Garden Prep and a Birthday

I figured it was time to get this post written seeing that all of these "garden prep" pictures were taken last Sunday!

We have been asking my parents for the past two years if they would be willing to bag up leaves they rake up each fall. And of course they come through. THANKS MOM!!! {{as a side-note, now that Mom is freshly retired (first full week of retirement under her belt), she should have LOADS of time to help bag leaves for their OWN garden :0)}}

Anyway.....Cassie and Candace helped load up bags onto the tractor bucket in order to deliver them to the garden.
Meanwhile, Caitlyn spent some time raking out some "old" dead stems from last year's growing season
Kicking around the piles of leaves to spread them out.....
Ummm......work turned into play time?


What's a kid to do, right?!?!?!

Strawberries having a good seasonal beginning.


Paul moved a group of chickens we had to a new run. They immediately took to the grass!
All except this one. She watched from the doorway for quite some time before venturing out.

The day was another warm (unseasonal) day. So, it kept me away from my sewing machine; therefore, NO QUILTING PICS to share :0( That should change with my 4-day weekend looming ahead of me :0)


We celebrated Caitlyn's 8th birthday yesterday.

I wish she would show a little excitement :0)

Cassie informed me of a Highest Points award she earned with her Accelerated Reader points, so I took the camera to school yesterday to get a snapshot. I'm certainly happy that she enjoys reading so much.

So...that's a quick update! Not much writing but lots of pictures :0)
I'm looking forward to a weekend HOME for the holiday! As badly as the house needs a top-to-bottom cleaning...... I don't have the gumption right now this minute to take it on. Rather......some coffee, a bagel and a couple of hours in my sewing room sound AMAZING!!!!!

Happy Friday

Home from travels...

Okay...so my travels were only 2 hours away, unlike Angela.....**sigh**. Oh how lovely it would be to take a cruise!

I enjoyed a quiet, slow-paced weekend at the farm with my in-laws, minus a husband. He actually spent the weekend working and staying at MY parent's house, 2.5 hours south, while I was up in Ashland (Lake Superior) with his parents. Kinda comical, maybe...but we hadn't been to the farm in awhile and the girls wanted to go. Besides, I transported a couple of buckets of potatoes for FIL to plant since he lost almost half his potatoes :0( He and I spend some of Saturday morning in the garden; but WHEWWW-EEEE! It didn't take long for the day to heat up!!! I spent most of the afternoon in the AC'd remodeled farm house with quilt books & magazines, graph paper, scissors, Bonnie K. Hunter designs and some men's shirts that have been collecting on my shelves over the past year. I thought a "down" weekend with little technology available would be a perfect way to finally take care of cutting up some of the shirts.

Anyway--I haven't taken any recent pics. I can't believe I didn't snap a single pic this weekend!!!!! This is step #5 of Judy's June Mystery that I was able to partially sew up before leaving on Friday. I'm about half done. After an eye-appointment tomorrow, I hope to finish it up; in addition to step #6 (and final step) of the Dizzy: QOV#22 mystery.

Plans for the rest of the evening? Well, in addition to having some down-time for some cutting and designing, I also packed a smut book Harlequin Romance novel and READ! I haven't allowed myself that luxury of getting roped in a book in a long time. I finished it off lickity-split, and bought two more at the local Goodwill! So...some good smut romance on the horizons tonight. ;0)

To my fellow Americans, I hope your day remembering our Independence has treated you well! Happy Indenpendence Day!

To everyone else: Happy Sunday!

And the posts keep coming...Judy's June Mystery; Too Good to Cut & Buckeye Beauty sets

I headed downstairs around 6:30 after catching up on some blogs and plopped in Lara Croft-Tomb Raider. By the time the ending credits were rolling, I was pressing the final seams and trimming the last of the dog ears...
I felt MOST of my morning was spent trimming ... 72 HST's that needed to be trimmed to 3". UGH!
I really DO NOT LIKE TRIMMING------but I guess it is one of those very necessary evils!

And just to prove that I trimmed more than sewed...here are the flying geese units, finished, with the trimmed dogears.

By this time, Candance had made her way downstairs, wiping the sleep from her eyes and wanting some breakfast. French-toast, little smokies, toast with jelly, cottage cheese and some Sunny Delight....and now we're ready for the day to take off...

And an update on Cassie's reading: she hasn't given me any titles to post on the blog yet, but that may be changing this morning when she finally makes an appearance. When I headed dowstairs, I noticed Cassie's bed-side light was on in her room. LOL....it appears she fell asleep while reading last night; glasses still on the face....

11:30 AM Update
MORE TRIMMING!!!!!
The Buckeye Beauty block units were trimmed up and pinned, ready for mailing...

And then I trimmed up the 15 blocks for my Too Good to Cut Challenge. Finally making some progress on that baby. Top is partially pieced, with the first border on...but now I'm checking out the site that gave me the directions because I'm not sure about the 2nd border. My print out seems to be missing something. The pattern is by Jennifer Chiaverini; using her Johanna's Collection line by RedRoosterFabrics (link will lead you directly to the pattern if you'd like). I am not using her line; merely her pattern. I have a feeling my quilt will be named "Moondance" due to the line of fabrics I am using....

Okay...off to look and then make up some lunch.

Cassie loves to read & State Track

I try to remember how I spent my summers when I was little. My family was big on camping, and I DO recall spending many-a-days lounging in the hammoc with a book in hand.

Well....my oldest is GUNG-HO to read everyday this summer. She already read one book last night while swinging outside on the playset, but she's not "counting it" because she said that summer reading will start on Saturday (today). The first thing out of her mouth this AM when she came bounding down the stairs was..."Today is the first day of summer reading, Mom!" NO LIE! Not even "good morning, Mom".....nope......"Today is the first day of summer reading, Mom!".....that's what was on her mind.

An hour later, she came marching down to the basement (I was sewing away...pics to come later) and asked..."MOM! When are you going to get the chart made for the summer reading so I can start keeping track?"

Followed by...."Mom, how many days before school start? I want to tell Mrs. Behling (her 4th grade teacher next year) that I read as many books as possible for each day." {{5 minutes later, after looking at a calendar}}..."Okay mom, there are 88 days until school starts!"

Then, it hit me...why not keep track of her reading on my blog? So....we've created a spot on my left sidebar to keep track of her reading...

We'll see how long she stays motivated....

;0)

And now, I find myself parked on the chair, watching Wisconsin State Track, waiting for our two remaining athletes to compete. We have a sophomore girl running in the 400M finals (5th seed), and one junior boy running in the 100M finals (8th seed), and the 400M finals (the favored 1st seed). Yesterday afternoon, our boy broke the State 400M record by .01 seconds in the preliminaries! He has won the state title in the 400M his Freshman AND Sophomore years; he's going for his 3rd State title. GOOD LUCK TOM & JEN!!!