I've been busy!

I know it's been a while since I posted but things around here have been pretty busy. Some good things, some not so good.
I have had a recent finish and have been getting a bit of stitching done. My most recent finish is Fishing Mini Blocks from Hinzeit. I have had this in my stash for a while and finally decided to stitch it for Jerry. I didn't have the called for flosses (and no LNS any more) so I substituted WDW Scuppernong and WDW Tarnished Gold. I had a different gold first but the more I stitched, the more it looked like Green Bay Packer colors. I knew that Jerry wouldn't be pleased with that since he hates the Packers (sorry if you read this Kim! I know, he should be thrown out of Wisconsin!) It's stitched on 14 ct Fiddler's Lite fabric. I liked how it turned out. Now I just have to find a frame that will fit.

I am currently stitching on Spirit of America Angel by Brooke Nolan of Brooke's Books. This chart is from the July/Aug issue of Just Cross Stitch magazine. As soon as I saw this one I knew I had to stitch it. I think she is absolutely beautiful. This is the first time I have stitched anything on perforated paper aside from a few really small pieces. After all the work I am afraid she will get messed up or bent so I think I will frame her anyway. Here's the picture from the magazine and mine so far.



Last Sunday (the 14th) was our 29th wedding anniversary. I still can't believe we've been married that long. That's almost 3 decades! This is what we looked like way back on June 14, 1980. :o)

We really didn't have any big plans for that day. In the morning we went strawberry picking with Amy, Amber & Little Louie. It was a lot of fun. We got 10 pounds of strawberries for just over $10. They were only $1.25 a lb if you pick your own. You can also get prepicked for $4.00 a quart (1-1/4 to 1-1/2 lbs in a quart)I think Amy and Amber each picked about 5 pounds. Here are a few pics from that day.






Later that night Jerry & I made strawberry freezer jam (soooo yummy!) and froze the rest. Well, except for what we saved for cheesecake. :o) We're planning on going back the next few weekends because the season only lasts about 3 weeks. They were a little late this year because of the cool weather.
On the way to pick strawberries the girls gave us a card that Amber made. It was from Amy, Louie, Little Louie, Amber, Nate and Josh. Inside were papers showing b&w proofs of pictures that they had taken at J C Penney! Lucky for them we had decided to go see a movie at the exact time they needed to go so Josh was able to get out of the house with a dress shirt on. :o) Boy was it a surprise. They should be ready tomorrow and I can't wait to see them! :o) :o)

We have our garden all planted but it doesn't look to exciting yet so no pics. We have baby girl (cherry) tomatoes, early girl tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, green onions, radishes and tiny cantaloupe. Mmmmmmm...can't wait till it's all ready. :o) We had to put a new fence up because we made the garden twice the size. This guy (girl?) was in the backyard with friends a few days ago. As pretty as he (she?) is, the garden is ours!


Last week about 30minutes before Jerry had to go do crossing guard and I had to go pick Emma up from school the skies opened up and it absolutely poured! This is what it looked like in the backyard. The pic doesn't show the rain as hard as it actually was. We were lucky that it slowed to a sprinkle just before we had to leave. The puddles in the road were crazy though!


A couple of weekends ago Amy took Jerry to see the Indy race in Milwaukee. It was the Milwaukee Mile. Amy gets tickets through something and it included second row seats, headphones, free stuff, pit passes, etc. They went last year too and really had a good time. They had beautiful weather both times. Here are a few of the 50 or so pics Jerry came back with. :o)






My mother-in-law was released from the hospital in Madison today. She had a 7 hour surgery last Wednesday and was expected to be in there for 10-14 days. She is making a remarkable recovery! I haven't really said too much about it because I usually keep things like that pretty private. It was a stressful time for all of us for the past few months. She had someting that is called a Whipple Procedure. They removed her gall bladder, part of the small intestine and I think part of the liver and pancreas. That's from what I understand anyway. Things went very well and hopefully now she is on the road to recovery. Any prayers you might want to throw in our direction will certainly be appreciated. You can't have too much of a good thing, right? :o)

Well, time to wrap this up. I knew it was going to be long. I probably forgot stuff I was planning on writing about. Oh well, next time. :o)

Hugs to everyone!