mostly dry, but I got a nice flare effect from the morning sun on a puddle.

Dry, dry, dry.

Stardust celebrating her Mommy's Fall birthday.   Though it was 80F the week MD was born (not normal in New Jersey).  I remember I couldn't even put her in the cute outfit I had chosen to bring her home from the hospital in.  Happy Birthday honey!

Fall is a great time to experiment with gluten-free pizza.  The pre-made crusts were a bit disappointing so I'm going to have a go at making my own next time. Fab toppings though.  Who needs crust???

A fabulous performance of Once Upon A Mattress.  :-)

Fall is also the time for the NC State Fair.  Two ribbons!  Woot!!

Fall is also the time to get out in the yard and do a little serious landscaping.

In this case it was trying not to damage the truck pulling out azalea stumps.  Not entirely successful.  So it's an ongoing project.

The dogs certainly enjoy the cooler weather.  Anyone want to donate a few thou towards building us a bigger porch???  LOL

Fall is the time for Halloween decorations.  We came across this pirate ship made of sheets of paneling, with blue tarp water and red flashing cannons.  With a skeletal pirate at the wheel!  Pretty clever.

Fall is a great time for throwing open the windows and settling in for a day of sewing.  This is the center of a baby quilt...so far.  (Eleanor Burns pattern)

And knitting.  I finished this shawl last night.  Yay.

And started this Hitchhiker shawl by Martina Beham on Ravelry.  Pretty! (Thank you Anita!)

Six points done, 36 more to go.  It's sock yarn, so I think it's going to take me a while.  Hopefully not a year like the last one! And it's got wool in it, so I may not even be able to wear it.  If so, I'm sure I can find a daughter who will.  :-)

Fall is a great time for making new placemats for the kitchen.  The tops are done and I bought plain muslin for backing and red for binding yesterday.  YIKES!!  THIS is why I ALWAYS wash my fabrics before I use them.  I must have had a premonition and decided to go ahead and wash the red fabric in the sink instead of in the washer....something I almost never do (too lazy).  :-)   As The Tramp said, "Thank goodness!"  (Does he know I would have thrown it in with the dark clothes...which are mostly his?  Heh.)

Raspberry juice!

Even my hands were red!

I added another piece of red that's been kicking around and soaked them in hot water and Retayne. 

After a rinse and spin in the machine I soaked them again to make sure no more dye came out and they passed the test.  So I've dried both pieces and will hope for the best.  No more cheap solids from JoAnn's for me! 

To eat chips....or not to eat chips. That is the question.

The weather has been spectacularly beautiful here.   And cool!  Almost cold.  Yay!!!  It's Fall!  There haven't been any photos of the pond recently as it has been either an ugly brown or full of duckweed.  The duckweed has been treated and with the weather so cool and clear I couldn't resist a few photos.  I love the one lone cloud reflected in the pond. (click on the photo to see)

These four geese seem to have moved in.

I'm told there used to be willow trees all around the pond.  Now there is just one.  A couple of trees died during this hot summer and there are some gaps.  Maybe we can replace them with willows.  Would be nice, but it's not my decision so in the meantime I can enjoy this one.

Another sign of fall are the various fruiting bodies on the trees and shrubs.  The robins have been after these berries on the dogwood tree.

And the hated persimmon trees are loaded.  Sigh.  It's just a matter of time before I get one stuck all in the treads of my sneakers.  Icky.

I'm working on the applique row on the Whistle Stop Quilt Shop BOM.

Pretty, pretty!

But now I have to do all the bottonhole stitching.  Time consuming!

But it's coming out ok so I shouldn't complain.  :-)

Stardust has turned five months old!

Today I finished another t-shirt quilt.  It's huge!  101"x108" So I only took a picture of a quarter of it.  :-)  Wow.  I see so many scraps and threads on the floor.  I guess the first thing I should do tomorrow is vacuum.  We won't even mention the dog hair.  :-p

Hmmmmm.  Do you think I might be eating something interesting???

Yep.  She's really focused on the sweet potato chip in my hand.   However, the good news is Ivy is starting to lose weight.  She had gotten pretty tubby without us realizing it. 

Now if only tubby me would stop eating the chips.  I haven't got all that hair to hide behind.  :-)

My Sandbox?

The question has been asked, "What's your blog name and why?"  Dawn and Judy want to know.  Well.....it's because The Tramp said, when I'm doing my favorite things I'm as happy as a kid in a sandbox.  He actually said it the first time he came upon me sitting in the middle of a new garden having a blast digging in the soil and planting.  I think he was surprised and a bit puzzled by the whole thing.  LOL

I hope I always have a "sandbox" to play in.  Fiber or soil!  :-)