I am looking for votes though.  Quilting Gallery runs a contest every week.  This week’s theme is Wind, Earth, Fire & Water.  I thought I would enter my beachy quilted wall hanging, since it’s one of my favorites quilted items I’ve made.

To check out all this week’s entries (and to vote for your two favorites), click HERE.  You will see all the quilts with a short description.  Keep scrolling down, and you will come to a list of just the names of the quilts, and there you can vote on two.

Regardless of whom you vote for, you will enjoy the visit!

–Sue

PS:  Vicki Welsh is a sponsor of this week’s contest and the two winners will received stash packs of some of Vicki’s yummy hand-dyed fabrics.

• Go to your web site and see unfamiliar information.
• Panic!  I said… PANIC!!!
• Someone must have stolen my web site for the deviously sinister intentions to overthrow the free world!
• Run scan on computer because my former web site is now probably infected with all kinds of internet cooties.
• Scan is clean.
• What if it really isn’t?  I better notify everyone I think may ever, for whatever reason, go to www.suehecker.com.  I don’t want them to get cooties too…
• E-mail doesn’t go through because I have too many addressees.  Do it over as several smaller e-mails.
• Panic-email my son Dave who’s my computer guru.  Twice.
• Wake up Hubster to tell him my web site is stolen.
• Search on line to learn about these evil thieves.  Feel very, very depressed, just short of openly sobbing.
• My blog is gone.  It’s really gone.
• E-mail Michelle over at Quilting Gallery to take the link off my name on this week’s quilt contest.  Don’t want any new blog visitors to get cooties too.
• Michelle e-mails me back.  She took the time to check my blog registry and saw it expired….yesterday!!!
• One e-mail chat, one phone call, and one credit card charge after that (took about 5 minutes) and…
• All fixed.  Never mind.

Just think of what would happen if I overreacted to events like this!

Sue

–Sue

I did manage to find some time to make a hat, of all things!  Our church had a gala last Saturday, which was also the day of the Kentucky Derby.  The party had a racino theme, and everyone was invited to wear a hat.

I’ve been fascinated with “fascinators” ever since Princess Beatrice wore the pink toilet-seat fascinator to Prince Harry’s wedding.  So I decided to make one.

I muddled through the directions I could find here and there on line, but I would really love to take a real millinery class.  And I have to say, it was a lot of fun to wear this hat.  It was so lightweight, I would forget I even had it on.  Occasionally I would catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and scare myself half to death!

–Sue

PS:  If you have some extra time, go to ETSY and search for fascinator.  And PPS:  My hair really isn’t that orange!!!  I can’t get it to photograph right.  My excuse this time is that I took it in “bathroom light”…

Mom moved into assisted living yesterday.  Needless to say — but I’ll say it anyway — it’s been a busy time.  The Hubster did a great job of keeping things going at home without me for those two weeks.  More Mom-related stuff to do…get meds straightened out between nurses and the doc…fill out MORE paperwork…bring up 10 boxes of glassware and trinkets and put away…empty out the other half of her apartment that she couldn’t take with her…sell her car…but as hard as I worked, I gave thanks every day that I could do what needed to be done, that I’m so fortunate to be retired and healthy.

Then I can start thinking about my stuff!  I’ve been keeping a list of some Mom-related tasks just so I can check them off.  Whenever I feel like I’m going nowhere and my list isn’t getting any shorter, I look back at all that’s accomplished.

On a fun note, I’m going to my Aunt Bertha’s quilting get-away in July at Grand Oak Retreat in Alabama.  That’s the fun carrot that’s dangling in front of me.  Can’t wait!  And the way time’s been flying by, it will be here in no time.  (click on the link and prepare to be amazed)

No photos today, but picture me sore and tired, in my circus tent PJs (white & pink striped with fruit on them!), making my first cuppacoffee of the day.

Sue

I’m so glad I got the Sew Ezi sewing table for my Featherweight.  Doing a little sewing on Mom’s porch, watching the sunrise.

This will be short as I am typing on my phone.  Up early at Mom’s, trying to be quiet as she sleeps.  Going thru some old photos.  This one made me smile.  Erik is 15 now so this was a while ago.  Apparently I was yakking away and nephew Erik looks amused.  I am sure whatever i was saying was highly entertaining!

Sue

Mom’s worked hard in rehab and come a long way, but it’s apparent she shouldn’t live alone in her apartment any more.

I’ll have access to my e-mail, Facebook, and the Web through my phone.  (Soooo glad I took the plunge into the 21st century and bought a smart phone in December.)  I’m also packing a sewing machine!  With all the emergency room/hospital/rehab visits, insurance issues, apartment issues, new-place-t0-live search, I haven’t sewn a stitch in over a month.  (Well, I take that back.  I did hand-stitch on my Grandfather’s Rose Garden hexie quilt at DayStitchers.)  My plan is to take care of mom during the day and sew at night (Mom’s been going to bed at 8:00).  That just made me shudder!  Things never seem to go according to PLAN!!!

And this is really embarrassing.  I just searched through my pictures so I could include a photo of Mom.  Thousands of bugs/birds/flowers pictures later, I found this 2008 photo when she stayed at our house for a few days because her shoulder was bothering her.  (I think I caught her laughing.)  We were watching the Kentucky Derby and thought we should wear hats.  Okay, I thought we should wear hats.  I definitely need to take my new camera with me and take “people pictures” more often!

So think of me and my mom, Velma, as we spend these days together.  There sure to be good times and hard times as we get her ready for her move.

–Sue

I’ve lost 11 pounds in four weeks.  My Healthy Eating plan is through Weight Watchers Points Plus on line.

Easter dinner was a bit of a challenge.  I wanted to make a good dinner for my family, but I didn’t want to sabotage my Healthy Eating Plan.  I made an herbed pork loin (delicious), green salad, vegetable…and in the past I would have made cheesy potatoes.  You know the ones — sour cream, lotsa cheese, cream-of-something soup.  I love them, and so does my family.

I decided to try something different, and one of the things I really love about WW is their recipes.  It makes it easier to make healthy choices.  I decided to try their Potatoes Au Gratin.  Weight Watcher photo:

What a winner!  Reduced-fat cheese, whole milk, Yukon Gold potatoes, onion, a touch of butter and seasonings.    Everyone enjoyed them, and best of all…they don’t taste “diet”.  They don’t even taste “healthy”.  They taste DELICIOUS!

–Sue

Tonight I’m only going to think about this precious little house finch that was catching the evening sun tonight in our flowering crab tree.

And he was just as pretty from the back:

For more bird photos, be sure and click on the buttons below:

–Sue