Old Blind Dogs

Imagine getting to spend four or five hours up-close-and-personal with one of your idols...say, your most favorite band? That is what happened to me on Thursday! For real!

I'll back up a couple of weeks, when we found out my favorite Celtic band the Old Blind Dogs were coming to Oklahoma. Tahlequah is only a couple of hours away so we decided if the weather cooperated we would take a ride over on the motorcycle, get a hotel and see the Dogs play! A side note: Jessie was not pleased. The Dogs are her favorite as well and they were playing in a bar and she is only 20. I have heard several rants about our-screwed-up-drinking-age-limits-in-the-USA over the past few days...sigh, poor kid. It really isn't fair.

The weather was gorgeous. We both got off work early on Thursday morning and headed out about 1pm. We planned a stop in Kilkenny's pub in Tulsa for lunch. I had apple cider, Rick, a beer and we both had fish and chips. It was our first time to eat here and we both enjoyed it very much. There are quite a few antique shops in the area so I'm thinking we need to go back soon! A wash up and we were back on the road to Tahlequah.

Got into Tahlequah around 4:30 and decided to find the bar before getting a hotel. We wanted to be fairly close since it was going to be a late night. Granny's Attic was on a lightly busy street and had just opened up for the evening. (Another site here.) We were welcomed by Matt who served us a beer and said Sam, the owner, would be in shortly. When Sam arrived we soon found ourselves with a new best friend. Before we knew it, he was on the phone with a hotel getting us a Jacuzzi room at a discounted rate; right up near the front so we could keep an eye on our bike! We learned the Dogs were friends of his and he was excited to know we were fans and had come all the way from Stillwater! After we finished our beer we left, checked into our hotel, had a quick nap and shower. The only thing to mar the day so far was that Rick and I both were getting ill with the dratted first cold of the season. After a refreshing shower we headed to a Chili's we saw down the road.

We arrived at Granny's Attic that night to find the Dogs smoking cigarettes out front. OMG! My jaw dropped! Those of you who know me know I am most painfully shy. I stepped thru past them (blushing) and couldn't stand it...I turned around and grinned and said "Hi Jonny, we came all the way from Stillwater to see you play." Of course, being from Scotland, they have no idea where Stillwater is. Rick told them how far and them being boys had to ask about the motorcycle. I showed them my ipod with all 11 of their albums on. After a bit of chat (Oh heavens, their accents are divine!) Rick and I went inside for a drink...another beer. We drifted upstairs and found a table right next to where the Dogs were going to play. OMG!

Sniffling, remember ~ we both have colds, we chat and watch the various band members ~ mostly Jonny and Aaron, setting up for their set. Fraser and Ali (the new piper) were busy with chatting up the college girls according to Jonny. Next thing Aaron plunks his beer down and sets next to me! More chatting, Aaron tells us of adventures flying back and forth from Scotland over 16 years. He takes another look at my ipod and tells me the album I have called "Live" is not recognised by the band; they never authorized it's creation or release! Then here comes Jonny and squeezes in between Aaron and I with his beer. Up jumps Jonny, grabs a pen and paper and we are helping him remember the words to Hollis Brown. OMG! We forgot one line and could never think of it, but Jonny figured everyone could get the jist of the song without it. The Dogs tell us they are friends with Sam the pubs owner and they were there because they had two days between venues and called Sam up with an offer.

The waitress comes with more beer and Aaron insists on paying. OH MY GOD! THE DOGS JUST BOUGHT US A BEER! I am literally in heaven. It gets closer to the time for them to play and all four are in and out and back and fourth. I have been instructed by Jessie to film as much of the performance as possible on her flip video. It is more like a jam session than a concert. Very informal and loads of fun. I get most of the important stuff on video for Jess. I completely forget to take pictures; and only get a few. We sing along and clap and scream. Jonny sings Hollis Brown; remembers the verse we couldn't think of and turns to me in the middle of it, points at me and says "That's the verse we forgot!" I'm ginning like a bloomin' idiot!

During intermission Aaron makes me come look at t-shirts. He says I have to take one home for Jessie since she couldn't come. OMG! I pick one out and know Jess will be thrilled with it. (She hasn't let me wash it as yet...) All four of the Dogs at some point sit with us during their break. Aaron gave me the shirt, Jonny tries to buy us more booze, and Fraser and Ali come and chat motorcycles. Fraser has his license but hasn't bought one yet. He can't afford the one he wants and nothing else will do. All the Dogs curse and drink like Scotsmen. Odd eh? I'd say they were quite smashing drunk by the end of the set but everyone knows Scotsmen don't get drunk. I am over the moon. It has been an enchanting evening! Rick and I were very careful not to drink too much as we were too far to walk back to the hotel!

The Dogs disappeared quickly after their performance. I know they had to be up early the next day as they only had a short time to get to their next venue. I am so pleased to find my hero's are down to Earth, real and Scottish to the core.

On Friday, we pack up the bike fairly early and hit the road. We take a different route back than we came in. We have a stop in Cushing to eat at Rodolfo's ~ Mexican is my all time favorite food. Then it was home to loads and loads of laundry, bills to pay and a carpet of dog hair to vacuum up. Jessie is still inconsolable at missing seeing them. She is in luck though; they told me they would be back again soon....

Thank you for staying and listening to me babble for such a long time. I think my brain is rather addled by all this excitement. I've spent the last two days recovering my wits and trying to shake this darn cold. Thanks to all who've read this far...you are huggable.

Halloween Exchange with Becky

While I was out of town this package from Becky arrived! I was lucky enough to be one of her partners for a personal Halloween exchange. Alas, I am still in the big middle of stitching hers! I should be done stitching soon and then on to finishing. I am rather a lot intimidated stitching for Becky!

Becky stitched me the cutest Lizzie Kate design called "Fright Night" and finished it into a wonderful pillow. I love how the stitched design has little swirls and Becky repeated this element in the finishing fabric. Included with the exchange were the sweet little goodies pictured.

Thank you, Becky...I love this!

Stress reliever

Here is a little stress reliever for all my stitchy friends.

Click here.

I say it's okay to be mean to beans.

KISS Exchange

My K.I.S.S. exchange has arrived! This comes to me from Sue P. (no blog known) in Nevada. Isn't it wonderful? The sentiment is perfect. K.I.S.S. stands for Keep It Simple Stupid...meaning this is to be a simple easy exchange~don't go all out. I love this pillow! This is the first pillow I have ever received in an exchange. I really, really need to practise my sewing skills so I can make things like this. Sue also included a puppy dog calendar and a little kitty datebook. Oh, I love them!

Thank you, Sue!

Why did I save an eyebrow?

The rest of the office/craft room got sorted today! We had a rainy day due to Ike sneaking by so it was perfect weather for finishing up this messy room. OMG, I am such a packrat! There was junk everywhere!

This is the desk. Hum, I need to tidy up those cords underneath. Why don't you notice those things in real life? Taco has another bed under this desk. When we were deciding which desk to buy a couple years ago, Jessie made the comment, "Any of these would be nice, until Mom clutters it all up!" She had a valid point. I do like to clutter. I try to keep it to a couple of smallish piles and everyone must admit, I have done an excellent job of keeping the desk-top clear.

The stitching area. I did buy a bulletin board for over my stitching desk. The chest of drawers holds the rest of my stitching supplies. I sorted all the drawers and straightened everything up. I even found my dark interfacing that had gone missing! This is the rest of the room. It's only 10x10, so we have had to maximise the space. The bins between the desk and bookcases are what I store my charts, leaflets, books and magazines in. There are also three of these bins under my desk. A lucky 13 in all and I'll need more soon. Packrat, ya' know. I need to go through the books on that bookcase, it's getting overloaded! I don't even want to think about what the basement looks like...

What the hell is that???

Oh, that's a Groucho Marx eyebrow. You know...from one of those party favor glasses with the moustache and eyebrows? It fell off. I found this while sorting ribbons and trim. It was in with the trim.

Why did I save an eyebrow?

I have a date!

Yes, I know, I'm a married woman...it's not that kind of date!

It's the season premiere of Supernatural! Woo hoo, you know where I'll be next Thursday night!

Floss cabinet

Carol asked about the cabinet peeking out in my last post. That is my floss storage cabinet. It is actually a CD/DVD cabinet but it holds my floss bags perfectly! This was a birthday gift from Rick a couple of years ago. You can shop for your own here!

This is also little Miss Taco's favorite sleepy spot.

My floss is stored in zippered floss bags with a 3x5 index card inside to make the bag stand up. When I pull floss for a project, I hole-punch the card and add the bag onto floss rings. The white card makes it easy to spot which bag I'm needing. If I have tons of colors for one project, they go into an index card box. You can see them in yesterdays photos on the shelves...they look like green drawers.

Another day, another stash sort

It was so frustrating to know I have a certain teeny button but no idea where it is. It wasn't in this drawer, it wasn't in that box, it isn't here or there. Where is it? I've been looking for days. The first photo here is the reason why I can't find anything. So much clutter. How can one stitch with all this crap all over one's desk? Notice the clock in said photo. Noon! Time to start cleaning. Actually I'd already been cleaning for quite a while before I thought to take a picture...so this is really cleaner than it was!

Notice the clock now...4 pm! Whew! I got a lot accomplished today. I sorted all the drawers under my desk, all the boxes above on the storage shelves. I removed stuff that didn't belong here and I even found my missing button. There is now a box for trims, another for sewing, one for WIPs and one for buttons, beads, charms, pins & eyelets. I still need to sort the huge box of floss, bag them and put them away in the cabinet. I also haven't touched the chest of drawers that holds all of my fabrics and other stash. And we haven't even seen the other side of the room! I'm leaving that for another day.
I'm thinking a bulletin board over the desk to the left would be handy. This area is used a lot more now that I have the laptop. All the clutter wasn't quite as noticable (meaning, it didn't get in the way as much) until I added the laptop! I like the idea of having all my WIPs boxed...they won't get dusty when they aren't being worked on. They just don't need forgetting...

Stash in the mail

My new floss kid Lisa sent me this surprise package in the mail as a thank you for adopting her. Egads~I love stash!

Thank you, Lisa! I'll have fun with all this!