What have I been up to the past few days? Well I'll tell ya...

For one thing, I meant to update ye olde blog sooner, but it just hasn't been happening. The past couple of days I've been fighting an allergic reaction of some sort. I have no idea what's set it off - I almost never do! - but my stoooopid body keeps trying to break out in hives. So I take a nice little white pill which pretty much stops the hives but turns my brain into cheese grits. Sleepy cheese grits. (I spent a little time this evening looking through a new cookbook trying to get inspired to try something new for dinner this week. Can you tell? It didn't work.) Then the pill wears off and my brain begins to feel like some thoughts are pushing their way through the cheese and I start to itch again. It isn't pretty. This may mean a visit to a doctor, and that's a Bad Thing in DebWorld. Oh well, anyway, on to more pleasant topics. I spent the weekend visiting my friend Nancy and her hubby Ron. Other friends Bev and Brenda were there too. Bev, Bren, and Nan are all quilters, so we talk quilting a lot, but we also just giggle and eat and shop and eat and drink and eat and have a good time and eat. (Did I mention that Ron is an excellent cook? No? Well, Ron is an EXCELLENT cook.) AND, to make things even better, Morven called from New Zealand and we passed the phone around for a nice long time. That was just wonderful. Nan and Ron are dairy farmers. Here's a pic Bev took of Nan in her working uniform. Don'tcha love it?? And here are Bev, Nan, and Brenda in the living room. Notice the quilts lined up along the wall. Nan made all of them. Aren't they loverly? The one on the far right, behind Bren's chair is the newest one. Nancy made it for a challenge project our little group did. It's called "Not A Peacock". Here's Brenda's quilt for the same challenge. It's called "My Favorite Flowers". And here's my quilt. It's probably hard to tell in this pic, but the applique blocks on mine are all done with sheers, so they're translucent. Mine is called "Mermaids From Hell". I tried and tried to think of a nicer name, but I just can't. Even if I call it "Golden Angels Descending From Heaven While Throwing Rose Petals and Singing Hymns", I'll still mentally be calling it "Mermaids From Hell", so why hide it? Speaking of quilts, my earlier estimate of when I'd have something picture-worthy done on the sun quilt was WAY optimistic! I didn't touch it today. It was all I could do to manage chores like paying bills and doing laundry with the whole CGB thing going on. (CGB? CheeseGritsBrain...how quickly they forget.) I don't expect to be able to work on it tomorrow either. But if I can avoid the whole "waste a whole day seeing a doctor" scenario, I plan to resume work on Wednesday and hope to have some photo-worthy progress to report by the weekend. And ooohOoooh! I'm excited to report that today I received my copy of "gods in Alabama", the debut novel of the fabulous Joshilyn Jackson. Yay! I can't WAIT to read it. I'm trying to clear a block of time because I just KNOW this is going to be one of those "I don't want to put it down 'til I'm done" kind of books. Ok, that's about all the brain function I can squeeze out for now. We'll hope for better things tomorrow.