Cecilia's Samplers Freebies

Four small freebie designs:

JBW:  Sailing Alphabet
CherryWood Designs: Give Me Floss 
NeedleWorkPress: Summer
The Queen Stitch: Sunset Beach

Wow! Nominated for Award

I just found out I've been nominated by the the Arlington OEM for the 2012 Jack Colley Citizen Corps Award, the highest honor awarded to a Texas Citizen Corps volunteer and only the second year it is to be awarded. The recipient will be announced June 15th at the Texas Unites Conference in San Antonio.  Because there are so many other volunteers serving various disaster relief agencies throughout the state who have put in so much more time and effort, I have no expectation whatsoever of "winning," nonetheless: Wow!  BTW, last year's recipient was later invited to the White House as a "Champion of Change." Hmmmm.

COMPUTER - AT LAST!!!

What's more, in attempting to extract whatever data he could from "dead" hard drive on previous computer to save to NEW computer hard drive, my friend, GERRY (who helped me out last computer crash as well), discovered what was REALLY wrong with the old hard drive and fixed it. So as of 10pm last night, I have TWO working computers! No more trips to Library to use computer! HOORAY, HOORAH!!! But what do I do with two computers? Hmmmm. My next technical expenditures will be for newer monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. This was the first without my Mom. My DD made dinner for my Dad, brother (in town for 4 days), and sister. Very nice and I was very appreciative. Dad says he came out of his computer room one evening last week and Mother was standing beside the table and looked up him, then disappeared. I asked what he said to her, but he was too shocked to say anything. When I asked if she was her young self or as she was in her middle years all he would say was that she looked wonderful.

The Office of Emergency Management has asked if I would like to attend a conference for volunteers and volunteer agency personnel in San Antonio in June. I said yes. They will cover mileage or flight plus hotel. It's a 275 mile trip each direction and I am NOT fond of driving distances by myself.  OTOH, the mileage expense will be enough to cover meals as well, while flying will not. Because of the need to show up early to airports, it's likely to take longer to get from home to airport to hotel than simply driving - assuming no road issues, that is. Not sure which I will do yet. I haven't been anywhere since 2008, and leaving cats at home for 2 nights shouldn't traumatize them too much. Wonder if they'd spring for a cruise instead? :D

Still Sans Computer : ( Most recent home invader

I had hoped to have new computer before now. Not sure on timetable as am relying on busy friend to build one - albeit on the far less expensive side. Good news: Expensive medical tests say I'm just fine.  But why do I still feel so lousy? Been stitching on the Sunflower pillow. I'd originally planned only to stitch the center portion, then decided to add 12 extra rows outside the second inside border, then decided to add another 3. Meaning at this point most of what I've got left is mostly like trying to stitch hundreds of often confetti stitches - which is a very very slow slog! Must now repair or replace my non-working air conditioner. It's already up to 84 in the house. TOO WARM!

I've previously posted about wild critters that have found their way inside my house. Baby possums, Baby raccoon, big white rabbit (really!), various mice and rats rodents I do NOT want in my house, and cringe when the only solution is setting out poison because I also have cats who only occasionally bother to catch one, but don't want to risk poisoning them. I walked into the living room late Wednesday afternoon, and caught a shadow and strange movement in the far corner near the fireplace out of the corner of my eye. Huh? Then it moved. What?? OMG, surely NOT!! Making it short: it was a REALLY BIG SNAKE with very bad temper. No, I didn't scream, though OMG was said several times. I quickly determined it looked like rattler, but didn't have the triangular head so wasn't a poisonous variety. I hoped. Then it buzzed its tail at me and decided to protect itself by making the top 1/2 of it's length a tight S then striking out trying to bite me. WHOA! Then I wasn't exactly sure, pretty sure it wasn't poisonous, but .... With plastic container between me and it and a long mop handle I managed to herd it into the fireplace and closed the fire screen. THEN called 911 who turned the report over to after-hour Animal Services. Thinking it was safely trapped then went to put on clothing necessary for inside human visitors. In the 30 seconds that took it got out of the fireplace and then wouldn't cooperate when I tried a second time to herd it back in, including more tail buzzing and striking out. At which point it slid off the other end of the hearth and behind furniture against that wall. Eventually Animal Services called and said it was probably a Texas Rat Snake (non-poisonous) and finally showed up a few minutes later. In the meantime, I'd been watching that wall hoping it did not get any further. It didn't and was coiled up under the book case my TV sits on. The AS guy grabbed the upper part of it with something like what you would use to take something off a high shelf. It got loose a couple of times, and it took the 2 of us to get it into a plastic container: Him grappling front part and holding buzzing tail and me closing the lid on top of it when he finally managed to get both ends in the box at the same time, a somewhat difficult feat because of mad and uncooperative snake. His first comment upon seeing it: "It IS a big snake." Like 4-1/2 -5 feet long and 2" in diameter. He seemed to be expecting the garter snake variety, the kind of thing I'd just have picked up and carried out on my own without a second thought. After getting both ends in container and lid on and latched, he carried container out and transferred snake from mine to his. It only got loose twice in the process, once almost making it into the flower bed. It again took 2 of us to get it in the container and lid closed. He promised to take it somewhere safe and release it. I told him it was welcome to stay here but only if it would stay OUT of the house AND eat all the local rats and mice. Texas Rat snakes are aggressive and ill-tempered by nature, are excellent climbers and will eat anything it can get in its mouth (birds, rodents, lizards, etc), and though it didn't show lump of having had recent undigested meal, it was definitely well fed. Drat! I didn't even think about taking a photo. Overall, after the initial shock and worry of it getting somewhere else where I couldn't find it, my biggest anxiety 1) was anxiously trying to straighten before someone came in my admittedly messy house while at same time trying to watch to make sure snake was staying put as if it got loose in the house, I would NEVER find it again, and 2) oh no, how did it get in and how LONG had it been inside? I DON'T KNOW! Now I'm wondering whether it was female and if it laid eggs anywhere inside. OMG!!

Some photos here:  http://www.houstonherp.com/TxRat.html

New Computer

Apparently 9 years old is too old despite new hard drive and 100 times more RAM. The hard drive I bought for old one was wrong type, but Gerry, my RACES friend, said he could build me a new one for about the same amount I'd paid for the hard drive, with the new hard drive, of course. Remaining is the issue as to whether or not I can recover any of my data that wasn't backed up (way too long ago.) Can't get at through Windows, but another friend managed access to at least some of it through Linux. Two weeks, I'll be without home computer for at least another 2 weeks. In mean time I've been using the library, and occasionly at Dads.

Arlington tornado

UPDATE:  ARRL (American Radio Relay League - a nation-wide organization for amateur radio operators) has an article about the North Texas tornadoes that mentions me - but didn't bother to see if they'd spelled my name right.  http://www.arrl.org/news/north-texas-hams-respond-when-tornados-strike

Not only did my hard drive crash AGAIN a couple of weeks ago, I've been very busy helping out at the Office of Emergency Management as the result of the tornado in SW Arlington on 4/3. I was called to come in to handle emergency radio traffic on the 4th because of the severe weather. I was sitting at the intersection next to the Administration Building when the sirens went off. My Dad was going to drive my car home to the garage he'd cleaned out (because of predicted large hail), but I told him FORGET THE CAR, YOU'RE COMING UP WITH ME!  (As I'm looking up to make sure something wasn't about to drop on top of us.) Very interesting experience. No time to be frightened, even when a spotter reported the circulation was right on top of our location. Circulation is rotation in the clouds, NOT a funnel or tornado. HOWEVER, someone took a photo of a funnel only 1/4 mile from our location. It's not a tornado unless the circulation actually reaches the ground. I left the EOC about 6:30pm. Because I sit in a windowless office with a screen way above my head showing radar, and was so busy listening to radio traffic and reporting emergency events to staff, I was unaware there had been a tornado in Lancaster at the same time. The whole area was EXTREMELY fortunate. No deaths, only 2 or 3 serious injuries, the Arlington tornado missed 2 elementary schools and a huge high school by as little as 250 feet. Had it continued on it's original path and not dissipated, it would have hit my neighborhood 2 or 3 minutes later. There has been an over-abundance of volunteers (leaving hundreds of good hearted citizens disappointed that there was nothing they were needed to do.) Nor were donations originally accepted, then later referred to Mission Arlington once a distribution plan was set up. The areas hit by the Arlington tornado were almost exclusively upper middle income and higher, thus most, if not all, are covered by insurance and though FEMA has been in to assess the damages, the likelihood of getting funds from FEMA is small. (They only cover non-insured expenses.)

I called the next morning to find out if our CERT volunteers had been activated, and instead was asked to come in to secure and schedule volunteers for both the Emergency Operations Center and the Tornado Recovery Center. Subsequently, I have been at the EOC pretty much from 7am to 11pm (or later) every night through Sunday. Went home at 8pm on Monday. Now I'm preparing documentation for the OEM/EOC to determine how many different people and how many hours they've put in. So far I've got a total of 215 volunteer hours for the EOC (not including the 3+ I spent today trying to figure out how Excell and Word 2007 work - I HATE THEM - way too overly complicated and far too many unnecessary graphics - I wish they'd leave what works perfectly well ALONE!). I don't have the total hours for volunteers working at the TRC yet, but it was operational from 8am to 8pm Tuesday through 6pm this past Monday. Close to 100 more I suspect. UPDATE:  CERT volunteers logged 185 hours at the Tornado Recovery Center. Altogether, in less than a week, volunteers totaled over 400 hours assisting at the Office of Emergency Management, the TRC, Fire, Police and citizens of Arlington.

One interesting story that I haven't seen published is that when the tornado hit St. Barnabas church, it sucked up or blew away hundreds of plastic Easter eggs, meaning some folks found unexpected plastic eggs hidden in their yards this year. Thankfully, my daughter was working at home. Straight line winds or a small spin up hit her office and blew in windows where she would otherwise have been sitting. God is good!

www.arlingtontx.gov/tornado
http://pd.dfw.com/sp?aff=1100&keywords=+arlington+tornado&submit=Search

New Debbie Cripps Freebie

Small Violet Posy by Debbie Cripps.

Still stitching on the Dimensions Sunflower pillow chart my mother started before she passed. I really don't care for the greens in the kit. Not sure whether to change or to just live with them. She substituted a small piece of 14ct natural linen aida, which gives it a more rustic look. I'm having to guess at which of the 5 yellows/gold are which. Two of the light yellows are so slightly different that after stitched I can't tell the difference. I'm only stitching the center and the borders, and maybe 3 or 4  rows of that outside mishmash.That's all the available fabric and all I'm interested in stitching anyway, although the outside design appeals to me more than the solitary sunflower center.

New Permin Freebie

Cute Easter type duckie

Medical stuff lately so I haven't been keeping up with the Freebies. Hopefully I'll get back to that in the near future.