Making Things Pretty

As I dusted my family room, I was thinking about a post I read with my coffee this morning. My friend, Copperswife, shared a quote in a post titled, Gracious Living. It was a simple, yet powerful quote and had me thinking as I polished my tables. When I came to "my" table, this is what I saw.....
I sit next to this table and do all my hand work...applique, quilting, binding. That little brown pottery bowl holds ALL my supplies for all of these tasks. The dip container (I know...kinda tacky) holds my prepped leaves for my current applique project. Note the little papers from last night's finished leaves. I decided to make this area look more "gracious". The dip container gave me an idea..... My Mother-in-Love had bought me this beautiful set of ceramic bakeware and included were 2 small dip bowls with rod iron/wicker holders. They are very pretty. I pulled them out and filled one with all my applique supplies. The other holds all my hand quilting supplies and I left my binding supplies in the brown ceramic bowl. Right now I am only using the applique supplies, so the other bowls are on my sewing table in the studio, ready to pull out when I need them. The area looks much nicer and more inviting than the "Helluva Good Dip" container sitting there.
Gracious Living....it is in the smallest of details. Go read the quote....I am writing it on a card and posting it on my frig!
Yesterday, I did go back to the dry cleaners, and yes, the same lady was there. Zachary and I entered the store with a smile and and a cheerful hello. I chatted with her while she completed my order and again, thanked her for being so kind as to forgive my harshness from the last visit. She was very sweet and treated me with the utmost kindness. I wished her a very blessed afternoon and left with a smile, and Zachary with a sucker...compliments of the lady. ;) Making that phone call was NOT easy for me. It was a big slab of humble pie and I did it KNOWING she was wrong and I was right...at least in theory. I read this post after dinner last night and my attitude about making that phone call changed instantly. I was so glad I did it.
My mom and the kids and I went garage sale-ing yesterday. I got some great stuff. I don't buy junk...usually. This item, may appear to be useless...and in my home it is.
It is an old bag filled with old time clothespins. I have no clotheslines...that is another rant, but I will keep it to myself...and there is no usefulness to this, but it makes me happy. It looks quaint hanging in the laundry room near the washboard my Father-in-Law gave me years ago. It is the washboard used to scrub diapers in their home some 60 years ago.

I did find some wonderfully useful items. These books were a treasure to find!!! At a buck 50 each I could not pass them up. Little did I know the value that would be in those pages!Great American Quilts 1989 caught my eye, because it is around the time I started my first quilt. It has patterns for so many quilts I could see myself making! Lovely stories of quilt-makers and their designs from the 80's. A perfect book for my library!The Bazaar Patchwork book is loaded with "Gracious Gifts", a gorgeous sampler quilt and some great Christmas projects! I plan to try a few of these soon. Look at that cute heart and hand needlebook in the lower right-hand corner. Too cute!And who can pass up an Amish/Mennonite Cookbook??? Especially one filled with quilts!!!! I plan on using some of these recipes very soon. The photography in this book is incredible!!
There were some other wonderful purchases made, especially one from my mother for Charlotte, but you will have to wait to see that one. ;) Kyle and Zach came home happy too. Kyle with a couple of movies and a WoW Worship CD, and Zach with a new-to-him baseball glove (that was like new anyway) and a softball, so now he can throw the ball with dad and big brothers! It was a good day for all of us.

Today will be sweltering hot so I plan to finish up my dailies, get my laundry done, and applique leaves! I am on side 3, and hope to see side 4 before bedtime!

Thanks for stopping by!!!!

Work Day/Fun Day

Friday found Sassy spending much of her day on bug patrol. That cat LOVES bugs! Birds are her next favorite, but bugs rank way up there! Friday was a work day for me. I spent most of the day in the kitchen. I made homemade meatballs and spaghetti sauce, (not so homemade), all put into the crockpot to simmer the day away.
I also made homemade chocolate chip cookies. Sweetheart has been asking for them for a while! Since he took the day to go work at his mom's house, I thought I would treat him. He was very pleased!Charlotte made bread. Now Charlotte is a wonderful little kitchen helper. Yesterday, however, was a struggle. We were experimenting on whether or not she needed her meds. Her hyperactivity is completely gone. Her behavior was great over the few days we stopped her ADD meds. I was certain it was a go to stop the daily pill I dread giving her. That is until it came time to supervise her reading of a recipe. Oh. My. Gosh. The poor girl could not get it right for ANYTHING. (we are on Spring break so there has been no school.) She said, "My brain won't let me see it correctly." We worked together, but our experiment was over. Though we are lowering her dosage, she still needs to have her meds to focus. We finally managed to get the dough going with the proper amount of the correct ingredients!This pull apart bread was a HUGE hit. The recipe is in the previous post!With all the kitchen work, I had sink full after sink full of dishes......I will share something strange about myself with you all. Have you ever heard of a fleece? A fleece is where you say to God, "If You do this, then I will know I am suppose to do this." Well I don't do that. I do not believe in fleeces, however, I make deals, which many of you may say is the same as a fleece. I am not making a deal with God....I am telling myself something. For example, I told myself if Hope (the sick little cat we cared for) survived, then my son's family would survive too. It was a deal I made with myself. Of course, you know Hope died and so did my son's family. Now I have convinced myself that if I wash all my dishes by hand, another situation will resolve itself. Crazy, I know! LOL. My poor mother offered to buy me dishwasher soap thinking I was doing the dishes by hand for the last week because I had none. I actually have a brand new package, unopened under the sink. When there is a situation I can not control, or even begin to fix, I have to feel like I am doing something.....I do pray also. I actually pray about that new situation while washing dishes!!
So that was the work day.....Now the fun day. NO WORK TODAY. Sweetheart went back to his mom's this morning and took Charlotte with him. That left me and the boys (Kyle and Zach). On Easter, my son, Bud, brought me a new card game.He knew we loved Phase 10 and this is a new version with a twist. I LOVED IT....so did my mom, so she came to spend the day while my dad golfed.That is her talking to the drug store on speaker phone. We played a series of 3 games. Well, Bud stopped over and played most of a game that I had started with her, but we did not count that in the series. If we did, I would have won and she could not have that. So she beat me, seriously, 2 out of 3 games. At the end she gloats and says in a sing song tone, "Add em up, Buttercup." She is a very gracious winner.....NOT! We also made a quick run to Target and then out to lunch. Truly a fun day.
I have also been working on the flowers of the Underground Railroad Sampler over the last few days. I have all 4 sides DONE. Now just 1 more flower in each of the corners, which will be done tonight and then on to the leaves.
It is so much fun picking fabrics to create the different flowers.There are only 4 colors in this quilt (not counting the gold stars and centers of the flowers). Brown, Green, Blue, and Red. I can not pick a red fabric for the bigger base flower, because of the red border. It would never show up. This limits me greatly, but the challenge has been enjoyable.Since it is "fun day" I am not cooking.....hot dogs on the grill and chips for dinner! Better get them on before Sweetheart and Charlotte get home.
Hope you had a fun day too!!!
Blessings, Bren