Making Quilt tops

I have been obsessed lately with sewing quilt squares. For years I did only paper pieced quilt squares, after watching some tutorials on different web sites I have found I can do some simple squares without paper piecing. In fact, I started and finished one small baby size quilt top yesterday. Of course that means nothing else is getting done around here! I did take down my snowmen and put up some Easter things. I guess that is why it snowed again.

We had Evening Circle last night. For the past few years we have made cherry pie tarts (in honor of President's Day) for our nursing home and older church members. Last night we made 24 cherry pies. Some of us work in the kitchen, the others make the tags we put on the bags the pies go in. They will be delivered today. A few of our members are really good crust makers--then there are those like me who think pie crust comes from the store!

When Circle was over we had to go out and scrape the ice from the windshields of our cars. The highway wasn't cleared either--thank goodness I only met one car because I couldn't tell where exactly the road was. Hopefully today will be better.

February thaw

Most of the snow is gone, except for the biggest drifts. Now the yard looks absolutely ugly! Yard is muddy, roads aren't too bad.

Worked at Erwin Strackbein's funeral luncheon yesterday before and after working at the library. We had 11 kids come to story hour plus 2 babies. It was "T" is for turtle day. They made turtles, last week I painted the underside of paper soup bowls green and yesterday they mottled the "shell" with brown and black paint and added construction paper legs, head and tail. Most kids love to paint except those who don't like dirty hands! We fed nearly 75 people at the luncheon, they were eating when I got back to church so I washed dishes, just cups, glasses and silverware as we use paper plates now that we don't have a dishwasher. My hands sure got clean!

We need everyone's prayers and good wishes for Caleb as he leaves for Afghanastan next week. Larry, Ellen & Caitlin are flying out to spend some time with him before he leaves. Vanessa is there with him now. Wish him well and keep him in your prayers.

Sunday afternoon was spent with Donna Schroeder & Georgie (Kroemer) Greiner working on how to make a booklet for our 50th class reunion and what to put in it. Georgie is doing the proofing for me as I type the pages. We finished the evening by going to Happy Joe's for pizza. Georgie & Nick still have sheep and Nick was lambing so it was a short evening. Good to see them again.

Quilt square making

I've been in a quilt square making mood since we had the blizzard. I watched a tutorial on the computer and thought "I can make that" and I have enough squares made now for a pretty good sized quilt. Now the hard part is putting them together. I finished the Christmas wall hanging and need to get it quilted--I'll take it to someone who machine quilts. The new fabric shop in Tipton will be doing machine quilting after the 1st of March. The new quilt I am working on is not paper pieced which was a big step out of my comfort zone. Some of the squares are not perfectly square but I'll see how it goes together!

Saturday night was the Legion's beef supper, always a big night with a lot of preparation for Bill to help with. I helped with carry-outs and we fixed up 164 carry-outs including 25 home deliveries (one for Grandma). It was a fun night and hopefully they made some money.

Can't wait to see what Vicki has for the little ones to do for Valentine's Day this morning. No one got to the library last week for story hour because of the storm so this week should be fun and there should be lots and lots of books for me to shelve today. School was fun and busy Monday--the teachers's (I learned about plural and singular possessives in 4th grade this week) schedules were all skewed because of missing 2 days and a late start and an early dismissal. Listening to kindergarden students read to me is always fun--they learn so much so early!

Our search committee at church has received 8 ministerial profiles already and we have a meeting tomorrow night. It will be interesting to see if we agree on whether we want to pursue any of them.

They said we were going to have a Blizzard

And we did! The snow drift between my front door and the picnic table must be at least 10 feet tall. All the east windows are covered in snow. I have lived here all my life and can't remember when the bathroom window was completely full of snow between the window and screen. Since the wind is from the west this morning I have closed the shades and curtains on the west side of the house (oh how I miss my big trees) and the house is like a dungeon with the east windows full of snow! Bill is out with the snowblower on the tractor now--do you think he wants to go to town to play cards?

Card club was held here Saturday night. It was Ann's birthday also so we sang to her as she blew out a candle on the birthday cupcake Sue Deerberg brought for her. She was also lucky in cards and won a prize. It was a fun night. Sunday we ate spaghetti at the Lowden Lion's dinner at the Amvet's Hall. Monday I went to school and had a busy day doing everything from matching little pictures to beginning 1st letters to cutting laminated "waves" to having 1st graders read their vocabulary words to me. Always interesting is sitting in the teachers lounge during lunch.

Jenny & Josh Horman are expecting their first baby in July. That will make 3 grandchildren for Randy and Sandra. Jenny is a teacher at school and was eating pickles for lunch!

Hope everybody is safe and warm.