Good Friday and Pops Doing GREAT!

Do I even know how to do this anymore?

Well, it’s almost nine months since I last wrote a blog post. I figured now was as good a time as any to update it.

My little Engineer is three years old today. We love him so much. In case you don’t remember who he is, he is my grand nephew. He is just so sweet. These pictures are borrowed from his mommy’s facebook page, as they are having a birthday party for him today. His Aunt Katie made his birthday cake. He loves trains!

In September, Elijah’s great grandpa (Pops) raised a pretty big potato. Here is Elijah with that monster potato.

The last time I blogged, we were having new retaining walls built and a patio laid. The young businessman who did the work for us did a fantastic job, and we couldn’t be happier. He did all the work entirely by himself..no help from anyone, and he worked 12 hour days most days and even on the weekends. It took about three weeks. This photo was taken after the following two, because we put a new outside storm door on it looks way better than the previous one you can see in the other photos.

This is our new cozy patio in our backyard. We love it! We even found a gas grill at Lowe’s that matches our patio!

I’m getting anxious to get it all back out and enjoy some evening fires.

Pops was had a carport, deck, and ramp put on his new mobile home last summer too. It turned out very nice. Another young man with a new business. It is inspiring to see young people caring so much and doing exceptional work.

The ramp came in very handy, because on January 15th of this year, Pops had open heart surgery. He was the hospital and rehab, and got to come home on February 1st. He had visiting nurses and therapists come in and check on him, and he got released on February 23rd. He will be 85 in June, and he did wonderful! So proud of him! He has been taking care of himself, and driving. We are blessed, and the Lord is Good!

Hmmmm, what else is new? Just working everyday, enjoying Pops and Elijah, (and Louie) and trying to stay healthy. If you read this, thanks for stopping in. Sorry it has been so long.

Be blessed,

Michelle

I’m Still Here!

If you are reading this, I want to thank you for waiting here for me to make an appearance. The last year has been busy. As you know from the previous post, my grand nephew became a large part of our lives a year and a half ago. We love spending time with him, and we take the opportunity every other weekend to spend time with him. We love him to pieces!

And just about a year ago exactly, tomorrow, I think, my stepdad came back into my life. (Without my mom, but that’s another whole story in itself). I love this man with all my heart. He is not the man I knew before. He is kind, loving, and he loves spending time with Louie and I, and my sister Nancy (his biological daughter) and her grandson, Elijah (my great nephew), and my brother Jack and his wife Polly and their children and grandchildren.

‘Pop’, my brother Jack and I.

I love spending time with my sweetie whenever I can, although not much time has been spend on our motorcycle this year yet.

My little stinker butt Elijah is growing up so fast. He is 25 months old already! He calls me ‘Shell’ and Louie, ‘Lou-weeeee’. He loves us and we love him to the moon and back…

…but he loves his grandma the most. They act silly together, and her love for him just has no words.

He is slowly starting to get closer to ‘Bompa’, and you can see by all their faces, that they love each other. (Father, daughter, grandson/great-grandson). I love seeing them all together.

We had our bathtub reglazed a month ago and changed the color from lavender to white.

And we changed out our bathroom countertop and sink from this to this.

 

We are also in the process of getting a backyard landscape project done. Louie’s boss and his family removed the old limestone after one of  the retaining walls fell down. Now we are just waiting for the contractor to come rebuild.

Our quilting group is on break until September. I haven’t done much sewing at all. I just don’t seem to have the time when I’m not working, or the energy after I have worked all day. It’s a vicious circle!

I am on Facebook, and post most days there. Posting things there seems quicker, and it seems most everyone has Facebook. If you can’t find me, shoot me a  message and I’ll find you.

https://www.facebook.com/shelly.bee.58 

So that’s what’s been going on.

Thanks for stopping by!

Michelle

April Quilting~30’s Reproductions

April is all but over, and here I am again, late in posting about our Loose Tensions quilting day on April 2nd.

Renea had lots of pretty quilts to show. Overachiever! Seriously….we love having show and tell, and we are all just so jealous of her accomplishments. There were a lot of ‘Oooo’s and Ahhh’s’ to be heard.

We are also very jealous of her scrappy quilts, like the one below, but none of us ever commit to taking on the task. She loves scrappy quilts and saves every scrap she has, and scraps that the rest of us would throw away. The Park View quilters save scraps for her too! It gives her quite a variety!

This is the back of the above quilt.

This quilt was made by Patty for a benefit. It is Hawkeye themed, and it brought $600 at auction! She was very pleased, and the quilt was presented to the man for which the benefit was for.

Patty used a nice soft Hawkeye sheet set for the backing. It worked perfectly and looked fantastic!

I did manage to get a few photos of what some of us worked on. I didn’t get everyone. This was what Margaret was working on. Her sashing strips blended right into the carpet. It looked pretty cool.

Patty was starting a new project with her collection of beautiful batiks.

She borrowed my red glasses so she could see the color values of lights and darks. Everyone said it was amazing what they could see and how some that they would have eliminated altogether would work just fine.

Patty did a lot of cutting of that beautiful fabric!

I added the borders to the quilt top that I completed in March. Now I just need to get it on the quilter!

Christie chose the fabric for April, and she chose 30’s reproductions. Pretty!

We celebrated KT’s birthday, but there is no proof here that we did. (I suck at being photographer…..).

Our May quilting day is in a couple weeks, then we are taking the summer off and getting back together in September. We drew names for the secret sister Christmas too. That should give us plenty of time to find good sales and just the perfect gift/s.

I saw this cute picture and thought I would share. Seems life makes us all a little tense most times sometimes. (Truth is, the kitten is playing with the stitch length, but I won’t tell!)

Thanks for stopping by!

March Quilting~Batiks

So March is coming swiftly to a close, and I realized that I had not posted anything about our March quilting day, which was on March 5th. I guess there’s not a lot to report, but I like to make blog posts for my own sake, as a record of our day.

We had a couple birthdays to celebrate. Christie and Patty.  Christie brought a couple trays of fresh veggies and fruits with dips (YUM!!!) and then a HUGE cookie with jelly beans on top. Again, no pictures. I think someone needs to fire the photographer!!!

Most of us just worked on our own things. I sewed together another quilt top for the Park View quilting group, then decided that I liked it too much to let them have it back. WHAT???!!!  I sent a message to the group leader and told her I would work out a deal with her. She sent back a message saying that the girls and she decided they would like me to have it for the help I have given them. They are such nice gals!

I shopped eBay until I found this fabric to use as an outer border, and was still pondering what I would use as an inner border.

Later on, I found some black fabric in my stash with small white flowers printed on it. I think it will play together with what I have just fine. I still haven’t sewn them together or finished the top, but I did lay it out so I could visualize what it would look like.

KT worked on a quilt for a special person she had in mind, and although I didn’t get a photo afterwards, she actually had it quilted and finished up the next day! She reminds me a lot of how I used to be…. (sigh….)

I bought some new Panasonic 360* irons for our group. They are cordless and pointed on both ends. I think the girls liked them.

Last but certainly not least, Patty chose batiks when her name was drawn in February, so here are the beautiful fabrics she received. Yummy!

Thanks for stopping by.