Dancing on the Ceiling

Lionel Richie's All the Hits Tour 2014 landed at the Garden State Arts Center in Holmdel on Friday night.  And, thanks to my beautiful daughter and most wondcrful son-in-law, I was there...

...with Jackie. WE HAD A BALL!

Lionel is a great entertainer - likeable, funny, involved with the audience - who kept us going the entire evening.  We laughed, we danced, we finished his sentences, we sang.  Did I say we danced? He was dynamic and backed up by very talent musicians who were also entertaining (especially his saxophone/harmonica player).

Here is a picture of his arrival on stage, "Hello," he said. "Is it me you're looking for?"

Jackie was up dancing and screaming right away.  She grew up listening to these records. Lionel said that he had two kinds of fans, the ones who had been with him throughout the journey and the others  who knew his music and called him "Mr. Richie."  He promised us the hits and he made sure that he sang them all.

Oh, and let me not forget that Ce Lo Green opened the show and warmed up the audience for almost 50 minutes before Lionel came out.

IT WAS A GREAT EVENING!!!!!!!!

No Words

No words can describe the joy I feel seeing this baby.  I felt the same way when Grace was born. So I will just make some notes about these photos.

Days of waiting are totally forgotten when the baby finally arrives. Hannah is about 1 hour old in this photo. Adam was leaving the surgical suite with her to take her up to the nursery.  Jackie was going to the recovery room.

Jackie took this photo in her hospital room after the nurse showed her how to swaddle Hannah like a burrito. She calls this one the "baby burrito" photo. :)  It was taken several hours after she was born when she was brought to Jackie's room.

As of today, Jackie, Adam and Hannah are at home.  Adam sent this photo of Hannah in her own clothes at home.

I made a little vintage dress...

...for Hannah Frances.  It was Simplicity pattern #2629, "Baby's Vintage Layette." 

In 2008, when Grace was one year old, I made her some little outfits. It was a joy to make this little vintage dress and petticoat for Hannah. It will probably be the first many more "little outfits."

I gave it to Jackie and Adam yesterday when we met them at the Franklin Steak House for lunch. 

We were celebrating Jackie's birthday.  It was modest this year because Jackie is very pregnant and more focused on Hannah's birthday than on her own.

Rob and Kathryn gave her the complete "Jurassic Park" series on DVD. She and Adam almost jumped with joy when they opened it.  It was a new one for their collection.  They will enjoy the many additional scenes that didn't make it into the movies as they wait for Hannah to make her debut.  (Did I mention that Rob's face is full of hair?  He is growing his "baby beard" reminiscent of the beard he wore when expecting Grace.  I wish I had taken a picture of him.)

 And, I gave her the book "Little Knitted Creatures" with new sets of knitting and crochet needles to inspire some small projects that she can tackle when her leisure time becomes less available in a couple of weeks (welcome Hannah).

Making donuts in the morning, enjoying a birthday lunch in the afternoon, seeing Adam, Jackie, Kathryn, Rob and Grace all on the same day - LIFE IS GOOD. ;-)

My *heart* daughter

On Sunday, 9/25/2011, I spent the day with my delightful daughter.  We were checking out tea rooms in the city as possible fun places for her baby shower.  It was a beautiful day that ended with our visit to the Queens Museum.  I had not been to Flushing Meadow since the World's Fair!!!  I was in high school for crying out loud.  It was strange to be out of the car, passing by, and on the ground looking at the structures that I remembered from the long ago trip.

The Meadow is now a beautiful park and the Panorama Building is the Queens Museum of Art.  The helicopters that we rode in to view the Panorama have been removed, but the ramp is still there.  It serves as a viewing deck around the Panorama for visitors to walk around.

The Panorama is a scaled down model of NYC that has been kept reasonably up-to-date.  The reason for the visit was a talk by author Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret) who stood in the East River on the Panorama with a sign language translator to tell us about his journey to success as an author and his new book Wonder Struck in which the Panorama is a character.  If you are unfamiliar with Selznick, perhaps you are interested now :-)

Jackie was a bit rattled by the autograph session, the crowd was a little out-of-control, but, she was so determined to get her copies of the books signed to share with her kids at school that she hung in there to the end.

I have a beautiful daughter with a loving husband both expecting their first child.  She is happy to spend a day with her mom and is so in touch with her life.  My heart is bursting with pride for the woman she has become.

It's not about the presents, however...

...some really thoughtful gifts were under my tree this year!

 For example, look at this GREAT PHOTO ALBUM from Adam and Jackie.  A wonderful picture of Jackie and I from her wedding (I don't think I had a copy before this, hmmmm :) ) in the front of an album to be filled with pictures of our future adventures together.  LOVE THAT MOTHER/DAUGHTER TIME!  And also containing some GIFT CARDS to grease our travels!  And look at that FABULOUS PHOTO OF GRACE with her name carved into the mat, no less.  Photographer Adam gets kudos for this wonderful shot, a grandmother's gold.  And Kudos to Jackie for collaborating with Grace to give me this gift.  Now take a look at the card.  Unassuming, yet loaded with a real treat...are you ready?  TICKETS to see Whoopi Goldberg at NJPAC in February.  Seeing Whoopi in person is one more item I will be able to cross off of my list!  Wow, Bobby, you and Kathryn really topped off my day with this one.  PLUS, the "John Adams" series on DVD.  (Why did On Demand pull this series before I finished watching it?  Oh, right I thought it would stay On Demand for a very long time.  Please note that the DVDs did not make the photo because they are sitting next to my TV waiting for me to spend this snow day with coffee and JA.)

And, of course, what Christmas would be complete without a good gadget?  My sister, Debbie, came up with this one, a soap dispenser with an electric eye!  It dispenses liquid soap when it "sees" your hand under the nozzle!!!!!  Love it!  And it made its way to our bathroom vanity in record time as you can see.

Presents...always nice.

World Quilt Festival, a Road Trip with Jackie to New Hampshire

August 18-22, 2010, Jackie and I drove to NH for the World Quilt Festival.  On Thursday, we participated in an all-day class taught by Barbara Barber from the UK.  BB is famous for her circular piecing techniques and her book "Really Sharp Piecing."  This is the block that I began in her class and just finished today at home. Clovis, my quilting companion, was very curious about this block.  She had never seen me quilt anything in a circle.  I was pretty pleased with the result.  It took some trial and error to get this one right. Now, I think I could do another easily.

On Friday, we devised our own "shop hop" and visited four shops on our way up to Center Harbor, the home of Keepsake Quilting which Jackie dubbed "mecca for quilters."  Our first stop at The Quilt Patch in Bedford set the playful tone of the whole day.  The proprietor, Sue Trask, had just opened the store and watered her garden as we arrived.  We spent a ton of money, laughed, consulted, pondered, drove, criticized the GPS and even had a wilderness adventure that will go down in family lore. ;-) Getting to Keepsake Quilting was so much fun.

Jackie entering Peggy Anne's Quilting & Sewing Co. in Concord. Found great SALES

Cute country shop in Andover.  All quilts in the shop go on sale at half price after Thanksgiving, and they were beautiful.  Good place to get holiday gifts.

After our "off road" adventure, we arrived at The Quilting Corner.

Finally we arrived at Keepsake Quilting in Center Harbor, a beautiful resort town.

Baby Shower

My sister Debbie is expecting her first great grandchild! Yesterday I travelled with my daughter to the shower. It was an hour and a half drive so we had plenty of time to chat and catch up. We had a lot of fun in the car and at the shower.
At 22, India, Debbie's granddaughter, is a lovely mom-to-be. Her mom, friends and cousins really turned out to give her a nice shower. We played games (I won the first one), ate ravioli, and talked non-stop. Jackie R., my daughter, made the cutest quilt with dots and little cars. It wil be a great blanket or playmat for the baby. I found some tiny workboots with help from my friends Tom and Vic and I included a Visa gift card to give India some cash to purchase what she still needed. My sister Jackie G. made a baby quilt and a quilted book which were adorable.
The gift that was a surprise was the baby tub and spa. How do inventors think of these things? I remember bathing Bob and then Jackie in the kitchen sink. It was easier on the back and afforded a better hold on the infant.
Debbie at 78 celebrated paying off her mortgage in the summer and just purchased a beautiful Buick. She is so involved in her church and family activities. Having a new car just makes her more active.

Gift for Jackie

This is a long story. My daughter, Jackie, is an amazing young woman...creative, lively, and with unique perspectives. Her 30th. birthday was last week. I sent her a nice chunk of money which she reported she was thrilled to spend on a great fabric binge. A couple of years ago, I gave her a Kenmore mechanical sewing machine as a Christmas gift. Just in case it was a passing interest, I did not spend more than a reasonable amount on this gift. To my great pleasure, Jackie has been sewing non-stop ever since! She has adopted this creative outlet and really invested time and practice into her projects. I have been a sewer all of my life and it seemed that Jackie did not have the sewing gene until now.

On Friday the thirteenth, my friend Betty and I planned a road trip up to Vernon to the Pieceful Choices Quilt Shop to purchase fabric for the project we were going to learn at the BBQ weekend in April. While there, Betty looked at a Janome machine to be her class portable. She was looking at a mechanical machine very reasonably priced. However, with a minimum of coaxing, she considered the Janome Jem Platinum 760 (which I was drooling over). I have a Janome Jem Gold which I take to classes, but the Platinum is computerized and I was amazed at the features it sported AND the price was great!!!! I decided to buy one for Jackie, but first tried to reach her on the phone. After I left a message for her, I decided to buy one anyway and check with her later. I knew she was lusting for a Bernina QE, but it might be a long time before she could afford it. In the interim, her Kenmore was at the shop and she seemed to have "outgrown" its basic functions. Betty decided to buy one also! We were both ecstatic and off to find Cracker Barrel for an early dinner.

Jackie returned my call to say that she would continue to save up for a Bernina. The next day I saw a posting on her blog with a photo of the thread mess that her "repaired" Kenmore was making of her current project. I called her back to ask why she kind of turned down my offer. She explained that the cost of the gift made her uncomfortable. Smile. What a kid. After a brief of description of the pleasure it would give me as her mother to support her sewing hobby and the joy I felt because she was pursuing a craft that I had enjoyed all of my life, she relented. I delivered the machine to her last night after work. She was happy. After I got there, I wondered what in the world I was doing leaving home at 6 p.m. to make an hour and a half (my speed) drive each way just to see her happy response.