Derby party

Anonymous left a comment message that she or he had never heard of the Derby party so I thought I would explain what it is. I think the tv ads say..... "Louisville, Kentucky; the place where a two minute horse race is the perfect excuse for a two week party." You can read more about it here and here. Or you can do an internet search using the words Kentucky Derby Festival.

The Derby festival starts with a gigantic fireworks display then has a variety of types of races and parties over the next two weeks. Some of the races held are bed races, rat races, balloon races, marathon races, steam boat races, and so forth.... all leading up to the main horse race on the first Saturday of May. The horse race is called the Kentucky Derby.

In the area of Louisville where I live; the derby is used as a reason to visit the "old home place" or for a family reunion. Also, lots of celebrities come to town for various "rich people" parties on derby night. Of course, these rich people / celebrity parties are held on the rich side of town.

Many years ago the "not famous or rich" people decided to start having their own version of a party on derby night. There used to be two areas for these parties. One of these parties has stopped because the neighborhood was torn down. The other party place happens to be in the area of Louisville where I live. Almost every home in this area will have a barbecue grill smoking away. It's the food of choice for the reunions and parties around here.

A few years ago this local party started to get way, way out of hand. They called it cruising on Broadway. The party drew lots of out of town people who had no connection to Louisville or this neighborhood. There were so many cars, motorcycles, and people that it required hundreds of police and several helicopters to control the crowd.

In the years that followed (when the violence got extremely bad) the city officials decided to put a stop to the cruising. Thank heaven!! It had gotten so out of hand that many people who live in this area started leaving town until the party was all over. This party has been much more controlled in the last two or three years. There seems to be fewer out of town unknowns and more people with a connection to the area. I haven't heard the news reports this morning yet but I saw far fewer cars and motorcycles on my street yesterday. Of course part of that might be due to the economy too.

Today the people will wake up, nurse their hangover for awhile, eat some left over barbecue, visit family one more time, and gas up their vehicles to leave for the trip home. The celebrities will head for the airport to get on their private jets and go to the next party place. By this evening all will be quiet and normal again.

As you can see, I didn't go to my daughter's house after all. They brought the baby here instead. So today I get to sit on the floor and jibber jabber with Ladybug while playing with noise making toys. I think it's time for me to make breakfast.

It was time

It was time.... don't ya think?

Over the weekend, I did spend some time away from my quilting work to clean the domestic machine. There was a lot of lint in there. It really was time that it got a good cleaning. I figured out that the best time to look for hidden lint is when I have the best natural lighting. When the sun coming through the skylight shines directly over the machine. It's much better than a flashlight.



Yesterday I did some once a month cooking. I call it once a month cooking although I cook (or prepare) and freeze something almost every weekend. What I'm doing is trying to have at least a month's worth of meals (or at the very least the ingredients for meals) in the freezer. What's the difference between cooking and preparing? Well one is an already cooked dish that only needs heating. Preparing is getting the ingredients ready for cooking a meal. Such as chopping onions or boiling rice. Cooking a lot on one single day is much quicker (and easier) than cooking a little on several different days.

The reason I've gone back to monthly cooking on the weekends is because my freezer was empty. You may remember I lost everything again not to long ago. A wind storm, an ice storm, and plain forgetfullness has emptied the freezer one time too often for my budget! I won't go into all the details about my cooking in this blog because I want to save it as a post on the frugal hints blog.

Over the past year or two or three, my weekends have typically been spent staying at the quilting machine trying my best to stay on schedule. In keeping with my goal to "say yes to less" I've been doing other things on the weekends instead. My goal is to have a more normal.... 40 hour week... instead of a 16 hours, 7 days a week, kind of job. The more organized I can make myself.... the easier it will be to relax and have fun now and then.

Speaking of working.... I best get into the studio to start my day.

A couple of me days

Over the weekend I had planned to work on the next quilt but instead I worked at clearing up this mess. I wrote more about it on my other blog.



My muscles are aching from all the bending and stretching to reach the stuff on the floor then carrying it out. I have a clear path to the rest of the room so maybe I can finish the work I started last year.

I can stand at the door of this room and mentally picture the way I want it to look. Window quilts. Cardboard furniture. A neatly arranged office closet. Pictures and nick nacks finally out of storage to admire. Yes, I can see it in my mind but that doesn't mean it will get done.

If only I could stay working at it until it's finished. But..... life tells me when I can do this and when I can't.

I'm headed to the studio to work now.

What a day

Whew!  What a day it was.

I had decided I couldn't do any quilting until I had cleaned out the freezer and gotten rid of all the ruined foods. I called my neighbor to carry the heavy stuff out to the trash cans.

Half of what was in the freezer belongs to my daughter. She shops my freezer once a week to put into her refrigerator like I do. She also helps stock up the freezer with foods she uses but mostly it's me that finds the bargains to stock the freezer. She works full time and attends college classes at night. Some of her food choices are convenience foods for when her schedule doesn't allow scratch cooking time. She was as upset as I was about loosing the foods.

When I was cleaning out my freezer and pitching the lost food I kept wondering why the alarm hadn't sounded. I checked and sure enough it was on. It's still under warranty so I called to find out what might have happened. A repairman is scheduled to be here on Saturday to replace the faulty alarm. He believes its the switch instead of the wiring. Shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to replace it.



Just to be sure I don't forget to keep the door closed again.... I made myself a sign. Can't miss it when I open the door from now on.

I didn't loose absolutely everything as I had thought. When I was pitching stuff I realized some food was still fully frozen. I had it packed very tight so it was like a very large chunk of ice. It takes longer to thaw. Other foods were only partially thawed so those can be saved. This is the chicken that was saved. I couldn't restack it as tightly as I had it before though.

So that no reader thinks I may be going hungry, here is a look inside the refrigerator freezer. Plenty of food in there too.

Well anyway I decided to cook what could be saved and refreeze it again after cooking. I started with the biscuits. Cooked them and wrapped them individually so my daughter can take out what she wants for individual meals.

Then baked a bunch of chicken that had only partially thawed. I'll cut this up into smaller pieces and refreeze to be used in soups or casseroles.

Next up was the cookies..... lots and lots of cookies! I believe there is about 10 dozen in these two bowls cooling off waiting to be repackaged and refrozen.

I was all set to start cooking some of the pork and beef when who should show up to help NaNa eat some of the cookies? Why its Ladybug of course! What's a grandmother with plenty of fresh baked cookies to do without someone to enjoy them?

Mommie had class to attend and Daddie had to work mandatory overtime so NaNa had company for the night. Then a friend delivers more cardboard. Hmm.... really nice big pieces.... but where am I going to put these until I have time to work with it? Some of it is 4 x 8 feet boxes. They will just have to wait on the table until I finish with other things.

I did work for awhile on the quilt that's on the machine. I really, really need to get the quilt finished today because it's to be picked up tomorrow. I really, really need to finish cooking the foods that thawed so I don't loose it. I really, really need to cut up the cardboard to get it off my working table so I can have room to put the binding on the quilt before the owner shows up tomorrow. I really, really need to get my life more organized. I really, really need to get my act together!

Aww heck, I think I really, really need a nice hug from Ladybug. It's time to get her up, fed, and dressed for daycare. Nothing is quite like a smile and a hug from a baby just waking up in the morning..... refreshed, bright eyed, and ready for a full day of exploring the world.

A new week

A new week has started again. After guild meeting yesterday I came home and worked some on my denim quilt.

I bought several yards of fabric while at the shop. It was really hard on my budget to buy fabric but these are for specific quilt designs. Legal stashbusting purchases. Which reminds me... I need to start making a stash busting report on Sundays. I will see how much stash busting I can get done this week.

Actually, for the next few weeks I will be pushing myself to finish 10 art quilts before Derby season starts in April. This is not going to be easy since I still need to work to pay the bills and I still want to create quilts for charity. I don't know if I can pull it off or not.... but I won't know unless I try. With that said I'll end this short post and head into the studio.