Category Archives: Things on my mind

Juggling

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Right now I feel like a juggler, juggling several different things at once.  And it’s all my fault.  No one makes me do these things.

I am a creative person loving to sew, quilt, knit, embroider and do just about any handwork.  My problem is I love to start something, but I don’t always get it done.  Right now I can say  I have at least ten quilts that need to be completed.  Probably more.  One I just have a very little bit of quilting to do and it just sits there waiting on me.  Making me feel guilty.

Then there is the knitting.  I just started knitting after years of not knitting a thing.  Suddenly I am in love with yarn and the working with the two needles row upon row as a hat or a scarf takes shape.  This week I have made three children’s hats and a scarf.   I want to start another hat.  I’m thinking these hats would be nice to put in Christmas boxes for Samaritan’s Purse. I only knit at night right before I go to bed, but the problem is I don’t want to go to bed until I get a hat done.  I can knit one in an evening.  They’re small.

Then I decided I needed to make a couple of new ironing board covers.  That entails making almost a twin size quilt and cutting it down to size to fit the ironing board.  I almost have one done.  I don’t waste any time when I get an idea in my head.

Then I went to a fabric store last week with some friends and got an armload of felts and decided I needed to make needle holders right away.  Today I cut out two, plus a scissor holder.  They will be so cute, I think, if I get them done. Lots of handwork on these.  I will show them to you when I get them finished.  They are not the hand needle holders I made last week and showed you.    I bet you are wondering what I am going to do with all these needle holders.  I have a plan.

Now I am on a roll and want to get a Christmas quilt completed before gardening time gets here.  I almost have the quilt top finished.

Today it suddenly hit me I have way too many things going at once and need to finish a few and tidy things up a bit before Spring.  Plus I have been neglecting the pups and the chicks.  They demand my attention and I have given them very little in the past couple of weeks.  And I need to get to the beauty shop and get my hair cut or it is going to be to my waist before I know it.  Plus my “true” color is showing and I can’t have that.  But every time I think I will make an appointment,  we get another big snow and I don’t want to get out in it.

I need to plant tomatoes now.  Before we know it, we will be in garden planting season and last year my tomatoes were late getting out.  I had cherry tomatoes clear up to frost last year, but so many of them were wasted that way so this year I hope to get them out earlier.  The chooks really cleaned out the old garden and even flattened the compost pile so I won’t have much cleaning up of the garden before we till it.  I am amazed what good little dirt turners they are.  They have scratched up every inch of the garden area.  That is why you don’t let chickens into your garden when something is growing there.

I am sounding rather hyper here, aren’t I?  I said a while ago I have never been bored.  Now I see why.  I am where I think a boring day might be nice.  A long day of nothing. Maybe just me, a hot bath and a good book.  Sounds pretty wonderful.    But that isn’t going to happen for a while. Next week I start a new Bible study for six weeks.  Since it is going to be at my house this time I am going to have to do some cleaning.  And some baking.

Our Sunday school class is going to a dinner theater and I am so excited about that.  I love plays and musicals and things like that.  This is a special one for Valentine’s Day.

My chooks are doing well in this bitter, cold weather.  It doesn’t seem to affect them much.  We do have a heat lamp on in the sub zero temps.  They are still  laying from three to five eggs a day. I still have to give eggs away because we cannot eat them fast enough.   I notice someone is molting because I see a lot of loose feathers when I clean their coop. And it sure isn’t me!

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Finished my granddaughter’s book.  I find myself excited about reading the next one to see what is going to happen next to her main characters.  She is a really good writer.  As she matures I see her writing more and more and getting the public’s attention.  Her book is geared toward middle school aged children, but she used some big words I had to look up.

Another snow is expected this weekend.  Feed the birds.  They can’t find food under the snow.  I have the fattest birds and squirrels around because they are always feasting.  The squirrels just look at me when I go out to fill the feeder and just keep on munching.  I guess by now they know I don’t eat squirrel.

Here’s to sewing, quilting, knitting, reading and never being bored.  Bye.

Am I Obsessive?

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Obsess: to dominate or excessively preoccupy the thoughts, feelings or desires.

I believe I am rather obsessive.  I obsess about my grandchildren.  I obsess about my children.  I obsess about quilting.  I obsess about my chickens. I obsess about my two dogs.  I get on something and gnaw it like a bone.

Right now I am obsessed with knitting. Years ago and I do mean years, I knit a lot. I knit a little sailor suit for my oldest son and even changed colors and everything.  I knit a sweater with cables.  I knit baby caps and booties. I knit sweaters.  This was when I had three children and not nearly as much time as I do now. You see, I was obsessed with it and nothing could stop me.  But now, I am taking up knitting again and have found I have forgotten most of what I knew.  I have been watching internet knitting lessons.  Today I actually watched a woman knit a scarf on her arms.  Her arms!  She used really bulky yarn and the loops in the scarf were large and loose, but it was rather pretty.  Then I thought about trying it and wondered what would happen if right in the middle of the project I would get tired of it.  How would I save my work.  It’s on my arms!  What do I do with my arms.  Do I just keep the yarn on them as I go about my daily chores.  Yarn hanging down off my arms as I clean the chicken house or take a walk. Yarn dangling in the dish water as I do dishes.  If I do decide to try this one day, I will be sure I have plenty of time to finish it.  The video says it is a thirty minute scarf.  Okay.  Right.  It took the woman about ten minutes to show how to cast on the yarn onto her arm.

Anyway, today I went to Hobby Lobby.  I always ask myself every time I go there why I don’t go there more often and why I keep trying to find craft items at Wal-mart when just down the street is a store that has everything for crafts.  Why, why,why?  I don’t know.  I just know that every time I go into Hobby Lobby I get this whole crafty feeling and I think I could make anything.  Today I was in the yarn aisle. Omigosh, the beauty.  I started to grab skeins of yarn.  I had told David we didn’t need a cart and he went off to look at other things and there I was with an armload of yarn and knitting needles and I had to go to the bathroom!   So I began to  race down the aisles to find David to hold my yarn, but I couldn’t find him so I finally had to just lay it all down on a shelf and hope it would still be there when I got back.  It was and as soon as I came out the restroom, David was standing right there.  And he wanted to show me all the wonderful things he had found.

He had been looking at the stained glass making aisle.  There were all colors of glass and all the tools needed to make a stained glass project.  I said, “you need a hobby,” and he said it was too expensive and I said, “how much do you think we spend on my hobbies?”  Whoops, shouldn’t have reminded him.  I think making stained glass would be a great hobby for him.  We bought a stained glass picture of birds to put in our new window that is going to be put in this Spring and it was not cheap. I told David about all the money he would have saved if he could have made it.

Then he showed me the aisle where they sold all kinds of door knobs and handles.  We have looked and looked at Lowes for a certain handle we wanted for our kitchen window and could never find one.  We believe we have found one at Hobby Lobby, but we will have to do some measuring.

When we got home I could not wait to try knitting one particular yarn I got and I love how it is turning out.  It’s got a wonderful texture and is knitting up nicely into a scarf which will be a gift one day.  I will have to show you the yarn I got on my next post.

Here in our neck of the woods it is cold.  A real frigid weather system is locked on us right now.  The chickens have heat in their house and the dogs sleep in my heated shop at night.  They are beginning to feel spoiled as this is the first winter they have had the luxury of sleeping inside.  Now they feel entitled and look at me funny when I don’t let them in.  I am not use to dog hair in my shop and as soon as it warms up, out they go.  And don’t feel sorry for them.  They have a nice, warm doghouse and have a double layer of fur, so unless it is really cold like it is now, they are perfectly comfortable.

I have about five or six projects now that I am juggling.  In a couple of weeks I am starting a Bible study in my home so I will have to do some extra cleaning which is probably a good thing because when I am working on projects I have a one track mind. Obsessive, don’t you know.

Obsessive. Don’t act as if it’s a bad thing.  Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday

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I met my husband when I was sixteen years old.   We have been together ever since. Actually, I met him when I was twelve years old, but that’s another story.  We both knew we would get married one day, but it was three years later until we could wed.  My mother wanted me to go to college at least for a year before I got married, so I did that for her and it was a nice experience, but what I really wanted to be was married and to raise a family.  I know in this day of women in the work place and families seeming to take a back seat to  many,  I still believe I did the right thing.

David and I got married right in the middle of the women’s liberation movement when the ERA was being pushed and some  believing that women should serve beside men in the military.  That is actually one thing I wish I had done when I was younger.  Join the military when David did so that we could have shared the experience together.  He keeps telling me I would have hated it, but I am not so sure.   He served for thirty-six years and was away from home at least two weeks out of every one of those years, plus we could never plan anything on weekends until we knew when he would be having drill.  It was just a part of life.   Our daughter even had to change the date she wanted for her marriage because her father had drill that weekend.

Speaking of the ERA, it was a time when everywhere a woman went she was asked, “what do you do?”  As if being a homemaker and raising your own children wasn’t enough.  I was often made to feel inferior because I did not work outside the home.  Of course, later when my children were almost grown, I did work in our store, I cleaned our church and even worked in a pizza shop for a short time, but my main interest was my home.  It still is.  To make a comfortable, welcoming home has always been important for me.

But this isn’t about me today.  It is David’s birthday.  Yesterday we ate out with our daughter’s family and had cake and ice cream.  Today David is doing just what he wants.  And what is he doing?  Cleaning his office and doing taxes.  What???  Not my idea of fun, but, oh, well.

I cannot believe the time has gone so quickly.  We have shared many birthdays together since that first year of dating.  David gave me a surprise birthday party at his grandparents’ house for my seventeenth birthday.  How nice was that?

I can never surprise David, it seems, but I will one day and when I do, it will be a doozy.

Happy Birthday to my sweet, darling, wonderful husband.  May you have many more.  Love you to pieces.

Tonight the temperature is suppose to drop again.  Frigid, arctic air is heading our way.

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The snow people have set up camp complete with a roaring fire in my girly room.  Yes, they still have their Christmas tree up.  It does brighten up the dark and cold winter nights for them.

Here’s to happy birthdays and snow people who want to keep warm. Bye.

 

An Author in the Family

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I am so proud today I am about to bust.  My fourteen year old granddaughter just got her first book published and it is on Amazon for sale now.  It is called “Beyond the Open Door,” by Abigail Grace.   I just ordered a copy and cannot wait to read it.  I didn’t even know she was writing it until she was trying to get it published.  It’s one of a trilogy.  A trilogy!  How many fourteen year olds write one book, let alone three.  And they aren’t short books either.

Abby has always been a reader.  She is always saying she is a nerd, but she is far from it.  She makes excellent grades in school, has performed on stage, been on mission trips and is just an all around great kid.

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That’s her with her brothers and cousins.  The only girl.  We gave her a ukelele for Christmas and probably is playing it better than I play mine now.

Abby is our first grandchild.  When she was born, I had to wait two whole weeks before I could see her because her parents lived in Chicago and we could not get up there right away.  I could hardly stand it to wait that long to see her and when I first set eyes on her face, I knew I would love her forever.  I have always told her I loved her before she was born and I did.  I have been blessed to watch her grow into the beautiful young lady she is today and I look forward to seeing what she will do in the future.  I know she will write for sure, but there is so much more waiting for that girl.

Anyway, check out her book on Amazon.  I just ordered it and am looking forward to reading it just to see where her imagination has taken her.

Here’s to new authors, especially when one of them is your granddaughter. Bye.

 

Brrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!

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Here in the midwest and in other parts of our country, we are suffering sub zero temperatures right now.  Well, I won’t say suffering exactly if you have a nice warm home and food to eat.  But, anyway, it’s darn cold.  I mean go outside for one minute to run back to check on eggs at the coop without a coat on and coming back almost frostbitten cold.  Why did I do that?

I worry about our eggs freezing.  We have had a few freeze before we could get out to gather them.  Those we feed to the dogs.  Sometimes one hen will sit out there for an hour or two on three eggs and I will have to reach under her to get the eggs and she says a few bad clucks to me, but I am not leaving those eggs out there in this freezing weather.

Our outside dogs are staying in my shop during this weather.  Normally, I don’t worry about them getting too cold because they have an insulated doghouse with several inches of cedar on the floor.  One winter when it got really cold I was worried that they were not warm enough in their doghouse so I crawled inside and they came in too and believe me, it got hot in there.  But with these temperatures and the wind that is blowing I just feel so much more comfortable knowing they are in my warm shop.  I don’t think Bonnie has left the recliner I have out there once except when we take her outside to go.  She’s getting old and her old bones are enjoying the comfort and warmth.

We took the Christmas tree down today.  I decided to leave our decorations up for the twelve days of Christmas.  Did you know there were twelve days of Christmas?  You probably know the song and it has a Christian meaning.  My girly room looks kind of empty now without the tree, but I have a wonderful view outside and can see the birds eating at the bird feeder. Oh, be sure to put out some food for the birds right now as the snow has covered much of their natural food.  There were about thirty out there at once eating.  Several cardinals which brighten up the landscape.  I am so glad we have cardinals in the winter because everything else is grey and brown and white.

As I told you my last blog I am working on Christmas gifts for 2014 already.  I have so many ideas in my head and cannot wait to try them all.  I have butterflies flittering around in my girly room right now and that is all I am going to say about that.

David was coming home from work last week and the brakes went out on his truck.  Thankfully, he made it home okay.  He called AAA and a tow truck driver came out.  Our plan only paid to tow the truck for three miles and it was one-tenth of a mile over the limit to the repair shop.  But the truck driver was nice and said he would just put down three miles and didn’t charge us the extra.  There are good people in this world despite the fact the news tells us differently.

David is lost without his truck and feels it is beneath him to drive the Pt Cruiser to work.  I don’t know why.  He drives it every place else.  Funny guy, my husband.  But he is my hero.  I opened the door to the basement this morning to go downstairs to get some canned goods and a freezing wind came up the stairs.  David went down and saw a window had blown open and broke the glass when the window struck the wall.  So he got some cardboard and taped it and sealed it so the wind couldn’t get in.  It will have to stay that way until Spring because we are not having a window out to repair during the winter.  I wonder sometimes what I would do without him.  A somber thought.  I guess I could have repaired the window myself, but it is nice to have a man around to do those kind of things.

How is your new year coming?  I have friends who have already lost loved ones so it isn’t so nice for them right now.  Hope it will get better for them as the year progresses.  We never know what each year will bring.  Joy, sorrow. new jobs, travel, getting new family members, losing others.  It’s all part of life.  Have to take the good with the bad which is why when things are good we should rejoice in that and savor every minute.  May you all be blessed this year.   Keep warm.  Bye.

Finishing My Last Blog

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My computer went all whacko on me last night and refused to let me post anymore pictures.  I think it was tired. So I will try to finish what I began yesterday.  What was I talking about??? Oh, yes, traditions.

One of my favorite traditions on New Year’s Day is to put up new calendars.  I didn’t get it done yesterday, but they are all up today.

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I didn’t even know there was a Susan Branch until a year or two ago.  She is an author who hand writes all her books and water colors each page.  They are beautiful.  She includes quotes and recipes and stories about her growing up which is very like how I grew up.  Since we both grew up in about the same era, that is natural.  She also produces a calendar each year and last year was the first year I bought one.

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How can you not like a calendar which has on one of the dates in January to visit your local fabric store today?  I visited one a little early already, but this made me smile.

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Each calendar page is a work of art and very interesting to read.  There are probably a few left out there, so run to your local calendar store and get this calendar.

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I have to have a labrador retriever calendar which I put in my downstairs bathroom.  This one has all puppies which really makes me want to get that lab pup this year.

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I have been buying Lang calendars for years.  This one was a gift and will hang in my dining room.  This is the one on which I write all the birthdays and anniversaries in our family.

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This Lang calendar will hang in my shop.  I love all the old timey pictures in it.  Makes me wish I had lived in those simpler times.  Especially on a farm.  With a horse.

Did you make any new year’s resolutions this year?  I quit doing that long ago. Too much pressure.  I have a lot of plans and things I would like to do this year.

I want to spend as much time as possible with my children and grandchildren.

I want to learn to play my ukelele and not be afraid to play it in front of people.

I want to make as many quilts as I can, especially the ones that will be gifts.

I want to learn how to water color like Susan Branch.  She started water colors later in her life.  She didn’t even know she had that talent until she just started one day.  Isn’t that like a lot of us?  We are afraid to start something new because we are afraid we won’t be any good at it.  So what.  At least you tried.  There are so many things we can learn if we just set our minds to it.

I want to be a good witness for Jesus Christ.  I have given this year and my family to Him and pray He will do His will in them.

I want to stay connected to old friends and family members I don’t see very often.

I want to keep raising chickens and maybe adding a few more to my little flock.

I want that lab puppy.

I want to see my grandson play his lacrosse game in Traverse City, Michigan where David and I honeymooned many years ago.  There is a road in Traverse City named after my husband’s family because only his family lived on it at one time.  I don’t know if any of his family is still living on it, but we will probably check if we get up there.

I want to see my granddaughter play her ukelele we gave her on her praise team at her school.

I want to get to Cincinnati and Chicago for personal reasons.  I want David’s brother and sister-in-law to bring their grandchildren to visit us and meet our grandchildren.

I want our new porch to be built this year as the old one is pulling away from the house and playing havoc with the walls in our living room.

I want to write more blogs to include stories about my growing up on an Indiana farm in the fifies.

I want to have Bible studies in my home and have fellowship with other Christian women.

I want to walk more, eat less, lift weights more and just take better care of my body.  Notice this is the last thing I put on my list.  Hmmmmm.

Oh, I could add a few hundred more things I would like to do this year, but I think these will keep me busy for a while.  Hope your new year is productive and creative.  Bye.

 

 

I Can’t Believe, But I Do

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I can’t believe it’s less than a week until Christmas.  I have lived through many Christmases and each one has been different, but still the spirit of Christmas lives on.

I believe we celebrate Jesus Christ’s birthday at Christmas time.  Jesus was very probably born in warmer weather since the shepherds were watching their sheep out in the hills around Bethlehem when He was born.  December 25th was picked long ago as the date Christians would celebrate his birth.  Christ Mass is how the word originated.

Anyway, I believe Christmas is special because there is a spirit that surrounds the whole holiday.  The spirit of love, joy, peace and giving of gifts like the magi gave gifts to the Christ child.  I love the gift giving part.  As I grow older, getting gifts just doesn’t seem as important to me as giving them.  I wish I could give more.

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David and I have put on our Santa hats and gotten to work building, painting and sewing Christmas gifts.  This weekend I will be baking and making candy.  Some of the grandkids will be here so they can help me.

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Years ago when David and I had a quilt shop we sold this quilting book.  It has so many wonderful projects in it and I have made a few.

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I made this quilt and gave it to someone who is a teacher.  I would like to make another because I really love it.

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I made this quilt and it is put out every Christmas.  There are a few more projects in the book I plan to make for next Christmas.  Wish I had more time to get them done this year, but time is running out.

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These are some of the things I am working on or will be working on this week.  I forgot I had the Betty Crocker Christmas cookbook and am finding several recipes in it I want to try.  I also am going to make gingerbread cookies.  Something I haven’t done in years, but it just sounded like fun this year. I would like to make peanut brittle.  I love peanut brittle.  One time I was riding my exercise bicycle while eating peanut brittle at the same time.  David came into the room and laughed and said “You’re defeating the purpose of riding the bike, aren’t you?”  I just laughed and ate another piece of peanut brittle.

I told you I would show you my Jim Shore nativity set so here it is.

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I found this in a Hallmark store one year and fell in love with it.  Each figure has a quilt pattern on it.

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Look at the beautiful quilt covering Jesus.  He didn’t have something so lovely covering Him there in the stable with all the animals.  All Mary had were a few rags with which to wrap Him.  The Savior of the world wrapped in rags lying in an animal’s feeding trough.  How lowly was the birth of the King of the universe.  God’s son come to earth to save us all.  The best Christmas gift anyone could receive.

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This little lamb is so sweet.  Another quilted covering.  Jim Shore knew this added touch would make his figurines special.

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The Wise men.  Where did they come from?  So far away, Jesus was about two years old when they finally found him. They brought gifts of gold, frankincense and Myrrh which is why people always think there were just three. It doesn’t say three wise men in the Bible.  There could have been more or maybe only two with several gifts.  Still, they knew this was an important enough birth to make the long journey to see the Christ child and bring him expensive gifts.  Mary and Joseph probably used these gifts to help support their little family when they had to flee to Egypt because the evil King Herod was looking for this special baby who would be king.

To think, God’s son was threatened to be killed before He would have ever had a chance to die for us all on the cross.  But God had a plan for His son and for all of us.

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Mary probably rode a donkey on her and Joseph’s trip to Bethlehem to pay taxes,  Yes, taxes have been around ever since there has been governments. How would you like to have to travel eighty miles sitting on a donkey when you were nine months pregnant?   But Mary did it.  It was foretold thousands of years before that a virgin would give birth in the town of Bethlehem so she was destined to go there by whatever mode of travel.

I love this little donkey.  One year little hands dropped this donkey and then hid him under our couch where I found him with an ear off.  David glued it back on and you can barely tell it was ever broken.  Now I put this nativity up high where little hands cannot touch.

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These cats did not come with the nativity, but I know from experience there are always cats in a barn where there are cows.  My daddy use to spray milk right into our barn cats’ mouths straight from the cows’ udders.  I always thought that was so funny.

I hope you are looking forward to Christmas as much as I am.  Christmas will come whether there is a tree or gifts under the tree or a big dinner.  It’s all about the spirit.  I plan to spend a little time with Jesus this season enjoying His goodness and light and I hope you know Him and if you don’t, I hope you meet Him one day.  He loves you and cared enough for you to die for you.

Peace, joy, and love to you all.  Bye.

Where Am I?

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  What has happened to the time?  Where am I?  Is it Summer still or is it Autumn?  I don’t know.  I just wrote about Spring and planting the garden and enjoying the warm weather and now I am so looking forward to cooler temperatures, falling leaves and wearing sweaters, sitting by campfires and drinking hot chocolate. 

  The chicks were tiny little balls of fluff only yesterday and now they are laying an egg every day.  A dozen every two days.   One hundred and eighty eggs a month.   I can’t use them fast enough.  The dogs get one in their dog food every other day.  I boil them, fry them, scramble them, make egg salad, bake cakes and cookies and still they keep coming.  The hens are like little laying machines now and the eggs are getting bigger.  The thrill is still there, though, every time I go out to the coop and find the pretty brown eggs, some still warm from the hens’ bodies. 

  We got an automatic chicken coop door opener today.  We are hoping we can go away once in a while and not have to worry whether the chooks are able to get out during the day and are safely shut in at night.  The company that we ordered from included a free gospel of John in the box.  Was a very nice thing to find.   The company is called Fleming Outdoor if you are interested.

  I am still getting tomatoes.  The cucumbers finally stopped producing, thank goodness.  We got hundred of cucumbers this year.  I have Roma tomatoes just coming on and one cherry tomato plant that is starting to produce.  I love this time of year.  We can eat from the garden and the chooks.  We haven’t gone to the grocery as much lately for some reason.  David said the other day we hadn’t made a big grocery store run for some time.  Don’t know why.  We seem to be eating pretty well.  

  I am sewing on Tuesdays with a friend.  I need to get into another Bible study soon, but I just haven’t felt like studying for a while.  I have taken Bible studies for years and needed to take a break, but I have one in mind I am planning to do.  The new Beth Moore.

  I also need to get into my walking again.  I kind of slowed down when it got so hot and have had a hard time getting myself motivated to get back to my five miles a day.  I’m hoping with the cooler weather coming, I will start again.  I really love walking, but find the first mile is the hardest.  After I can get past that one, I feel like I could walk for hours.  I also need to find a new walking place as where I walk there are so many trucks, trains and automobiles.  Sounds like the name of a movie.  I read blogs where they have beautiful hills and valleys and fields and quiet roads on which to walk and wish I lived in such an area.  I guess I could drive somewhere to walk, but somehow for me that defeats the whole purpose of walking.  When we go on vacation to North Carolina, I am hoping we find a lot of nice walking areas like we did when we went to Alaska.  I walked to Alaska I always say, because every day we found a park or safe area for me to walk and I would walk my five miles.  I even walked five miles a day on the boat going to Alaska.

   I need to get new glasses, but am too lazy to go to the eye doctor.  I hate going to any doctor. Both my dentist and my family doctor are wonderful, don’t get me wrong.  I have a doctor’s appointment this week for a check-up and a dentist appointment the week after.  I don’t know why it spoils my whole day when I have to go have anything done with or for my body to include the hair dresser.  I am sort of afraid what my beautician is going to say to me when she sees my red hair.  I refreshed the color yesterday and still love it.    Anyway,  I feel so out of control in a doctor’s office because I am afraid he will find something wrong which would mean tests and more time spent in medical offices.  I think my fear comes from when I was a little girl and my older sister would tease me about the big, long needles the doctor was going to use on me.  She use to scare me to death.  I grew up in the time when you had to get multiple polio shots and it seemed to me that we were always going to Dr. Barton’s office to get yet another polio shot.  Then I developed a very stiff neck and my parents were afraid I had gotten polio.  Thankfully, it wasn’t, but polio was scary back then.

  I feel like I am in a kind of limbo right now between seasons and what I want to do.  I need a goal so I am going to think of one and put it up on this blog so that I will have to meet the goal.  It will probably be about walking distances or something like that.  Or maybe I will try to finish a quilt a week.  I have so many quilt tops that need to be quilted and bound.  Or maybe I could pick an author and try to read all his or her books.  Right now I am reading a really good Jodi Piccoult book.  I have read some others of hers and liked them.  I would like to find a book with about a thousand pages. The book I read about Deitrich Bonhoeffer had over a thousand pages and I loved every one of them.  It was such an inspiring book, but sad also. 

  I am finished with American television for the most part.  There are very few shows I like and the reality shows just turn me off.  We have Netflix and have been watching British dramas and comedies and those people know how to write a good story.  We are watching “Doc Martin” right now about a surgeon who becomes sick at the sight of blood and goes to a small British town as a GP.  He is rather gruff and abrupt with his patients, but they don’t seem to mind.  I laugh out loud at some of the things that happen to him.  The townspeople are rather quirky and I like quirky people. 

  Have I rambled on long enough?  I felt like I should come here before people decided I had given up blogging.  I haven’t.  I have so many things I want to blog about, but it takes time to upload the pictures and then write the blog and I have been kind of busy.   I have children’s stories I have written I went to put on here.  Oh, no, I am not finished blogging.  I have this need to write whether anyone reads it or not.  I am hoping I am making a kind of diary for my children so they will know their mother a little better. 

  Here’s to rambling on and on and people kind enough to read it.  Bye.

 

Pretty in Pink, a New Door, etc.,etc.,etc.

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Remember that movie, “Pretty in Pink,” with Molly Ringwald back in the eighties?  I loved that movie and still watch it when I catch it on tv.  But this post has nothing to do with that.

I was walking around my garden and noticed that the prevalent color right now is pink.

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Zinnias.

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Gerbera daisies.

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Hydrangeas.

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Geraniums.

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Not sure what this is called, but it is so pretty.

Speaking of pink, er, red.  I have been a red head for almost one week.  I have learned a lot from doing this.  Some people who know you and see you only one way act very shocked when you do something so out of character or look so different.  I am not surprised.  When I go by a mirror or a window and see my reflection, I have to stop a moment and make sure it is me. I am still a blonde in my mind, so when I see myself, it is a little disconcerting.  It has given me a whole new outlook on life.  I feel braver some how.  Anyway, at least for a few weeks I will remain this way until I make a visit to my beautician.  Boy, will she be surprised.  I also have doctor and dentist’s appointments in the next few weeks and I am looking forward to their reactions.   I’m going to see one of my best friends in a few weeks.  The last time she saw me I was a blonde.  I may call her and warn her, or not.

David decided this week to put a new door in my shop.  It’s not really a new door. It’s half of the old patio door we took out this Spring.

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David made a big hole in the side of my shop.

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After much huffing and puffing he managed to get the door installed.

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He added some pretty trim.  All that is left to do is paint the brown around the door.  It was too hot to do this.  I’ll do it when the temperatures go down again.

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Now I can look out and see the garden, the hot tub and the porch.  The dogs can also look in and watch me.   My shop is lighter now so all the work was worth it.

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Speaking of gardens, this is what I picked this morning. The slightly pink tomato is an heirloom tomato.  They are so pretty and very meaty and good to eat.

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A few days before, I had picked all this plus gathered a couple of eggs.  We could eat very well from our garden and from the chooks right now.  I had fried eggs for lunch today with  tomato slices.  It was so yummy.

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A friend from church gave me these quilt blocks that her mother or grandmother had made.  All stitched by hand.  I am slowly sewing them together into a quilt.  The blocks were all different sizes so I have had to do some trimming, but they are all going together well.  I love the old fabrics.  Mary Lee told me it was probably scraps of fabric from clothes and flower sacks.  I love old quilts and I really love people who give me old blocks to sew together.   I hope I can get this done soon so I can show it to her.

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While cleaning my shop and going through patterns and quilt books, I found this pattern for a Christmas quilt.  I plan to make this in the near future.  I think it’s so cute. It’s from a book with several Christmas projects and ornaments, many of which I would like to try.

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“Are you looking at me?”  Yes, Belle, I am. Want to go for a walk?

When your dog wants to walk, you must take her.  Bye.

Deep Thoughts(or Not.)

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  David and I took a walk in the dark tonight.   I love Summer nights when the cicadas are singing and there is a slight moistness in the air that clings to your skin and reminds you there are still warm days ahead.  This Summer has gone by so quickly and I am not ready to see it go. 

   Today we drove into town and saw children walking home from school with their backpacks and their idealism.  At least I hope they haven’t lost their idealism yet.  I still have it.  Sometimes I expect everyone else to think as I, but it just doesn’t work that way.  Anyway, seeing all those fresh young faces with so much future ahead of them made me happy.    One of my grandsons began kindergarten this week.  He has a long way to go and I hope and pray his school years will be happy and productive and he will learn a lot and never lose his creativity or his idealism.  He was telling me about his music class and singing a song he had learned when he stopped and said he couldn’t remember the rest because he had learned it in the morning and it was a long time since morning! He will be learning so much.  More things than I had to learn.  I hope he is blest with good teachers who love to teach and he will always keep his love of learning. 

  Now that Fall is just around the corner, can Christmas be far behind?  I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even bring that up yet.  Seems we are rushed from season to season and not allowed to enjoy the season we are presently living.  Halloween things are arriving in the stores.  I am not looking forward to putting all my Summer decorations and pillows away and getting out the Autumn ones.  I will be ready as soon as the air turns crisp and Fall like.  But I just got ready for Summer and it is slipping away too quickly. 

  I  do kind of feel sorry for the children having to go to school while there is still warm enough weather to go swimming or play baseball or go skateboarding.  I remember the last day of school when I would have months to be free of lessons and sitting inside.   One year we got out of school on May 6th and didn’t go back until after Labor Day.    The Summer would stretch before me like a gift just waiting to be opened.  I remember walking down the road to my sister’s house.  She lived about a quarter of a mile down the same road we lived on.  I would be singing, “June is Busting Out All Over” at the top of my voice, the old dog who lived with us at the time following me behind for just a little ways and then he would turn back and go home.  I remember days of swinging back and forth on the porch swing reading book after book until Mother would call me for something.  There were days when I would hunt for kittens in the barn loft, feed calves from a bucket and hunt eggs in the chicken house.  Days of playing croquet and badminton in the side yard for hours it seemed.  There was no hurry to do anything or be anywhere.  I loved it.  I love it when I have days like that now.  And I still gather eggs.

    I am not ready to put away my Summer things and get out the Autumn things, but I will feel differently when the weather turns crisp and Fall like.   I am glad David and I have planned an Autumn vacation.  We will be in the mountains when the leaves are turning, I hope.  Then it will be time for warm sweaters and hot chocolate and hearing the hum of the furnace as it kicks on. (And seeing the dollar signs roll by as the cost of heating goes up.)  But I don’t want to close this with a bad attitude so I will just say, “I love you Summer and this has been an extraordinary one. I have raised chickens and had a wonderful garden and a family reunion and got to visit with friends I don’t see very often.  I got to have three of my grandsons for almost three days for a fun filled Grandma’s camp. I have swam and walked and played with the dogs and watched the sunsets and felt the warm sun on my face and have enjoyed every single minute of you.  I won’t say good-bye because, God willing, I will see you again next year.” 

  Here’s to first days of school, Lazy Summer Days and health to enjoy it all.  Bye.