Busy, Busy, Busy

I haven't been blogging because nothing has been happening, it's that too much has been happening. We have been volunteering at Greenfield Village twice a week. (This week we packaged and handed out seedlings.  We had the benefit dinner for Beaumont Hospital's Silent Children( they work with children with speech problems, mostly autism) We went to the Master Gardner award dinner. (Hubby got an award for 250 hours of volunteer experience. ( He puts out their newsletter and does some work on their maple syrup project.) Mary came up with Sofie and Hubby babysat while we went to the opera. This was his post on Facebook (Yay! I'm babysitting little Sofie tonight. Bedtime. Need to change diaper. Haven't done that in 35 years. Oh, good... just wet. HEY, close the floodgates! Her mom told me she would do that. Everything is wet. Can't reach paper towels. Maybe if I use about 5 of these baby wipes. Visions of Larry , Moe, and Curly flash before me. All thumbs. No replacement onesie. New PJ's will have to do. All's well that ends well.)

A Beautiful Day for Gardening

Today Hubby and I dug up our front garden.  It was full of wild onions and Clustered Bell Flowers mixed in with purple hyacinths and a few tulips and daffodils. It is all under a Japanese Cherry tree. It was way out of control. There were originally some iris and columbine and bachelor buttons too but the onions and the bell flowers took over everything.  So we took everything out. I carefully saved the bulbs I was sure weren't onions or those white star flowers.  I gave the Iris and bachelor buttons to my daughter Amy.  Hubby bought some humus and manure mix and we intend to plant pachysandra and put some tulips and daffodils back in. We don't need color in the front yard once the roses start blooming.

White Cane Drive

Hubby and I were out collecting for the Lions yesterday and today as part of White Cane Week. I wonder how many people, especially the young, know about a white cane tipped in red. We did pretty well in front of an Hiller grocery store.  It crippled us a little that Kroger initiated a corporate policy forbidding soliciting outside their stores. To tell the truth I wish we would find an equally profitable way of getting funds without standing outside in December in the cold as we do for the Candy Cane Drive.

Machine Quilting

I have wanted to learn how to quilt using my sewing machine. I have a quilt that I put together about 30 many years ago. It is really a disaster quilt.  It is part polyester and part cotton and the squares don't line up( it was one of my first quilts) (not that new ones are all that much better). Anyway I pieced the back with some left over fabrics and decided it would make an excellent quilt for practice machine quilting.
My first run through was so bad that I ripped out all the quilting and decided to "practice" again. Now the quilt also has blood spots from ripping out the quilting with my fragile old lady skin fingers. The second time the back laid flat.  My Bernina behaved wonderfully but even though there are markings on my walking foot for a quarter inch I often got distracted trying to maneuver the roll of quilt material while keeping the sewing area flat and feeding the needle evenly. After doing one direction of the quilting I was ready for a drink. (Some of my seams look like I already had several.)  Over all I feel better about the process although for a really good quilt I will probably stick to hand quilting for now.

Happy Birthday Hubby

Hubby had a party for his 70th birthday last Saturday.  We met at a local Italian restaurant and had a wonderful time.  He had friends there from Ford Motor Company, Lions Club, lots of friends over the years and children and grandchildren. I think he looked very young and dapper.