Three!

We had dinner out with Emily and family Saturday night to celebrate Alexa's birthday. She and Caleb will share a party with their little friends in a couple of weeks (Caleb will turn five on July 14), and I will have gifts for them then, but I wanted to give her a little something now. Emily couldn't get a picture of her name and her face. She either held the card in front of her face, or she held it over her head, closed her eyes, and scrunched her face all up. Oh well. She can't write her name yet, but she knew that this is her name.I also gave her some stickers and this baby doll outfit that I made.
Jordanna wants something, probably her mama.
According to Emily, Jordanna doesn't think much of any of the solid foods she's attempted to feed her so far. This is a mild face compared to some of the ones she made while Emily was feeding her carrots.Caleb is happy about or afraid of something! The sunglasses are a fairly recent addition to the infamous green hat.Instead of the expected slice of birthday cake for the birthday girl, the restaurant brought Alexa a piece of caramel pie topped with whipped cream and mini chocolate chips. Guess who had the good fortune of sitting next to a three-year-old who had a piece of pie way too big for her?

Happy Third Birthday!

Peachy Keen Part Three

After I left my mom's house on Thursday, I went straight to Emily's house so that I could give her some of the peaches. No one came to the front door when I rang the bell, but I could hear the kids out back. So I went around the house and found these sweet and goofy, swim-suited kids running around the deck and occasionally splashing in their small pool. (With parental supervision, of course.)

Peachy Keen Part Two

I took my camera to my mom's house yesterday so that I could get pictures of the peach-buying trip, but I also went out to her butterfly garden and made these photos:She also has several hummingbird feeders. A few years ago someone from the Department of Natural Resources came out, observed, and if memory serves (which is often does not these days) caught and banded a few hummingbirds. At the time, he estimated that about 200 hummingbirds per day were visiting these feeders! I managed to take these halfway decent pictures from about 15 feet away, and from inside the house through a glass door.

Peachy Keen

Today was such a full day that it may take me several days to tell you about it. I took off early this morning for my mom's house in middle Georgia. The ultimate destination? Peaches. There's a farm with a packing house about thirty minutes from where she lives. The freestone peaches have just become available this week. They don't do any processing at this location -- just packing. Although I've lived in Georgia all my life, this is the first time I've gone to a peach farm to get peaches. I usually just buy them at the grocery store like everyone else.Here's a front view of the open-air building as we pulled up. We went around to the back because from there, you can pack your own box/bag/pail of rejected peaches at a dirt cheap price. They package only the perfect ones for (apparently) supermarket sales. Many of the rejected peaches are perfect albeit small. Others have small, surface imperfections. And then some come down the conveyor belt with their guts oozing out or even totally exploded. We passed on those. Here's the back view of the conveyor system sending the rejected peaches out to waiting hands. The ones that the customers also reject land in the large white pins you see in front.Here are the employees who are removing the imperfect peaches from the packing line and sending them down the belt to waiting people like Mama and me.
We were initially squeezed in toward the end of the conveyor belt, but as people loaded up their boxes and left, we were able to move up to the beginning of the line. Here I am with my box nearly full. Mama had already filled hers, which left her free to make the picture. (And then she helped fill my box.)
From the front part of the building, there are rocking chairs where you can enjoy homemade peach ice cream (for sale) and sit and watch the packing operations.


Here's a short video of the packing operation. You can see the peaches dropping through the size-sorter. The man riding the platform across the conveyor is freeing a peach that had become stuck.


Here's a little church birdhouse. This wasn't for sale, but in addition to peach ice cream (to be consumed on-site only), you can buy fried peach pies (yummy, yummy, but I refrained), peach taffy, peach salsa (I had a taste there, and had to buy a jar), t-shirts, and other peach-themed stuff.Here are the peaches I came home with (and gave some to Emily) for only $5. A box of perfect ones cost $18. They will require another 2-3 days of ripening to be just right. I've already bought my Fruit Fresh so I can get these into the freezer. Oh, yes.... one more peach. (I'm sorry I couldn't get my face in there any better, but the face hole was about waist-high on me, so I had a little trouble getting down there. And more trouble getting back up.)

Cute as a Button!

Here's my youngest granddaughter, Jordanna, at six months old. Emily is always fussing at me for getting make-up on Jordanna's clothes while I'm stealing baby sugar. But it's just too sweet to resist.

See For Yourself

In this post, I told you about the similarities and differences in my hair and my dad's hair. Now you can judge for yourself. (He must be slouching... he's taller than me!)

Happy Fathers Day!

Bits and Pieces

A few days ago it occurred to me that the reason I haven't done much sewing lately is that the room had gotten to be such a mess! I had bits and pieces of leftover projects everywhere, and I can't work in clutter. After spending about two hours cleaning and putting away stuff, I think I can get busy now.
Here's a WIP (work in progress) on my flannel board. I bought these fabrics nearly six months ago, and they are gradually coming together. There's still one more strip to be added around each square. Then the squares will be cut and reassembled. The outcome is anyone's guess (including mine) at this point!

In addition to my late step-father's shirts, I also brought home all of his jeans. Part of the clutter in my sewing room was all the legs I had cut off, but that's where they've been sitting for a long time. So, this week, I got them cut into strips and some cut into squares. This will become a quilt too, but technically not a quilt because it will be tied and not quilted. I have no idea what the finished size will be until I get all the squares attached to one another.Phillip, Lystra, and Poppy sent me a cute cat puzzle and a treasure chest of fabrics for my birthday. I loved opening the box and unfolding each piece. Most of them will be great for my postcards, and I'm seeing an apron in that green, plaid fabric.Here's a couple of cards I sent them, using fabric from the box.

A Little Sewing

I haven't spent much time at the sewing machine lately, but I did make this new cover for the cushion on our two-person glider. The old cover was faded pretty badly. You can't tell from the picture, but the cover is made like a giant pillow case with a Velcro closure. That way, I can remove it and wash it as needed. (See this post on pollen season in the south.) There was enough extra fabric to make the little pillow as well, and I already had the pale yellow cording in my stash. I didn't make the plaid pillow. It's in one of the wicker rockers, so I took it with me when I was looking for glider fabric. I'm happy with how the two fabrics coordinate.

Recently I made a batch of fabric postcards, too, but since they haven't all reached their intended destinations, you'll have to wait to see those.

Hair's Not Fair

Hair's Not Fair
or
You Can Pick Your Jeans, But Not Your Genes

My dad, who is a number of years older than me (in case you wondered) has very little gray hair. My older sister has very little gray hair. Me? I hit the jackpot. I've had some gray since my early twenties. I've thought once or twice about coloring it, but you know the old adage, "Know Thyself"? I know myself, and I know that I'm too lazy to want to have to deal with hair coloring every few weeks. I also know that I'm just vain enough not to want to walk around with bi-colored hair from grown-out roots. So, I didn't get my dad's genes for late-in-life graying.

But there is something I did get from dad's hair genes. His hair is thinning at the temples, and guess what? So is mine. Here's the daily routine to keep my bangs swept back from my face and not falling forward and exposing the baldness. I have to heavily gook my bangs with styling gel, comb it over the balding place, let it dry into a stiff, straw-like texture, and then gently comb through the hair. That's good for several hours in the winter, and several minutes in the humid heat of summer. But since I rarely look in a mirror after I've executed my morning routine, I can pretend that I have hair. And that it stays where I glued it. And now the world knows that I at least tried.

Shopping for Free

I love free shopping. Within the last couple of weeks, I got coupons in the mail for $10 a purchase of any amount at Kohl's and $10 off a purchase of at least $10 at J. C. Penney. The one at Kohl's was specifically for something in the men's big and tall department.

This week, I headed straight to the clearance racks, with the intention of getting two free things. Success! I found James a shirt at Kohl's for $7.70. I paid nothing for this nice, long-sleeved shirt. Unfortunately, it is both too big and too long, but I think my brother-in-law can wear it, and a free shirt is a free shirt! (We're not proud.) At J. C. Penney I found this coral-colored shirt for me. It was $8.80, and since I had to spend at least $10, I also found two pairs of white socks (bundled together) for $1.97. I went a little over the budget with that one, but I'm OK with that.

Long Time, No See

Well, I keep thinking that I'll abandon this blog, and then it keeps coming back. If it were a cat, it's on about #4 of its nine lives.

About two weeks ago, we finally got James' parents' house on the market. Here and here are a couple of posts about some of the work I contributed. I haven't heard anything from the Realtor yet, and since the house is vacant, we don't really know if there are interested lookers or not. Let's hope so!

One of the last things James and I did was to clean out a few remaining things from the attic, where I found this item. I don't know what compelled me to bring it home, except that you just don't see these in green enamelware any more. There was also a 1950s/60s Halloween noisemaker toy that may have some small Ebay value.

There are chickens being kept at the property next door to my in-laws' house. I don't believe they are legal, because even outside the city limits, you are supposed to have two acres, and the fowl are supposed to be kept 10 feet from the property line. These birds wander across several adjacent properties. I picked up a large feather the other day, and you can see who thought that was a good gift.