Happy 4th to you

We are supposed to have rain by the time dinner rolls around so we may be having Chinese with our fireworks. Fine with me, less work for Momma is always a plus.

We're hoping that weather is good enough for BBQ tomorrow-if not I'll be making the The Pioneer Woman Cooks, Husbands favorite sandwich for the gang. Again, either way, yum. Her blog is on the left in my links. Check it out-she's funny and she cooks great but simple food and no bitching about the butter. Just enjoy.

Hope you all have a great weekend. I'll be back Monday with Chapter one in a novel I'm writing about paranoia and my relationship with things that don't work and are screwing with my head in the house and garden. Or, Why my life appears to be possessed by demons in the electrical appliances and garden creatures that conspire against me.

Peaked your interest-stay tuned for things that go bump in the night(Oh alright, in the day too!)

Stay safe and...... watch your back.

Friends, family , books, and Wips

Good Morning! Rose asked for a closer picture of the Holly Jolly and I found this pic that shows some fabrics better and in the upper left are the food fabrics I got for a kitchen wall hanging to be. I just love the bright colors and it will perk up the room a lot....someday.

When I got back from the trip my two quilting buddies took me out for dinner and gave me this lovely necklace. It's very beautiful and I was so touched that they made a fuss over my 60th. One of the ladies asked me how I felt about reaching this milestone(or is that millstone?) Seriously though, I feel pretty good and a lot more....happy...yep that's the word. I think there is a certain amount of relaxation of angst that comes with this time in life. Somehow I feel more ready to stop and smell the roses. Speaking of that, my son's MIL to be gave me a beautiful yellow rose bush. Very pretty. I must find a nice place in the yard to plant it.

I got some books I had been wanting including the new Jack Valenti "This Time This Place" which was released shortly after his death. Jack was around from the Kennedy era to wearing several prestigious hats in Hollywood. I'm going to crack that one open as soon as I finish the one by Marie Brenner called "Apples & Oranges". Marie has spent many years writing great articles for Vanity Fair and since I have been a faithful reader for many years I was interested to know a bit more about her. I enjoyed this book very much. It's basically the story of her relationship with her brother up till his untimely death. They had a life-long contentious relationship partially due to his OCD behavior. He owed one of the largest Apple orchards in Washington State and was a pioneer in bringing Asian pears to the American market. It's informative and funny and, inevitably, sad. I also got the new Andre Dubus "The Garden of Last Days". I loved his book "House of Sand & Fog" so I hope this one is as good. I'll let you know. I'm continuing my readings on the Tudors with "The Children of Henry VIII" by Allison Weir. Unless you are a devoted history nut(like me) you probably would be bored silly. I continue to be fountain of useless information and love history.

I'm working on the Lavender Passion but today I have several projects that include the most boring jobs in the history of sewing- hemming pants and sewing on buttons. I hope to make quick work of that and move on to possibly watching "The Other Boleyn Girl" on the computer while I sew.

Talk to you soon.

More travels with Dee

Here are the adorable 92-year-olds. Miss Mattie & Uncle Don. I hope if I'm lucky enough to get to that age I am as with it as these two. Of course, it probably comes from good living so I most likely blew that one.

The real occasion for the trip was two fold. To celebrate their 25th anniversary(second marriage) and to celebrate my 60th. If you call doing a lot of spending celebrating then you could say I had a sweet old time. Our house was(seriously) off Beaten Path in Mooresville so you could say we were off the Beaten Path (har). If this place is off the beaten path then Lord let me wind up there. We saw houses that made your mouth drop open and one in particular that had turrets covered in copper. Holy Moly gang. There were about 15 workman's vehicles in the driveway. Just imagine that bill?? Anyway, there were miles and miles of breathtaking places. Many on golf courses (Hi Rian). I could just imagine her driving by in a golf cart. I could also imagine someone having to marry a Saudi Prince in order to afford just the help needed to clean these 6 bedroom/w guest cottage mansions.

Our house was very beautifully located on a little finger-like tributary of Lake Norman. Very pretty area.

Here is the captain and deckhand of the 9 passenger pontoon boat that was rented for the week. Roger misses the boat we used to have. He doesn't miss the work it took to keep it in shape for using.

Unfortunately her Daddy couldn't make it up from Florida so she had to suffer through everyone ooooing andahhhhing to make up for it. Miss Tatum is a natural ham.

Blogger is being mean and giving me a hard time so I better move on to the loot while I can. Here is some of the stuff. I wanted to make a Christmas quilt out of the Holly Jolly Moda fabric and so I stocked up on that stuff and will work on it soon. Lets see if I can make something for this Christmas before it actually arrives. I got a 20-pack of Robyn Pandolph fabric in her beautiful soft tones to add to the collection that I already have. Something large and bed-like will be happening there. The Posh fabric by Moda is for a quilt I haven't worked out in my head yet. I so loved Nicole's Posh Baskets that she showed on Sisters Choice blog that I sat and stared at it for days on end and I'm going to get myself a basket pattern that will hopefully look one tenth as great as hers.

There's more to show since I made trips to the ten thousand malls around the area with the girls and stopped at Barnes & Noble and Home Goods and several other places. I'll be back with some more tomorrow. Right now I have to finish sewing another row or two on the Lavender Passion since I sewed this weekend in the Quiltathon with Judy and friends. Not much accomplished but I did get a few rows done in between the mountains of laundry. Anyway, back to that. Talk to you soon.

I'm back...didja miss me?

I missed you!. While I was missing you all, this is where I was hanging out. A view down to the dock on Lake Norman, NC. The lone hiker is BIL Bob after the boat trip of that morning. I have a bunch of pics to show but of course Blogger is verrrry slow today and I have much to do. Maybe tomorrow I can show you some of the birthday loot I managed to scam for myself in Mooresville at a cute little quilt shop I have found a couple of years before and managed to locate again. I had my fist full of money and left smiling ladies behind after making a mound of fabric on the counter and some of this and a little of that. Very fun day out with my husband. We went on to lunch near Spencer at Hendricks BBQ for the pulled pork where Roger took one look at my face taking a first bite and said the whole trip was worth that smile. We last ate at Hendricks 8 years ago and were leery that it could possibly be as good as we remembered it. It was!

All in all the house was very nice and very big. It was too cold in the downstairs for the rest of the Florida cousins and the North Carolinians, so we had the whole downstairs to ourselves. Believe me when I tell you it was a very, very, good thing. Oh how we suffered through the large screen TV, leather couches, pool table, air hockey table/game room. Sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet and suffer(not). Our king sized bedroom was comfortable but since it was downstairs there were no windows and it got a little cave-like at night. No big complaints though. Believe me, there was enough complaining going on upstairs for an army. Some people are just never happy. I just kept busy and did a lot of reading and such. We picked up Aunt Mattie and Uncle Don(the 90-year-olds) from their place several miles away and did a lot of dinners and one really great lunch. The best part was meeting little Miss Tatum at 2 1/2, who I had yet to meet. The most adorable child you can imagine. Sweet and well behaved. Only one small incident and I've seen much worse. She was over-tired and bored and, frankly, if I could have gotten away with it I would have pitched a fit myself.

Here she is in all her sweetness.

Well, I have a ton of stuff to do and I plan to bore you with pictures of fabric tomorrow. Hope you come back and find me again. I clicked around and see that not an awful lot has happened while I was gone. I'm enjoying seeing the new art being made and catching up with every one's stuff. I'll be back with my stuff tomorrow. Missed you guys!