How's that for a shameless plea! Ami Simms is going to hang the four Smackdown mini-quilts in the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative booth at Festival in Houston. You will have an option to buy any of the four Smackdown quilts rather than waiting for the auction or you can vote with a dollar for your Viewer's Choice. Vote early, vote often! All money raised goes to Alzheimer's research.

John Flynn showed his 2-sided masterpiece on his blog last week. Here's the back of his quilt – amazing isn't it!

But no matter how wonderful the other 3 quilts are, I still want you to vote for my quilt :-)! As a reminder, here's my quilt:

On a serious note – Ami has done amazing work raising money for this cause. I am just happy to be a small part of it, as are Hollis, Sue, and John. I wish I was going to be there at Festival to see the activity in the AAQI booth. Please go by if you go to Festival.

We had two birthdays in our family this week. My DIL, Lorna, and our son (her husband), Christopher, each got a year older. I made cupcakes and I saved the bowl and multiple icing utensils for all the kids, young and old.

Jack had had a rough day and was melting down before dinner until we turned him loose with the chocolate-covered scraper. If you look close you can see tears drying on his face. Lorna is braver than I was. She held him in her lap while he licked it clean.

He's even cute in black and white!

That got your attention, didn't it! These plants are also called Surprise and Magic Lilies because they pop up out of ground with no warning in August. They don't have leaves and  are members of the amaryllis family. I forget about them until there they are. This group grew up into my cotoneaster bush.

The pistols and stamen in each flower curl up. It's cute! They look happy.

Walked on at DFW last week:

This is just one of many lovely mosaics in the airport. I don't know if it's the color or the serene pattern that made me stop to take a photo. I wish I had the time and skill to put something like this in my house.

There are rare nights when I wake up and my brain is worrying about something. It never fails that by morning I'm over it. Maybe the intense worrying is my way of working through whatever problem is at hand. The cartoon below (found on Sarah Fielke's blog) captures this experience very well. I had never seen any of Michael Leunig's cartoons but I'm going to be on the watch for them.

My husband, Steve, never wakes up to worry. It used to irritate me that I was the
one carrying the worry load but over time I realized that this division
of labor works well for us. He deals with stuff in a different way than
I do. Thankfully, I worry a whole lot less now than I used to.

I am just back from Montgomery, AL, where I taught a 2-day class to the Kudzu Quilt Guild (isn't that great guild name!). There was a bit of time to visit the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. Patrick Dougherty, with the help of volunteers, built this stick installation on the grounds of the museum of  March, 2009. 

The structures, built from saplings, were so alive that you half expect them to move around.

You can walk into them and touch them. They are surprisingly sturdy.

The museum is located in a large park. There is a permanent Shakespearean Theatre on the grounds as well. It would be a lovely place for a picnic.

There was an exhibit of wonderful contmeporary African American quilts inside the museum but photos were not permitted. If you find yourself in Montgomery, take the time to visit this lovely place.