Irene and Us.......

Our community, while within a mile of an inland bay in southern Delaware (the Indian River Bay) is several feet above sea level and our home is 32 feet above sea level, so we were not worried about water and were intending to stay here during the hurricane.  Our worry was wind and trees possibly coming down on the house (since we had that happen two years ago).  However, the governor issued an order that all those living within a certain area had to evacuate and we were in that area.  So......after calling several hotels and not finding one within a reasonable distance with a vacancy, we were lucky enough to find people from our church to shelter us for two nights. We then got together with a few others from our church who live near to them and we kept our minds off the storm by having a hurricane party.  I will probably post some photos of that eventually.   We had to be out of the house for 48 hours...could have come back sooner but a driving ban was in effect (and if you drive during that and have an accident, your car insurance doesn't have to pay...who knew?) 

Anyway....we came home to find NO damage, thankfully, but a messy yard strewn with branches and pine cones. But...we aren't complaining since many were much less fortunate. Also, we had no major power losses in this area, which was also wonderful. Thanks to all of you who were thinking of us and praying for us.  I truly appreciate that.

So.....after helping hubby clean up the mess yesterday and also catching up on my typing job, today I tried to get some "normalcy" back in my life and went to the local quilt shop and then made a cute little change purse with two pockets.  It is an Atkinson Design pattern and is pictured here.  It was a quick project and turned out nice.  It is to be a gift for a friend, but I think I will make more as it was fun and easy. That friend sometimes reads my blog, so if she does, she will then be surprised when this is given to her! 

Darn you, Irene!!!!!

Our housing development has been told we MUST evacuate. While our house is 30+ feet above sea level, we are also less than a mile from an inland bay and the governor declared that folks within that radius need to get OUT.........end of discussion!!!    Now all the hotels for miles around that are inland are booked.  Luckily, some kind folks from church are letting us stay with them for a couple of nights. We hope to be able to return home on Sunday and hope that we find our home isn't damaged.  If we'd had to go farther away, we'd have been in gridlock traffic for hours and if we'd used up all our gas and then ended up in an area with a power failure where gas station pumps then couldn't work, we'd be stuck there for who knows how long.  So....like I said, DARN YOU, IRENE!!!   I hope there is no loss of life or major property destruction for anyone during this hurricane.  Stay safe, Everyone!

I'm going to try to win a prize....Are you?

Camp Quiltalong Prize Giveaway

Join in some campfire fun for a chance to win great prizes totaling over $1500!  Fons & Porter, Fabric.com, and AccuQuilt have teamed up to provide us all with a huge giveaway on Facebook.  Simply “Like” these Facebook pages and gain access to all three sections of a secret code that unlock your chance to win!  Follow the camp trail on the bottom of each sponsor’s page and it will take you to the next campground to retrieve the next section of code.  Once you’ve captured all three pieces of the secret code, go to www.accuquilt.com/indianblocks and enter the full code to register to win! 

Your summer camping trip begins at AccuQuilt, so get GO!-ing at http://www.facebook.com/accuquilt?sk=wall#!/accuquilt?sk=app_10467688569

Blurry photo, but.........

This is a blurry photo (sorry about that), but...you can probably see it's a sewing machine and some accessories.  They have come to stay at my house for awhile.  To be precise, it is a Bernina Artista 200 sewing machine.  A family in my church donated it to the church so it can be used to do things with the youth group, make costumes for Christmas pageants, etc.  The pastor brought it to my house and asked me if I would study the machine and learn how to use it.  However.....I am right now pretty miserable with hives.......which I got because it turns out I am allergic to Prednisone and was on it for a week to try to get rid of my poison ivy.  I itch and burn pretty much non-stop around the clock....and none of the medicine I'm taking is giving me much relief.  As you can imagine, right now the furthest thing from my mind is sitting down and learning how to use a machine that is totally foreign to me.  I have never used a Bernina.  I have used Singer, Husqvarna-Viking, and Janome...but never a Bernina.  I know this isn't a new model, but it still has a lot of features and looks intimidating to me!!!  (It appears to be able to do embroidery and I've never attempted machine embroidery, either.) So.......if any of you have a familiarity with this machine, I'd be interested in any comments or advice you could send my way.   I'm not under any time deadline by which I need to know the machine, but I figured it would be helpful to see if any of you might be able to reassure me so I stop being scared of this machine!   HELP!!!!!

A "no picture" post.....

This will be a no-picture post because you'd not want to see a picture of what has been MY life for the past week now.  I have a very severe case of poison ivy (and pictures of it would be pretty gross)!  I'd not had it bad since when I was a child, but I sure got a horrendous case of it now.  Since Monday, I've been under a doctor's care and on a 12-day tapering course of Prednisone.  Sadly, I am one in whom Prednisone causes insomnia......which I didn't know since this is the first time I've had that medication.  SO.....I am averaging only about 2 -3 hours of sleep a night.  There is still more rash breaking out on me, so if that is still happening while I was on the higher dose of the medication, I am worried what will happen now as I start to taper down on the med.  NOT FUN at all!!!   At least if I could "escape" it by sleeping for part of each day and all night, it would help, but.....I guess that won't happen while on the medication.   There was something good that happened, though, this morning...but I don't have any picture of it.  I found out from Dawn, a quilting blogger pal in Maryland, that I won a nice prize on her blog....a copy of a software program called "Quilt Album".  It looks like it will be a fun way to journal my quilts and also can be used to make greeting cards and quilt labels.  I'll be excited to get it and try it out and report here about it.  Thanks, Dawn...for having that drawing!!!  It allowed a very tired, itchy, sore me to have a smile put on my face first thing this morning!