All Fixed

It took me a couple of weeks, but I have finally finished repairing one of the Dog Walker's quilts.

 If you remember, nearly the whole inner square and one of the triangles were totally shredded. He was planning to get rid of it when I rescued it from the garbage bag.

So the first thing I had to do (after giving the Dog Walker a scolding) was to remove all the torn and shredded fabric as well as the yarn holding them in place. Even the batting beneath had to be repaired.

Then I chose new blocks from my stash of fabric. I serged all I could, but that wasn't possible for some. They had to be done by hand.

I also had to sew the serged blocks in by hand. Thankfully, they were much bigger. One of them was 35 blocks and the other was nine.

When I finally had all the new blocks in place, I had to retie all the missing knots.

Then when all the new blocks were finally finished, I had to check the entire quilt for bad ties and other rips in the fabric. That was much harder than it sounds. I had limited matching yarn, so I couldn't replace the knots, I had to retie them.

Even though it took me many hours, I'm so glad this quilt looks like new. Many of the blocks were originally pieced by my grandma and that legacy is definitely worth saving.

Wordless Wednesday - Bright Eyes Getting Foils..er...Foil

 

Guest Blog: Camp Tracy With Nephews by the Dog Walker

It's been a very long time since I got to go to any Scout camp in particular. Bossy had given me a chance to spend some time on one of my days off work to go to a day camp with cub scouts Skittles and Queso. Burrito was also put in charge of keeping an eye of Skittles and Queso and to make sure they were participating in the fun activities and having a good time. There was also their Cub Scout troop leader who showed up with a couple more scouts in her troop.

The day camp was at Tracy Canyon, just several car minutes away from the Hogle Zoo. It was designed in a dinosaur theme, so the kids would go to several fun activities with different games and obstacles. We were divided into seven big groups of colored teams to enjoy all the activities that each lasted for half an hour, so we were there pretty much the rest of the afternoon until evening. There was rock climbing, dinosaur tail tag, ga-ga-ga ball, boat rowing, archery, scavenger hunts, environmental trash-picking and bb gun shooting. I think Skittles and Queso's favorite activity was rowing a boat on the lake. After the activities and the closing ceremony, Skittles' and Queso's troop leader gave them a patch to take home with them.

Being at a Cub Scout camp for a day and seeing a whole lot of kids joining in all the fun, had reminded me of being an assistant cubmaster with Dad. I sure miss those times, and being able to help Queso and Skittles have some fun and be good sports with Burrito was great too. I'm sure Dad would be proud of me for choosing to go to a fun day camp activity and remembering all the things from Cub Scouts. And also spending some time with some of my nephews. Here are some fun pictures that I took of the day camp.

Curly's Graduation Party

I seem to have missed blogging about a few things, like Curly's graduation party. We held it the Saturday night right before graduation. We couldn't do it the weekend after since Baby Doll had a tournament.

We planned a nacho bar for food and made the whole thing pretty casual.

Sorry, some are a bit blurry. Various people sent me pics since I didn't take a single one.

By the end of the evening, we had entertained at least 50 people. It was a great tribute to my amazing son.

New Milestone

I hit a new milestone today. This is about what I weighed 42 years ago when I got married. I hadn't planned to ever be under 200 lbs again...oh, who is kidding who? I just wanted to hit 250.

During Covid, my weight climbed to 333, my highest (and lowest) point of my life. Something had to be done and since I didn't want surgery, it was the once a week injections. I started with Ozempic. It had done amazing things for my sweetie.

Slowly, it began it's work on me. My weight slid to 270 and stayed there for a while. We upped my dose, tweaked a few other meds and I hit 250.

My sweetie and I were both trying very hard when the new year rolled around. We were hoping for great things in 2025.

It was the end of March and I had switched to Mounjaro. Things were finally rolling again and my weight crept steadily down. My sweetie bought me new clothes and life seemed pretty perfect.

Then he got sick.

I guess that helped me lose more weight, but by then I didn't care much. It's not like I was losing weight for him, but I guess I was a little. He had always told me I was beautiful, but I didn’t always believe him.

I was this big when I lost him 10 months ago.

This is me now.

In the Bingham shirt. My oldest sister is in the purple shirt. She has lost about 100 lbs as well. This isn't a commercial for taking injections, but they have worked for me. My body is more healthy and moves more quickly, but I am still tired and I feel every one of my 61 years. Being a widow will always make me feel old, I think, but I'm pretty sure my sweetie would be proud of me. If I listen really hard, I can still hear his beloved voice telling me I'm beautiful.

And it makes me smile.

Wordless Wednesday - Dog Walker's Quilt - Mid Repair

(More about this when I can talk since it's Wordless Wednesday.)

Final Day

Today was the last day of the tournament. Baby Doll's team was in the semi-finals and they were excited.

They all played really well (especially Baby Doll 😉), and with a truly valiant effort, they took 3rd place in the Open Division!

Coach got a trophy AND a medallion, while the girls each got an amazing medallion as well. This is Baby Doll's.

 Another really good day.

Triple Crown

I always enjoy Triple Crown. It is at the Expo Center so it's close and instead of 100+ courts, there are only 36.

Baby Doll has been playing so well!

Working between playing her own.

One of my friends sent me this video. First, +you see her daughter and then you see Baby Doll making an amazing block!

I just love watching her play!

Happy Sunday.

First Baseball Game

As you can see, the first official baseball game played west of the Missouri River, was in Nephi. My several greats grandpa, Edward Ockey, who settled Nephi, played in that first game.

Grandpa (my dad) played for Juab High School and I am hoping he feels well enough to go with us to this exhibition game.

I love ⚾!!💕

Curly's Graduation

Yesterday, Sport, Baby Doll, Scout, her married friends K & J and I all braved the traffic to get to UVU for Curly's graduation. Unfortunately, all of the printed invitations said 1:30, but we discovered when we were on the road, that it actually started at 1:00. Let's just say that Scout drove very fast!

We got there just as the processional started. At least I did. Scout and Baby Dl dropped me at the entrance and then looked for a place to park.

I found Sport and then made my way down the stairs so I could take a pic of Curly coming from the tunnel.

Seating was full, so we ended up in this little balcony with very little legroom.

It was a typical ceremony and it was over all too fast. Let me share a few more pics with you.

Love this guy!

Guest Blog: Curly's New Life Ahead by the Dog Walker

Ever since, Mom has started this blog, she has always cherished talking about her twelve kids and explaining how their lives have been. This was Curly back as a little boy, along with a stunning hairdo of curls. I remember the times during Covid, that I would read to him and Baby Doll the entire Harry Potter series. And now after all these years of blogging, he is about to graduate from high school and move on to a new life chapter. He'll be serving a mission in Baltimore, Maryland, and he's earned a scholarship to the University of Virginia and one to BYU and a whole lot of other schools when he's done with his mission. Congratulations, Curly! You sure grew up so fast.

Enjoy these pictures of Curly over the years.