Friday, April 29, 2011

Baby Shower ...

I have a baby shower in my future and I'm not even going to be a grandmother!  The extension homemaker club I belong to is sponsoring a Baby Shower-Open House for the New Beginning Crisis Pregnancy Center in Spencer, on Friday, May 6 from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. at the Extension office in Spencer.  I want to show you something Margo White made for the shower ...


Aren't these the cutest?!  Thank you so much Margo.  (I wish I could knit ...)

If anyone reading this wants to contribute some new baby item(s), please stop by, have some refreshments, learn more about the center, and drop it off!  (Or I'd be happy to take it with me ... :-)  I wrote a newspaper article about the Center and the shower for the Spencer Evening World.  I'll post the text below and to the right if you're interested in knowing more about this very worthy project.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

What's up here you ask ???

Thought I'd use pictures to show what is "up" around our house ...
Of course, the first thing that I thought of was asparagus.  We have already had so much asparagus in the past week that we're ready to give some away!  This was for dinner last night.

Then there's ...
having the outdoor furniture moved from the basement to the front porch.  That's always a good thing.

Then last week I discovered ...
the columbine was blooming!  I got this at a plant exchange last May and forgot about it; almost pulled it up earlier this spring, thinking it was a large clover (duh!!!).  But thankfully I let it go and this is what I got!  Now I want MORE!

Then there is always the trees ...
  the dogwood trees in the woods outside the back door ...
the redbud that Jim Doversberger gave us when we moved away from Indy ...
and the first lilacs I have ever been able to cut from my 10-year-old lilac bush.  Mother and I went to West Virginia to her grandmother's family farm (McGrew's) near Morgantown and Jeanne McGrew gave me several starts of plants at the farm, and this lilac has been babied along ever since.  I had almost given up on it!  Wow, it is special to me!

Well, that's what's new here.  I feel great today ... the sun is shining!  (After 40 days and 40 night of rain ... LOL!)

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Good day today even if it is cloudy ...

I think I'm one of those people who are affected by the lack of sunshine.  I "feel" better if it is sunny outside; not hot, blazing sun, just a nice sunshiny day.  We haven't had too many of them lately and last night we had a pretty bad storm.  (I actually went to the basement for about 20 minutes!)  But in spite of no sun and disturbed sleep last night, today went well.  

It was International Day for the Owen County Extension Homemaker Clubs and we enjoyed learning about four different countries, tasted food from each, and the women brought craft projects ranging from photography to knitting to doll making to quilting for a cultural arts display.  Lots of talented ladies for sure!  Joan Baker brought the most lovely knitted cape with matching tote bag in variegated beige/gray.  It was my favorite.  I ate way too much, laughed too much, and actually was fortunate to win the best of show for the Cultural Arts competition!  My quilt (pictured on the right side of the blog) will go to Purdue for the Home and Family Arts Conference at West Lafayette in June!  I'm proud!  

One of our members is from the Philippines.  Therefore, we chose the Philippines as our country to represent and used her wonderful collection of art, jewelry, baskets, wooden ware, and garments for our display.  I took my antique mannequin (Margaret) and we dressed her in one of Catalina's beautiful dresses made from pineapple fiber (believe it or not) with those distinctive puffed sleeves (think Imelda Marcos ...).  I think we had a really great display!  About half of our members were present, so we were well represented.  One interesting thing that happened today was that each club brought a trash can that we were to paint for the fairgrounds.  They will be judged on April 30.  They started with a base 4-H club green color and we were required to retain some of that green and decorate from there.  The woman who designed and decorated ours did a remarkable job!  Our theme was "homemaking -- the original extreme sport".  Some of her depictions of what women have to do in the home were so cute!  For instance "watersports' showed a woman trying to bathe the baby!  You had to be there ... 

Off to do some thinking about dinner ... I think Wendell has most of it planned, now I have to execute my part! 

PS ... am going to begin taking off the Marfa pix and move all of my hooked rug pix to the bottom of the page.   Soon.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Family here and gone :-( ...

Well, we had a great weekend with "all" of our little family.  The weather started out rainy Saturday a.m. but got sunny by lunch time.  Wendell was even able to burn the brats out on the deck instead of under cover ... LOL!  Veronica had her Easter egg hunt and we all enjoyed the suspense.  And was that 24 or 25 eggs hidden ... only Grandpa knows for sure ...

Even this little person got in on the fun!

Having a busy week!  Got lots done out in the yard one day!  Just two flower beds to go (clean up)!  I planted okra, garlic and cock's comb flowers in the vegetable garden.  And the first of the asparagus is coming through the ground!  Yeah!

Today is a day away.  Margo and I are going to Greencastle to the fiber event at the fairgrounds.  Right now it looks overcast and there are predictions of rain for this evening.  Hope we get through the outside vendors before the storms.  I am seriously thinking of learning how to knit but do I really want to start another hobby???  I tried to learn once and was unsuccessful.  Maybe I should buy some pretty yarn today to get me inspired to knit ...

Hey ... at Jolly Homemakers Wednesday night one of the members said she has a HUGE loom in her garage that she will give to me!  Wow!  Now, talk about taking up another hobby!  That would be a "big" commitment.  She described the width as almost as big as her garage door!  I must go and look at it and take someone along with me who could tell me if something's missing.  Do you, dear reader, know anyone who could look at something like that and say "but the xyz is missing Judy!"  Let me know!!!!!  (thanks!)  

Off to get ready to travel to Greencastle.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Oh my goodness ...


Above is a picture of the once-lovely area we just visited this winter!  A church friend from Marfa, Texas emailed Wendell yesterday with the distressing news that a wildfire, started west of Marfa, has swept many miles from there devastating the town of Ft. Davis enroute to the Midland/Odessa area -- all of the way from Marfa to interstate 20!  That is absolutely unbelievable to us!  All occurring since Friday!  (You know, if something this huge had happened in California it would have been all over the news.)

More than 50 homes have been destroyed in Ft. Davis alone, not to mention many country homes along the fire route, countless head of cattle killed, and unknown numbers of dessert critters, too.  Most everyone in Jeff Davis County is without power.  Cell towers have been destroyed.  Businesses burned.

This just breaks my heart.  I loved that area; it is so unbelievably beautiful!  And to go online and watch amateur videos of people driving along roads that we drove just a few short weeks ago, filming charred dessert, is just gut wrenching!  This fire has spread north of Alpine (sparing that town so far) and caused the closure of the main highway between Ft. Stockton to Alpine.  And it is still burning ...  If you have time take a look at a map and you'll see what a HUGE area this fire has covered.  I found lots of info online as well.


I'm praying for the souls in distress in Jeff Davis and Presidio counties in Texas.  I hope you will too.  It's a small world ...

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Ta da ...

So ....... I figured if I could still do this today I was still alive, so I tried this a.m. and could, so I got back to work!

Let me back up ... yesterday we cleaned house.  It was the first time we "really" cleaned since we got home from Texas.  All I can say is "thank God for Wendell".  If he hadn't helped me I wouldn't have been able to get r' done.  Let me back up further.  I spent most of Monday and Tuesday getting ready for a passel of newbie hookers at the Holy Hookers meeting Tuesday night.  I think it went fairly well, but I really needed about another half hour with them!  I hate it that we have to be out of the Library right on the dot of 8:00 p.m.  But I knew that in advance and have to work under those constraints.  Soooooooo ... I was really tired Wednesday morning when we started this "spring cleaning" thing.  And also -- wouldn't you know it, that d--m maid didn't show up again!  We have decided to fire her if we ever see her.  (That is always our joke when we drag ourselves to the table for lunch on a day like yesterday.)  

But had a nice respite last night!  Went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse with Randy & Benjie.  It was good to catch up on what's new since we hadn't seen them for a while.  Good dinner and good company!

Today we're putting the finishing touches on the clean-up and then I'm off to Linton to do the dreaded grocery shopping.  Planted a flat-leaf parsley this a.m. and hope the rabbits leave it alone.  Last year they ate most of my herbs to the ground.  Wendell says something has been in the garden digging already!  ARGH!

I'm going to put some more rug pictures up and re-arrange my blog.  So I'll take off the instructions on how to make the hooked and prodded lapel pins now, and eventually the Texas pictures.  Hate to take off those Texas pix because that means I have to let go of that time down south ......

Friday, April 1, 2011

Getting there ...

Feel like I've accomplished a lot this week!  This is how I'm feeling ...
Got the round flower bed cleaned out and half of the iris moved!  Yeah!  It looks so much better than before and I feel really good about that flower bed now.  Next year I'll divide the other half and it will look even better.  Then today I got four rug hooking kits assembled and am almost ready for next week's Holy Hookers meeting!  Double "yeah"!

Wendell and I went to visit mother Wednesday.  I was going to go alone as usual but at the last minute I asked him to come along to help drive because it is about a 4 hour one-way deal.  So we pounded it all out in one day.  What a day!  Got up early and were there by 11:30 and took Mom to lunch at her favorite restaurant in Bluffton, Richards.  (It's definitely a senior citizen type of place!)  Visited with her all afternoon until she had to go down to dinner.  (She has to be down there at 4:30 to be served about 5:00.)  So we were on the road at 4:30.  Got to Kokomo about time to have a late dinner with Jeff.  And got the car washed while we were killing time.  Then on home.  Pulled into the garage at 10:30.  So you can see why I usually go up there and stay overnight.  Cutest thing happened ... as I was saying goodbye to Mom she said "I don't want you to go!"  And she was fierce and serious!  That is the first time she has ever said that!  Nice surprise ... you'd have to know our relationship to understand.  Anyway ...

We got the garden planted this week with lettuce, radishes, beets, spinach and onions.  Wow!  It looks like we will have to mow before long.  (No, that's not an April Fools Day joke!)  This afternoon I have to do the dreaded grocery shopping ... what can I say, it's my life.