Halloween Wall Hanging

 

Some weeks ago, I saw a pattern for a Halloween wall hanging called Cat-BOO-ccino. It was 24x30” with a cat, a bat, a teacup and saucer and a spider. I thought the idea was clever, but lacking in execution. The cat, bat and cup seemed out of proportion. I don’t drink cappuccino, but I feel the drink is all about the pattern in the foamy top – which doesn’t show in the quilt design. The spider and the cat’s eyes were round appliques (not my favorite). I did like the Dear Stella prints, some with tiny cat’s heads and others with a pattern reminiscent of Haunted Mansion wallpaper. So, I bought the fabric and designed my own 20x36” quilt with a moon mug, a larger cat and bat. I swapped the spider for a pumpkin, and I'll sew on button eyes after it's quilted. I’m happy with it, but it isn’t Cat-BOO-ccino anymore. What should I call this?

One Dozen Sheep Folds

 

When we met Joe, John was twenty-four and I was nineteen. Joe was seventy. We managed the apartment complex where he lived. We’d visit him monthly to collect the rent, and at random times when maintenance was required. The other apartments in the building all looked exactly alike. But the walls of Joe’s place were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. During one visit, Joe showed us a very real-looking human skull. It was a souvenir, he said, from when he’d played Hamlet in New York. Joe De Santis told us he was a retired actor, but we didn’t realize until after he’d passed that we’d actually seen a lot of his work. He’d appeared in some of our favorite TV shows and movies. If we’d known, we might have asked him what it was like to work with Dick Van Dyke, Humphrey Bogart, Lana Turner, or Lucille Ball. Would he have been pleased, or annoyed? I guess we’ll never know.

Rail Fence Block

 

Slow Cooker Tamale Pie

 

1/2 pound lean ground beef, browned and drained

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Small can black beans, rinsed and drained

Small can Rotel tomatoes with chilis

10 ounces red enchilada sauce

1 green onion, sliced

1 package Jiffy Cornbread Mix (If you can’t find Jiffy, buy another brand and use 1/2)

2 eggs

1/2 cup shredded cheddar

 

Add browned ground beef and seasonings to slow cooker. Stir in beans, tomatoes, corn, enchilada sauce and onion. Cover and cook on low 6 to 8 hours. In a small bowl, stir together corn muffin mix and eggs; spoon over meat mixture. Cover and cook another hour, or until cornmeal is set. Sprinkle with cheese and serve hot. Makes 3 or 4 servings.

Twelve Evening Stars

 

The Ward Clerk

He kept the minutes, typed each note,

And put them in the file.

The membership he knew by rote;

He labored with a smile.

The ordinations, births and deaths

He faithfully recorded

For forty years, until at last

He went to be rewarded.

The people he had known so well

Turned out to shed a tear,

And pay respect to this good man,

Gone to another sphere.

But as the choir rose to sing,

They saw with consternation

The good man from his coffin step

To count the congregation!

 -Author Unknown

Hovering Hawks

 

“Today many feel lonely and isolated. We want to hear each other’s voices. We want authentic belonging and kindness. There are many reasons we may feel we do not fit in at church—that, speaking figuratively, we sit alone. We may worry about our accent, clothes, family situation. Perhaps we feel inadequate, smell of smoke, yearn for moral cleanliness, have broken up with someone and feel hurt and embarrassed, are concerned about this or that Church policy. We may be single, divorced, widowed. Our children are noisy; we don’t have children. We didn’t serve a mission or came home early. Mosiah 18:21 invites us to knit our hearts together in love. I invite us to worry less, judge less, be less demanding of others—and, when needed, be less hard on ourselves. We do not create Zion in a day. But each “hello,” each warm gesture, brings Zion closer.” – Elder Gerrit W. Gong

Fantasyland Ticket Booths

 

Last week I mentioned four 70-year-old ticket booths still standing in Disneyland’s Fantasyland. We found them all! The first – a medieval circus tent – is between Fantasyland Theater and It’s a Small World. It blends in with popcorn stands and gift shops, so you could look right at it and never notice. The second is a mushroom at the entrance of Alice in Wonderland. The lighthouse ticket booth is at the entrance to the Storybook Canal Boats. This ride was closed for maintenance during our visit, but luckily the lighthouse is outside the construction site fencing. The fourth – a cottage – is near the Dumbo Circus Train, which is also down for maintenance. I assume they’re replanting the succulent “quilt” and upgrading Storybookland miniatures. It was hard to get a shot, as the cottage is completely shrouded in fences and scaffolding. I’m taking that as a good sign. If Disney had decided to get rid of it, it would already be gone.

Nine Sheep Folds

 

When I was a kid, it was common for breakfast cereal to come packaged with a toy in the box (as if all that sugar wasn’t addictive enough). In 1963, Cap’n Crunch came with a piece of plastic that looked like a bosun’s whistle. It produced a 2600-hertz tone, coincidentally the same sound used by AT&T to control its phone network. It unlocked a loophole in the system, allowing people to hack into AT&T and illegally get free long-distance calls. These early experimenters, dubbed “phone phreaks,” laid the groundwork for what would later become modern hacking culture. Hackers built “blue boxes” that more precisely reproduced the tone. Even Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built and sold blue boxes during their college days. So, if you’ve ever watched the 1992 movie “Sneakers” and been puzzled by the character Whistler and his criminal background, now you know. If you didn’t know long-distance calls used to be very, very expensive, I can’t help you.

Balkan Puzzle

 

We visited Disneyland last week, after a year’s absence. Here are the biggest changes we noticed: Splash Mountain is now Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (though we’re having a tough time using the new name). We tried riding our first day, but it broke and we were evacuated from the very top. We loved the new verse of It’s a Small World, but the change we didn’t expect is the whole queue is now wheelchair-friendly. We feel so SEEN! And the sinks in public restrooms (at least the ones we used) are now mirror-free. When there are mirrors above sinks, women stop to fix their hair and makeup. They actually spend more time there than in the loo. It creates a bottleneck, and there’s a temptation to just walk out without washing hands. Instead of a lot of little sink mirrors, there’s one full mirror by the door. Women look (they always look) but don’t stop. Two thumbs up!

Thirteen Leap Frogs

 

“I was sitting in the waiting room, for my first appointment with my new dentist. I noticed his diploma on the wall, which showed his full name. Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome boy who'd been in my high school class some 40 years ago. I thought, ‘Could this be the same guy a had a crush on way back then?’ Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. The balding, gray-haired man with a deeply lined face was way too old to have been my classmate. After he examined my teeth, I asked if he attended my high school. ‘Yes, I did,’ he beamed with pride. ‘When did you graduate?’ I asked. He answered, ‘1959, why do you ask?’ ‘You were in my class!' I exclaimed. He looked at me closely. Then, that ugly, bald, wrinkled, fat, gray, decrepit old son-of-a-gun asked, ‘What class did you teach?’” – Source Unknown

Nine Evening Stars

 

In 1998, Queen Elizabeth II hosted Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia at her Scottish estate, Balmoral Castle. The queen extended a casual offer of a car ride, leading the prince to a waiting royal Land Rover. Abdullah sat in the front passenger seat, while his interpreter sat behind him. The queen, an experienced driver, was known for the military-grade driving skills she’d learned during World War II. Despite the prince's initial hesitation, he agreed to the tour, and the queen took him for a spin around the castle grounds. As the story goes, the prince spent most of the ride clutching his seat in white-knuckled terror, pleading with the British monarch to slow down. I’ve heard at the time Her Majesty was unaware that it was illegal for women in Saudi Arabia to drive at all. Personally, I think it would have been an even funnier story if she’d known.

Five More Geese

 

“The fire of yesterday’s testimony can warm us for only so long. It needs constant nourishment to keep burning brightly. In the New Testament, the Savior taught a parable about a master who gave each of his servants a sacred trust—a quantity of money called talents. The servants who diligently used their talents increased them. The servant who buried his talent eventually lost it. The lesson? God gives us gifts—of knowledge, of ability, of opportunity—and He wants us to use and amplify them so they can bless us and bless His other children. Our gifts magnify and multiply only when we put them to use. Oh, how I wish I could embrace you and help you understand this great truth: You are a blessed being of light, the spirit child of an infinite God! And you bear within you a potential beyond your own capacity to imagine.” – Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Rocket Ship

 

In 1982, Larry Walters, a 33-year-old truck driver from San Pedro, California, packed a CB radio, some sandwiches and beer, and a pellet gun. He tied 42 helium-filled weather balloons to his lawn chair and launched himself into the sky. His plan was to float serenely above his neighborhood. When he was done enjoying the view, he meant to shoot a few of the balloons and drift gently back down. That’s not exactly what happened. Larry shot up like a rocket, quickly surpassing 16,000 feet. He was suddenly in the controlled airspace of Los Angeles International Airport. Several commercial pilots reported a man in a lawn chair in their flight paths. Eventually, Larry drifted into power lines, causing a blackout in Long Beach. Against all odds, he returned to earth without killing himself or anyone else. "Lawn Chair Larry" was immediately arrested. He later made an appearance on the Tonight Show, and his lawn chair was displayed in the Smithsonian.

Four Sheep Folds

 

Oskar Speck was born in Hamburg in 1907. He dropped out of school at fourteen to work, but work in post-WWI Germany was hard to come by. Oskar heard rumors there were copper mining jobs in Cyprus, and he decided to head there. He didn’t have the train fare, but he had a collapsible kayak. So, in spite of the fact he couldn’t swim, Oskar paddled to Cyprus. He canoed down the Danube to the Aegean, then the Mediterranean. When he reached Cyprus, he decided to keep going. He paddled down the Euphrates, through the Persian Gulf, and along the coast of India. He traded stories for food, water and shelter. Oskar was frequently shot at, and he contracted malaria. When he reached Australia, he was sent to an internment camp as an enemy alien. After WWII, Oskar became an Australian citizen and an opal miner. He died in New South Wales at age 86. 

Sherman's March

  

Robert and Richard Sherman were a song-writing duo who specialized in musical movies. Their most recognizable works were for Disney films, both live action (The Parent Trap, Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks) and animated (The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh). The non-Disney movies they wrote for – like The Slipper and the Rose and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – FEEL like Disney movies because of their influence. The Sherman Brothers also wrote music for Disney Park attractions, like There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow and It’s a Small World. That last song is frequently referred to as the most performed song of all time. Shortly before he passed in 2024, Richard Sherman added a new verse: “Mother earth unites us in heart and mind, And the love we give makes us humankind, Through our vast wondrous land, When we stand hand in hand, It's a small world after all.”

Rocky Road to California

 

When Disney California Adventure opened in 2001, there was an eatery in the northeast corner called Hollywood & Dine. It was like a food court in search of a mall. You could grab kung pao, pizza, or burgers and eat indoors or out. The Hollywood & Dine lasted less than a year. West of there, the Hollywood Limo ride was also shut down before its one-year mark. It was replaced by Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue in 2006. Further west was Who Wants to Be a Millionaire - Play It! The theme park game show lasted almost three whole years. Muppet*Vision 3D was also one of California Adventure’s original attractions. Like It’s Tough to be a Bug and Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, Muppet*Vision didn’t age well. For a while, the building housed a Frozen sing-along, then Micky’s PhilharMagic. In a few months, this whole area will close to become a new Avatar-themed land.

Four Evening Stars

 

Disneyland celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. When this place was new, Walt said, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” The seventy-year-old theme park has adapted to the changing tastes of its audience. But there are places where, if you pay attention, you can see glimpses of the park Walt knew. The track for the People Mover (and later the Rocket Rods) still hangs over Tomorrowland. The Skyway gondola is long gone, but one the stations is tucked in the trees behind the Dumbo Circus Train. There haven’t been motorboats since 1993, but the covered loading area is still behind the Matterhorn. And four ticket booths still stand in Fantasyland, from the days when you had to buy tickets for each ride. One looks like a mushroom, one is a lighthouse, one is a cottage, and one a medieval-style circus tent.

Five Geese Flying

 

“The Book of Mormon has been for me a rod of safety for my soul, a transcendent and penetrating light of revelation and illumination of the path I must walk when mists of darkness come, and surely they have and surely they will.” – Thomas S. Monson

“Looking to God means that He is not just one of our priorities; it means rather that He is our one highest priority.” – D. Todd Christofferson

“Cultivating temperance is a meaningful way to protect our souls against the subtle yet constant spiritual erosion caused by worldly influences that can weaken our foundation in Jesus Christ.” – Ulisses Soares

“To those who are struggling with the same sin or the same setback over and over again. You don’t have to be who you’ve been before. Embrace your fresh start, your second or third or fourth — or hundredth — chance, offered to you through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.” – Patrick Kearon

NASA Nine-Patch

 

Some completely random facts:

There's actually a geocache on the International Space Station.

The shortest commercial flight – between two Scottish islands – lasts less than a minute.

A blue whale’s heart is as big as a Volkswagen Beetle.

Fingernails grow faster on your dominant hand.

Polar bear fur isn’t white; it’s transparent.

The world’s first alarm clock could only ring at 4:00 a.m.

There’s fossil evidence of butterflies in Antarctica.

Carrots were originally purple.

In Switzerland, it’s illegal to own only one guinea pig.

Humans share 60% of our DNA . . . with bananas.

The dot over i and j is called a tittle.

The first computer mouse was made of wood.

A bolt of lightning is five times hotter than the sun.

Humans have performed dentistry since 700 B.C., making it one of the oldest professions.

The unicorn is Scotland’s national animal.

A shrimp’s heart is in its head.

Caesar salad was created by an Italian immigrant living in Tijuana, Mexico.

Sheep Fold

 

Susan Warren thought of herself as a cleaning professional. She was having trouble finding work, a problem she thought would go away if only she could show people what a good job she could do. So, in 2012, she slipped into what she felt was a prospective client’s home and got busy. She washed some coffee cups, took out the trash, dusted and vacuumed. Then she slipped back out, leaving behind a handwritten note on a paper napkin with her name, phone number and a bill for $75. The homeowners returned to an unexpectedly clean home and an invoice for services rendered. It didn’t take the Cleveland police long to track her down. Susan was charged with burglary, which is “illegal entry of a building with intent to commit a crime.” As Susan hadn’t stolen anything, I guess the crime was charging $75 for a what was essentially a few minutes’ worth of housework.

Hope of Hartford

 

"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

"The greatest danger to our future is apathy."

"The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves."

"Young people, when informed and empowered, when they realize that what they do truly makes a difference, can indeed change the world."

"Let us develop respect for all living things. Let us try to replace violence and intolerance with understanding and compassion."

"Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement."

"We have so far to go to realize our human potential for compassion, altruism, and love." – Jane Goodall (1934-2025)

One Dozen Leap Frogs

 

The Internet is devilishly good at guessing what you’ll find tempting. Lately, it’s been showing me something called Quilter’s Decision Dice. It’s a single wooden cube (shouldn’t it be called Quilter’s Decision Die?) with a choice written on each of the six sides: clean sewing space, organize stash, buy fabric, start a new project, finish a U.F.O. (unfinished fabric object), and bind a quilt. None of the sides say “stitch a quilt block,” how I spend most days. I try to tidy my work space every day. “Organize stash” happens every five years or so. I try to limit fabric purchases, because there’s a real danger of being buried in cotton. Lately, I’ve only been buying fabric that will help me finish U.F.O.s. I bind roughly a dozen quilts of varying sizes per year, and donate or gift most of them. Clearly, I need to “start a new project” less often, because the backlog is growing.

Evening Star

 

We fell in love with this dessert years ago, when Bangkok Thai restaurant was at Foothill Village.

 

Mango Sticky Rice

 

1 1/2 cups glutinous rice (sticky rice)

1 1/2 cups coconut milk

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 ripe mangos, peeled and sliced

 

Place rice in a sieve. Rinse several times until water runs clear. Soak rinsed rice in water at least an hour; drain. Line bamboo steamer with cheesecloth, add rice, and steam over simmering water until grains are translucent. In a small saucepan, heat coconut milk over medium heat. Stir in sugar and salt and continue stirring until sugar dissolves. Do not boil. Remove from heat. Transfer cooked rice to a bowl. Slowly pour coconut milk mixture over rice, stirring gently. Let the rice sit 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, peel and slice mangoes. Scoop rice onto small serving bowls and top with mango slices.

Mini Flying Geese

 

“Your origin story is divine, and so is your destiny. You left heaven to come here, but heaven has never left you!” – Dieter F. Uchtdorf

“Let us genuinely welcome, acknowledge, minister to, love. May each friend, sister, brother, not be a foreigner or stranger but a child at home.” – Gerrit W. Gong

“New beginnings are at the heart of the Father’s plan! Fresh starts are the mission of the Son! New dawns, new chapters are the simple core of the gospel’s good news!” – Patrick Kearon

“I give you my absolute assurance, the Savior knows you and loves you. Reach out to Him. He is your comfort and strength; He will send His angels to bear you up. When will your pain be gone, your grief subdued, the unwanted memories forgotten, I do not know. But this I do know: He has the power to bring beauty from the ashes of your suffering.” – Neil L. Andersen

Spooky Moon

 

Luis Albino was born in Puerto Rico in 1945 – one of six siblings. When Luis was five, his family moved to Oakland, California. About a year later, Luis and his older brother, Roger, went to play in the park. Roger came back alone, saying Luis had left with a strange woman who’d promised him candy. The police didn’t believe Roger’s story. They assumed the boy had fallen into the San Francisco Bay and drowned. Luis’ family never stopped hoping. In 2020, sixty-nine years after Luis’ disappearance, one of his nieces took an Ancestry DNA test that matched with a man living on the east coast. Luis had been raised by a couple (both now long deceased) he’d always assumed were his biological parents. He’d been a firefighter and served two tours in Vietnam in the Marines. He had children and grandchildren by the time he was finally reunited with his birth family.

Another Sweet Snowman

 

I make mistakes all the time, especially while quilting. Most of them I catch and correct before I press the seam. Some elude me until I take a photo. The seam ripper comes out, and everything is put right. If you think this snowman looks familiar, you’re right. I posted one very similar last November. He was part of a series of monthly door banners that kept me entertained (and mostly out of trouble) a full year. After I got that snowman back from the quilters and bound it, I set it on top of the stack of other finished door banners. And it was NOT THE SAME SIZE. April through December were all 20x36” and January was 3/4" shorter. I hadn’t noticed until the quilt was completely finished, but once I saw my error, I couldn’t UNSEE it. So, I’m making another one. The “short” quilt will be donated to someone who won’t see my mistake.

Turning Leaves Top

 

I made these blocks in 2020. I didn’t visit a quilt shop. I just downloaded the pattern and printed it. The fabric was all in my stash. Some prints were gifts from other quilters; some were my own scraps. The original pattern called for 48 blocks: eight rows and six columns. Paper foundation piecing is time consuming, but that year I had time on my hands. I stitched the first leaf in September, and by Halloween I’d made thirty-six. Then I began to find the autumn colors tiring. I noticed when I removed the foundation paper, some of the stitches pulled loose. The seams were lumpy. I realized assembling the blocks would be neither easy nor fun. I almost threw the thirty-six blocks away. Instead, I stuffed them in a grocery sack in the back of the closet. I pulled them out a few days ago. If they have to wait until I’ve done another dozen blocks, they might wait forever. Do I want a 36x36” table topper now, or a 36x48” sofa throw maybe someday?

October Door Banner

 

The first of October is National Pumpkin Spice Day. It isn’t so much about the round orange winter squash as it is the spices themselves; a blend of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice, nutmeg and mace. Cinnamon is ground bark from certain tropical trees. It’s thought to improve blood sugar control, reduce heart disease risk, and preserve brain function. Ginger, from the same family as turmeric and cardamom, aids in digestion and helps with osteoarthritis pain. Cloves are the dried flower buds of a tree in the myrtle family. They’ve been used since ancient times for toothache. Allspice tastes like a combination of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and pepper, hence the name. Nutmeg and mace are actually from the same tree. Nutmeg is the seed, and mace is the aril or seed covering. Pumpkin spice is a uniquely American blend, but it resembles poudre-douce (sweet powder) which was popular in Europe during the middle ages.