Zombie Duck

So how is your horror movie fest going? What? You don't watch those???? LOL!

Yes, I'm a little off. It's an Autumn thing.

So it wasnt a banner week this week Lots of boring movies. I did manage to sneak in a couple of oldies just to shake it off.

So what was on the menu this week?

Monster Island
Its Carmen Electra and MTV. Need I say more?
Big bugs and they didn't even try to make it scary really. It was a fun flick that was every bit as bad as you'd expect. And the guy? Of course he gets the girl in the end.

Mulberry Street
Infected rats bite people who turn into crazy rat like zombie things. This is actually a good one. If you like zombie flicks you will like this one.

Ring of Darkness
Boy Band Zombies. Not kidding. If you have a disdain for boy bands this movie will crack you up. All the video cameos and pretty boy shots are hysterical. But its okay. They are really zombies under all that make-up. NOW the world makes sense.

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
Classic British zombie flick from the 70's. Worth a watch if you like the genre.

Bunch of "dancers" and their manager get wrecked on Spider Island. Once you are bitten you are either dead or you turn into a spider like creature. This movie was actually lots of fun just because of the girls and their various stages of undress (but not fully). And there is a good cat fight of course. And the handsome men that show up to rescue them and run around the rest of the movie without their shirts. (Not the same effect as current day shirtless guys.)

The Giant Gila Monster

One I used to like as a kid. If you own a Roku box you can have the Pub-D-Hub channel. This is all the stuff that is old enough to be public domain. Most of the old ones like this you will see have come from watching Pub-D-Hub.

The Legend of Bloody Mary


Exactly what you would expect it to be. No surprises here.

Alien Invasion Arizona

Prisoners being transported escape with hostages. But man did they escape in the wrong place.

The Video Dead
Zombies come out of the tv.


Can you say double tap?

Would You Rather?

Joining Andrea at Sgt and Mrs. Hub in a "Would You Rather" Monday.

The question:

Would you rather…

Take a one-week vacation to a faraway country

OR

A one-month tour of the United States?

That is very very hard.

So, if the question is about right now, the answer is a one-week vacation to a faraway country.

Because right now I can fit my ever-increasing behind in a plane seat somewhat comfortably. A few years from now I might not be able to say that (judging from my weight gain the last 3 years).

Right now I bounce back from extreme time changes fairly quickly.

Right now I do not have any medical issues that would require scoping out the nearest hospital and wondering about their standards if it is a third world country.

And I've lived and traveled many places in the US already.

Plus we have our retirement plan tailored to being able to travel when we retire...so I'm going to get to do the stateside thing in due time.

How about you? If you could go today? Which would you choose and why?

Snapshot Saturday

Friday I went on a day hike with the Junior and Cadette Scouts. We have some amazing parks with fantastic hiking trails in this area.
The fall colors here are to die for right now. I can honestly say this is one of the pretties places I have ever lived -- and definitely the prettiest fall surroundings. I didn't know what I was missing!

Butterfly's On Mars

Finally finished! I actually worked on this one for a year. Sort of. I started it a year ago this past summer while dog-sitting at my sister-in-laws. Did all my cutting and matching up the blocks.

Then it got packed away because of the move. And I didn't touch it again for months.

So I started back on it. And two friends got pregnant. And then a family member was getting married. And then another family member got pregnant. So, it was set down while I made gifts for all of them.

And then I got started again....and the quilt I planned on working on LAST for Christmas became a first and a finish and send now kind of thing. So I put it down again.

But with the help of my new GO! toy I am now finished (!) with Butterfly's On Mars.

Can you tell that my husband named it? LOL! I was stumped for a name and asked him to help. At first he was ganking on me for naming them....but I assured him that is was standard practice in the quilting world. Then he told me he isn't "artsy-fartsy" so he wouldn't be any help.

And then he belted out Butterfly's On Mars. And I loved it. Which shocked him. But hey, most of what I thought of (Strawberry Fields) has been used so many times it is tired already. LOL!
It was windy so getting a good picture with a camera phone was not easy. But its instant gratification for posting to the blog so I didn't break out the better cameras. (Can you say lazy??)

This is a free pattern called "Wickedly Easy Quilt". Its a huge block that you turn opposite directions when you pair them next to each other.
The back is pieced with my extra's from the front. I had a couple of corners and stuff that made for some interesting blocks up by my pieced butterfly's.
I was told the recipients favorite color was maroon -- hence the colors of the quilt. I had a hard time finding such a strong color in more modern fabric designs. Of course I started it in August....if it had been around Valentines Day I would have had alot more choices to choose from. But I was able to find several butterfly fabrics which has significance also.
I also found a free tutorial on the web for making these butterfly blocks. They are awesome!!
I also ordered another signature block for the back. Love that touch. One day if I get a new machine I will make sure it has embroidery choices on it also so I can do my own. Or maybe I wont since I get them at such a reasonable price.

And there she is.....a year in the making......Butterfly's On Mars!

Am I Supposed To Be Ready For This?????

Somebody pass me a paper bag please!

Blessings In Blue

I finished my hardest quilt to date. It was supposed to be a Christmas gift, but head bone had to go and shake things up and need surgery. Some people.

Anyway....I wanted her to have a visible hug from me while she was recovering from her surgery (and while I have her kids and she is allllllllll alone healing and resting). So, I double timed it and worked my tail off to get it done pre-surgery.

Wow. It was not easy. When it was done I kinda walked around in a circle not knowing what to do with myself for a day. Until I woke up to the fact that it is October and I have 2 more quilts to finish off if I want to give them as gifts as planned.

So.....the unveil of Blessings in Blue......
This is a total Frankenstein quilt. The bottom left corner out to the rectangles is from a pattern called Bricks and Stones from Red Pepper Quilts.
It wasn't quite big enough for what I wanted so I enlarged it a little and still wanted more. I decided to add the cross blocks. Still wasn't big enough. Then I made the alternating angels and butterflys (to signify her girls).
I still wanted it a little bigger so I used up most of the extra 2 inch blocks. NOW it was done.
I used a small polka dot for binding. I don't really care for dots, but all the best quilters I follow have been binding with them lately and I love the way it looks. Go figure. I wanted a bigger dot but this was the best I could do in the colors I was looking for.

My white sashing are in 3 different tone on tone patterns. The outer sashes are scroll work. The inner ones are stones/circle looking ones. And of course the other one is butterfly's.

I pieced the back with my extra fabric and extra blocks. It has an embroidered signature block also.
I also got brave and made this my first free motion quilt. Oh my is it a mess. Luckily most of it wont be noticeable once its washed and has the crinkled quilt look. I still need lots and lots more practice. I also need a machine that I can program to stop with the needle down in the fabric to avoid the shifting from the weight of the fabric when I reposition my hands.
The small squares I kept pretty even...it was the bigger ones that gave me fits.
I did "crazy spiral" one the outer border. Didn't keep it very uniform but it wasn't too bad. Also, I used a variegated thread with 3 shades of blue. Wont do that again. I didn't like the darkest blue on the white. Plus, the thread had weak spots and would start to shred in the needle hole. This made lots of thread breaks and aggravated me to no end since I did not buy cheap thread.
The mid size blocks have a spider web looking spiral in the dark blocks. See how unsteady and wiggly it is??? I'm sure a year from now I will look back at is and nearly die of embarrassment that I actually gave that to someone. At least I hope so anyways....

And there she is...in all her amateur glory. I learned alot from her. How to paper piece. Lots of free motion practice. How to cut a binding with the GO!

Hope Tricia loves her as much as I do!

Zombie Duck

Can you believe I gave up a weekend in October full of monster movies to go camping with a bunch of little girls? I know, shocking.

And can you believe that the camping trip was smooth as silk with no blood and gut injuries, misbehaving girls or even kids that stayed up too late????

What is up with that?

If I have to miss my movies you would think I could at least come back from the wilds with a true life horror tale right? Not the blood and guts kind -- the crazy kid or misbehaving kind or cool tricks pulled on each other or SOMETHING.

Well, at least with all the hours spent in the sewing office this last week I got my fill of bad monster movies. (AND I finished a quilt I was busting my tail to get done.)

So........

If you like vampire movies, this one was pretty decent.
This one has a twist as it never shows who bite the girl, how or why....just the guy that finds her and helps her. And the story unfolds from there.
Love the old monster movies. There are so many movies from the 50's that are all about mutant animals/insects from atomic accidents. Hence...the giant crabs that eat people and absorb their intelligence and talk to you in their victims voices. Very creep thought!!
Yes, shark movies are one of my very favorite. And I watch Shark Week on Discovery pretty much every year. But this movie??? A dog. The sharks roared like lions. Seriously???? And in one scene a shark comes through the side of the boat and plucks a lady right out. Wow.

Then there was Wicked Little Things..
Crazy little zombie miner children...
It! The Terror from Beyond Space...
A monster that looks like a gorilla with lizard skin. Not very imaginative. And the thing that really bothered me about the movie? The people didn't scream or have fits when being attacked. It was the calmest and quietest monster movie I've ever watched. How can you have a good monster movie without screaming???
This is a British flick. I don't really understand the whole plot of the movie (I was sewing so my attention to detail is not keen.) But, even with that it was a good horror flick. Stuck on a boat out in these reeds with a medical emergency...and something is out there.
Giant spiders being bred on a freighter. Not the people you want to rescue you after a storm. Way too heavy on the computer graphics and rather boring actually. Skip it.
This one is actually really well done and was a good movie. For the time frame the monster was really scary looking...even if it did look like a big caterpillar. Again with the radioactivity.
Not my favorite kind of movie. But the soundtrack was great. This one is people doing horrible things to other people. Not into that so much. So if you like violence and blood and guts due to bad people...this one is for you.


I'd have to say Bitten and The Reeds were my fav from this week.

Another Girls Gone Wild Weekend

So not what you are thinking.

This weekend I'm off on yet another camping trip. This time it is in a lodge. Should feel like a resort after all the tent and platform camping we have done this summer.

But this will be the first weekend Mrs. M and I will be on our own without Super Camper. The Big Boss. I'm going to count it all good if we make it back with all the girls......

Life is funny.

I never expected to be back into Scouts again. Songbird has pretty much walked away from it due to her schedule with school and extra curriculars.

I didn't expect MM to join as she was painfully shy for so long. And she never struck me as the outdoor/camping type of kid. But I was wrong. She wanted it.

And when there was a need for leaders and I had some training already...well, you know how that goes. I did manage to avoid the Daisy age group, I found myself stepping back into the shoes of a Junior leader. Even though I don't have any children in this age group.

And this council has not made it easy for me. But thats a whole other story.

The real crazy thing about this is I have been camping about 6/7 times since March. (I've actually lost count of the number). More camping than I've done all together in my adult life I think.

And its been a blast.

Because we have been camping with a master camper. Someone that makes it look so easy. Someone who shares her knowledge. Someone who encourages and teaches.

And that is the secret to liking camping. Knowing what you are doing. Because so many things can go wrong.

So wish me luck. I expect it will all be just fine. I don't see how I could be better prepared.

But if I'm wrong....

well...

it will make for good blog fodder.

8 Minutes

Time it took me to cut the bindings for two different quilts with the GO!

Have I ever mentioned that I am left handed? And that when I started kindergarten it was in a military/DOD school? Where they did not have left handed scissors? And they forced me to use my right hand?

So cutting is a slow and painful process for me. To this day I use my right hand and look like I'm disabled when I cut things.

Those strips I cut in 8 minutes would have taken me 2 hours minimum even with a rotatory cutter.

Feeling the love for Accuquilt!

The Bully's Mom

I've read a whole lot of posts lately about kids that are dealing with a bully at school. Being that it is a new school year, this is not all that surprising.

Because if you have kids, you will deal with bullying. If not this year, next. Or maybe it will be in a few years...but eventually your number is up.

And with all the sad stories on the news of kids killing themselves over cyber bullying -- you'd better take notice.

And the whole turn the other cheek thing really just does not work.

But all of that really isn't why I'm writing today.

There is plenty of advice and suggestions all over blogland right now on how to deal with bullies.

What is bothering me....

...is all the comments on the bully's mother.

Because if your child is a bully it is your fault mom.

You should be hung, drawn and quartered. You should be called trash. You should have nasty remarks made about you all over town and the internet.


Ummm...kinda sounds like bullying doesn't it?

So now, all you sweet moms with kids who would never bully anyone...

lets talk about those mom's of children with ugly personalities.

You see, it just might be, that they are as upset by their child's actions as you are.

Couldn't be you say?

Well, I say you are wrong.

Some parents have children with difficult personalities.

Maybe it is a child that is beyond selfish and you struggle daily to teach them to share. There is no reason they should not understand all the teaching you are doing on a daily basis...but while the other kids are getting it.....yours just WILL NOT share. No teaching, no preaching, no punishment, reward chart or being isolated works. So mom tries everything, reads every book, asks every friend for advice....and still the child will not share toys, takes things from others in a group and hordes. They even hit. Which horrifies mom and brings punishment. Every time.

See, that was an easy one. You understand that don't you?

It can be the exact same with bullying.

I have one child that had a difficult personality for years. Like 12 years.

We struggled. We punished. We praised. We warned that there would be no friends as you don't treat people that way. We PARENTED through the whole 12 years.

And it took 12 YEARS for the kid to finally get it.

When there were parent complaints we always took them very seriously and handled it.

But it would happen again.

And again.

And I was mortified and embarrassed by the child's behavior on practically a weekly basis. I cried tears over it. I actually did not even like my child very much and was angry at being put in such positions. (Which is not the same as not loving your child. You can not like a childs personality and still love them.)

This child was NOTHING like my other children.

I have another child that was everyone's best friend. Everyone who even met the child for a few minutes loved the child.

Same family. Same rules. Very different behavior.

You guys are getting this right?

Because all the name calling and finger shaking going on towards mothers of difficult children -- its just another form of bad behavior ladies. Think about it.

NOW - that is not to say that this is true in every case.

There are bad parents. Absent parents. Abusive parents. Racist parents. Inattentive parents. Noneffective parents. And parents you don't want to deal with in any way.

But don't assume.

Because one day it might be your child that pulls the mother of all stupid tricks. And when it happens -- that is exactly how you are going to be treated. Regardless of the truth. Because so many moms are willing to point fingers and assume bad kid action = sucky parenting.

And its not a fun place to be if you are a caring, teaching, parenting type of parent.

What I am not saying here is that because you give the parent the benefit of the doubt, that you deal directly with them when in a bully situation.

I have been attacked IN FRONT OF THE cops by a bully's mom when her son was being a bully and my son was one of the ones that fingered her kid. Her innocent kid. (Yes, 100% of the kids interviewed on the entire bus were lying -- but my little kid was somehow responsible for that because he was the one bloodied. Huh???) So, even when I give the other parent the benefit of the doubt, I still have the authorities in that situation handle the issue.

So I'm NOT saying mom IS a nice lady. I'm saying she just might be.

I'm saying don't take out the boxing gloves until you know she boxes.

I'm saying don't murder her good name until you know SHE is guilty.

I'm saying parents don't actually have full control over their children once they are out of sight.

We can teach.

But its up to the child to apply the teaching.

And some won't.

And I'm saying that if you are the mother of a young child and standing in judgment......you are most likely going to look back one day when the shoe is on the other foot and feel foolish.

Because kids make mistakes. Kids do wrong things. Kids make poor decisions. And kids pull stupid kid tricks.

Even your precious angel that would never.......(lie, steal, cheat) could do something you totally disapprove of one day.

Really.

It could happen.

So do unto others............................

Snapshot Saturday

Zombie Duck

Because my sister-in-law loves me that much.

And she's one of the very very few people in life that can related to my love of Zombie movies.

So, yes, she got me a glow-in-the-dark, brains and bones showing, rubber duckie.

Glow-in-the-dark ya'll!

AND NOW ITS OCTOBER!

My favorite month!

No, no, its not because its my birthday month, or because my name is Autumn. It's because its the 31 days of monster movies month.

Now, I understand that only about 1% of my family and friends understand this love of mine. I can respect that. So, out of love for the other 99% of you, I will NOT post about my movie fest every day this month. I'll save it for Friday or probably Saturday actually. Most people don't read their blogs on the weekend so it will be totally easy to skip right over on Monday mornings. And I'll head the post with my friend Zombie Duck so you know to just click the "read" button without even looking.

Unless its like passing a car wreck.....you just gotta look.

But hey - at least I'm giving you every opportunity to skip right by it without polluting your eyes or brains.

Cause I love you like that.

So stop reading right now.

Because October started yesterday and I've already enjoyed several movies. Gotta love Netflix streaming and a laptop in the quilt room.

And this year I am trying to watch stuff I've never seen or don't remember only (please forgive me Aliens and Resident Evil movies!!) because my wish list on scary movies is so long I have no choice but to sacrifice the favs.

So -- here goes!
Mega Piranha!!
Made for the Sci-fi channel so it is everything cheesy and computer generated you can imagine! Crazy unreal looking mega fish that grow to the size of a whale by the time they reach the ocean. Not kidding. And when they were still small they would even bite and eat the boats. Hah. Now that's nutritious. Only redeeming quality to this flick is the six-pack abs and shirtless shots of the hero. Great stuff as long as he didn't open his mouth. His voice so got on my nerves.
And does anyone remember Tiffany from the 80's? She was the female lead. That was interesting.
Too funny. Think I saw this as a kid. Really not a monster movie -- its one of those circa 1970's eco movies where nature strikes back. Lots of snake bites, spiders, lizards and frogs all gone wild because of man's polluting ways. Has a young Sam Elliot (of the sexy voice fame) as the hero.

Shock Waves
Again from the 70's. This one is actually pretty good. A group of people on a yacht get stranded on an island after hitting a resurfaced freighter of Nazi Zombies.

So happy viewing this month my friends!

(Or not!)