Merry Christmas!

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

A Little Seque

Yes, I know I left my last post indicating that I was about to start our Christmas cards.  Didn't happen.  A picture of a pattern which I had previously downloaded popped up on Facebook. Now done up in Christmas colors, it drew me down the rabbit hole and I headed for my sewing room, inspired to action.  The pattern was for a very cute potholder and it is a free download.  

Here are the two I made:

And a closer view of each one:

I chose red and green but not in obvious Christmas fabrics so they can be used year 'round.

I had so much fun quilting the fabrics and then choosing coordinating colors for the bias binding.  I love my Clover 1" bias tape maker!  Also, using Bernina foot #10 makes topstitching a pleasure.  It's so nice to have just the right tools for every job.  ♥

I'm Dreaming of a . . .

Ten days until Christmas and we have had a beautiful, white, misty day here at the resort.  Church this morning was full of glorious Christmas songs along with a wonderful message on the fulfillment of prophesy as that first Christmas dawned.  

These short December days bring a beauty all their own, but the addition of snow makes them perfect.  I snapped this photo as the day was slipping into evening.

Tonight we have a special program at church called "Present Your Gifts to the King" wherein people, mostly children, share songs and talents as we all munch on snacks and baked goodies.  It's very relaxed and low key and filled with laughter and cheers.  

Tomorrow?  Hopefully Christmas cards will be written and addressed and ready for Tuesday's mail.  Wish me luck!  

Merry Christmas! ♥

And Now It's December

Thanksgiving has come and gone and it was wonderful! Ann, Eric, Cameron, Keaton and Daniel came to stay Wednesday night and thus began a fun-filled (and food-filled!) holiday.  We relaxed and, as we say, fell in a heap that night and then popped up Thursday morning to get things ready for the big dinner.  Fortunately we are creatures of habit, or maybe I should say traditionalists, so the menu is never an issue.  Turkey, stuffing, gravy and all the other standbys.  Mmmm...

The one thing we've changed in the last few years is our potatoes.  We switched to the Pioneer Woman's decadent recipe for mashed potatoes and as Ann says, we've never looked back.  When it came time to make the potatoes, I had plenty of help!

Kitchen crew at work!

The dinner was a success and we were blessed to have our niece Kirsten, her husband Tim, and little Taylor joining us.  Our table was full and so were our chairs!  

We spent the rest of our days relaxing, reading, visiting, napping and putting a puzzle together.  And, of course, one night we all watched Home Alone 2 as a prelude to the Christmas season.  Even after all these years, the Home Alone movies still make us laugh.  

Saturday morning the guys all helped Dan change out our tires to snow tires, inspired by the light snowfall of the night before.  They worked together, with a team of two on each vehicle and the work went swiftly.

Dan and Keat on the pickup

Eric and Cam on the car

Even Daniel got in on the act when it came time to air up the tires.  

He had to borrow some gloves and tennis shoes from me, hence the pink hands and pink shoelaces.  Yes, this eight-year-old wears the same size shoes as his grammy.  (And why, you are asking did he have to borrow?  Simple.  He came in his shorts--note the bare legs--and his slides.)  ♥

Another Quilt Done!

I finished another baby quilt this week and actually remembered to photograph it for posterity.  

It's the same pattern as the last one I made, and truthfully, I'm excited to start another, this time for a girl.  It's a fun pattern to make up and uses fat quarters for the larger focus fabrics.  I'm about out of whites for the framing, so I may actually have to go fabric shopping.  It's been fun to see how many quilts I can make from my stash.  Kind of like a contest with myself.  

Somehow (maybe through Pinterest?) I stumbled upon a site featuring the most amazing knits for dolls.  The designer is Norwegian and has recently published a book of many of her patterns.  I contacted them to see if it was available in English and was thrilled to find it was. The designer is Maalfrid Gausel and you can find many of her patterns on her website.  Yes, I ordered the book. :-)

Not much else has been going on, but we're gearing up for Thanksgiving.  We have family coming and it will be fun with visiting and of course, lots of food.  We have much to be thankful for! ♥

Coffee and Me

I didn't drink coffee until I was thirty-five years old.  I made coffee for others in the offices where I worked while I worked my way through college, and after Dan and I married, I made coffee for him every morning in the harvest gold coffee pot we got as a wedding present.  But I didn't drink any of it.  It always smelled wonderful, but taste?  Not so wonderful.  

Winter of 1985 I was hired to finish out the year for a teacher who was ill.  I had been subbing for a couple of years and had a good rapport with the principal and staff at the school, so I was thrilled.  That it was the school where Matt and Ann attended was a plus.  The class across the hall from my classroom was taught by a good friend of ours and every morning he'd come into my room and tell me coffee was ready and I would say I didn't drink it.  You guessed it, by the end of the year, I was drinking coffee.  It helped that he had an in with a salesman for a really good brand of coffee and used it in the pot in his room.  Cheap coffee it was not.

I did discover, however, that the addition of a flavored creamer really upped my love of the stuff.  The question now was, was it the coffee or the creamer?  Who knows, but I can't have one without the other unless it's a cup after a big dinner with some yummy dessert.  Then I drink it plain.  

When we moved to Moscow and I began teaching full time, I had a microwave in my classroom and would have to reheat my coffee numerous times during the day.  Since I would often leave my cup here and there in the room as I moved about with the kids, I would sometimes have to have an "alert" to find it.  Finally one of the kids would go look in the microwave and say, "It's in the microwave and it's cold again.  Would you like me to reheat it for you?"  That often happens here at home now, and then, when I finally find my cup in the microwave, I have to reheat it--again.  

My good pal Kathy had a recent blog post about finding a holiday carafe for sale on Etsy and that she had ordered it with good results as it arrived in like-new condition. The post caused me to wonder if she used it to keep her tea warm throughout the morning and then led me to ponder my usual scenario of repeated trips to the microwave as my morning progresses.  Apparently I'm consistent!  ♥

Front Porch

It's a gray day here at the Resort.  It started out foggy, now it's just gray, bleak even, and rain is forecast for this afternoon.  A good day to be indoors, with something warm and comforting to drink.  In my case, pumpkin spice coffee with salted caramel creamer.  Mmmm . . .  she said with a smile.  

But back to my post title.  I've put up pictures of our front porch decorated for fall before, but this year we have something new.  Years ago I made a wreath for the front door but I have been somewhat dissatisfied with it for a while.  We have friends who have a Christmas tree farm outside a neighboring town and they also have a corresponding Christmas shop in their barn.  The past couple of years they have added a fall festival and shop. I was perusing their website and noticed some gorgeous fall wreaths.  I had to have one!  And so I bought.  

I love, love, love it.  So beautiful and welcoming.  It's the perfect addition to our little front porch which was swept clean yesterday courtesy of my sweet husband.

Yes, that poor old scarecrow is still there.  He's tradition.  ♥

Cookbook Reminiscing

I think past posts have made it clear that I am a lover of cookbooks.  I have many, and even often have one on my nightstand for bedtime reading.  Yes, it's true, I do! I kind of rotate though my shelves and when one comes up again after a long time, it's like meeting an old friend.  And one cookbook is especially like that. 

I found this cookbook in a little shop the first time we went to the ocean as a family.  Actually, it was the first time I was ever at the ocean! Dan bought it for me and then he and the kids autographed it.

Ann (known in those days as Annie), was five and about to enter kindergarten. Matt was six and headed for first grade.  A week before our trip, the middle finger on his right hand was broken when it was accidentally smashed in a door and he was sporting a splint and bandages on it following stitches.  Hence his shaky signature.  (We have pictures of him digging in the sand with his left hand, right hand held up in the air to keep it clean and dry.)

The cookbook is a thoughtful read on mindful cooking, and the handwriting on the title page makes it priceless.

♥ ♥ ♥

A Little More Catching Up

Our house is surrounded by trees.  Lots of trees.  Box elders, maples, spruce, poplars, aspen, and a huge birch tree are just some of them.  The birch tree was a thing of beauty, towering high and weeping low.  Until the last few years.  They don't last long and then there's the birch borer.  This year our beautiful tree was a sad sight.  Over three-fourths of it was dead and Dan knew it had to come down.  

A few weeks ago he put in a call to his good buddy, Dennis, and they made plans to take it down.  A tree as large as this one takes some planning and they did that in short order.  The tree had a fork down low and so they began by attaching a cable high up on the taller southern section and running it to the back of our pickup.  This would ensure that it fell in the right place. With Dan manning the truck to keep the cable taut and Dennis on the saw, they began.  

They've worked together for so many years on various projects and hunting that they know each other well. They worked quickly and efficiently and in short order, both sections were down and by nightfall, all that was left were a few leaves and stacks of cut limbs.  Another biggie on Dan's list was scratched off!  (And two days later they rebuilt the chimney in Dennis's garage.)  ♥

Hmmm...

It's not as if I've not had anything going on, because I have. Lots of things.  Sometimes I'm not in the mood to write, sometimes I have so much going on that there's no time to write (coherently at least), and sometimes there are so many things I could write about that I don't know where to start.  So I don't.  These are all valid reasons for why I've been absent for what looks like six weeks.  The time does fly by!!

So, what's been going on?  Well, soccer games and then a soccer tournament this last weekend.  Keaton's team did well!  He was the keeper (goalie) this year and at first I thought it would be so stressful to watch because often it comes down to that person to save the day. Well, Keat, all six-foot four inches (plus) of him with a corresponding arm span was made to be a keeper!  He did a fabulous job and they came in first place at the tournament!!  What a night!  Here's a picture of him with Ann on Senior Night, the last local game of the regular season.

Ann looks like such a shorty, but she's all of five-foot nine or so.  No shortage of tall people in this family (except Dan and me!).  

In further news, Daniel got glasses and looks terrific in them.  He'd mentioned to me that he had trouble seeing things at a distance and I told Ann who took him straight away to the eye doctor.  Now the only one in the family without glasses or contacts is Cameron!

I've started another baby quilt using the same pattern as the one from my last post.  I'm just loving that pattern! Such a simple design but so many possibilities.  I'll share some pictures in my next post. 

Bruder Bear and Karen were here a few weeks ago for Homecoming at our college alma mater.  Niece Kirsten's husband, Tim, and little Taylor, came, too. (Kirsten was off on a girls' weekend with some friends.) What a little cutie Taylor is, and she really bonded with her Great-uncle Dan.

At nineteen months, she even went to the football game and was just about perfect, only starting to fuss in the last minutes.  We knew we were going to win, so we exited and even managed to avoid the end of the game traffic jams.  We came home to Papa Murphy's pizza and fell in a happy heap.  

Time Goes By!

Mercy, how quickly the days go by!  It's been fall, fall, fall here for the last few weeks and I'm loving it so much.  If the leaves were turning and falling I would swear it was late October instead of September.  Of course  a few have, but mostly all are still green so the actual fall colors are still to come.  

Bruder Bear and Karen were here for a few days last week and we had such a good visit.  They'd been on a round robin of visits with family and were glad to land here for a few lazy days.  We enjoyed dinner out at our favorite Mexican restaurant one night and I made a huge pot of Taco Soup the day they arrived so we got our Tex-Mex fill!  (Yes, there are a lot of cans in this soup but I did use my own pressure cooked pinto beans (1 1/2 cups drained and frozen equal one 16 ounce can), and I use lower sodium cans of the other beans and corn along with a low sodium or homemade taco seasoning.)  When you're feeding a crowd, this recipe rocks.  

I finished the yellow and blue baby quilt and I'm so in love with it that it's graced the top of the love seat for days.  It's just a happy quilt!

I was really feeling fallish yesterday and decided it was a good soup and bread day so I made the Swedish limpa rye bread from Foodie with Family and the wild rice chicken soup from Pressure Cooking Today.  I first discovered this tasty combination when Bruder Bear came up last fall and it's a winner.  Needless to say we're having repeats tonight and the second loaf is in the freezer for some other day(s).  

This morning Dan helped out with a community service day the boys' school was having and took his chain saws to help clear out overgrown shrubs and trees in a local park.  I think I mentioned that daughter Ann is teaching there and her estimation was that the school had saved the town at least $15,000 in labor costs.  Dan said it was amazing how hard those kids worked, even the tiniest ones.  ♥

The Last Official Night of Summer

No, the calendar doesn't list this date as that, but in my mind, summer officially ends with Labor Day.  I was just down the hall, opening windows to let the cool evening air in after a warmish (over 75) day and as I did, I heard the sprinklers in the front yard making their sounds as the day grew dark.  Such a timeless sound.  And then I thought, summer's over.  School is back in session, the days are noticeably shorter.  My favorite time of the year is here.  Fall through the holidays.  Yes!!

I tried to take a picture or two, but I guess I'm finally going to have to read the instructions to our camera. For the life of me, I can't figure out how to turn the flash off! I wanted one of the dusky evening and the cursed flash kept making everything too bright.  I hate to read instructions...  So no pictures for this post.  Just thoughts.

I hear crickets chirping, and there's the sliver of the moon in the southwestern sky.  This has been the most lovely summer I can remember in a long time.  Almost perfect weather, quiet days, some good books (and a number of rereads which is always like visiting with old and dear friends), and time with family.  

Yesterday was a busy day, for a Sunday.  Our youth pastor, dearly loved by all of us, is leaving and moving with his wife and little daughter to southern California to become an associate pastor in a start-up church in the LA complex.  He is a giant of a man, a Tongan, with a giant-sized heart and he has done so much for the young people in our church.  We had a farewell potluck and send-off last night and it was hard.  But when the Lord leads, we must follow.

Cameron had no problem with jet lag (oh to be nineteen!) and started his first day of college just forty some hours after he landed.  We've gotten to see him several times and he's obligingly allowed his Grammy to hug him each time.  So good to have him back!!  

The baby quilt is loaded on my long-arm and hopefully tomorrow I'll get started on the actual quilting.  It shouldn't take too long.  

And that's it for the last official day of summer, 2019.  ♥

Quilting and Other (BIG) News

I finally remembered to take the camera down to my sewing room to get a snap or two of the baby quilt I've been working on.  I'm quite smitten with it and think I'll be able to use this pattern many more times.  

The pattern (purchased from The Fat Quarter Shop)

And here's my version.  I thought I'd used two different fabrics for the large pieces as they show in the pattern, but in the end used the same for all of them.  

My modified version

Only fat quarters are needed for the colored portions, so the opportunities are endless for recreating this over and over with very different looks.  

Meanwhile, this grammy is beside herself with excitement as Cameron has landed in Seattle and will shortly be winging his way to Spokane and his mom and dad and brothers!!  As Ann texted me, there isn't a smiling emoji big enough to express her (and our!) feelings about this day.  ♥♥♥

Musings

The calendar says it's the middle of August, but there's a touch of fall in the air.  It seems that the few last years, fall arrives about now.  The days are warm, high 70s maybe 82, and the nights are cool.  So much for the "hot August nights" of my youth.  And believe me, I'm not complaining!  I'm loving each and every day.  

I took a little tour of my pots of flowers a bit ago and snapped a couple of pictures.  I'm so not a gardener, but I do enjoy my pots and remember to water them every day or so.  Dan puts them together every May, and I keep them going until fall when we store them in our sun room for the winter months.  

Corner of the deck

One of these on each side of the garage

Front porch

From the looks of these photos, we like red!  Whenever I drive up, I love to see the color all across the front.  

And speaking of driving, I had a fun morning at a coffee shop with three other ladies of the neighborhood celebrating the recent retirement of one of them.  Now we're all retired and think maybe we need to do this more often!  We all marveled that we'd reached this point when we think we're just a bunch of spring chickies.  No complaints, however!

A new baby quilt is in the works and I'll try to post some pictures in a day or so.  ♥

Kidney Stones?!?

For those of you fortunate enough to have never experienced a kidney stone, count your blessings.  I had my first one back about 1980 and had no idea what was happening, only that I was in extreme pain.  And it didn't help a bit at the ER when the nurse said they couldn't give me anything for it because the pain was their only clue as to what was going on.  Well!!  (We don't live near that hospital anymore, thank goodness!)

My second go around was in 2005.  I woke up in the middle of the night in pain and finally woke Dan up to take me to the ER.  On the way there, I said to him that this was reminiscent of that long ago day and I thought I knew what was going on.  Bingo!!  It passed and I was thankful, but exactly four weeks later the same thing happened.  After a week of drugs and no relief, it was determined that this one was too big to pass and so surgery to retrieve it was required.  They decided the one four weeks previous was probably a piece that broke off this giant one.  

I had another a few years ago and then again yesterday.  Last night about eight I told Dan I'd had all the fun I could stand so off to the ER we went again. I'm so thankful to live in a town with a hospital with such a great staff.  Everyone there was so kind and helpful. They did a CT scan and the good news is that there don't seem to be any more biggies lurking around, and this one passed this morning.  I'm hoping for a lifetime reprieve!!!

Meanwhile, I wonder what people did in the "olden days?"  I can't even bear to think about it.  

Cousins and Aunts!

Monday Ann and Daniel and I took a little trip and had a wonderful afternoon of visiting with my two nieces and their little ones.  Jennifer had driven out from Oklahoma with her two, Grant (8) and James (4) and were at Kirsten's.  Kirsten has recently moved to a new town with her husband, Tim, and little Taylor (18 months), so we were excited to not only see Jenny and the boys, but also to see Kirsten's new house. 

We left as soon as Daniel's swim lessons were over and in a little less than two hours we made a quick stop at a Wendy's and then programmed the GPS with Kirsten's new address.  It did not fail and led us right to her door. Amazing!!!  

The boys took right off from their last visit and spent all afternoon in the yard, running and playing and investigating trees and bugs.  We big people, along with little Taylor, spent the afternoon visiting and catching up with our lives since our last meeting.  So glad we get to see them all at least once a year!

We decided pizza out would be the perfect ending to our day and drove to a local neighborhood place and devoured several yummy pizzas--pepperoni and cheese for the boys, of course, and several "adult" pizzas including a pesto one that was especially delicious, along with an amazing pesto macaroni and cheese for Taylor (she ate it by the fistfuls!!).  The weather was perfect and the pizza shop had large garage doors in the front that were open to let in the lovely late afternoon air. There was grass out front and playing out there kept the boys busy until the food arrived.  

Before we all parted, I captured this photo of gang.  

Such a great day!!  ♥

Cameron Update

It gives me great joy to say that four weeks from today Cameron will be back!!  It's been a long five months with one more to go.  He's having an amazing time and has learned so much.  He's learned to live without so many of things we take for granted--running water, hot showers (for him, it's a bucket over the head), meat (they eat potatoes, beans, and cooked bananas), and so on.  He's really looking forward to throwing his clothes in the washer!!  

After five weeks in the bush of Kenya he is back in Rwanda's northern province, not far from Uganda in the area known for Gorillas in the Mist. 

Here are a couple of the photos he's sent us. The first is a gorgeous picture of a sunrise in Kenya.

This next one is of Cam with some children at a school they visited.  Everywhere he goes, the kids are drawn to the Mzungu, the white guy.

He's seen giraffes and zebras in the wild.  Seeing the giraffes was the hardest, and finally on his last morning in Kenya, several of them got up early and went out to be rewarded with a sighting.  Cam was thrilled.  

For this Grammy, the next four weeks can't go fast enough!!  ♥

A Little More Americana is Added

I think I mentioned a post or two ago that I was working on a new project for summer decorating.  A table runner using a "honeybun" (1 1/2" strips) of Primitive Gatherings patriotic fabrics for 2019. The design has three large blocks utilizing lots of tiny 1 1/2" squares and as I worked on it I hoped it would turn out square. Even when I finished the piecing I wasn't sure, but it quilted out beautifully and when folded in half, all parts lined up!!  

The colors are brighter than other Primitive Gatherings patriotic lines that I've used for our living room, so I decided this would probably be a good addition to the dining room table.  

The glass star dish of red, white and blue peanut M&Ms is a perfect accompaniment.  This year I actually found a pantry-sized bag of the seasonal M&Ms at Safeway and it's been so nice not have to use white ones saved from the Valentine's bag and blue and red ones from a regular bag.  ♥

It's Dan's Birthday!

Yup, today is my honey's birthday.  Most of the world has been concentrating on the fiftieth anniversary of the moon walk, but here at the Resort, it's a birth-day! Dan remembers well the day of the moon walk and he says that while the rest of the world thinks it heard Neil Armstrong say, "That's one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind," Dan says he really said, "That's one small step for Dan..."  to honor his birthday.  LOL!!  

Anyway. . .

Dan had a fun day in the woods with his buddy Dennis exploring and picking a few huckleberries. While they were gone I decided I would go for broke and make him a totally from scratch cake and even use round cake pans to make it a layer cake.  Several times this year a message from King Arthur flour has popped up either in my email or on Facebook with a link to their recipe of the year--a birthday cake.  I looked it up and printed it and decided to give it a whirl.  It did not disappoint!

I didn't take a picture of mine and now it's all wrapped up for tomorrow, so I borrowed this photo from the KA website.

Believe it or not, mine looked just like that except it's on a pink depression glass cake stand that belonged to my Grandma Hansen (of the picnic photo in my last post). We both loved the cake and if you'd like to give it a try, click here for the recipe.  (In full disclosure, I used my usual recipe for the frosting--from the back of the box of C&H powdered sugar, chocolate version.)  ♥

Of Picnics. . .

My long-time pal, Kathy, recently did a post recalling her family's Fourth of July picnics when she was a child.  I don't remember my family having picnics on the Fourth, and actually only remember a few lunches which could possibly be called picnics because we ate them while taking drives for the day (people used to do that back in the day, take drives just to drive).  

In my pondering, I remembered a picture I have of my mother's family taken at a picnic with friends.  The year would be circa 1927.

First, notice how dressed up the men are--suits and hats!  Mom told me some years ago when I asked her about the photo that the car was her family's.  Grandpa Hansen is the tall man in the center.  The man standing next to him in the straw hat was his older brother, Lawrence, and he is holding my mom who looks to be about two.  Grandma Hansen is peeking around beside Mom, and that's Mom's brother, Richard standing in the front with his hand on the watermelon.  The other people were family friends.  

Apparently going on a picnic was a big deal, worthy of dressing up!  Was this the Fourth of July?  Grandpa and his brother had both emigrated to the United States from Norway in the early years of the 20th century and became citizens as soon as possible.  The U.S. was good to them and perhaps they were celebrating the birthday of their new country.  We'll never know; Mom is gone now and was too young to remember the details anyway.  Looks like watermelons have been an integral part picnics for a long time though!  ♥

Happy 4th of July!

It's a beautiful, warm but not hot day here at the resort and we are enjoying a relaxing afternoon after some work here and there earlier in the day.  I just took a lemon cheesecake out of my InstantPot and it will be a cool, tasty treat this evening.  

I've started a new Americana table runner and it's well on its way.  I may even get some stitching done on it today!  The pattern is based on a Moda "Honeybun" pack which means width of fabric strips that are 1 1/2" wide. There are a lot of 1 1/2" squares in the design!  Stay tuned for a post with pictures, hopefully in the next few days.  ♥ 

End of June?!?

Hmmm, how did June fly by so quickly?  Here it is the last day, and so in a valiant effort to improve my blogging I'm going to see if I can come up with a few coherent things to share.  

I haven't made any new dresses for my dolls, but I did make an effort to take Ann Estelle's blue dress and make it suitable for Easter.  I was thinking I would add lace and ribbons, but when I searched among my findings, I found a wire-edged dusty blue organdy ribbon that just seemed to say use me.  So I did.  

I loved using it to tie around her head and then just cut a piece to tie around her waist.  It's not stitched on, so I can still make changes to the dress if I get inspired later on.  Meanwhile, AE felt quite stylish for Easter.  

Another thing I forgot to share was Ann's Mother's Day gift.  

A plethora of new cloth napkins, which she knows I love, and my new favorite mug filled with lemoncello almonds from Costco.  I had never tasted the almonds before and let me tell you, it was love at first bite!  Mmmm...

And that's it for now!!  ♥

A Couple of Completions

My first project to share is actually a year old, made last summer when I was in a blogging drought.  Years ago I purchased a booklet of patterns for banners for each month of the year by Pat Sloan.  I used it as inspiration for two banners for our front porch, one for fall and one for the summer.  I made the original summer one with machine embroidery and sadly lost the design somewhere over the years.  The sun had done a number on the fabrics and for several years I pondered making a new banner but never quite got to it.  Last summer, it looked so sad and washed out I knew I had to do something. 

I dug around in my piles of quilt books and found the booklet and decided to make a new banner using the July pattern with no alternations.  It graced the porch for the rest of last summer and I was happy to hang it out again a few weeks ago. 

I just love having the brightness of it hanging there!  I was befuddled about how to quilt the star section but then came up with the idea to trace the star shapes on freezer paper, iron them here and there, and then stitch around their edges with my walking foot.  It worked! 

My other completion is current.  Remember the Snowy Day quilt I began last winter?  I finally finished it!! 

Dan is just crazy about it and I have to say I'm pretty smitten myself.  It was a very different project for me and I'm kinda proud of myself for giving it a try.  It boosted my quilting confidence and I think I'll try some other projects that I probably would have passed on before.  Guess I'm not too old to learn some new things!  ♥

My Kitchen and Me

If you've read my blog for very long, you know I'm a kitchen person.  Notice that I did not say that I'm a wannabe chef, or even a cook.  I do cook, and I do bake, but I claim no expertise in either area.  But I do love my kitchen and all the things a kitchen holds--tools for the job so to speak.  

When we bought this house almost twenty years ago, I was thrilled that it had a pantry.  I'm not certain that it was originally meant to be a pantry, in fact, I think it was meant to be a utility closet for brooms, vacuum, etc.  There's even a light in the ceiling, or at least there was until we took the bulb out and taped cardboard over the hole.  Some other owner installed shelves and of course, that made the light useless as the only part it illuminated was the top shelf.  

Collector of kitchen tools that I am, a good portion of the pantry is dedicated to hold them.  Waffle iron, Instant Pot, toaster (not enough room on my counters to leave it out), snackster sandwich maker, and so on.  Then of course there's the actual food storage including containers of different kinds of beans and pastas. (Have I ever mentioned that I'm a total lover of different shapes of pasta??  Hopeless addiction.)  

Several weeks ago I decided it was time to clean out the pantry and once again find out just what lurked behind those closed doors.  Here I begin to take things out. 

And I began to fill up a counter with the goods.

Maybe more than one counter.  And the floor...

And here we are after careful sorting, consolidation, and judicious replacement.

I don't think I threw away anything but some empty containers after consolidation, but that just shows that I do use what I have.  Which was a relief.   

A Stunning Place for a Shower

And no, I don't mean a fancy bathroom!!  Several weeks ago we headed down to LaGrande, Oregon, to attend a baby shower for Mariah, my nephew JR's wife.  They are expecting a little boy in July and the time had come to shower them with gifts.  

When the invitation came, the location was listed as the Stang Manor.  I texted my sister-in-law, Karen, and asked if pearls and high heels were required.  She laughed and said no, just comfy clothes.  Eric and Keaton were out of town on a school trip, so Ann and Daniel rode along with Dan and me.  It's a four-hour drive, so Ann suggested we spend the night and enjoy a leisurely drive home the next day.  It was a brilliant idea and Dan and I agreed.  (We tend to be quite linear and think, go, attend, drive home.)

We left home before eight, picked up Ann and the D-man and headed out.  The drive was spectacular, and spectacularly slow.  They don't call one of the grades "The Rattlesnake" for nothing.  Steep? Yes! Windy? Yes!  Up we went, down we went, up we went, and down we went. Thirty-five miles an hour was speedy for many miles.   But I digress...

Upon arrival in LaGrande, we dropped the Daniels off at JR and Mariah's to spend the afternoon with "the guys", and found our way to Stang Manor.  Turns out, it's a lovely 100-year-old home built by a timber baron using the same plans as his home back in the upper midwest. It is now a bed and breakfast and part of our family was actually staying there for the weekend, and because of the multiple days, we had access to the whole house, including the kitchen.  

I have taken some pictures from their website but encourage you to go to the actual site for even more pictures and history of the house. 

Front garden with house on the right

Kitchen of my dreams!

Sitting area for one of the suites

Dining room with original table and sideboard

Beautiful entryway

The shower was a great success as JR and Mariah received many lovely things for their soon-to-arrive little boy. I made my usual gift, a quilt, and though the design was very simple, the fabric made it one of my favorites.  

The motel was just the thing for an eight-year-old boy because it had a big, empty pool, and I'm here to say Daniel made excellent use of it.  After eating all kinds of treats at the shower (the boys all joined us after it was over and enjoyed treats, too), we checked into our rooms, D hit the pool, and Dan and I headed out to pick up a pizza to eat in our room. Following the pizza, D hit the pool again, this time with Ann joining him in the water, and needless to say, he spent an hour or more there again in the morning before we headed out.  

We meandered (literally!!) our way home, stopping to admire Lake Wallowa and skip rocks, and decided a stop at Costco when we reached Clarkston was a much-needed break.  What a fun weekend.  Family, food, swimming and Costco!!  

Happy May Day!!

It's finally beginning to look like spring around here! The trees have been valiantly trying to leaf out and from a distance, we can actually see hints of green when we look at them.  This Mary Engelbreit drawing gives a glimpse of how I'm feeling about all this!!

And it's May Day.  I remember as kids we would make May baskets in school each year and then take them home to fill with flowers to leave on someone's doorknob.  I don't think anyone does it anymore, and it's kind of sad.  But then, if I even wanted to try it this year, nothing is blooming yet in our yard, and it sort of negates to whole thing if you have to buy the flowers. Just not the same as lilacs or tulips or daffodils picked at the last moment before delivery.  Ah well.  

Happy spring!  And happy May Day! ♥

Hey, I'm Back!

I've been a terrible blogger this month, but as I said in my last post, when not much is going on, there's not much to write about.  Still true!

We did have a lovely Easter, or as our pastor prefers to call it, Resurrection Day last week.  For only the second time, our church had a sunrise service and it was scheduled for 5:45.  For those of you who know me well, you know I don't think there's time before eight now that I'm retired, so this was truly an endurance test for me.  I passed!!

Ann and I decided that with such an early start, we needed to restructure our usual plans.  We decided on a brunch after the service followed by a call to Cam, then a long nap, then dinner.  I'm pleased to say that our plan was very successful.  

We thoroughly enjoyed hearing Cam's voice and by putting him on speaker on Eric's phone, we were all able to hear him and respond.  Amazing tools we have now! Such a blessing.

Here's a couple of photos after naps were had by all but Daniel.  Oh to have the energy of an eight-year-old!!  

Ann was headed to the deck to read to Daniel when I told her the furniture wasn't out yet.  She said her guys could fix that and before we knew it,  all was in place! Score for Papa!!

And above is a photo of our crazy movers soaking up a little warmth after they've expended all their energy on their work.  Yes, it was another laid-back holiday here at the resort, enjoyed by all.  ♥