Catchin' Up . . . Again

This summer has just whizzed by.  Between those three weeks of subbing at the church office and a few other things, it seems like I've kinda missed the whole season. Better catch up quick the rest of this month!  :-)  Soon it will be time to replace all my Americana decorations with fall ones.  

So, some summer pictures.  First up one from June taken in an Oregon friend's backyard when Ann and Daniel visited for a few days.  The perfect picture of summer fun!

Next up, a couple of not the best pictures of our newest great nephew, Kirsten's little Luke Clay whom we got to meet a couple of weeks ago.  

And last, a finished picture of my Pumpkin Patch counted cross stitch picture.  I had such a good time stitching it!  Now to get it framed so I can hang it when I change things out for fall.  

And that's about it for today.  I'll be back in a couple for a kitchen update!  

April Come She Will

There is the sound of lawnmowers in the land!  (I hear one as I type.) The trees are starting to turn green!  The sun has shone for the past four days! We won't go into the snow that fell last week, or the wind that blew and blew and blew.  April has finally arrived!  

Not much else is going on here at the resort.  A little of this, a little of that.  And "that's all she wrote" for now! (My dad's favorite saying for something that was done.) ♥

Sunshine and Snow

A Facebook friend posted this little hummer this morning and it's a perfect fit for this day--we woke up to high winds and snow.  

The sun is out now, but it's still windy and cold. It's a shoes, socks, t-shirt and cozy shirt over the t-shirt, coffee in hand kind of day.  They predicted that we might lose power, but thankfully that did not happen although we have friends on a rural power company and they did lose power late yesterday afternoon.  Of course the problem for them, and also for us when it happens, is that they also lost access to water because they have their own well.  They have horses and she said that fortunately the horse trough was full so they could grab bucketsful and at least make their toilets flush.

  

We've been enjoying watching the Gonzaga Zags basketball team in the March Madness playoffs. Ann and her gang have come over for several of the games which has made for some fun parties, especially when "our" team wins!  We have high hopes for Tuesday night's game!

Bruder Bear and Karen are due to arrive Wednesday for an overnighter on their way to daughter Kirsten's house for Easter so we have more fun in store.  Thankfully we did a good house cleaning last week so no pressure to get it done now.  Ann, Eric and boys will be here for Easter dinner on Sunday.  We'll have our usual ham/salads/pies picnic.  Yum!

So that's the latest from here at the resort.  The quilt has seen quite a bit of progress and I'll do an update soon, but it will most likely be April by then.  ♥

March

March is such a strange month.  Weather all over the place, daylight savings time kicks in (and kicks me!), and it's neither winter nor spring. But, it is what it is.  Even the muse has been missing.

I have been reading lots of fun "cozy mysteries" on my iPad using Kindle Unlimited.  I've kept up the subscription as it's less than ten dollars a month.  You can hardly buy one paperback for that price and the library has been either closed or on weird hours due to the virus, so it's been a treat to be able to prowl for books and download whatever strikes my fancy.  I'm currently on a series in England in the l930s.  

The sewing room has actually been seeing a little of me and I'm working on a Christmas quilt from a kit Dan got me for Christmas.  It's been a little slow going as the template that was sent to use with it had an error in it.  It took some doing to get that settled and then I had to figure out how to line up the different pieces as they're triangles. Tricky to do to get them placed properly before stitching, but now that I've gotten the hang of it, I'm finding it fun.  A learning process for certain though. In the picture below, only the top row of trees is done.  Hard to tell since the white triangles between are the same color as my flannel backdrop.

And a further update on the new dishwasher, christened Louise by Dan (also called Weezy and LuLu).  She continues to perform perfectly!  I'm so happy! ♥

As February Draws to a Close

We had snow in October, snow after Christmas, and now February has brought winter back in full force.  We must have gotten at least a foot of snow last week, and almost every morning since then we've gotten up to more.  Yesterday it snowed and this morning we had snow and wind.

It was amazing to watch.  I'm attempting to insert a video of it, so we'll see how it does.  UPDATE: I published and it seems to work just fine.  It's fun to watch in full screen! Brrrrr!!

In two short days March will be upon us and I think I'm ready.  Spring is starting to sound very good.  ♥

The Big Snow

For once the forecasters seem to have hit it right. We've had a little snow over the past week, but then we began to hear that a big storm was coming, followed by yet another one.  And we have snow! Over a foot with more to come starting later today.  It's gorgeous and only in the twenties, so we have it much better than the south.  I hear Texas is a mess--single digit temperatures and no power; they're having a very bad time.   

But here at the resort we are enjoying a beautiful, cozy day. Coffee cake for breakfast, cups of warm coffee and tea, a little counted cross stitch and a fun books to read.  The big grandsons have taken off to do some skiing.  Ahh, the young!! Meanwhile, D is enjoying a little sledding.

Here are a couple of pictures from here at the Resort this morning.

View out the back--not a black and white photo!

The front view.  Boxwood marshmallows!

  Brrr!! Stay warm!!  ♥

A Tale of a Rotisserie Chicken. . . and Stew

I mentioned that we went to Costco a week or so ago. One of the things we purchased was a rotisserie chicken for the amazing price of $4.99.  I meant to have it for dinner that night when we got home, but we were later getting to Costco than I had anticipated, which meant we were later leaving, so we popped into Taco Time and got a bite.  Which was interesting because they served it to us in a bag, which we carried to an available table and unpacked.  Such strange times. . .

Anyway, the chicken became our Saturday night dinner, and then again on Sunday.  And there was so much left!! A day or so later, I decided to chop some up and make chicken and black bean enchiladas.  The recipe said it made four or five, but I ended up with a dozen!  I froze six and we ate the other six that night and the next. And still there was chicken left, so I chopped it up and froze it.  Saturday night I decided to make pizza and opted for white sauce and the frozen chicken, along with a little Canadian bacon, red peppers and olives.  We ate the pizza for two nights and I ate the rest for lunch today. (Dan was so kind to let me have it!) And we still have those six enchiladas in the freezer.  That $4.99 chicken has already fed us numerous meals with two still to go. I feel kind of like it was the loaves and fishes!  I think I'll be buying another soon.  

And stew?  We have had a very cold November.  We have snow again, with more forecast for tonight and tomorrow night.  I love cold weather cooking--soups, stews, breads, muffins.  Right after breakfast this morning I pondered supper.  I knew I had some potatoes and celery in need of using up, so I thought of stew.  I have a recipe I clipped from the paper years ago called Five Hour Midnight Stew.  It's fairly simple, but you have to remember to get started early as it bakes in the oven for five hours as the title states.  

It tasted so good!  I had some leftover muffins from a couple of weeks ago in the freezer so I zapped them to complete our dinner.  There's lots of stew left, so I'm good to go for a few nights.  ♥

Snoctober!

Well.

I took some photos of our beautiful leaves last Thursday night.  The yard and the trees were so beautiful!

And then Friday came.  And so did the snow.  

This was just the beginning.  We ended up with about four inches.  And it's still here!!  I feel like it must be December.  (I have refrained from playing Christmas music, however!) Five days of snow and cold in October.  Tomorrow is supposed to finally be above freezing and then maybe the snow will melt.  

We stayed in and cozied up to the fireplace and I've been knitting away on those brown socks.  Good news!  I should be done tomorrow.  I was able to get away with undoing just the toe of the too-short-sock and I'll be the first to say how amazed I am. I'm just glad it worked!  Time for a new color of yarn!

I'm also getting the Christmas wall hanging quilted, a little at a time.  I finally decided to just stitch in the ditch using my Bernina 830 and a walking foot.  I'm so thankful for a machine with a large throat space and my nice sewing cabinet so that everything is level with room to spread out.  Spoiled, that's what I am.  

Well, that's the latest here at the Resort.  Just trying to stay warm and get a few projects done. I made a yummy ham and pea soup in the Instant Pot this week and that's kept our tummies warm, along with muffins.  I do love winter cooking!  ♥

Beauty

Yesterday as I was making our bed, I glanced out the window and saw the beautiful leaves on the box elder tree, the branches where leaves had already fallen, and the raindrops clinging to those branches.  The rain was pouring down and the sky was grey.  But those leaves!  

I abandoned the bed and went in search of the camera. I have lately tried to learn more about it and as I attempted to change settings, the batteries ran out. Drat!!  Back to the bed.  Then Dan showed up and rescued me by going downstairs and changing out the batteries.  (Why do we not keep batteries upstairs?  A good question to ponder.  Maybe I'll bring some up today!) 

With the bed made and camera back in action, I began again to try different settings.  I've never been able to capture the leaf colors.  I snapped, changed, snapped, changed, and finally, success!!  

Color! Raindrops! Beauty! ♥

Last Day of September

How can it be the end of September already?  But as I look outside, I definitely see signs of fall--leaves turning color, that blue, blue sky of late September, early October.   Such beautiful days we've been having! Perfect, as a matter of fact.  

Now that I've finished the peaches, I've taken a few "lazy days" and relaxed with some reading and knitting. I'm still working on the brown tweed socks of last spring and discovered that somehow I made the first one too short in the foot area.  Never mind.  I'll see if I can rip back and go again.  If not, I'll just reknit the whole thing.  Mindless, relaxing work.  Sounds good.

Here's a few picture of our house ready for the season. 

I love the fall additions to the hearth.

My favorite corner.

We took a big plunge last week and met with a contractor to do some much needed work on two of our bathrooms.  The lovely (not!) green tub, the last vestige of that awful color in the downstairs bath, will be replaced with a walk-in shower and the upstairs guest bathtub will get a beautiful new surround.  I'm so excited!  He said they would get to it in six to eight weeks, so all should be done by Christmas.  

Meanwhile, we are also toying with raising the sunken living room to the level of the rest of the main floor.  Our advancing years are making us ponder work that could enable us to stay here more years and that step down was a real headache for my parents.  Mom crashed twice when she forgot to step down. 

It's pumpkin season!!  Let the leaves fall and the wind blow and candy corn rule!  ♥ 

Everything Is Just Peachy

Literally!  A week or so ago an old buddy of Dan's called to ask if he would come look at his tamarack trees which he grows for seed.  Some of them seemed to be in distress.  So last Friday, a week ago, Dan headed down to check things out.  He mentioned that Rich said he'd send back some peaches for me.  Yes!  Years ago I got all my peaches from Rich and they were just the best. Each August for the last few years I've thought I would get down to his orchard and get some, but alas, it never seemed to happen.

When Dan got home, he asked me to come look in his truck.  He opened the back door and there sat four huge boxes of peaches!  Four!  And a gunny sack with twenty-two ears of corn!  Oh my goodness! I called Ann and asked if she'd like some of each and she was happy to say yes.  

Saturday morning right after breakfast I went to work on a peach pie.  It's my absolute favorite.  The peaches were gorgeous and huge.  I hopped into the shower and by the time I was out, Ann and Keaton had arrived to claim their bounty.  We worked it out and I was thrilled when she agreed to take two boxes and a bunch of the corn.   She went home to begin canning and I began to freeze some.  By the time Tuesday was over, we'd totalled up twenty-one quarts canned (Ann), twenty-two containers frozen (me), two peach pies (me), many eaten out of hand (both houses), and twenty jars of jam (me).   

Here are a couple of pictures of our bounty.

And the corn?  It was absolutely the best I've ever tasted.  We had it three nights in a row and Ann's family had it two nights.  So sweet and delicious.  Mmmm...  ♥

 

It's a Knitting Kind of Day--In August!!

Yes, people, it's barely sixty degrees and cloudy out there.  Brrr! I'm thinking of picking up my knitting needles and getting back to a pair of socks I started earlier this year.  It's just that kind of day.  

Dan and I have been saying for the past few years (maybe even ten), that fall seems to arrive in August anymore.  When we were kids the famous words were "hot August nights", but we've burrowed under the covers all month.  And daytime temperatures have been mostly in the eighties.  We're not complaining! Dan grew up in Spokane and remembers many hot, hot days and nights and the little town I grew up in was in a canyon and never cooled off at night after day temperatures in the nineties and hundreds.  I remember laying on top of the covers and having the windows and curtains wide open hoping for cooler air.  No one had air conditioning in those days.  

(And let me drift off, for a moment, and remember shopping for school clothes on 90 plus degree days in unairconditioned stores, trying on wool sweaters and skirts.  And of course, we did this in the nearest "big" town, so my mom, coming from the Seattle area, insisted we had to dress up to go to town and that included wearing nylons.  Yikes!  Of course our car had no air conditioning either, and it was a 45-minute or longer drive to get there.  There was, of course, the ol' "four-sixty air conditioner" -- sixty miles an hour with all four windows rolled down, but that created havoc with our hair. . .)*

Suffice it to say that I'm not the least bit sorry to have a cool day today.  Here's a picture of my finished quilt top on my design wall.  I think I've come up with my quilting plan so hopefully I'll get to that in a few days.

I've been in a baking mood since finishing the top and tried Joanna Gaines recipe for blueberry rolls to great success.  If you have her second cookbook, I can totally recommend her recipe.  Our zucchini have come on and I made a double batch of zucchini bread two days ago. An old standby, but still so delicious!  Just had a mid morning snack (or as the British call it, elevenses) of a piece with my coffee.  

And last, here's a picture of the butte and sky to our south taken a few evenings ago.  Love the light.

And that's the news for now!  ♥

* I realize I've used "of course" three times in a row in this paragraph, but on reflection, they needed to stay. They define the situation.  Of course! 

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! ♥

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.  ♥

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.  ♥

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.  ♥

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!  ♥

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! ♥

Pokey, Pokey, Pokey

Yes, that word pokey does describe me.  I've just been poking along here.  Seems like March is endless and my energy level is at a low.  The beautiful snow is all gone and while we had some days of sunshine, they've been replaced by gloomy, damp days.  I have to kick myself to keep moving.  A cold/allergies kept me down for a few days, but I seem to have whupped the baddies in pretty short order for which I'm thankful.

So, what's been happening over the last two weeks?  A couple of fun evenings with the D-Man. When we first became grandparents, Dan had the idea to make giant-sized Lincoln logs and made a beautiful set.  Daniel asked about them when he was here and so Dan got them out and they set about to build a cabin.  Daniel is eight now, and like his brothers, is no small person, but he had a riot crawling in and out all night.  

I've been poking away at the Snowy Day quilt and am finally to the point of putting on the borders.  I really like how it's turning out, especially since I've "made do" with what I could find in my stash.  I did have to buy a quarter yard of dark brown to use as sashing between the rows of houses, but that's been it.  

I still have to do the top and bottom borders, but that won't take long.  I'm glad I tried something different! ♥

And . . . It's Still Winter!

Yes, indeedy, it's still all white and cold out there.  And it's even officially Spring Break at all the area schools!  I notice many people have headed for warmer climes for the week.  Our neighbor, sporting a deep suntan, brought over a box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts yesterday to thank Dan for plowing their driveway numerous times while they vacationed in sunny Hawaii. I'm proud to say I wasn't even jealous!  Oh, and did I mention that it's snowed all day?  Yup, still coming down.  

Dan and I spent several days in Coeur d'Alene last week while he attended meetings and I lounged in luxury in our room overlooking the lake at the Coeur d'Alene Resort.  Several people asked me if I planned to shop and the answer was, "No."  I went to relax and read and snooze, and I did all three.  It was a great time!  We did it last year for the same meetings, and plan to do it again next year.  Yay!!

Cameron is settling into his new life is Rwanda.  It was a huge culture shock and it turns out that while they usually have some trainees from Europe and America, this time he is the only one.  All the rest come from various countries in Africa and though they all speak a little English, most don't speak it well.  It's a nine-hour time difference from here (it was ten before daylight savings time), so connecting takes some work.  So thankful for email and smart phones!

Cam and the other trainees

And speaking of daylight savings time, let me just say that I HATE it!  Please, can we not just pick one time and stick with it?  As far as I can tell, no one is a fan of this continual change.  I read a good op ed while in Coeur d'Alene that said those who tout it by saying the farmers are for it are lying deluded.  Farmers hate it! Just makes for longer days as they wait for crops to dry out, and cows and other animals are not fooled and follow their usual routine.  My theory?  Those who want to golf after work are behind the whole thing.  Oh yeah--and the supposed energy savings?  Not exactly true.  Studies show it a dead even or maybe even uses a little more.  I grew up without daylight savings time and seemed to live quite well that way, as did everyone else I knew.  

And that's my soapbox for the week!  ♥