Thank you Phil!!!!

and whoever it was that held up that beach umbrella, assuring that the Punx would not cast the slightest of shadows. Spring will arrive early. (Do ya think we can convince it that tomorrow would be a good day to pop in?)

And because Old Man Winter is a bitter, vengeful sort, we're looking at 3-6 inches of snow tonight and even more come the weekend (which, believe me, is not appreciated....as Sistos Quilting is having their annual SuperBowl sale with a tailgate party in the parking lot on Saturday).

Guild was good last night. My secret sister gave me a most excellent pincushion pattern (donuts, cupcakes, Oreos) and the colors of felt to make them. I love my secret sister. For Christmas she gave me stabilizer and she made me the greatest little drawstring bag with little pockets inside. Right now I'm carrying around my yoyo heart paraphernalia, and it's just perfect. She also gave me chocolate and flavored hot chocolates. While I did start a diet yesterday, I felt obligated to choke down a cup of the chocolate and one of the candies. And I will feel obligated again this evening, I am sure.

Quilt class today was fun, and it was the perfect opportunity for me to pull out and assemble the CherylAnn design wall my sweet daughter gave me for Christmas.

French braids, Bali Pop, Kiwi Jubilee. And it was a learning experience when that first braid (cut into the blocks on the left), didn't exactly line up it's points to cut the 8" squares. So, while sorting out the strips for the next block, I gave each strip a measure...I'll have to say that only 2 out of 15 actually measured a precise 2.5 inches. That would explain the misalignment. So, I'm going to sew this one together and make sure I have enough to cut the two blocks out of it before I trim the other 150 strips. I had read somewhere that Balipops weren't ever cut accurately. Maybe Hoffmann should look into buying the AccuQuilt Go. :)

I promise you this, once the hubs gets home and views the whole design wall experience, I am going to have to let him lay out a few braids.  Okay, he's a guy, so according to my calculations, his interest will wane after one or two. No problem.

Here's the blocks I cut from my first braid:

Now, all I've got to do is finish up the freemotion on the Valentines table quilt so I can rethread and piece the braids. The 1260 is down in the basement, packed in it's rollway bag. I need to take it out again Tuesday, so I hate to schlep it up and set it up, though I may just ask the hubs to bring it up. In fact, he needs a task to feel useful :). Let's do that.

Lost is on tonight, but I can't sew and watch Lost. Now, I know, you're saying "Suz! What's up with that? You quit Lost last season, two episodes in, when the writers were pulling scripts out of their butts and writing storylines that only their mothers could approve of"...Locke is dead, but he's not... Farraday has been there before and knows he'll be there in the future, but when is he there?...there's a subzero cave under a tropical island with a big old circa King Kong movie crank that you turn to move the island....and my favorite......a hulking giant airliner breaks in half in flight, drops 30,000 feet into the ocean, and lots of people swim to shore, without a bump, bruise, scratch....including a VERY pregnant woman

Seriously, I roll my eyes every time I'm on a flight and the attendant tells you that you can use your seat cushion as a flotation device. Come on, has a plane ever CRASHED into an ocean and the passengers got out of the submerged plane and were all floating around blowing into the straws on their lifejackets? (we aren't talking Captain Sully steering us into the Hudson here) Ummm....no. Come to think of it you can't open a car door against the water pressure, how the heck are you going to get out of that flying tin can?

We can all agree that if one were to step off the observation deck of the Empire State Building, you'd be dead. Or if you climbed the Golden Gate Bridge and jumped into the San Francisco Bay, you'd not be treading water waiting for the Coast Guard, because the impact would have broken most every bone in your body. Yet, the writers of Lost expect us to buy into the belief that dropping 30,000 feet encased in steel into the Pacific Ocean is akin to a trip down the slide at Wolf Lodge.

Okay, so it seems that last week everyone I met wanted to recap Season 5 for me so I could return to the fold and watch the last season. (Misery loves company, doesn't it?)  It doesn't matter that I know that however they end this series is going to be so utterly ridiculous that I am going to want to throw the coffee table through the 60" Sony. But I just can't take the peer pressure anymore (or the family pressure), so I'm going to try to watch it. Though I'm going to DVR it so I can just fast forward through the really stupid parts.

And while I do that tonight, I'll be working on: