Bells and flowers........

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!


The medical typing got FINISHED yesterday around noon and I hope not to get hit with such a huge amount of it again anytime soon! After church today, I will spend the rest of the day getting ready for the Amish quilting trip that starts tomorrow....YAY!!! I am excited about it now! (I better dig out that bottomless Amish shopping bag.)


Here are a few images from my life this past week.......our bell choir after we played in church on Sunday. We practice one night a week and will now play one Sunday a month as well as at special holiday services. It's a lot of fun and our director is very good.Next is hubby lighting the candles on the cake for Linda at the birthday dinner....yummy peanut butter/chocolate cake made by Ruth (who is in the orange shirt taking a picture).
Linda blowing out the candles...yes, she did it all in one breath BUT there weren't as many candles on the cake as there were years she was celebrating! (If there were, she might have needed two breaths! LOL)And some of the remaining flowers in our yard, which won't be around much longer since an overnight freeze will hit here soon, I'm sure! The summer-blooming flowers were a bit sluggish this year with constant high temps day and night...but picked up a bit when we started to have some cool temps at night. I'm enjoying their last few blooms now.

Checking in.......no photos today...

I have had a couple of emails asking where I've been and if everything is okay, so I thought I better check in here. LOL

I have just had an incredibly busy week. While I am retired from teaching, I do medical transcription and the doctor has a habit of falling behind. She chose THIS week to catch up BIG TIME and I have been in a real frenzy here. This week was my turn to host a b'day dinner (6 of us in attendance)...it's fun to get together but the timing was bad this time. I lost the better part of a day and night of typing to do cleaning and cooking and that put a lot of stress on me and allowed me little time for anything else, but...I'll survive. I have been working nearly non-stop on the typing since the night of the dinner and am a bit bleary-eyed!!!

This weekend I need to find time to get ready for our little group's 5-day trip to the Amish area of PA this Monday. I love going but right now am not even excited yet with this typing still hanging over my head....but I'll be excited once this typing is DONE. Anyway...that is why I've not posted and have hardly had a chance to look at any blogs this week, either. The volume of typing in this one week is about what I'd normally do in three or four weeks....which is absolutely crazy to do it in just a few days....and I'll be very glad when I finish (which will, hopefully, be today). Of course, it will be nice to get a paycheck that is way bigger than normal!!!!

Fabric in my mailbox.....

I recently won the first prize on Pat G's blog and she sent me these 3 pretty fat quarters. Thanks, Pat!I think I am going to take the easy way out and make a set of reversible, fall placemats with NO piecing. I'll use the fabrics below.....the apple fabric on one side....the gourd/pumpkin fabric on the other side and the green for the binding. I am not good at making multiples of the same thing, so I figure it will be easier for me to stick with this if I make them simple...and it can't get much simpler than this!!! LOL

Trip wrap-up......

Yes....all good things must come to an end and our fall-foliage trip was no exception. Here, in no particular order, are some of my favorite miscellaneous photos from the hundreds we took on the trip. Some were taken in Virginia and some in North Carolina. We have some excellent video, too....and maybe one day I'll put a trip video or two on my blog (during the cold winter months when I need something to life my spirits!) But....for now, I hope you enjoy these. Click on them to see them in greater detail...and if you click twice, you will see them even beetter. Thanks to all of you who followed along as I posted about our trip and made such kind comments about the photos. First....alpacas at a farm on the Blue Ridge Parkway! This next one is to show you that we were on some really steep roads. Click twice on the photo to read the sign. When you see signs like that, you know you are in some serious mountains! I tell you, it is often hard to keep your eyes on the road when seeing things like this along the way!

Day # 5.......MaryJo's fabric store!!!

Day # 5 dawned bright and RAINY......see??? Below is a photo of us driving in the rain a little over 80 miles (each way) from Boone to Gastonia so I could get to MaryJo's fabric store. (Actually we only had rain on the way down...was sunny by the time we headed back.) Mary of the Quilt Hollow blog had hoped to meet up with me and Tonya at MaryJo's but she had a conflict with kitchen countertops that were being delivered, but I hope to meet her another time.

Actually, Tonya ended up with a migraine that didn't respond to the prescription meds she takes so she had to stay home. I felt very bad for her and she was very sad about not getting to go that day......and also about the fact that she and I didn't get to see each other one more time to say goodbye. (TJ has promised to take her to MaryJo's, though...and when she is there, she will pick up a fabric I meant to get and forgot! And they might come here for a visit....so that will make up for not getting to say a proper goodbye in NC.) So.....now more about MaryJo's Cloth Store, which carries all kinds of fabrics...not just quilting fabrics.
It is big.......no....let's say HUGE......and quite overwhelming as you go inside. There are no shopping carts...just hand baskets, so that immediately threw me for a loop. I mean...how can you wander such a huge store with 1,597,283 bolts of fabric (or at least it seemed that many) and NOT have a cart at your disposal?? And how can you carry bolts of fabric if you are also trying to carry one of those little hand baskets, too (the kind you see in the grocery store)??? Well....I looked around and saw this......and this.....and this......fabric and batting and threads and sewing tools and notions and patterns of all kinds as far as the eye could see and beyond......(but no GO! cutters, I'm sad to say).After the intial shock of the place wore off, I forced myself to stop staring and start shopping.....yup..this is me!I'm sorry that there aren't more (and better) photos of the store but I couldn't carry my camera AND that basket AND the bolts of fabric, so I left hubby to do the photography and I suspect he was in a hurry to get OUT of there and go read and play his electronic handheld game in the car! He did take a video, though, and one time I'll link you to that. Anyway....... I figured out my plan of attack....I'd find a bolt or two of fabric and take it to one of the MANY cutting tables so that one of the MANY employees could cut it and then placed each cut piece in my basket. (I quickly discovered I was supposed to have picked up a blank ticket on my way into the store on which they write what they cut for you as soon as they cut it....so I had to go back to the front and get one before my first fabric was cut.) The cutting set-up was good and quick on the day I was there. They then immediately reshelve the bolts so nothing stays long at the cutting tables. (I'm sure that gets a little trickier on days it's super-crowded...which it wasn't that day.) I did this back and forth shuttle to the cutting tables a number of times. I found out at the end that on non-crowded days, you can pile your bolts on the cutting table and ask them to put a "HOLD" sign on top of your pile until you are done and ready to have them all cut. Not knowing that, though, I just went back and forth a lot! Truthfully...and you will think this is nutty because I'll probably never get there again......I used a lot of self-discipline and did NOT buy a lot. I have my quilt retreat for a week in November and want to shop at the Amish quilt shops, too. SO.....while others around me in the check-out line were spending hundreds of dollars, my purchases went just a tiny bit over $100...I just had to squirrel away some of my fabric money for November!! Be assured that I could also have easily spent hundreds of dollars there as the selection of quilting fabrics was beyond belief. I've never seen such a store and doubt I ever will again. If you have the chance, go visit this store....just try not to stand there with your mouth wide open as you look around!!! And...take $$$ with you....lots of $$$!!!! Below is a photo of the fabric I bought that day. I did buy some notions, too....but didn't take a picture of them and now they are put away and I don't even remember what they were!
I was in the store for about 90 minutes and when hubby saw the bag (which wasn't big), he said, "You were in there that long and only got that one little bag of stuff?" He doesn't undertstand fabric shopping....but he was good about taking me there and waiting while I enjoyed my time in the store, so that is all that matters. The selection there is amazing...that's for sure! We went to a Golden Corral buffet for lunch as hubby LOVES places like that and then we stopped at a small winery in the town of Lincolnton and bought some bottles of wine. There are lots of vineyards and wineries in NC. I suppose one could make a vacation out of visiting just them! Then we headed back to the hotel. Sadly, it was time to get our bags packed in preparation to start the drive home the next morning. Tomorrow I'll post some miscellaneous scenery photos (of which I have MANY) so you can enjoy more of the beautiful fall foliage we saw on this trip.
NOTE: Meant to mention the cost of fabric at MaryJo's and forgot...thanks for the reminder, Jackie. Most quilting fabrics were $6.99 a yard....even wide backing fabrics (not much selection of those, though). Some fabrics were $5.39 a yard and there was a sale section in which prices were lower than that.

Day 4......

Day 4 started out with hubby and I venturing early to a tiny town called Valle Crucis, the home of the original Mast General Store, which has been in continuous operation since 1883. It has an old wood-burning stove as it's source of heat and we enjoyed the ambience of all the creaky floorboards and two floors of wooden shelves and old glass cases filled with all kinds of items......edible and otherwise. The town's post office is in that general store......and it is very old-fashioned and such fun to see. We mailed a post-card to the grandkids from there. Here are a few photos around and in the general store....

The front of the store.....Foggy mountain by the parking lot behind the store when we arrived early in the morning....
The back of the store....The old stove that still provides heat for the building....wonder how many of us have heating units that will continue to work for more than 100 years?? LOLLocals stop in each morning on a regular basis for coffee and to share gossip. An occasional game of checkers is played. Their gameboard uses bottle caps for the checkers.....of course, we were too late to catch any of them (having arrived about 8:45 and most had been there when the store opened at 7).We spent a fun couple of hours poking around in there....bought a few things (including some things for the housesitter/mail collector) and then got ready to drive to Tonya's house. For some reason, our GPS took us on a one-lane dirt road near Tonya's house and tried to tell us we were at our destination when we knew we weren't. I had to call and have TJ (Tonya's hubby) tell us how to proceed. We did as he directed and soon met up with them. They live in a very lovely area.....and their house is on the side of a mountain (as most things are in that area)!!! The 4 of us went to lunch at a nice Chinese buffet and I was reassured to know that they do have some nice touches of civilization not too far from them. LOL Tonya and I sat in the front of her red VW beetle with her driving and we had the guys ride in the back. We had a lot of laughs and I'm thinking, in retrospect, we were pretty noisy in the restaurant...but....we surely had a great time! We didn't really take any pictures....DUH.......except for one still that Tonya took of me using her GO! cutter....which is on her blog already and you can see it if you click HERE. (I wanted a Sunbonnet Sue and an Overall Sam and she has those dies and I don't.) She and I also made a video for our blogging friend, Gene......we wanted to sing and play a song for him, but we could never do it without falling into hysterics, so that video is not for "public consumption"....sorry about that!!! This one last photo is of some gifts Tonya gave to me......which was very sweet of her.....she gave me some thread, made me a fall dishtowel and got us 2 bottles of local wine AND gave us a jar of her delicious homemade pickles!!! YUM..........We discussed the very distinct possibility of Tonya, TJ, and E making a trip up our way soon (YAY!!!) and then....late that afternoon, we returned to our hotel in time for another manager's reception. Then we read a bit and watched some TV before calling it a night. Tomorrow I will tell about my trip to MaryJo's....a super-huge fabric store in Gastonia, NC.

Day 3 continued...........

Before I get to our next "adventure", I forgot to tell you why Grandfather Mountain is called that name. From a certain angle (and a distance away from the mountain), it looks like the profile of an old man's face when he is laying down. Here is a photo we took that shows that face....use your imagination to see Grandfather's forehead, eyebrows, nose, and chin.....
After we left Grandfather Mountain (on the morning of Day 3), we went to see The Blowing Rock. There is an Indian legend connected to this site. It goes as follows.......

It is said that a Chickasaw chieftan, fearful of a white man’s admiration for his lovely daughter, journeyed far from the plains to bring her to The Blowing Rock and the care of a squaw mother. One day the maiden, daydreaming on the craggy cliff, spied a Cherokee brave wandering in the wilderness far below and playfully shot an arrow in his direction. The flirtation worked because soon he appeared before her wigwam, courted her with songs of his land and they became lovers, wandering the pathless woodlands and along the crystal streams.

One day a strange reddening of the sky brought the brave and the maiden to The Blowing Rock. To him it was a sign of trouble commanding his return to his tribe in the plains. With the maiden’s entreaties not to leave her, the brave, torn by conflict of duty and heart, leaped from The Rock into the wilderness far below. The grief-stricken maiden prayed daily to the Great Spirit until one evening with a reddening sky, a gust of wind blew her lover back onto The Rock and into her arms. From that day a perpetual wind has blown up onto The Rock from the valley below. For people of other days, at least, this was explanation enough for The Blowing Rock’s mysterious winds causing even the snow to fall upside down.

Blowing Rock is 4000 feet above sea level and hangs over the Johns River Gorge in NC. Here are some pictures we took there.....(double click on them to see them in greater detail)

And this is another high place upon which I did NOT venture!!! BUT...there is hubby out there taking pictures, apparently oblivious to the crazy height of that observation platform. I will say that the carpet of evergreen trees and deciduous trees (with their beautiful colors) below the platform was breathtaking.....as you can see if you click and enlarge the photo.

Once I get hubby to pull some frames from his video, I will show some other photos of both of these places....probably not for a few more days, though. After we saw these two places, it was lunchtime and we went into the town of Blowing Rock to look around and eat lunch. It is a really neat place with an oldtown, Main Street feel to it. I have heard they have an old-fashioned 4th of July parade and I'm sure that's a treat to see. These are some photos we took around the town that day... first...a cute dulcimer shop and the lady behind the counter (not visible in this photo) was giving nice demonstrations here.

There was a wonderful park in town....with a gazebo, basketball and tennis courts, a playground and many benches on which to relax. This tree in the park really caught my eye that day.

Oh...how I loved these mums they had planted next to one of the little shops!

There were many cute shops in this town but they were all quite pricey (in my opinion) so we looked but didn't buy. We then went back to our hotel for a swim in the indoor pool and attended the manager's reception (which was held 2 nights we were there). It was very nice......complimentary wine, beer, soda, and munchies. Then we called it a night. Tomorrow......a post about our drive out to Tonya's house.