Cleaning Out the Attic

Because of some concerns having to do with the structure of our house . . . namely, the weight of the book collection being upstairs and the added weight of Christmas decorations in the attic above . . . we're cleaning out the attic. These bins are just the decorations, but we still have the Christmas village, stuffed animals and "hope chest" items (more like "hope attic"!).

In case you don't hear anything else from this blog in the next few days, you'll know that we got stuck up there!

The Early Bird Catches the Worm

This year we joined the ranks of all the crazy nuts that wake up before sunrise to "hit the stores" on the day known as Black Friday. I know, you think that we really lost it. Well, actually, we've been crazy for years . . . but not quite this crazy!

The sale that caused all this was Flannel @ $1.29/yd. at JoAnn Fabrics. Ahhhhhh! You all know that wonderful saying, 'the early bird catches the worm', so we were up at 5:00am and at the store by 6:30am. By the time we left at 2:00pm (that did include a lunch break at Panera) we had bought pieces of 94 different flannels!

We're planning a bunch of baby quilts. They're great to have around in case of baby showers and/or unexpected gifts, and we only have one left in our stash from the quilt project. We also got quite a bit of flannel to make assorted nursery things for ourselves, as there were some prints we just couldn't pass up. In the end, all the day's purchases filled four medium-sized Rubbermaid Roughneck bins! Now it's on to Christmas secrets . . .

Samwise vs. Tricky Woo: Any Similarities?

"Tricky Woo". He's that fantastic dog character in the All Creatures Great and Small stories by James Herriot. He is an overweight, buff-colored Pekingese. His owner, Mrs. Pumphrey, is an elderly widow lady who spends much of her vast fortune on sweet, little Tricky. Tricky is never allowed to eat plain old dog food --- he eats dinners fit for royalty and always snacks on chocolate and bonbons. For his daily exercise Tricky mounts a large velvet pillow and is carried around by the gardener.



Elizabeth seems to see similarities between Tricky Woo and my cat, Samwise. Is that fair? Okay, so Sammy is 17lbs. and buff-colored, but he's not overweight, just a big-framed fellow. Okay, so he's sleepy for twenty hours a day and tired for the other four, but he gets up for his afternoon stretch and snack. He even walks himself to the food bowl! Okay, so he isn't the brightest tool in the shed and he eats anything on the floor that fits in his mouth --- but he never eats "people food". Okay, so I have spent a portion of our not-so-vast wealth on special toys that are only for Sammy, but he loves lying on my bed, on the five inches of memory foam and the down comforter, while you wiggle toys over his head for him to bat at with his paw.



Alright, so he's spoiled rotten, but he is the best cat in the world --- in my opinion. He waits to be the first cat allowed in our room every morning, and he's always the last one out at night. He stays in for some extra "lovin's", and is very vocal if he doesn't get enough! All in all, I don't see any resemblance between Samwise and Tricky, but . . .

Selling on eBay is . . . Fun??

It's that time of year when we're facing the idea that we're going to be closed up all Winter and Spring in the house with all the "stuff" that's around the place. So, the natural answer is to go through it and get rid of some of this excess stuff, right? That's exactly what we've been doing for the past two weeks. A lot of the stuff is just going out to the thrift store, but some of it has been going on eBay . . . you know, those old ship models that've been hanging around that nobody wants to put together, not to mention that we've decided to weed through the books and clean out the attic!

Yesterday was a big day. Mom and I spent a long time sorting through stuff, listing on eBay, packing up and taking pictures. Of course, the cats thought they would help too! They all voted this some very hard work, as shown by these pictures. Aren't they great helpers?!





At least Beatrice fell asleep on the job (right in the middle of calculating the shipping weight of a package on our very technologically-advanced baby scale), but the rest all had the nerve to get in their beds and baskets! They're cute company though, you gotta admit.
If you want to check out our eBay stuff just CLICK HERE.

Fall Pictures

Fall is here . . . and going quickly. Here are some pictures of what the yard looks like this week. It's not a very colorful year this time. The leaves are just kind of drying up and turning brown before they reach their full color.

You can see Dad's wood pile in the back yard there. He's got about half or a bit more put in the woodshed. He's having to build another extension to the shed, and that's almost finished. I'll post pictures of that once it's up!

Needle-Felted Project: Hawaiian Surfer Doll

This is the latest needle-felted wool doll. It is a Hawaiian Surfer gnome. He is 7" tall, weighs 2 oz. and took 20 hours to complete. He was made for Alex, so he has a home in Florida! His surfboard was made by Dad (out of wood) and painted by Elizabeth.

Click Here to See More Photos

It took a while to find a display case for him, but we finally found one that is made for model cars. It fit him like a glove! Dad got a little piece of driftwood and glued it onto the case. The surfboard is then glued to that and the doll's feet slide under the wood.

We're Back . . .

This post has been a while in coming, but we've barely been home since we got back. I am finally uploading a bunch of the pictures that we took, so here they are: Click Here for the Album

Here are a few pictures (just because I can't resist posting them)! First off, here is a picture of what we had for breakfast every day . . . pastelitos! That is the word for Cuban pastries, and the best are the ones that are long and thin (in the picture): they are filled with cheese. Coated in sugar, so they're not our dentist's idea of good food, but you've never lived if you haven't had one. ;) The square-shaped ones along the back, with the red filling, are guava-filled!

We got to meet Leilani, and that was so great! We had a really good time with Patty and Alex, and spent most of Sunday with them. We also had time to go over and see their new apartment (which includes Leilani's adorable nursery!). These are two pictures of Leilani while Mom and Elizabeth were holding her:



Okay, okay. She was awake some of the time, but I didn't really take pictures of her that way, so here are a couple that Patty and Alex took. Now you can really appreciate her cuteness!



Well, now that you've seen the really important stuff, you can go ahead and take a look at the album. We were able to visit with some of the extended family, and we even got to see Leilani baptized! I've had another gnome finished for a while, but, as it was a present for Alex, I didn't want to post pictures. Those will be coming soon, so check back!

Getting Ready to Leave!

Only two more days 'til we are in Florida! Wow, I can hardly believe that the time is actually here. We've been really busy this week getting ready, and getting things to take to assorted family members. Here are just some pictures of things that we've been doing, but I'll post pictures of the finished products later.



We're making a blanket for Leilani, which is all cotton flannel and will be long strips made into a ragtime quilt. We're also making a bunch of Rum Balls (or Bourbon, Kahlua, Chambord, Brandy and more!) to take down. We've got little tins and Elizabeth is going to wrap each ball in foil and put them in candy cups to make it look like a box of chocolates. Pictures to come!

Happy Birthday, Samwise!

. . . "For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow, that nobody can deny!"

Another year has come and gone, and Samwise, Frodo and Aramintie are another year older. They all turned four today! Wow . . . and to think that they're the babies around here. Seems like just yesterday that they were born in the dining room.

I tried to get a birthday picture of Sammy, but he just wasn't very interested. This is the most awake one that I got! He's a very sleepy fellow, in fact, he sleeps about twenty hours a day and is sleepy for the other four. Just kidding . . . sort of.

Counting down to Florida . . .

Only a week and a half from now and we'll all be in Miami! We're leaving next Saturday and returning on the following Wednesday, and we'll be staying with Dad's parents. The coolest part of it all though? Leilani is going to baptized that Sunday while we're there! Wow. How cool is that?! We're already trying to get things ready that we want to take down with us, and it looks like we're going to need several suitcases.

This past Saturday we went to another Fiber Show. This one was down in the Southern half of the state, in a place called "Yellow Springs". We still managed to come home with a big bag of wool! It seems that good old woolly sheep are "out" and llamas and alpacas are "in". Silly me, I still prefer to felt wool, so it's a bit harder to find stuff sometimes. I'll take some pictures of the colors that we bought. Mom and Elizabeth want me to felt some dolls that they can try to market and sell, so they've decided it should be an international collection. Christmas is approaching though, so I think that I'll probably have to start working on some secrets . . .

Goodbye, Little Joe.

This past weekend was pretty sad around here. We had to put one of our little kitties, Little Joe, to sleep. He had been failing for a while, but was still a very happy little bloke. Then, two weeks ago, on the advice of a vet, we had all of his teeth pulled. This would, supposedly, make him into his old self. Well, the surgery turned out to be a bad job, and poor Little Joe was left about sixteen dry sockets, and half of his jawbone exposed. There was nothing to be done for him, so Dad took him in to a vet on Saturday to go to sleep. He's joined the other kitties in the cemetery behind the shed. He and Aline were special pals, so now they're together. We are sad, but it was the best thing for Little Joe. Poor little fellow.

We would have had Little Joe for five years come December 22. He and Beatrice came to our house after we adopted them from the local shelter on the same day as one of our other little kitties, Deanna, went to sleep.

Introducing Mrs. Hood

Well, I have finally gotten around to posting pictures of another needle-felted wool gnome. She's actually been finished for about a month and a half, so I guess I'm just running behind. She is wife to Mr. Hood and mother to Pip (see their picture in a previous entry). There will also be a crawling toddler with her, but he's not been made yet! We actually ran into a friend of ours who had just had a baby, and that inspired me to make Mrs. Hood pregnant. :)

Click Here for More Pictures

I finished another needle-felted doll last night (he's not a gnome, really). This time it is a Hawaiian Surfer. He only took twenty hours, which makes him the fastest one yet! Elizabeth is painting his surfboard now, so we'll have pictures of him later. The Tomato Show starts on Wednesday, so he's going to be entered. We're saving the gnome diorama for next year, as there are still a couple to make.

The Resistance of Robin Hood and Rick

This past weekend, in honor of Mom and Dad's 25th wedding anniversary (which is coming up in a couple weeks), we took a trip up to Cleveland to see two classic films on the big screen: Casablanca (1942) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). We drove up on Saturday afternoon, stayed the night at a hotel, and came back on Sunday evening.

On Saturday night we saw Rick (aka Humphrey Bogart) resist the Nazis in the classic American style. [Rick pulls out gun and says "Put that phone down. I said put it down."] Then, on Sunday afternoon we saw Robin Hood (aka Errol Flynn) resist treacherous Prince John in the classic British style. Wow! Of all the old films that we've seen on the big screen The Adventures of Robin Hood had to be the most impressive. It was beautiful, and so enthralling.

(Click on images to enlarge them.)

We ate dinner at a little Italian restaurant on Saturday and had some of the best food ever. Elizabeth and I shared a pizza that was topped in garlic oil, mozzarella cheese, parmesan, pesto and Brie. Absolutely scrumptious! The next day we went to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch. The white pizza and Tiramisu cheesecake is something not to be missed.

Here are some pictures of the weekend. First is one of Elizabeth and me on the way to see Robin Hood. Next is Mom and Dad at dinner on Saturday, and then Playhouse Square on Sunday.

It's Leilani! She's here!

Here is the exciting news: we've got a new cousin! Our cousin just had her first baby, who is also the first great-grandchild on Dad's side of the family. Leilani arrived safely yesterday afternoon, she weighed 7lbs. 9oz., was 19in. long and she's so cute. Lord willing, we'll get to meet her at the beginning of October. Wow. We've already got the airplane tickets!

Behold, children are a gift of the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Psalm 127:3

It's the end of July already?!

Wow! Where has the time gone?! It's just flying away this Summer. Well, this has been a busy week, so I hardly know where to begin.

Mom and the two of us went "chair" shopping on Wednesday. Elizabeth and Dad really needed some new chairs up in the Library/TV Room as theirs were really worn out. There aren't a ton of furniture stores around here, but we found three of them and literally sat in every chair they had. I never thought that sitting was such hard work! ;)

The next day found me up in the Library cleaning the place out from top to bottom. Boy, was that a job. I was moving furniture and vacuuming all the deep, dark corners. Yesterday the new furniture was delivered, and it's perfect! I'll have to take a picture of it, but Dad got a new chair (a fancy recliner type) and Elizabeth and I ended up with a red, leather loveseat in our corner.

Here is a picture of our hops plant. It is growing up one of the clothesline poles out in the backyard, and all the little blossoms have started to pop out in the last week. Isn't it beautiful?! I am dying to see how it smells, but the blossoms are not big enough yet. This plant is a form of research for our WWII novel, as the characters live on a hops farm. I've read about the hops plant, but it's a lot more amazing in real life! More coming, and there is going to be some exciting news!!

When people speak of great men . . .

"When people speak of great men, they think of men like Napoleon - men of violence. Rarely do they think of peaceful men, but contrast the reception they will receive when they return home from their battles. Napoleon will arrive in pomp and in power, a man who's achieved the very summit of earthly ambition, and yet his dreams will be haunted by the oppressions of war. William Wilberforce, however, will return to his family and lay his head on his pillow and remember: the slave trade is no more."

That is a quote from the film Amazing Grace (2007). In the film the speech is delivered by Charles Fox MP, though is was, in real life, actually given by Samuel Romilly. The message is the same, though. We watched that film last night, and it really made me think of this Bible verse:

As for the saints who are in the earth, they are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight. Psalm 16:3

It is so easy to make "heroes" out of people in this world, and too often it is easy to make heroes out of people who don't deserve to be a hero. This verse is always something that I try to keep in mind, though, sadly, I don't always succeed. Wilberforce was an amazing man who did everything for God's glory, and yet more people do know Napoleon. How many other times does that happen, when the wrong man gets remembered. Yet, God gives us a promise in Proverbs that says "The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot."

Carrying this same topic into life, Elizabeth and I are always struggling to make sure that the people we "admire" (I won't say heroes, because I don't really have "heroes" in the sense of the word. We've known too many famous people, and known that they are just that --- people.). We have scrapbooks for autographs (not to mention that we collect autographed books as well) of movie stars, or any other people we feel inclined to have an autograph from. Some people we may like in one show, and others we may like in lots of shows. Then there are some that Elizabeth likes, but I don't (nothing personal), so I just don't have them in my scrapbook. We're always trying to make sure that the people in our scrapbooks are worth having in there.

This week we were really thrilled to receive a personal reply and autographed photos from Ciaran Hinds (he played Capt. Wentworth in the 1995 film of Jane Austen's Persuasion). What was even more thrilling for us was to find out that he's a Christian! Wow. He definitely got a special spot in my scrapbook already!

Dill Pickles and 'All About Eve'?!

Well, we've seen both in the last week. We got to see another classic film down at The Ohio Theater in Columbus. This time it was All About Eve starring Bette Davis, George Sanders and Gary Merrill. Well, okay, Anne Baxter was in it too, but she played Eve, so you aren't supposed to like her. :)


The quality of this reel was great, and it was impressive on the big screen. Wow! Most of the audience had not seen the film yet, so it was fun to hear people's reactions. George Sanders actually got a round of applause when he finally told Eve off.

We've been busy this week, as we got some of the first fresh produce of the season --- including blueberries! We went to a local produce auction (mostly Amish) and got green beans, cucumbers and tomatoes. We've already made three gallons of pickles and will probably do up one more tomorrow. Mom and Elizabeth made some fresh salsa too, and that was sure nice.

I'm working on another little felted gnome. This time it is another girl, so she is wearing "mary jane" shoes. At the moment she consists of two legs, connected to two feet, which are loosely connected at the hips. Poor thing. She looks quite pathetic --- but she's on her way to feeling better!

America: Why I Love Her

You ask me why I love her? Well, give me time, and I'll explain...
Have you seen a Kansas sunset or an Arizona rain?
Have you drifted on a bayou down Louisiana way?
Have you watched the cold fog drifting over San Francisco Bay?

Have you heard a Bobwhite calling in the Carolina pines?
Or heard the bellow of a diesel in the Appalachia mines?
Does the call of Niagara thrill you when you hear her waters roar?
Do you look with awe and wonder at a Massachusetts shore...
Where men who braved a hard new world, first stepped on Plymouth Rock?
And do you think of them when you stroll along a New York City dock?

Have you seen a snowflake drifting in the Rockies...way up high?
Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky?
Do you hail to the Columbia as she rushes to the sea...
Or bow your head at Gettysburg...in our struggle to be free?

Have you seen the mighty Tetons? ...Have you watched an eagle soar?
Have you seen the Mississippi roll along Missouri's shore?
Have you felt a chill at Michigan, when on a winters day,
Her waters rage along the shore in a thunderous display?
Does the word "Aloha"... make you warm?
Do you stare in disbelief When you see the surf come roaring in at Waimea reef?

From Alaska's gold to the Everglades...from the Rio Grande to Maine...
My heart cries out... my pulse runs fast at the might of her domain.
You ask me why I love her?... I've a million reasons why.
My beautiful America... beneath Gods' wide, wide sky.

Celebrity Autographs and New Gnomes

We've been sending off for some more autographs lately . . . and getting a few back in the mail! This has been lots of fun for us. Digging up addresses for some of the actors we like has proven quite a challenge. This week we got autographs from Joan Fontaine (Rebecca, Damsel in Distress) and Jane Powell (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers). We even sent some sheet music, and they both signed that as well! So cool.



Another exciting thing is that I finished two more felted gnomes!! That makes seven of them that are completed . . . only nine more to go. These two are going to appear in the Spring section of the diorama. They are a father and son (mother and baby sibling coming soon), so I tried to give them a family resemblance.

The Father's name is "Mr. Hood". He is 6-3/4 inches tall and weighs almost two ounces on the nose. It took 23-1/2 hours to complete him. He's also the first of the felted gnomes to have individually sculpted fingers.

Pip is five inches tall and weighs one ounce. He took about 24 hours to complete. He's the first gnome to have all ten fingers individually sculpted! He also stands up really well. CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PICTURES OF THEM.

I started another gnome. She will be "Mrs. Hood" and dressed all in shades of pink. More later.

Happy Birthday, Nelson Eddy!

Wow! Nelson Eddy would be 109 years old today! It's pretty cool to have our birthday only one day before his. Too bad that Mom didn't wait one day longer. Well, she doesn't think that . . .

We had a nice birthday and spent the day out. We went to Kohl's and had a "birthday spree" which was lots of fun. We got some really nice, new pajamas and capris. Shopping with Mom is always tons of fun.

Dad met us up there for Dinner and then we came home. Mom and Dad gave us some DVDs (mine were a Bing Crosby movie and a Nelson Eddy movie!). They also gave me a gorgeous occupied Japan statuette of a "colonial" figurine. I've got a collection of those, and he will fit right in!

I can't believe CHEO is over!?

Wow! That means that it is almost July!! Time sure flies when you're havin' fun. Mom spoke at the State Homeschool Convention this past Friday. It was held in Akron this year, so we made sure to print out directions to the hall. The new facility up there was really nice, and much easier to get around than the old hall in Columbus. Mom had a fair amount of people in her talk, and we were blessed by meeting some nice people after the talk was over.

Elizabeth and I enjoyed a walk through the vendors' hall. We got a cool book on archeaology from a Creationist's perspective. I'm looking forward to reading that one.

Yesterday we enjoyed an afternoon (and evening) visiting Buddy and Kay. We hadn't been to their house in ages, so it was really nice to spend time down there. We played with their cats and saw tons of hummingbirds! Their hummingbirds aren't shy like the ones at our feeder. Dad fished in their pond and caought a bunch of fish, including a bass! We girls stayed in the house (naturally) and listened to some of Buddy's music. :)

I finished another little gnome, so I'm hoping to post pictures soon. Got to go check on the oven right now!

Relax and Learn to Take It Easy . . . Not.

That may be good advice to relax and learn to take it easy, as the songwriter wrote, but it never happens around here! :) We've been so busy that I've barely had a chance to do any blogging. Two weeks ago we saw It Happened One Night at the Ohio Theater, and here we are standing in front of the marquee.


All week we've been picking and preserving cherries from our very own tree. This is the best year it has ever had since we put it in about twelve years ago. This year it gave us 33lbs of sour cherries, not to mention all of the other cherries that the birds have eaten! The bowl full of them on the scale is from the last picking which gave us about eighteen pounds of fruit (once you've subtracted the weight of the bowl). We've preserved some in a traditional German fruit salad, canned some of them and even made a fresh pie!



Another fun thing that we made was a fondue! That was good! This is only the second time that we've attempted this and was much more successful with a little practice. The first time we tried this was at New Year's and the house was a bit too cold. Translated that means that the fondue cooled off and turned into a rubber-like substance that had to be cut instead of dipped. Boy, was that a funny meal! This one was perfect, however, and we're hoping to make another one for our birthday next week.

Yesterday we had quite an interesting "problem". A sparrow must have climbed around our chimney cap and fallen thirty feet down into our wood stove. Thankfully there was no fire in it, but there was a full bed of ashes which must have cushioned the fall. The sparrow was fine, probably just a bit confused. The cats are the ones who alerted us to this little visitor. They kept looking in the stove window, and when the first two were staring in there we thought they were just noticing their own reflections in the glass. When the third one came along it became a bit obvious that something fishy was going on. Dad, being the brave hero that he is, came home from work and got the bird out and let it fly out the kitchen window. Hooray!



Little Beatrice (she's the little black cat in the picture) has been pretty obsessed with the stove all day yesterday and today. She keeps staring in the window looking, probably hoping, for another bird to "drop in" for a visit. :)

CAPA Summer Movies at The Ohio Theater

Summer is finally here, because the CAPA Summer Movies are in full swing down in Columbus. Last year was the first time that we ever went to one of these movies, but it's fair to say that we were hooked after the first one. They've been playing classic films on the big screen every Summer for forty years now. The theater originally opened as a movie cinema, but it's used for all kinds of theater productions now.

Last week we saw two films: Frank Capra's It Happened One Night and that great musical, Singin' in the Rain. Wow! There is nothing like seeing those old films on a big screen. And that's not to mention seeing a musical.

For a half hour before each film starts, during intermissions and ate the end of each film famous organist Clark Wilson, plays gorgeous music on the theater's fantastic pipe organ. It is one of the last organs of its kind with almost three thousand pipes! Mr. Wilson's renditions of the Singin' in the Rain songs were really great. And don't say that you think organ music is boring, because even though it usually is his is not.

We've got three more films coming up down at The Ohio, and I can barely wait. We've also found some old films playing up at a theater in downtown Cleveland! So, in August some time we get to see Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood! Imagine Errol Flynn swinging out of a tree to greet Maid Marion . . . all on a big screen. Sigh.

"You'll never see the likes of this again . . ."

That was said by Frank Sinatra, in reference to Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell's dancing skills as well as the classic movie musicals of the 1930s through the 1950s. Well, he was sure right. Classic films from those decades are something that we'll never see the likes of again. Nowadays everybody is too "beauty" conscious --- with a total disregard of talent outside of beauty.

Mom has always raised us with old movies and music, not mention a love of history and old things. In fact, our house is filled with old things and could resemble a museum if you looked closely. I was just born fifty years too late, because my favorite everything is from 1935 through 1947. How sad. Someone told us once that Elizabeth and I have "old brains" (he meant it as a compliment). You know, he's right. We certainly have a strange sense of reality, since we feel more comfortable in black and white, a forty-eight star flag and a day when there were no overhead lights around the house. Most of the time I have a "detatched" feeling to this modern era. I mean, people sit at the movie theater and text one line, meaningless messages to their friends . . . instead of watching the movie that they just paid to see. You can't go out to lunch with people because they have to check their cell phone eighty times, just in case someone gives them a call. Someone they would obviously rather be with than you.

Ahem. Now that I've got that off my mind we can get to the real reason for this post. Over the last few weeks Elizabeth and I decided to start sending for autographs from film stars that we like. Most of my favorites have been buried for a long time now (Nelson Eddy would be 109 years old this month!), but we have found a surprising number of the "classic" film stars to write letters to who still sign. Several years ago we sent for autographs from Deanna Durbin and Esther Williams, and were thrilled when they were both successes.

This week we have received two more really cool autographs!! A couple of days ago Lauren Bacall returned our pictures with personalized autographs. Really cool since she never personalizes. :) We sent pictures of her and Humphrey Bogart at Malabar Farm when they got married. Since we've been to Malabar Farm quite a lot over the years it has always been special that two of our favorite actors were actually married there. Wow! I love Lauren Bacall. She's a great example of beauty and talent!



Then today we received personalized photos from Doris Day! How cool is that?! We've been fans of hers for years. Her two LP set "Hooray for Hollywood" is some of the best music you'll ever here. We've actually had to stop listening to it until Elizabeth has a chance to turn it over to CD. The records are in danger of actually loosing their grooves.



We've found several other film stars from the classic film era to send fan mail to, so hopefully we'll have more things to post. We've actually found quite a surprising number of modern people to send to as well, mostly from British TV shows. It's been really fun collecting addresses and sending letters (we'll probably be working on more this evening!). Now all we have to do is start putting the autographs into a scrapbook.

Another really fun thing that started this week was the Summer Movie Series down in Columbus. They play classic films at a theater in downtown for a couple months every Summer. It's a bit of a drive to get there, but sure is worth it! Yesterday afternoon we saw the first of the season: Hitchcock's Rear Window. I've never been a fan of that movie really . . . thought it was boring, if you want the truth. But it sure is amazing what a difference it makes to see things on the big screen. Wow! I really enjoyed it and was on the edge of my seat for the finale. On Thursday we get to see Capra's It Happened One Night (one of my favorites). I'll post more on that later this week!

Finally . . . No More Christmas Decorations!

Guess what!? This week we finally got all of the Christmas decorations down! At least, as far as I know . . . there are always the few things that seem to get forgotten in some little corner. Much longer and we could have left them up 'til this Christmas. No thanks. These are some of the old balls that we were packing up from the tree upstairs. I love old Christmas balls!


This time of year is the prettiest, as far as the flowers go, so who can help but take lots of pictures of them?! Here are some more pics of the garden out back and a new iris.

Well, I've got another little gnome done (actually finished him a week ago) and will try to get pictures of him soon. We are going to a fiber show tomorrow, so I'm hoping to come back with new colors and hair colors, otherwise all the little gnomes will have the same five hair colors! More later.

The Garden at its Peak!

It's been ages since I posted anything, so here are a bunch of pictures to make up for the wait. The garden is looking absolutely beautiful this year and the plants have really grown and spread out. These pictures are all from the last two weeks, so you'll see the peak of most of the flowers.

Just click any of the pictures to see them full-size.

We have planted a whole row of lilacs and peonies in the front of the house (you can see it in the center picture above) to form a bit of a breaker between us and the road. The last picture up there is a brand-new peony named "Shirley Temple". Can you guess why we bought that one?!

I'd write more, but I'm almost finished with another little gnome, so I'm off to work on him. We've had a busy few weeks lately, but this weekend should be a bit slower. More later.