Brenda's Sampler Quilt

I finally finished this one. It was interrupted by the roof leak in the studio. The blocks are 24 inches. I used some Helen Squires stencils and the new Bohin white lead pencil. I love this pencil, the lead does not break or crumble. It has an eraser which removes the marks. I sprayed the marks then wiped with a piece of muslin and most of the marks came off. This is my new favorite marker on dark fabric. I got it at Suzanne Earley's shop . I used Quilter's Dream deluxe cotton batting.

Day 15: Roof Leak

Can you believe that a contractor is working on New Year's Day. Yup, he arrived at 9 A.M. to take down the plastic room and haul away the noisy fan and dehydrator. Terry didn't ask him if the concrete was dry.

I was so happy to have my room back even though I am partially on wood and concrete. At least I can work. So I got to it this morning and reloaded the customer quilt I was working on back when the roof started leaking.

Tomorrow, the roofing contractor comes to see about fixing the leak, replacing tile pieces and whatever else is on that roof. So we are making progress.

Happy New Year

We picked up a bottle of Asti so we can bring in the new year with a toast.

I am not a drinker. My last taste of booze was at my sister's wedding 4 or 5 years ago. And it was Asti Spumante. Sure hope this is the same stuff. I don't drink wine, just like I don't drink vinegar. I find it icky. I don't even like it in that little thimble sized cup you get at communion. I want a sweet drink and I remember the champagne at my sister's wedding was pretty good.

We may not make it until midnight before going to sleep but we will toast the new year. It is bound to be better than 2008.



Happy New Year everyone.

Day 14: Roof Leak

Terry called about six roofing contractors today and only one called him back. So Gilley's roofing will be coming by the house on Friday, January 2nd to assess the damage and give us an estimate to fix the problem. I don't imagine that it will be more than $2,000. Sure hope not, anyway. I just want him to fix it, certify that it is fixed in writing and give us a warranty for his work. In the interest of full disclosure, I want to prove that we got it fixed.

The inside roof leak contractors will be coming to remove their noisy machines from the containment chamber tomorrow, yes New Year's Day, we will have a contractor at our house. Amazing.

Once the outside roof is fixed, then we will get the inside-guys to come back and replace the ceiling and hopefully by then, we will have located 2 or 3 boxes of Pergo engineered wood in the color ginger.

Christmas in Phoenix

It was loud. There was too much food. We all had a blast.



My brother, Jeff, and his family drove up from Texas/New Mexico. They got stuck in Lordsburg, NM for 2 hours on the freeway for some event that was cleared by the time they got there, just a horrible backup of traffic.










Our trip was not without hassle, see my previous blog entry. We had 2 super-heroes on hand, Super Hunter and Super Gavin and Ballerina Madison and my son Jacob and his wife Dana.



My son Ben, the one giving me the skunk eye, flew down from Oakland. It is always good to be with family during the holidays. Just wish it was easier to do.


My sister, Kathy, lives in Scottsdale so she just had to clean house and get ready for 30 people. My brother-in-law's (Fred) family lives there and they were invited to the big soiree. Fred's mother, 80-something, and his grand-daughter 23 months old shows the span of generations that were there.

I think the next one of these family gatherings should be at my new house when I retire. I'll clean house and then relax. No plane, no car, etc.

Day 13: Roof Leak

We got back from Phoenix on Sunday (12/28) and the Am-Tec folks came 12/29 to pull up the "wet" wood floor. Well, the concrete (under the floor) is still wet. What that means is that wood that was not previously wet can wick the water out of the concrete and become wet. So more of my wood floor is getting pulled up than we expected. They have to run the dehydrator (with drain hose) and fan again. Since they put plastic over the 6 x 8 foot hole in the ceiling, the air is not going up into the attic, so it just buffets around in the plastic room. It sounds noisier to me than last time they used it.


More bad news, the claims adjuster told us that he can't find the flooring in San Diego. We went to Lowe's ourselves and were told that Pergo went into Lowe's a few months ago and encouraged them to deep-discount their on-hand stock of engineered wood. I sure wish that I had known that, I would have bought a couple boxes for emergencies. Then Pergo went in last month and pulled the remaining engineered wood stock on hand. They left the laminate stuff there. I think that Pergo is coming out with a new product and they are pulling the old stuff so they can sell the new stuff. The guy at Lowes could not confirm. This is only my theory.

But this much is fact, I bought Pergo engineered wood floor 2 years ago. I could have gotten the laminate and saved a thousands of $$. But prospective home-buyers in my neighborhood expect the real stuff, not laminate. We also chose Pergo because of their reputation and the 25 year fully-transferrable warranty. That warranty means that if something happens to the floor, I will be able to buy/install/fix it with the same product. So where is that product? Where did Pergo hide their flooring?

The other alternative discussed with my husband is that the insurance would replace the flooring with a different product within line of sight of the damage. When I step into the house and take 4 paces, I can see just about see all the wood. The foyer runs into the living room (straight ahead) and 40 feet down a 4.5 foot wide hallway (on the right) and into the dining room on the left.

This so-called "line of sight" equals about 1100 sq ft of the house. We had to stay in a hotel (dog in the kennel), when the wood was installed 2 years ago. Then it smelled of glue for weeks afterwards. It was a giant-sized hassle...or so I thought. If I could have seen down the road to the current hassle, I would have had carpet installed. Just shoot me.

If a man drives 60 miles an hour, how long will......

It was a good idea. Well, I thought it was. We go to Phoenix every couple of years. My brother and his extended family come up from Texas and our family meets them at my sister's house in Scottsdale. It's like a mini-reunion. I thought that it would be too hard on my two youngest grands (Gavin - 3 yrs and Madison, almost 2)to sit in a car for the 6-hour drive from San Diego to Phoenix. I convinced my daughter-in-law to take the 55 minute flight with me and the 2 smallest kids. My husband, son, and 6 year old grand could drive the car with the luggage and gifts in it. It did not work out the same in reality as I had planned it in my head.

First, we drove to our son's house, loaded up the car and the "big boys" took off for Phoenix. Dana, the 2 kids and I drove to the airport. Well, that is where things started to go wrong. I went to 3 different satellite parking lots and they were all FULL. I finally threw myself at the mercy of one attendent who allowed us to double park on the lot as long we we left our keys there. Okey, dokey.

The shuttle took all of us, including 2 car seats, to the airport. We cleared security, no problem and went to the gate at Southwest thinking that we would be able to pre-board so we could set up the child seats and put us all together. Our boarding passes were A45-A48. Well, the rules have apparently changed on Southwest. No pre-boarding of families.

What??? The gate agent was too busy to explain other than "Get in line with your boarding pass". So does Southwest think that eliminating pre-boarding for families is supposed to be faster? I assume that their metered pole positions (A 1-59, B 1-59) is an effort to improve their old reputation as running a cattle car airline. But the wheels seem to have come off the wagon when it comes to their thinking about traveling with children. It takes a few minutes to setup a car seat in an airplane, buckle 2 separate seatbelt systems and get the kid in the chair. Hopefully all that can be done BEFORE the rest of the passengers are standing behind you waiting to find a seat. The child safety seats must occupy a window seat so we had to sit on 2 different sides of the plane, though thankfully, in the same row. And of course, a crowd always brings out the worst in a Terrible 2 year old and a Tumultuous 3 year old.

I found out later, that families are allowed to board between the A group and the B group. Of course, that means that as many as 59 people get on the plane before you do. Oh, and if it is a continuing flight, then there are already people on the plane before anybody on the ground starts boarding. So, would my grand-daughter end up sitting next to some stranger?

I also found out later that Southwest now has a Business Select class ticket. For a small fee ($18 on a $148 ticket, so 12%), you are given a low numbered A boarding pass so you get to board before the rest of the coach travelers. Hmmm, so essentially family pre-boarding has been sold out for pay-to-pre-board. Shame on you, Southwest Airlines.

OK, rant complete.

I googled directions from the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport to our hotel. My son, flying in from Oakland, and we planned to meet him so he could ride with us in the rental car. Phoenix has moved their rental car to an off-site location. Well, really it's an off-off-off-site location. So we grabbed the rental car shuttle to the off-site rental location and off we went. I wish that I had known that the rental car location was 3 miles or so from the airport. Yeah, those google directions were a waste.

So I called my sister for directions. Unfortunately, she was at the store and I had to try to get directions from my brother-in-law. Why do men say things like
"Go north on University..."

Me: "Oh, let me check my handy dandy compass to make sure that I am going north. OK, we are on University crossing 24th street near the 202 freeway. "

He says "Great, jump on 202 and you'll be here in, blah, blah, blah..."

By then I was screaming into the phone, "202 East or 202 West"

"Huh" he says.

"I'll call you back" I said thinking that I would just wait until my sister got home and call back. I pulled into the first business I found which was a market in the barrio. I went in and got directions. And yes, I was the only weda (white woman) in the place.

We missed a couple turns and had to back-track but we finally made it to the hotel.

Standing in the lobby were my husband, son and grandson. Sigh.