F Is For February and...

Allow me to distract you, momentarily, or a bit longer,

 from the REAL reason this post is titled

"F Is For February and..."

while I tell you about my January 30th!

What a difference a day makes!  At this time yesterday morning I was an hour away from home, dressed like a Lumber Jill, eating dinner plate sized pancakes in a rustic little café overlooking the river with a view of the pass we had just driven over.  This morning I join you from my little sewing/office room wearing flannel...but not the red and black buffalo plaid kind that Lumber Jill was wearing yesterday!  This little town where we were eating breakfast was once the sight of one of two Lumber Mills, which were long-long ago, co-owned by my husband's Father.

After breakfast and on the road again, we came across some prettier views of the river.

 

I affectionately dubbed views like this "River Muffins".

 

  Yesterday was our Belated Anniversary day trip to the Winter Carnival in McCall.  The drive was gorgeous, except for the other white Ford 4 door truck that we passed that had gone over the embankment and half way to the river before a sharp rock outcropping stopped it's further descent.  Fortunately it hadn't rolled, but still, I'm sure it was one of those moments when the occupants wished they had clean undies in the glove compartment.

Once in McCall the view across frozen Payette Lake, was gorgeous, even though I never took a picture, due to the throngs of people milling around.  I sat in one spot for about 10 minutes and swear I saw someone from nearly every country in the entire world go by and I can't even begin to recite the entire list of dog breeds we saw...including the brindle "oversized Boston, undersized Boxer" that was a handsome fella, his size just puzzled me a bit!  I LOVED on a Bernese Mountain Dog, which I always do in those rare encounters, told an Australian Shepherd she had the most beautiful head I'd ever seen, admired a St. Bernard and Newfoundland pair from my seat on the bench and made friends with a hyperactive, vociferous 6 month old Siberian Husky, "Halo" who would lunge toward every childs sled that came by, begging to be the lucky dog who got to pull it!  That would've added some excitement to the parade!

The list goes on.  My husband always sees people he knows and stops to say Hi, and I love on complete strangers dogs like we're old long lost friends!  There's an "older than me", Dick Powell movie called You Never Can Tell, about a German Shepherd who comes back as a "Humanimal" to solve his own murder...it's a cute movie.  Not sayin' anything about religion or reincarnation...just sometimes makes me think...why is it that some people resemble some sort of animal, or feel an increased connection to critters more than other two-leggeds do?
And then there's THIS!  Our youngest daughter, Miss Butterfly Quilt, and her friends rented a cabin in McCall for the weekend.  All four of those girls knew that, rather that call, text or spend time hunting us down, if they hung out near the quilt shop for a little bit, we'd surely show up!  Yep!  It was actually verbalized, even by the one of the Quartet I've not met before!  What's up with that?!?!?!?!

What? Of course I brought home some treasures!!!!  In addition to a collection of Mardi Gras beads from the parade! (and no, there was no flashing of anything to get our beads!)

A little something for my sewing stash!  I rarely purchase kits, but this time it was a no brainer.

If anyone ever tells you, that you can't take a double exposure on a digital camera, here ya' go!  This was actually 2 photos taken from two different angles at my cutting/pressing station that somehow got merged into this one panoramic photo! See where the blue print of my ironing surface faintly merges over itself and there's the ghost of the top of the Bird Brain & one of the Kathy Schmitz patterns just off center to the left? Too weird! 

And here's a little something for my kitchen that made me laugh.

I've started collecting a piece of local pottery on our trips in recent years.  This time it was a mug...cuz I'm not gonna be the fool that has that rooster squawking at me about having my coffee and not have a mug handy!

So, back to why I'm really writing today. 

Remember that F Is For February thing? 

Well, here we go!  Tomorrow, can you believe it, is February 1st, and aside from being my husbands birthday, it's a new month, the beginning of the end of winter...depending on where you are, and a whole new opportunity!  I've spent most of my winter at work rather than quilting, and now I'm back into my normal schedule with an enormous list of things I want to get to before it starts acting like gardening weather!  Sweet P Paulette posted yesterday "I declare that next month is going to be "Finish It Up February" with some BIG finishes...and I don't mean by making BIG pillows!  Care to join me in some UFO Busting...or finishing up your current projects?!  February is a short month so we better make the most of it!  Pitter-patter-let's get at 'er!"
 
Well, you guessed it, in my road weariness, I was reading this post last night with eyes at half mast, thinking, "I have a project I'm finishing up in the next couple of days for Husbands Birthday anyhow! I'm already ahead of the game!", so yeah, you got it, I'm the only Fool who wagged her hand in the air and said "Me Too!  Me Too!!" This began a back and forth bit of emailing, wherein a simple little plan was hatched!  Rather than me sitting here feeling awwwllllll guilty about awwwlllll the projects piled up around me that are inches from done, I'm going to do something about those little buggers gnawing at the back of my cluttered brain.  Call it what you will, Challenge, Incentive, Support Group, loosely on the "Group" since, so far it's only Paulette and me, but, each and every Friday in February, we are going to post something about our Fabulous Finishes and we hope that you will catch the Fever and join us!  I will admit, I will very likely have some challenges with this since, every other week my eyes are too toasted from their 10 hour shifts in front of the work computer to do much more than make dinner, prepare for the next day and try not to Fall asleep on the couch, but there will be something from me!  Just don't look for it too early on those Fridays!  Not that I'm not up and about...it's just that I'm still trying to shake 4 days of fun and games with surgeons and staff out of my head, work the knots and kinks out of my neck and shoulder blades and start loads of laundry!  Although I have aspirations to do better, on a couple of Fridays my interpretation of "Finished" might only mean that I Finished packing a long done Flimsy with an actual backing in a box and got it ready to tote those 3 blocks to the post office to send it off for quilting!  I have no delusions of grandeur  in this endeavor, and absolutely NO doubt, that in contrast, Paulette will shine like the star that she is!  But in my little fantasy world, actually getting the box to the post office will likely count as another Finish!  See?  Little Victories, like The Little Engine That Could!  One thing is For certain!  I don't intend to Fail, even if I have to make up my own rules!

Are You With Us?  Surely You Are!!!!!

~Nancie Anne