Show and Tell Friday!

As I was typing my title, I was reminded that when I was little I used to have a "Show n Tell". You would put a film strip in the slot and put the record on and it would read a story and show picture on the screen. I loved that toy! I wonder what happened to it??? I found this pic on ebay.

Anyway, back to what I really brought for show and tell! I would like for you to meet three very good friends of mine. The first little lady in the pink victorian attire is "Phyllis Victoria". My darling husband bought her for me when we were first married. The lady we bought her from said maybe you can name her Phyllis, that was her name. I said of course, Phyllis was my mothers name too! She has been in our family for about 25 years now.

The second friend, in the red velvet, is very special to me. Her name is "Dorothy Stewart". Dorothy was given to my grandmother when she was in the second grade by her teacher whose name was Dorothy Stewart. Grandma kept her for decades and I never even knew she existed until my 16th Christmas and Dorothy Stewart was given to me for safe keeping.

The last little lady in cream, is "Alice Lee Shenk" I bought her at a auction sale about 20 years ago. At the same sale, I bought a silver calling card case and it had a card still in it that said "Miss Alice Lee Shenk". I also bought some silver sewing implements and the were engraved with ALS on them. So I thought it only fitting that she be name after her original owner.

Hope you enjoyed meeting my friends! I hope everyone has a joyful weekend!

Linda

Reflecting.

Are the irises blooming in your area? My mother in laws have bloomed but mine are still lurking. They are in the shade and are always a little after hers. This is a picture of last years. The iris is one of my favorite flowers. I love the size and shape of them, and they make a beautiful bouquet for the table. I love flowers and grow several different kinds. I inherited this love from my grandmother. I swear that lady could stick a toothpick in the ground and a redwood would grow! When she lived in the country, she had the most amazing flower gardens you have ever seen. Larkspur, cocks comb, dahlias, iris, chinese lanterns, and my favorite as a child, snapdragons. She would let me pull the blooms off some of the snapdragons and show me how to squeeze them so it would look like a dragon opening and closing it's mouth. This would fascinate me for hours, along with making hollyhock dolls, and necklaces of clover. She also showed my how to make what we called grass hopper catchers, made from non other than grasshopper weeds! Amazingly enough, these things along with making mud pies and cutting paper dolls from the Sears catalog would keep me entertained for weeks while I would visit her in the summer.

No TV, (she could only get one station and it was fuzzy) very little radio, (farm report), and no video games! I feel sorry for my son that he did not get to grow up with simple pleasures like that. He doesn't watch a great deal or tv or play video games all that often, but I wish he could have known what it was like to get up and go outside and play all day on hundreds of acres of land, and not worry that someone might abduct him at the bus stop, or offer him drugs, or any of the horrible things that people do to children now days. I know they happened then too, I guess we just didn't hear about it as much. But still, the biggest worry I had while at grandmas was, "I hope she doesn't have liver for supper"!

My grandmother asked me once to write down the things that I wanted her to leave me in her will. I wrote down her rock collection. Just rocks she picked up on the farm that looked like a bird, or bug or whatever and she kept them. When she asked me why just that I told her she had already given me the greatest gift of all. Time.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Linda

Another Dog and Purse

Back in January, I made my sister a stuffed dog and purse for her birthday. My niece (my sister's daughter) had a fit and wanted the exact same thing for her birthday. So this week-end I got both of them finished. I really love the black with hot pink polka dots! The dog is really not hard at all to make and I love watching him come together. My twin nephews say they want dogs for their birthday in August too. They want them made out of camo fabric. They will be so much fun to make!

When I was cleaning in the attic a couple of weeks ago (uhhh), I found a cross stitch that my sister had made back in 1986. Why I have it in my attic, I have no idea. Anyway, I showed it to her and she didn't want it so I made it into this small pillow for my niece. The picture didn't come out very well. The picture is either a beaver or a woodchuck, I can't really tell, but I used some Mary Engelbreit ( love her stuff) fabric to make the pillow.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Feeling like Summer

This weekend was absolutely gorgeous! Beautiful sunny and warm weather and cloudless skys. I spent most of my time outside, sweeping the porch and patios, buying hanging baskets for the front porch, working in the garden, pruning bushes, etc. Anything to not have to go inside. I took the picture of the butterfly yesterday. He looks like he posed for me! My radishes, lettuce, turnips and spinach are looking good so far. Only 2 out of 4 broccoli made it. I think some critters took care of the other two before I could get my fence "electified" again. The electric fence is the only way I am able to have a garden. The deer population in our area is huge!

Our cat "Midnight" and Chocolate Lab "Tori" were enjoying the warm weather too!

DH spend yesterday spiffing up my 1967 Camaro for a car show next weekend. DH bought this for me for Christmas several years ago. It is my dream car! DH has a 1966 Corvette that will get it's spit shine sometime this week.

The Dogwood Festival is being held in a neighboring town this weekend and we always take our cars for show. The festival is alot of fun. There is a carnival for the kids, every kind of music anyone would want to listen to, yummy food, craft shows, ending with a parade and the crowning of the Dogwood Queen.

I did get some sewing done, but didn't get any pictures yet, I will try and get them on this week because the dog I made my niece is soooooo cute.

Hope everyone has a great day.

VA Tech Day of Mourning

Today the nation has been asked to wear the colors of Virginia Tech in honor of the students and teachers who were killed by a deranged student. Everywhere I went during lunch today, 90% of everyone had on either orange and maroon or their VA Tech logo tee-shirts. It was wonderful to see the community pull together and gather strength from one another.

One of the students that was killed was from our area. His name was Henh Ly. He was a 20 year old student majoring in computer engineering. He was an exceptional student, having enough advanced placement credits from high school to begin VA Tech as a sophmore. A young man remembered by friends as always joking around, and loved by neighbors and classmates alike.

I know we are never supposed to question God when bad things happen to good people, but I think it is human nature to do so. WHY?????

At this point I am just relying on my faith and trying to keep in mind that those who were killed and had faith and had asked God into their hearts are now living with our Saviour.

I can not imagine losing my child, for any reason, but to lose a child from a senseless, random, violent act is something I can not fathom. My prayers are with the families of those who were killed.

Just Spring Ramblings

So much has happened since Easter Sunday, it is wearing me down. With the illnesses in our family and the tragedy at Virginia Tech, I find I am becoming obsessed with the news, searching for a reason someone would gun down innocent children. I have decided to step away from the news today and try to find some normalcy in the day.

This is a picture I took of our table Easter Sunday. The banner in the background was a free download from Allsorts blog.

I made the chocolate Corvette for my husband for Easter. He loves Corvettes! And for my son a chocolate guitar! They were surprisingly easy to do. I had only made very small chocolates in molds before and was somewhat intimidated with the larger molds, but I think they turned out pretty good.

Remember the peepers in my pond? Well look what I found this weekend! Gazillions of tadpoles are now happily swimming around! In a few more weeks we'll have tons on frogs jumping around.

Such a sad day.

I sit here in disbelief listening to the news about the shootings at Virginia Tech. I cannot even imagine the anguish that the parents of the students who were killed or injured are going through.

I can't fathom what goes through the mind of a gunman who opens fire on innocent people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. From what we hear from the news, this was a case of his girlfriend being unfaithful. Now over 30 people are dead. I am really having a hard time with this. VA Tech is about a 30 minute drive from where I live. My son and I were up there last week during Easter break just looking around the town. I would never have imagined that one week later such a tragedy would strike.

This comes on the heels of other difficult news this past week. On Easter day, my stepmother had two strokes. She was taken to the hospital and they ran dozens of tests and determined she needed to exercise and eat better. She is recupperating nicely at home now, but it still worries me that another stroke could happen at any time.

My DH's best friend drove himself to the hospital last Thursday after feeling pains in his chest. He first went to his family Dr. who told him probably nothing to worry about. fortunately he didn't agree and went to the emergency room. He was admitted immediately. Testing found one of his coratic arteries 50% blocked and the other 99% blocked. He was just a few hours away from a heart attack. He had open heart surgery today and Dr.s say it went well and he should be 100% in a few months. Did I mention that he is only 44 and in very good shape?

On a happier note, I was visiting a friend Saturday and she was showing me the dress her daughter was wearing to Prom. The dress was originally made for my friend to wear to her Prom in 1981 by her mother. Her daughter decided that she wanted to wear the same dress. Of course, they made some alterations to bring it up to date. But, I think it is the most wonderful thing in the world for her daughter to want to wear it and it is absolutely gorgeous. Lavendar silk with a lavendar floral chiffon overlay.

Easter's Almost Here!

Just a few more days and Peter Cottontail will be hopping down the bunny trail! I love Easter! Last night I made easter eggs following the instructions athttp://marthastewartliving.com for the silk tie dyed eggs. This was so easy and they turned out great! Make sure you use silk ties, not polyester. I had one poly tie and the color did not transfer. Do you see the dice and playing cards on one of the eggs? Thats my favorite.

I also made some beet pickled eggs. This is a family tradition that has passed down at least 4 generations that I know of. Really easy just boil your eggs, pour off the juice in a quart of pickled beets, and heat to almost boiling. I add a little more vinegar and sugar. Pour the whole thing over the eggs in a jar. Wait at least 3-4 days before you eat these. I keep mine refrigerated, my dad doesn't, so whatever works for you.

I also make some Paska. This is Ukranian Easter Bread. I got this recipe from a wonderful blog called louvella at home. She has some beautiful pictures of hers. I did not ice mine, but they look better if they are. I got rave reviews from my family and co workers for this. It takes a little time, but almost everything is mixed in a blender!

I also made my nephews and Dad some decorated jars of candy. Starburst for the nephews and Sugar free candy for my diabetic Dad. I am all done except for the cooking of the meal on Easter Sunday. We are having Spiral sliced glazed ham, potato salad, baked beans, deviled eggs, broccoli casserole, macaroni and cheese, pickled beets, orange jello salad, strawberry shortcake and lemon pie! YUM!!!!

Gremlins!

My mother in law gave me this craft magazine along with many others when I first got married in 1980. At the time I wasn't very interested in the crafts in it so I put it away. Now 27 years later, I found them in the attic and LOVE some of the crafts in them.

Some of the fashions are hilarious! But I just loved some of the ads for crafts that you could send off for. I wish I could come across the patterns for them.

I decided to make what they called elves. I think they look more like gremlins. Now in 1967 they did not put full size patterns in the book. You were to take graph paper with 1 block equaling 1" and draw the pattern. Sorry! I am not that artistic. Thanks to modern technology I just stuck it on the copier and enlarged the pattern to the size I wanted. Not everything in the good old days was good!

Mine turned out a little different than the picture in the magazine. "Yngwie" has named them. The green one is "Les" and the purple one is "Paul" I like the green one best, he likes the purple one. Either way I think They turned out really cute.

I also made a skirt out of the same fabric that the green gremlin is make from and two more "wee bunnies". I decided that my neice and mother in law needed one too!

Speaking of my neice, she is coming down week after next so I can teach her to sew! She is 16 and want to learn to sew some purses and totes that she can sell to make money to help pay her car insurance and gas.

I hope everyone had a great week-end!