Summer Vacation

School is out and I am on summer vacation!

Several more of my flowers have come into bloom.

I also spent some time at my mom's house this week. I trimmed the dead blooms off of her rose bush and took these pictures of the flower garden next to her garage.

Mom has always liked gardening way more than I do. My garden has to be very low maintenance.

Thanks for all of your kind wishes for my mom's recovery. The surgery was quick and her recovery from that has been pretty good. Unfortunately she came down with an unrelated illness this week also. I had to bring her to her general practitioner because she is not allowed to drive for three weeks. She is not happy about that, but at least I am more available now.

I didn't make as much progress on my Prairie Schooler Santa as I thought I would. I was hoping to actually finish Santa's coat.

I was able to work on my hand-quilting though while staying with mom. I still have a few machine quilted rows to remove, but I have replaced most of them with the beige thread and I am so much happier with the look. 

I even think the beige thread looks good on the dark green fabric. Now I really want to spend more time working on it in order to finish it.

I am slowly but surely finishing the Baker Beach page I am working on.

There are a lot of color changes so it takes a little longer to finish. It should be done by next week.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching today. Monday I will be joining the Stitchery Link Party over at Super Mom - No Cape. Pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!



Father's Day

This weekend is just a rainy mess. It is perfect for stitching and crafting, but not so nice to celebrate Father's Day with my hubby. We are having a very odd Father's Day this year. Usually one of our children is home. We have a BBQ with them and my husband's parents. This year my father-in-law is unable to visit our home and our children are in Boston and California. It is just the two of us. 

I have posted this cross-stitch before. I designed and stitched it in 1989 for my in-laws taking elements from charts I owned. My mother-in-law found the saying in a cartoon. It is amazing to me that my hubby and I are there already. My son was born that year.

If you are wondering why I failed to mention my own father. He died over 50 years ago when I was just 3 years old. This is the last photo that was taken with him.

I didn't celebrate Father's Day until I got married. Mom brought me up all by herself. She walked me down the aisle on my wedding day. Tomorrow, my 88 year old mom is having surgery to replace her pacemaker battery. The doctor says it is a routine out-patient procedure, but nothing is routine at 88.

So I will spend the majority of this weekend stitching. I am still making progress on Baker Beach. Last week I was just starting work on the bridge:

This week the bridge is almost done and I am heading for the rocks below it. Do you see the bottom of the peachy beige stitching. That is where this page ends! Almost there.

I will be bringing my Prairie School Santa with me to the hospital tomorrow. I haven't worked on it in a while. I bought the floss colors that I was missing yesterday. The stitching will keep me sane.
A question for my readers. I took out Little House's Needleworks' Love that I finished stitching some time ago. I really want to make it into a little pillow or ornament. I took a picture of it with the fabrics that I am auditioning. Any thoughts about which one I should choose? 

I am leaning towards the red on top. 

 I am joining Kathy today for some Slow Sunday Stitching today. Tomorrow, I will hopefully join the Stitchery Link Party at Super Mom - No Cape. Pop on over to these sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!

Healing my knee by stitching.

Okay the title may not be totally true. Last Sunday, I got up from my chair to go to bed and twisted my right knee. No problem, I figured I would wake up in the morning and it would feel better. Not! I went to work and was on my feet in heels a whole lot and of course my knee swelled. Iced it, wore flats to work on Tuesday and everything felt great. Wednesday....2 1/2 hours straight on my feet did me in. My knee swelled up like crazy. I was limping around. Of course, I still needed to work on Thursday and Friday so it had no time to heal. Ice at night and some Aleve can only do so much.

So this weekend, I am trying to find as many activities that require sitting as possible. Reading works and so does stitching. I have definitely made progress on Baker Beach.

Here is last weeks pic:

 

This is Baker Beach as of Saturday afternoon.

I hope to get a lot more done today. 
I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. On Monday, I will be joining the Stitchery Link Party at Super Mom - No Cape. Pop on over to these sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

I also want to invite everyone to visit the Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe for a great giveaway! 
  
Thanks for stopping by!

Slow Stitching

I have been working on Bakers Beach exclusively this week. That sounds too lofty. What I should say is that I have only managed to stitch for a few minutes this week. I haven't been really busy, I have just been too tired when I have come home from work and tutoring. I don't want to make any mistakes that then have to be undone so I have been lazy in the late afternoon and evenings. Of course the dreary, cold and cloudy weather we have been having hasn't helped.

It is sunny today. Yay! I hope I can sit on my porch or deck and work on some of my stitching. I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching and on Monday I will join the Stitchery Link Party over at Super Mom - No Cape. I am also joining Measi's Musings for the June WIPocalypse. Measi wants to know whether you get more stitching done in summer or winter. This year my answer is summer is because I have the whole summer off from school. Normally the time of year doesn't matter to me.
 Pop on over to these sites to see what other bloggers are up to.
Bakers Beach is definitely growing. Last week I was still working on the grey sky color.

This week I moved on to the sort of peachy grey shade in the sky. I know it is only a subtle difference, but it feels more like color than plain grey.

 I gave you a close-up this time.

 I can see the end of this page getting closer. Of course the bottom of this page has a whole lot of color changes so it will take some time to finish. As I look forward to the next page, it too is full of color changes. This makes the picture look beautiful, but makes the stitching tedious at times.

My Kousa dogwood tree is in full bloom. 

My flowers are really taking off....

and hubby put my gazing ball on its stand.

I will finally get outside and enjoy my yard today. I have been looking at my dogwood tree with longing all week through my kitchen window. It is a beautiful part of my back yard.

Thanks for stopping by!

Yarn Along

I haven't been sharing any yarn posts lately mainly because I haven't started anything new nor have I been making much progress on any WIPs. Mostly, I have been working on adding the cream-colored borders to my Granny Square Roses. Aren't they pretty?

I laid them all out to see if I had enough for an afghan.Wow, I thought I had finished more than that.

 Of course, I had planned on putting plain cream-colored granny squares in between all the flowers. That arrangement at least makes a bigger size.

 I will still have to finish the rest of the roses and then make the plain squares. Here are the piles of finished roses.

I piled them all into a basket and then topped them with the roses that don't even have leaves yet. Unfortunately, I am running out of the green yarns that I used for the leaves. The light colored green was a yarn that I have had for quite a long time. I doubt I will be able to match it. I might just have to find another shade of green that complements the roses.

I am joining Ginny for Yarn Along this week. What are you knitting/crocheting? What are you reading? Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are up to.
I have been doing a whole lot of light reading lately. I have finished rereading Driftwood Cottage and Harbor Lights, both part of the Chesapeake Shores series, by Sheryl Woods. I reread them because I was able to borrow them from my library system for my Kindle when there wasn't a whole lot available. They are above average family relationship romance novels. 
I just finished reading Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen.

This is a book about an older woman who is slowly discovering her place in the world following a divorce and sagging career all while dealing with the realities of a life that includes aging parents and an adult child. I didn't want to put this book down. I will definitely read more books by this author.
Now I am reading Dogwood Hill which is the latest in the Chesapeake Shores series by Sheryl Woods.
 
I am enjoying reading another story about the O'Brien family. This is another easy read.
Thanks for stopping by!

Local sights

This past weekend Hubby and I made a trip to the liquor store. This is what greeted us out front.

 A cork cow! I collect our wine corks and have used them to make this tray, but I don't think I have enough to make a cow. At least I hope not or we are drinking way too much wine.

 We also enjoyed the nice daytime weather and took a 2 1/2 mile walk in our local preserve.

Although they are a little difficult to see, there was an abundance of yellow irises in bloom at the edges of the water.

Thanks for stopping by!