I really wish I could show you some of the things I am making for my Christmas Sale on December 3rd. I know that date seems really far away, but it will get here before I know it and I have tons of things to do to get my shop ready. Mainly, it needs a good cleaning. Having the dogs in there with me this year has made it a little more furrier than I would like and I have been cleaning up where their pens are kept. I really wish I had the time and the energy to paint all the walls again, but that’s not going to happen.

I’ve been posting the little church people I have been making on Facebook and they have been received very well by some people. They really are so cute with their own little quilt or afghan and a roll up container made of fabric to keep them in. I’ve made five of them so far and may make more as they are so much fun and I really think anyone with a small child would love to have these for him or her to play with.

I made a small quilt the last couple of days. I keep telling myself I have enough stuff to sell, but I keep getting ideas and I have so much beautiful Christmas fabric, it just has to be used. I ordered red and white striped ticking way back in May or June and I finally got it this week and oh, do I love it and see so many things that can be made with it. I wish I could show you all the Christmas stockings I have made and the cutest little patchwork kitties. I loved making those so much, the last time I counted them I had made forty!

I do try to get outside often and play with the pups. They love me shooting their rubber ball and going after it. Most times Lucy is the one who gets it because she is the athlete, but Molly and Sugar give her a good run for the money. I really believe Lucy would fetch all day if I sat out there and shot her the ball.

David has been doing very well since his surgery. They keep asking him at the doctor’s office if he has any pain or is taking any pain medicine and he tells them “No,” which seems to surprise them. He really hasn’t been in that much pain. He’s doing exercises the PT gave him and he is talking about going back to work. They told him he could stand around and tell the other employees how to fold the clothes(He works at Ralph Lauren’s Polo store.) He’s been there since the store opened and is the last remaining employee who was hired there so he knows pretty much everything there is to know about the store. He started out taking out the trash, moved up to asst’ manager and was manager for a short while, but he did not like the demand that took on his time. He is retired, after all! Now he works only three days a week which is plenty. He is itching to get back, but I really hope he will stay home for a couple of months to ensure his shoulder is healing properly. But if the doctor tells him he can go back to work, I won’t be able to stop him.

I am saving money to get our house painted orange. I know, that sounds ghastly, but there is a house in Bloomington painted a rusty orange with deep spruce colored trim and it is beautiful Besides, I told David we would be the only house in our town that is painted orange. I keep working on him and I tell him it won’t happen for a couple of years. I think he hopes I will get out of the notion, but I know I won’t. Check out orange houses online. There are many beautiful ones. So unique. No white house for this girl. I may paint a birdhouse the colors I want to see how it looks. Also, we have a bay window with a roof and I want to have the roof replaced with copper. I can see it in my mind and think it would be a knock out house. I never stop dreaming even though I can’t do as much as I use to do. No matter how old you get, NEVER stop dreaming.

Hope you have some dreams and that some of them come true. Bye.

I know I’ve been gone for a while, but I have no idea how many days it’s been. So much has been happening. I got my second shot in my right eye to fight the histoplasmosis that has suddenly appeared in it. Thankfully, it did not get into the center of my eye and has not affected my vision and I pray it won’t. I have a very good eye doctor, Dr. Shah, and he knows what he is doing. Years ago when I had histo in my left eye and was getting shots, it was a traumatic experience. One doctor even made my eye blood shot for days afterward. When Dr. Shah gives me the shot, I hardly know when it’s happening he does it so quickly and painlessly. Anyway, enough about me.

David went in for surgery on his rotator cuff and when the doctor got in there he found a very badly torn shoulder muscle that he had to sew back onto the bone. OUCH!@ I was worried David would be in a lot of pain as our pastor had about the same surgery and had told him how painful it was. I don’t know if David just endures pain more than others, but he said he only had some pain right after the pain blocker they had put in wore off and one other day. He’s been keeping ahead of the pain with his pain meds and he has this what looks like a thermos that holds ice water and it has a tube that runs into the icepack he keeps on his shoulder and that has seemed to help a lot. The doctor told him this week that it was a really bad tear and it would be several months before he can take the sling off. Maybe as long as into February. So I am going to have to find someone to help me get food for the animals as I cannot pick up fifty pound bags anymore. But we have stocked up and have enough for a month or two so I will worry about that later.

We have been having some heavy rains which I am so thankful for because watering the garden is one thing I don’t have to do when it rains. Right now I feel like I am on a treadmill with the house, the dogs, the chickens and everything else. I know some of you reading this have done things by yourself for years, but I am not use to having to do the heavy work. I have to help David bathe as he is not to get his stitches wet for a while and has to keep his arm in a sling.

I do manage to get a few hours of sewing in for my Christmas sale I hope to have on December 3rd. I am finishing up three table runners this week. Sitting and slowly sewing on the binding is so relaxing to me during this time. I wish I could put pictures on here, but I still haven’t figured out how. I am hoping when my son, who is a computer tech, comes to visit he can find out what has happened to my blog.

We got a new pastor at our church and we really like him. David had put on Facebook that he needed someone to mow our lawn and even though he doesn’t know us that well, our new pastor said he would come do it. I thought that was really nice. With all the rains, our lawn looks like a hay field.

I watched a really interesting show on ID called Village of the Damned. It is a true story about this small town in New York that in ten years time had so many murders and tragedies that people were calling it that. I liked how it ended though, when the townspeople said it was really a nice place to live and that those tragedies did not mean it was a horrible place. It really looks like your idea of the perfect small town. Someplace I’d like to visit.

David and I have been watching Vera on Britbox. And when I found out these stories came from books that Ann Cleeves wrote, I put some on my Kindle to read. Vera is a policewoman who takes no nonsense and is incredibly good at her job finding the killer in each episode. It’s really a good series, but as usual, we are getting to the end of them and will have to find another series to binge watch. Is the term Binge Watching something that started when you could stream shows? I never heard of binge watching any tv show in the sixties and seventies. Honestly, if someone had told me fifty years ago that you could pick and choose what you wanted to watch on tv, I would have laughed at them. Back then you only had a few channels on your black and white tv and the tv went off after the National Anthem was played until the next day. The Mickey Mouse Club was in black and white and was one of my favorite shows to watch after school. I so admired Annette and so did my brothers! Annette got MS like my daughter. She was beautiful right to the end of her life, inside and out.

Speaking of my daughter, a friend of hers put her on Gofundme to buy her a special car that she could get in with her wheelchair and go right up to the steering wheel with it and with special controls that she will have to learn to use, she can drive all by herself. She is so looking forward to having that freedom again as she loves to drive and not being able to has really been hard for her. Anyway, Gofundme paid for the vehicle and so she and her husband went this week to buy the car. Now it will have to be specially equipped just for her and she will have to have lessons on how to drive it. When she finally gets her wings, I want to take a ride with her.

I’ve written quite enough for now. Just please keep us in your prayers. Prayers really do work. Bye.

I really wish I could post pictures here, but something has gone wrong with my blog and I cannot figure how to put pictures on it right now so you will just have to read and try to picture things.

My garden is in full bloom. My little raised bed garden is actually prettier than any of my other gardens because it gets more attention. Everything is in bloom. The tomatoes are setting on and some are almost ready to be picked. I have had fried green tomatoes twice already and have pretty much had my fill of them this year. I’m going to try to put some pictures on my Facebook page so if you are my friend you can see the flowers that are in bloom. Cosmos, zinnias, nasturtiums, geraniums and others are looking so pretty.

I have some news about David’s and my health. Remember last winter David slipped and fell while taking care of the chickens? He’s been going to the doctor ever since and finally the doctor decided maybe he needed surgery to repair the damage. He may have even torn a muscle loose, but they won’t know until they get in there and see. He will be off work for five to six weeks best case and up to twelve weeks, worst case. Let’s hope and pray for best case. We are stocking up on feed for all the animals as I cannot load those big bags myself. He goes in for surgery August 4th.

I have had some bad news about my eyes. When I was in my twenties, I had ocular histoplasmosis which was in the center of my left eye. I had to have shots in my eye for several months to stop the bleeding. I lost the central vision in that eye. Well, the last time I was at my eye doctor, the one who lasered my retina back, discovered I had histo in my right eye. He said the good news was we caught it early and it was not in the central vision of my eye. I still worry about it, but I had one shot in that eye and will have to go get several more in the next months. Praying that this will save the sight in my right eye. I really don’t know what I would do if I lost my vision and could not quilt, knit or read. I’m counting on my doctor to take care of it for me and praying to God that He will give the doctor the knowledge to know how to treat it. If you who are reading this and are a praying person, please send a prayer up for David and me as we go through this trial.

Onto more pleasant things. We have been noticing that our black Lab, Sugar, always seems to be wet. We never see her in the pool where she knows not to go and there is never any wet places to show she has been in the pool. Today David went outside and went around the corner to the pool and Sugar was in the pool. When she saw him, she immediately got out. Caught red handed! Or red paws! None of our other dogs show any interest in getting in. So now we know the mystery of why Sugar is always wet. She’s sneaking in swims when we aren’t looking!

I have been working every day on things to sell at my Christmas sale I am still planning on having December 3rd. I have made hundreds of things and still have ideas for more. I really am enjoying myself. I go out in my shop every single day and work on something. If I ever can get pictures here on my blog, I will post some pictures of my creations.

David and I celebrated our 54th wedding anniversary on July 7th. Three days after that our granddaughter and her husband celebrated their first anniversary. I could tell her it doesn’t really seem that long ago when David and I were celebrating our first and we already had a tiny baby. And she will wake up one day and she and her husband will be celebrating their 50th anniversary wondering where the time went. When you are in a happy marriage, the time seems to fly. There are not enough years.

A while back David noticed that in the crawl space in our basement it looked like a den had been built so he figured a woodchuck had gotten in via under our porch which leads into our basement and it was setting up housekeeping. So, he set a trap. Guess what he caught? It wasn’t a skunk which we had to have removed this Spring. He caught a baby possusm. So he took it a few miles away and let it loose. Then he set the trap again. By the way, it seems possums like apples. He caught another baby possum. Off it went to where he took the last one. Well, five possums later and he thinks he has got them all. Meanwhile, out in our yard the dogs have caught two possums. Lucy came carrying one to me the other day. I don’t know if it was dead or playing possum. I don’t know where they all are coming from, but they seem to like it around our house. I don’t leave any food out, so that is not the draw. I have nothing against possums. They are actually very nice creatures. Just don’t want them in my house!

Speaking of creatures. I was upstairs and I came out of our bedroom and thought I saw a big piece of lint on the floor and started to pick it up and noticed it was a baby bat! I ran and got a waste basket and put over it until David got home. He took it outside. We don’t know how it got in. We have had adult bats in the house that came in through our fireplace, but we have it covered right now so it’s a mystery how the baby got in. For your information, baby bats are kind of cute.

Something is always going on around here. Never a dull moment. Hope your Summer(or Winter) is going well. Bye.

Tomorrow, July 7, 2022 my husband, David and I will celebrate fifty-four years of marriage. I can’t believe it. Fifty-seven years ago I was a sixteen year old girl, minding my own business, going to the Dairy Queen at noon with my girlfriends from school when I saw him. The most handsome boy I had ever seen. A haircut in a burr while most boys were wearing Beatle haircuts, wearing a leather jacket and smoking a cigarette. It was my best friend’s cousin who was living with her family after his parents moved to the Virgin Islands. He did not want to go.

That Friday at a football game, he sat behind me and my friends and I thought he was interested in my girlfriend, Carol. Little did I know. That Sunday his cousin invited me to go to a movie, Joy in the Morning, with her and David and my mother said I could go. Let’s just say the day ended with some kisses and I was in love. Even my mother noticed that something had happened to me that day.

David and I dated all through his senior year and my junior year. Then he went into the military, but we knew we were going to get married one day. I went to college a year because my parents expected me to, but I knew I wanted to be married and have a family.

We were married by two pastors so we really are married. We spent our honeymoon at Traverse City, Michigan where David’s grandparents and other family lived.

The years passed so quickly. First one, then two and eventually three children joined our family and I had my big house and was extremely happy.

Sure, there have been some hard times, some sad times, some times when I felt like I wanted to quit, but David always was there to pick me up and keep me going.

I have been blessed to be married to one of the nicest men in the world who loves me completely. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t tell me I’m beautiful and that he loves me. I try to do the same for him except handsome instead of beautiful. He really is the most handsome man to me even now. Sexy, too, if I can embarrass my children a little bit by writing this.

So, David, if you are reading this, Happy Anniversary. I love you and you have made my life worth living. Let’s try for a few decades more. A thousand years would not be enough nor a million so we will have to continue our love affair in Heaven when the time comes. Love you, my handsome, sexy husband. Bye.

I’m going to try to write something and see if it turns up on my blog. My blog disappeared for a while and now it’s hard to put pictures on it or write, even. So let’s check to see what happens here. If it works, I will try to write a longer blog soon. I am all right. Nothing has happened to me, but I have had a health scare to tell you about if I can get it written on the blog. Bye.

Yesterday was my birthday and it was a very nice one, indeed.  I told David I did not want a cake as I wanted to get tiramisu at the Italian restaurant we were going to.  So, instead, I awoke in the morning with fresh coffee brewed and Boston creme donuts with two candles on them with the number 7 and 3.   I let you guess how old that made me!    So right there the sugar intake started.   Even though I wanted to have less sugar.

David said I should do whatever I wanted to do on my birthday and I know this sounds boring to many, but I spent the afternoon sewing upstairs.  Sewing and listening to talk radio puts me in my happy place.  But it wasn’t to be for long. David came upstairs and said, “You need to come see something.”  Now whenever David says something like this to me, I never know if I should expect the Queen of England to be at the door or that the dogs have found a new toy.  I never know.   “Is it company?”  I asked since I wasn’t dressed for company.  But it wasn’t company.  I came downstairs into the dining room and there was a beautiful vase of flowers and a large box of Whitman’s Sampler on the table.  “Do you have a boyfriend? David asked me.  “I don’t know.” I replied.  You would think I would know.   I read the note on the flowers that wished me a Happy Birthday and called me Mom so I knew it was somebody who called me Mom.  So that narrowed it down.  They had not signed their name.

And more sweets!  I was not going to eat sweets except for the Tiramisu, but I ate two chocolates, one being a caramel which, while I was chewing it, made me remember this was exactly how I pulled the bridge off a tooth a few weeks ago while eating a Sugar Daddy.  “Idiot,” I said to myself, but I didn’t do any harm this time except for adding a few hundred calories to my day.  The day I wanted to eat tiramisu.

My daughter-in-love called me to wish me a Happy Birthday and she said she had not sent the flowers and candy.

My very best friend from school where we went from first grade to graduation together, called  from Florida where she and her husband were spending a few weeks.  We had a nice talk.  She and I can get together after years and it’s like we have never been apart.  We went through a lot of things together while growing up and she will always be my friend.

I received a few cards one of which is from a lady in my church who always includes the most wonderful prayer for the recipient of the card.  She is so awesome and her prayers are so heartfelt.  I cherish them when I get them. She had sent David a birthday card and prayer also.  She hasn’t been to church for a long time because of Covid and she is not in the best of health.

Later we went to my favorite Italian restaurant to eat. We went kind of early because I was hungry having already eaten a donut and two pieces of candy!   We had the cutest waitress. She was tiny and elfin like with short hair and the prettiest eyes.  She wore two rings in her nose which kind of bothered me, but it’s her business. I don’t know why people wear rings in their noses. The only ones that wore rings in their noses when I was growing up was an old bull we had or the pigs.   So I have never had the desire to wear a ring there.  But if you do so, it’s your business and if it makes you happy.  Anyway, she took our order and was very efficient in getting us our drinks and bread.  We were having a good time talking while I was facing the kitchen where I like to watch the cooks as they toss the spaghetti and cook on the grill. But suddenly I saw smoke coming from there and all the cooks and waiters and waitresses stopped what they were doing and watched what was happening as one of the cooks struggled to get the fire under control.  “The kitchen is on fire,”  I told David and he turned around to look. The smoke was billowing.  What a show!  No one was running for the door, so I thought it couldn’t be dangerous.    As fast as it began, the fire was out and everyone, the cooks, the waiters and waitresses all disappeared.  David said, “It must have been the spaghetti and sausage I ordered.”  We laughed and the manager came to our table and said it was going to be a while before we got our meal and we were okay with that.  By that time the restaurant was filling up with people and no cooks in the kitchen.  Later our waitress came to the table to apologize that our meal would be late and I said, “It’s not your fault.”  So we waited about an hour and the cooks finally came back and started cooking again and we got our meals and let me tell you, the chicken penne gorgonzola was delicious. It was such a huge serving, I took a lot of it home in two cartons and ate it today.  I also ordered the Tiramisu to go as I was full.  We were there for two hours and it seemed much shorter because we were having such a good time. Then I went home and ate another donut.  I know.  I was lost by that time.

Today I finished the chicken penne and ate the Tiramisu and it was worth the wait.

Our daughter called us that night and it was she and her husband who had sent the flowers and candy.  So mystery solved.  I am so blessed.

It was an amazing birthday and I look forward to more, but I don’t know how they can be any better than this one was.

Here’s to Happy Birthdays, may you have good ones always.  Bye.

 

January has always been the month I just wish would go away. Other than having David’s birthday in it, it’s always been such a cold, miserable month, but this January?  It’s been fairly decent weatherwise.  Not much sleet, snow or ice to speak of.  Today we were outside playing with the dogs and I did not feel cold at all which is strange for me as I am always cold in the Winter.  I wish you could watch Lucy playing fetch. She is so engrossed in the process, you cannot pet her or anything because she is so centered on getting that ball!   Maybe I’ll try to make a video of her sometime and show you because it really is hilarious.  I call her our athletic child because she really is good at catching the ball in midair.  She just has not learned how to give it up easily once she has it.   I really believe she could compete in those dog shows where the dogs run and leap off  into the air above water and catch the ball in midair. Lucy could do that!   Sugar likes to catch the ball, too, but she’s not near as excited about it as Lucy is and Molly holds her own even though she’s a few years older than the pups.

I got David two puzzles for Christmas  called  The Country Diary of and Edwardian Lady. One is of Winter flora and fauna and one is of Autumn.  They are so beautiful and David has already put them both together so I told him I would order him the Spring and Summer ones for his birthday. I looked up Edith Holden, who is the artist for the water colors for these puzzles,  and she was  quite the artist in her time. I can’t imagine sitting down and drawing such beautiful pictures of animals, bird and vegetation.  It reminds me of Beatrix Potter who did the same in her time, but she wrote children’s books and put her water colors  in them.  I guess during the time these ladies were growing up there was not a whole lot women were expected to do but keep house and raise children or paint or sew.  But they took their talents and made something wonderful from them for which millions of us are very glad they did.  I will try to have pictures of the puzzles on my next blog or you can see them and order them, if you wish, on Amazon.

One of my presents for Christmas this year were tickets to go see the Van Gogh immersion show that is being shown at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. I actually cried when I saw the tickets because I had seen it was coming, but didn’t think I’d be able to go.  There will be a lot of walking, so we are borrowing our daughter’s old wheelchair and David will wheel me through it.   I still cannot walk long distances although I am getting a little better, but there will be a lot of walking at this show.  You walk through Van Gogh’s pictures that surround you from every side. I cannot wait.  I bought a new tunic that is of Van Gogh’s Irises painting and I will wear it and I will be immersed into the picture! HA!

I have been busily sewing in my shop. I’ve made six more pillows and a small quilt and have several more cut out.  I have so many ideas of things I would like to sell at my craft show next Fall.  I plan to finish a few quilts and lots of little things such as potholders and Christmas stockings and pillowcases, etc.   I ordered some new fabric from the line called She Who Sews and I have so many ideas for it.  I love this line and plan to order more if it’s available. It’s been very popular, I’ve noticed.  I had the She Who Sews wall calendar in my shop last year and got a new 2022 calendar for Christmas.

We got the nicest thank you note from one of our youngest grandsons thanking us for his Christmas presents.  We thought it was so nice and what was so cute was he addressed the envelope to Grandpa and Grandma. No names, just the address and we got it.  I’m sure the postman smiled about that.

I really do hope we get one good snow before Winter is through.  One that covers everything in white marshmallow heaps, but doesn’t stay on too many days.  We haven’t had much snow the last few Winters so we are due one.

Hope your January is going well wherever you are. Bye.

Shhhhh.  I’m busy making things for Christmas that I can’t show you now.  So, I will see you on the other side.  I will have lots to show you.

Merry Christmas everybody and may God bless you all. Bye.