A First

I get asked to sew things for other folks from time to time. Remember the swing seat cover for a patio swing? Yup, so I wasn't surprised when my church's VBS (that's vacation Bible school, for those not in the know) leader said, "hey there is something you could make for me", when I asked if she had all she needed. A pirate captain hat.

Well I guess I get the idea....
So after seeing this Mama Bee's blog, I followed her lead and

sewed the trim on to some fluffy felt I had on hand,

Added the ol skull & crossbones...

And TA DA! Hope it fits the captain!

Did You Watch?

So did you tune in to the opening ceremonies of the 30th Olympic Games in London? I LOVED the opening ceremony!

 

How can you not love Sir Paul McCartney?

And an excellent flame lighting ceremony. Very cool indeed!

And of course the company I work for P&G has a teary good commercial as they continue their Thank You Mom campaign. I can't wait to see the ones they have waiting for the rest of the games.
Click this link to P&G Family Home
if you want to see more about how P&G is supporting Moms at the Olympic games in London. I think it's really nice to see the company I work for, spend some money on something the world can see!
               

                                     

            

Deep Sigh

So I have spent a lot of time at the U of I hospital this week.

First DD had her gall bladder removed...all is fine! YAY!!!
Then Hubs had a call from his doctor at 8pm last night-Wednesday night...how often does that happen-a doctor call you in person at home after hours??? YIKES!! He says hubs red blood cells are too low and bring him in right away for a transfusion. Wait! You mean right away 8pm at night? Deep Sigh!!!!!

So off we go to the ER, I called in at work, we got there and we were there until 5:30am.
YES I SAID A.M.

Who knows how long it takes to pump in a pint-o-blood? I do!! about 3hours, times vary depending on flowrate though. But the good news is after all that hubs is doing fine. He's on an iron regimen and checks back in a couple of weeks.
Now I pray that's all the time we need to spend with medical professionals for awhile!

The Dark Knight

SO since the weather cooled down a bit, we took our summer pilgrimage to the drive in in Newton Iowa. The Valle Drive In  is about an hour from our house and a good place to see a movie.There was a pretty large crowd to see The Dark Knight Rises with Dark Shadows for the double feature. Just so you don't think the drive in is a fancy schmancy place, it's likely the only place you'll see the pack & play baby crib nestled between a Jeep and a mini van.

It might also be the only place you'll see kids on the roof of their gown-ups work van.

We got there in plenty of time to secure a great location, next to a couple in a Ford Focus enjoying their Pizza Hut pizza,  to munch our KFC drive through chicken, purchased moments before heading in the drive in gate. Gotta love the town of Newton!

 

So at intermission Ben was checking his phone and we  agreed, it wasn't that good. Sorry Christian Bale.

Really I was so disappointed to see so few cool "toys"! Batman has a utility belt full of great toys, not this time though-oh sure a couple of bat-arangs, and one toss out the hospital window to see Commissioner Gorden. BA-not cool enough! The bat cycle was tired, and I could go with out Batman pummeling Bane over and over agian! It was so out of character! AND speaking of out of character...Batman has a quickie on the floor in front of the fireplace with...Oh I better not say...but Batman has a higher moral standard than that! No fooling around, Batman!! And as much as I love Ann Hathaway-and she did look very shapely in her cat suit, her character had such a horrible script.....she could have been ANYONE! Poor Ann, I say! I did like Micheal Caine as Alfred-even though he totally needed a mustache.  I really hated the villain guy- he made no sense, his voice was almost unintelligible, and while him and Batman were pounding on each other-for waaaay more time than necessary-, why didn't Batman just rip his weirdo face mask thingy right off and be done with it?And the worst thing of all.....BATMAN'S VOICE!! AGGHHWWGGGHHHHH!!! Please!!!!  he sounded like a pervert making an obscene phone call after smoking 27 packs of Camel non-filters. And don't even get me started with the story line...I can forgive a lot-it is a comic book after all, but really this was so not good.
At least the popcorn was delicious!

Tomatoes

So the tomatoes are coming along. A little slow it seems to me. But I guess I should just be happy to have any at all in this heat wave.

 

This is the Early Girl. It seems like it's not any earlier than the rest! I am looking forward to having a good tasting tomato, you know how the ones from the store just aren't that good. Sure they're better than nothing, I guess, but they don't taste quite right

This one is the Mortgage Lifter-an heirloom tomato-I thought it was a goner when some critter chomped on his little stem. But he's doing all right. I can hardly wait for some delicious tomatoes. None of them are very large, but I hope I can keep them growing until they are ripe!

Walk Off The Earth

 So I'm not exactly cutting edge when it comes to music, but I read about
Walk Off The Earth
on another blog-here The Pioneer Woman . This Post by young Emilie is pretty inspiring.

I love them!
I think I better get up to date. If you go to YouTube and search Walk Off The Earth you'll also find the covers for many other tunes , but with a twist! Go watch this now!

It Wasn't The Dog

So my backyard has been a  regular beehive of activity. Saturday I had to call the mayor and tell him the lift station that is located in our backyard-but is owned & maintained by the city-was not operating. Remember it was really hot out too? Well a few minutes later Mr. Mayor & our city water guy were here. They suspected that the pump may have gone bad.  "We'll get the Honey Wagon in here a couple times a day until we can get that fixed" said Mr. Mayor. That was on Saturday.

Today is Friday! Look at the trench they have dug.

 

Turns out, it's not the pump it's the wiring! YIKES! So the trench for the wiring goes all the way up the hill and out to the street on the backside of our block. They had to remove part of our chain link fence toget the trencher machine in, but they'll put it back when they are done.

The electrician fella just left a few minutes ago, he wired the box on the pole at the lift station site. I told him I have dogs that can dig holes as big as this trench-too bad they won't dig WHERE you want them he said! Things are looking up now!

I Think It Came From The Starship Enterprise

I came home from work last night and was shocked to see a chair from outer space !!

Check this out my Spousal Unit got a deal-he won't say how much he paid-from his chiropractors office on this massaging chair. I don't think I've ever had a chair that had an operators manual!

You can put your feet in here and it will massage them! OMG! It is wonderful!!!!!

Look at this it has a clicker-more channels than a TV! You can have it massage your back or thump on your shoulders, or roll around your spine. AAHHHHHHH, it's quite amazing!

The Sewing Continues

It's pretty slow going on the retro flower quilt blocks. I think it will go faster now that I have the 1st ones done. I struggle with the patterns directions sometimes.

More contrast would be better in this one I think.

Starti9ng on the 3rd one now. I am in love with this cute pony fabric! I got it a Peg's Common Threads Quilt Shop, and it's called Painted Pony from Studio E Fabrics. THis photo doesn't really show it's pretty green color well though. Sewing on!

Oh I Almost Forgot...Costco

 I almost forgot-we went to the Costco store that opened last week in Coralville Iowa.
Costco Has stores all over the place, but this is only the 2nd one in Iowa.
I waited in line for about 45 minutes to get my membership card. I should have done it on line and then I wouldn't have had to wait in line. But Ididn't have anything else to do, and Hubs was paying,  soooo.

This photo shows the inside parking lot and entrance to the store. Those folks standing around on the far left of the picture are in line to get memberships. The indoor parking is really nice-not too hot! I think it will be great in the winter!

I only snapped one photo inside the store, I didn't want them to hate me. But it's a lot like a Sam's club. They have produce and furniture and meat and a bakery and a deli and an auto place and a little snack place and big TVs and computers and a pharmacy and a photo dept and an eyeglass place. On the day we were there they had folks handing out samples of all the food-if you're hungry, go in at supper time I guess. The prices seem pretty good, but I have to do the math to ensure I'm getting a good deal.  We bought Charmin in a big pack of 30 jumbo rolls 866.2 sq feet total. It was on sale for 19.99, and there was a $2 Costco Coupon for $2 off. SO I paid 17.99. This week Target had Charmin Mega roll 18 pk on sale for 20.99 total 751.5 sq ft. So I did get a better price at Costco. .027cents per sq. ft at Target and .020 cents per sq ft at Costco. Don't make me figure out how much per wipe that is......

Hot Lazy Sunday

I feel like Bob-just stretch out and relax.

Sandy just wants to eat her ice cubes and not be bothered with going outside in the heat.

Ahhh! This is such a good chair!

Supper at the Bluebird

Spousal Unit took me to supper on Friday. He said we're getting to be like old people. huh, well whatever!! So we popped over to the new Bluebird Cafe in North Liberty. It''s in the new plaza called Stonebridge Promenade, here's a Link to their grand opening information.

So the Bluebird Cafe is very pretty, neat and tidy, with comfortable booths and seating. While we were there the servers accommodated a large family group of 8, so they are flexible to meet the customer's needs.

They serve breakfast all day and are open until 9pm.
We ordered the fresh squeezed lemonade. It was OK, nothing too special, hubs added a bit of sugar to his.

I had the penne pasta in marinara sauce. It was OK. Nothing crazy or outrageously flavored, just plain old marinara. I wasn't a fan of the giant croutons, they tried to pass off as garlic bread...too hard to bite!! It was a very good sized portion though, I would have liked it a bit more saucy.

Hubs had breakfast for supper, eggs over easy, toast, hash browns and homemade sausage. The eggs were perfectly cooked. The hash browns were good too. Hubs wasn't a fan of the sausage, but I thought it was good, I swabbed some in my marinara (wish there had been a little more sauce) and it really helped my dish.  Service was wonderful, the servers were very attentive and we were perfectly well taken care of. I doubt if the Bluebird will be a regular stop for us for supper ( I think I should have went with the special-chicken salad croissant and we saw plates for other diners with burgers & sanwiches that looked great-that's what I'll have next time), but I think breakfast will be the best bet here.

4th of July 2012

So I'm a fan of Independence day.  Especially my small town Parade, and associated activities.

Old Tractors,

New tractors, politicians, horses, kids on bikes, kids on 4 wheelers, kids on hayracks, kids on utility trailers, kids in cub scouts, kids on softball teams, kids collecting candy!

Look at DD holding the umbrella so little Colton doesn't get sunburned. Colton and his big sister-standing by DD, are the kiddos of  Susan & Korby Brenneman. Cutie kiddos. DD graduated with Susan.

This little sweetie in the polka dot dress is Lilly. Her mommy is also a dear friend of our family's. She was 1 year ahead of uber son in high school. That handsome young man is her mommy's friend-goodness I just gave waaay to much information, didn't I!!!! DD is getting sun...how many times do I tell her to use sunscreen?

It was sooo hot-here's Uber Son with his girlfriend, and her Grammy, and her Dad  just waiting for the parade!

And I could watch the fireworks out my back door! YAYAYAY!!!!

Look I figured out how to post a video! At least I think I did. Here's where scardy-dog Sandy was the whole time.