Summer Catch-up

The days are sliding by, with one hotter than the next one. The weatherman just said this was our 32 triple diget day in a row. With the heat and no rain, everyone is making comparisons with the Dust Bowl days of the 1030's. And, yes, the backporch thermometer is reading 107 degrees, in the shade. We actually had one day that only got to 98. We appreciated the reprieve. I got up at 5:30 this morning to get some gardening done at Grandma's house. It was still, or already, 85 degrees at that time.The sunflowers don't seem to mind the heat. I've had several lovely bouquets thus far. This one ia particularly nice -- in the pitcher from Carrie, on top of the lazy-susan from Grandma, and all setting on the placemat from Linda Campbell.

Linda came over last week and we had a wonderful day spent mostly in Quilt World. She dropped Troy at work at 6:00 a.m. and was here a little after 6:30 a.m. We worked on a table topper for her kitchen table. Linda was zipping along on the sewing machine.And here she is with the semi-finished project. I quilted it and put the binding on it over the week-end. It should have arrived at her house in today's mail.Other than that, it's been one little thing after another and sometimes not much of anything. After an 18 month delay, I finally confronted the boob-squeezer last week. It's never as bad as I think it's going to be, but I continually put off getting my mammograms. All was well in the report.This quilt finally got finished. It started with pieces that I had cut wrong when making another quilt 6 years ago. I put them together, and this has been my cart-around-with-me hand quilting project for nearly a year now. It has no purpose, but might be a nice baby blanket for a great-grandchild in the far distant future.Today I was totally lazy. After the early morning gardening, I have spent the remainder of the day sitting in the chair and reading this "sweet" book. Barbara gave it to me via Stephanie. Both assured me that I would like it a lot even though I told them I only read grizzly murder mysteries. As it turns out, I did like it a great deal. Hmmmm....maybe I'll have to read another nice and sweet book sometime.

The Visit - A Partial Report

Carrie, Kellie and Livie were here last week-end. I find, however, that my photo coverage of the event is sadly lacking. I have not one single photo of Livie or Grandma Bonnie. Linda came over on Sunday afternoon for the salmon pattie feast and to celebrate Carrie and Kellie's birthday. My one photo that includes her is blurry, but I've put it in anyway, just to prove that I was doing my blog-y job at least a bit.The occasion for the visit was Amy's birthday, but it gave me a chance to celebrqate Carrie and Kellie's birthday together with them for the first time in about 25 years.Grandma Bonnie made an angel food cake for the celebration. To prove how grown up they were, the girls didn't sit back to back to open their presents. But I did note a bit of racing to be the first open their present. Although no real secret, I had been working on quilts for each of them during the past year. They seem to have been a hit.Carrie's was meant to be a bit tropical in feel and to mimic the coral, brown, green and tan colors in her family room.Kellie selected the pattern for hers when I was visiting them last fall. She specifically requested reds and golds. So it was.

They left on Monday morning, and the house seemed to be very empty for a while. How strange that everyone has gone their own way and created their own lives. I'm always a bit surprised by that.

Recently.....

Despite the incredible heat, both Linda and I ventured out last Friday for a little play time. We met at a really good Chinese restaurant in El Dorado for lunch and to do the hand-off of the next Evanovitch novel. For those of you who are still waiting to read it, I will tell you that there's a lot more "action" in this one than there has been in the previous Stephanie Plum adventures. Yea!Then Linda went to a quilt shop with me where I had to pick up Guild door prizes. Last summer Linda bought a book, so she thought that she might look for fabric this summer. We opted to wait and let her "shop" in my basement when she's here on Sunday.On the 4th, I took Grandma to Pizza Hut for lunch since she didn't have any other outing for the day. Barbara came over later in the day for a hamburger, but on the way she stopped to feed Stephanie's dogs and fell in a hole, wounding her leg. So I put her on the couch with an ice bag on her elevated leg, and pulled a chair over for her to put her drink on. But.....Toby thought she would benefit most from his comfort, so he curled up on the chair to be near her.We picked Grandma up later and went over to a friend's house who lives near Bill Glover. We sat in her driveway and watched fireworks. It was cool and pleasant, and we all felt like we had celebrated the 4th of July appropriately.