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.