Saturday...and the End of May

I am amazed to think that tomorrow is the first of June. Summer is arriving and it feels good.  My sweetie is hard at work on the front landscaping so I'm planning to reward him with a big ol' homemade pizza for supper.  He said it sounded wonderful, bless his heart.  

Down in the sewing room, as I mentioned yesterday, I'm working on a new table runner.  Earlier in the month, while my brain was recovering from being at Mom's and helping her, I needed to sew.  Since the kit for this runner was laying out, it was a no-brainer to start it.  I didn't have to think about finding a pattern and then the fabrics to go with it; all was in readiness.  So runner it was.  

The border on this runner is composed of, are you ready?  One hundred fifty-six pieces.  Yup, 156 pieces! Stitch, stitch, stitch.  Eventually they will go around an appliqued center piece that will feature the leaves you see in the middle of the above picture and will look like the border on the runner pictured below (also shown in earlier blog posts here and here).

I have the fabric to make the last runner in the set which uses a big border type fabric for the center rather than an appliqued one.  At this point I'm not certain I am willing to do another of these borders, but maybe in a few months...

Meanwhile, on the scrapbook front I've make it to Keaton's arrival (he was twelve in February).  Oh well, I'm getting closer to the present!  ♥

Catchin' Up -- Again

Due to Mom's illness, my blog has been left standing by the side of the road for too long, so I may be posting several days in a row here.  Shocking, I know!  

We have not yet come to a conclusion with Mom's medical issues, but we've found that while it is serious, it does not involve anything life-threatening, which is a relief. She's dealing with things that she'd rather not at the moment, however, and weighing a difficult surgery against going with the current treatments.  Not an easy choice for someone who will be eighty-nine in just three months.  

Meanwhile, grandsons Cameron and Keaton have just finished another year of school and with it came Cameron's graduation from eighth grade!  

Oh how that boy is growing!  He's taller than his Grammy now, with Keaton not far behind.  They both had a great year of school and did so well.  We are very thankful and blessed to be their grandparents.  (Picture shamelessly stolen from the school's FB page.)

I'm slowly working away on another table runner from the Keepsake Trio quilting pattern by Laundry Basket Quilts and will post about that soon.  Another pair of socks is also on the needles and scrapbooking pages are being created.   

And last, this is just for you, Hallie.  Here's a picture of this morning's toasted cinnamon raisin English muffin halves as they came out of my fabulous new toaster (plain, no butter; peanut butter added after photo):

And this concludes today's update.  Stay tuned for more, hopefully tomorrow!  ♥

Toasters

I know, this sounds like a frivolous topic, but really, how your toaster works first thing in the morning can affect your whole day!  See, it is an important topic.

I've always been a toast lover.  Toast and jelly/jam, toast strips and an egg in an egg cup (total fun!), toast with soup, cinnamon bread toasted and spread with butter. Mmmmm...

So, when I got married, can you believe this--when we settled into our little home on wheels, the only toaster we had was a '30's model that someone had given Dan. It had drop-down sides which meant that the bread had to be turned to toast both sides and constant checking was required to avoid burning said bread.  We made do for several weeks and then, lo and behold, we were the blessed recipients of not one, but two magnificent toasters as late wedding presents arrived.  Guess the wait really made me appreciate toasting both sides at the same time!

Some years later, probably quite a few, and we finally took the plunge and bought one of those big toasters that did four slices at once.  This was a big thing when we had four people waiting patiently for their morning toast. I loved the convenience except that it seemed that no matter how I set the controls, one side would always be under or overdone when I did four slices at once.  In short, I couldn't trust the toaster!

Over the years, several more 4-slice toasters made their appearance at our house, but alas, they all seemed to suffer from the same malady--they couldn't make up their minds about when the toast was done.  I was forced to stay by the toaster's side and perform multiple checks. This procedure often failed if I was also cooking eggs.  (A multi-tasker I'm not.)   Oh the inhumanity of it all!!

When we recently spent a number of days at my parents', I had multiple occasions to use their toaster and as I went about my business, I discovered an amazing thing--I could put the bread, or English muffins, in, push down the levers, walk away and come back to perfect toast.  All four slices!!  Eureka!  I had toaster envy.

A week or so after getting back home, we went to the happiest place on earth.  No, not Disneyland, Costco!! And in my perusal of the housewares aisle, there, on a shelf, was a toaster very similar to my parents'.  A brief discussion with Dan resulted in one landing in our cart. It's a newer model than mom and dad's, but it works! It works!!  I can walk away and come back to perfectly toasted bread, waiting patiently to be removed and devoured.  

So, do you want to see a picture of my new toaster?  Of course you do!  And here it is!

Isn't it beautiful?  It has extra buttons that can be touched after the main lever is pushed to toast bagels (toasts the cut side without burning the back), defrost first (if you, like us, often deal with frozen bread) and then toast (all in one step), a reheat button (leftover waffles anyone?), and a cancel button which will pop your bread up pronto.  

Oh the joy!!  ♥

Life!

We had a lovely Easter with family here including Bruder Bear and Mom and Dad (Gigi and Great Papa).  As usual, we had our indoor "picnic" of ham and salads and Cyrus O'Leary pies.   Why, Kahlua and Key Lime of course.  :-)

The grandsons had a great day and had fun dog piling in the living room.  

Gigi got in a snuggle with Cameron and Daniel, to her delight.

Then, the morning after Easter, Gigi woke up to discover she had some health issues so Dan and I spent almost two weeks with her helping her learn some new things to deal with the problems.  There are more tests to be done before we have all the answers, but for now she is doing well on her new regimen. 

So, you ask, how is our re-do of the front yard coming? Well, Dan has been busy catching up.  Before we were gone, he used our 4-wheeler and its snow-plow blade to help level the dirt.  With a little help from Dan and his pulaski, it worked surprising well!

The last few days he's been busy laying large blocks to define the area between the driveway and what will be grass.  We discovered a French drain covered with fine gravel next to the driveway which must remain, so we had to come up with an alternate to our original plan which was to just have grass along there.  Much more work for Dan, but bless his heart, he just keeps plugging away.

Here he is working on the front after he's rounded the corner from the driveway.

We're off again tomorrow to take Mom for more testing, but hopefully I'll be back shortly with more updates!  Life sure does bring changes to plans at times!

Movies

Back in my childhood, movies were a big deal. Specifically, cowboy movies!  John Wayne movies were never missed, but there were other stars admired by my parents, and when a new show arrived at the drive-in, we went.  

I don't remember my dad ever darkening the door of the indoor theater, but at the drive-in, owned by his best friend, Dad could sit in the comfort (and privacy) of his own vehicle and we kids could fall asleep in our jammies. I can remember waiting for it to get dark enough for the show to start, and then watching cartoons, waiting for the previews to finish, and finally getting to the real thing. Did I ever make it through the whole movie?  I have a dim memory of Gone With the Wind and the burning of Atlanta meshing with a dream, so I'm sure I slept through many an ending until I was older.  (And let me assure you, it was a re-release of GWTW, not the original showing!)

So what has prompted these memories of old movies and the drive-in?  A month or so ago, I happened upon a movie from those days being shown on AMC:  The Big Country.  Oh, I remember loving that show, and I could even remember watching it on the big screen of the drive-in.  It starred Gregory Peck, Burl Ives (who won an Oscar for his role), Charlton Heston and Jean Simmons. What a cast!  I'd tuned in too late to record it and we were leaving for the day shortly, so I wasn't able to watch much.  I kept thinking about how much I wanted to see it again, so finally I ordered the DVD from Amazon.  

Dan and I had a movie night soon after it arrived and it was every bit as excellent as I remembered.  It's a long movie, almost two hours and forty-five minutes, but it doesn't seem long because the viewer is so drawn into the story and the characters.  Ahh, they just don't make movies like they used to.   ♥

Coming to You Live From...

my new computer!  Yes friends, my trusty old faithful with the baked-in-the-oven motherboard started to fail me again last week.  As the week unfolded, I found I could only connect to the internet intermittently, it wouldn't shut down at night (but not every night!), and one day the keyboard wouldn't work until I rebooted it. It appeared that the time had come to buy a new computer and so on Friday, we did just that. I took the plunge and got one with a touch screen.  Time will tell if that was a good idea or not; right now it's kinda fun.  

So far I've managed to install Microsoft Office and download and install Chrome and iTunes.  We've pulled much of the content of my old computer onto an external drive but I've yet to deal with all that.  I was thrilled that adding our printers was a piece of cake though!  In the past it's usually been a long and hard-fought struggle and I was prepared for another one today so I'm very thankful.  

Here's my new baby in all its Windows 8.1 touchscreen glory:

Meanwhile, down in the sewing room, I finished the appliqued table runner.  The border is a mass of pieces, but it all came together pretty well in the end.  I just quilted around the applique and stitched in the ditch to quilt the border.  

I used my Bernina 830's buttonhole stitch (stitch #1329) to applique the center pieces.  I should have pressed it before I took the pictures, but . . .  Oh well!

Now that I'm back in my sewing room, I'm anxious to start another project!  ♥ 

More Green

My sweetie found the bushes, they're called boxwood, at a local landscaping store yesterday, so we bought seven and he came home and planted them between the arborvitae.  They'll be easy to keep shaped (so he tells me) and will provide good coverage when they get a little bigger.  I can't wait until they hide the vents. Maybe by the end of the summer?  Meanwhile, I think they're very cute.

Spring seems to have sprung and soon there'll be a lot more green around here as the buds on trees and bushes should be popping any day.  If it stays warm enough, we can fill the planters and bring them out for some color.  It's time!

Things are happening down in the sewing room, too.  It feels good to be stitching again.  ♥