My Birthday Weekend

Oh the joys of having my birthday land on a Sunday…. I declare that the celebrating (laziness, spoiling) then encompasses the whole weekend!   🙂    Such as it was this year.

Phil took off most of the day on Friday and took me shopping.  I love having him keep me company.  I sent him off to wander the mall and/or warm a bench while I spent time and a bit of money in the Loft store.  Super, duper deals that day with 50% off most of the store ( 🙂  !!!) and then I gave in and got their store card (which I’ve never done before but I love Ann Taylor) which gave me another 15% off and then said I’d miss the birthday bonus as my birthday was in 2 days (transaction time, etc) so the manager overrode the rule and gave me my $15 off for my birthday as well.

Much nicer clothes and for less than the prices at Target.    🙂

Lunch at my favorite local restaurant was yummy (New Orleans style pizza: shrimp & spicy sausage) albeit slow when one needed to get back to work.  We made a few more stops and headed home for a few hours of work for P.

Saturday was quiet here… for my schedule… but the son had friends out for target play.  Quiet was not their word for the day but the details are only shared in person and privately.  😉

Sunday called the men to P’ville for the North American HAM radio field day weekend (who knew???).  They had a great day out together, fun with the radios (JP has his level 3 license and is in the P’ville club as well as campus club), and then toured the damage the university sustained in the June tornadoes.  (Sad but thankful for the safety of those that lived through it.)

So…. in light of their plans… Miss K met me part way and we had lunch and shopping together.  Just us girls — that hasn’t happened in a quite awhile and it was delightful!!!

We talked fabric, of course, over lunch.  These are K’s 3/8″ hexies.  “Now what?”  (All from one piece of fabric.  Once cut, she sorted out by color.  Very cool!!)

 

And we shopped a few places… tried on shoes, I bought, she advised, I added to her rewards card.  🙂

I ordered a 2nd Filofax A5 size for myself and it came a few days later.  Love!  My other Filofax (fuschia) holds my Five-Year Journal and 2014 farm diary.  It is over-flowing and we aren’t done with the year yet!  (Other years the farm diary won’t be in that one.)   This new one will mainly hold my 365/30 lists that I want to get back to.  (No room in the other “inn” so I haven’t kept that up.)

I enjoyed my weekend of birthday!

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Sunday Sunset

All of a sudden the living room glowed purple and I ran outside to get photos.  Barefoot.  In the sprinkles.  Battery dying.

 

The camera just doesn’t capture how colorful the sky was that night!

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MIL’s 80th

We had a family party with some of my mother-in-law’s requests for her 80th birthday.

• P’s sister and family came from Ohio and they (the 5 of them) did special things during the week.
• We had a family dinner out on her birthday with all but Miss K in attendance.  It was fun and a special place.
• She also asked for “birthday cake”. 

After dinner, we took cake to their house complete with candles, a singing candle, 80th candles, and sparkler candles.

For as many photos as I got, I also wish I had gotten a video as she was pleased as can be with her birthday cake and candles.  So happy!  🙂    She sat for several minutes watching the candles and just enjoying her moment.

She was so thankful we were all together for her day.

 

She looked lovely and commented she chose the purple top as “when she is old, she can wear purple”.  We noted that that phrase was for her 50th birthday, we groaned a bit, and then let her enjoy all the purple she wanted.  Some of us aren’t ready for purple yet.  🙂

 

 

 

 

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Quilt Retreat

I planned to open June with my own personal quilt retreat.  Free, my timing, no carrying of supplies and machine, my own bed, my own food, but it was quiet without girlfriends!  I tried to plan out easy meals but that didn’t go so well and of course, I still had to do dishes!  I did make chocolate cake the day before so I kept the bit of chocolate/treats idea.

I started Friday after supper and got in some arranging of the sewing rooms, got my AccuQuilt Go! Cutter, planned my pattern with EQ7, and got out my fabrics.

On Saturday, I cut fabrics for one block and pieced it.  This Swoon block is 24″ finished.  Huge!!  This will be fun to quilt when I get the top made.

 

I only pieced for a few hours on Saturday but I finished 2 blocks.

(I found a great pressing tutorial via Pinterest.  One diagram kept confusing me as the back of her fabrics made the medium fabric look like a light fabric.  This is my version for reference for the corner units.)

On Sunday, I took it slow but made a 3rd Swoon block.  I also cut fabrics for 2 more blocks.  For now, my goal is 6 blocks for a throw size.  I also might add a pieced border to make it a bit wider.  Yet to be determined.  I’ll let you know when I get farther down the road.

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Barn Quilt

My MIL gifted me with a barn quilt this spring.  I was to choose my block pattern… easy decision… I’ve wanted one for years.   Then I was to supply paint chips from Menards for the color selections.  Of course, neither of us kept a copy so that is gone and with the one who made these for us.  (silly idea in hindsight!!)

Here is my Ohio Star block ~

I had expert help with placement from a few quilting friends and I’m quite pleased with it on my porch!

 

My MIL got some for herself.  This is the one on her little garage/barn.

 

FIL just hung another one on the right side of this little garage so she can see that one from her house.  I haven’t seen it yet.  This one is the corn & beans block and FIL helped choose it.

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31st Anniversary

I’m so thankful we got done planting before our anniversary this year.  Most years we are done and done and done.  But this year, I knew it would be close.  He finished Tuesday night with planting and our anniversary was on Thursday.  Mid-week, on Wednesday, he said he’d give me most of the day on Thursday.  YEAH!!  Of course, I immediately had about 5 days of honey-do list conjured up in my head.  And then I had to decide if we’d stay home and work or go out and relax.

We went out to relax.  After the mandatory jobs that needed done that morning, we headed out and had lunch along the river at a nice restaurant.   It was nice & sunny!  The river was quiet, only a barge went by as we were there dining.

We stopped and bought some flowers for planting along my front porch and got some mulch since I had my Mr. Strong Arms with me for help.

We have had 31 years together… much longer than our time without each other and it is good.  We’ve grown together and grown a family.   So thankful for the kids we were able to raise and for the joy they bring to us!

 

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Family Memorial Weekend

We had a super busy and fun weekend over Memorial Day.

Sunday evening we had our first bonfire of the season!

Just a few of the tries …

 

And the apples didn’t fall far from the tree… horse-play!  But all ended well — he knows best and knows to be sweet to his sister.  🙂

Monday & Tuesday had P planting in bits between the rain & wet times and by Tuesday evening he had finished planting!!  Yeah!!  So glad to  f i n a l l y  be done!!

Miss K tried out her new mini-grill.  We grilled a bit and baked some and cooked in the skillet some.  But ended up with yummy meals!!  She made 2 barbeque-esque sauces that were oh.so.yummy!!  Both recipes will be further tweaked but became a lot like sauce with a meat carrier in my mind.  🙂

She helped me with decorating — first the shelf above my large kitchen window.

Then a collection of things I had for my studio wall.  The shelf and many of these things she gave me for Mother’s Day.  I had a few other pieces waiting for her help in arranging. (The paisley circle is a clock but the hands don’t show up in the photo.)  I finally put photos in the collage frame.

We had fun, ate well, and got jobs done.  A fun & tiring time together!!

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