A profound moment...

I read a lot of books. I read a lot. Lately, I've been reading a lot of Sci/Fi books - and the genre covers a lot of "odd" stuff. Yesterday, I finished reading "Darkness of the Light" by Peter David. This is a book I would never have purchased, but I was sent a free electronic copy of it from Tor Books, so I decided to give it a try. I have several of this author's books and he has a great way with sarcasm and wit; this book was no different in that regard. However, I came to a paragraph that just completely hit me. Here is the passage:

"That is what life is, you foolish little Markene! It is a game with players on all sides, each engaging in his own little maneuvers, and each trying to accomplish one simple goal: to be the only one left standing at the end of it, before he is himself swept off the board by the great gamesmen who look down upon us all and laugh on our foibles. If you do not start thinking... if you do not begin to play the game yourself, rather than wait for me to explain all the rules... you will be removed from play sooner that you could possibly anticipate. It will be done far more rudely and with far more finality than just being tossed in the water."

I think that as I was growing up, I was always waiting for someone to tell me the rules. I am a rule follower - and if I'm not sure what the rules are I sometimes shut down. I still wonder sometimes just what the heck the rules are and why isn't everyone following them. One of the hardest things for me to learn was and is to just jump in to the game of life and be myself. And accept that there really aren't any rules and yes, it isn't fair, but if you just wait for it all to be explained then life will pass you by. In the end, it is your own self you are stuck with - and trying to be what everyone else wants you to be will leave you empty and sad.

Sorry for the serious moment... I've just been thinking about this all night and I don't know if I explained it very well. But, it feels good to get if off my chest, so to speak.

I have adopted a dragon egg...(or two)

Hmmm... a blog friend suggested that I adopt a dragon egg and try to hatch it. So, on the upper Right Hand corner of my site, there is a little red dragon egg. Please click on it and hopefully it will hatch and turn into a beautiful RED dragon! I'm not sure if it does anything or not... should be interesting and maybe fun! LOL

CHANGE: Now I have several eggs!! Tee hee

My morning has been lovely...

My morning so far has been just lovely:

· Alarm went off at 4AM for husband. I doze off while he is in shower, but am awakened at 4:35am by him kissing my face repeatedly. “I was asleep?”, and he replies, “I know, but I wanted to make sure you knew I was kissing you goodbye.” I guess that was sweet, but come on, I was ASLEEP!!
· Alarm goes off for me at 6:45AM, causing me to jump, which in turn triggered a charlie horse cramp in my calf. I try to leap out of bed for relief, but am completely twisted in sheets, pillows and 3 startled Yorkshire terriers. As feet finally hit the floor, my head decides I stood up too quickly and I almost pass out, so quickly sit back down on bed, landing on Maxwell. After comforting Maxwell and reassuring the other 2 that he wasn’t injured (and therefore all is OK in their world) I continue on with the morning routine.
· Completely dressed, hair done, face “fixed”, I prepare to head out the door. Rounding into the kitchen, I see Scooter look me right in the eye, and then squat to pee on the WOOL rug beneath the dining room table. “No-No!! Scooter, No – OUTSIDE now!”. He doesn’t move, just freezes, with ears down. I scoop him up and head out to the backyard, place him on the grass and command him to go potty. I bend down to make good eye contact, and tell him again. He sniffs around and then BLAMO, the sprinklers go on and I am splatted from waist to head – totally sopped.
· Back to the bathroom to start over again.
· At work, in cubicle, with first ever-loving cup of coffee. Aah – wonderful.
· Bleep – meeting reminder, conference call in 5 minutes. No problem.
· ROWEERUSGGGGGGGGGGGG!! Uh-oh! That is the sound your lower intestine makes when you have about 3.5 seconds to get to the bathroom for something immediate to occur.
· Made it to bathroom, whew! Tick…tock…tick…tock… still in bathroom. Now worried that will be late or miss conference call entirely…. Tick…tock…tick…tock…. Pretty sure am now late… wondering what was in the $.75 tacos we had at Mulligan’s for dinner last night; where they seasoned with taco-flavored ExLax?? Perhaps shouldn’t have eaten that 5th one….(rationalization: They were really TINY tacos)
· Late to conference call, but meeting is postponed due to one person being on vacation. That worked out lucky for me. :)

Well – that brings me up to 10:06AM. How’s your morning been so far?

Happy Birthday, Dad!!

Today is my Dad's birthday and he is going to be celebrating in Arizona with my Mom, my sister (Cindy) and his two grandchildren Jessica & Jennifer!!

Dad, I am thinking of you all day today and hope you guys have a great time together. I wish we could be there with you, but you'll be hearing from me, never fear (cell phones are wonderful, aren't they?).

Here's a blast from the past! I love this picture - my sister is the blonde, and that leaves me as the "other" one - LOL. Dad, we'll always be your little girls...

Happy Happy Birthday to my wonderful and sweet Father from his very "special" girl.... see, I'm wearing my helmet!!! ha

The Sisters Quilt Show (and lots of pictures)

What can I say? Every single building had quilts hung up on the outside and the inside, too! The town had gorgeous flower baskets hanging everywhere, the streets were roped off to keep those of us oohing and ahing and walking with cameras from being run over (and in my case, it's a good thing! I was running around like a butterfly!)

I took pictures of these western looking quilts (and a fish one) for my Dad - not mention the fact that they were beautiful and amazing.

Too many to exclaim over, so the rest of this post will be pictures! These are my favorites:

So - what can I say to top that? Except that in during the 4 days of our trip I took about 200 pictures, so consider yourselves lucky I was able to narrow it down a little! LOL

BY THE WAY - IF YOU CLICK ON THE PICTURES, IT WILL OPEN A WINDOW AND SHOW THEM LARGER FOR MORE DETAIL! REALLY WORTH DOING ON THE QUILT SHOTS!!

Motorcycle trip!!

There were 6 of us, 4 motorcycles and over 900 miles of fun, beautiful scenery and fabulous quilts all in just 4 little days. We went though Hell's Canyon, John Day Fossil Beds, town of Joseph and Lake Wallowa. We always took the scenic routes and it is amazing how you can go from deep canyons, desert, flat areas with grain fields, then mountains with trees, then mountains with snow on top - all within one day!

Below is Bonnie - she was usually the leader of the pack.
I was getting pretty good at taking pictures from the back of the motorcycle. I took about 100, but I'm pretty sure you all don't need to see each and every one, right?
When Bonnie wasn't leading, it was her husband Larry, below. Notice his bike is the one with all the gear for both of them!! (way to go, Bonnie!)

We spent the first night in Pendleton, and the following 2 nights in Prineville. Saturday, we spent the entire day in Sisters, Oregon for the Annual Outdoors Quilt show!! This is the largest outdoor quilt show in the USA and is always on the 2nd Saturday of July. It was our first time to visit and we were astounded at the number of people and quilts there. More on quilts (with pictures) to come!

Front yard and lillies, lillies, lillies...

The daisies here have just gone crazy... they seem to love the heat (I'm glad something does 'cuz I sure don't).

And the asiatic lillies are blooming now, too. I didn't realize how many varieties I had, and they smell heavenly!

We've been getting temps in the 100's now, so it will be interesting to see which plants thrive in the heat and which don't! I keep notes, so next year I get more of the heat-lovers planted! LOL

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July holiday. We went to Meridian Speedway that evening and they put on a great fireworks show together with the City of Meridian. Lots of fun and noise and excitement... They had the 360 winged sprint cars running, and they are the fastest cars at that track - awesome to watch.

Bye until next time!!

Flowers - again!! (backyard)

Here's the favorite corner of the backyard - after major tree trimming! You can just barely see that there is a water lily blooming in the pond.

The is a columbine in bloom & yellow petunias (which I'd never seen before this year!!)

Scooter - posing while guarding "the perimeter"!

Sewing update (finally)...

First - I made this block for my quilt group project. I wasn't 100% sure about it as it was supposed to go with a lady's "primitive" theme, and my husband thought it was too "finished looking" and that the border square didn't blend with the other blocks that had been made so far. So, back to the drawing board.... I really liked the watering can idea, so I kept that and this is what I ended up with:
I think it turned out cute and I tried to make it have that "prim" look. I'm not good at primitive, it isn't my style at all, but I think this one blended in OK with the rest of the blocks for this project. I hope the next one I get will be easier for me... The meeting is tonight, so I'll know soon!

And - at last I finished my Four Seasons Quilt Swap Summer quilt... completely quilted, added binding and label! I am going to take it tonight for "show and tell" at our group meeting, then will mail it in the morning. Yippee! I think it turned out pretty, I hope my person likes it, too!

What is Your Indian Name?

I went to the link, entered "Becky" and "Female" and this is what came out.....

Your Native American Name Is...

Meoquanee Tayanita Your name means: Red Wearing Young Beaver

What's Your Native American Name?

Since this is a "family" blog I guess I can't make any of the comments that are screaming to be made in my head!! LOL (By the way - I am wearing RED today and it is my favorite color!!)