What am I talking about?

Okay, now that I've fed the family, I've spent some time decorating my blog.  I think I'm happy with it now, but I'm sure I'll change it around another 500 times before I'm finished.

I started thinking I should state my goals.  As I said, I started this blog because I thought it would be fun to participate in Design Wall Monday.  But I'm interested in more than that.  I have two cats.  We lost one of our cats recently.  We had her 19 years--longer than our children.  We call our place the Three Cats Ranch, and now that we're down to two, we're keeping the name in her honor.  We do more traveling than we used to, and we decided not to get another cat.  I will admit it's tempting, but really, three cats in an RV leaves little room for the people.  Until one of them gets a job, we'll keep the population at two.

I'll probably post pictures of my cats from time to time.  As a cat lover, I love making cat quilts.  If I didn't limit myself, every quilt I make would be a cat quilt.  Now I allow myself a cat quilt each time I finish another quilt, so that every second quilt I make is a cat quilt.  I'm trying to fill the walls of my two stairwells with cat quilts.  So far I'm about 25% there.  It's a worthy goal, don't you think?

I like to make charity quilts too, and recently donated a quilt to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative.  I like making Downy Quilts for Kids too.  My guild is doing a challenge quilt this year.  We are supposed to make a smallish quilt (the dimensions escape me), and it should incorporate a technique we've never done before.  It should also be based on a children's book.  When we're done, the books and quilts will be donated to CARES Northwest, which is a program that does forensic exams on children who have been abused.  The idea is that the child will be examined by the CARES program, and then will be free to never tell their story again.  The exams are well documented and are used as evidence in court.  It's a worthy program.  My quilt is going to be based on "Little House in the Big Woods," by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  My new technique will be landscape quilting.  It's possible we will travel this fall, and if that happens, I will miss the challenge deadline.  Nevertheless, I'm planning to forge ahead.

I'm a gourmet cook and I'm an avid photographer--hobbiest only.  I used to be a licensed clinical social worker, but I don't do that work any more.  I'm still licensed, just not working.  I doubt I will return.  It's a stressful and thankless job.  There are, sadly, few resources, and it's hard to feel like one is making a difference in anyone's life.  The rewards are few.  I decided I'd had enough.

So that's about all I'm going to say right now.  I'm hoping to tell you about quilt shops I visit in our travels.  At the moment, I'm back from the quilt show in Sisters, Oregon.  In a span of three days, I visited five quilt shops, which I will tell you about over time.  I'm also going to talk about my local quilt shops, and I'm hoping to visit the ones I haven't visited yet.  Okay, now I'm really finished.