Musings by KA

Warning...this blog post may cause some tears, but believe me, that are happy ones. I had a dream last night, and my father was in it. Now for those of you that don't know, I lost my father in 2013, and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of him. I'm sure I've had dreams about him, but they never seemed real...this one was real. Let me set the dream up for you... I was back in my hometown, Havelock North Carolina, and shopping for some type of necklace, and I hear a voice behind me "not that one, pick the blue one"... I turn around, and there was my father, I started screaming and crying, screams, and tears of joy because there was my father in the flesh. We had a nice long hug, and I asked where he had been because I knew he hadn't been around for almost a full 7 years. It seems that he had been pulled for a special mission with the government and couldn't tell any of us, including my mom. Now, speaking of my mother, she doesn

Before I even start this post, I want to say how hard 2020 is to type...not because it's the change of the year but because the right hang pinkie that taps the "0" key hasn't memorized that upper reach in a repeat. I find that I type 202 and forget the second "0"...silly pinkie finger. Okay, so my Watch Out 2020 title to this post doesn't mean that I've come up with a long list of New Year's Resolutions that we all know will fall to the wayside by the end of the month, but what it does mean is that I am changing some lifestyle habits and am bringing y'all along with me. 2020 is the year that I turn 60..yep the BIG 60...that 60. I'm not one to freak out about aging, and this one I decided to embrace. When I closed Kelly Ann's Quilting, I had made all kinds of plans to get in shape, to learn how to paddleboard with my friend, Leslee, and to just feel healthy. Well...here we are almost a year later, nope, I didn't get in shape

While scrolling through Facebook, I came across this picture that my friend, Nanette, shared. We had a little discussion about doing a challenge, I said I was in...she said: "I love you best because you are an Earth Warrior." This made me smile...and then it got me to thinking...how can we all be earth warriors? What difference can we make on this planet we call home? When driving the roads of Virginia, I'm always amazed at the trash along the way. Watching people throw trash out the window, don't even get me started on cigarettes being thrown out the window. So this challenge discussion with Nanette got me to thinking where I could begin to on helping mother earth.  This is what I've come up with Get a trash picker upper and start keeping the road in front of our house clean of trash, and maybe even adopt a road area to clean up Carry gloves in my car, so I can pick up trash in parks as I go for a walk, you can't believe the garbage I see at the WA

I was browsing twitter and came across this article from CNN on 12 Days of Holiday Kindness At the end of the article, you can print off the above picture and check off your kindness list. If you follow me on social media, you know that Kindness has been my "word of the year," and I try and embrace it daily, but sometimes it's hard to remember because people can be such Cottonheaded Ninnymuggins. I really try and not let these people bring me down, but it happens to all of us, and sometimes, you want to crawl back into a quilt fort and ignore the world. On Monday, I decided that I don't want to be part of the Cottonheaded Ninnymuggins group I wanted to be part of "Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer is to Sing it Loud and Sing it Clear" group. So I'm gonna add to the list above When pushing your grocery cart to the corral, instead of pushing it in and walking away, straighten up the carts, it takes a minute, and it's all organized and neat.

I did it... I finally sat down at my sewing machine and finished a quilt top, took it to the quilter, got it back, and put the binding on. Baby Quilt  The pattern is from the book, Baby Quilts by Susan Emory, and you can find it on my website . I saw the sheep fabric on the Mountain Creek Quilt Shops website and had to have it. The arrows are from my stash, it's jumbled letters which I thought were perfect for a baby quilt, this is the black with white letters, and then I used the white with black letters for the back. The quilter, Hilda at Phantom Quilters , did a cute sheep design, and I had it back in just a few days. Now all that is left is to get a cute bag and deliver to the new mama. So there ya have it... the first quilt that I've made since closing the shop that does have anything to do with work. I gotta say, it felt good sitting down at the sewing machine again, so good that I might try my hand at doing one for me. Until Next Time Be Kind

Have you ever wondered where "cup of joe" came from in referring to a cup of coffee? Well, I did so I went to trusty Google and asked...omg...there are a few different definitions, but the one I like is this... You can read more from Wonderopolis I stopped drinking coffee a few years ago, I know what is running through your minds right now...WHAT...but between the acid in coffee not agreeing with me and taste buds changing I wasn't enjoying it. I would have the occasional Starbucks, but I would have to order something with lots of sugar and cream, or I couldn't stomach the bitterness of the coffee.  But... All of that changed when we went to Miami before our cruise in October, I was introduced to Cafe' Con leche, WOW, tasty, rich coffee with scaled milk, and I would add sugar. Low and behold, we got on the cruise ship, and there was a little coffee window buried on the ship that served a few specialty coffees. They made Cafe' Con leche using Cafe