Monthly Archives: January 2021

The Brontes, the British and Me

I love all things British.  Just about any PBS show based on an English author is a must see for me.  Today I discovered a show about the Bronte sisters, Emily, Charlotte and Anne and their attempts to get their books and poetry published.  It was hard for women back in their day. They had to send their work to publishers under men’s names.  This show is brilliant in its portrayal of the sisters and their brother, Branwell, who lived a less than calm life himself.

Other things I love about this program are the clothes and the fabrics.  I am working on a quilt right now using reproduction fabrics from the 1880’s and the early 1900’s.  We think of people back then wearing dark and somber clothes, but they really didn’t.   They used vibrant colors in their clothes, florals and paisleys.  When we look at the black and white photos or pictures from those times, we may think all people wore were black and brown clothes.

The quilt I am making is called the “School Girl Sampler Quilt,” and is made from many different fabrics. I’ve ordered fabric twice in the last month to add to my reproduction fabric stash and I must say, I am falling in love with these fabrics and would love to make some clothes from them.  I have always thought I was born in the wrong era as I don’t think people dress very well in this day and age.  Back in the Brontes’ time, full skirts and petticoats were the norm as were corsets to hold in their tiny waists.  Not sure I’d like wearing a corset, but the dresses are lovely.

Along with the quilt using reproduction fabric, I’m making another just like it in Christmas greens and reds.  There will be one hundred and forty-four blocks, seventy-two in each quilt.  The blocks are 4 and1/2 inches each and there are half square triangles that border the blocks.  It’s quite a lot of cutting out and piecing of fabric, but it’s what I love.  I spend hours in my shop, the three doggies asleep in their crates, cutting out blocks and sewing them together. It’s a peaceful kind of work and when it’s all done, I will have two more quilts.  There are 5000 women and men all over the world working on the same quilt.  You can see some of their handiwork on Kathleen Tracy’s facebook page. Kathleen Tracy is the lady who designed this particular quilt and wrote a quilt book around it.  It’s really going to be quite an accomplishment when it is finished. It’s fun seeing all the different fabrics people are using. Each quilt will be unique.

While talking about British writers, I have always been a fan of Charles Dickens.  Now he could publish in his own name and made quite a name for himself back in his day.  I  have always loved Dickens’ Christmas Carol and have seen several adaptations of this story in different forms. This past Christmas I watched Disney’s version and it was wonderful. The best I’ve seen, I think.  I watched it twice during the Christmas season.  I always love to see how Scrooge’s outlook on Christmas changes so dramatically, from “Bah, humbug,” to buying the biggest turkey for the Christmas dinner.  If you ever get the chance to see this version, do.  You think of cartoons with Disney, but this was made like the Snowball Express where the people look almost real.  I loved it.

Here it is, the end of January. David celebrated another birthday. He took a week off work and I enjoyed it. I hope he did.  I took him out for dinner and baked his favorite chocolate cake.  I keep thinking he is younger than he is. In fact, I told a repairman, who was at our house this week, that he was two years younger than he is!  I wish I could wish the years away like that, but time marches on.  My granddaughter is getting married this Summer and she posted on Facebook “could there be as great a love as this?”  And I told her yes, there is and I hope and pray she and her future husband will be together fifty years from now. I know they think that’s a long way away, but it’s really not. Those years flew for David and me.  This year will be our fifty-third anniversary. It’s true, life is just a vapor. We are born and before we know it, we are old and you wonder where the years went even though you enjoyed them all for the most part.

I must show you a beautiful flower I bought myself for Christmas this year. The last couple of years I’ve sent my sister and her husband an amaryllis and this year I decided to get one myself. It has not been a disappointment.  Better than any poinsettia I’ve had and much longer lasting. When I got it the flowers had not even started growing so we watched every day as the stems grew taller and taller and finally a few days after Christmas this one popped out.

This week three more flowers came out. It’s been so much fun watching this plant grow. I will probably buy another one next Christmas.

Our puppies tore a hole in our pool liner a few weeks ago. They are the first labs we’ve had that wanted to get into the water.  So, today we went and looked at pool liners and ordered one to replace the torn one.  The man working there told us that it has been so hard to get pool supplies and parts for pools because of the pandemic that they are two years behind in installing pools.  People will have to wait until 2022 for their pools to be installed. We had to put a down payment on the liner and get in line to have it installed and still we won’t have it in until June or July which is all right with me as I usually don’t swim until it’s hot, but David usually is in no later than May so he’s kind of disappointed.

How are you doing in this longest of pandemics?  David and I are managing to be active and enjoy our time together. This has really been a blessing in some ways, but I can’t imagine what it’s like for those who live alone or are in nursing homes or hospitals and cannot have visitors.  I gave David a puzzle for Christmas to keep him busy, He had it done in two days.

It’s a puzzle of quilt patterns.  Wouldn’t a quilt be lovely in these colors?

Besides quilting, knitting socks, and playing with pups, I’m painting another picture. It doesn’t look like much now.   I heard in a movie this week a girl describing another girl saying she was like a Monet painting. Beautiful from far away, but a real mess up close!  I thought that was so true. Paintings seen up close you do see all the imperfections, but viewing them from a distance they look good or great depending on the artist.

Here’s to the British, to wonderful quilts and Christmas flowers that delight. Bye.

 

 

Dear CNN, MSNBC and Other leftist News Sources

For the last four years I have watched and listened as many liberal news sources have done nothing but bad mouth President Trump. It has been relentless. Not one minute of any day has there been one kind word about President Trump and even his wife, Melania.  Now that he is leaving office, because of a stolen election, I might add they are piling on. I just read a story from CNN that says there won’t be crowds at the inauguration because of President Trump. It’s all his fault.

You see, a few days ago President Trump had a peaceful rally in Washington. He was still talking to the crowd when from somewhere a mob attacked the Capitol building. People were shot.  Mayhem ruled.  I saw with my own eyes people being waved into the Capitol and they walked the halls unimpeded.  There were men with guns, but it was capitol police, not the mob.  I saw all of it taking place on tv and I thought to myself at the time, that is not the kind of people who have come by the hundreds of thousands to Trump rallies. People who stood peacefully in line.  Waited hours to see President Trump.  And when they left the rallies, they walked peacefully to their cars. No attacks. No shootings. Nothing was burned.  They were PEACEFUL people. That is who showed up to see President Trump on that cold winter day, but other groups were forming who didn’t have peace on their minds.  And no, even though you were told by CNN and other leftist news sources that President Trump incited the attack, it is all lies, made up from whole cloth to harm President Trump’s reputation all over the world.  Listen to the speech if you don’t believe me.  And just know, the attack started BEFORE President Trump’s speech was done.  We were told antifa and Black Lives Matter were not involved and now we are seeing a leader in the Black Lives Matter being arrested and many who were there attacking sure acted like antifa, a group that likes to destroy things and wreck havoc.  I am very suspicious that we’ve been set up. That this was all planned as soon as they knew President Trump was going to have a rally in Washington.

I don’t know what caused such hatred of President Trump from the start.  Maybe it’s because he’s not part of the political machine. Maybe he didn’t play by their rules. Maybe he actually got things done, unlike previous presidents. Peace in the Middle East.  A peaceful relationship with the leader of North Korea. Three Nobel Peace Prize nominations.  A wall built at our southern border which has been like a sieve for decades even though every president said he would get immigration under control.  Taxes were lowered. Gas prices went below two dollars a gallon from almost four dollars a gallon when Obama was in office.  Jobs were roaring back until the pandemic. And that’s a whole other story.

It’s been very frustrating the last four years to hear President Trump say or do something and then see it all lied about on CNN, MSNBC and all the other leftist news sources.  I wish they would have just once reported the truth, but the truth is not in them now.  It’s like we have our very own Pravda right here in the United States. I never, ever thought I would see this happen in my country.

Now we will be inaugurating the most rabid, leftist, socialist politicians we have ever had the misfortune to have in our government. I don’t think people even know what they voted for. Their hatred of President Trump was so stoked for four years, they would have voted for anyone to get him out of office, But President Trump did win handily election day, votes were harvested days later for Biden and now we will have a fraudulent president,  a mind impaired man in the highest office in the land.  I’m afraid. Very afraid. My hope does not lie tin the government, but in God and that is how I will get through this.

When you watch CNN, MSNBC and all the other liberal news outlets in the next few days ask yourself, “Am I hearing the Truth.” I just read something from CNN that the inauguration will have no crowds and it’s all President Trump’s fault because of what happened January 6th.   They have labeled all of us who voted for President Trump as  racists, homophobes, white supremists. We are now the mob.   Everyone who watches liberal news believes it.  The Republican party is trying to purge itself of Trump and his supporters. Good luck with that.  There will not be a Republican party then.

I can’t make anyone watch an alternate news outlet, but I really wish people would question a lot of what they are hearing instead of having knee jerk reactions to the hate spewed every, single, day.  Another story I read  on the web said that Melania Trump was the most stubborn first lady we have ever had.  That she has been clandestinely packing up to move out of Washington.  Now why would they put it in those words?  Of course Melania is packing. The Trumps are leaving the White House in just a few days.  And as for stubborn, she has had to stubbornly  listen to all the lies about her and let them roll off her back.  And don’t you wonder why she has never been asked to be on the cover of any magazine? Could it be HATE once again? It seems the liberals have enough hate to last forever. I’m still seeing Michelle Obama on magazines ad nauseum, but never our present first lady and will Jill Biden be put on every magazine cover? Kamala or as I like to call her Commi-la has already been interviewed more times than Melania ever was.  Now there is a true communist. Kamala Harris. Remember when we use to fight communism? Now we are inviting them into our White House.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has been saying lately that congress needs to rein in the media. Maybe they could start with CNN, MSNBC and others although the congress fooling with our free speech scares me even more than a lying news media.

And last, but not least, Twitter and Facebook have been purging conservative speech for quite a while now and Twitter shut President Trump’s down while leaving up the Ayatollah, who tweeted, “Death to America,”  Most communist leaders still have Twitter. Doesn’t that bother you just a little bit? The leader of the free world does not have free speech, but communists and dictators do.  Someone said, dictators are the ones who control all speech. Dictators now work for Twitter and Facebook.  I have personally been put in Facebook jail for writing something that the Facebook censors didn’t agree with.  I just wish they would all take a course in the Constitution and what free speech means. It does not mean you have the right not to be offended by what I say.  It says I have the right to say anything. You can’t say, “Fire” in a crowded theater  and I wouldn’t recommend saying “Hijack,” on a full plane, but that’s the only speech that could be censored.

If you have read this far, you can see I am still passionate about my country and what is going on in it.  I don’t trust our media any longer although there are still a few places where they give the news, not opinion 24/7.  If you are happy with the lies coming from CNN, MSNBC and others you will continue to feed off them. Just know you are filling your own mind with hate, too and that is not good for America or the world.

I don’t mean for my blog to get all political and it won’t be all the time, but I intend to point out lies when I see them,  So this is to CNN, MSNBC and all you others.  We the people deserve to hear and see the truth, not what you want us to see and hear and definitely nothing you’ve made up.

Here’s to truth in reporting the news and the guts to do it. Bye.

Time to Take a Break or This is a Political Message

If you watched any news the last couple of days here is what you learned if you watched certain liberal news shows.  At a raging lunatic gathering of Trump supporters in Washington yesterday, President Trump gave a speech. He knows the election was stolen.   He was proud to be their president. He told the people to run  to the Capitol and let their voices be heard and get  violent if necessary.  Break windows, sit at Pelosi’s desk. Be shot.   That is what some people really think happened.

Here is what President Trump actually told a peaceful crowd of thousands. He told them to walk to the Capitol and let their voices be heard. OUTSIDE.  He did not tell them to rush the Capitol, break in and walk all over. He did not tell them to sit at Pelosi’s desk.  But somewhere things went horribly wrong.  I believe there was a group of radicals hidden in that crowd bent on destruction from the very first.  I believe there were people from antifa and BLM in that group bent upon destruction.  How do I know this crowd was peaceful?  I’ve been part of that crowd on occasion. I’ve watched practically every rally President Trump has had and never was there any violence, burning down of buildings, burning cars, shooting people. Never.  So I know the kind of people who gather for President Trump are peaceful, law abiding people. That is not what viewers of the liberal, leftist leaning news shows like CNN, MSNBC and now even FOX have heard for the past four years. We all are racist, homophobe, gun toting, rabble rousing lunatics bent on destruction. President Trump is evil and must be destroyed. If you believe this, you’ve been had.  No, we are proud Americans who love our country and don’t like the direction it is taking which is toward socialism, if not communism.  President Trump looked at our country a few years ago and did not like the way it was going either. All our businesses going overseas, many to China.  Our farmers doing poorly on the world market.  People’s taxes going up every year while we watched our money go to other countries.  When he took office all that changed and the ONE WORLD ORDER people did not like it.  Ever wonder why the Bushes and the Obamas were so cozy? They are part of those people.  So are most, if not all the Big Tech people. Trump did not fit into their world view so he had to be destroyed.  So for four years the liberal media NEVER had a good word for our president. While Michelle Obama has been featured on the cover of almost every magazine, Melania Trump, a real beauty who has been a model, was never featured on one magazine cover. Don’t you find that rather strange, if not petty?

Now we hear that Twitter has censored President Trump forever for inciting riots which he has never done. They are trying to silence him. They will try to silence us.  As long as I have this blog, I hope I can retain my free speech.  If they can censor our president, they can censor you and where will you go when you have no place to speak publicly?

We are living in very disturbing times. Some believe it could be end times.   Since God has not told me, I can’t say one way or the other. I just know to be prepared.  The next four years we will see more and more attacks on President Trump because they must keep him quiet, you see.  I wish I knew what he knew because I’d shout it to the world because maybe the world needs to know what is really going on in our country.  People don’t like to think of these kind of things. They believe if they keep their head down and just live a good life nothing will happen to them. Perhaps the Jews, before the Holocaust, thought the same thing and they came for them.  What if they come for us?

I hope I’m wrong. My recourse is to pray because God is still in control. He’s letting all this happen for a reason. Perhaps we deserve it, I don’t know.   I just know that there are two groups of people in my country now. One group has detested President Trump from the first day he took office, ignoring all the good he did the last four years or at least believing all they have heard on the liberal media. The other group is conservative and likes President Trump and for that reason only we have been called White Nationalists, homophobes, racist and all manner of foul names because the left knows if they say it enough, people will believe it and from reading some of the blogs I’ve read lately, they have succeeded.  That is another lie the liberal media has repeated ad nauseum that President Trump praised the White Nationalists. No, he never did. I heard his entire speech that day and not once did he praise them. He called them specifically horrible people, but he did say there were other people in that crowd that day who were good people and there were.  People were there that day to protest taking down a statue.  That did not automatically make them bad people, but the media labeled them that.  Think if the media decided they didn’t like you and every day they would report lie after lie about you, how horrible you are? Do you believe people would like you?  Probably not and that is what they have done to President Trump.

Is President Trump a good man?  None of us are good. Not one and not one of us will get into Heaven without Jesus Christ as our intercessor, but people have decided President Trump is bad and he must be destroyed. His good has far outweighed his bad. He’s done so much for so many people and so many people will never hear about it because the liberal media is afraid that will change their minds about the man.

If you have read this far, you know I am passionate about what is happening to our country. I don’t want it to go back to the way it was before President Trump when we were losing jobs, our taxes were high, gas was almost four dollars a gallon at one point.  I can’t stand to think what is going to happen under a president who is, at  best, halfway there. At worst he has dementia and was allowed to run anyway.  It’s not even laughable, it’s so tragic.

I will be like President Trump on Inauguration day. I won’t be there. I won’t watch or listen because I truly believe we will be inaugurating a fraudulent president. Since it will be David’s birthday, we will celebrate that, instead.

My next post I will try to be back to my cheery self, I hope, but I will still have a sick place in my stomach thinking of all we are losing.  Bye.