Feeling better

This time around The Tramp was well and I was sick.  However now he's sick too, poor baby.  I've spent most of this week sleeping, in fact now I think about it, today is the first day I haven't had a long nap!  I must be feeling better.  Yay!

Last week, while we were still feeling good we had a wonderful evening at Koka Booth Amphitheater. We arrived early to be among the first in line for places on the lawn.  Look!  I even got The Tramp to smile for the camera.  :-D

It wasn't overly hot and sticky, and the rain held off.  A minor miracle this summer.

Harry Connick!  As ever, a fabulous performance.

In the last post I said we'd gone off to buy something we found on Craigslist.  It was this table for the kitchen.  We had put in a "breakfast bar" which we never sat at, so we yanked it out and searched for a small table.  Much better!

The dogs are shedding heavily again.  Sigh.  Under Ngaire, on the "favorite stair," it's black.  Sigh.  All the time.  SIGH.

So I gathered the hairy ones together for a brushing session in the kitchen.  There are too many mosquitoes to do it outside!  But look, I didn't get very much.  Weird.  How can that be when I have to vacuum up black tufts every day??

The Laughing Dog let me give her a mohawk.  :-D

And then she went to settle down on the bird poop catcher paper and let Charlie do his thing on her.  They are so funny.

On the rainy weekend, The Sailor Son came for a short visit with the grands, and Mom and Dad came over for dinner.  The "new" table got a workout, and I was pleased it proved to be a good decision.

Sailor Son and I took Dad and the grands to the Dinosaurs in Motion exhibit at the Natural History Museum on Saturday.  I was very impressed and would have liked to linger, but as usual the young ones rushed us through.  :-)  At Batman's insistence, we did take some time to revisit the room with the costumes.  I'm not sure what he was expecting since he would only consent to put on the "calapitter" and t-rex costumes.  Five, in the background, was much more interested in things like the microscopes.  Still, I'm pleased they do remember being here last year when they were only 3 and 4 years old and hope they took something new away with them this time.

Back at the house it was mostly about Lego.  To keep the dining table clear for meals I set up a folding table for them.  They enjoyed sitting in front of the window and reporting each visit by the hummingbirds.

Ngaire usually stays away from bouncy small boys but the play rug must have been too much of a temptation.  :-)

Sailor Son reads to them all the time.  Here they are reading aloud to us....at the same time.  :-)  It was wonderful listening to Five "read" all the way through One Fish Two Fish in the style of Fox in Sox.  Love my boys!

Then Monday came and I woke up sick, darn it.  Who knows were the germ came from but ugh!  Yesterday I managed to stay awake long enough to work for a while on a t-shirt quilt.  Today, however was all about my wyvern.  This is how it was coming together last week when I got all the parts sewn and stuffed.

And today, after a quick trip out to get some pearly paints I started the embellishments.  Fun!

We're looking forward to a quiet weekend.  It's supposed to be hot and stormy so I think I'll stay in The Sandbox and have some more fun.  :-)

Oops.  I hear the Goodnight Kiwi.  It must be bedtime!

"On the road again......."

I shouldn't really quote Willie Nelson.  We only went about 100 miles round trip on Sunday, but since I haven't been anywhere for a while it felt like the "open road."  lol   I suppose the song popped into my head as I've been getting emails announcing Willie Nelson is coming to town.  I think we'd better get tickets while he's still touring!

Anyway.  We drove out to Chapel Hill to buy something offered on Craigslist.  Well....The Tramp drove while I sky-watched.

On the face of it, the weather was lovely, but we kept driving through surprise rain showers.

Since we were already halfway there, we drove on to JR in Burlington to get The Tramp some new Wranglers.  You can't beat the prices.

(I really do have a cloud fetish, don't I.)  We also enjoyed all the yellow daylilies planted along the highway, in some places combined with pink crape myrtle trees.  Of course I didn't get that photo.  :-)

There was no lack of people on the road.  Not really surprising on a holiday weekend.

In the evening I got the wyvern's "mask" stuffed.  I couldn't resist pinning the parts together to see the effect!  Now I need to add paint to all the pieces.

Today it was back to t-shirt quilts.  These are Virginia Tech shirts.  All eighty-nine of them.  Gulp.

It's a large two-sided quilt with "burnt orange" and "Chicago maroon" borders.  This is going to take me a while.  :-)

The Book of Kells

Woohoo!  Sunshine!  Finally.  It appears the hot part of summer has arrived after all the rains.

Which is great for outside activities on the 4th of July weekend.  This was the morning view yesterday out of the front window.  Sun!  Wait a minute....  It's raining!  It rained with some intensity for about 15 minutes in the sun.  I'm assuming somewhere, someone had a nice view of a rainbow.  Not me!

All the local ponds are chocolate colored with all the rain, ours is no exception.

Rain or not, our holiday project was to continue cleaning the garage.  This is "my side" with all the garden tools, lawn mower, garden cart, cleaning stuff, and pantry cabinets.

And I do admit to a few sewing machine cabinets.  Still thinking about what to do with them, but at least we can walk through now.  :-)

Another one hiding by the fridge.  Hmmmmm.

And this is "The Tramp's side."

Tools, tools and more tools, but now there is a space for the workbench he's been waiting to build.

Just about everything we haven't carted off to the dump or thrift shop now fits on the shelves or is hung on the walls.  Yay!  The Tramp walked into the garage this morning and from the kitchen I heard him exclaim, "WOW!" and I ran to see what happened.  "Look," he says, "I can walk in here!"  Yep.  It was pretty bad.

The biggest item yesterday was organizing all the loose bits and pieces into these cabinets.  It took hours.  I began to think that no one has more hardware bits than we do, except maybe the hardware store.  Geez!  It was worth every minute though, as I no longer have to watch The Tramp paw through several bins of little boxes of hardware to find the right screw or nail, and we won't be buying even more of what we've already got but can't find.  :-D

So that was yesterday.  Today we dropped off the last load at the thrift shop and drove down to check on The Other House.  We had a wonderful visit with the neighbors and were humbled again by their willingness to mow our lawn when we're not looking.  I got to coo over their sweet great-grand baby and even left with a bunch of flowers from their extensive garden.

Dad had his cataract surgery today.  We dropped in at their apartment to see how he was doing and enjoyed his delight at being able to see bright colors again.  Like most people he didn't realize how much color vision he'd been missing.

So what does this post have to do with the Book of Kells?  In the evenings, after washing off all the sweat, dirt and spiders from the garage, I've been working on my Kells Wyvern.  The pattern is by Melinda Small Paterson and is inspired by the illuminations in the Book of Kells.  I started it so long ago that neither of us remember if the fabrics were bougtht here or in New Jersey!  I don't remember when I put the body together either, but now the legs are finished and tonight I finished stuffing the wings.  Very fiddly and time consuming!

The teeth and tongue.

The lower jaw.

And this is how it will fit on the head.  Next job is the front and back of the head.

Then I get to do the paint embellishments before it all gets sewn together.  Fun!

Quick?

I believe the rest of pack is moving off towards bed so just a quick post (well....as quick as I seem to be able to manage) to catch up.  :-)

In case you were wondering, this is what a melted car engine looks like.

Eldest Daughter's much loved PT Cruiser was plowed into by a taxi.  It is assumed the driver was quite drunk.  Thank goodness they weren't in the car, as it is badly damaged and the engine went up in flames.  :-(

The rain has been endless.  The pond is permanently brown.

There have been moments of blue sky but then the black clouds move in yet again.  I stopped to take this photo while running to hop into Red.  It was a nasty storm to drive home in.

If you enjoy watching clouds it has certainly been interesting.  :-)

Of course that means it's great weather for working in The Sandbox.  So this t-shirt quilt top and memory quilt top have been finished and delivered.

I also quilted a charity quilt for Quilts on Wheels.  Another guild member made the top and I volunteered to quilt and bind it.  I took my inspiration from the book, Quilting Modern, and had fun playing with the settings on my Bernina to get the wavy effect.

It looks even better nice and crinkly after washing.  :-)

I didn't make this quilt either.  It's for the Heritage Day Quilt Auction and I volunteered to bind it.

This is the Auction quilt my bee put together at our retreat back in May.  Cathy quilted both of these quilts and apparently I had volunteered to bind this one too.  I think Cathy's quilting design complements the irish chain very nicely.  I hope it brings in a good price!

A wet Charlie after taking a shower with me.  :-)

The garage cleaning project (ugh!) continues.  The nice neat wall of tools and bicyles I posted a photo of was an illusion.  We have so much more to do!

Last weekend we sorted lots of stuff even though no one but us would know!

We packed the car full of items for both the dump and the thrift shop.  More garage work coming up this weekend.  Happy holiday!  :-)

This is the beeswax candle on our dining room table.  The coil is almost gone and I need to find a source for a refill.  We burn an inch or so at dinner time and when I look at it I can't help but think of all the lovely quiet time and conversation we've had at the table, just the two of us.  And of course, with three dogs laying at our feet and Charlie yelling from the other room.  Ahhhh.  Family life.