Have a wonderful, safe holiday everyone!
Shop Hop (part 2)
Home again, home again…jiggety-jog.
But ohhhhhhh—
…the winding highway we cruise-controlled…
…the quaint cottages we coveted…I mean, wished we lived in…wait…is that the same thing? Oh, whatever…
…the silky fibers I couldn’t keep my hands off of…stopped trying, actually…
…the amazing baby versions of the ABC song we sang…
…the basket full of prizes we get to keep…hee hee hee…don’t worry, I’m not trying to rhyme…
…the hollyhocks we sniffed–that is, until a bumblebee the size of a seagull showed up…
…the “finger-dancing” we did to all the 70’s music we could stand…
…the peaceful river we rested by…being careful not to disturb the residents…
…the fabulous old, old stuff that I sincerely tried to keep my hands off of…alas, in vain…
…the pretty porches we got to play on…I’m having one of those someday–I tell you…
…the 300-ish miles of people-less land we drove through…I mean, around…
…the millions of quilt-y things we took pictures of–for inspiration—which by-the-way, still look really hard to make…
…all to end up here—at this most beloved and sought after door…
…to turn in this card filled with a million stamps proving that we have driven around the world 3 times in the last couple of days…and now…
…will be resting these for a while as we dream of all the stuff we will most certainly win…
that…and about getting a touch up on the Iced Cranberry polish.
It’s time.
Quilt Shop Hop
Let me just start this post off by saying–right up front–I’m not really a quilter. There. I said it.
Oh, I have loved to sew since my mom helped me make a skirt in the 7th grade, but quilting has always been a bit scary to me. All that precision…all those pieces. Yikes. Though I have had dear friends and now dear daughters that are quite wonderful at it–this particular bug has just not ever bitten me.
So when April suggested that we go on a Quilting “Shop Hop” that would take us all over the state—the fact that I agreed had nothing to do with my love of, or ability to–quilt.
It sounded like a great adventure with some people I’m pretty fond of–so we packed up the little doo-dads and headed out.
The idea is that if we visit every shop in the “Hop,” in the end we’ll have all the little town patterns we need to make the “Around the Town” quilt.
We ended up at 10 different quilting shops today and we have 5 more to scope out tomorrow.
So far, we’ve enter 11 drawings and won two prizes, received 6 free gifts, and collected 10 of the patterns.
Not to mention the piles of assorted cookies and brownies and popcorn and homemade bread we’ve consumed—all for the cause.
Each shop has designed their own version using the same patterns in their own particular style–so we’ve tried to take pictures of them all as we go.
We had such a fun time running around to all the different stores and having them stamp our “Around the Town Passports.”
Each store is giving away $100 worth of quilting prizes–so just think—16 stores, with 3 of us entering each contest–that’s 48 entries! The odds of winning something are pretty good! Wahoo!
To Be Continued…
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Week 14 Food Storage Prompt: 100 lbs. of Wheat.
A Very Mousey Tale
Clear back in October I mentioned that our family has a book group—a sort of–everyone chooses books they are interested in reading or having the group read and we take turns leading a discussion when we’ve all finished–type group. You may recall my three page whine fest about having to read the book “Frankenstein,” back then. The bald kid led the discussion and fed us jello molded into a brain. Gak. Amazingly, we all survived.
Well, here is our most recent choice–“The Tale of Despereaux.” Have any of you read it? What did you think? It was probably a mistake for us to see the movie first because we just kept looking at each other saying, “What the heck?” through the whole thing. Seriously, none of us had a clue what was going on. So, needless to say, I wasn’t incredibly pumped to read the book. Then Jacob reminded me that I had chosen it and would be leading the discussion. Yikes.
So, after finally forcing myself to just pick the darn thing up and get going, I found–to my surprise–that I really liked it…loved it, in fact. And found, also to my surprise, that most of my family didn’t really give it a lot of points. Odd, isn’t it–how different we all are?
But then, that’s the point.
It’s a story about a bunch of characters that behave and dream a bit differently than they’re “suppose” to–a tiny mouse who falls in love with a princess, a rat that craves the sunshine, and a servant girl who aches to know what it feels like to be treated like a princess. I loved that in the end–everyone’s wishes were respected and that it was ok for them be who ever they were. It made me really happy and honestly, it was lovely to read of a princess who had compassion and tolerance rather than selfishness and pride. Wahoo for this chicky.
I think I’ll give the movie another try–now that I–you know– get it. Perhaps it won’t seem like quite the wack-job it did the first time around.
I’m a forgiving soul.
Since poor little Despereaux loses his tale at one point in the story, I gave everyone a mouse tail bookmark. Kinda sick, I suppose–but they all liked it.
But then, we may just be an odd lot.
Quite likely, in fact.
heh.
Magic Man…
Grampa, Laurie, Launi and Andy–1959
The other day–my dear, life long friend Kim over at Manning Family Tree—–tagged me in a photo file game. I’ve never done this sort of thing before so I was intrigued.
These were my instructions:
“Go to your photo files…Select the 6th photo folder…
Select the 6th photo in that folder…
Post that photo along with the story behind it.
Then challenge 6 blog friends to do the same!”
The 6th file was a folder filled with scanned pictures from my long ago and far away past. The 6th photo in the file is of my Momma’s daddy–my sweet little old grampa–Clyde Mitchell, snuggling us kids in front of the Christmas tree. He was a good, solid, quiet fellow–very nature-y. Loved camping and fishing and….hunting. Ok, well that isn’t so nature-y but it was back in the day when they actually ate what they bagged–so I don’t feel so bad about it.
I need to show you this other picture though. When my grampa was a young man he worked for a magician and escaped from handcuffs and chains and stuff. That’s my grampa with shackles around his wrists and ankles. Up at the top of the picture it says “Escaped in 3 minutes.” He was even hypnotized and stuck in a store window, on a mattress for a few days. Apparently people came from far and wide, at all hours of the day and night to see when he would finally get up. I bet that sold a ton of mattresses!
I remember a few things about him. One is that he used to sit out in the yard and let squirrels take sunflower seeds from his bare hands. He like to tease my grama by trying to trip her with his cane. He loved to eat nasty looking half cooked eggs and toast for breakfast. It was hard to watch. He gave us kids fifty cent pieces whenever we would come to visit to spend at the dime store–but we never did. I still have one of them. He passed away when I was 11- so that was about 200 years ago…or close.
He was very strong and gentle and I remember that we loved him very much. Still do.
The End
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PS– I’m tagging:
Susette at–All Good Things Come
April at— (Un)controlled Chaos
Kathy at—Rantings
Lyndi at—The Clan Lou
Jillian at—Finding Forget Me Nots
Jodi at—Johnsons
Thanks Kim–that was fun!