Pokin' along ...

I've been keeping busy and slowly getting back in the swing of things.  Sort of feeling blase' since we returned and don't know why.  But now I'm getting my groove back ...

We had a death in our family.  Lost my sweet Aunt Rosie.   Her funeral was last week in Dayton and I attended with Wendell and brother Don.  All of my sibs were there and it was good to sit around the table, having lunch with them, even though it was a sad occasion.  Sort of a neat thing, for the luncheon following the service her kids -- Dave, Pam and Rita -- decided to serve some of her favorite things to eat.  We had pizza from her fav place, fruit salad, delicious pies, and on the tables were bowls of her favorite candy -- dark chocolate covered raisins!  So yummy.  This was such a special melancholy time.  There were lots and lots of wonderful old pictures of Rosie and her family.  Here's one I happen to have from when she got married to Uncle Jack Sharpe.  Can you tell, it was during the war?  Lovely picture.  Now I just have one uncle living, my sweet sweet Uncle Roger Lee.  

Couple weeks ago we had lunch with Jeff and Jane at the Loft Restaurant at Trader's Point Creamery on the west side of Indy. Such a good day!  This is a great restaurant and I highly recommend it if you're in that area!  Jeff found it and I asked him how ... he said he googled 'unique restaurants' in Indy.  It sure is unique!  It is a dairy and they have a nice little shop where you can buy dairy products -- I can vouch for the excellent cheese.  They milk about 50 head of brown Swiss on the premises and if you're there at 7:30 in the evening you can observe.  W. and I order the cheese board and a bottle of wine before lunch and enjoyed it immensely.  But the best part was catching up with Jeff and Jane on their anniversary trip to the Biltmore in Asheville earlier in the month.  They had some beautiful pictures to show us.  And it's always good to see the kids!

Like how this sign is supported by milk cans!

Waiting area with fire pit outside the door to the shop & restaurant.

Our cheese board at the Loft: five cheeses, honey in the comb, fig preserves and lots of crusty bread.  And a bottle of chardonnay.  Yum!

We went to the annual garden and patio show at the Greene County Fairgrounds a week ago.  It seems to get bigger each year.  There were lots of vendors, it was a beautiful spring day, and I went away with a free tree, an unusual hosta plant ("curly fries"), and this cute garden angel.  Now, he's right by the front step to welcome you ... Just sayin' ...

Smile Carolyn!

My sleeping angel.

We've had a late spring and I'm thinking we're just rushing right into summer now because it's about 9:30 p.m. as I write this and still 77 degrees.  Our lawn has been looking good but needing lots of mowing :-( ... I don't mind the mowing it's the trimming I hate, even with a weed whip it tuckers me out since it's a long way around this place.  And it seems to get bigger each year.  This past week I finally got the garden shed cleaned out and all of my lawn 'decor' out and scattered here and there.  I found lots of remnants of mice and chipmunks in the shed, too.  Broke up some happy homes there with my broom.  At least no snakes this year ... so far.  Here's some outdoor pics I took after we mowed recently ...

Now all the leaves are on the trees and it looks so different than it did here in these pictures, just a week or so ago.  And my beautiful white viburnum is gone for the year ...  The dandelions are flourishing.  The toads and lizards are back.  The hummingbirds are fighting over the feeder.  The windows are rain-spotted.  All is right with the world here in Greene County. 

Well, we spent another day across the river in IL.  Had lunch at the Wabash Coffeehouse & Antiques in Hutsonville (ran into a hooking friend there) then traveled down to Palestine to S.D. Meadows  Folk Art Gallery.  I love love, love that place!  I won't take up room here with pictures from that trip (which I took a ton of) but will put them on the side to stay for a while to decorate the right side of my blog.  (Well, maybe one good one here .....)  His work just fascinates me.  I love it how he sees something someone else would call trash and makes art with it.  For instance, there was a small mirror that was framed with old, rusty screws.  Just screws!  All sizes and lengths.  Just take a look on the right.  But I guess you have to be into it to appreciate it.

I hope you have a wonderful rest-of-May.  Remember, God is good!  All the time!

I swear, it's really spring ...

Yes, it really is Spring.  Boy!  What lousy weather we've come back to!  Here's what it looked like just a few days ago out my front deck door:

Granted, it went away quickly, but seriously.  We've had at least three snows since we got home from NM in early March.  And we had lunch with my brother, Don, and wife Nancy this week; they didn't return to Indiana from AZ until after the end of the first week of this month and he said it snowed the day they got back!!!  ARGH!  But anyway ... enough about this freaky spring.  And, yes, it really is spring!

Think I'll tell my story in pictures ....

The first week after our return, I went to Terre Haute with Jane and Nancy (we're part of a local sewing group and we call our work "Project Kindness").  We met at First Methodist Church (downtown, on the edge of the ISU campus) with LeaAnn Camp to do a one-day flash project of a hat/scarf combo with the ladies of the church.  I think at the end of the day we had over 20 pieces done, and more were going home with some of the local ladies, so in all I'd say that about 30 fleece hats will warm some homeless person in TH.  Plus, it was FUN!  The ladies provided us with a great lunch with some of LeaAnn's yummy soup as the centerpiece.  These are a fleece hood with a scarf attached that's continuous.  Very clever.
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Since I've returned I've been able to hook three times; two times locally at the library in Worthington and once in Washington with the Hoosier Hills Guild.  At Guild, the gorgeous projects above were brought for show n' tell.  Top is Sharon's and next is Sue's.  They started these rooster wall hangings in a class at the ATHA convention last fall.  The roosters themselves are hooked with wool provided by the instructor, but each did their background and border color choices themselves.  I love, love, love these rugs and asked them if I could put them on my blog.  Sue was just finishing binding hers at guild and I hope by now they've both picked a place to hang them at home.  Lovely!  (Just wish I could say that the "yellow ware bowl" rug I've been working on since well before they began their projects was done.)
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BEFORE

AFTER

I've been SLOWLY working on cleaning my flower beds, cutting back last years plants, pulling & digging weeds, mulching, and applying Preen.  And it's not been easy to find a good day for this kind of work in this ugly weather!  Actually, we were flooded in for three days in early April, to add insult to injury.  Well, I only have one flower bed to go after just completing this one yesterday.  So, TA-DA!  Actually, I would have finished all this flower bed nonsense yesterday but didn't have enough mulch to do all of the one remaining bed.  I put these pictures on so you can see how far along the lilies are already!  Yikes!  
Well, yesterday and today have been really spring like.  So I'm hoping for the best as I prepare to put out some herbs that are waiting down on my potting table.  So let's keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't frost after I do that ... I guess I could go out each night and cover them .... (sigh).
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I cut four more rugs off of the run of weaving I've been working on recently and got them knotted yesterday.  Need to run them through the washer yet to call them really "done".  I'm going to give some of these away to my Project Kindness buds I think.  I still have a long way to go on this yellow/green/red/blue warp but have been having a dickens of a problem with the end warp threads getting loose!!  If I were a cursing person I'd put in a few cuss words here, like **@@##((%%!!@^^++!!  Next week I'll tie it onto the apron once again and start anew.  But I know it will happen again and I'll be glad to see this warp run out for sure.

God is Good!  All the Time!  Remember that as you curse that "warp" in your life.