Israel, here we come

We signed up for a trip to Israel with a group from Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Escondido. Pastor Matthew Richardt, pastor of Gloria Dei, will be hosting the tour. We met with the group a couple Sundays ago; and at last count, there are probably no more than 15 of us. That should make for a nice group.

Here's the itinerary:

Dec 3 - San Diego to Tel Aviv
Dec 4 - Check into hotel in Jerusalem after brief drive through the city
Dec 5 - Ein Kerem / Bethlehem
Dec 6 - Jordan River / Jericho / Dead Sea
Dec 7 - Bethany / Bethpage / Pater Noster / Dominus Flevit / Gethsemane / Cenacle
Dec 8 - Via Dolorosa / Holy Sepulchre
Dec 9 - Garden Tomb / Tiberias Nain
Dec 10 - Magdala / Mount of Beatitudes / Boat Ride / Capernaum / Tabgha
Dec 11 - Cana / Mount Tabor / Nazareth / Netanya
Dec 12 - Back to San Diego

Aby, Harvey's puppy

My friend Harvey sent me this picture recently. If I were ever to want a new puppy, this one would be it! This is what he writes about Aby:

Abby is now 6 months old. She is my 34 1/2 pound lap dog. I think she is about 3/4 of her final weight and that she may grow another inch or so in height (now a smidgen over 18 inches at the shoulder).

I set the picture up as wallpaper on this computer, and everytime I display my desktop, I gasp with delight at the thought of that big rag-doll dog. I need to go over to see her and see if she feels as cuddly as she looks. Wow!

Good meals, beautiful roses, and on with the quilt

Lauren fixes us the most beautiful lunches. Every day, I am startled at how beautiful the plate looks. I think he missed his calling, long ago, and I am very fortunate to be the one beneficiary of his wonderful sense of style. Not only are our lunches beautiful, but they are very healthy. I'm a lucky woman, indeed!

We've been spending every Monday working in the back yard, recently. Having the back yard look better is pleasing to us, but we're also getting some very necessary physical exercise while we work.

Our southwest corner is looking pretty good. I've taken the task to pull out all the dead reeds from that bamboo-like plant in the corner. It's been years since we did anything with it. Initially, I thought I'd like to just chop it out, but once I started pulling the dead reeds, it began to look much better to me. I need to look up its name so I can figure out just what the bush is. It propagates by spreading its root system, and it will soon take over a place if it's not properly cared for. Sitting behind the pond (not in use) as it does, I think the mat that it creates on the ground is a great place for pests, including rodents. Ugh!!!



We're so pleased with the tomato plants. I am so glad that I talked Lauren into giving tomatoes a try after we got home from Alaska in June. We have several little green tomatoes growing now. How exciting!


The roses are having a heyday in this hot weather, as long as we keep them well watered. This bush, which sits alone by the back fence, sprouted a whole bouquet from one stem. Delightful.

We've had a cooler-than-normal July, but here it is August 13, and the heat is upon us. Today, we have hot winds whipping the outdoor blinds against the window as I sit here and sew.



The quilt comes along. This week, I'm working on freestyle designs for the six big plain (12") squares in the quilt, and I'm pleased so far. Last week, I spent probably six hours a day outline stitching the many block segments in the quilt, freestyle, and because I'm working with a huge bulk (and there's really no way to organize that bulk, no matter what instructions you follow - especially when you're working a 12-inch spread at a time)my outlines aren't straight. Oh well. So it's homemade! But overall, I really like the way it's shaping up. I will spend at least this week working on the six plain squares and then some freestyle design on each of the other patterns (either a set of three rectangles or an X with side triangles makes up each of the pieced 12-inch squares). I hope a week's about all it will take, but I expect it will be two.

To handle this large bulk (about 120" square, which will be bound to about 110" square), I placed a card table in the L of my sewing desk (really an office desk), and then extended the sides of the card table with two TV trays - one for my thread holder and another for my DVD player. I've just about run out of movies to watch, but I'm not caught up with my podcasts yet, so I think I can stick to it without too much trouble. My next quilting project will be a potholder!! But this is worth the trouble. Not only will it be one of a kind, it will actually be a bedspread to cover those side-by-side twins - impossible to purchase easily, and too expensive even if I could manage to find one.

I've always liked to sew. I can remember when I was in elementary school, I would talk Mom and Dad out of making me stay for church, and I would come home alone and sneak and use Mom's sewing machine. I just knew I could do it! And I did. An expert sewer, I'm not; but I've always known how, and I've gotten a lot of mileage from that craft over these many years.

The Atlas Reunion! What a success!!!

Lauren's days and evenings, except when we've been traveling (and sometimes even then), have been filled for months with planning for the 50th anniversary of the first Atlas launch. It was an amazing thing for me, a sideliner, to watch. You can see his photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ldroesner/.

The reunion lasted two days, and attendance was high at all the events. What was amazing to me was that this was a reunion of mostly men, along with their spouses, and these men needed no books or seminars on male bonding. The space program, and the Atlas program in particular, provided all the male bonding experiences these men need for life.

The reunion committee was made up of men from all disciplines in the Atlas program, from the graphic artist (who has received several awards for his high-profile work) to engineers, from management to rank and file. We celebrated their success with a lovely supper at the home of one of the key players (but then all of the committee members were key players) last Friday evening, a lovely home with a back yard one can only envy.

The lone woman in the picture works for the County of San Diego. She and her office (I believe she works in Ron Roberts' office) did much to promote the Reunion at Atlas Day in the county. She was even able to squeeze in a segment or two or three on TV to add to the celebration.

I had a wonderful time viewing the landscaping with the hostess of the evening on Friday, Anne. The frost was damaging this last winter for all of us, and her garden suffered much, but even what remains (and is coming back) impressed me so much! In my mind, this is a model of something I would like to do with our yard. We don't have as much space, but there are some ideas here that I would like to apply to our own yard - the curving walkways, the use of California friendly plants, and the lack of grass in these views. It will take some time and a lot more thought (in the back of my mind) before I'm sure I have a complete idea, but these images are definitely keepers. Anne is a very complete gardener, in my book!

Aug 1 visit from Matt and Robert

We'd been looking forward to a visit from Matt and Robert for a number of weeks, and the day finally came. Matt (Mathieu) was our foreign exchange student 20 years ago, and he became part of our family. As a result, we've visited him and his family in the Netherlands a number of times since then, and Matt and his family have also visited us in the states. It's been about 8 years since we saw him (we were in Europe in 1999), and my first reaction to him, voiced with glee, was, "You've grown old, Matt!" We had a great chuckle from that. At 38, Matt qualifies to wear the title "prematurely gray."

As full of life as always, Matt has achieved a wonderful career. After his year here in the states, where he graduated from Poway High (graduation isn't required for foreign exchange students), Matt went to college in the Netherlands and became a teacher. He taught near his home for a while, and then he accepted an assignment to teach in Oman where he lived until last year. Robert was also in Oman. During their stay in Oman, Matt was part of a group who worked on a new curriculum for foreign students and became part of the team of trainers who travel to various parts of the world to train other teachers to use the curriculum. He travels about 30% of the year. When he and Robert return home from this trip to the U.S., Matt will travel to Malaysia to do some training.

What a treat it was to see Matt and to meet Robert. Such young men, with such dedication and energy, make this modern world seem so exciting!

Catching up - Part 3 - Volunteering for VBS, and other things

It's been years and years since I volunteered for VBS (Vacation Bible School), but now that I'm really retired again, and it's for good this time, I thought it was time. I used to do classroom or music volunteering, but I know I'm way past being able to do that now. But what harm could I do in the kitchen? I didn't figure much, especially if Lauren volunteered with me. So that's just what we did. Both of us. In the kitchen!

We had the best time. Lauren is just about the best dicer and slicer I know. He does it all the time at home, much better than I ever could, and so that's what we did. Sliced, diced, carried trays to the table, and then cleaned it all up afterwards.

Mt. Olive has evening VBS, and the whole family is invited to come for supper before classes and crafts. In fact, parents are encouraged to come because there is no supervision (and we state that) during supper. We had a crowd of about 60, plus about 40 volunteers, and staff, so our kitchen group handled meals for about 100 people each night.

One of the young mothers was in charge of the meals, and she did an amazing job. I couldn't believe how organized she was, and the amount of work she put into all the advance preparation (all we did was slice and dice, serve and clean up) for the meals. Only a young mother could do that. That really gives this grandmother pause for thought - young mothers have so much to do, but their energy level (and mine, at that age, too) must be so much more than mine at this age. I was so impressed.

Two women handle the overall organization and planning for VBS, and they, too, are young mothers. I watched them in wonder and with thanksgiving that someone was there with that kind of energy and enthusiasm for what they were doing. Amazing!

The whole experience was so much fun that I can hardly wait until next year so we can volunteer again.

In the meantime, I'm looking for other volunteer opportunities. I see that the senior center is looking for someone to handle a few things that shouldn't take too much standing up or confusing activities, and the Pomerado Hospital Auxiliary includes some kind of office work in their list of requests for volunteers. Maybe I'll look into that. I would want something relatively quiet and that wouldn't require me to be on my feet too much. My feet betray me these days. It's good to have something outside my own interests that commands my attention. It gives me a window to the world that I don't have otherwise.

Am I ready for that? We'll see.

Catching up - Part 2 - Quilting

After recovering over night about my failure to make my paper-pieced quilt the right size for our pushed-together twin beds (http://rsroesner.blogspot.com/2007/07/amazing-i-finished-two-projects.html), I decided to start again. I thought about doing another paper-pieced one, but the thought of ripping off all that paper as I finished it just didn't appeal to me this time. I have a book by Evelyn Sloppy called Strips & Strings, so I decided to pick something from that and try my hand at something that didn't give me that safety net of having exact-sized papers to assure the sizes and shapes of my blocks. I chose her Elegance of Red pattern, although I think I'll call mine just Elegance - or maybe Elegance of Gold. The red just don't quite happen - nor did I intend it to.

Our bedroom walls are golden, and our complementary colors tend to be beige and maroon, with walnut-shades of wood. (These pictures are taken in the family room, which is a room devoid of much natural light, requiring the use of my flash. I think I'm going to have to start using a tripod for most pictures that aren't outdoors because my hand isn't as steady as it once was.) In these pictures, I laid the border on the edge of the folded top so that I could measure the amount I needed.

I'm going to patch together yardages of a couple of the golds, a green, and black to make the backing, I'll use black for the binding, and I'll use a thin cotton batting for the batting. I'm planning to quilt each of the large gold squares in some kind of large flower - probably with some colored threads, and then do each of the stripped sections in some free-style scroll or leaf pattern. I'll either use echo or meandering for fill. We'll see how that works out.

So far, I've spent the better part of two weeks making this top. There's a lot of cutting and sewing involved to make all those strips. Evelyn Sloppy's pattern calls for strips from 1 to 2-1/2 inches, but I think my widest strip is 2 inches. I liked the narrower strip better as I was sewing the strips together.

So far, I really like the looks of this quilt, and I think it will really brighten our room and make it more alive. Before I put the layers together for this quilt, I'll be absolutely sure it's the right size. If I need to make it larger, now is the time to increase the border - not after I have it all done. Making a quilt over a period of four years isn't the way to do it. My attention will be on this one until I have it done - hopefully by the end of the month. The next slow thing will be doing the machine quilting, but I'll just take it slow and steady and get it done.

Things I learned with this quilt (some things about quilting, and some not):

• I can sew strips together and expect to have a reasonable straight line of strips when I'm done. Wow! I didn't have any confidence that I could pull that off.


• When I sew the strips together and create a block, I can use a square template and cut all the blocks to the right size. This technique is in Evelyn Sloppy's book. These blocks happen to be 12-1/2 inches each, so I used one of my Michael's 40% off coupons and bought myself a 12-1/2 inch quilter's square. I had never used one before. Quilting is really a new endeavor for me.


• Audio books are excellent companions when you're doing something repetitious with your hands that doesn't require a lot of thinking. This isn't true when you're in the design phase, but for the rote work, audio is perfect! While sewing the strips together, I listened to Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice, available on iTunes as a free subscription, and Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish which I got from the library. They were both really great. I also found some Lutheran Church Missouri Synod podcasts on iTunes and really enjoyed listening to Issues, Etc - Sunday.


• A portable, personal video player is also a good sewing companion. I set my player in front of me on my sewing desk, plugged in my earphones, so I could hear, and watched Hotel Rwanda. What a story, and what a well-made movie! Watching that story, of course, meant I had to go to the Internet to do a little research about it. Since it's a DVD that we own, I will watch it again, I'm sure. I have several DVDs that I haven't watched. Shrek 2 was one of those, but while I was cutting strips, I plugged my video player into the TV and watched that. I like Shrek. I'll have to get Shrek 3 now.


• I can sew for four to six hours at a time, then I have to break. The work isn't tedious to me. I found that I've finally slipped back into focus on my personal projects, the same kind of focus I had when I was working. What a relief. I didn't know if I was going to be able to do that or not.


• The jacuzzi pounding on my shoulders and back sure relieve that physical tension I build up while I'm in the zone, and it also cools me down so I can get in that hot car and go shopping for more plants, things for the box for Donna and her family, groceries, or whatever. Then I can sew again later - unless I decide I want to knit instead!

I'm sure I learned tons more - life is full of lessons, and it's good to be alive to learn them.

Retirement is good!