Your Other Life...or...What's Your Line?

[Rita C.]

Very soon - I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves.

Is this an expression in the USA? I have never heard of it before. Can anyone explain it to me? And Keith, my mind is spinning with the possibilities of the kind of dancing you now only do at home. :lol:

It's been fascinating learning a little more about all of you. Thanks for sharing.

[Margo C.]

Rita, check out the poem "When I am an old woman" http://labyrinth_3.tripod.com/page59.html

Keith, is purple really your color?? :lol: :lol: Hugs....

[E.M. T.]

What fun this is ..to learn a little more about the "family" ! I'm just a country girl at heart...that said ...
after some college I became a Licensed Practical Nurse and worked in a variety of hospital dept.s ending as a "float"
filling in where needed. In 1977, divorced, I moved to a small rural 10-bed hospital and stayed 'till 1984 when I married
DH and he "retired" me to be a homemaker ! 17 yrs in hospital shift work was enough, but in 1986 we opened a fishing tackle
business which I operated. DH had the day job..he's a heavy equipment operator...worked for a logging
company until they closed and now maintains roads. He has "art-y" tendencies but that's another story. :lol: The
shop closed in 2000 and I really started to quilt and stash. I don't remember not sewing...did all the regular
things..4-H, Home Ec and the first quilt was a string-pieced-on-paper baby quilt in about 1973. There aren't
many things in the Arts/Crafts I haven't tried but I always come back to fiber. Oh, DH wants me to tell you that
when we had the shop I tied flies for my customers...self-taught. And out of necessity, taught myself to repair
and build fishing rods. I custom built to order and specialized in the fancy wrapping that few do these days.
That led to being selected as an Idaho Folk Artist and having my work exhibited and published. Tho' few in
number my rods sold far and wide and still catch lots of fish in style ! :lol: I don't do them now...I'd rather quilt !

[Hannelore N.]

Yeah, Keith, what dreadful deads did you do to get expelled?? Cut a piece out of the headmaster's coat because it was just the right colour for your latest quilt project? Use the head of the skeleton from the science classroom for bowling practice in the maths corridor? Secretly did some hand sewing behind the bike shed? Turned up in school in one of those t-shirts, sporting the words 'My Fat Quarters Rock' on the back? Pushed a piece of raw fish in the ventilation tube of the French classroom where it wasn't found for 6 weeks? Decided that 'Dungeons ans Dragons' was for wimps and started a secret 'Warhammer' club in school?........

[Lorraine R.]

OMG Lorchen you are to funny. All those reasons for expulsion sound like you have had experience with others that have been expelled, because I know it is not through personal experience. :mrgreen:

[Lorraine R.]

What a fabulous thread!! Margo, you are the best. I've spent my evening reading about your lives and it's better than my current novel!

I am a classic third culture kid; French-Canadian mother and Swedish father who met in Brazil where I was born and raised in an expat community speaking four languages! I attended a private British school until gr 8 (form 2) and then switched to an international American school also in Brazil. My university and graduate studies have been in Canada. Met DH my senior year undergraduate and went back to Brazil where I started teaching ESL. Moved back to Canada to get my B. Ed. and while DH was working on his M. Ec. Development returned to Brazil to teach at a private international American school in Brasilia (the capital). Finally married and made a definite move back to Canada in 1985. I have been teaching and quilting since I got my M.ed in Second Language Acquisition (1986). Before kids I also taught at the University of Ottawa and with our first daughter got posted to Washington DC. where I was able to take many workshops and courses from famous quilters (Jinny Beyer, Elli Sienkiewicz etc). We had our second daughter there and third back in Ottawa before moving to India and then South Africa as Canadian diplomats. We are now back and settled in rural Nova Scotia on an organic "hobby" farm. I teach core French and visual arts at a k-12 school 10 minutes down the road and have a 1000 square foot studio on the second floor of our modern barn. I belong to a small local quilt guild, enjoy gardening, and knitting and crochet. I may retire in a few years and the first thing I hope to be able to do is travel to quilt shows that take place during our school year including Paducah and Houston.

Cheers
Jeanine in minus 20 C NS (for those in the US that is somewhere way below 32F)

[Lorraine R.]

This has been fun - reading all about my TQS friends! My life has been rather dull, but I'm quite happy with that. I am a lowly optician. Stayed at home when my girls were young and now I'm just doing fill-in work. My other hobby is scrapbooking. And I enjoy reading fiction books - not the romance novel types though. I prefer a good mystery and an occasional historical romance. I am a born again Christian and have been blessed in this life, in spite of not becoming a "rocket scientist".. LOL But seriously, TQS has been one of the biggest blessings! I have so enjoyed having so many friends with whom I can share my love of quilting. I do sometimes think I am a "defective" quilter since I don't like cats and I don't garden. hehe

[karen f.]

Once upon a time there was a beeeauuuutiful princess. Oh. Wait. Different person. Here's my story. In high school I took all the usual college prep classes but deciding on one career to go on to school for was just SO overwhelming. The telephone company (Ohio Bell) sent people out to recruit at my school at the end of our senior year. A bunch of my friends were going so it seemed like the thing to do. After grueling testing and interviews, I was hired as an information operator. This was precisely at the time that they changed to being called directory assistance so I soon was caught answering my home phone with a pleasant "directory assistance" after saying it a million times a day. I worked that job several years and then moved up to service representative in the business office. The phone company would pay for college courses so I took some here and there but still didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was never too clear on careers but even as a young person KNEW I wanted to raise kids to be kind people.
Fortunately, my husband and I both agreed that when we had kids we wanted one of us to stay home with them. Happily it was me. When my youngest daughter was in high school I started working in receiving for JoAnns unloading truckloads of all my favorite stuff! I should have had the trucks just backup into my driveway at home for as much fabric as was coming home with me. I quit that a few years ago when I realized the reason for my trouble keeping up at work was due to Parkinsons disease. Those were just jobs anyway. For me, my real career is being a mom and I don't plan to retire any time soon.

[Keith D.]

Oh, Lorchen, you made me laugh so hard before going to bed. I'll explain tomorrow...
Or I'll explain partially now - the short story - if you ever got to see The Flintstones - an American animated TV series, Wilma and Betty used to communicate with Morse Code using their Venetian blinds - I was pretending to be Betty Rubble on movie day when I should have been simply shutting the blinds...
The longer story is a bit more complicated.

[Keith D.]

that is great thread, and very interesting

born and grow in Israel,
been there until 17 years old.
finished high school, (biology)

moved to NY to live with my sister, didnt work out.

moved to italy (Rome) lived there for a year, was nice and of course interesting.

back to Israel did the army (it is a must, due to a security/politic problems).

then moved to Italy again but this time to Milanto do industrial design in university,


back to Israel, continiued university in industrial design, interior design, jeweler design - all is to design and DO the design as well.

since i finished the army i needed to save the money to go to university so i worked in a computer programs company, they find me as a good worker, they asked me to come back to check the programs before launch to market, (that was my work during university),
then they asked me to be ....international sales person - i thought it will be for short while, it appears to be all my working carrier.

moved to another computer program company - become international sales director.
was great, but i missed all the time the creative side of me.

met my x boy friend he is dutch, i moved to the netherlands.
we separated since.

i still live in the netherlands.

since 2006 my life changed completely as most of you know - diagnosed with breast cancer
couldnt and cant work any more, but then i had so much free time that
i decided to quilt - first time in my life
self thought.
and since i pass my days with quilting - when i can and visiting TQS.

[Keith D.]

Wow, so many interesting stories to make the world go round. It's a great pleasure to read and reread about you all. I have been here in southwest Montana all my life and I LOVE IT. I am a fourth generation rancher. My great grand parents homesteaded here in the 1880's. They came from Switzerland. I attended beauty school, married my HS sweetheart, three kids arrived quickly, lucky to be a stay a home mom. I have worked as a beautician, in retail, cooked at a assisted living home also cooked for a hay crew of twenty five (just in the summer) for 10 years and currently the Co-Clerk at my church. We have two GD'S their mom is our DD. It's so fun being grandparents. Our DS works at John Deere and third DS is deceased in 1999. That's when I started quilting. It's such pieceful therapy. I am often outside helping do chores therefore my sewing time is limited but the lists are long and the stash - well it could always be bigger. It's so interesting so see how the world of Quilting changes and what is trending. Thanks to TQS and the Internet.
Mission: to go to Huston, meet up somewhere with all TQS members from this region. I love all animals except snakes and spiders and still ride a horse, trying to learn Yoga. We have not traveled much but maybe that will come in the next chapter. Sew may you all have successful sewing :!:

[Marianne G.]

How fun to learn a bit about how you have ended up on the TQS forum.
I was born in Denmark and worked on a farm all the way through secondary school and college because I wanted to become a vet but I didn't make the grade so worked full time on a farm milking 70 cows and looking after the calves for 9 months which I enjoyed very much until a fall from the hayloft down onto a concrete floor put a stop to my farming career. Became an accountant, got married and had a baby but had to go back to work when my husband died suddenly 4 months after the birth of our little girl. I re-married 4 years later and became a full-time mum, home maker and trailing spouse travelling around Europe where my husband got sent for work. During one stay in UK I started a City and Guild course in embroidery but never finished before we moved on and because I had started loosing interest in embroidery because it became a bit too outlandish for my taste; I LOVE fabric and threads not old teabags and tomato purée tubes (yes I have stitched through those during the C&G course :roll: ) so I started playing on my own about 15 years ago with a combination of embroidery, hand and digitised, and patchwork as well as getting back into dressmaking which I left behind when my girls wanted wear jeans and t-shirts instead of dresses. Laura Nownes class came at a point when we had just moved again but for the last time (I hope) because DH retired so I felt I would try to get my lacking ability in matching points sorted out. So that's how I have ended up here in the forum. Nothing exciting in my past but I'm very blessed with 2 lovely grown up girls long since flown the nest and a diamond of DH to share my life with

[Marianne G.]

Marianne I know exactly wht you mean about the C&G 'embroidery' courses, I couldn't stand them either! I am much more of a purist with my embroidery too. Never did like doing collages as a child, and don't even want to consider messing about with 'mixed media' now.

[Marianne G.]

Marianne I know exactly wht you mean about the C&G 'embroidery' courses, I couldn't stand them either! I am much more of a purist with my embroidery too. Never did like doing collages as a child, and don't even want to consider messing about with 'mixed media' now.

Mixed media is great for some but NOT for me - I can't help laughing a bit that I went from embroidery into patchwork/quilting because at the time it was much more purist and look at it now :P paint, found objects, metal and paper. So far though I haven't seen neither egg shells nor car spray paint on any quilts
Happily it looks like quilters are more relax about it and there's a space for all of us; even the purists.
Marianne

[Sherry B.]

So enjoying this thread. Keith, hope you have time to tell us the long version (always love Lorchen's sense of humor) :-) Marianne, loved reading that you are Danish (I am half Danish - my grandparents emigrated to the U.S. from there). Terry, I had to look and see where you live in MT - Dillon is a beautiful area - but a little too far for me to say let's meet for lunch :-) Everyone has lead such a different life, yet isn't great how much we have in common because of our passion for quilting :-)