starting july off right . . .

We enjoyed a terrific long Independence Day weekend! On Thursday, we had 'staff enrichment', which means we went to lunch together at a nice restaurant and then went home afterwards. Hip, hip! On Friday, Todd and I did our usual boating trip where he fished and I mostly read. I never get tired of the scenery!

On Saturday, we hit the lake again, this time with the Merkel crew.  

 

We spent the day swimming and splashing (and eating), and then we headed towards the shoreline at dark to watch fireworks.  It was fabulous!  

All the big shows had coronacancelled, but there were enough private fireworks being set off that we had a 360-degree viewing field! 

Early on Sunday morning, Joc, Ellie, Evey and I loaded up in the car for the five and a half hour trip to Indiana, for a baby shower for my nephew's wife (they live in Alaska, but her family is in Indiana).

It was a fun trip with the "big girls" and I got to see my sister (from Virginia) and both of her daughters (and her oldest daughter came with her husband and family, and I got to see her youngest for the first time). 

It was a sort of mini reunion!

On Monday, before hitting the road seriously, Joc saw an underground river tour she thought would be fun, so we detoured over to Bluespring Caverns. It was amazing! It's the longest stretch of underground river in the United States.  The cavern (cave) is a balmy 54° (air and water), year around, which made it a lovely stop on a 90° day!

The girls mined for gems and fossils and that was fun, too!

I didn't get a lick of stitching done in the last week, but I *did* finish up the 2018-19 HQH mystery quilt a couple of weeks ago!

Really pleased with the quilting on this, which was done by my longarmer friend, Melissa.  She does such beautiful work!

My sweet little helpers enhance the look, too!

I hope y'all are all doing well and staying safe and healthy! 

:)

pandemic pass . . .

Evidently, that's just what I did.  Took a pass on blogging during the height of the pandemic. I have no good excuse for it, either!  Except how you know when you miss something one week ... and it makes it a little easier to miss it the next week ... until the week comes and it's hard to do it because you've missed so much?

Yeah.  That.

I *have* been busy (for the last seven plus weeks).  Lemme 'splain . . .

I made some masks (click here for the tutorial):

I made quilt tops and finished quilts:

(Temecula mini is finished)

(NICU comfy quilt to donate)

(Picnic quilt for Merkel girls)

(My class quilt is FINISHED!)

I baked things (and gained twenty pounds):

(Salted Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies)

(Focaccia Bread)

I baked a lot of different and new things ... and you don't want me to eat up your bandwidth with it all.  LOL!

I rearranged my cozy tea corner:

And consequently, I drank a LOT of tea!

I took a LOT of walks around the camp and noted nature:

(the story behind these is so very sweet!)

I read (a LOT) (and on the boat):

(between March and April, I read a solid 30 books)

I did some hand-stitching (and also on the boat):

And we fished (a LOT):

That was just one trip.  Most of our fishing expeditions (and I use the word "our" loosely) have netted a cooler full of fish like that.  So yeah, we'll eat fish for months, which is a good thing for my diet, seeing as I now have an additional twenty pounds to lose.  LOL!

I also worked from home, but we're back in the office full-time, now.  Just not open to the public, yet.  That's coming.

How are YOU??!

:)

interesting times . . .

Has anyone else struggled with what day it is?! LOL! I stayed home sick on Tuesday and the boss shut us down for the remainder of the week, so I worked from home. The days start to run together after a while!

It's been a busy and fairly productive week, though. I have enjoyed some super domestic time ... I made bread and have done a lot of cooking (which I don't typically do during the week). One of our favorite meals is . . .

Italian Loaf Rustica aka Double Crust Pizza! It's so very good, but very time consuming to make. We had this for several meals, actually!

I've gotten in several lovely long walks around the camp this week. Thursday was super warm and look what I found hanging out in the nursery sanctuary . . .

Two toddler turtles! We figure one's a two-year-old and the bigger one is three. They still look sleepy and have dirt on their tiny faces! It's gotten cold again, so they've gone back down under.

Todd and I also watched the sun go down from the back deck that evening.

It was just a lovely day through and through. I love sharing all my camp nature pics, but I hate making these posts so picture laden (not that you could ever tell). I share a lot on Instagram as @daneesey, too! :) There are a number of duplicates, but ah well.

I also got in some quilting/stitching time. First things first, though. My Nook was in desperate need of attention. I'd not taken the time to set things straight after retreat and it had already been in need of tending after I finished my class quilt. So I spent a couple of hours and took care of it. Happy National Quilting Day to me. ♥

It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was, once I scooped up trash, put fabric and rulers away, and swept! Then I got on to stitching.

I finished up this small quilt kit from Temecula Quilt Co. Then I hand quilted the heck out of it! In honor of the first day of (astronomical) Spring, I quilted a pink dogwood blossom in the center.

It's sort of hard to make out, but I know it's there! I also had gotten the week 10 block finished on my Peppermint Purple stitch along.

I guess block 11 and the binding for my Temecula piece will be my slow stitching for today! I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts for that.

One last thing I want to share before I head to the living room for church (!!!)...

I've seen this in several places and have posted it myself on social media, but I think it bears repeating. It's been comforting to me to re-read this and reset my focus!

Be blessed today!!

:)

more utility (love) stitching . . .

Yes, I do have to qualify that utility stitching for my grands is definitely *love* stitching!  Ellie's 8-year-old "blankie" needed some attention.  Seriously, I should have taken a before pic! I reconstructed it for her, making it a quilt, of sorts . . .

  

Hopefully it will get her through (to adulthood)!  :)  It made her so very happy to get it back, my heart was happy too.  

I am struggling with allergies again. I'm sniffling and sneezing and coughing ... the very thing people do NOT want to be around right now! So I'm self-quarantining. Add the fact that I'm immunocompromised, and it just makes sense that I stay put. So I spent yesterday in the Nook, finally getting around to binding my wool pumpkin piece . . .

I'm really pleased with the final piece!  I'm especially glad I waited on binding it until I found the right black for it. I felt like a solid would be too harsh for it and I think I made the right call!

Sawyer turned TEN this week!  I could cry...it's so hard to believe this boy is already in the double digits!  I so wished to be able to spend this special birthday with him. His mama's is the day before and Kim & James's anniversary is today (twelve years)!  One year I'll make it there for all three!

Sawyer told me he was so excited to spend his birthday at LegoLand and especially to go to the pool there (they were spending the night).  They pretty much had the park to themselves on Friday, but the park made the decision to close on Saturday, so he didn't get to swim.  But he was okay with it.  They did get to overnight in the hotel and he enjoyed that!  Sweet boy!

I was going to show off my weeks 10 & 11 of my Peppermint Purple SAL, but when I went to grab the photo, realized I'd only completed through week 10!

So I guess you and I both know what I'll be working on this afternoon!

I'll also be working on a little utility work that Joc sent home with me Thursday, on behalf of Edith (this time).  LOL!

Sweet little baby doll frocks need fixing.  Neesey will take care of that! Linking up with Kathy's Quilts today ... be sure to hop over there!

Y'all stay safe ... stay calm ... and stay well!

:)

girls, girls, girls . . .

This was another of those weeks in which I had something after work every night.  Ten hour work days with an activity after work makes for LONG days!  But that's okay.  My reward came Friday in the form of a visit from these cuties . . .

Yesterday was their mama's birthday, and I kept the through the day Friday and overnight. While these visits are generally about movies and popcorn, Friday was a lovely, sunny day and we did go exploring!  Everyone found a different daffodil to sniff . . .

We took time to smell whatever this was that was flowering  . . .

And we enjoyed the Obstacle Course (in our own manner) . . .

We even had a gourmet picnic lunch!

Teapot bologna and cheese hearts.  It's all in the presentation, right?!  :)

We did a final walk before dinner.  The girls were happy to tromp around in the dusk.  It was a lovely late afternoon and all three of the girls were captivated by the moon . . . 

And then the sun really started setting and we trekked back in the near dark!  

But these sweet girls just felt safe and confident in their surroundings and didn't bat an eye.  That makes my heart so happy!

I did manage to do a little stitching ... well, darning ... this weekend.  Evey's beloved blankie had a bit of an incident (which I won't go into) that left it looking like this . . .

That was right after it happened a week ago.  I wish I'd taken a picture of it after a week's worth of 'loving'!  LOL!  You can imagine. I'm not an expert with yarn, nor an expert at darning, but I think this will hold it . . .

Bless her heart.  I sent the pic to Joc, who showed it to Evey, who said, "Neesey is my hero!"  Well then, good enough!! ♥

I did purchase some fabric . . . this lot from an estate sale:

And this lot from an LQS.  The black on black for the binding of my pumpkin piece and the little floral piece just because I need another whole in my head! What?!?  It's pretty.  Reason enough.

We're taking Joc to lunch for her birthday after church today.  Then my plan is to do a little binding work for my slow stitching this afternoon!  With that in mind, linking up with Kathy's Quilts--be sure to check out what others have lined up for the day!

Have a great day and enjoy that extra hour of daylight (ha!) we'll receive at the end of the day, compliments of Daylight Savings Time!!

:)