battlecry: retreat . . .

LOL!  Sometimes you just need to retreat . . . on a retreat . . . to a retreat.  That's exactly what I did last weekend! But it was my favorite kind . . . the kind I don't have to drive to.  A Camp MACOBA retreat! This was my Sassy Affirmation Sisterhood Sister's (SASS's) third annual summer retreat at the camp.  It was originally scheduled for July, but Todd's surgery happened, so we pushed it to August.  GOOD thing those cabins have A/C!!

It was Gail's (center) birthday weekend, so of course the appropriate signage was put in place!

I didn't even bring my machine this year.  I worked on getting my two wool tubs and my tub of floss in order, finished up several handwork projects, made some acorns, kitted some wool applique projects for fall, and started *and* finished a delightful Christmas tree cross stitch.

Wool Candy Corn bowl filler (in front of my fabric bouquet)!

 

LOVE this finish!!!

Acorns!!  :)

 

We took a field trip into town on Friday and visited Patches & Stitches and had dinner at a fabulous pizzeria, Sam & Gregs.

Saturday we took a field trip down to the creek! We splashed for a bit and took the requisite "feet in the water" photo!

And we all took a ton of pics of the creek, too!  ;) My idyllic spot!

There are a TON of assorted varieties of mushrooms/fungus around the camp right now . . . it's been so hot and humid! There was one 'shroom that was way bigger than my hand!  But this was a fungi I'd not seen before . . . 

It's called a Wood Ear Fungi. Aptly named, right?  That's exactly what it looked like on the tree bark!  So cool! The woods have ears . . . they're listening all around . . .

Sunday we all felt relaxed and rejuvenated!  It was Gail's actual birthday, and since we'd done the 'feet' shot in the creek, we decided to do a party hat shot parting shot . . .

We're so silly!  I'm glad I have a circle of friends like this.  They're the BEST!  :)

 

I'm ready for another long weekend . . . yay for Labor Day!  We'll try and head out on the boat on Monday, with the Merkel crew.  So look for lake pics next week!

Arrivederci!!

:)

right on time . . .

You would not think that I'd have much to share, seeing as I just posted four days ago ... but, surprise! I have another photo-laden post, with a variety of content! 

Thursday evening was our guild's last meeting of the guild year ... our birthday party, so to speak. It was decorated beautifully!

There's always a shot of the outgoing board.  You'll notice me at the very top, right. I won't be on the 2023-24 board; my plate is rather full right now.

The quilt behind us is our 2024 Fanfare Quilt Show opportunity (raffle) quilt.  Isn't it beautiful??!  Created by one of our members (with help from other members). It's so beautiful it deserves a solo photo . . .

Chance tickets are $1 a piece.  I've already sold twenty.  Ha! I haven't even bought my own, yet!

Friday, Todd and I got up super early and were on the water again at sunrise.

It was a beautiful day! < insert beautiful lake photo here >

The temps couldn't have been more agreeable, with a lovely breeze out of the west.  We didn't stay out terribly long, but we enjoyed the time we had.

Saturday I picked up Ellie and we headed to L'Etoile Patisserie!  

It's a sweet little French bakery in town, owned by a dear couple (the wife is in my book club).

After much deliberation, Ellie chose a pain au chocolat with a mug of tea.  She looks very sophisticated, non?! From the bakery, we visited an LQS - Patches & Stitches - because I needed a skein of floss.  Ellie informed me she needed a new beading needle, so we picked up a pack of those, too.  That's what Neesey's are for, right?! Then we headed to the grocery store, then back to the camp. I helped Ellie make a cheesecake . . .

She did a great job with it! And then we tooled around the camp for a bit. 

This is inside the new outdoor chapel.  It's nearly finished ... they just have to run the electricity to the building. I can't wait to see it clear of scaffolding!

Here's a shot from the outside.  It's so beautiful.  Our Campers on Mission volunteers got the building up in May.  A small group of volunteers have continued to work on it and the landscaping. It's almost there!

Ellie and I watched movies and worked on our respective hand work projects. 

She's almost finished with hers, and I'm just getting started! After dark, we headed over to the Firefly Cabin to spend the night. 

We push the bunks together and pull the mattress down from the top for a little extra padding! It was a true Camp MACOBA adventure!  Ellie even spotted this beautiful cicada:

Not that she'd get anywhere close to it.  LOL!!  Sunday morning while we waited for it to be time to go to church, Ellie finished her pumpkin stitchery . . . 

This is another stitchery that she came up with the concept, and I drew it out for her approval and traced it on fabric for her.

Isn't it wonderful?!  She does such lovely work.  I promised her that when she finished it, I'd stitch it up into a pillow sham for her, so I guess the ball is now in my court!

We ended our sleepover weekend by dropping her home, and celebrating her dad's birthday (which is why we made cheesecake)!

His birthday was earlier in August, but schedules have been crazy, so here we are!  And anyway, month-long birthday celebrations are a thing, right?  Well, they are for me, anyway.  ;)

Sunday evening a made some progress on *my* stitchery:

Another sweet cross stitched piece from Pinker 'n Punkin Quilting.  I love her little freebie designs and I was just itching to do something with pumpkins!

So this is me, on a Monday, all caught up; have a fabulous week!

Cioa! 

:)

is it the thought that counts . . .

So I know it was just last week when I stated that Mondays were good for blogging days. I was doing so well with two Mondays in a row . . . and then this past Monday hit.  I had every intention of posting.  I even knew what pics I'd share and what I'd say . . . but life.  You feel me, right?  And then Tuesday was a chemo day.

Look at Todd smiling for the camera! Tuesday night was tough and Wednesday I stayed home with him, so here it is on Thursday and I'm playing catch-up. Harrumph. Thursdays just feel like a good time for a new post.  LOL!  :)

Last week started out fun. The Merkel crew came by work on Tuesday (during the week of National Afternoon Tea), and so we had a tea party!

It was baby brother's first tea party (with all the trimmings) with Neesey.  He did a great job of holding that tea cup, sitting in the chair, and was very polite at the table!

I'd stopped at Peggy Ann's Bakery on the way in, and picked up some suitable tea treats. Their petit fours are unarguably the best around! Everyone at our tea table agreed with me.

Thursday was the annual MBA Clerk's Conference. I host this event annually for all the church clerks in our association. The MBA provides lunch and I always spend (too much) time picking out goodies for favor bags for them. This year I decided to do a "My Favorites" favor bag, and had a lot of fun collecting my favorite things to share . . .

So if you've known me for any length of time, you aren't surprised to find that there's a pumpkin front and center.  HA! These cute little pumpkins were a $1 at Dollar General!  I'm going to go back and get one for each grandchild and fill it will treats-no-tricks! In case you're wondering, those Moser Roth wrapped bars are chocolate. It's made exclusively for Aldi grocery stores, and it's marvelous.  The dark chocolate with orange and almond bits is heavenly! And you'll notice the leopard print pen.  It's a TŪL pen, and they are my very favorite writing utensils, whether it's pens, pencils, highlighters, markers, whatever.  And y'all ... my love language is paper and pens, so my opinion is strong! 

Friday, Joc had a babysitting emergency, so I headed over there for the afternoon/evening. We had a fun time. I love it when I get there, and all four kids spill out the door hollering, Neesey! Neesey! Such love! Joc had made arrangements for pizza to be delivered and we did pizza and a movie.  I was so tickled to see the girls pull out the picnic quilt!

This is *exactly* what this quilt was created for! 

After dinner we went upstairs and got baby brother into bed (and I did it, first try!), and played and talked and giggled until it was time for the girls to go to bed.  

Love these kiddos and so thankful they're close by so I can run over there when there's a need!

Saturday morning I had a church brunch with our ladies . . .

Isn't that a beautiful spread??  It was lovely.  From there I spent time with my mom, then on to my part-time bookkeeping job, then home for some down time and slow stitching. Phew. I'd completed the stitching part of my Mason jar sunflowers, but it still needed to be *finished*.

I'd wanted a mug rug, but didn't want the sunflowers to compete with a print. I had the brilliant idea to blanket stitch the Aida to wool!

Y'all ... I'm so pleased with how this turned out!  Aida is perfect for stitching, because you can be SO precise with the height and width of your blanket stitches!  And the wool I used is just delicious.  If you can enlarge the photo and look at it closely, you'll see what I mean.  It was the perfect pairing!

So, now I'm mostly caught up and will try again on Monday to get my blogging on. We're hoping, even though Todd had chemo on Tuesday (and will just get his pump out today), that he'll feel up to fishing tomorrow.  We've had a break in the high heat/humidity, and the weather is supposed to be glorious!  Then Ellie is coming over on Saturday to spend the rest of the weekend with us, so I should have things to share!

Toodles!

:)

tah dah . . .

Monday mornings just feel like a good time for a new post. I've accumulated a week's worth of doings, the weekend is fresh behind me, and the coming week stretches out like a blank canvas before me. 

Well, not entirely blank, but you know what I mean. :)

Our trip to Vandy went well.  The prognosis didn't change, but we left feeling lighter-hearted and better educated about what exactly we're dealing with.  

Todd was supposed to have chemo this week (the part of the canvas that isn't blank), but when he went in for labs this morning, his counts were too low.  He was armed with some questions to ask from the doc at Vandy, and got an appointment for a CT scan next week. We're hoping we can consult with Vanderbilt and be treated in Huntsville; that the two entities will be willing to work together.  

While we were in Vandy, we had lunch at the Pancake Palace, Est. 1961.  We both had breakfast for lunch, but I think I actually had dessert . . .

Right? Ganache-filled crepes topped with raspberry compote and whipped cream. Whew! I ate about half.  I was super glad we'd walked from the hospital to the restaurant and back! (Especially since I was driving the two hours home!)

I haven't been able to get out into the Nook as much as I would like recently.  For one thing, it's a hot mess and I need at LEAST a day to finagle it into shape.  The thing is, I can definitely tell when I've not spent time *creating*.  This week I poured it into our die-cut tree at work.  Since area kids went back to school last week, I felt like this was themed appropriately!

Pencils, crayons, backpacks, ABCs, buses, and apples, ready to gift to the teacher!  And I even 'tossed' in a few footballs (because, glory, glory, college football starts in nineteen days)! Hahaha!

And speaking of work, I had a few of my favorite visitors on Thursday . . . 

These three played under the table (secret fort), but Ellie pretty much stayed put in the chair for most of the visit; she's definitely a pre-teen!  

I love it when they come and visit me ... it makes my heart so happy.  ♥

We finally were able to go out on the water for a bit, early Saturday morning—first time since July 5 that Todd's felt up to it and the weather cooperated. We've found that Todd starts tiring in the afternoon, and combine that with the high heat we've had, it's too much.  So we got up at 3AM and were on the lake by daybreak.  

It was beautiful.  It was also a bit foggy in places . . .

It's very disorienting to be on the water when the fog is thick.  Luckily, this was just a patch that cleared up quickly.  And as the sun came up, it burned through that, making another pretty capture.

Gosh, I just haven't found a bad time to capture photos on the water! The landscape, the creatures, the sky, the water . . . it's all so beautiful in every situation.  Even storms are fascinating to watch!  God's creation never ceases to thrill me.  :)  We were back in our slip by about 10AM, but before we got there, we found a patch covered up in water lilies.

I snagged two . . . they're so sweet!  And I never realized this until Saturday -- they smell wonderful!

Sometimes cooking/baking satisfies my creative urges, too.  This weekend I tried a recipe from The Reluctant Entertainer:  Baked Cheesy Zucchini Bites. 

These were super yummy and very easy to make.  And packed with zucchini—which if your garden is anything like mine, anything new that can be done with zucchini is a good thing!  Browse around her recipes if you click over . . . she's got several interesting zucchini recipes!  The Air-Fryer Zucchini Parmesan bites look really good, too!

I rearranged things on my wood tray:

This little vignette just makes me so happy! Shiny pretties, lit candles, and the reminder that God is good.  And do you see the "heal" hanging there in the background?  That was a piece I did after taking a quilted word workshop with Meg Cox ... I did it right before my first shoulder surgery.  It feels appropriate to have it hanging now.  I pray that word over Todd a lot. 

Finally, I have been doing some stitching . . . 

I've got everything done on this cute little Mason Jar Sunflower piece, except the flowers themselves.  I'll probably wrap it up this week and finish it the way I'd planned (mug rug). I've been able to cut back on the majority of commitments that I had (guild, church, work, etc.), so I can spend as much time in the evenings after work, with Todd.  Even if it's just me stitching and him dozing.  :)

Okay ... let's get ready to face this blank canvas of a week and paint it with all the colors!  

Slán go fóill!

:)