Hi, my name is Nancy and this is my blog. I'm not sure why I'm doing this - just seemed like a good idea.

I'm 47, married to David for 28 years with no human children. I currently have 5 feline furkids, Fluffy, Agatha, Charlie, Sam, and George. When I figure out how to post pictures I'll let you see what cuties they are. Those are the inside/outside kitties. Charlie and George mostly stay inside. The other 3 come and go whenever they feel like it. There's usually no more than 2 to 3 inside at any one time. Besides the inside cats there are between 10-20 outside only ones. None of them did I "contract" for. Mostly they just showed up and sucker that I am I feed them. Honestly I think there's some kind of neon sign over my porch that's only visible to the cat community that reads, "Sucker lives here. Free Food!"

I'm originally from Mississippi but currently live in Texas. We've been here 7 years now and figure this is where we'll be staying. We have a bit over 4 acres with large oak trees and lots of wildlife. It's not unusual at all to look out my back door several times a week and see deer munching in my backyard. Or to have racoons looking in my door. They come for the cat food. :-) I used to feed the outside cats with an automatic feeder where I just dumped in a bag of food about once a week. When it got to be every 4 days (for a 20 lb. bag!) I realized the racoons were getting it at night. Once I went to feeding every day again my cat food consumption dropped drastically! Currently we live in a mobile home and have plans to build a house within the next few years. We're in the process of getting the house lot cleared and leveled so lots of dozer work going on right now. We have the brother of a friend doing the work so we're getting a good deal, but since he works on it at his leisure it's taking a while to get it all done. Which works out great for us since we don't need it finished until next spring when we plan to get the foundation in and this way we can pay a little along whenever he needs some money. Did I mention this house will not be financed. We'll be building it ourselves and paying as we go.

I have a little 40' X 40' fenced in garden spot that I like to tinker in. I love to grow vegetables although I'm only growing a few things this year as I'm having some health issues that makes it difficult for me to keep up with the gardening chores. But I did plant tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and okra. The 4 things that just don't taste as good from a grocery store. Just had the first tomato of the season last week and it was sooooooo good! Nothing tastes quite like that first BLT of the season. Near my garden I have a bench under a tree. I putter in my garden a bit then rest on the bench. Fluffy is my "garden kitty". He loves to come to the garden with me and will perch on top of the gate while I'm working inside. Then when I sit on the bench he just purrs and purrs and purrs. It's quite a stress reliver sitting under my tree looking at my garden and enjoying the peace and quiet while cuddling with my Fluffy-boy.

I'm a quilter, or to be perfectly honest I guess I should say I'm a "topper". I piece quilt tops but rarely get around to quilting them. And that's okay. I enjoy what I do and I figure when I'm gone some lucky quilter's gonna think she had a helluva great find at a garage sale. LOL!

At this point in time I find myself with waaaaaaaay more fabric that I'll ever be able to use so I've put myself on a fabric diet and am not allowing myself to purchase any new fabric unless it's to finish a project currently under way or for borders/backing to go with stuff I already have. As is normal for most quilters I have a lot of stuff that just doesn't appeal to me and my current tastes. Some the quality is just not what I like to use , some I got in various swaps, some I bought as remnants or back when my taste in colors was different and a lot was given my by my mother when she went into a nursing home. Lots of 80's calicos and "dusty" prints in that bunch.

So right now I'm in a "scrappy quilt" mood I've been cutting all my scraps and a lot of that "what was I thinking" stuff up into various size strips. I have a couple quilts I want to make using the patterns at http://www.quiltville.com that will work well with my strips. I'm currently working on her Boxy Stars done in brights with a black background and sashing. It's turning out really nice. The brights just pop out against the black background.

I've fought a weight problem all of my life and am currently trying a low-carb approach to dieting on the advice of my doctor. I've done it before and had good results but for some reason slipped back into my old eating habits. This time I have to make this work. I just keep telling myself "I will not become my Mother!" She's only 73 and has been in a nursing home for 2 years now. Long story and one I won't go into now. But I find myself developing a lot of the same health problems she had and see myself slipping into some of the same habits she had that frustrated me for so long with her and I just refuse to let myself be like that! I'll be posting progresss/lack of and I'm sure more than a rant or two about the unfairness of having a underactive metabolism. I was recently diagnosed with an underactive thyroid and have hopes that getting that under control will help with my weight loss efforts.

Well, enough about me for now. I'll be posting as I feel like it, kinda as a journal/diary sort of thing mostly for myself. But if anyone wants to read along and gets anything at all from my ramblings please be my guest.
Nancy