Another busy week!!

"The old begin to complain of the conduct of the young when they themselves are no longer able to set a bad example."  Francois de la Rochefoucauld

I think Francois is right!  But then, some people have always been old all their lives!

I had no idea retirement could be so much fun!  It is hard to believe I have been "unemployed" for eight years, now...and never busier!!  But MY choice of what to do!  I highly recommend it!

Monday my "studio Q" group met...we had a fun lunch...Stone Salad!  Our hostess came up with the idea from an old Russian folktale "Stone Soup" about a peasant lady who made a delicious soup from water and a stone..improved upon by all the neighbors contributions of veggies, meat, etc.  We all brought anything to make a salad with greens (lettuce/spinach) as the base.  Without discussing it, we had a very good assortment of things to add...tomatoes, croutons, hard boiled eggs, cheese, nuts, etc.   After we had our "show and tell", we discussed our new goals/challenges for the coming few months.

The start of a quilt by Bethany

A quilt by Nancy using her own hand-dyed fabrics

A cute Halloween quilt by Sue...very cool quilting!

Then on Tuesday, we went to Fossil Rim with the grands and their parents. 

 

Fossil Rim is  wild life preserve near Glen Rose, Texas.. http://www.fossilrim.org/ .  We had not been there before and it had been several years since the kids had.

An addax

A wildebeest                    

A herd of Oudads

There are a lot of really interesting animals there and visitors can feed them (with their food) right from the car.  After our tour around the park, we had a picnic at the Glen Rose park at the Paluxy River.

Makin' jam!!

"Age puzzles me.  I thought it was a quiet time.  My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate.  I grow more intense as I age."  Florida Scott-Maxwell

 I don't know who Florida Scott-Maxwell is, but I like her style!  Looking forward to those serene, interesting seventies...but can hardly wait for the passionate eighties!!

Tonight, we watched  a very dark movie...The Road..from the book by Cormac McCarthy.  I had read the book a couple of years ago and really liked it...not necessarily enjoying it; it is not a "fun" book, but it is a thought provoking book...and the movie followed the same line of feeling.  And, I love Viggo Morgenstern in anything he does!!

Yesterday, I spent the day making jam.  It is peach time here in Texas.  I had a lot of fruit frozen up to make  a batch of "mixed fruit" jam.

Now, I am getting a little anxious because, although they all taste yummy, I am afraid they are not setting up right and will be a little (or a lot) runny!!  The directions say it may take up to two weeks to really set up, but I am impatient to see if they do!  The last batch of peach that I made never did gel really well, so I am hoping these do not do the same...way to messy!!!

I think these are the coolest clouds!  A few mornings ago, we were sitting on the back porch having our morning coffee and doing the cross word puzzles when I looked up and saw these formations.  Just had to go get my camera and snap  a few pics!  They remind me of a Georgia O'Keeffe painting that I have seen.

We had a lot of "bluebird" activity for three or four days and were very excited as the little guys hadn't come to their house early spring because the blankety-blank grackles would chase them away.  But a few days ago, we saw a male and female spending a lot of time in and out and all around; today, there was nothing though so I am beginning to think they must have been just passing through!  I hope not; they are one of my favorites to watch!

Friday Update

                 "Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are cheese." Billie Burke

     HOT here in Texas...my car registered 102 on my way home from running around today.  I do not do heat very well...way too tiring!!!

      The Trinity Valley Quilters Guild Meeting was today...we had a real cute speaker, Amy Stewart Winsor... http://www.winsorartquilts.com/   She lives in North Carolina and does "whimsical" quilts.  Very cute quilts and an entertaining speaker.  She had good ideas on some techniques that she shared with us too.  We had part II of our book sale today also.  Last month's sale was  good but we had a lot of books left over so this month I decided to put them all on Half-price....they sold very well!!   We would have had more but two boxes were sitting on the floor in the storeroom and there had been a little flooding problem sometime since last month.  The cardboard boxes were soaked and the books ruined!  Ah, well...it made for less work for us to get them out and to haul the remainder to Half-Price books to sell. (We have a very nice maintainence man at the church where we meet and he offered to dispose of the ruined books.)

     I only turned in one quilt for the show this year...applications due today.  It is my challenge quilt that I am hand stitching..."Chinese Coins: 170 X 2".  I titled it that because it is a Chinese Coin pattern and I used 170 different fabrics plus three of four different blacks, then the "X 2" is because I had six columns which I split in half to make 12 columns.  I am using perle cotton thread...black and colors to match the squares.  I'll post a picture when I am finished.

     After the meeting, I had some running around to do...that's when I got so hot!  I went to Calloway's nursery to look at their pottery...had a 20% off coupon.  I am on a mission to find a tall...maybe 4 feet...slender blue or red pot to put on my front porch.  I will then put some sticks or something in it...I am giving up trying to grow any flowers on my front porch...too hot!  Everything just melts....but no luck at Calloways today. 

      On my way down Hulen, I stopped off at the kids house.  My granddaughter is having her 16th birthday party Saturday at the Benbrook Stables...going horse back riding and then to her house for a sleep over.  I had made her magnets to give to the girls as a memento of the occassion which I needed to drop off. I caught them just at lunch time so joined them for lunch and a viewing of "Modern Family"..the funniest sitcom on television!!

     Then to Half-Price books to be rid of the remainder of our guild sale books....that place is always a Zoo!!!  Very busy!  And on to Berry Patch to pick up my acrylic extension table for my Bernina.  I had ordered one four weeks ago when they were on sale with several gift cards I had accumulated, but when it came in two weeks later, the wrong one had been ordered.  So they had to reorder the right size, and it just came in yesterday.

     My last stop was Tom Thumb to get some groceries so I won't have to leave the house all weekend!  On the way home, I had thought about stopping by the Y to do a little work out, but...oh, too bad...I have perishables...so I just came on home and took a nap instead!!!

   

A Lesson to Learn

"Age is an Issue of mind over matter; if you don't mind, it doesn't matter!"  Mark Twain

     I have, throughout my life, been the victim of bizarre accidents...never anything too serious but somewhat weird! At age four, my sister hit me in the head with an iron fireplace broom...not her fault; we were playing "magic" before a large lilac bush; she was "casting a spell"; I walked right into the swing of the broom!!  She hid under the bed while I got stitches!

     At five, I tried to pet a strange dog...bit me on the arm...stitches.

   When I was seven, I swallowed a toothbrush bristle; it stuck in my tonsil (pretonsilectomy days) and had to be extracted by a doctor..."open wide and used those tweezers!"

     When I was nine, I fell off of a chair I was standing on (it had wheels) and broke my arm.  My mother, eight and a half months pregnant with my brother carried me to the car...the doctor gave her more attention than he did me!!!

     At eleven, I was opening a can of veggies with the "new" electric canopener on the wall; it slipped, I grabbed at the can to catch it...slashed my thumb...stitches!

     At sixteen, got my ring finger on my right hand slammed in a car door....reconstruction stitching to save the end of my finger...it worked!!

     I had perpetual scabs on my elbows and knees from crashes on my bike which I rode all over town.  (I grew up in a small town in the '50's...the true age of innocence!"

    I know there are many other little "incidents" but just wanted to set the stage for my latest strange episode!  Yesterday afternoon, we were having our poker bunch at our house for food, fun and friendship.  Just as everyone was getting here, the rains began...we all took our drinks and went to sit on the porch to watch the downpour.  A gust of wind came along and something blew into my right eye!  Really burned and felt like something inbedded in my eye.  I went in the house to try to wash it out...tried everything...my friends (the girls) gathered to aid me with advice and encouragment. (The guys continued to enjoy their beverages!)  Nothing was making my eye feel any better, so it was decided I needed to see my eye doctor.  After my gal friends fixed me up with an eye patch  (Arg-g-h-h-...that's my pirate imitation), my husband called the doctor...."if we could come right away, he could see me"...so he and I jumped into the car and headed to town. (We live about 20-30 minutes out in the country.)

    At the doctor's, he had waited for me...a really nice guy!!  But after examining my eye, he could not see anything but said it looked almost like an acid abrasion...and like I had rubbed sandpaper across my eye...I will say that was a really apt description of what it felt like, too.  He put drops in, covered the eye with a theraputic contact lens and made an appt for me to return this morning.  It was feeling MUCH better after he fixed me up so we headed home.

     In the meantime...we had left our friends to "play" with out us....we called them to let them know we were on the way.  After tracking down the phone (my husband had not put it back on the dock when he called the doctor), they told us all was well etc.  Of course, there had been rain going on and one of the stop lights on the way home was out so it took us a little longer to get home.  But when we did finally get there, our wonderful friends had the meal all set out (we had had everything cooked but not ready to serve), fixed the table, drinks, etc!!  So we ended up having a great evening (even though I didn't do very well at poker...but we play for very low stakes so no biggy!!)

     I woke up this morning....a light bulb went off in my head...I knew what had blown into my eye!!  It couldn't have been dust as it was raining, there were no bugs around or anything...but I was drinking a Margarita and I knew a speck of the salt on the rim had blown into my eye!!!  It was caustic, rough and dissolved so could not be seen!!  When I went to the doctor this morning, I told him what I thought and he, after laughing uproariously, agreed...what he hadn't told me was that he had taken a crystal-like substance off my eyelid when he was looking at my eye...and with the all over burning, etc.  it had to be the salt!!

    Moral to the story: do not drink Margaritas with salt on windy days!!

Great week, so far!

"At my age, I don't even buy green bananas!"  Claude D. Pepper

What social butterflies we have been this past week and to come!  Last Saturday, we met with family and friends for a surprise birthday party for a good friend (my daughter's mother-in-law) who is the same age as I am.

Sunday, we celebrated the Fourth of July with family and friends...many of the same we saw the night before.  And our daughter from out of town joined us.  We all went to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens for food, fun and music...then a really fabulous fireworks display!  We have done this together for several years...always fun...sometimes really hot, but this time the weather was warm but not too bad...a nice breeze kept us cool.  The Fort Worth Symphonic Orchestra played...mostly patriotic music.  There was a wonderful solo singer..very rich voice....and I always get goose bumps when they play each of the armed forces' songs and have the vets and current military stand. 

Isn't this a great "patriotic" fireworks display?  I have discovered a "fireworks" setting on my camera which is fun to have! (I took MANY more, but won't post them all!!)  Maybe a quilt in the works??  I'll have to try printing off some of my pics on fabric!

To continue with the social life...tomorrow I am having lunch with good friend I have not seen in awhile and then Thursday we are hosting our poker group at our house.  We have not met for poker for about three months...we have trouble this time of year finding all six of us in the area at the same time!!  I am definitely planning on not winning as we haven't played for quite awhile and I'm not that great to start with!!

After all this "eating out", I think we will need to curtail the calories and get back to our usual eating pattern which is, at least we try, modest!

Rainy Day in July!

"The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly and lie about your age" Lucille Ball

     I had collected several "humorous" little quotes to pass on to my friends as they age...so thought I would share a few with my blog friends!  (I think Lucille Ball just blew her advice...be honest and lie in the same sentence!)

     We have been experiencing the greatest weather for June/July in Texas!  We have been having rain and temperatures in the 80's.  Not so bad considering we have already had 100+ temps earlier in the summer!  And on the county road which runs right by my house, we have been eating dust or mud for the past four months.  Today, the road guys have been resurfacing it!!  Oh, the little pleasures of life!!

     Our granddaughter celebrated a very significant birthday Sunday so we were all at her house helping her celebrate!!  I cannot believe that baby girl is really 16!!!

      Monday, my art group, studioQ met and had lunch as well as our usual activities...show and tell, etc.  For lunch the hostess suggested something different...we were all to bring a food that started with the letter "P"!  It is surprising how many foods to begin with the letter P...we ended up with quite a feast..we had pulled pork on potato rolls, pimento cheese with pecans on pumpernickel bread, pineapple fruit salads, pickles, peanut butter balls, pecan muffins, pasta salads, peach pie and peach cobbler...and more I am sure!

Where Nancy lives there are deer everywhere.  These three fawns were right outside her window with their

mama.

Anne brought her Kindel Book bag which she had made out of fabric painted at another meeting at my house a couple of years ago. And Heather showed us one of the quilts she did at a Nancy Crow workshop. And Nancy showed her "recipe" quilt, all finished!

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Heather has a couple of box turtles living in her garden.  "Charlie" had suffered a terrible attack by a racoon and lost a leg.  He had been recouperating in her bathtub...I had this "turtle" pattern for ever so made up a little memento of the occassion for her.  My husband carved the toy turtle a wooden leg!!  She was very surprised!