- No place like home

We left sub-freezing temperatures and gray skies in St Louis and returned to 80 degrees and blue skies in Austin ...

Patch #47 (far right, revised 2/17/2016)

I'm looking forward to stitching the February patches to bring them up to date. The embellishments promise to be a way of reliving a wonderful week with our grandsons (not to mention their mom and dad).

- Anchors aweigh

For the first time in 45 days, I'm really not happy with a patch. So today's patch will remain unattached until yesterday's patch can be redone (when we get back to Texas since I don't have enough fuchsia linen left) ...

Patch #46

I chose green because we're already talking about when we're heading back to St Louis ... most likely in April to do a good Spring pruning.

And here's a quick look at the reveal for Melissa's kitchen towel ...

I cropped the initial photo lest she never speak to me again. After which we tucked in to birthday eats.

Dinner was lasagna with homemade sauce and pasta. Dessert was strawberry trifle with candles ...

and ginger snap cookies ...

A fuller accounting of the towel will follow soon, but with only hours left of our time in St Louis, there are more important things to tend to. Off I go ...

- Now and then

I grabbed a few bits of linen to bring with me to St Louis, but managed to leave the Valentine's pink at home. No matter. It turns out that today's patch was destined to be this color ...

Patch #45 (replaced 2/17/2016)

since Melissa's pre-birthday night on the town was spent in this jacket ...

Which turned out to be a pretty close match (although it's not as apparent here since one picture is day lit and the other is not).

So Happy Birthday, Valentine ...

Meliss, 15 months old (Easter 1987)

May every day of your birthday season bring you this much happiness!

- Lucky 13

I finished Melissa's birthday gift on deadline, just as Don predicted ...

Patch #44 (revised 2/17/2016)

so today's patch was made from the same blue/green/gray linen as her birthday gift and will be stitched later (as most of the February patches will be since I've been preoccupied with the birthday project.)

Since we're in St Louis, I arranged the first thirteen patches of the month in an arch over the weather weeks, which are really starting to add up ...

Birthday cookies (hearts, race cars, planes and trains) have been baked and decorated with expert assistance from 3 year old Jackson ...

and a sponge cake awaits assembly into a strawberry trifle, long Melissa's birthday cake of choice. You can read more about it and get a glimpse of Meliss here:  http://imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com/2009/08/just-trifle.html

- Patch pose

J saw me taking a picture and he wanted in on the action ...

Patch #43 (far right ... revised 2/17/2016)

Today's patch is indigo-dyed linen that I used to mend the hole in his jeans from the inside ...

out ...

As is often the case, the other knee was just a bit thin, so I added some reinforcing stitch, backed with a little more linen ...

Now, let's get back to having fun ...

- Southwest goes north

Continuing the simple patch theme, today's red patch completes the Southwest (Airlines) triad ...

Patch #42 (far right)

And I came up with a solution to the Texas versus St Louis weather conundrum ...

a sunny, dry day in Texas with a snow note for STL. Since I left my trusty Pitt pen at home, I cadged one of J's colored pencils to guide my stitches ... thanks buddy!

On the menu tonight: homemade meatballs, homemade pasta, homemade bread. The sauce I'm leaving to Aldi (food store) since they have caramelized onion on special this week. Guess I'd better get cracking.

- Frozen

Just a quick post today since there are grandsons to play with and chicken soup to make ...

Patch #41 (revised on 2/17/2016)

I anticipated being busy, so this is a pre-made patch. It was a toss-up whether I was going to stitch Southwest Airlines colors or a St Louis arch, until I spotted this outside the plane window ...

Do you see it? The reflection of the blue on the wing made a perfect (half) arch. Don't know when or how it will get done, but I love the serendipity.

Meantime, I'm also puzzling over how to do my weather patches, because as Meliss so aptly posted on Facebook ...

And not only is the temperature a bit different, the precipitation has a different feel to it ...

A few hours later I saw a sight I haven't seen for quite a while ...

Ha! There's nothing like the sound of a plow blade to bring back memories of snow days past!

- Leaving on a jet plane

A skinny patch for a short stay with G ...

Patch #40

We're leaving well before dawn, heading for St Louis and J times two.

But before we left, we made some early Valentine cookies ...

from an old family recipe ...

P.S. These days I make a half batch and use parchment paper instead of greasing the pan.

- Washed out and slightly scorched

Which describes both today's patch ...

Patch #39 (revised 2/18/2016)

and the way I feel having just completed our income tax return. Don't get me wrong ... I'm glad we're getting a refund. It's just depressing to see how much we paid into the federal treasury. Ouch.

I was consoled, however, by the arrival of a Deb Lacativa fat baggie ...

Thank goodness for small blessings.

- Such a to do ...

I am a list maker ...

Patch #38

have been forever ... even as a kid, when told to clean my room I would make a list of all the things I had to do and then line them out one by one. Sometimes I would even cut up the list items and draw them out of a hat, rewriting them one by one in the random order they were to be done.

I love crossing things off. Online lists don't give quite the same sense of accomplishment as a paper list full of lined out items. Although I confess I do have more than twenty lists on my iPhone sticky notes app with titles like "Books to (re)read" and "Gift ideas," so I'm not entirely a Luddite in that regard.

At work, my lists had lists. But I often used those lists as a way to figure out what not to do. After all, any item that remained undone after making it onto one list after another was probably not worth doing in the first place, right?

So today's patch is a reminder of my reminders: a tongue-in-cheek, shake-of-the-head gibe at my persistent belief that I can actually control things. As if ...