This is my world -- for right now

Lovely bags - I like the shopping bag style very much for functionality (is that a word?) but the little zipper bags are handy. My next bag is going to be a little zipper one, but made of clear plastic, and I'm going to put my bajillion cards in it. I have four library cards alone.

I got into the Harry Potter thing for just a couple of days. I'd like to go back and read them all in order someday - especially since the first ones are so dang good. JK Rowling does a smashing job creating a new world with all its details - something that's taken for granted in the later books. Meanwhile, there was something else I should have been doing. This picture will give you a clue:

Moving: the dreaded M-word. (NO it's not Mary). Yes, folks, it's moving time. Time to keep your cool, despite the fact that your first two rentals fell through, and now you have less than one week to find another. And despite the fact that now there is no place to live for one week (really 8 days) because the rental you finally found isn't available until Aug. 8. ARGHHHH!
Things To Be Happy About:
1) I have a helper with library story hour whose creativity and willingness to help take a load off my mind;
2) The moving company has a place to store my stuff for 8 days until they move it back (it costs a fortune I'm sure, but this list is for happy stuff, right?)
3) I have a good friend who is willing to put up with me for a week - and my cat. I hope her cat and my cat get along :o
4) I don't know what. I'm just feeling optimistic because of number one, two, and three. Egads. Tomorrow I'm sure I'll find something else to worry about. I'm good at that.

5) As Mom and Dad say, "This too shall pass"

Meanwhile, I hope there's nothing I'm supposed to be doing to get ready for grad school because I'm too danged busy right now! The last email I got from University of Washington (UW here-ever-after) said: "...be sure to rest up this summer before you take on your new adventure of graduate school!" HAH!
Love, Mary

handbags and purses

Well this is a little bit of what I have been doing lately. Jenny was persuaded to part with some of the tapestry fabric she bought at garage sales when she was in Minneapolis. She really wanted to keep it but I kept telling her that I would make her some nice handbags for her and she wouldn't just have to store it in her closet or wherever it is she stores all the fabric she buys.
I made the top bag with an actual pattern. It has a little more style. The others are all my own paper bag type pattern. No style, just utility.

Jeni also gave me a couple of shopping bags of fabric and had the hardest time parting with the green dragonfly fabric so I made this set too.

She also parted with some upholstery fabric and I made two more of the paper bag style bags. I packed them all up tonight and will mail them off tomorrow morning.

I hope she likes them as much as I do.
All the quilt store ladies wanted the fabric, so it was fun to do.
Love,
Nancy

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

HA!
Just as I suspected!
Love,
Nancy

Fourth of July

Howdy Nancy,
A library patron called up today and asked what a blog was. That's a question I could answer, unlike, "How does mold grow?" or "What was the city budget for Whitefish in 1991?" Unfortunately for me, whenever someone asks me a question, even though it may be something I've never cared for, I become intensely curious about where to find the answer. I still need a lot of work on answering reference questions, though I'm much better at it than I was before. And guess what, the internet is not always the best place to find the answer.

But what I started out to do was to post a picture of what Fourth of July looks like in Whitefish, after the fireworks at Whitefish Lake are over, and the mad crush is on to leave City Beach. Meanwhile, everybody with a leftover firework is trying to shoot them off all at once, to prolong the finale and probably to get rid of them all before the twelve midnight deadline.


Funny - I put my favorite picture of the fireworks on my desktop and somehow deleted it from everywhere else. Now, how do I get it off my desktop and back into my pictures file?

You can see these aren't the clear fireworks photos as I've seen you take, but they do give a sense of the action and noise, don't they?

Christy was here all of the holiday week, and gave me a cd of pictures that she took at the wedding. I'll add them to the album on webshots sooner or later.

And the other news is that it rained tonight!!! After days of this beastly hot weather, it rained for only about 10 minutes before the cloud moved away, but how lucky we were to get any rain at all. PJ is all stretched out on the porch in abandonment, the cement stinks, and it wasn't enough for the garden, but it still rained. Hope you're getting some. Love, Mary P.S who won the game of Hand and Foot?

No fireworks for Jim...just food

Nope, No fireworks yet.

We are many miles away from any displays, so we stay home and eat slow cooker barbecue ribs, real potato salad and homemade scones. With sun tea for me and beer for Jim.

He made himself chocolate cupcakes a few days before his birthday so I didn't bother with a cake. I just made his favorite meal today and did NOT go quilting (although I was invited).

Now we are going to play a game of hand and foot in my new card playing niche.

There I am smiling at you in the mirror. Cheers,

Nancy

Still Birthday Week...

...and I understand there are to be fireworks in further celebration of Jim's birthday tonight. Will we be treated to pictures from the new camera? Signed, Hopeful Mary

To Celebrate a Special Person

It's Jim's Birthday

This is Jim's birthday week. Because our family typically procrastinates, forgets, or just blows off the birthday card obligation, (and in this case, procrastinating was the cause, plus wondering if the aforesaid birthday was the 3rd or the 5th (wrong both ways, it's the 2nd)), we here at Drew Northwest have decided to show Jim a preview of the card he will receive later in the week. We have purposely not shown the private message (which reveals his true age!!!!), but this is proof of our good intentions, which are paving our way to hell.

WE LOVE YOU, JIM