week's recap

Monday - dr's appt; tech remembered Bobby from 2 yrs ago and laughed about unless he starts eating a lb of bacon a day and smoking then he shouldn't have problems; delivered Bobby's van to the auto body shop for repairs

Tuesday - drove an hour to pick up old farmstyle kitchen chairs (yeah, re-arranging and sorting is what I do best when I'm supposed to be cleaning house for company)

Wednesday - meeting with wheelchair company rep (last step before officially ordering the chair!!!). Order placed. Discussed his current chair issues. Confirmation parts cannot be obtained for this chair but found out a loaner may be a possibility as we wait the 3 weeks for the chair to be made and customized on our end.

Thursday - laundry and garden week (pulled up corn and tilled and fertilized with my shovel since my car is too small for the hardware's store rental tiller and ours won't be ready from repairs for another week)

Friday - wheelchair died...dead as a doornail will not move; Melba Lauver died; Hank, her husband, en route to dr with problems

Saturday - pulled out the manual chair; housewarming for a friend; still cleaning

and tomorrow...we have about 12 people coming to our house for our church's periodic "home gatherings". And it's our 18th anniversary. Not the week we had planned, but we're still feeling very blessed.

Original Sewing & Quilt Expo - Raleigh

The quilt expo came back to Raleigh this year, and I had the opportunity to go yesterday with a friend. It was really cool running in to people from classes and stores, but we also enjoyed looking at the vendor booths, but mainly enjoyed the quilt shows/exhibits themselves. I didn't take many pictures this year, but here's the few I did capture:

 This one was in a modern quilt/ black& white challenge. I'm not a huge fan of most modern quilting, but this is one of the several that I liked. I love the background (strips merging into solid white strips), plus the subject matter.

 I think this one would make a good scrap quilt, as well as a great Quilt of Valor quilt. Here's a close up of the block:

 The basic block is two four patches with two half square triangles. The placement of the dark and white and the consistent use of the reds is what creates this pattern. This one may be added to my mental list of quilts to do one day!

And this one amazed me. I photographed the quilter's description beside it. She used the basic house pattern and then diamonds placed on point to create the landscape. I'd love to see the landscape in gradations of beige (for wheat) or green, and the houses in actual house colors. Guess that's the realism in me coming out. Can't venture too far outside the norm! ;)

update

The Quilting Page is now updated.

pics and more pics

What Bobby has dubbed "the annex"...peas, 4 tomatoes, 1 okra;
a rabbit ate most of my lettuce and spinach.

Zipper Cream Peas, growing in hay bales,
which a yellow biddie is picking at.

Main garden.

green beans

Geese are eating the bottom stems and leaves on my green beans,
to my chagrin and Bobby's delight.

Corn didn't produce much, and is mostly gone.

Momma hen outside the garden,
waiting on the biddies to come back out.

Momma hen pointing out a bug to the yellow biddie, with black biddies coming out of the garden fence.

Carrots, which the chickens keep trying to dig up.

Sweet potato

And where the geese are eating the sweet potato leaves...

The first time I've seen the hummingbird actually perch.
Usually he flies in and out over and over, never landing.

hodge podge of life

These last few weeks have been both pleasant and hard, fun and yet full of work. 

Insurance has agreed to pay for repairs caused by the tire blowout, so the week we had reserved in hopes of celebrating our anniversary is now dedicated to getting the van repaired and celebrating at home.  And while it wasn't exactly what we had in mind, it really does turn out to be the best of both worlds. Still no word on the new wheelchair and what insurance's refusal on a key component will do to the whole process.

The garden is still producing, and there is a small part of me that will be glad when it is over. I'm not to the "how much longer is this going to last?" stage yet, but the first inklings of that attitude began to creep in yesterday. Today is another day to work outside and then come inside and can tomatoes. It's also the first day this summer I've had to remind myself that in a few months I'll be thankful for my canned stash.

Jimmy Aldridge, a dear family friend, died a week ago yesterday. I'm thankful he's no longer suffering and that he never reached the point where hospice had to give him the heavy doses of medicine. My heart hurts for Janie and the adjustments she has to face right now. Other than that, it's simply too close and personal to write about right now.

A hawk has been hovering in the back yard, so we've been anticipating losing a few of our 4 biddies. We did have one scare one night where we thought they were gone, only to be shocked to suddenly see a head stick out of the momma hen's wing. The other two were still present, just in hiding. It was such a funny sight.

The former owner of the snake skin made an appearance in my garden this past week, prompting me to work in the heat of the day instead of early morning or evening.

Our humming bird at the nectar feeder has made us laugh on more than one occasion. Maybe one day I can get it on video.

And quilt expo is this week! I'm excited to be going with a friend. No classes this year (those are at local shops in August), but the exhibits and shows will be enough.

My first meeting with elections is the last day of the month. So I'm trying to get some projects and things done before then, as I know my schedule will quickly start filling up once that hits. 

And that's a brief summary of the last two weeks.

and it's now July

Since my last post, we got the van driveable, made it to AL where my brother and brother-in-law attached the side fender that kept folding back while driving, helped my parents with the garden, watched fireworks over Smith Lake (and all the boats and car horns started honking in appreciation when it was done...kind of cool) and drove back home. We "celebrated" the 4th by trying to catch up on some sleep, washing clothes, and going out to Five Guys for hamburgers. While we watched Garner's traditional July 3rd fireworks from home, someone nearby was shooting off some nice fireworks on the evening of the 4th, so we got to see a few minutes of live fireworks that night as well. Oh - we've also oohed and aahhed and cleaned up the small chicken house where we had 4 biddies hatch while we were gone. Big chickens are now happy to have one of their egg laying spots back.

The remainder of this week we've taken care of garden stuff (though I still need to weed), a doctor's appt (all is good), a long-arm rental day, and have tried to tackle some projects in my sewing room. I can't help but laugh sometimes at how different my husband and I are. He's one of those people that starts a project and finishes it. He may have 2 or 3 things going, but he'll be working on all of them until they are done. The very concept of having 30+ projects in various stages laying around in one room is enough to make his brain short circuit. So this week I moved 2 of those projects into the next phase, took care of 90% of the mending pile on the floor, and actually cleaned up a small bit. 

And since our lawnmower is still in the shop, we asked to borrow my mother-in-law's mower again. When my brother-in-law brought it to the house, he also CUT THE GRASS!!! So I canned tomatoes and rejoiced not to be out in the heat. :) I am blessed.