Ok so even thou I turned 50 my birthday was a blast and it only lasted 4 days. On Thursday 11 of us went to my favorite Mexican restaurant and had one of my favorite meals. Steak with grilled veggies, refried beans and rice. They usually serve your favorite drink and sing to you but I choose fried ice cream instead. Yummy!


Our friends from Iowa came in on Thursday afternoon and stayed in their motor home in our driveway. I was so wonderful to have them come for the weekend. On Saturday we had about 28 of my favorite friends over. Mike made pulled pork and grilled a turkey and then of course all the different sides. He did such a great job. I think the best presents of all is that Raychel was well enough to hangout on the deck with all of our friends. She made it from 3:00 until 8pm and then headed to bed. Justin our son also hung out for awhile but he had to get to the recording studio. I'm just thrilled that everyone I wanted to be there was.

Yesterday Mike and I took Kris's quilt to her. My brother and her were power washing the house when we showed up so I think she was thrilled they had to stop for awhile. Her she is with it.


Well back to normal life and back to the gym today.

Later

OMG in Minnesota yesterday it hit 97 degrees, you might say so, but on Saturday we had frost warnings. The weather here can be so weird going from spring to summer. Today it is suppose to be 94 and tomorrow 68. So unbelievable. We have company coming tomorrow from Ft Dodge Iowa and my house really needs to be cleaned. Mike is home this week and seems to think the outside needs all the attention. I will not go work out tonight (so sad) so I can come home and start cleaning.

Kris's birthday is Sunday and I only have a little bit of the binding to finish sewing down. Hopefully I can finish it while watching American Idol tonight. I will take a picture of her with it and post.

Oh by the way I turn 50 tomorrow so weird just the other day I was giving birth to Raychel and she turns 30 in July. I have friends that have journals about everything in their life and I wish I had. It would be so fun to go back and read my life's history, or maybe not there were some pretty rough patches.

These are the things nice about being this 50:
My children are grown but still need me sometimes.
The friends I have are true friends and here for the rest of our lives.
My mortgage is half paid off (we bought this house when I was 35).
I only have 12 years before I can retire and really start to party.
I really know what is important in life because I have learned from my mistakes.
I am friends with my kids not just Mom.

The only sad thing about being 50:
My Mom is 82, healthy, but my Dad is no longer here. I wish as I got older my parents had stopped growing old so we could grow old together. I love my Mom and Dad and am so happy for the life they have given me.

It is going to be a very busy weekend so I hope everyone has a great 3 day weekend. I will have a 4 day weekend since my boss seemed to think I would need a day to recover. The party is on Saturday but I won't argue and will take the day off.

Later

Last week at this time I was going on and on about how it was Mothers Day and we were going to work in the yard and go to brunch on Sunday and hang out. Well Saturday came and I headed outside and it was cold and windy. Mike did not get home from working until 2am Saturday morning so he was not up for working outside. I was out there for about 10 minutes and realized that it was to cold and windy or should I say that was my excuse for not wanting to be out there. I spent the rest of the day in my sewing room and Mike laid on the couch watching some Indy race. Sunday came and Raychel was not up for brunch so Mike and I went and the food was wonderful. Came back home and headed back into my sewing room. So no excuses this weekend we have work to get done. We are having a party next Saturday, my 50th birthday, and we don't want to wait until the last minute, but kind of feels like we have.

Working on getting the binding sew down on Krissy's quilt and got Raychel's quilt loaded on the frame while watching American Idol on Tuesday. I will work on that tomorrow night after working outside and not before. Again wanting to start on my Mom's memory quilt and will not start on that until I am done with what I am working on now.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.
Cathy

I know I know but I think I am going to join this 6 week quilt along. And it also is a chance to win a new sewing machine and get a quilt done Check http://www.oldredbarnco.blogspot.com/ out.

Thought I would share with everyone a great Moda giveaway. Check it out at Lila Mae's sight. I would love to win these fat quarters but who wouldn't

Well it's Mothers Day weekend and you know what that means, we get to do what ever we want. Well that's how I would like it to be. I would love to wake up and go right to my sewing room with my coffee and not come back out for the day. What we are doing is picking up Raychel and then go to my son's work where he is a kitchen manager for brunch. Moms eat free where he works which is such a nice treat, not many places offer that. With Raychel being over for the day that means I will spend the day with her and Mike and that is ok. Her and her brother are the reason I am a Mom so I will spend time with them. Saturday we are going to work in our yard. We have a lot of Oak trees and the leaves are very hard on the grass and with Raychel being sick for so long our yard has been neglected. There will be a lot of racking up the dirt and putting down lime to get the dirt back to normal so grass seed will grow.

Mike will be working all day today and I am getting off work at noon to take Raychel to the doctor. I am thinking that I will be back to home by 3:00. That means that I can eat a bowl of cereal for dinner and spend the remainder of the day in my sewing room. I have two quilt tops that need to be quilted and I am hoping to get one of them done tonight. I have made a promise to myself that I will get these two tops done before I start on my Mom's memory quilt so I need to hurry. I am so excited to get that one done and give to my Mom. She is a true seamstress and really appreciates the work I put into my quilts so I always love showing her what I have done.

Hope all Moms have a great weekend and get to do what you enjoy and if not a Mom enjoy the Mom you have.

I had so much fun at the quilt show. Pat lives 2 hours west of Minneapolis and it is a small town. Very much a farming community and it is so peaceful out there. I was thinking as I was walking from my motor home into her house with my pj's on that I would not be doing this at home. No one near to see me, I love it.

At the quilt show there was probably 75 quilts there and they all ranged from quilters that had little experience to the Oh My God look at this one. There was a woman there doing a Q&A on machine quilting and she was unbelievable. She does all her quilting on her Bernina without a quilt frame. She had done the most amazing work. I seem to really appreciate this work so much more than quilting done on a frame. I'm not being disrespectful to the ones that use a frame and either a long arm or a mid arm, it just amazes me when one does it this way. I had to get a frame after trying it once with my machine on my kitchen table I just could not get it. I know that it takes practice but I did not give it much of a chance. Their Guild had done a BOM and it was fun to see how everyone took those blocks and came up with their own designs. I loved them all. Not much for vendors selling and that was a little disappointing but that's ok I saved some money.

I have decided I am going to do a memory quilt and am very excited to get it going. I will post pictures as I put this thing together. This is one of the pictures of my Mom and Dad that I am going to use.