Some Things Never Change

I've been thinking today about my first day at school.
It would have been about 1949 - and I guess I was about 6.
I was so excited, I felt like I was going to burst!  I can still feel that pent up excitement today.  I was going to have access to books, and even better, friends!
Throughout the day I was admonished several times to be quiet.
Finally, I was sent to the cloak room.  All alone.
No books.
No friends.
Just to "learn my lesson." 
No talking.
That cursed cloak room did not teach me my lesson.
I still get overwhelmingly happy and excited.
And then I talk.
Sorry, Mrs. Maring.  But not.
I'm really not sorry.
I will not apologize for being a vessel full of joy, who needs to let it out, all over everybody.
:)

Sandy Relief - Pay it Forward

Our youngest son and his band recently participated in a fund raiser for victims of Storm Sandy.  There seems to be a little something on it for most anybody.
It is certainly worthy of a listen, and if you find something you like, won't you contribute?
It is a fine effort BY a lot of good folks FOR a lot of good folks.
Wishing them great success.
Click here to hear and to contribute.

Family and Reunion

One day last month we went to the bird store.  While there, I mentioned our hummingbird and her nest and the sales lady got so excited.  She couldn't believe we had a nest in our yard!  I didn't know it was such a big deal.  As we were leaving with our various purchases, she advised me to get pictures of the bird and her nest....."climb up on a ladder if you have to!"
Yeah, well, I'm not actually gonna do that...and our camera isn't good enough to get a really close shot, but I've done my best.  There are little red arrows to show Mom Hummingbird and another to show where the nest is.  We've got a lot of little critters in our yard, but by far the ones we love the best are our hummingbird family!  We have 6 feeders and might get a few more!

 

Next up was our McCay Family Reunion.  We were really happy to gather with all these fine folks - such good people!  As kind of a welcoming committee, Cousin Mike was standing by to show off his heritage tattoo.

 The little ones had a great time with each other and on the playground equipment.
Lots of cousins got to pose for "togetherness" photos.

 Lots of "look alike McCays" hung out and swapped stories.

 

I hope a good time was had by all...there were so many missing - ill or gone - and their presence was still felt.  That's family!

Ian's Force

 

 

Lar and I found two remnants of Star Wars fabric in a bin at a local fabric store.  I knew immediately it had to be turned into a quilt for our 5 year old grandson Ian.  Ian was born with the passion for Star Wars, handed down by super fan, his Daddy, Pat.

 

 

 

 

As luck would have it, I was able to get all but two little sashes from the stash fabric....so, printed up two pieces myself!  Scanned and printed some appropriate art work onto fabric, and voila!

 

I know  I have a photo (at least I think I do) of Ian with his quilt, but can't find it right now.  Will tell you, he AND his daddy loved it.

Sew Sew Busy!

Did you see the first mantle cloth I made using the Let's Twist pattern?  It was for St. Patty's Day.  We liked it so much I made another for Easter.  This time it is with purple fabric for the main body, and Easter Egg fabric for the pinwheels.  I added some fancy stitches around the squares and in gold, the titles of some favorite Easter hymns.  Gotta get to it and get more made for various other holidays. 

 

 

 Once I'd completed the mantle piece, I tried a free downloaded pattern on the embroidery machine for a wall hanging.  I'm beginning to get the hang of the embroidery machine.

Carol (my sister) visited and brought with her the quilt she's made from material I inherited from our Aunt Martha and handed on to Carol.  She wanted me to embroider a bit of something on each of the plain squares.  This is what we came up with.

 This is the signature square I created....was hoping to embroider all the words, but hadn't figured that out yet.  But it says all the important stuff.

 And here's Carol with the completed quilt.  Aunt Mar would have been most pleased, I am sure.  Especially since we did it together!

Double First Communion

 Brynn and Molly were receiving their First Communion, and I really wanted to make a keepsake for them!  I get these bright ideas and sometimes they simply don't pan out.  This time I was determined!  We bought extra hankie blanks - but I only mess one up....the other two turned out fair, considering I'd not done anything like this before.

I figured out a way to mount the hankies on card with ribbon and was pleased with my effort. 

Funny thing - I'd been advised by sales person to stabilize the back with a product that you dampen and press the hankie onto and then to apply a clear, water soluble top stabilizer.  I tried that.  Ummm, guess she didn't realize she was talking to less than a genius.  If you do those two things at the same time....uh, yeah, the top stabilizer "melts" and you have a gooey hankie!

On to the next hankie.  Thankfully I bought extra.

I think that I shall never see.....

We had some tree work done in the spring.  It was absolutely awesome watching these guys.  Their equipment was amazing and their work ethic inspiring.

 

 

 

856-430-9683.

On one thing that bothered me about it was the loss of my beautiful tho' invasive wisteria....it was particularly lovely this year and I'm sure it will prevail and some may find its way back next year!

 

Puff Puff - trying to catch up!

 

This hasn't been a very good year for the garden!  All the rain flooded us out so badly that it was difficult to get into the back lot to weed or even to pick.  Then the deer attacked! 

We'd gotten about 3 or 4 lb of peas which were fabulous, and I have frozen some for later.  But the deer found them delicious as well.  We got a lot of red beets, and some beet greens, and then the deer selected them...no more greens, but I was still able to get some of the actual beets.

And finally - the HEAT!!!  It is really tough on us to work on the garden the way we should do.

 

But it started out well.

 

 

 Here are Julia, Madelyn and Ian with mega radishes.  We were able to enjoy a good many of these guys.

BEETS!!!

Seek and Find

So....where have I been?  And what have I been doing?  And, finally, why no blogging?
Just in case there is anyone out there asking one or more of those questions....here goes.
To start, our PC went down.  I knew it was on the way out, but being advised by my "housemate" that it just needed some culling, I wasn't really panicky.  Result?  I didn't ensure there was backing up going on.
Once quite thoroughly declared dead, the computer had to be replaced.
And what to my terrified eyes should appear - Windows 8!!!
I HATE it!
And to top it all off, when the tech friend set it up, I had no 'account' so to get to anything like e-mail of my own, I had to sign in as hubby and then figure out the maze to get to my own.
And all my auto-sign-ins were gone.
I've probably explained enough so that you know why I haven't been here for quite some time.
However, I have been busy.

For years, I have enjoyed making my own greeting cards.  During my time away, I began taking a monthly card making class with Stampin' Up.  Lar has been very supportive of my getting some of the great equipment "needed", ie., a Big Shot and I've had a fabulous time creating cards.  The following are cards I've made up on my own....won't bother putting up pictures of class cards, as they are not unique.

This card had lots of dots featured - for my cousin Dot!

For our son Mike.

Hubby's birthday card.

Inside of hubby's card.

For a special cousin - inside says "if you look closely you will see, someone who means a lot to me."  The little mirrors are label tabs from dollar store pinwheels.

"To Wish You Well"   for a friend.

Son and daughter in law's anniversary.

Sympathy card for friend.

Oldest son's card....matching envelope.

Son and daughter in law's anniversary.

Inside.

A Thank You for a thank you gift!  The friends who received it called it quits....said we could go on thanking each other endlessly!  But they liked the card.