I love this thread and glad to see it back! I am kind of hit and miss at doing crafts. I have done lots of the glass garden totems, I posted some pics here of them some time ago. And I do make jewelry as my hands allow these days. Right now I have been named Project Manager for our Garden Club and I come up with crafts and projects we can all do for fun and also to sell at our yearly sale. This is one of the more recent ones I taught them and I made for the sale. They are fall leaf covered candle holders. Super easy.

Kate, This will be such fun! I will do a little research and select a block to start with and yes, we can compare notes. I am by no means an "expert" and I just do it however I think it looks best. I know that I am capable of doing much better work than what I do, but like anything this is really a process that you need to practice and keep at it to get better. I am primarily self-taught (my mother doesn't sew, knit, crochet, or do anything crafty, so I did NOT learn from her!), but I just go with what "feels" right and try to do the best I can. But I would be more than happy to provide whatever instruction I can to help "ease your pain" (to borrow a line from that Kevin Costner movie about the baseball field in the middle of an Iowa cornfield that I cannot recall the name of right now). So, count me in girlfriend! And rivergirl, you can join in, too! The more the merrier! And even if we don't make a bed-size quilt from them, or even if we don't like what we make, we can have a ball laughing about what we HAVE attempted to accomplish! [as an aside: I make cakes, but I am by no means a rolled fondant artist! I am self-taught in this area, too, and that's how I learned: by reading books, watching anything I could get my hands on, and just practice, practice, practice! Some things turn out well, and others don't; there is no harm in the things that don't turn out. I just figure that if I'm great at buttercream and lousy at rolled fondant, then I can stick with buttercream and be very happy because there are lots of people who do rolled fondant, so plenty of work for each of us to handle!] Odessa

Yep. I was working at the New Haven Colony Historical Society as their curator when that theft happened. I can also tell you that just before I took my first job, someone went to the museum that I was going to be working at and had a shopping list with them to steal a number of guns...right off the shopping list for a collector. They caught that guy. When I was working at another institution, someone came in and asked to see a particular ring from the 17th century (yep, late 1600s). It had been donated in the late 19th century (my museum was established in 1865). They were chatting up about how their great aunt so and so donated it.....and I said, well, actually, no. And told them who had donated it. They were stunned....I pointed out that it was great it was in a museum because the number of descendents of the original owner should have numbered over 1,500 or so..(minimum) and at least by having it in the museum EVERYONE had the chance to enjoy it. They agreed, as they would have never been able to see it if it wasn't there. On the other hand, I had someone really upset that they couldn't remove some genealogical materials because THEY were direct descendents...well, heck, they shared that honor with a bajillion others. For some people, it is the covetousness...kind of like that DaffyDuck cartoon where he has the biggest pearl and his quacking "Mine, all Mine!!!!!" I remember him being shrunk and sitting in the oyster shell with his arms around this enourmous pearl.

We live on the West side of US19 which makes it an evacuation zone. We've had mandatory evacuation once in almost 20 years and we went to DD's house which is 10 miles from us inland. She ended up having more damage than we did during that time. Water was 'driven' through their brick house. Between her MIL, who was also there, and me, we were spinning water out of towels for hours. Now, they spray the brick every summer with something that waterproofs it. Another time we had a big tree come down during the storm and we lost electricity so had to leave for about 4 days. We'd come back during the day and run the generator for the freezer and fridge. (I don't like doing those sandwiches either.)