One more post!

Three in one day!  I must feel chatty!

I have, as you know, an old (16) yellow cat named Simba and an almost 2 year old Sheltie named Quinn.  They are a source of some entertaining times!  Quinn will wrestle Simba to the ground any time she can and tries to herd him back to the house when he goes outside.  Simba never does more than grumble at her and he has claws!  I have a large stainless steel bowl in the kitchen for their water and this spring I added a smaller stainless steel bowl for water to my bathroom as Quinn sleeps in my room and I moved her crate and it's water bowl to the basement.  They have both decided that the preferred bowl is the one in my bathroom!  I have seen Quinn walk right past the big one in the kitchen, walk down the hall to drink out of the one in the bathroom, but that's not the truly funny thing.  The other night Simba was drinking out of in and Quinn comes in, lies down on the floor and patiently waits her turn!  I have a line for the water dish in my bathroom I wish I'd had my camera!

I'm off now for the shower, after a 3 mile walk with Quinn, a 6 mile ride on my bike and yard work I'l stinky!

A Mini Quilt-Shop Hop

After the Adoption hearing and lunch yesterday I took off across northern Missouri on a Mini Quilt shop hop.  The first place I stopped was closed and for sale, I later learned it shut down last year, bummer.  The Second was Missouri Star Quilt Shop in Hamilton Missouir.  Where I bought some of the fabrics for this:

Sideways-can't seem to fix it!

Then it was on to Quilter's Harvest in Higginsville.  I've been here several times and always liked it but she seems to be downsizing if not considering closing, bummer so I only bought fat quarters.

Then I visited a new on in Blue Springs, very small but I think they plan to expand if it goes. I bought the last fabric for Twist and a fat quarter here.

New Fabrics for twist (I already had the turquoise and I still need the black but it never happens that I find all the fabrics I'm looking for in one day! Some of these may not make the final quilt and some of those colors aren't quite right!  The one that looks red is actually raspberry!)

Then the fat quarters-I'm collecting blues and reds for future quilts.  Altho, this red was bought just because it was cute!

After that I picked Quinn up at Camp Bow-Wow and got home for a late dinner!  Then I mowed the lawn, and fixed the lawn mower.

A Garden Tour

It's been weeks and weeks since I showed you anything from the gardens.  I'm at the weed, water, repeat stage in the gardens, just hoping the heat doesn't get to things too much!  Today's actual temperature to be in the mid 90's with "feels like" temps over 100.   Now, just a few photos.

New water feature, since this was taken I've moved a few herb pots down to the right side.

Bush green beans beginning to flower

Green peppers-the plants look peeked but they have peppers

Arkansas Traveler tomatoes.  1 of 9 varieties I planted.

Cucumber blossoms

Peas and lettuce both about to lose to the heat!

Blue Larkspur and pink Foxglove

Yarrow!

Gotcha Day!

I'm way behind on posts and I'll try to get caught up but I could not end this day without this post.  Today was "Gotcha Day" for my daughter, Elizabeth/Beth/Libbie, and her family as a final date in court brought the verdict-"Adoption approved!"  A little guy who really joined the family last July is now Braxton Ethan Thomas Eiman!

The Eiman Family!  From left to right:  Kolby, Lucas, Brayden, Beth, Ethan and Judge Robb!

It's been a long year of many hoops to jump through, many days of wondering and worrying if this day would ever come and now he's ours, FOREVER!!!!!

Living with a cat!

Simba approves of the new office arrangement.  He especially approves of the easy chair I brought in.

He's less happy when I make him move so I can actually sit in it!

Catching up, again. Sigh.

I seem to keep myself so busy that I just can't think!  Truth is, I've been doing too much and have exhausted myself so I'm taking some down time.  Thought I'd use that to play catch up again.

I've been spending most of my days out in the yard.  How can there be SO much to do?  It's not like I started from scratch.  On the plus side it looks like it's going to be a good year for tomatoes!  I'm down to the last three hard scape jobs-a short run of edging, a very short wall (like 3 bricks) and the redo of the firepit so it's flat.  The redo of the air conditioner pavers is done, praise be to all the Gods!  It's not perfect but it's much better than before.  I have begun the weed, water, weed cycle but that I break up into small pieces which is good because we went from the 70's to the 90's.  The air conditioning is on and will remain on now unless we are forecast several days in a row of the 70's again.  It takes so long to cool the house and get rid of the humidity that I won't be turning it off and on (I do open the back door until it kicks on in the mornings.)

In the midst of all this yard stuff I decided to re-organize my office/sewing room.  What can I say, there was just too much in this tiny room, a whole lot of it had to go!  I took all the big boxes of fabric, along with the shelving unit they live on, to the garage.  Really how often do I get into those boxes?  The garage is not that far away.  Then I took down the ironing board which seemed to have become a permanent fixture, and the cutting table (again, how often to I cut fabric?)  The table and the lifts to make it taller are in the closet with the ironing board and the two, four drawer file cabinets.  This gives me room for a comfortable chair to sit in while I watch a movie and stitch.  Something I have really been missing since I turned the extra bedroom into a guest room (not that that project is finished.) Almost all the book shelves were re-arranged, the tv having it's own shelf as does the printer.  Most everything has been put away now and I have much more "elbow room!"

Today, I made lemon bars and from scratch lemonade with some lemons I bought a couple of weeks ago (needed using up) I don't much care for the lemon bar recipe, and it is so sweet it gave me a sugar headache!  The lemonade is really good, and not too much work, so I'll likely keep that recipe.  I also whipped up some "Gardener's Hand Scrub"  from a tutorial I found on the Tip Junkie's site (see my sidebar)  just sugar and dawn dish detergent with Olay in it.  I really like it, super simple to make up and really gets the ground in dirt out of this gardener's fingers!

The Doctor's attempted to drain the Baker's cyst in my right knee last Friday but the filling was too thick for the needle.  They did inject the cyst with cortisone hoping it re-absorbs on it's own.  Most days it's better, I think.

That's the news.  I'm off to make some Hill Country Spring blocks next!

Hill Country Spring!

On the design wall.

Twelve out of 90ish! Only 20 more days and all the blocks will be done, Ha, Ha!  I think I like it.

I've also been back stitching on Bri's stocking, nearly done with that.  I have to add her name and sew it together then I'll be down to only 3 more stockings!   (Unless some more children make their way into our lives and that's doubtful.)  I'm going to take a breather for a month after this one is done before I begin Kolby's.  Just too many projects going at the moment.

I managed to clear off the kitchen table so I can add the binding to the three quilts I had machine quilted.  My little 4 footer in the sewing room just isn't big enough.  Maybe I can get that done on at least one of them tomorrow.  Heaven knows it's still too wet to do much of anything outside.  I am headed to Beth's tomorrow to hang a "flagpole" in Brayden's room with his MIZZOU flag on it.  I'll take pictures!