tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12581282129424035912024-03-15T20:54:07.099-05:00~Life With Lou~Michelle Bartelshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12764698146467706586noreply@blogger.comBlogger864125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-86745516510699558562022-11-28T02:14:00.001-06:002022-11-28T09:22:48.650-06:00Don't Fall off your Chair! Wow. I'm going to try again at making a blog post. Hi. I'm Michelle, and I am finally RETIRED!!!! Actually, I retired on Sept.30, 2021 and I am loving it!Life got in the way, and I quit blogging a few years ago. I have missed you all. I have to admit that I post mostly on Facebook. If you want to follow me there,my user name is Shelly Bee. I'd love to have Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-84434337947026259492018-03-30T09:52:00.001-05:002018-03-30T09:52:06.344-05:00Good Friday and Pops Doing GREAT!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-23340779010419032802018-03-10T12:27:00.001-06:002018-03-10T12:35:28.000-06:00Do I even know how to do this anymore?Well, it’s almost nine months since I last wrote a blog post. I figured now was as good a time as any to update it. My little Engineer is three years old today. We love him so much. In case you don’t remember who he is, he is my grand nephew. He is just so sweet. These pictures are borrowed from his mommy’s facebook page, as they are having a birthday party for him today. His Aunt Katie made his Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-40706278113641697032017-06-17T10:03:00.001-05:002017-06-18T05:44:25.707-05:00I’m Still Here!If you are reading this, I want to thank you for waiting here for me to make an appearance. The last year has been busy. As you know from the previous post, my grand nephew became a large part of our lives a year and a half ago. We love spending time with him, and we take the opportunity every other weekend to spend time with him. We love him to pieces! And just about a year ago exactly, tomorrowUnknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-79629745337026229182016-04-23T22:02:00.001-05:002016-04-23T22:09:02.531-05:00April Quilting~30’s ReproductionsApril is all but over, and here I am again, late in posting about our Loose Tensions quilting day on April 2nd. Renea had lots of pretty quilts to show. Overachiever! Seriously….we love having show and tell, and we are all just so jealous of her accomplishments. There were a lot of ‘Oooo’s and Ahhh’s’ to be heard. We are also very jealous of her scrappy quilts, like the one below, but none of Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-76193827855990282982016-03-21T17:30:00.001-05:002016-03-21T17:32:32.211-05:00March Quilting~BatiksSo March is coming swiftly to a close, and I realized that I had not posted anything about our March quilting day, which was on March 5th. I guess there’s not a lot to report, but I like to make blog posts for my own sake, as a record of our day. We had a couple birthdays to celebrate. Christie and Patty. Christie brought a couple trays of fresh veggies and fruits with dips (YUM!!!) and Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-24712790676583323872016-02-24T17:01:00.001-06:002016-03-20T11:28:05.140-05:00Happy New HairLouie’s new job working under the hood of cars hasn’t helped his already unruly hair. It was a big decision, but he finally decided to let go and buzz it. We went to a ‘fast hair shop’ on Saturday for the initial cut, then we went to Farm and Fleet and purchased a set of clippers and Sally Beauty Supply for a new cape. I will be his new barber. The cost of the clippers was about the same price Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-90741700151754772562016-02-15T06:49:00.001-06:002016-02-15T06:49:53.732-06:00Valentine’s Day HeatMy sweetie gave me a new heater core for Valentine’s Day! We thought he had done this to our previous van, but I did a little search on facebook and found that he did this at the end of November a year ago. Evidently, we didn’t get a good one. We went down to where he works, and I supervised was there with him as a safety precaution and to keep him company. I could NOT work in this position. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-56541418771138233172016-02-08T06:52:00.001-06:002016-02-08T07:08:26.456-06:00February Quilting~Spring FloralsSaturday was our February Quilting day. We didn’t have a special project. I sewed this quilt top for the Park View Quilters… …and finished the one I started and didn’t finish last month. Kate did some crocheting, and Margaret finished up her Buggy Barn Crazies quilt top. Leslie chose spring florals for her fabric choice. Patty brought her famous Chocolate lasagna. (I got the leftovers!) NextUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-74407094377282907602016-02-03T06:39:00.001-06:002016-02-03T17:57:55.080-06:00January Quilting~White Tonals~ClutterWell, here it is, almost time for February quilting, and I haven’t posted about our January quilting day. I was very lazy, I guess, and I never even took one photo. As always, it was a fun, delightful day, and I enjoyed visiting with all of my quilting girls. There are always stories to tell, and lots of laughter. I sewed a Parkview quilt top, and ALMOST got it put together, but not quite. I Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-55728633018857173422016-01-04T21:11:00.001-06:002016-01-28T02:49:34.473-06:00Hubby’s New JobIt’s been a few months of uncertainties, but Louie secured his new job home today, and tomorrow morning he starts working at J&S Auto Specialists as a mechanic, or whatever you call them these days. He will be working less than 5 minutes from home, and actually, not far from where I work. His hours are 40 hours (and not 50+ he had been working), banker’s hours, and he couldn’t be happier. He Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-23447872925350987532016-01-01T06:24:00.001-06:002016-01-03T02:08:00.117-06:00Happy New Year~Genie 354~SantaI guess we are going to start the New Year out by creating my post on Open Live Writer, which replaces Windows Live Writer. I found out yesterday when I tried to write my post that WLW would not work with Blogger anymore, so I was forced to use the writer in Blogger itself. I complained to WLW and got an email reply with the information I needed and a link to download OLW. So here goes! Last Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-36372522652455319822015-12-31T10:40:00.000-06:002015-12-31T11:12:17.101-06:00Quilting~Gifts~Potluck~Yellow
Our December Loose Tensions Quilt group met on
December 5th for our normal meet, but we also had a few celebrations to take
care of! We always have a potluck and gift exchange in December, but we also
celebrate Margaret’s birthday (which I was LAME in not photographing). I guess I
was too much into the excitement of gifts and seeing what everyone received!
I’ll share a couple Mrs. Bobbins Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-48843368516045754062015-12-04T07:45:00.001-06:002015-12-04T07:46:49.023-06:00Christmas Quilts for the Park View Lutheran QuiltersLouie and I have been busy lately! The last time I visited the quilting ladies at the Lutheran Church in Park View, I came home with six kits to sew at my leisure. I started working on them, and then Shirley, the leader told me that they had a request for 30 quilts for a nursing home for Christmas, so I kicked it in high gear and requested help from my own personal elf. He does a fabulous job at Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-87994181781136837092015-11-08T18:54:00.001-06:002015-11-08T19:00:54.189-06:00November Quilting~Parkview Quilts~TealYesterday was our November Loose Tensions time. I decided to sew a Parkview Quilt top for my day’s activity. It was easy, mindless sewing, and I could visit and listen to the chatter of the women while I worked and not miss out on anything. This was the first quilt top. I love it! It is so colorful. I do not design these quilts. When I get the kits, the pieces in each row are pinned together and Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-45075972985857333732015-11-01T10:13:00.000-06:002015-11-02T06:31:31.878-06:00Buggy Barn Crazies~ Finished!Saturday morning, I went downstairs to cut and iron the binding for my quilt that I finished on Friday evening. I wound my binding around my little wooden ribbon holder I bought at Goodwill, and set it to the right of my machine. I always have trouble figuring out what size seam allowance to use. I finally figured out that 1/2” would work for me. I cut my binding in 2 1/2” strips. Being who I Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-89887618758969965882015-10-31T08:11:00.001-05:002015-10-31T08:21:35.601-05:00Buggy Barn Crazies QuiltedI took myself downstairs last night about 7:00 and started looking for a backing from my stash of thrifted sheets, and once I found one, loaded it on the rollers. Next I cut my batting and attached the batting and quilt top to the backing fabric and was going to leave it until this morning to quilt, but once I secured all three layers by sewing the first row, I didn’t want to stop. Ever since I Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-18299981135000072762015-10-27T23:35:00.001-05:002015-10-28T05:53:40.699-05:00Three More ‘Crazies’ BlocksAfter I got all my blocks squared up, I decided to lay them all out and decide which direction I was going to go with my quilt. I didn’t want to cut any blocks into thirds and make a matching border. I decided to use all the blocks in the main body. If you look closely at the picture, four of the rows have 6 blocks across and the last three rows only have 5, which meant that I needed three more Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-31984970628491911742015-10-06T20:09:00.001-05:002015-10-06T20:17:47.900-05:00October Quilting~OrangeSaturday was quilting day and most of us were working on the Buggy Barn quilts we worked on last month. I finished embellishing my blocks last month with stitches, so all I had to do was square them up, which was what I finished in no time at all, but I was not prepared for any other quilting, so I was lazy and didn’t do anything after that. I need a huge floor space to lay out my quilt to decideUnknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-17924931472770114052015-09-20T08:24:00.001-05:002015-09-20T12:25:27.240-05:00September Quilting~Buggy Barn Crazies~Jewel TonesSeptember 19th brought our little quilting group back together after a 3 month break, and the project we worked on was a quilt called Crazies, by The Buggy Barn Company. When we started our little group in August of 2000, this is the first quilt we all made. It was fun! We decided to do it again. As I was setting up for quilting, I was trying to decide how much space we would need, so I brought Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-81269848375677878812015-09-11T07:00:00.000-05:002015-09-12T06:22:51.832-05:00The Happiest Day of My Life~ September 11, 1975Forty years ago today at approximately 3:30 pm, Louie and I said our ‘I do’ ‘s’ in the Galena, Illinois courthouse. We were accompanied by our friends Diane and Steve, who were also a couple. We were to be married by the Justice of the Peace, but he was not available. I panicked. Thank the Lord though, a Circuit Judge married us. I giggled from nerves all the way from the beginning to the ‘I now Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-167835545819347022015-08-23T12:14:00.001-05:002015-08-23T12:26:04.795-05:00Shaw-Walker Card Catalog File Cabinet~~Shipshewanna In August, Louie and I took a little two day trip to Shipshewanna, Indiana for a nice little getaway and to see a Gaither Vocal Band Concert in the event center. Now most people who go to Shipshewanna go the auctions and shop all the little shops in Shipshewanna. Nope. Not us. We looked for all the thrift shops and flea markets in the surrounding areas. I found this little gem in an indoor flea Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-19476533412986218392015-07-11T19:44:00.001-05:002015-08-01T09:01:54.664-05:00New Porch-UpdateJuly 30th…. We added rails! Surprise!!! No, I didn’t fall off the face of the earth. I just have been tired. I work, then come home at night and sit. I have been going through medication adjustments, and my ‘get up and go’ has gone AWOL. Hopefully that will all be fixed soon…..or maybe it’s just laziness. Who knows? I mostly have been posting on FB. It’s quick, and addictive. Anyway, we did an Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-13008533404889172322015-07-04T09:27:00.001-05:002015-07-04T09:27:47.999-05:00God Bless America!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1258128212942403591.post-25838297775884520872015-05-09T07:57:00.001-05:002015-05-09T08:47:36.932-05:00Mother’s DayMy ‘sissypoo’ Nancy Jo, who is 8 years younger than me, came up to see us last night. She has to work this weekend, and wanted to bring me a ‘Mother’s Day’ gift. No, I said she was my sister, but she says I am the best mother she has ever had, and although I keep arguing with her, I can’t change her mind. She always honors me on Mother’s day, but she outdid herself this year. There is also a bag Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1