How Laundry Can Turn Out To Be Fun

It was a busy day today.  Jason, Tara, and Katie came over to visit in the early afternoon (also to do laundry!).  The girls went outside to play for awhile and that was the quiet time.

After about an hour, Jennifer brought over Kayla and Marissa so they could visit - and spend the night.  When all four of the girls get together, it isn't quiet anymore!  So while the girls were busy trying to decide what, and how, they were going to play, Jason and I decided to start getting dinner going.

We decided to make my version of chicken and rice.  It has lots of vegetables in it, so I started cooking while Jason cleaned and chopped the vegetables.  After we had that on the stove cooking Jason decided to use the rest of my apples from Oak Glen to make some "hand pies."

When Jason was little, he began learning how to bake.  He had an ulterior motive for this. He doesn't just bake anything, he likes the sweets! So of course, he was ready to make apple pies. Though to be fair, he does like to bake bread also.

These ones are ready to go into the oven.

In between our cooking and baking, Jason was still working on his laundry and I was refereeing the girls, who sometimes act too much like sisters!

Finally dinner was ready and we sat down to eat. Last night I had baked two loaves of sourdough bread and we all had some with the meal.  Everyone really enjoyed the chicken and rice, even Katie.  She told me it was her favorite dinner ever!  Pretty good for all the vegetables that were in it! I had also made some applesauce and we were going to have some of that, however, we decided that the pies and applesauce might be too much dessert.

Some of my homemade applesauce

After dinner, the girls decided to go into the spare bedroom and clean up all of their mess. Wow! All without being asked.  I don't know what brought that on, but I didn't complain! They did a very good job too!

So as a reward for all their efforts, Jason made some hot chocolate to go with the apple pies. They were happy.

The finished pies.

I should have taken a picture of the four of them sitting at the table with their pies and hot chocolate.  They looked so cute!

Apple Picking At Oak Glen

On Saturday we went apple picking.  Well, sort of.  It turned out that the weather had caused the apple crops to be sparse, so there weren't any apples left on the trees.  We weren't very happy about that.  The girls always look forward to finding the best apples to pick.

The day wasn't a loss, though.  We decided to go into the shopping area of the apple farm. They have a store with lots of goodies to buy, a food court, petting zoo, picnic grounds, and of course, the live bluegrass music.  I was hoping to insert an MP3 file of the music I recorded on my iphone.  I am having problems with getting it to work, so will have to forego that for now.  When I get it figured out, I will put the music on.  They were a fairly good group, however, my iphone recording wasn't that great so maybe its just as well that I can't get it to work!

The store did have some apples to buy, so we were able to get some for pies, applesauce, and whatever else we decide to cook up.

Besides spending time in the store we found a picnic table and had a nice lunch.  This wasn't an easy task, as the farm was very busy.  We have gone there for many years and this was the most crowded we have ever seen it.  After lunch, while enjoying the music, the girls spent time playing on the lawn.  Here are a few pictures.

Silly-face Katie!

And playing among the trees. Lots of people, as you can see.

And lastly, a picture of the bluegrass group in the middle of singing a song.

We did have a fun day.

My Table Runner

I went digging through my material boxes and found some fall colors that would work well for a table runner.  While I was busy setting up my sewing area I left the box of material sitting open.  Five minutes later when I returned to get a few more things, I found a stowaway among my material.

I don't know why he thinks that he owns everything!  He wasn't interested in leaving that box either!

I finally got busy sewing.  I made the leaves and the pumpkins from a pattern out of an Eleanor Burns quilt book. They were made as individual blocks.  Here's a picture of the leaf block.

Next I made the pumpkin blocks.  Those stems weren't easy!

Kayla and Marissa said they should be orange because pumpkins aren't red!

After I finished making all of the leaf and pumpkin blocks I had to decide how to put the runner together as I didn't have a pattern for that part.

After adding some background strips to make all of the blocks the same size, I squared them all off and sewed them together in one long strip, added a rust color border and quilted the runner.  I didn't have enough of the rust color border (which was my first choice) to use as binding, so I found some green material that worked.  Actually, after it was finished, I thought the green binding helped to bring out the other colors.

I thought my table runner turned out fairly well.

I brought out all the rest of my fall decorations and set them out to go with the table runner.

Today it was windy, cool and rainy so now it really does feel like fall is here!

Fall Is Here!

It's hard to believe that it is already the beginning of October!  Where does time go?
Though we are still having some warm days here, the feeling of fall is in the air.  Usually it doesn't start to really cool down here until close to halloween. This year is different though, and it is already cooler than normal. I so like it!

I also noticed several days ago that there were a few leaves on our tree that were beginning to turn colors. Though we don't see much color here in the desert, we do have some, and I enjoy it.  I really love the fall colors.  It's time for me to bring out my fall decorations!

It's also time to go apple picking again.  Every year the four girls, their parents and I, all drive out to the local (sorta) apple orchards in Oak Glen, and spend the day picking apples and wandering through the town stores.  The girls really enjoy wandering through the groves and helping to find just the right apples.  The orchard also has small barn animals the girls can visit, a local bluegrass group playing music, and even a place where the girls can make their own apple cider!  The cider making takes a long time and they get really tired out!  It's always a really fun day for all of us.  We'll probably be heading there next weekend. I'll take pictures!

One fall project I have had in mind is to quilt a fall table runner. I have a pattern that I've had for awhile, so I'm going to get busy.  It has maple leaves and pumpkins on it.  I want to get started on it this week so I can enjoy it through the season.  The pattern isn't exactly the way I want it so I am gonna have to change it around a little bit.  We'll see how that goes!

I am also thinking about how quick Thanksgiving and Christmas will arrive now that fall is here.  So, I am going to get busy shopping... and sewing some of those games, purses, clothes, and other projects that I have sitting waiting for me!

Wish me luck!

Pictures

I always enjoy taking pictures.  One thing that I have always been fascinated with is black and white photography.  I haven't really spent time working on the computer, editing the pictures I take.  I usually just import them from my camera and leave them.

I thought it might be fun to change some of my pictures over to black and white so I experimented with a couple of them just to see how they would turn out.

This is a picture taken on a stretch of beach in Oregon.  I thought it turned out really well.  I love the fog.  It makes the picture mysterious, and the black and white only adds to that effect.

This picture is one of the photos that I took from our hotel in Laughlin.  You may recognize it from my last posting.  I think converting it to black and white changes it quite a bit from the original.  It looks like it should be the cover on a book set in the 1950's!

I like that it is so easy with the digital cameras today that make it really easy to take interesting pictures, decide immediately if we like them and want to keep them, then put them on a computer and change them around to suit our needs, or wants.

I am thinking that I'm going to spend a little more time playing around with my pictures and enjoying the editing I can do.  I don't know a lot about how it works, but I think it will be fun to learn.  So much easier than during the days of 35mm!

In fact, it struck me awhile back that every time I take a picture of my grandkids they all immediately want to see the picture.  It never crosses their minds that they would ever have to wait to see how it turned out.  Wonderful technology!

Laughlin

We spent last weekend in Laughlin, enjoying some time away.  Since it was Donna and Bruce's (sister and brother-in-law for those who don't know them) 40th wedding anniversary, and we had celebrated our 40th awhile back, we thought we would all go and kinda celebrate together.

We didn't do anything special, just a little gambling and - of course - had a few margaritas! Donna and I went to see a Chinese acrobatic show which was quite entertaining, and sometimes, kinda nerve wracking!  It's amazing what those performers can do!  We decided that it takes lots of physical, and mental, training for sure.  I would have liked to take some pictures of them.  I wouldn't want to break their concentration, though!

We spent the rest of the time just relaxing, driving to a few other casinos, and watching the boats on the river.  Here are a few pictures from the balcony at our hotel.

I love looking out over the water and watching everything go by!

The view is really pretty at night also.  The lights on the Arizona side show up really well.

One of the casinos we went into had a really nice conservatory just inside the entrance.  It was full of trees, ponds and waterfalls.  I did get one picture of a waterfall.

So we enjoyed our couple of days away, and we didn't loose too much money either!  I guess that's all we can hope for.

When we got back home, I had a nice surprise waiting for me.

It finally arrived!

Some Interesting Info

It's official.  Unfortunately, the Thundershirt doesn't do anything for Schultz!  We have had several days of thunderstorms, and I have faithfully put the shirt on Schultz.  He still sits and shakes, shivers, pants heavily and drools everywhere!  He must be in with the 15% of dogs who don't respond...I don't know what to do for him now.  Maybe some earplugs!  I'm just glad we don't have these storms too often.

In other news, granddaughter Kayla went to her first music lesson at school.  She has decided that she wants to learn the violin!  She just had to call me and tell me all about it. She said the instructor told them about some of the music symbols and the music scales. She told me her teacher said her violin was a really nice one and then she told him that it was the same violin that her Uncle Jason and her grandma had played.  So now, of course, she wants to come over and practice with me!  I better get my other violin out and get up to speed!  She is really excited about starting lessons.  I hope she continues to enjoy it.  She is beginning to learn at about the same age as her Uncle Jason began, and on the same violin!

I have been busy doing lots of reading.  Just have been in one of my moods!  Mostly just the usual fiction, however, I did find an interesting book at the library on Lyme Disease.  I have been busy reading it, and learning a lot.  There are many different aspects of the disease and studies have shown that.  Even though there are so many studies out there, the disease is very controversial.  I did know that, however, reading this book & other research has shown me a lot more.  This has been keeping me busy and I have been learning a lot of useful information.  It helps me to know what is going on with Jennifer, so that is good.  It is a really insidious disease.

So that is what has been going on recently.  Since I haven't had any school deadlines looming over me it has been fun just reading for pleasure.  It's about time for me to get busy on some of the other projects I've had in mind, though, so that's what direction I hope to be heading towards.