Monthly Archives: June 2018

It’s Not Even Summer Yet

 

I can’t believe all the things we have already done in the past few weeks and it’s not even Summer yet. ( I wrote this a few days ago when it wasn’t Summer yet.)  We have several family things and trips planned for this season

For the first time in years I have been swimming in the pool before July.  Usually June has cool nights and the pool was never warm enough for me, but because of very hot temperatures, it’s been really nice for swimming.   We have already had a couple of pool parties.

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I love having a pool full of kids and toys.  I hope I see this scene many times this Summer.

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I love seeing boys enjoying a Summer day, sitting on the swing on my shop porch.  My grandchildren are growing up much too fast.

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I love eating cold watermelon and freezing the rinds and feeding the to my chickens. How they love it.

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After eating, a quick ruffle of the feathers and on to other things.

I finally finished my shop. Except for some curtains and a few paint touch ups it’s done and I have been able to work on a quilt.  Right now everything in so neat and clean. Hope I can keep it that way.

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In my shop I am surrounded with things I love.

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I bought this pretty poster in Laurel, Mississippi on our last trip.  The town where Hometown is filmed.  One of David’s and my favorite fixer upper shows.

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I Mod Podged two and a half inch fabric squares all over this dress form.  I like how it turned out so I’m thinking of Mod Podging maps all over another one.

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A friend and a very talented lady who was also Nana to my Grandchildren, painted this straw hat for me years ago.  She has since passed away, but I think of her every  time I look at this hat.

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This hanging lamp has been in our kitchen, our dining room, my shop, taken down and stored in our basement and brought back into my shop once more where I hope it will stay.  I’ve had it for about thirty years.

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I have a little reading corner where I can read a book or look through quilt magazines and books for ideas for more quilts.  And yes, I have read all those books on the shelves.  People ask me that when they see my book shelves.  Now most of my books are on my Kindle, but I still read every single day.  My mother taught me the love of reading when I was a girl and for that I will always be grateful to her.  She was a voracious reader. She’d read James Michener books like eating candy.  Michener was not known for his thin books.

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I did this ceiling a few years back, painting quilt blocks on boards and David nailing them to the ceiling   The fun part was deciding what quilt patterns to use.

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My exercise bicycle which I don’t use as often as I should.  I have had it for a long time and we cannot find one just like it.  Before the mileage meter broke I had ridden over 25,000 miles on it. I keep it to remind me to exercise.

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I use these Edison type bulbs around the shop to give it a soft glow.  It’s taken months to get my shop painted and cleaned, but I am so happy with the results and I have so much more room. And I love my big cutting table that David built for me. One of a kind.  It can be moved easily and I can lay a big quilt on the top.

This  past weekend we took a trip to Squire Boone caverns in southern Indiana with our grandboys.

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They had never been in a cave before so this was quite the adventure for them. People ask if they are twins.  No, they are brothers born one year apart.

They thought the cave was awesome.

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I think it’s pretty awesome too. To think that water helped form all these formations.  A constant drip, drip, drip and in several years you get a stalagtite or a stalagmite.

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Sometimes you even get fried eggs!

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Squire Boone, Daniel Boone’s younger brother, owned the land this cave was found on and he loved exploring it and they buried his bones here.

It was a fun day, but very hot. Almost 100 degrees.  The boys mined for gemstones and got some things at the gift shop and we decided to leave and get dinner.   We stopped at Frisches and they both ate a big meal.

So on the way home this is what happened.

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Completely wiped out with all they had done.  They slept almost all the way home.  The only thing was, they got a nap and were well rested and ready to go again while Grandma and Grandpa were tired and ready for a nap.  We swam all evening, watched a movie.

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Ready for church Sunday morning.   They were up with the chickens.

It was a fun weekend ending with another pool party and an impromptu birthday celebration for a new teen who turned thirteen who was visiting us.  His cake was made of Twinkies and we ate vanilla and chocolate mint chip ice cream.

I will end this post with a story of life and death.  What happened right before my eyes on our front porch.

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A battle between a big spider and a stink bug.  I was rooting for the spider.

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I don’t think the stink bug had a chance.  The spider wanted its meal too much to let go.  Nature can be cruel sometimes, but that’s the way it is.

Here’s to caves, little boys and Summer days.  Bye.

 

 

JUNE!!

June is busting out all over.  I remember when I was a girl on a beautiful June day walking down the gravel road to my older sister’s house, singing the song from the musical, State Fair, June Is Busting Out All Over.   I use to know all the words.   But I had a song in my heart, was free as a bird and happy to be going to my sister’s house.  She was like a second mother to me being eleven years older.   School was out until September. A long, lazy, fun filled Summer lay ahead on the farm.  After breakfast and my chores were done, I had the whole day to wander the farm, play with the animals and lay for hours on the front porch swing reading books from the library. I was in 4-H which kept me busy, too, sewing, embroidering and baking cakes or yeast rolls.

Now that I am retired from any outside job, there are days when I get the same feeling of freedom.  I can choose whatever I want to do and I’m telling you, it is a grand feeling. I hope all of you get to feel that way one day.  I could burst into song right now!

We had a graduation a week ago. Our oldest grandchild and only granddaughter graduated from high school.  It just seems like only yesterday I was all excited about her being born and driving up to Chicago to see her for the very first time.  I was in love.  She has been the most wonderful granddaughter a grandmother could have. We are so proud of her.

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She is cute, funny, smart and full of life.  She has a bright future ahead of her.

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Here she is going up to get her diploma.

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Here she is with her dad who is VERY happy she has college practically paid for already.  She has worked hard for this.

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The choir held hands as they sang. It was very touching. The kids in this school are extremely close.  There is no bullying there and everyone is treated with respect.   When you enter that school, you can feel the goodness there. I can’t explain it, but when a school is Christ centered, it just feels differently.  Most schools use to be Christ centered until God was taken out of schools.  Sad.

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I would recommend this school to anyone who wants their child to get a well rounded education.  Most of the graduates are either going to college or the military.

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My grandson.  He’s growing up, too.

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And his older brother. He graduates in two years.    I still am not use to the fact he is driving.

The next day they had a party and it was fun.  There was so much food and almost all of it was eaten. I think about one hundred people came through the house that day.  I made a big pot of macaroni and cheese and had to make another one.

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The tables were decorated with books as our granddaughter is a bookworm and has had a book published.

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Lots of pictures of her were on the walls.

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She displayed some of her artwork.

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Her dad, who is an Indiana University graduate wore this shirt……

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He said he never thought he would ever wear a shirt with Purdue on it. His brother went to Purdue and there was always a competition going on there.  Never say you will never do something because you will find yourself doing it!

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I made her this quilt. This was taken in my house. See that floral chair? That’s my new Lazyboy  I got for Mother’s Day.   The pattern on it is called Van Gogh so now I can say I have a Van Gogh in my house!

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I made this quilt this past Winter.  I was so afraid I wouldn’t get it done in time, but it had been completed for a long time only I had not made a label for it. So the week before graduation I finally got the label made.

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I try to label all my quilts.  I find it sad to find an old quilt with no name on it. I always wonder about the women who have made some of my quilts that I have purchased at sales.   I have so many and don’t have a clue who made them or when.

It was a fun weekend but we were both exhausted when we got home.

Yesterday we went to a textile fair not far from home.

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There were booths and several buildings at the fair ground with yarns and other textiles for sale.  I was in heaven. This particular booth had the best selection of feed sack material I have ever seen and why I didn’t buy any, I don’t know.  But I can see why women back in the thirties and forties made clothes out of feed sacks. They are very colorful.  Many florals that would have made pretty dresses.

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This lady had a camper full of yarn and yes, I did buy some.   Traveling the country with yarn in the back of your camper sounds like a great thing to me.

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There were sheep there. Some man was walking around a little, black sheep, but I didn’t get a picture of it. Do any of you remember the Disney movie back in the fifties called So Dear To My Heart?  It was about a little boy who raised a black lamb and all the trouble the lamb got into with the boy’s grandmother and how he showed it at the county fair. It was my favorite movie when I was a girl.  The little boy got to see the racehorse, Dan Patch, taken off a train for exercise.  As a girl who was mad about horses, I loved this scene in the movie.  Dan Patch is mentioned in the musical, The Music Man when  Professor Hill says, “want to see some stuck up jockey boy sitting on Dan Patch, make your blood boil?”

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There were llamas too.

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Any animal that provides wool for yarn was there. There were angora rabbits too.  They had the most beautiful fur.

There was one booth where young girls were learning to card wool and spin it into yarn. What a wonderful thing to learn while you are young.   One girl was explaining the process to me and she was so well informed and so mature acting.   Conner Prairie, a pioneer village which is based on the  people and times of the year 1806, sponsors this and it truly is a way to keep the old arts going.

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Even some of the bags had sheep on them.  And I bought several skeins of yarn.

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The lady selling this yarn had a sock knit up with it and it was so pretty I had to buy some.

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One of my grandsons said he wanted me to knit him blue and black socks so this should fit the bill.

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I cannot wait to knit this up.

On the way home we stopped at an antique store called Vic’s just north of where we live. We are looking for an old floor lamp.   We got one there a few years ago, but I knocked it over and ruined the lampshade.  We were also looking for old lampshades, but I found this instead.

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An old tablecloth, but I am either going to make curtains with it or a Summer skirt.  It is so soft and the colors are so pretty.

We have several things planned this Summer since it’s our fiftieth wedding anniversary year.  Next trip will be to some caves and a pioneer village with our grandsons.

Here’s to high school graduates and wonderful fairs.  Bye.