Here in Indiana we can go from blustery, snowy days to warm Spring days overnight. Once April gets here everything suddenly is green and lush.  Still too early to plant fragile plants and seeds, but we can order them and dream about where we will plant them.  David and I are planting more perennials this year and have several sitting on our back porch waiting to be planted.

It seemed like the Spring flowers and trees came and went so quickly this year.  I think some things were harmed by a cold spell we had right when they were budding. But there were a few outstanding displays.

The Azalea in our front yard was so pretty.  Daffodils were everywhere in the yard.
Lilacs came and went so quickly.  David cut a bouquet of them for me.

I wish you could smell these.  They can not bottle this fragrance no matter how hard they try.

Such happy little flowers that don’t ask for much. Just some rain and a warm Spring day to bring them to life.

Now it is time for the Snowball bushes and the Irises to show their beauty.

This is just one in our front yard.  I will have to take pictures of the ones in our backyard.  I always think of David’s grandmother when I see these.  She had a huge Snowball bush in her back yard that stood probably ten feet tall and was always loaded with snowballs every Spring.  She and I were  kindred spirits, I think.  Our bushes were from her original bush.  So thankful I have that memory of her.

This is a miniature Lilac bush we have growing right beside the porch, it is so pretty.

We moved into our house 49 years ago.  Almost half a century of planting perennials in our yard.  Most planted by myself until recently.  These Spirea were not planted by either David or myself.  Some long ago gardener planted these and they have been this pretty almost every year. A couple of times David has cut them way back, but they come back even prettier.

They run along the whole north side of the house and if I don’t make the effort to look in the side yard, I would miss them.

Even prettier up close.  I wonder how long these bushes grew here before our family came to stay.  They could be one hundred years old for all I know. Our house is 111 years old.

Easter was almost two weeks ago.  Our choir sang a pretty cantata and the message our pastor gave was so interesting.  Our pastor is retiring this month even though he is only in His fifties, but he and his wife have had health problems.  We haven’t found a new pastor yet.  They said sixty people applied for the job!  Now the committee has to narrow it down to two or three who will preach to us and then we will vote for the one we want.  If you are a praying person, please pray we get the pastor we need.  A godly man who preaches straight from the Bible. A man who loves Jesus.

Anyway, Easter was a family day.  Sixteen at our table this year.  I didn’t do all the cooking. We supplied the meat, rolls and dessert and everyone else brought a dish or two.  We had some sad events during the day. Our new granddaughter’s grandmother was missing.  She found out about it just before they came to our house. She was in tears.  We prayed for her and not long after she found out her grandmother had been to a casino and had turned off her phone!  Later in the day our granddaughter’s husband got a text saying a friend of his had been killed in a car accident on the way to church that morning.  His wife and new baby were already at the church waiting for him.  How tragic it was.  Not sure what God was telling us. I think He was saying love your family because you never know if they will be with you another day.

Despite all the drama, we had the annual Easter egg hunt.  We only have two school age boys to hunt them. They both are in high school, but I think you are ever too old to hunt eggs.  Then, when they were done, I asked them to hide the eggs for the rest of the adults. We had an adult Easter egg hunt! It was fun.

I’ll show you my decorations for Spring.  While Easter isn’t about the rabbit, I find I have a nice collection of bunnies.

The bunny banner I made decades ago and this week I found the pattern I

I bought this little tree at an antique store many years ago.  It is one of my favorite things.

This cupboard I bought last Fall has more bunnies in it.

I must show you my Amaryllis.  It has been blooming since Christmas. It has had up seven blooms o it and it is still blooming and sending our shoots for more flowers.  I plan to divide it this Summer and put it in bigger pots.  This plant loves the greenhouse.

Another  plant  that has thrived in my greenhouse is this poinsettia. It is really a bush now and has been blooming since Christmas also.

Talk about loving the greenhouse.  This Petunia has taken over a whole corner.
Remember I told you about the quilt I am planning with several little quilts?

Quilts using this pattern and William Morris designed fabrics.   Well, I am up to fourteen of these quilts made.  Soon I will start sewing them all together.  I have made a patriotic quilt  also and will try to show you next time.
David helped me clean a corner of my shop this week. It took us all afternoon as we went through an old dresser, book shelves and bins to see what was inside. I cleaned and dusted everything I could.  This was when I found my bunny banner pattern. This being just one corner there was so much stuff.  I threw away some things and found a whole box of old hankies I had been wondering about.  David shop vacced the whole corner and hung some pictures we had found.  Still have three more corners and lots of shelves and bins to go through.  I have accumulated a lot of stuff over the years. We brought a lot of stuff home when we closed our store.  At one time I had hundreds of bolts of fabric, but I used some and sold some at garage sales over the years so it is whittled down, but I still have a lot.

We are getting a new patio poured  in a couple of weeks.  I am really excited about it as the old patio has become rather dangerous to walk on. I did a full face plant fall on it last year.  Funny when I was falling my only thought was, “ I hope I don’t break my glasses!”  I didn’t and was hardly hurt at all. Anyway, our new patio will be smoother so hopefully no more falls.
David and I are moving plants tomorrow and planting new ones.  Next week it’s on to Lowe’s to buy more plants, dirt and new pots.  Some of my old terra cotta pots are falling apart,

I will see you after the patio is done.  Lots of things to do.
Here’s to Spring and the beauty it brings.  Hope you are enjoying the warmer weather. Bye.

My three favorite months of the year are coming up.  I just love Spring and seeing all the flowers and trees blooming and watching the birds at all our birdhouses building their nests and raising their families.  Winter never seems very long anymore, but we did have snow this year and we are expecting more tonight.  But it won’t last long because we are expecting temperatures in the sixties and seventies by the end of the week.  This is Indiana.

Despite our rather upsetting start to the  year, we are both about done with doctors for a while. David is doing well since his stroke, but still has some vision loss.  Not bad enough he can’t drive, but I still remain alert.  He is taking this week off for my birthday and guess what?  It is supposed to rain every, single day.  There are flowers pushing up all over the yard and I have been planning what we will plant this year.  Several more bushes and of course geraniums and zinnias and we have a little garden marked off for Rudbeckia or Black Eyed Susans and Lavender.

Here are the petunias I told you were taking over a corner of the greenhouse.

This geraniums has thrived all Winter.

Geraniums rate up there as one of my favorite flowers.  See the little gas stove in the corner that has kept the greenhouse toasty warm all Winter even though it isn’t insulated at all?  Best buy  we ever made.  We just came upon it at Rural King as an end of season sale and we bought it on a whim.  So glad we did.

This   geranium I have over wintered a couple of years.  It loves the greenhouse, too.
So nice to have flowers blooming like this in the middle of the Winter.  Really boosts my spirits to see them.

The Poinsettia is still going strong.  More like a little tree now and will need to be repotted when warm weather gets here.

David likes to do puzzles in the Winter and he has done three one thousand piece puzzles so far.  All by himself as I don’t enjoy doing them, but I love to see them when they are all finished.  This puzzle is from the book, The Country Diary of an Edwardian Woman.  Winter edition.  He has put together the Spring, Summer and Autumn puzzles also.

After David started doing these puzzles I looked up the book and found one online.  This woman was a wonderful artist and roamed the woods, hedges and fields around her home writing about all the animals, birds and vegetation she came upon on her walks.  She really makes me think of Beatrix Potter who painted animals and birds she saw around her family’s vacation home and later on her own country home. They were of the same generation, I believe.
While David does puzzles, I order fabric and sew on my new project.

I bought this book a while ago and have made several little quilts from it, but now I have a new plan.

Using this pattern I plan to make several small quilts from it and to later sew them together into a larger quilt.  Here are some of the quilts I have made so far.

I am having so much fun sewing these.  I am collecting William Morris designed fabric,  I think I told you about it earlier.  I get six fat quarters of it sent to me each month.  I never know what colors I will get, but that’s  the fun of it.  I am also collecting Jane Austen inspired fabrics which work very well with the William Morris fabric and with reproduction fabrics I already have, I am finding many combinations to put together.  It will make a colorful, patchwork style of quilt or quilts when I am done.

Here are some e of the William Morris fabric I have received.

And here are some Jane Austen fabrics I have ordered.
Doing this and I already have Christmas gifts I am working on and I am expecting a patriotic quilt kit to arrive any day so I keep busy, but it is all fun to me.  I also am knitting every time I sit down to watch tv.  I cannot stand to sit and do nothing.  I am also pedaling an hour or two on my little peddling machine.  Keeps my legs limber if nothing else. I watched Jurassic World  and a move called “ FALL” on Netflix last night while I peddled and put the equivalent of twenty  thousand steps on the machine.  That movie, “FALL” was so good, I stayed up until one-thirty to see the ending. David went to bed at 8:30 last night.  He said he hit a wall, but I think he is still worn out after his stroke. I am glad he is taking a week off.
Well, that’s all from me for today. Hope you are having a wonderful ending to Winter and that Spring weather will be here for all of us soon. Unless you are reading this in a different hemisphere then you are going into your autumn which seems so weird to me, but very interesting, too.  You people who live in Australia, I have  dreamed of visiting your country ever since I was  a girl and did a report on Duckbilled Platypuses.  I probably won’t make it there this side of Heaven, but I do love your country. Bye, everyone.

Okay, I am finally getting to write a new post after several weeks that I do not want to repeat.  It has been a very sorry start to the new year.  To begin with, David had been having neck pains and not feeling at all well.  We decided to go out to eat a few weeks ago, and I noticed his driving seemed to be rather erratic. We were planning on going to a restaurant a little farther away until David decided to go to a nearer one which I thought was rather strange, but we picked up some food and headed home and again, his driving was not up to par and he speeded up at our turn and turned into the left hand lane almost hitting a car head on if I hadn’t have screamed and he slammed on the brakes.  I knew something was wrong, bit didn’t know what. We got home and I told home he needed to go to the doctor.  He wasn’t very receptive to the idea, so I said  no more.  Sunday morning came and I got all dressed up for church in what I thought was a very cute outfit, came downstairs and David was sitting there and said to me, “ I think I need to go to the hospital.”  I immediately got into care mode and got him in the car and drove him to the hospital.  Now I had not driven for a long time because it is just easier to let David do it so I was a little nervous about driving, but found I rather liked it.

We got to the hospital and David was checked out and then put in a room so he could get more tests. Turns out he had had a stroke that affected his vision.  His sight in front was okay, but his sight on the sides was affected.  The doctor said it may get better in time. They put him on meds, but kept him another day for more tests.  We had contacted our children and our son and wife came over from Cincinnati to help me. It was such a comfort having them with me. They stayed until David was released from the hospital.

I decided David should not drive for a while so I drove  him to his doctor appointments.

A week or so later, we both came down with coughs and stuffy noses.  Our son and his wife reported that they had, too, which led us to believe we all caught something at the hospital. . David and I both went to the doctor again and we both had acute bronchitis.  I had a really bad cough and hurt all over. Had a fever,too. David had a stuffy nose and cough.  So we left the doctor with medicine for David and medicine, steroids and an inhaler for me.

I’d like to say I am all better now, but the cough just keeps hanging on. David is doing better and he says his sight is much better.  He has a couple more doctor’s visits to check him out and I pray his health is returning.

We also had one of the worst snowstorms we have had in years.  Guess it was a good time to be cooped up in the house.  We didn’t feel like going anywhere, anyway.  I hope we have turned a corner. I hadn’t felt like doing any sewing for weeks, but a couple of days ago I did get out to my shop and worked on a couple of quilts.  I joined this fabric group where I receive 6 fat quarters of William Morris inspired fabric every month.  William Morris was a designer of wallpaper back in the 1800’s and he made some very beautiful designs.  Now his designs are on fabric.  I am making a small quilt every month using that month’s fabric using the same pattern for each one and when I have enough made, I will sew them all together in one patchwork quilt. It is going to be interesting because I never know what colors of fabric I will get.

I felt like baking today so I baked an apple pie. To prove you can teach an old dog new tricks, I just learned this year that pie dough is easier to roll and work with if you chill it for a couple of hours.  It has made my pie making so much easier.  This pie turned out perfectly and it is good, too.

David finished a puzzle today.  A Will Moses puzzle.  Will Moses is Grandma Moses grandson, I think. His paintings are very like hers were.  David said this one was a little harder because there was so much dark in it.

This is what my greenhouse looked like a couple of weeks ago. We have been in a frozen tundra for days, but next week it is supposed to get up to the forties.  Indiana weather. You never know what you are going to get!  I wish you could see the flowers in there.  I will have to get some pictures taken. There is a petunia that has taken up one whole  corner of the greenhouse, the poinsettia is doing wonderfully and I have a couple of huge geraniums that seem to love it in there.  I must say, our little gas furnace we put in there is keeping everything toasty warm.  No insulation at all.

Here is some of that William Morris fabric I was talking about.  It is so beautiful.  I could see it on the walls as wallpaper.  The Victorians loved their wallpapered walls.

We went to our granddaughter’s house after Christmas and this is our granddog.  Another Lab.  She is so sweet.
I think I have caught you up with what’s been happening with us.  I hope I have better news next time and that we are both back to health.  Happy New Year again.  Looking forward to a good February.  Bye.

Well, here we go again.  Another journey through a brand new year.  What will it hold?  Will there be another wedding, a new baby, hospital stays, travel?  That is the thing about a new year. It could hold just about anything. I know it needs our prayers.  We need to put it in God’s hands. I am just glad I made it through with David by my side.  We are in this together for as long as we both shall live.
We had an amazing Christmas. We had all the grandkids present except for the newly weds who spent Christmas with her family.  That’s what happens when kids grow up,and join other families. But we missed them

We had  a small dinner this time as I didn’t  want to spend all morning in the kitchen.  We had sandwiches,salad and desserts.  I baked a chocolate cake for another grandson whose birthday comes right after Christmas.

We opened gifts.

I gave the three younger grandsons patriotic quilts I had made.

Our oldest son in his Thanksgiving hat.  He left it here Thanksgiving so we put it  in his Christmas bag. Always the comic.

I love giving presents.  We stopped wrapping them a couple of years ago or rather David stopped wrapping them because it took him days. Christmas bags are the way to go as our family continues to grow,

This past Sunday we got together with a few of the family at my favorite Pancake House to give gifts to the newlyweds.

I had painted this picture of them and we took it to the restaurant where David asked the manager if we could place it somewhere where they would see it when they walked in. It was so funny. When our grandson saw it he said, “Is that us?”  He was so surprised. I really enjoyed painting it. It’s a paint by number. I’m not that talented!  You send a picture to this company and they make a paint by number picture of it and includes all the paints to paint it. I have done several.  My new favorite hobby.

Here we all are at the restaurant. It was fun visiting and we went to our granddaughter’s house afterward so the newlyweds could open the rest of their packages. I got to see my grand dog which is a Labrador.

Look at that smiling face.  I love Labradors so much.

Now I go on making things. It was kind of nice going out into my shop and just making something not necessarily a gift, but just fun to. make. One project I am working on is a patchwork quilt.  I joined a group that receives six fat quarters of William Morris inspired fabric. I plan to make one small quilt each month using the same pattern, but different Morris fabrics and at the end of the year sewing all the small quilts into a larger one. Should be interesting. Is have no idea what fabric colors I will get each month, but the ones I have gotten so far were beautiful.  I will show you my progress as I go  along.
Flowers in my greenhouse are doing well.  The geraniums especially seem to love being in there. They are all flowering profusely.  David divided a couple of mums I bought this Fall and they are growing new shoots and have flowers on them. If they do well, it will be the first time I have over wintered mums. The Poinsettia is just beautiful with several large blooms on it still.
Our daughter and her husband got us tickets to the Blue Man Group in February.  Never knew much about them so looked them up and it sounds like it will be a fun show.
I hope the new year is being kind to you and that you will get to do some things you love to do.  Happy and a blessed year to you all.  I will write more later.  Bye.

Have you ever heard someone use that phrase, “For the love of Pete!”  I have  and I think it means someone can’t believe what they are seeing or hearing or just amazed at something.  I always wondered just who this “Pete” is and why do we have to love him?  Anyway, I thought this when I realized it has been a while since I wrote here so here goes nothing!

So October came and went fast as every other month in this year has gone.  David and I did a couple of road trips and went down to French Lick where this animal ranch is. We have been down there before on our fiftieth wedding anniversary where we stayed in this grand hotel.  We visited the zoo and got up close to elephants and even got to touch them.  This time we went on an animal safari where we drove this road into this enclosure where animals waited to get treats from each car.  We bought two cups  of their feed and proceeded in to their area.  A camel came right up to the window on David’s side and David  stuck the cup out his window and the camel took the whole thing out of his hand!

This wasn’t the camel.  David  still has his cup of feed.

This was an alpaca,I think and it very daintily ate out of my cup.

Another white one.  The animals were very persistent in getting to the food.

See this guy?  The Emus scared me a little.  I would not open my window for them and they gave me the evil eye.

I was feeding this llama when the

white one  came up alongside him with its ears laid back in anger and I was afraid it was going to spit, like llamas are known to do, so I stuck the cup to its mouth so it wouldn’t get the chance!

See this beautiful, white deer or is it an elk?

Nothing like the behind of a zebra.

But it turned around for some feed.  Aren’t they beautiful animas?

Here comes another Emu!

Giving me the evil eye through the window!

Lots of deer.

Buffalo.  They are a gigantic, gorgeous creature.  I see them on Facebook  tossing silly tourists at Yellowstone who are foolish enough to get out of their cars for a closeup.  You don’t fool around with buffalo.

They even had longhorn steers.

Part of the tour included  going into their dinosaur habitat.

We drove through this entrance.  Rather scary, don’t you think?

What awaited us on the other side?  Visions of Jurassic Park came to mind at that moment.

Oh, dear!

There is one now!

Now I know why we needed to stay in the car.  These guys will eat you!


This one was chomping leaves

Oh, no, it sees us!

Push on the gas, David!

Good, we got away!

Oh,oh.  They are reproducing. Gotta get out of here!

This one has already reproduced.  Time to leave.

Hurry, David, he’s catching up!

We left the park just in time, but we planned to come back that night for their light show.

This Jack-o-lantern greeted us that night. My pictures aren’t the best at night.

Bats above us.

A bridge we crossed .  We saw a few lights and then journeyed through dinosaur land, but no lights.  What was going on?  Were the dinosaurs loose?  We came down the hill where a man stopped us and told us their electricity was down so we got a complete refund and were saved from the dinosaurs!

Inour drives we see the silliest things. Being Halloween time there were decorations everywhere.  We saw several hay bales painted.

Lots of pumpkins displayed in different towns.

Skeleton people were in many yards.

In the little town of Orleans we found dipped ice cream.  We are always on the  lookout for good, dipped ice cream.

I saw this house, right next to a railroad track and fell in love.  It needs some tender,loving care, but it could be a beauty.  I know. Our house once needed a lot of work and now it is a gem.  We are always looking at old houses wondering who lived in them, what is their story.

Houses like this.  They are dotted all over country back roads in my state.  Like the family just packed up and left one day.  Sad, little house.

Nestled among the trees and weeds this little house cries for attention.  If I were very rich, I would travel the country roads and find these houses and fix them up and give them to families who promise to take care of them.  And I’d keep tabs to be sure they did!

Here’s another one. These use to be starter homes.  When we first got married we lived in a three room apartment, then bought a tiny, three room house in the country for $10,000 and lived there until we were expecting our second baby and needed something bigger.  Our second house cost $16,900 and we lived there until David’s job moved us to where we live now.  I did not want to move.  It was far from my family and friends.  I cried for a week when we moved.  I hated everything about it. David told me once he was afraid I was going to leave him!  I never would, but I was not a happy camper until the kids got settled into their  new school and I had met some people and made friends.  Now Iwould not move back.  I have made many friends, raised my family and love my home.  I think I will stay here until the good Lord calls me home!

So, Ithink I have sort of caught up.  Did I tell you we went to a comedy show starring  Jim Gaffigan?  I always thought he was funny in a low key kind of way and he even made bourbon sound funny as most of his jokes were about that beverage that night.

Now it is on to Thanksgiving and then Christmas.  How can it be! Bye.

Today the phone rang.  David and I were getting ready to go buy some apple cider and then go out to eat.  But the phone rang and David answered it.  Let me say this first before I go on.  I don’t always answer the phone if I am busy or think it might be a salesman.  We do get sales calls at about the same time every day and I stopped answering the phone at those times.  But David cannot stand to hear the phone ring and always answers.Then he will engage with the sales person to tell them to take our phone number off their list, but they never do.

Anyway, the phone rang just as we were getting ready to leave and David answered it. He came carrying the phone to me saying it was my sister on the phone with an emergency.  I took the phone and my sister was sobbing on the other end.  It seems she and her daughter, my niece,were in a car accident.  She kept talking through her sobs so I asked her if someone else could talk.
Then a policeman came on the phone and told me they had been in an accident and that they both did not have life threatening injuries.  Then he said that my niece had alcohol in her and I told him she did not drink.  Then he said she had told him she had not been feeling well and was taking cold medicine that had alcohol in it.  She was going to be taken to jail nevertheless for wreckless driving and would I like to speak with her?  Of course and she got on the line still sobbing saying she didn’t want to spend the night in jail so they had a lawyer to talk to me. Now this is where my spidey  senses should have been alerted, but no.  The lawyer got on and I asked him what happened and that my niece said the accident was not her fault.  That the lady had pulled out in front  of her.  I asked about the other driver and the lawyer said she was a pregnant lady.  My heart sank. Back on line to my niece.

I then asked my niece where my sister was and she said she had been taken to the hospital.  She was hysterical about spending a night in jail and the lawyer said she needed bond money.  I asked her where her Dad was.  She said he was out of town. My sister and her husband never go anywhere without the other.  Again, my spidey senses should have been alerted, but they were not. Then I asked her why she didn’t call her brother and she said something I did not understand and then the  lawyer got back on the phone to explain to me the circumstances that she would need bail to stay out of jail.  I asked him how much was bail and he said, $90,000 and my heart sank  again.But then the court would take ten per cent which was $9,000.  Then he asked, well,how much could you send? Now, dear reader, my spidey senses should have been jumping off the charts, but nooooo.  I said I would have to talk to my husband and I asked the lawyer for his call back number.  The phone suddenly went dead.

I told David we were going up there, a one and a half hour drive.  My sister and niece needed me!  We both packed bags expecting to spend the night and off we went.  I proceeded to tell David what the lawyer had told me.  I had even taken notes!  We had to make a stop for gas out of town when David told me, “Call your sister.”  I said, “ What, she is in the hospital!”  “Call your sister,” he repeated so while he pumped gas, I typed in my sister’s number and it rang and rang and my brother-in-law answered.  I said,”Are you home?”  “Yes,” he said.  “Is(my sister’s name) there?  By that time something was dawning on me.  He seemed confused by my questions.  Then my spidey senses finally started working and I realized we almost were scammed.  If not for David thinking maybe things weren’t exactly kosher we would have continued on to see my sister in the hospital where she obviously was not!

When we started putting the pieces together I noticed that things did not add up.  How was the lawyer at the accident so quickly?   How did they know my niece and sister’s names and I realize I had given them to the person on the phone. And why did the lawyer hang up when I asked for his callback number?  I think they knew the jig was up when I wanted the fake lawyer’s phone number! I was so thankful that my sister was well and at home, that my niece was not going to jail , that there was no pregnant lady. All there was were some very good actors on the phone. The girl who played  my niece deserves an Academy Award!

I am writing this as a warning.  I never thought I could be easily tricked like I was today.  These thieves are good at their work.  They know how to play  on people’s emotions.  All I could think at the time was my loved ones needed help. I was an easy prey.  Thank God for a husband who sensed something was not right.  Don’t let this happen to you. Never send money, we didn’t.  Ask for a callback number, I did do that. And never offer up too much information to a stranger on the phone.  I unwittingly did just that,  I learned valuable lessons today and will never be that gullible again.  I do know never to send money or give credit card numbers or bank account numbers to people you do hot know or have not called yourself.

I hope you have learned something from what happened to us today. There are very scary people waiting to prey on us.  Bye.

Now I know why many bloggers wait forever to write new blogs.  Life gets in the way.  The past couple of months have gone by in a whirlwind and now it is October, one of my favorite months of the years.  It usually starts to get cooler now, but we have been having Summerlike days for weeks now and hardly any rain.  We are living in a drought area now where we are not allowed burning outside.  Today it is grey and cloudy and they say it is going to rain, but they have been saying that almost daily and no rain.

We went to a wedding last month. Our oldest grandson’s. He met the love of his life at college.  He was a lacrosse star and she played on the basketball team.  So two athletes got together and got married.

Ahh, the kiss. The best part of the ceremony!

They washed each other’s feet during the ceremony which I thought was extra special.  Shows how they will serve one another in this marriage.

Jesus washed feet in the Bible. It shows a humbleness and love and shows He was also here to serve His Father.

Somebody isn’t happy at all to be married!   It is now two become one for all the rest of their lives.  So proud of both of them and so blessed to have another granddaughter.

This is the groom’s brother.  I asked him if he was going to be next and he kind of acted like it might just happen!  He has a girlfriend he has been dating since high school.  So…..

This is David and me and our daughter and younger son.

My son and his wife, my daughter-in-law.  Very nice lady.  She makes beautiful jewelry.  They got married a few years ago and since then I have worked on something to give them and brought it to the wedding and gave it to them finally.

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I started this quilt several years ago and always thought I would give it to them if I ever got it done and this Summer I sat down and began hand quilting thinking I would get it done for Christmas, but it went faster than I thought and I got it done and knew I would see them at the wedding so decided to take it there and give it to them as a late wedding gift.  Thousands of stitches in this quilt. Done with love.  They live in Florida so I hope they can use it.  The quilt measures 108 inches by 108 inches and fits a kingsize bed very well.

Our granddaughter and her husband who have been married just a few years.  The girl beside them is my grandson’s girlfriend and the girl on the end is my son’s stepdaughter.  I didn’t recognize her at first because I haven’t seen her is a few years, but we had a nice conversation. She is going to be an animal ophthalmologist if I understood her right.  Sounds interesting!  Our granddaughter has a good job at Conner Prairie an 1820 pioneer reenactment village.

Groom’s mother, my daughter-in-love, and her husband who has helped raise the kids. Yes we are an American family with his, mine and ours and whoever else wants to be in the family.  I will take them all and love them all.

My daughter and her husband, my son-in-law.  A very good one, too.

A small wedding cake for the bride and groom to cut. Thankfully, they did not shove pieces of cake in each other’s mouths like I have seen done on Facebook.  I really believe some marriages end right there when this happens because it shows lack of respect for the other person.  David and I fed each other little pieces at our wedding.

250 cupcakes later!  Red velvet was what I got and it was good.

Here is my grandson with the girl he walked with down the aisle. Right now he is the tallest person in our family.  Well over six feet and still growing, I think.  Very handsome, but it seems like only yesterday I was babysitting him while his parents worked.  He reminds me of my daddy in manner and personality.

I think they enjoyed this too much!  Ha!  I don’t blame them.  When you came into the door of the building where the wedding reception was held there was a table with pictures of the parents’  and grandparents’ weddings and of course, David and I were kissing in ours.  Guess our grandchildren take after us!

It was a happy day and we had a good time.

I think I told about our old dog, Molly, who had surgery last month on her mouth and her tail.  She had a growth on both places and her poor tail had to be bobbed.

Went from a long Labrador tail to this.  I call her Molly Pugtail now.  She doesn’t seem to mind. I think she feels so much better and has lost some weight and acts like a puppy most days.  So glad we could get it done for her.

Then there are these two…..

Lucy and Sugar.  Look at Lucy. She looks like I am going to beat her. She always gets this look every time I take her picture.  Her ears all droopy and “please, don’t beat me, mama.” look on her face.  Don’t know why she does it, but every time.  She wouldn’t know what a beating is.

Now this is a Labrador tail.  Look how shiny Sugar’s coat is.  Like a seal almost. I love all these dogs so much.  I always say if I were rich, lived on a farm with a big, heated barn I would have ten or fifteen dogs.  I have been looking at silver Labs online, but don’t think we can manage four dogs and I worry what will happen to them if we are gone.  My son-in-law told me once they would take care of our animals so I feel better about that.  When they say dogs become almost like your children, they are right. They are dependent on us for everything like children and need to be around us like children do.

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We went to a comedy show last night featuring Jim Gaffigan, who is from our state.  He had a series on tv for one season several years ago that I watched and enjoyed.  Anyway, we drove to Indianapolis and driving through downtown on a Saturday night was quite the thrill. There was something going on because there were women dressed in formals and men in dress suits all going into this one building. There was a picture of one the Indiana Pacers outside so I was wondering if it had to do with the Pacers.  There was also a knifing last night in Indianapolis if you saw it on the news.  There is not a lot of violent crime there so this was not the norm. Evidently some drinking was involved and an altercation about where a truck was parked.  Tempers flared and someone got knifed.  Why I don’t like being in big cities anymore.  Especially at night.  But that is me.  I like the country, but it is not like bad things don’t happen in the country, also. I  watch a lot of murder shows and there are a lot of murders in the southern part of my state. David and I just did a road trip and went through this town where two young girls were walking a train trestle and evidently got accosted by a man who shot them both.  It was on one of the shows I watch.  Anyway, one of the girls had the presence of mind to take a picture of the man as he walked toward them with her cellphone and it was a pretty good picture, but it took forever it seemed for the police to find the murderer. They finally did and he got arrested, put on trial and convicted. I don’t know if he got life or the death penalty, but either one would have been appropriate for such a horrible crime.  Two young girls barely in their teens.  I don’t know how their parents stood it all.  But back to where we were going……

When we got to the venue, David showed his cellphone to the gatekeeper who was supposed to help us download our tickets.  He sent us to the box office where we found out Stubhub had sold the same tickets twice and that a couple were already inside in our seats!  The cashier told David Stubhub is good at doing that and found us seats that were far better than the ones David bought. Eight rows back, center stage!  Anyway, don’t buy tickets through Stubhub.  They, in essence, steal your tickets that you buy and sell them to someone else.  We learned our lesson well.

Anyway, Jim was funny although he talked mostly about Bourbon.  I know.  That doesn’t sound like it would be funny, but it was.  David and I were talking about bourbon before the show.  I don’t know why.  But I was wondering how it tasted.  It’s big at the Kentucky Derby.  I don’t drink, but for some reason I have always wanted to know how it tasted.  Maybe because I read Gone With the Wind when I was a girl and the men were always drinking bourbon.

After the show we were hungry.  Neither of us had eaten anything all day but a package of peanut butter and crackers and me a Snicker bar.  We like Pizza King and I found one on Garmin so we took off down the streets to the restaurant,but when we got there, it was already closed.  It was 10;30 at night so I was afraid we would not find anything open but fast food which I don’t like anymore.  I looked up on Garmin and found a Bubbas which we both like so we set it on Garmin and went to look for it.  It was open until 11;00 and I asked the girl at the desk if it was too late for us, but she asked this one waiter and he said he would wait on us, so we got our seats and ordered our meals. The waiter was so nice and did a great job getting our drinks and food out.  I got a hamburger with sausage cut up on it, queso cheese, lettuce and tomato and it was so good.  Probably because I was so hungry.  David got the same.  We left the waiter a very nice tip because he was so nice.  I told him we would be coming back.  We usually eat out in Greenwood when I have to go to my eye doctor.  I have to go again in December.

Our motel was very nice except we had to ask for something to help me get up on the bed it was so high and I am short.  The manager was kind enough to bring a bench for me to crawl upon.  I have to use a stool to get up in our Jeep also and this trip, David forgot it. Left it in our driveway when we left so he and I had fun getting me up on my seat in the Jeep.  I wish we had added the extra step you can buy when you buy a Jeep.  I cannot get up on high seats. You know those high stools some restaurants have.  We ate out with some people once and I could not get up on those stools.  Finally, after being helped by two strong people, I got up there, but it was not comfortable so I steer away from those.

Another thing about some motel beds is they have four little bitty pillows on them that are not at all comfortable so we always take our own bed pillows.  The bed in this particular motel was very comfortable once I got up on it and I slept like a baby.  I need my creature comforts.

David will be taking another short vacation before the Holiday chaos starts at the store.  We have some plans and I will tell you about them later on.  Hope to do some Autumn leaf looking trips and there is a light show we are interested in so stay tuned.  Hope the cooler days come soon as I want to start wearing sweaters and socks again.  Been barefoot almost all Summer!  Bye.

What happened?  Summer has gotten completely away from me.  Let me tell you it has been a busy, busy season.  Gardening, quilting, playing with the pups, going to a shower, painting and various other things have monopolized my time.  We managed to freeze over 25 quarts of sweet corn along with a few of the cherry tomatoes I grew from seed.  My first ones in my green house.  We moved everything out of the greenhouse for Summer and in a few short weeks, we will be moving things back in again.  It is a constant job of one sort or other around here.

We also managed to take a few short road trips.  We took one today and almost ended up in Illinois, but we had to be home in time to feed the dogs so we had to turn around.  I have taken several pictures of our road trips and will include them here, some with description in a little bit.

David and I celebrated our 57th anniversary this Summer which we still cannot believe.  We met when I was sixteen and he was seventeen.  He was a transplant from another city, the cousin of one of my best friends.  I had met him when I was twelve at a basketball game, but hadn’t had him in my thoughts before that fateful day at a Dairy Queen when me and my girlfriends went there for lunchbreak from school and I saw this boy sitting, smoking a cigarette, with a short haircut(all the other boys’ hair was long and shaggy like the Beatles), wearing a worn leather coat and I asked my friend, “Is that your cousin?’  And she told me he was, in fact, the boy I had met years before.  He captivated me at that moment.  That Friday, at a football game, he sat behind we girls tormenting us and I really thought he was interested in another girl. But that weekend, his cousin called me and asked if I would like to go to a movie with her and her cousin and I said, “yes.”  So we all went to see “Joy in the Morning” with Richard Chamberlain and he held my hand.  The rest is history.  I fell for him bad.  When I got home my mother actually looked at me and her very words were, “You are in love, aren’t you?”  I couldn’t deny it and from that moment on, David and I were together as a couple right through his graduation, my graduation, him going to the military, me going to college and when he got out, getting engaged and marrying by the time I was nineteen.  I have never regretted one day of making that life choice.  I have been very blessed in having a mate who loves me as much as I love him and we like being together all the time.  We have been through good time, tragic times, sad times, happy times, poor times,  richer times, and everything in between and I would not have had it any other way.  I wish everyone could have a relationship like we have had.  Sometimes I think we leave others out of our little cocoon we have made for each other, not on purpose, but because we just like being together.  I have even been told by some to get away from David for a while, but I really don’t want to be away from him.  I had a girlfriend in high school who told me I was too good for him and I told her no, he was too good for me.  It is funny how people don’t understand a relationship like we have had.  Anyway, another year and I pray we have several more before we are separated.

Here are some pictures from our road trips.

You don’t see these much any longer.  We had a drive-in theater just down the road from our house for years and we would pack up the kids and a big bag of popcorn and take them to the movies.  Most of the time they were asleep before the movies were over, but that was okay.

We went to a town that I had seen on one of my murder shows. Yes, I picked it because I saw the town during the show and thought it looked like a nice little town despite a murder having taken place there and it was a really nice town. Old houses and this restaurant had good food.

I love taking pictures of flower gardens when we travel.  This one was in front of a little house and it was just full of flowers.  Pictures never do justice, but this was a very pretty garden.

We see some different structures in our travels.  This was a little log cabin with a moose beside it. The last time we saw a live moose was leaving Alaska fourteen years ago!

Gorgeous.

Some history along the way.  Not sure where this was, but the sign was in Indiana.

Ate at our favorite pizza place on one trip.

This double decker bus is inside it and you can eat in the bus if you like.  We never have but there were children enjoying being in it.

The little church where we were married.  I still have family that goes there.

I am always baking and this was the best rhubarb pie I believe that ever was!  I don’t usually brag about my cooking and I am not the best cook, but I can bake and this pie, well, it looked wonderful and was so delicious.  I hope I have not reached my peak in baking.  We froze a lot of rhubarb this Summer also.  So I will be making more pies.  Which is a story. I went to the doctor a few days ago and we talk about a lot of things and he was talking about baking peach cobbler and asked me if I baked and my exact words were, ” Look at me. Do I look like I bake!”  I love to bake and I love to eat what I bake.  So I am not a string bean by anyone’s imagination.  But, hey, I am getting old so I don’t have to keep up appearances any longer!  I feel sorry for older women who think they have to.  We have earned the right to be ourselves whoever that is. If you want to be skinny, fine.  Like to eat.  Fine.

David picked a lot of strawberries from his new bed this year.  Next year should be even more bountiful.  They were so good.

This is the young couple who will be marrying in a couple of weeks.  My oldest grandson and his fiance. Don’t they look happy!  A match made in Heaven.   I had made him this quilt a while back for his first apartment, but he decided to live at home until they got married to save some money so I gave it to them both for their first apartment.  It is full size, they just have it folded here.

Here are some pictures of our drive today.

You see the strangest things on Indiana backroads.

We passed this old barn in the middle of nowhere, nothing else around.  Look closely.

It had this beautiful barn quilt on it, but something else not expected.

Someone hanging from the hayloft window.  Poor soul.

Then David said. “Look cat crossing!”  He meant this…..

But I saw this….

A real cat hiding in the weeds. When it realized we were looking at it,  it slunk off.  A real cat crossing.

So many back roads to travel.  So many things to see.  It really is fun to travel the road less taken.

I joined a little quilt group on Facebook and we make one small quilt of our choosing from this particular author’s quilt books and show them to the group each month. We started back in October and I have made a small quilt every month.  Since next year is our country’s 150th birthday, I am making patriotic themed quilts now.

Here is the one for August.  I got some really patriotic fabric from a line by Lori Holt called Americana.

This is the quilt I made for July.  I am working on some more I cannot show as they may or may not be gifts at some point.  I am also making patriotic potholders to give away or sell.

This quilt wasn’t for this group, I just like chickens and made patriotic ones.  This is a Country Threads pattern from way back.

Here is another.  I am having so much fun making these little quilts.  You can almost make them in a day and feel like you have accomplished something.

And I liked this pattern so much, I made another in reproduction fabrics.

Some of my potholders.  Miniature quilts that can be used for baking or cooking or as a friend told me she did with hers, she put it on the back of an old antique chair she has and just looks at it!  Whatever makes you happy!

Here are some scenes from our soon to be granddaughter’s bridal shower.

She got a lot of nice things.  I remember how rich I felt after my bridal showers when I got so many nice, new things for my new home.

Here is my grandson who also got a gift at the bridal shower!

This is my darling, little granddaughter whose marriage we celebrated just a few years ago. She just got a job at Conner Prairie, a reenactment town of the 1820’s.  People dress up and speak as they did back then. There are several buildings to go through, an old school house where the school marm puts you through your paces and just lots of historical things to see. She works behind the scenes. Not exactly sure what she will be doing as she just started, but I hope to hear more about it.  We took her and her brothers to see it years ago when they were all little.

I think I am pretty well caught up with the news although I am sure I will think of something else after I sign off.

I will leave you with this sign.  We here in Indiana have our dark secrets, but then we put them on signs for all to see.

Saw this sign just outside where the bridal shower was held!  Perfect ending to a fun day!  Bye!

This month David and I celebrated 57 years of marriage.  How can that be? We were just kids who loved each other enough to get married and start life together. We had all our lives before us.  We had no children, owned no property and didn’t have much money.  David always tells people I was the rich one as I had money in the bank and he didn’t.  Little did he know that after  I paid my college tuition,  I had no money, either.  And to top it all off, I got pregnant immediately and spent my last quarter at college trying not to be sick.  I was taking swimming classes at the time and doing belly flops in the pool. I never really learned how to swim until years later when we got a pool.  So I quit school, went to work at Stucky’s Pecan Shop where I had friends there and had worked there before.  My boss actually bought me nursing bras as I was too dumb to know I would be needing them.
David worked at a factory and belonged to the National Guard where he had to be gone two weeks every Summer for annual training.

We settled into an apartment in our little town, right across from the gas station and above a pinball store where we would spend time playing pinball.  My sister had washed, starched  and ironed some beautiful, frilly curtains for the windows that faced the street and we had bought a whole houseful of furniture for, get this, just over one hundred dollars.  With that money we got a bed, a couch, a chair, two end tables, a coffee table, two table lamps and a floor lamp.  I felt rich!  We still have the floor lamp, but have gotten new furniture since those days. David went to work every day and so did until  I got  too pregnant. Our baby boy was born ten months after we were married.  I see these young couples who wait years to have their first child, but I am glad I had mine while I was young.  I always say I grew up with my children.  I loved being a wife and mother..

Anyway, David took two weeks off so we could do a few things and make some short trips as we like to do now. We drove to one of our favorite restaurants.

These are the doors of the little church where we came out of on our wedding day.

Clara’s Restaurant has been there for as long as I can remember.  They sell Pizza King pizzas which are the best tasting pizzas in my humble opinion.  I worked at a pizza King years ago, but that is a whole other story!  The decor is beautiful and it even has a double deck bus you can eat your pizza in.  You place your order on a phone at your table. It is so much fun. David “accidently” ordered an extra large pizza so we had plenty to bring home to eat for days.

We initially wanted to drive down into southern Indiana to see this little town I hate to say I saw on one of my murder shows I like to watch. A young girl was shot there, sadly, but they showed the little town and it looked so interesting, I wanted to see it.  It is on the Ohio River.  I love river towns.  I could very happily have lived in one. They all have these amazing old houses.  And women have such beautiful gardens.  I always say when I see a beautiful garden like this one that the lady who lives there, and I are kindred spirits.  I would love to meet her and talk about her beautiful garden.  We passed several on our trip. We also drove through Indiana’s first Capitol, Corydon, where we saw the preserved stump of the tree under which Indiana’s first Constitution was written. David thought it was a fake stump, but I like to think it is the real thing.

We saw flags waving along streets, beautiful murals painted on the sides of buildings and lots of old antebellum houses.We drove through sunshine and rain.    It was a fun trip. Plus in Corydon we found an ice cream shop with hand dipped ice cream that was really good.  We are always on the lookout for hand dipped ice cream. Today, July 20th is national ice cream day so, of course, we were on the lookout for some ice cream.  We went to church this morning and I was  telling David what day it was.  When we left church, lo and behold, a brand new ice cream shop had opened almost right next door to our church.  The Lord works in mysterious ways!  We had ice cream there and it was very good. We really needed a nice cream shop in our  town.

It has been a good and busy month.  We are starting to freeze corn. We plan to freeze some every week until Summer’s end so as to have plenty for the Winter.  We have a bridal shower and a wedding coming up.  Love is in the air!

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods!  Bye.