Five Shadows

Such a busy day. A friend was holding a craft day at the lodge at StillWater Retreat. She asked us to bring a salad to share for lunch and she provided desserts.Then for the evening meal she provided homemade soups and breads. I had a doctor’s appt so had to leave soon after lunch. Then I grocery shopped for the concessions for my daughters’ volleyball game that was earlier tonight. Got home and the girls helped me prepare the food. After the games, I headed back out to the retreat and worked on the second of two coordinating twin quilts. I got home soon after midnight and should have gone to bed. But with the fam all sound asleep I’ve been playing around on the internet with no interruptions    visiting blogs and hopping around. It was a long day, a nice day – minus the prednisone injection into my right ear – through the eardrum! Ouch! I’ll save that story for another post.

Here are two little quilties and I did indeed use one of the photos my son took while in Sweden. But first, I want to explain that during supper tonight our conversation was about all the wonderful native plants we saw today on our walk at Arrowhead Marsh. A prairie/marsh area being restored in upper state Indiana by Little River Wetlands. This conversation with its twists and turns lead to the fact that the picture of the sunflower I used in the quilties was taken at the Carl LInnaeus garden in Uppsala, Sweden. Carl (1707-1778) is the father of modern taxonomy for both animals and plants and my son toured his gardens while in Sweden. How cool is that!? I just liked the picture! But now I know a little of the history behind it! – or how plants got their scientific names.

I’m looking through pictures my son took while in Sweden this summer. And they have me thinking of the next swap, Shades of Sunshine, I must get busy on as it is due later this month.

I’m so pleased to say yesterday ended with a broad smile on my face. As a family, we packed up three cars to help transport our two sons and all their stuff back to university. After setting up young-son-two in his dorm we headed to the local ice cream eatery. Being a very popular ice cream parlor and being that upperclassman would be moving back on to campus with families like us heading to Ivanhoe’s, we anticipated joining the long line of customers. Once receiving our treats – that first yummy taste – there was no doubt that the time waiting had been well spent!

With young-son-two squared away, we head further south to meet up with young-son-one. Just recently back from a trip to Sweden, he is moving back into his apartment and will continue to work on a master’s degree in physics. We unpack his stuff and the girls get a tour of the small apartment, giving their approval. After a quick trip to the grocery store, young-son-one is pretty much settled in and with the hours of the day ticking away, we head for home. Daughter-number-one is dropped back off at her school of higher education with much kisses and fanfare. She loves road trips and having started school several weeks before her brothers opted to take the road trip with us today.

As I settled into bed last night, I got the strong sense that all is as it should be. The three eldest are pursuing their interests and preparing for their futures. DH returns to his job investing in the future of young adults at the college where he teaches. And I will continue at home with our two youngest children – teenagers both, really not young at all – making this my 22 year as a homeschool teacher. Yes, all is as it should be.

Here is a picture of my husband and me, taken by my daughter, on our search for Spring on Easter Sunday. We did find a little greenery of Snow Trilliums pushing up through the brown leaves, but no blossoms. Spring was slow in arriving this year. I actually wrote those sentences a few weeks ago, but never posted them. Wow! Time is just flying. I can’t believe it has almost been a month since I last wrote on my blog.

Spring did come! These Pretty flowers are blooming in our yard. DH took the pictures of the Crocus and Hepatica.

Blood Root, Spring Beauties, and Daffodils are blooming now too.

Even tho the calendar says Spring has arrived my little spring garden flowers are apparently saying, “No, not yet!” So after a wonderful Easter Service and meal with family, we headed out in search of the Snow Trilliums that bloom a few weeks before our garden flowers. We drove to Hanging Rock and alas! the Snow Trilliums are also still in hiding! It is now official, Spring has not yet reached Northern Indiana. We did do some geocaching on our outing – found two caches, and we stopped at a lacy little water fall on an Acres Land Trust which was beautiful and will have to make up for the lack of flowers. The search for Spring will just have to continue.

Here is a picture of the last bed size quilt top I have sewn. It is one of two for my parents who have moved into a retirement community. In moving they have switched from a queen bed to twin beds. The pattern is River City 9-Patch from the 9-Patch Reunion Book by Atkinson Designs. The border and solid 9-patch squares are really a blue, but the photo turned out as gray.

Now that is a funny title for a post, don’t you think? I just have to tell you about the fun day we had on Saturday – a continuation of my last post. On Saturday morning the sleepover girls and several more, headed out with us to Cinderella Dress Day. It is the seventh year that The Boys and Girls Club has teamed up with Peerless Dry Cleaners to offer FREE prom gowns to local high schoolers. Out of the 8 girls with me, 2 did not find a dress they liked, but everyone else left very happy. Of the two not finding a gown, one already has a lovely one from a Purity Ball she just attended with her Dad, so she can wear that one to the prom. And the other young lady is graduating this year and really wanted a special gown. So she headed on to the mall with her sister and found a gorgeous black and white gown that fits this year’s theme to the “T”. The Prom this group of girls will be attending is “Black Tie and City Lights” and I’m heading up the planning this year! I’ll have more to share on that as the prom draws near! When my daughter signed out at Cinderella Dress day, she was #188! They must give away close to 300 gowns!

Tears. Have you seen the movie P.S. I Love You? Have a box of tissues handy if you watch it. The girls and I ate lunch and then headed to the dollar theater for the movie. It was good, but several of us needed tissues!

Circles! Here are two pictures of circle quilts from a class I taught a while back. We used the 8″ Rainbow Block Templates from Elisa’s Backporch. I taught the simple version on the left in class. While the ladies sewed up their blocks, I played around to add more pieces to the blocks, picture on the right. When I sent the quilts to my longarm quilter, she loved them so and she called to say she HAD to have them! So we worked out a trade. I just got them back to take a picture of them, as I had not done so before sending them to be quilted. The one I played around with at the class is the one quilted with spirals. Isn’t it cool!? Guess I’ll have to photo the other one once it is quilted. Perhaps hanging at a show in her vender’s booth.

Look what was delivered to me last Thursday! Aren’t they beautiful? And a total surprise! A sweet young couple sent them to me as a “thank you” for the quilt I made for their wedding gift! How about that! I didn’t get just a card but a nice bouquet of fresh flowers!

The other fun thing about getting the flowers was they arrived the day before my birthday! I had gone out to lunch with friends, so the celebrating started a day early!

On Friday my husband and I ate at Flat Top Grill. He gave me a Husky Embellisher and a box of DeBrands Chocolates. Isn’t he a sweet heart!?

My daughter and I made the postcard using the embellisher. We will have more to show later!

I’ve been having fun working on post cards today. One I’ll mail off to Susan of Cyber Fyber – I’ll show a picture in a later post. My daughter wanted to see what the swap was all about so we just spent some time looking at some of the ATCs. There are still some available, so I asked to trade for #22. It’s been fun linking to all the artists blogs and seeing their creativity.

At about 6:10 p.m. my plans for the evening changed. I got a call from the Mayor’s Youth Council – my girls attend the monthly meetings – asking for volunteers to do sand bagging as the rivers are about to flood portions of our city. I made two quick phone calls, to two youth group pastors I know, to see if they could arrange to take their teens to volunteer. (It’s Wednesday night, teens are heading to church for 7 p.m. meetings.) Success! both churches sent their teens! I spent about an hour and a half with my girls, a church youth group, a boy scout troop, and a gentleman who just moved to FW – all of us sand bagging. We got cold, wet, sandy, but had a good time and hopefully our  backs will not be too sore tomorrow. I know the sand bags will be put to good use to protect homes in our area.   ….maybe tomorrow night I’ll get to do the painting on felt I was planning on doing tonight. (see previous post)