All Hallows Eve

My little witch



and Lucy from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe





hope you had the spookiest of All Hallows Eves.

-dana

Hi Ho A Merry O

A hiking we will go.


To gather the last of the peppers.





And run across green fields of grass.








And run and play and dance.









And find mysterious totems along the way.









And gather bittersweet vine for fall decorating around the house.

I do so love this season.

-dana

Breathing

This past weekend extended into Monday for us. The girls were off of school for the day and Razor had taken the day off to recuperate from the adventure race. So, for three whole days I managed to simply breathe.



Hence the dirty dishes after making . . .



more of these.


On one of our walks we followed the old train track that runs behind our house.




It's in no condition for trains to run on but we do see this guy every now and then.

























Breathing is such a simple luxury. I'm glad that my busiest show schedule for my soap company for the year is over . . . for now there can be more breathing. And baking. And hiking. And giggling. And sewing. And cuddling. And puzzle-putting-togethering. And all the things we love to do as a family.

-dana

Podcasting

I mentioned back in late August that a crew was at my house filming a segment for pod cast.

You can now see it here.

-dana

Adventure Racing Man and Monster Mash Mama

Razor is adventure racing again this weekend at the Upstate Adventure Race. Leave his team a shout out here by selecting team Paradofobia. They get these messages at checkpoints throughout the race. Even cooler than that is the GPS Tracking. They are team #18 and you can see exactly where they are and even put it on Google Earth from the site and see what kind of terrain they are facing. How stinkin' cool is that? (In case there is any confusion about what I'm calling "stinkin' cool" let me be abundantly clear. I think it is stinkin' cool that I can know the exact latitude and longitude of my husband at any given moment in time. I think it is stinkin' cool that I can see if he is going up a mountain, down a mountain or paddling on a lake. The whole draw of adventure racing is a mystery to me. I mean, let's carry everything we need on our backs for 30 continuous hours of grueling, treacherous, sleep-deprived racing?? I would never in a billion years classify that as "stinkin' cool". But to each his own.)

On the home front, the girls and I are in full on Halloween mode.




We've decorated our pumpkins for the contest tonight at the school's annual Monster Mash Bash.





Later we will adorn ourselves as well.







Add a little sugar high to the mix and you have the makings of a rip roaring Halloween party!


-dana

Poor kitty

We have three cats that I've talked about before. Jezebel is the youngest and smallest and sweetest (Don't tell Truman I said that because, truth be told, Truman is the sweetest. But for the sake of this story I want to declare to the world that Jezebel is the sweetest. That is unless you include Sweetie Boy in the mix. I mean come on! With a name like Sweetie Boy you know he's sweet. But again, for this story we will put all of that aside and agree that Jezebel is the sweetest. Well, maybe anyway.)



All the cats are barn cats. We go outside every morning and find them all waiting for us to walk to the barn and feed them. It's quite the ritual. But last Wednesday when we went out in the morning Jezebel wasn't there. Hmm. That's odd. But then again Sweetie Boy once went missing for over a month so how odd is one morning really. Right?

Well, that afternoon we still hadn't seen Jezebel all day. Razor went to look for her. Luckily he knew a few of her favorite hiding spots and found her high up in the barn. She purred and purred and was very happy to see him but he knew instantly that something wasn't right. Her back leg was clearly broken.

Come to find out she had a compound open fracture of her femur. And it was already infected.






So our vet recommended amputation.

::blink:: ::blink::

Come again Doc.

We now have a three-legged cat. Wait, wait. We now have a three-legged indoor cat. Furthermore, we now have a three-legged indoor cat that has already pulled out her stitches and the subsequent staples. So really when you break it all down, we now have a three-legged indoor cat with a lamp shade on her head.


And she is such a trooper that the only thing that really makes her mad about the whole thing is the lamp shade.






I know sweet girl. I'd be upset about the lamp shade on my head too.

-dana


P.S. Aren't you glad I didn't include pictures of the amputation site. It's not all that horrible actually. The worst part of it is the shaved fur and the metal staples. Poor, poor sweet girl.

I love these

-dana

Happy family

Yesterday evening I was lucky enough photograph this enchanting family. I think they were a bit nervous and didn't really like being the center of attention. But after awhile they started to relax.

Lovely don't you think?

-dana

Sugar Snap

I've mentioned before that I'm getting three quilts ready to give away here all in one fail swoop. Three quilts to three different winners. I can hardly wait cause two of them are done and I'm loving them. I stare at them fondly on my sewing table. Every now and again I give them a gentle stroke. I dream of summer picnics and cuddling at Christmas time . . . and then I remember that I'm giving them away.





The third quilt is now at the long arm quilter's house. This one is equally as extraordinary as the first two and has special meaning to me.







You see, Melissa has a blog that I stalk called Yummy Goods. Several months ago I contacted her and asked if she would even remotely consider giving me some of her debut fabric, called Sugar Snap, to make a quilt with and give it away on my blog. I thought I'd never hear back from her but, lo and behold, I did. And, she agreed!





The fabric arrived about a week ago and it is marvelously beautiful. I could get lost in the one above. I have been dreaming of a brown/pink/orange quilt for ages and this fabric is bewitching in it's perfectness.

And, doesn't this one below totally remind you of your Spirograph drawing toy from when you were a kid?




Dude. Don't even get me started.





I've had trouble parting with other quilts but surrendering the three for this giveaway will be a nearly impossible feat.

Perhaps a bait-and-switch is in order . . .

-dana

Perfect autumn cookies

Razor makes the most delectable cookies with the girls each fall. Lucky for me, they made them this past weekend and he took photos along the way!












Click on the recipe above to make it larger.

And then march yourself to your kitchen right away and commence baking. You are so gonna thank me.

-dana

Another bug . . . or itch . . . or W.H.A.T.E.V.E.R.

I like to giveaway quilts. And others have joined in on the fun. Today I found that Elizabeth of Pigtails and Snails (who by the way was a runner up winner in my first quilt giveaway) is giving away the above pictured quilt.

Check it out. Try to win it. And if you do please send it to me.

Please?

-dana

Back in the swing of things

A quick Google showed me popping up in newspapers and news services nationwide. Here are a few . . .

Washington Post

CBS News

New York Post

Miami Herald

CNBC

Business Week

USA Today

Chicago Tribune

The Huffington Post

Los Angeles Times

Sacramento Bee (This one is especially for you Dad.)



Whew.

On to other stuff.

October is always one of the busiest times of the year for my soap company. Every weekend for weeks on end I'm traveling to art shows and festivals. Sometimes Razor is too. I'm busy. I'm tired. And by this stage of the game I'm a little bit irritable.

::Blink:: ::Blink::

Ok. Alot irritable.

But I'm looking to remedy that soon.

-dana

My little cloggers

Each year Boo and Licious clog at a local fall festival. It is the biggest show of the year and highly anticipated. They dance many routines but I'm only sharing two here. The second one is danced to live music. (Yo! Go the my music player on the left and press pause to stop the blog music so you can hear only the clogging music.)






I love that young and old clog together.

And I adore their toe-tapping-happy-dancing-little-clogging feet.


-dana

Now showing on the world wide web

The video portion of my Associated Press profile story is popping up on the web. This embed is from U.S. News & World Report but if you Google me you'll find me elsewhere too.



The print story will hit AP outlets on Friday, October 10th. Same deal. Just Google me and you'll find it.

Eeeeekkkkk!!!

And, since I seem to be all about shameless self promotion here today I thought I would also point you to a recent feature in a quilting industry newsletter. SuzGuz Designs featured me and my company, Old Red Barn Co., in their September newsletter. Check it out. Or not. But do check out SuzGuz Designs as Susan herself has designed and made a quilt to be given away here sometime in the next few weeks.

The quilt is amazing and you won't be disappointed. The only one who will be disappointed will be me when I'm boxing it up and shipping it off to one lucky winner.

Dude, I'm off to Google myself again.

-dana

All Points Bulletin

Crazy thing happened yesterday.





Any guesses?





Any guesses? Come on. Go ahead and try to guess. Cause you could guess all day and never guess this one. I dare ya.








Ok. So, these hip young people are Associated Press reporters. They came down from their Washington Bureau to do a story on me. Dude!! ASSOCIATED PRESS!

To be a proper hostess I fed them coffee cake.




Later it was chips and guacamole. And some of the most amazing heavenly elixir on earth . . . Jones Soda Co. Creme Soda. That stuff is so good. I like a good creme soda but a good one is hard to find. Often they are too sweet and too syrupy. Not this otherworldly concoction. It is the perfect blend . . . um . . . er . . ..

Did I mention the ASSOCIATED PRESS was at my house yesterday from 11am until 4pm?




This is Julie Pace. When I first talked to her on the phone I thought the interview sounded fun but doubted it would lead to anything. I figured she was someones intern making a few calls. But then I googled her. Eeeek! The nerves set in and I was terrified that she would call again. She did call the next day and told me they were coming October 2nd. Oh. My. Stinkin'. Heck.







And this is Matt Ford. He is a multimedia producer from Associated Press. I've googled him and find lots of stories he has produced and others he has contributed to but I can't point you to one concise place to read all about him. Dangit Matt!




So, my story should hit AP outlets next week. I'll provide some links here once I know it is running.

And get this. They are flying me to Washington, DC on election day to watch the presidential election results come in with other voters and political analysts. It will be some kind of live Internet streaming video kind of dealy bob.

Holy crap.

-dana