Sweet Fall

As anyone who has been reading my blog for a while knows, I love fall.  These last few days have been almost perfect:  sunshine,  barely seventy degrees, and calm.  

Each afternoon I've gone out to our deck with some reading, plunked myself down in my newly painted rocking chair, propped my feet up on the footstool, and settled in for a lovely time of relaxation.  The leaves are starting to fall from the row of poplars, turning the grass below golden.  The smoke is still noticeable if you look for it, but we can now see the sky and the hills.  It's so peaceful and serene out there, and knowing that the days of enjoyment are dwindling as the seasons move on, it's made all the sweeter.  

Here's the view from my chair today:

We are so blessed to have this house!

Meanwhile, there has been some activity in my sewing room on the fall quilt.  I'll have a new post on that soon. It seems the older I get, the slower I get, especially if there's decision making involved.  It's a certainty that if I was paid by the hour for my sewing, no one could afford me!  I've been asked to sew for others at different times, but I've always known that it would take all the joy of out something I truly love, so I've said, "No," and been grateful for the luxury of being to do that.  

And now I'll leave you with a picture of Daniel down on the river the other day.  I do believe he is part of the sixth generation of our family to play on its banks.

Another Week Gone? Yikes!

The title says it all.  Where does the time go?  I'll think I just wrote a post and then discover it's been a week.  As I've said numerous times, I wouldn't mind so much if I wasn't get old just as fast.  {Smile}

So, what have I been up to?  Who knows!!  I have been working on a new quilt for fall using the fat quarters I bought in McCall.

Tonight I joined all the blocks together and now I'm waiting for some coordinating fabric to arrive to use as borders. I knew I should have purchased yardage when I bought the fat quarters, but fortunately I found the complete line online and I think I actually had more choices to pick from.  I used my trusty Yellow Brick Road pattern by Atkinson Designs, and right now I'm not sure it was the right pattern to use. It's a fun and fast way to create a quilt, but I'm wondering if my strong fabrics are not a bit too strong for it.  We'll see.

Meanwhile, we had embroidery club at the shop today and I think everyone had a good time making the Sweet Dreams pillowcases.  There was lots of fun and friendly chatter as the class stitched away.  Their "teacher" had a good time, too.  :-)

This weekend promises to be a busy one as we have invites to several parties on Saturday as well as a soccer game for Cameron.  Friday night we'll be at Ann and Eric's as we celebrate Eric's 40th birthday.  However did our kids get to be older than we are?!?  Or so it seems.  

Hoping you all enjoy a beautiful fall weekend--

It's Smokey Out There!

As beautiful a summer as we've had, those who fight forest fires, or wild fires as they're now called, are not as thrilled with the weather.  Fires are burning in Idaho and Washington; huge fires.  And the smoke is blowing in and laying low.  Yesterday was horrible, and today isn't much better.  

Looks like we live in a wide-open area, doesn't it?  But normally there are hills and a butte in that white area in the center top (you can see what it should look like in this snowy picture here), and if you click on the photo for a larger image, you'll see that it even looks a little "fuzzy" just beyond the fence.  They are warning people to stay inside; Keaton said they couldn't go out for recess yesterday.  The smoke smell is strong, too.  This is amazing, considering how many miles we are from any of the fires.   

Meanwhile, Dan got the last deck chair painted earlier this week, so here is a photo of all our newly refurbished pieces.  They look so good and they finally match!

Dan will be home from his tour tonight and I'll have my beloved Explorer back.  The truck and I have been doing just fine, but I'll be glad to turn it back over to Dan.  

So what's up for the rest of my day?  Starting a new quilt with those fabrics I bought in McCall last month!  I'm excited to start.  

Grammy's Drivin' the Truck

Dan left this morning for Coeur d'Alene and after kissing him goodbye, I rolled over and went back to sleep. Until the phone rang a little after seven.  It was Dan telling me he was "broke down" five miles north of Potlatch.  I crawled out of bed, pulled on my jeans and a sweater and headed out on my rescue mission.  It was a beautiful drive, but I noticed heavy smoke on the horizon to the west.  Fires are still burning.  

Dan was heading off on another tour when he broke down, so when I met up with him, he unloaded his "company rig" (our old '94 Explorer) and put everything in the one I drive.  He explained what had happened on our way back to town:  a little doo-hickey (my term) that attaches to the fan belt had come loose causing the belt to come loose.  His first indication was loss of power steering and then he looked down at the gauges to see the electrical gauge was dropping, so he pulled off the road and there he sat until I arrived.  We are thankful for cell phones!

Back in town, a stop at our insurance agent's office told us we had towing insurance and they sent us to their preferred service where Dan dropped off the keys to the (formerly) "Old Faithful."  As Dan drove to our house to drop me off, I told him to take the new Explorer and I'd drive the pickup while he's gone.  He had so much stuff to haul, it would never fit into the cab of the truck.  He finally agreed, so I'll be cruising town in the pickup for the rest of the week.  I told him I'd certainly be stylin' in my 4-wheel drive muddy truck.  :-)

And here's the sicko, parked right where the very nice tow truck driver placed it about forty-five minutes ago. Dan says he can fix it this weekend.

I've tried to talk Dan into a new truck, or a newer Explorer for his work, but he loves both of these vehicles and says he'll drive them until they're worn out.  As long as he can plug in his XM radio and listen to the oldies, he's good to go.

Me, too.  Vroom., vroom...

I've Been Stitching...A Little!

Just a quick post to say I got the bibs done!  The whole stack of 'em.  

I used Baby to stitch on the Velcro and she did well. Love, love the knee lift and the heel tap!

Also finished the pillowcases, again using Baby.  They'll be the project for this month's embroidery club.

Now I get to choose a new project!

Rejuvenation on the ...

Beyond the sliding door in our dining room is an outside room.  We've never quite decided what to call it.  It's not a deck because it doesn't stick out beyond the house; it's behind the garage and beside the dining room.  It's covered by a roof that's part the main roof.  I think in the south they might call it a veranda, but that sounds kinda high flalutin' for around here.  So we usually call it the deck.  But I know that's wrong. Anyway, we love it.  It's up high as we have a daylight basement, and there's a tree at the far end that makes us feel as if we're in a tree house.  It's private, cozy, and perfect. Except for the furniture.

Twenty-two years ago (!!!), we visited my brother when he still lived in Minnesota and fell in love with their new deck furniture.  When we got back home, I was thrilled to find a store here in town that carried it.  I bought the chaise lounge for Dan's birthday and he was surprised and quite happy.  A little later he bought a matching rocker for me. A year or so later we added another chair and we were in business.  The house we lived in then had an actual deck which was in the sun a good part of the day so in a few years, the wicker part began to fade. Also, a grandpup decided to do a little work on the rocker and chewed a corner of the seat.

Fast forward to this house and some years later.  The furniture came to this house looking rather sad and for years we've talked about repainting them.  But it sounded like a horrible job requiring taking everything apart and sanding, buffing, you know, WORK!  So nothing happened.  This summer I've found a few do-it-yourself blogs and I've used them to stir me to a little action.  Spray paint seemed to be the paint of choice for all kinds of re-do's and so last Friday I said to Dan that I thought we should look into a Rust-oleum paint and attack the outdoor furniture.  He was a good sport and so on Saturday we set out to look over the offerings at one of our local stores.  And there it was!  Rust-oleum Painter's Touch Ultra Cover 2X semi-gloss in hunter green. Exactly what I wanted.  We bought two cans and headed for home.  Dan gamely hauled two of the chairs through the garage and out into the driveway, washed them down, let them dry, and began to paint.

As you can see, this is the rocking chair that was gnawed on.  It used to be blue wicker with cream metal.  Now it's all green and I love it.  The hunter green turned out to be closer to a John Deere green, but where they sit on the deck, or porch, or whatever, is almost always in the shade so they look darker out there.

Next he attacked another chair and here are the two of them back in place and all bright and shiny.

Next up was the chaise.  As the oldest, it was in pretty sad shape.

He just got it finished so I don't have a picture of it in all it's new-found glory.  Soon.  And finally, we have one more chair to paint.  It's already green, but it's not the same shade so we'll give it a matching coat.  The owners of the grandpup bought it to make up for the chewed one even though we told them not to worry about it. (They knew we wanted to change to green for this house and the blue was no longer available anyway.)

There are some amazing paints out there these days. The Rust-oleum was very easy to work with and Dan was quite impressed with it.  It even bonds to plastic. Now I'm thinking what else I can to do make our outdoor room even more attractive.  (And oh yes, we did buy more paint--I don't want any readers to think only two cans did all this work.  One can per chair, two for the chaise.)

A September Morning

Thunk!  Thunk, thunk!  Those are the sounds I'm hearing from halfway down the backyard.  It's the sound of wood being tossed into his pickup by my eighty-nine-year-old dad as he loads it for Dan to stack.  I awoke this morning to the sounds of a conversation and I realized two things:  it was 6:30 and the voices belonged to Dan and my dad.  That meant Dad left his home about five.  He's amazing!

Yesterday we had a little barbecue to celebrate Mom's eighty-seventh birthday which will be on the 6th.  Since yesterday was a holiday, it proved to be a good day for us to host a little party which could also be attended by Ann, Eric, and the boys without school or soccer game interference.   As the chef, I completely forgot to take any pictures. but Dan did grab my camera and got this cute picture of Gigi and Daniel as he checked out her necklace.  (It had a large, round pearl-like bauble on it and Daniel loves "Ball!")

As Mom and Dad were leaving last night, Dad mentioned he might be back this morning to get some wood and sure enough, he came.  Point of information:  Mom and Dad have a wonderful wood stove in their family room and have burned wood for years to heat their house.  In recent years it's been too hard for Dad to get out and cut his own, so my sweetie took it upon himself to begin supplying them.  He cuts it in the woods, brings it home, splits it, and then hauls it down to them.  Dad likes to help by coming up and getting some of the loads, hence his trip this morning.  They're out there having a good time.  

Meanwhile, September has arrived and it's a lovely one. Dad and I were talking this morning as I fixed breakfast for him and Dan and we both agreed this is the best month and our favorite.  He said he had a beautiful drive up and saw lots of deer.  I'm sure he was thinking of all the years he's lived in this country and all the early mornings he's been up and about, seeing the sunrise and the deer head for a spot for the day.  This is his ninetieth September!  

Fall is here--here's hoping all my readers will have a beautiful one!