Ripped from the news ...

Fiction IS NOT stranger than truth. See my blog post “Financial Crisis Solution” from September 27, 2008.
Main Street America angry over credit crisis
Tue Sep 30, 2008 3:20pm EDT
By Andrea Hopkins
CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Auto salesman Ryan Thomas is watching the credit crisis hit Main Street America. On Monday, as Congress rejected a bailout plan and stock markets plummeted, Thomas had to turn away a customer with $3,000 in his hand who wanted to buy a new vehicle.
"He wanted to get into a bigger truck for his job, he was a union worker," Thomas said. But the man still owed money on the vehicle he was trading in, so his loan request was denied.
"He didn't have enough money down. He would have needed about $5,500 down and he had $3,000. A year ago that was a piece of cake," Thomas said.
The customer left without his American-made vehicle, Thomas lost another sale -- and somewhere an autoworker made one less truck, a tiny ripple in the growing U.S. financial crisis.

White House improvement report

Here at the newly painted white house we have good economic news to report.

Our September quilt pattern sales went way up.
We rolled out the red carpet yesterday.
Our Roger Oats stair runner finally arrived from England (via Canada) and the installer was here yesterday.

Dave put the final paint touches on the house yesterday and we have a fresh face. Remember Dave from the merry sunshine room (office)?
Perhaps quilters are stocking up on patterns for a long winter ahead. The white house improvements don’t show on the outside. The house looks just the same today as it did before the new roof, the new siding, and the new paint job. But at least we are holding our own.

Here is a photo of the south side with the paint scraped off in preparation for painting. It really looked terrible for a day.

Financial Crisis Solution*

Once upon a time the United States was faced with a huge financial crisis and was on the brink of disaster. The crisis was beginning to affect the whole world.

The government called together all the top economists and financial wizards along with computer experts and statisticians. The group began tracing the roots of the financial meltdown. They plugged in every accounting record they could find. After several weeks of work they narrowed down the beginning of the problem to a small town in Ohio.

They probed even further and zeroed in on Circleville. They found that the Circleville Ford Dealership was just about to close its doors due to low sales. The owner of the dealership told the federal investigators that he had been doing okay until 2006. He said, “Sales were slow, but in September we missed the minimum quota. We were only one sale away from our goal. Joe Smith came in to look at a car and we were doing up the paperwork. Joe planned to come back the next day and pick up the car. He never showed up. It’s been downhill ever since.”

The Ford dealer told the federal team that because Joe didn’t buy a car his salesman missed out on a boat he was planning on buying. Finally, the salesman was laid off because he lost his usual pep and enthusiasm.

The fed team went to Joe’s house to interview him. He told the team that he had been going to buy a Ford, but when he got home that day he found a layoff notice from his work. “I just couldn’t buy a car in those circumstances,” he said. Joe did find a new, lower paying job but he had to cut back on all his expenses.

The wizard team followed the depressing trail further. The car salesman and his wife lost their house to foreclosure when they couldn’t make the payments on their mortgage. The bank with the mortgage couldn’t sell the house. It had to stop making loans to other customers for home improvements and cars. This caused a ripple effect in Circleville which spread to other nearby towns and finally to Cleveland. Then, from Cleveland all across the United States.

“Ah ha,” said the experts, “the financial crisis can be solved quickly.” The U.S. Treasury issued a check for $35,000 to Joe Smith. Joe was told he had to buy a new car. Joe did. The dealership was saved in the nick of time. They hired back their salesman. He regained his pep and sold quite a few cars that week. He bought his new boat and bought back his house from the bank. The positive ripple effect spread across the nation and the world went back to normal.

* I read a story with this same plot a long time ago. I have not been able to find the story or the author. If you remember the story let me know.

Flashback Friday -- Depression fashion

Am I going to have to make a wash dress like this from my quilting fabric stash?
Women photographed during the Great Depression were usually wearing faded cotton dresses. I’m okay; I have plenty of cotton fabric.

Update -- good news

The test went well. Robert will probably come home tomorrow. He is cheerful.

I had not realized how spoiled I was. I had to go shopping today – grocery and office shopping. What a lot of work! I have not been shopping in a long time. I usually tell Robert, “We are out of something (whatever)” and later it magically appears in the house.

I am going to be a lot nicer to him. We will be on a high fiber diet.

A nice place to visit ...

…but you really don’t want to stay there.


The rooms are pleasant. They are all private and have a nice couch that makes into a bed for overnight visitors.
Robert checked into the hospital yesterday, but he doesn’t want to stay any longer than absolutely necessary.

Happy Constitution Day

Read more about the Constitution here.

Stripping

Troy Wise is here taking off our siding. The old redwood bevel lap siding cracked and warped over the years. By the end of the week we should have new siding on the top part of the house. It will need to be painted.

Flashback Friday -- 2nd grade

I'm going to see many of these kids at our reunion next month. (I'm in the top row with the tall boys.)

I cannot resist

I think he looks better without lipstick, but a moose is a moose. Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose party platform - "New Nationalism" - included direct election of U.S. Senators, the creation of an initiative, referendum, and recall process, woman suffrage, a national tariff reduction, child labor laws, old-age pensions, and other social reforms in 1912

You only get one chance to make a LAST impression

Isn’t this a gorgeous piece of fabric? It’s called “Imperial Garden” by Michael Miller. I have three yards.
I bought it because it was so similar to the small print I used for Kate in my Kate & Friends pattern. It is a much larger print -- full-size for a real human being.
I don’t know why I bought it. Perhaps a dress, but we never go anywhere special.

Now, my 50th high school reunion is coming up. I want to make a good impression. I’d love to wear a dress like Kate’s, but strapless dresses are not for me at this time in my life. I am still slim enough to wear a long sheath, but I can’t decide on the bodice design. I’ll have to go out looking for patterns right away. I hope my friend Yvonne (a seamstress) has some open time between now and October 10.

Any suggestions will be welcome.

The last time I saw my classmates I looked like this:

It is hot today

Here is a typical hot day photo. The temperature here is 104 degrees. We keep this old thermometer inside, but I took her outside for the photo today.
They used to give these away as advertisements in the 1940s. This one came from Landucci Bros., groceries, fruits, liquors, delicacies; 3639 Hopkins St., Oakland, Calif.

She is certainly dressed appropriately for the weather.

Flashback Friday -- Harry S Truman

Sarah Palin spoke of Harry Truman, Roosevelt’s vice president, in her speech at the Republican convention Wednesday night. She said, "Long ago, a young farmer and haberdasher from Missouri followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency. A writer observed: 'We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity.' I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman."

I found it very odd that Palin used Harry Truman as her v.p. example. Truman was vice president for less than three months. He became president when Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945.

I have a minor connection with this bit of history. My father, Davis Romine, was the Director of New York State’s Department of Commerce in 1944. He was involved in (lent to) the Thomas E. Dewey presidential campaign. Dewey was governor of New York.
Dewey was a “liberal” Republican candidate running against Roosevelt and Truman. I’ve been told (but I don’t have the photo to prove it) that I sat on Dewey’s lap for a publicity photo. I was a cute little toddler at the time.