Monthly Archives: October 2017

Hoosiers

I am a Hoosier girl through and through. Born and bred on an Indiana farm with straw in my hair, mud between my toes, dirt under my fingernails and chicken feathers sticking to my clothes.     Days spent playing on the farm are some of my most treasured memories.   There were all sorts of animals to play with and all kinds of places to play.   I would get up in the morning, eat my breakfast of hot tea and cinnamon and sugar toast and run outside to the great out there where fun and surprises awaited.  My mother didn’t know where I was most of the time. She just knew I was on the farm somewhere, whether it was in the sandbox, up a tree, in the haymow playing with a new family of kittens, or swinging on the porch swing reading a library book.  At times I was asked to weed in the garden or help around the house or gather eggs, but for the most part I was allowed to just be a kid and have fun.

I was thinking of those days this weekend as David and I traveled the country roads of Brown and Morgan County.  We got up early on Saturday morning and headed to Bloomington to a soccer tournament our two younger grandsons were playing in.

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It was a foggy morning making everything look mysterious.

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Past corn fields ready for harvesting.

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Seeing the sun rise. Something I rarely see these days as I have become a late sleeper.  I would usually be tucked away in my comfy bed fast asleep on a morning such as this, but not that day.  And I am glad I saw it all.

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It was fun watching our grandsons play.  Both their teams won their games I am proud to report.  This grandson was an excellent goalie for his team.  Not one ball got past him.

It was a beautiful morning to watch the games.

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Always nice spending time with these loved ones.

After watching the games, David and I set off for home, but we didn’t take the fast way. Oh, no. We took the back way.  Off the beaten path.  Where we love to wander.

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Down lonely roads where we might see a car or two.  I think of all the people who come to Brown County this time of year to see the foliage and all they see is downtown Nashville with all its stores.  Shopping is fun in Nashville if that’s what you like to do and I have done my share of shopping there, but we prefer being out in the country. I am sure Brown County State Park was very busy that weekend.  Vice President Mike Pence’s son was getting married in Brown County last weekend, something neither of us knew at the time. His plane flew into our city and several friends went out to see it. It’s not every day the vice president comes to your town. But David and I were wandering.

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Past woods…

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and old barns.   So sad to say the old barns are going away pretty quickly.  I wish people would take better care of them and preserve them for the next generation.  My family barn is gone because of lack of care.  It makes me sad.

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We drove by fields where farmers were getting in the harvest.

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Past old building like this and this…..

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Past an old one room school.  I think about the children who walked to this school which was probably heated by a stove and they used slates to write upon.

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I dearly love old barns.  In their day they were stacked with straw bales and hay bales and the farm animals sheltered in them.  Now they either stand empty or have old farm equipment in them that is never used.

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The trees were just starting to turn.

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Another week and they will be at their peak unless the rains take off the leaves.

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We saw some interesting Halloween decorations along the way.  Even out where hardly anyone would see them, people like to decorate.

We found a restaurant that looked interesting so we stopped to eat.  This is what happened.  When we went inside the hostess asked us if we would like a table or a booth. We like to sit at a booth so she proceeded to sit us and give us a menu. I had thought I wanted a hamburger but they served liver and onions.   I love liver and onions and most restaurants don’t usually offer it.  This is the second time in a month I have been to a restaurant that served liver and onions.  We perused the menu and decided what we wanted and then we waited. And we waited. And we waited. We noticed the tables all around us were getting their drinks and food and we still had not seen a waitress. Then a group of four came in and were immediately given their menus and asked what they wanted to drink and were served promptly.  David and I just looked at each other. Then we got the giggles because every time a waitress was heard asking her table if everything was okay, David would say, “Yes, it is.”  Even though we had as yet seen a waitress.  “We must have been zapped with the invisible ray gun,” David said and we started giggling again. Then I said let’s wait and see how long this would go on. The waitresses were buzzing like flies all over all the other tables and there we sat with not a drink or a wink.   Finally I said I was going to go talk to the hostess and David said, “Do you want me to? ” and I said, “No because I will be nice.”  So up I went to the hostess and this is what I said,  “Excuse me, did you mean to set us at a booth that would not be waited upon? Everyone around us, including a table that arrived after us, have been served their food and no one has even brought our drinks.” ”   “What booth!” she almost yelled. Well, I thought to myself, “The booth where you sat us.”   So anyway, suddenly a waitress that I had not seen before was suddenly rushing to our table and was getting our drinks and our order.  I noticed there was a man standing where the hostess had been standing. I wondered if he was the manager.   We got our food pronto and it was very good.  The waitress was almost overly solicitous at that point, bringing David not one, but two glasses of sweet tea.  Anyway, I won’t give the restaurant’s name as we did get a really good meal there and the liver and onions was excellent.   By the way, in a previous post I mentioned a restaurant where we got horrible service as the Outback. I was mistaken. It was O’Charleys but I have to say we ate at another O’Charley’s in Indianapolis last week and the food and service was excellent and we happened to be there on free pie night and I got the best piece of pecan pie I have ever eaten,

But enough about restaurants and food.

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Using this pattern…

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from this blogger….DSCN6106

I am working on a pumpkin quilt.   This is such a fun quilt to make.

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I’m enjoying getting out all my Autumn fabrics and playing with them.

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I am loving each block I make.  Another project I am working on is molding for around the windows in my shop.  Since we took down some old fencing, I decided to repurpose it as molding.  I cleaned it up and gave it a light brushing with white paint.

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I’m loving how you can see the swirls and grain in the wood.  When David gets it installed, I will show you how it looks.    Now I am thinking of preserving the rest of that wood for a bathroom I am dreaming about that I would like to see put in a little house we may build one day in our woods.   It would look wonderful on the walls.

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We were given this little chipper shredder the other day and David and I spent an afternoon trying to find twigs to put in it to mulch. If we weren’t looking for twigs, they’d be everywhere, but we had trouble finding any even with all the trees around us.   It doesn’t take very big limbs so it takes forever to get a cup full of mulch, but we had fun playing with it anyway.  It really does not take much to entertain us.

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Hope you are enjoying the season.

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Hope your skies are blue.

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And hope your friends are close. Bye.

 

 

October, How I Love You

I love the month of October. After March, April and May, it’s my favorite month.  It usually starts getting cooler although we have had unseasonable temperatures for the last several days.  Today it was in the sixties and I was loving it.  I feel so much more energetic in cooler weather.  The leaves on the trees are slow to change this year, but that’s okay.  The longer the season lasts, the better.

It’s been a busy month.  Aren’t they all?    I was telling a younger friend with young children not to expect to take time off when her children were grown because then the grandchildren come and there are things you want to do with them.  We had fun at King’s Island with one set of grandchildren a  couple of weeks ago and last week we spent time with the other set at Grandparents’ Days at their school.  Our older grandchildren go to a wonderful Christian school where their mother also teaches.  The school ranks #1 in college prep schools in Central Indiana and 98% of their graduates go on to college. Pretty impressive, I’d say.  Our granddaughter will be graduating next Spring.  I believe she and our grandsons have had an A-plus education.

So Grandparents’ Day begins with a sign in and then like a bunch of ants at a picnic, the grandparents swarm the tables with the coffee and donuts on them.  They serve very good coffee and donuts.

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Then they have chapel and our grandchildren join us.  The first day our sixth grader was with us.

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Let me just say that a few months ago, he was a short, little boy and now he’s taller than me(which isn’t hard as I am 5’1″) but almost as tall as his grandfather too.  His voice is changing and he looks like a teen-ager all of a sudden.   Waaaaaaa!  I told him it was just a short time ago I was babysitting him and he would sit on the piano bench and we would play the piano, neither one of us knowing how to play.  He was a baby then. Such a short time ago.  Such a nice grandson.

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He plays football.

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Sings in the middle school choir.  See, he is about a head taller than all the others.

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His class is learning the entire book of James in the Bible and they got up and recited some of it.   He looks like he is really concentrating here.

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This is his good friend who we adopted for the day as his grandparents couldn’t make it.  A really nice boy.

We took him out to eat and told him he could order anything he wanted and his eyes lit up.  Then back to school and we drove home to take care of the animals and then drove back up to Indianapolis to spend the night in order to go to the second Grandparents’ Day.

With these two.

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Our tenth grader and

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our senior.  She painted this mural and she is in the musical in a few weeks. Another trip to make.

Once again the grandparents crowded the coffee table and donut table and then we sat down for chapel. Our granddaughter is part of the praise team. She said she was nervous about singing in front of us, but she seemed very composed and professional.

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It so nice to see our grandchildren growing up to be the kind of people they are.  So kind. So talented. So grounded.

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This young man has my heart.  He can make me laugh so easily, many times when we should not be laughing!   See that lady in black?  She is from Scotland and her granddaughter is a good friend of our granddaughter.

We took them both out to Five Guys, a hamburger joint and they got to order what they wanted and then back to school where our granddaughter had an interview for a scholarship.  I hope she gets it.

It was a fun two days.

Driving home we drove through downtown Indianapolis. When I was young, I really thought this was the BIG city.  Our senior class made a trip there and it was so much fun.  Now I just can’t wait to get out of it.  Too much traffic for me.

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This is our state capitol.

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The top of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monument smack dab in the center of the city.  I wish I had gotten a picture of the whole thing. I have walked up to the top of this monument several times through the years.

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Tall buildings. It’s not New York, but it’s big enough for me. This country girl likes dirt roads and trees and no traffic.

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A very busy downtown.  People out eating at restaurants, walking their dogs, skate boarding.   Fun to drive through. Wouldn’t want to live there.

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The sky was so blue and it really was a pleasant day.

On the way home we stopped at a quilt shop called The Back Door where I had a gift certificate to use. I was looking for background fabric for the pumpkin quilt I am making.   Of course, I found more than I was looking for.

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I just like this fabric and know I will use it in something so I bought a yard.

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It’s hard to tell from this picture, but this fabric looks grey, but has a tinge of green in it. I like the little swirls all through it which remind me of pumpkin vines.  I cut out most of the background pieces for the quilt today.  Hope I have enough of it.

But what really caught my eye and made me swoon was this fabric.  I almost didn’t get it as I really don’t need anymore fabric, but this is the most beautiful fabric I have ever seen in my life.  A masterpiece on fabric.  A Monet.   I just could not leave the store without it.

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Just so incredibly beautiful. I bought three yards and wish I had bought five!   I don’t have a clue what I will make with this, but it has to be an especially wonderful quilt.  I just love it.  Did I say I liked this fabric?   I love it so much I made it my header for this blog.

There are a few other things going on in my world, but that will wait for another day.  Bye.

 

 

Back to Cincinnati

 

I love driving to Cincinnati.  Especially when we take the river road along the Ohio River.  We did that over a week ago, but because of things happening in the world, I didn’t feel like writing about it.     We took off on a Saturday and headed down the road.

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Following the river most of the way. There is something about a river that makes me feel wanderlust.  I think of all those who have traveled this river throughout the years or lived by this river, building little towns and living their lives as the river swept by.   There is so much history along this river. David and I have driven most of it and several times, at that.   It never fails to lift my spirits.

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The sky was so blue that day and the river so calm, but this river has flooded many times through the centuries, flooding those little towns and creating havoc to their citizens.  Still, people continue to settle along it, camp beside it and watch as it lazily flows along.  It’s mesmerizing.

We passed through one little town where I saw some ladies decorating the city park.  And along the road hung on electric poles were these………

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Scarecrows. I don’t know if they were having a contest, but there were several of these all along the roadway.  Made me want to go home and make my own scarecrow.

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I think it might have had something to do with breast cancer awareness because of this sign I saw.

We spent the night in Cincinnati and went to supper with our older son and his girlfriend.  We went to The Outback to eat and they had the slowest service.  We finally got our names on a list and waited and waited. They didn’t look all that busy. Then three more people came in the door and the waitress started to sit them immediately and David spoke up and asked why they were being seated. The waitress mumbled something about the waitress wasn’t ready for our table. Humbug!  Our son said, “Let’s go,” and we went across the street to a restaurant called Mimi’s Café and were seated immediately and I had the best liver and onions I have ever eaten. So, good things happen to those who wait!    It was a pleasant evening, but we were going to King’s Island the next day so we headed to our motel for the night.

The next morning we met up with our daughter and her family.

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The boys were excited because we were going to King’s Island.

Now King’s Island is for the person who likes to ride scary rides. I am not that person. The last two times I was talked into riding certain rides, I cried.  So I knew no one would be talking me into riding any roller coasters or rides that went up high that day.  I loved watching my family ride the rides.  I rode a couple, but I really enjoy people watching and just being with family.   It was such a fun day.  We went to the arcade and there is where I had the most fun playing Ski-ball. I could play that all day.  I helped our son win a card he had been trying to win for some time.  You see, our son goes to King’s Island almost every single day whether it’s before work or after work, just to ride maybe one ride. He’s a big kid at heart.  He plays those arcade games and saves the points. He has enough to get a computer now.   He could have probably bought one a whole lot cheaper, but he loves playing those games.  I do too. It must be in the blood.  David and I, when we were dating, use to love playing the arcade games at the fair.  Tossing rings to win cheap dishes.   I once spent fifty dollars playing ski-ball at King’s Island to win a set of juice glasses!  They were the cheapest glasses I have ever had and they all got broken very quickly.   Needless to say, we don’t go to King’s Island all that often.  Can’t afford their dishes!

It was a fun day and I am sure I got my 10,000 and more steps in as my feet were hurting so badly by the time we got to the car.  We drove home at dusk as the sky was showing off  it’s beautiful colors.

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Where we live there are tall trees so I cannot see the sunset like this at night. It was so beautiful.   Then I saw it.

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A UFO.  Or at least it looked like one to me. And then I saw this.

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Remember in the first Ghost Busters where that dog chased that little guy from his apartment and down the street?  This made me think of that dog.

It was good to get home and back in our own bed.

The past couple of weeks I have been working on quilts.

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I pinned this quilt ready for quilting. I can’t decide if I want to machine quilt it or quilt it by hand.  It’s got hundreds of safety pins in it and my fingers can attest to it.  I am quilting one by hand right now that I want to get done.  Can’t show it as it is for someone special.

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Not sure what this pattern is called. I pieced it years ago. I am going through all my unfinished quilts and trying to get them done.

And yet, I keep buying fabric to make more.

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I bought this fat quarter assemble to make a pumpkin quilt.

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I pre-wash all my fabric and here I hung these on a little line I have strung across my shop porch. I love hanging things out on a line.  Didn’t take them long to dry.  I will show you some of the blocks I have made soon.   I was working on my pumpkin quilt today.

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This glorious fabric will be the backing.   I had to order five yards of it just because I loved it so much.  I will use this in several things, I am sure.

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This fabric I bought on Haight Ashbury in San Francisco years ago when we visited our son who was stationed in California with the Air Force learning to speak Russian to be a Russian linguist.  That was many years ago.  I don’t know why the fabric looks stained in this picture because it isn’t.  There was a wonderful quilt shop there with some very exotic fabrics.

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This yellow fabric was bought for me by my son and his ex-wife when they visited England years ago. They asked me what I wanted them to bring me back from England and I said, “Fabric.”  I have used this in several quilts.

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We got this postcard in the mail a few weeks ago telling us about Grandparents’ Day at our grandchildren’s school.  I was looking at it and saw someone familiar on it.

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David and me and two of our grandkids!.  I must say it was kind of disconcerting to see our faces on there.  I always wondered through the years how they picked the pictures for these things.   We are visiting their school this week.  They  treat us grandparents great.  I am really looking forward to it.

Here’s to river rides, fun times with family and quilting. Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joy and Sorrow

People can experience both joy and sorrow in a span of a day.  We saw this on display on our television sets this week.  Neil Cavuto on the FOX network gave a moving report called “One Week Ago Today,” yesterday where he talked about how all the people who went to the concert in Las Vegas were preparing for it one week ago with excitement and happiness.   At the same time a man was plotting how best to get the perfect site from which to shoot his guns at people to kill them.  I think there was more than one shooter, but that’s another story.  One week ago today 59 people were alive and were with their friends and loved ones.  One week ago today, a very evil person was planning something horrific.   He was ordering room service, setting up his weapons, getting ready while thousands of people were just planning on having a fun weekend. One week ago.

That is how quickly joy can turn to sorrow.  I have experienced both emotions in the span of a day.  Complete joy and then shattering sorrow.   I write this because none of us are promised tomorrow.  None of us know when we leave our home whether we will come back. None of us know if the ones we love we see today, might not be with us in a blink of an eye. That is how tenuous our lives are.  Why we waste a second on anger and hatred is something I cannot explain.   We should love one another, give our loved ones a hug when we see them.  Call them on the phone and tell them you love them.  Life is way too short. I feel so sorry for those who lost friends and loved ones last weekend.  On Cavuto’s show he ran all the pictures of the people who were murdered and I stood there at my ironing board, tears running down my cheeks watching those lovely faces scroll by. Some so young.  Some with children.  Somebody’s mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle or other relationship.  None of them deserved what happened to them.  I pray they are all in heaven today.   I don’t know why God allows things like this to happen. I do know He doesn’t cause them.  Evil does.  Evil hearts that have no love for others.   And yet, we must pray for those who despitefully use us.  I can’t explain that one.

So, I am praying that nothing else bad happens for a long, long time. Our country has been hit with a lot of bad things lately.  So have other countries, but I have to deal with mine.    I want this blog to be full of happiness and joy, but I cannot ignore when my fellow citizens are hurting.   I have some fun things to write about, but for now, I pray we can all come together and unite as a nation and rid ourselves of all the hate that is happening all around us.  Blessings to you all and may God keep you in His hands. Bye.