Happy May Day

For those of us on "this side of the pond" as my English friends would say, it is May 1, 2011.  May Day as we used to call it when we were growing up was almost like an extended Easter.  For us kids, Easter was a religious holiday obviously but it also was about the eggs and candy.  May Day had a basket also that was stuffed with candy, nuts (no, not family members), and a little treat.  We didn't have a lot of money growing up so the special treat was strange to some perhaps.  It could have been a book mark with our name hand printed on it or a quarter.  While we were getting ready to deliver our may day baskets to friends up the road (I lived in the country), we never noticed that Mom had put in a couple extra baskets with our names on it.  As usually when we got home, we were giggling and running about and it was easy for mom to plant OUR may Day basket and asked if we knew who it came from.  At school we even had a Maypole and danced around it for a couple of years.

That was then, this is now and my May Days are a bit different.  It started with bringing biscuits and gravy to mom and Kerm (my brother) and eating it there with her.  I also had a fleece throw for her bed.  For those of you who might be reading this and don't know, my mother is in her early 90s and lives in our local nursing home.  She is usually cold but likes the feel of fleece so I thought she would enjoy this.  She loses track of time (don't we all?) so Kerm had to go to the dining hall and get her.  While he was pushing her back to her room where we would eat breakfast, I was busy making her bed and lifting her blinds up on the window to the height she likes.  That way she can see her bird feeder which is outside her window.  She shares a room with another women but her bed is the one by the window.  Anyway, I laid out her new fleece blanket  and half way through breakfast she noticed it was different.  Her face lit up because she saw all the cardinals on it (she's a cardinal nut) and was stroking the fleece because it "felt nice".  The weather even cooperated with us and it was a nice sunny day.  Couldn't have asked for a better start to the day.

The middle of the day wasn't bad either.  I gave up my comcast tv service on Friday so this was the first weekend without tv.  I dug out some of my dvd's and was watching them in between quilting.  It will give me time to reacquaint myself with my dvd's which will be good.  Afterall, why have them if you don't watch them. 

I also managed to make some spaghetti in my attempt to "not eat out or order in" all next week.  I need to pay off bills and/or save money and I have just been lazy.  The $120 I had to pay for a new tire brought that home REAL quick.  Especially since I need three more.  I will get to them eventually but one at a time.  So I have to remember to take breakfast and lunch tomorrow.  I will be meeting Connie at lunch so lunch needs to be non messy.  Perhaps a salad?  That would be healthy.  Well perhaps not healthy after I add stuff to it.  LOL. I can have spaghetti (made with ground turkey) in the evening through so I'm not worried.  Just have to remember to take it with me.

I also managed to learn a new quilting method this weekend.  It was called tube quilting.  I found it on YouTube and it was one of the Missouri Quilts vids.  I will post how I do it in another posting since I am doing this post via email.  It only adds pictures at the top of the post and if I am going to explain with pictures how I did it, I want the pictures in a certain order.

Here is a picture of what results of that tube quilting.  It was easy and I don't think I did bad on it.  NOW I have to figure out what colors to put on a border and bind it with. 
Actually I might have the binding already.  That will be another picture another day.

The day is ending now and it is peaceful.  I've put on piano music and turned off lights.  The only lights are from the computer and a single mulberry scented candle that I lit.  This is a good way to end the day so I will say goodnight now and post another day.

Good night.