Views from my walk this weekend.....

We added a table to our new outdoor area - Ralph was out enjoying it.

I finished up the bookmarks for book club Monday night.  The book is Departure by A G Riddle, and starts with a airplane crash.  I found a pattern here (good thing it has a diagram.....) for an airplane motif.....I definitely recommend the book - a good read!

I mentioned before that Shasta Lake was filling up fast - here are some photos from Facebook (link is here - to give credit where credit is due!) of the lake in October, 2015, and on March 20, 2016.

They were actually increasing the water released yesterday because the lake was too full to allow room for flood control.  Go figure!  From record lows to overflowing in a few short (but rainy) months.

We had company for part of the weekend - Dave's birthday was Sunday, and he and Lisa came down Friday and Saturday.  Joe was in town on Friday as well, so Ralph, Dave, Lisa, Joe, Joe's son Tim, Tim's daughter Allison, and I went out to Casa Ramos for dinner Friday night.  It was crazy crowded and busy at the restaurant, but Allison was a trooper. She even got a balloon animal from the clown lady.  (At one time, it was a horse, but Allison started unraveling it as soon as she got it.)

I had Cindy come babysit Alli for us Friday night, and after dinner, Dave, Lisa, Ralph, Cindy and I hung out at the fire pit, and Lisa roasted marshmallows.  It was a nice time to sit and chat, and all in all - a fun evening!  Dave and Lisa did some driving around while they were here - they were hoping to catch the Glory Hole at Whiskeytown lake in use, but the lake level had dropped.  Earlier in the week, Whiskeytown was overflowing through it - such a great thing after the years of drought!  They also went by Turtle Bay Museum, but it's pretty slow this time of year.  Alli wasn't having the best of days, so we didn't go with them.

Ralph was doing trash-cleanup at Whiskeytown Lake on Saturday as well.  He had fun, and they found several goose nests full of eggs.  I'll have to get pictures from him.....

Dallas got in for his Spring break Thursday night, so AJ was hanging out with him this weekend.  They went snowboarding up at Shasta on Saturday, spent the night in Dunsmuir, and had hamburgers here Sunday night.  AJ goes back to school today, so they didn't have a lot of time together, but they seemed to have fun with what they did have.

I spent Sunday re-organizing...the hallway closet, the bathroom closet, my quilting material.....whew!  I love it after everything gets organized - I just hate the actual doing of it.  And now, I need to find a home for all the games and puzzles I liberated from the hallway closet......

Look what I got yesterday!!!

I celebrated (all by myself) my 20th anniversary with RBC on March 1st.  Nothing from the bank to acknowledge it - unusual, but....there have been a lot of changes in HR recently, so I figured this was just one more thing that we 'didn't do anymore'.  When they made an announcement last week that we no longer got off early on Good Friday (a tradition since the bank started) I mentioned to a co-worker that anniversaries seemed to have gone the same way.

She took it upon herself to bake me a cake over the weekend, and checked with HR, not mentioning any names, thinking that I just had been overlooked - surely they were still celebrating bank anniversaries (pretty cheap to send an e-mail, really - employee morale, etc.).  Turns out, they do still celebrate bank anniversaries, and they had completely forgotten anniversaries for the entire month - not just mine.  I got a nice e-mail, and flowers!  (Though I appreciate the cupcake cake more......)

Woohoo!  I finished it!  I forget how long it takes to put the strips together - I always think it just take a few minutes......and it doesn't.  I got it finished yesterday around 2:00.  Woohoo again!  Actually - not too bad (for me).  This was a block a month quilt I started last July.  I kept up on it pretty well - for me.  I do really like it - even though I can still see my problems that I had with it.  Give it a few months, and they won't seem so big, I hope.  I learned a couple of new techniques with it - always a good thing!

I started a quick and easy baby quilt yesterday afternoon as well.  I had the pieces already cut out, so it was just a matter of piecing the blocks - such piecing as there is.  I got the borders on, so I'm ready to put it together.  I didn't get the sashing material yet, but I tried out a couple of different colors and widths that I had in my stash.

And just what have I been up to for the last two weeks????  Not posting for one.  And I have no idea why - I just haven't.  I'll blame the rain, how's that?  I think we've had nothing but rain for forever.  Shasta Lake is 41 feet from the crest of the dam and has come up almost 5 feet in the last 24 hours......wow!

I have been busy with a few little projects.  Here's either a dish scrubby or a dog toy - interesting to make, and Luna liked it.....

This is my quilt a couple of weeks ago.  I now have it ready to put the last of the edging on (today, I hope)

Another scrubby I made - this one with netting.  Margene wanted to learn to make scrubbies, and working with net in the round (and she wanted BLACK netting!!) for a new crocheter is tough.  The rectangle is much easier to see and work.

I had a visit from a co-worker last week.  She had a brand new god-granddaughter, and found a picture of something, and her boss had told her to ask me if I could make one for her.....good thing is was easy!  She wanted a little crown for the new 'princess',  She pickup up the decorations, and I whipped up the crown on my lunch hour at work - that's how easy it was!  And it is sooo cute!  Here is the base pattern.  I changed it up a bit, but not much.

I also dug out an old UFO (Unfinished Object) and finished it last night.  I so should have done this sooner - it didn't take lang at all, and it has been hanging out for well over a year.  It was supposed to be a Christmas present for Allison two Christmases ago.  I found the fleece at Joanne's and kept meaning to crochet around the edges.  Finally - project finished!

This weekend is conversion weekend for much of the bank.  We closed on our purchase of 5 branches from B or A - the Yreka, Colusa, Corning, Orland, and Willows branches.  To try to introduce the 20 new employees to the rest of us (100+ employees), Malorie from my department got tagged to round up photos of everyone....here's the photo of my department.

Pictures from a Sunday walk....

Bookmarks are finished for book club this month!  The book is "Earth Abides" by George R Stewart. Good book!  The bookmark this month is a hammer - which the protagonist Ish takes with him everywhere and it takes on a hallowed status with his 'tribe',  Not too bad a likeness, if I do say so myself!

The way home last night was beautiful!!!

Last Saturday found me at my first wine tasting event.  Margene is a member of the Matson Winery, and invited me to go with her to taste some wine and pick up her quarterly order.  It was a beautiful Spring day out there - especially since it was the beginning of February!  The winery is beautiful....

We took the dogs for a walk in the sunshine too....

What happy girls!!!!

And yes, the grass really is that green....

While I was outside the other day, I noticed a bird sitting on the feeder that didn't fly away as I approached....not a good sign.  Poor baby - he was definitely sick.  This morning, there was an article in the paper - take down your bird feeders to stop the spread of a disease that's killing local birds. Down came the feeder this morning!  Bummer - I really enjoy watching the different birds come in.

Here is the next batch of blocks for my quilt club quilt.  I didn't get much more done than these blocks in the way of quilting (or anything else, really...) this weekend.  I'm liking the blocks, but there are so many little pieces!  It might not look like it, but there are 6 separate pieces of material in the space between the lids on the jar block.  6!

Ralph spent last weekend over at Crescent City learning to kayak in the ocean.  He had a blast and came home exhausted.  On my way in to pick him up Monday night, I had to stop for the sunset.

I'm loving my design wall!  Here's the next project to finish:

This is another 'block a month' quilt - and I got the final set of material last week.  I have six blocks (out of twelve total) completely done (the bottom six), and two blocks ready to put together (top left), one block cut out (top right), and two blocks and the finishing material still in the bag to be cut. Then....the finishing!  But I really like having it out to see it and to rearrange the blocks.

Keeping it out and visual really makes me want to sit down and sew.  Not that I do, but I want to! Alli's been getting up between 4:00 and 4:30, and by the time I deal with her, I'm too awake to go back to sleep. That means by dinner time, I'm too tired to sit and sew (without nodding off at my machine at least).  I've been doing pretty good at getting some sewing time on the weekends though - and this weekend is a long one - sewing time!!!

Yesterday morning, as I was brushing Alli's teeth before the bus came, the phone rang.  Weird - it's the land line, not my cell.  Usually, when I get a call that early, it's someone from work calling in sick, and they don't usually call the land line.  When I checked the caller ID, it was Dave.  Even weirder....I thought he went to work before that.  When I asked what was up.......he asked if I knew the recipe to de-skunk a dog.  Yuck!  I told him he had the wrong sister - I didn't know the recipe off the top of my head.  His reply?  "Yes, but I know you're awake, and she isn't."  It figures!  Oh well - Google didn't fail us.

Just last Saturday the neighbor had had to de-skunk her whole house (more on that later) I knew that the most effective treatment included hydrogen peroxide and dish soap, but not the ratios.  A quick search showed the ratio, and to include baking soda.  Luckily, Dave had all the ingredients on hand, and I got a call later in the day that it had worked - woohoo!!!!

Last Christmas, Margene was trying to figure out something to get her grandkids (age 3 and 1).  They live in Oklahoma, and had all the toys in the world already, so what was a grandmother to do?  I suggested that she make a video of her reading some books to them, then send them the books.  That way, they got to spend time with her doing something fun, even though she's a thousand miles away. We got AJ involved, and he recorded her, edited the videos, put them up on YouTube for us (and best of all, told us how to find them later!)  The present was a hit at Christmas, and recently, the oldest was asking for more stories from grandma.  So, last Saturday, Margene was supposed to come down and have AJ record some more books.  I got a text from her around 4:00 saying she wouldn't be down, she'd had a terrible day.  That's where I learned the recipe for de-skunking dogs.....

She said she was in a really deep sleep - you know the kind that when you hear something, it fits itself into the dream....then it doesn't.  From putting all the clues together, we think a skunk came in the doggie-door (which is in her bedroom) and her Pomeranian attacked it.  The dog was soaked to the skin in skunk spray and there was blood and skunk spray everywhere.  None of the blood seemed to be from the dog, so we are assuming it was the skunk that came out on the losing side (though really it was Margene....)  Let's just say that she's sleeping in her spare bedroom now.  She really did have an awful day!!

I did it!  I finished the quilt top!  This is a block-a-month quilt that I did in my quilt club and started back in June.  The block a month wasn't hard, but when it came to finishing it, there was a lot more to do (like another 52 flying geese!)  I wish they had spread it out more so the ending wasn't so overwhelming, but....it's done now!  It took me longer, of course, because I had to re-do a few of my flying geese - I changed my mind about the layout.....