Red Dresden

It has been several days since I posted but I've just been really busy with everything.  I've been canning, cleaning, and quilting.  LOL!  

Here is the latest quilt top that has been quilted!   

 I still need to clip some threads on it but I think it is just beautiful!!!

 This one is a king! 

 I don't have to do the binding on this one, just the quilting.  

Yesterday was a very busy day.  Got up super early and took Hunter's friend home that had been here for a couple of days.  Then Hunter and I stopped by mom's and went with her and Chantal to mom's doctor's appointment about an hour away.  Nothing major just to the dermatologist.  The we had lunch and did some school shopping for Hunter.  Well...Hunter and I school shopped they just shopped.  LOL!  School starts for Hunter August 2nd.  Hard to believe that he will be in the 10th grade.  

Anyway we got home about 15 minutes before Richard did.  I rushed around and fixed a quick supper and finished up quilting this quilt.  

This afternoon I have to take Hunter to school to pick up his schedule and school Chromebook.  I'm sure we will be in there all afternoon. 

A gift...

The past few days have been a whirlwind.  LOL!  Canning and cleaning....and trying to do a little reading if I have any downtime which is very little.  LOL!  

I did quickly quilt this quilt top that a dear friend pieced.  It is a gift for a pastor and his wife.  It's their anniversary and they are renewing their vows.  :)

I know this post is really short but I am typing it the night before and scheduling it to post in the early morning....I am just tired....

Canning, Canning, and more Canning

In case you have been wondering where I have been...I've been canning!  LOL!  No quilting, just canning!  A couple of days ago Chantal, my sister brought me a bag of apples that she picked up in her yard before she cut her grass. 

 I turned those into 7 pints of Apple Butter!

 Her is little Addie, so proud of her blackberry cobbler that she made with her mommy!  She helped pick the berries and then helped make the cobbler.  Love that proud little smile.  :)

 I also baked an Apple Cake!  I didn't eat it but my guys liked it. 

 Then the next day Chantal brought me about a 1-1/2 bushel more apples!  They have spots on the outside but once you peel them they look perfect.

 So I sat and peeled, peeled and peeled...

 Then I made 15 half pint jars of Candied Applesauce.  Just applesauce with Red Hots Candy in it.  It's not hot but gives it a wonderful taste.  I still have a bunch of apples to process.  As far as the apples go...I'm just getting started on them.  We will end up with a ton!  The trees are loaded!  Since these apples grow on our properties I feel like they are pretty much like FREE food.  The Lord's gift to us.  :) 

 Then Richard picked our first picking of green beans for the year and ended up with a bushel.  This is just the start of those too. 

 I got those all strung, broke and canned.  I ended up with 14 quarts so far.  I still have 43 quarts leftover from 2016, which is fine as they will be eaten. 

 So I will be working on the rest of the apples over the next few days, then probably more beans....tomatoes....just whatever!  LOL!  It is a lot of work and very tiring but I love it!  

Today is Richard's 47th birthday!  I thank the Lord everyday for bringing him back into my life.  We dated in high school, he graduated and joined the Marines...got married...divorced and then 13 years later we got together and have been married for 16 years!  He and the boys are my world.  This man amazes me everyday.  Anyway...I hope he has a great day even though he has to work all day. 

Pinwheels on Parade....step #2

 I did manage to get my 30 pinwheels sewn yesterday!  YAY!  I started on them early, then got sidetracked but was able to finish them up before bed.  Hopefully today I can get the next step finished or at least started.  I did promise Hunter that I would take him to town for a haircut.

 As I mentioned in my last post Richard's boss called and he ended up trading work days.  He was off yesterday and works today.  Yesterday Richard worked most of the day building an outbuilding for my mom, did some fence repair, aired up the tire on the riding mower, and a bunch of stuff like that.  Hunter worked for the neighbor weedeating around his pond.  Andrew...well...Andrew just works everyday.  LOL!  So while everyone was doing that stuff, I was canning Pickled Beets!  

I walked up to the small garden and noticed that ants were eating some of my beets so I just made the decision to pull them and can what I had.  I never did make it over to the big gardens.  LOL! 

 I had beets of all sizes...large and small.  I gave my chickens the greens and they loved them.

 This is a pic of the first batch!  I don't even remember how many jars that I ended up with.  I will count them as I put them in the pantry. 

 I tried out a new recipe for supper.  It was called "Beefy Broccoli Cheddar Burritos"  I know it sounds a little weird but they were really good and you could not even taste the broccoli in them.  I got the recipe from the back of a package of Knorr's Rice Sides.  Easy and simple.  I do get tired of fixing the same thing over and over so it was nice to try something new.  Richard said this was a "keeper"
I also made a fresh Raspberry Cobbler but didn't get a photo of it before they started digging in. 

 Hopefully after my daily chores, I can get some sewing done!  As I mentioned earlier, I also need to take Hunter to town for a haircut.  So maybe after all of that is done I can work on the next step of my quilt.  

First, I will need to draw diagonal lines on the beige squares and then make 48 flying geese units. 

 We are expecting rain today so hopefully Hunter and I can get our outside chores done before the rain hits.  As far as I know, nothing else in the garden is ready at this point.  It will all hit me at one time.  LOL!  That's how it works, but I am grateful for it all.  The only other things that I have in my gardens at this point are several different types of peppers, cucumbers, some lettuce, onions, green beans, tomatoes, corn, and potatoes.  Now when I talk about the small garden and the big garden, the big garden is out in the field and has 200ft rows!  LOL!  The big garden has my potatoes, corn, green beans, and tomatoes in it.  Yes, it has weeds but I can live with that.  LOL! 

Cut out and ready to sew!

 I got my quilt kit cut out yesterday!  YAY!  I have to draw diagonal lines on a bunch of the squares and I wanted to get that done as well but I didn't.  Maybe today....maybe not.  LOL!

 After getting my lines drawn this will be my first step.  Making 30 pinwheels.  That's not too many so hopefully it will not take too long.

 I also played around with my EPP.  I did get these sewn into sets of 2 while on vacation too.  Now I have been sewing them into sets of 4.  I'm not in a big hurry on this one as I just enjoy the handwork and it keeps my hands busy.

 I also got a few more tomatoes out of the garden yesterday!  This makes me happy!  :)  I've been washing them and putting them in the freezer to work up and can them when I get enough.  I have found that instead of blanching them to remove the skins to process I can just put them in the freezer until I get the amount that I need and thaw them out and the skins slid right off.  I love doing it this way.  I love gardening and canning but I get stressed when everything hits me at once.  LOL!  Everything in the garden is doing great right now.  I also checked the apple trees and they are loaded but not ready yet.  

Richard was suppose to work today but his boss called last night and someone needed to trade days so he is off today and has to work Thursday which was his scheduled day off.  No big deal really but it messes my world up!  LOL!  With my ADHD I am a routine and schedule girl and when something like this happens it messes up my world.  LOL!  I do love having him home but when things like this change and I don't have much of a notice it throws me off.  :) 

That's all for now...hopefully I can get some sewing done today.

Cutting out a new one!

 I started cutting out one of the old kits that I had.  Not finished with it yet but hopefully I will have it all cut out today.  This will make a nice sized lap quilt. 

 While on vacation we were at a gift shop and I was paying for some postcards and when I finished I saw Andrew go to the counter to pay for something, it was this beautiful Jim Shore Santa.  You all know that I love Jim Shore and do collect it.  I tried to tell him no because I hate for the boys to spend their money on me but his response was, "mom, you looked at it 2 or 3 times and obviously you were not going to buy it."  My sweet boy...love him so much.  This was in their Christmas in July section.  I love it!

 This is one of my favorite vacation pics!  Look at mom, she is laughing so hard.  I love this as she looks so happy.  My brother, John would rather aggravate me than anything in the world.  LOL!  We were trying to take a pic with mom and he kept pulling my hair.   There are only 4 years between me and John but Chantal is 13 years younger than I am. 

 I have got to get my butt in gear today!  I didn't accomplish anything yesterday.  I just bounced from one thing to the other and by days end...nothing.  LOL!  It's always hard for me to fall back into my routine.  

I have a couple of quilts that need to be quilted real soon and then I will be trying to work my garden goodies in between everything else.  I see lots of canning in my future.  LOL!  Next up will probably be beats and some green beans.  I will have a lot of tomatoes too. 

Back to the real world...

We got home late Saturday night so I guess it's time to get things back on track.  :(  Sunday morning we were dragging and sadly we didn't go to Church.  I just couldn't seem to get things going.

I did do a little sewing while on vacation.   I know it's wrinkled but you can still see my progress.  I have several more sewn into strips and I will keep working on it during my down time.  I love EPP and handwork.  

 

 I did pick these fabrics up while on vacation.  Nothing really special.  The dark blue and the red ones are 1 yard cuts.  I thought the little fat quarters were cute and also beach themed...starfish, seashells and such.  Not sure what I will make with them but I need to find a pattern to use them with then pick up some white for background and maybe some light grey as these fabrics have a little grey in them.  A total of 10 fat quarters with 2 of each.  I'll have to find something to make that will remind me of this vacation.

 So this week things should get back to normal and hopefully I can get back to sewing.  I have big plans!  LOL!  We'll see how that goes.  

Richard went back to work this morning.  Mom and Andrew had to go back to work yesterday (Sunday).  :(  They were really tired.  We all had the best time!  14 people in the same house for a week and we all survived.  

A few more vacation pics...  This was as we were leaving early Saturday morning. 

Here we are just goofing off...

Us on the beach....

My world...

That's all for now and back to quilty posts.

Fort Raleigh

 Thursday was another wonderful day!  Richard's ancestry has been traced back to the early 1500's but in 1585 Sir Ralph Lane made the voyage along with Sir Walter Raleigh and several others to what is known as Roanoke Island.  So lots of interesting family history for us.  We were so close so we really wanted to go by there which was a little less than a 2 hour trip. 

 We toured a replica of the Elizabeth II.  It was very cool.

 Here we all are!  It was soooo hot but still fun. 

 There was also a working settlement that demonstrated lots of things during that time. 

 My sister, BIL, and Addie made the trip with us while mom and my brother's family stayed at the beach house.  They just were not up for the long drive.  My sister snapped this pic of me and Andrew.

 Speaking of my brother...hehehe!  He will kill me over this one but here he is taking a little nap.  :)

 Here we are goofing off at the museum. 

 This is a pic of Fort Raleigh. 

 Then on to the aquarium.  It was nice too.  Addie loved it!  Well, we all did. 

Sharks....

 Another pic of Addie at the museum.

I am typing this post on Friday night so it will be scheduled to post on Saturday morning and we will be on our way home.  :(  It has been an awesome trip and I have been very Blessed to have been able to do this with my whole family. 

Another Awesome Day

 Another awesome day!  We woke up to another beautiful sunrise.  I woke up at 4:30am, drank some coffee, snapped some pics and went back to bed around 6:30am.

 Then everyone got ready and headed back down the beach to Corolla to do some shopping.  The younger kids wanted some hermit crabs and a few other things.  Then we stopped for pizza, which I hated.  Everyone has different tastes but I didn't like it at all.  The sauce was way to sweet for me.  

Then on to the lighthouse with everyone else.  We took a few pics again.  Here we are with the boys.  Andrew looks like he is choking me.  LOL! 

 Andrew with my precious momma on the lighthouse grounds. 

 Our precious little Addie!  She is doing so good on this long trip and she is only 2.  She is a little cracker jack!  Her favorite words right now are "NO" and "GONE" 

 Here are my guys in a live oak.  They are my world. 

 Another pic on the way back up to the beach house. 

 Today part of us will be making the 2 hour trip south to Roanoke Island. 

Corolla Lighthouse

 Yesterday Richard and I stopped by the Corolla Lighthouse for a few minutes.  We are ALL going back today as that was one thing that we all had planned on doing anyway.  It was beautiful!  Built in 1875, it is just awesome!  We didn't make the climb to the top as we just stopped by quickly and not to mention that is has 200+ steps and I just don't know if my back and hips can handle that many steps.  

 A few more beautiful pics of the grounds around the lighthouse...

 And last but not least, a pic as we were driving the 8 miles back up the beach. 

I had a few ask where this was... Mom rented a beach house for the whole family on Carova Beach which is on the 4x4 section of the Outer Banks of the coast of NC.  It is only accessible by 4x4 and is very natural other than the houses.  There are no stores or restaurants in this area but are only 8 miles away in Corolla.  The only building that I have saw in this area that is not a beach house was the fire department.  The wild horse roam freely and most mornings they are in our yard.  It is just awesome and so relaxing.  This is by far the best vacation that I have ever had.  14 of us in one house and everyone is getting along great, we are just all glad to be together.  Truly Blessed!