Happy Zombie

I’m like that one annoying member of a quilt guild - who every year when it’s time for the annual quilt show… is late with her quilts for hanging.  So here I’m late to the party that EVERYONE has a quilt hanging in.  So in case you’re like me and didn’t know… Amy of Park City Girl is hosting a Blogger’s Quilt Festival.  A virtual one.  How cool is THAT!   And it’s huge.  HUGE.  Über HUGE.

So in my mind… the picturesque Main St. of Park City is lined with everyone’s favorite quilt.   Beautiful quilts.  Beautiful friends.  It’s like visiting everyone with their favorite quilt (and some with an extra one they’ve snuck in, like, ahem, moi).  The weather is glorious in Park City in my mind as I stroll from quilt to quilt, and the question I ask each friend at their quilt… “so where are we having lunch?”

Amy’s Quilt Festival even has sponsors/vendors (just to name a few… like Jona, Anina, Kathy and Kim).   It’s just like an IRL quilt show - but there’s a piece of monitor glass in the way to keep me from touching the quilts (yes, I touch).  No judging, no lunching (bummer) - just beloved quilts.   This is so fun, so be sure to check it out.    And knock, knock, knock… I think we should ask these guys to pony up a weekend in Park City - and it has nothing to do with the fact that Park City is on my Must Visit Wish List.

Amy asks us to show our favorite quilt.  Mine is my Roly Poly Circus.  All hand embroidered and hand quilted.  It took me fooooooor-evah to make it, but I loved every second of it.  I’ve written about it previously here.

My snuck-in-quilt is my Irish Tea Party quilt.  Also hand embroidered and hand quilted - and also colored with crayons. This is a BOM from Crabapple Hill (or as I like say ala Simpson-glish… Cra-Bapple Hill) called “Tea Party“, (the Irish Chain is my own setting).  I had SO MUCH FUN making the blocks, and even better… it was a group BOM project in my Redwork group. Handwork and friends… nothing’s better then that.

My photo doesn’t do it justice, and the pretty fabrics are from In The Beginning, and I can’t remember the line name. It’s been a while since I made this. I entered this quilt in my guild’s annual show (and yes, I got it there on time) and I won a blue ribbon on it. WOW! Moi… with a blue ribbon! And yeah, I soooooo had that sucker pinned to my hoddie for like a month.

Soooo…
Where are we having lunch?

Bunny Hill Designs/Anne Sutton’s DARLING “A Tisket, A Tasket” block of the month for April.  I made my chocolate bunny into a marshmallow bunny.  This way I can squeeze him.   I also added carrots - because I don’t want my bunny to indulge in too much sugar.  All thoughhhhh… the eggs ARE filled with ranch dressing.

In case you’re one of the eight people on the planet who’s not (yet!) jumped in and participating in THE CUTEST B.O.M. on the planet… please allow me to pour you a nice refreshing glass of the Bunny Hill flavored Kool-aid. Make that four glasses… a glass for each of my months… January, February, March and April.

Pssst. Pssst. You have you Kool-aid mustache.

His & hers therapies. I’m so happy to say that Mr. Zombie is finally home. And thanks to modern medical marvels, aka the PICC line (a “diy” IV system) - the Infection-Zombie gets his RX treatment at home - rather then spending 6-8 more weeks in the hospital. That just blows my mind.

The hospital (OHSU) was fantastic and they couldn’t be more pro-family and made a bummer situation so much better. And perks that scored big with me… the staff of course, but also the 24/7 cafeteria with really good organic/free trade coffee. But home is best, not to mention I can do without the daily almost 2 hour drive each way.  Mr. Z’s infection (in the donor bone) will take a while to rid of, but he’s on the right track and we see progress each day. Our heartfelt thanks to all who bestowed us with good wishes and thoughts, comments and emails… now THAT was truly the best RX - for both of us!

Physical therapy starts again soon for Mr. Z. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was picking up my “prescription” while I was in Arizona.  Ahhh… Arizona.   I had blast with my girl-gang.  I want to go back.  This was my second time in Phoenix, and I need a third -  I want to visit my sweet pals Jona and Bren… and a trip up to Sedona is in order too.

I love the Arizona flag - I’m just gaga about it.  It’s so graphic and bold, and very, very cool.   It has an art-quilt quality and fantastic branding to it.  I want to cut up some fabric and make one for myself.  I love the flag of my home state (California Republic) and my adopted state’s flag (Oregon) is a snooze… but Arizona’s flag is King of The Flags.  Top flag dog.

Beauty found in a Phoenix strip mall.

Surprise!   Or as I like to say… Supplies!  This never got old for me, even though I drove the girl gang nuts and was threatened with getting kicked out of the car.  Arizona has the best names for cities and towns.   I love these names… Bumble Bee, Happy Jack, Carefree, Grasshopper, Christmas and Sunflower.  And these towns/cities say “Arizona” all over them… Skull Valley, Iron Springs, Black Canyon City and Maverick.  Best flag.   Best city names.   And a ton of In-n-Out’s.   Sigh.  You rock, Arizona.

At a JoAnn’s in Phoenix.  Merchandising the HZ way.

Sure is loud in here.  Ahhh.   That’s better.

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe) and Calavera de Azúcar (sugar skulls) are not an easy find here in the Pacific Northwest. I KNEW I’d score big in Arizona!


Another score were the tiles I found at Hobby Lobby.   And what a score Hobby Lobby is!  So jealous they’re not on the West Coast.   I first heard of Hobby Lobby via Blogland… and I must say that I really liked it.   It’s as if Micheal’s and HomeGoods had a night in Vegas… and 9 months later a little Hobby Lobby was born.

And then there are the fabrics that came home with me - even though there was already some of it at home.  For the I-Just-Can’t-Get-Enough-Of-These files.  There’s always room for more Sandi, Tanya, Heather and Jennifer in my cupboards!  We visited Quiltz - a shop being featured in the upcoming Quilt Sampler.  We had high expectations, and boy did Quiltz deliver.  I can see why it made the top ten in Quilt Sampler.  Beautiful store and wonderful shopkeepers and staff.   The store was heavily peppered with my favorite fabrics (in my realm of unreality, I know they set the store just for me).  A definite e-ticket of a quilt shop, and the small world part - was that the owners were from Scapposse, Oregon… just up the river from me.

Fabric shopping is all good and fun, but there’s nothing better to make your husband’s-having-emergency-surgery-and-you’re-out-of-state-scrary-sucky-day… then to come home and find that your sweet friend Nanette has sent you some cotton love from her stash.  A total OMG moment.  LOOK at what she sent me!   Talk about vintage goodness, and all the better because it’s from Nanette’s cupboards-o-joy.  Just dreamy. Nanette has a knack for vintage fabrics. She’s THE vintage fabric whisperer. I’m just waiting for the day she gets gobbled up by a fabric company as a repo designer - and we can all have some of her vintage joys in our cupboards.

But wait, there’s more!  Nireko sent me these beautiful Lecien bundles of Mrs. March’s 30’s.  Sooooo stinkin’ cute.  Nireko sent me some other goodies, like the darling box she made - and filled with tiny little Japanese treats that are Triskit sized.  Saving that for another post.  Just too darn cute.

And now that we’re settling back in to “normal”, and the big scare is on it’s way out… time to focus on some more fun stuff!

Thank you for the kind words for Mr. Zombie (I love that and think I’m going to start calling him that!). I read Mr. Z your comments last night and it made him smile. I usually don’t like sharing too much of my personal/family life online, and feel kinda weird about it… but here goes. Mr. Zombie’s incision area from his January’s knee reconstruction surgery became infected. A trip to the ER on Sunday - landed him in the hospital. A surgery on Monday (while I was still in AZ), and a second one scheduled for today. Mr. Zombie’s stats (please don’t ask me to name them) are still really low - scary low. If he continues… they will put him in the ICU. Right now at this moment they are up, and we hope they continue to stay there. Fingers crossed.

Also keeping our fingers crossed that today’s surgery does the trick. If the infection is the result of the donor bone he received in January… then docs have to go in, take it out… and start alllllllll over again. It’s been a long, long, long recovery for Mr. Z, and to do it all over again would be heartbreaking. Your good donor mojo thoughts (or better yet… *dono mojo* thoughts) are so much appreciated and we thank you so, so, so much!

Update 4/8 6pm: Good thoughts are WORKING! Mr. Z’s stats are up and close to normal. He even ate half of his dinner (and I ate the other half… and it was pretty good actually). Little things = big blessings. I’ve been reading the newly named Mr. Z your notes, and it makes us both smile and is better then any RX. And I’m totally jacked on calling him Mr. Z from now on. Hopefully by tomorrow we find out about this bone and the infection, but we’re very optimistic. THANK YOU!!! xoxo, m

Update 4/9 noonish:
We still don’t have word what the infection is (labs still running it), but docs are pretty positive the donor bone can stay. THANK GOODNESS. Mr. Z (that’s growing on him too) may get to go home tomorrow, with 6-8 weeks of home IV antibiotics and weekly visits from a home nurse. Something called a “PICC line” was just installed as an IV “port” (his peripherals, cracking myself up). Really nifty and it sure beats 6-8 weeks in the hospital! OHSU is a wonderful place… but home is always best. And I won’t have to drive so far. Though home doesn’t have a 24/7 cafeteria - oh how will I manage.

I was feeling so weird about posting such personal stuff. I’m so glad I did. The outpouring of love in the comments and emails is really wonderful. Our hearts runnith over. Especially when I know peeps who are living through stuff far, far, far worse then us - and to give us love and comfort… it’s all the more special. Worthy of super-sized 5XL large and bold font…. THANK YOU!

My bags are packed.
Liquids are in 3 oz. bottles.
The entire girl-gang has shaved their legs.
The dogs have been feed, brushed and de-pooped.
I’ve stocked up on corn-dogs, pizza rolls and Hot Pockets lovingly prepared meals for the boy-folk.

Camera… charged.
iPhone… charged.
iPod… loaded.
Flip-flops… on. (they’re always on, so that’s not a clue)
Dogs… sad.
Triskit… ready to go!

The girl-gang+Triskit is hitting the road. Or rather the skies. Where will we land?   No one knows (except Pam!).

Because I’m a 12 year old trapped in a 40mumblemumble yeat old body … and because playing hide-n-seek is my favorite game (hubby and I even play it with our dogs)… I’ve enlisted Triskit to play hide-n-seek with me. I will be iPhoning Triskit in secret locations throughout our girl-gangpalooza trip and uploading them to my flickr. First person to guess our location (or nearest to our location) by Tuesday morning (April 7th) wins a kitchy airport prezzie that I’ll pick up from there.

- Guess as many times as you want.
- One guess per comment please.
- Yes, I’m 12.
- Comment here.
- Follow the clues here.
- TAG… YOU’RE IT!