Summer...

I'm not posting much this summer but I have good excuses.  Really I do.  I can't remember them all right now but I'm sure I do.  :)

My biggest excuse is travel.  My husband and I went to England and Ireland for a couple of weeks.  I won't try to post a lot of pictures because, frankly, it's going to take me weeks to get them sorted and cataloged but I will share with you my very favorite place of the whole trip.

This is Anne Hathaway's family cottage.  For those of you who have forgotten your history - like me - Anne Hathaway was William Shakespeare's wife.  :)  I honestly felt like I was standing inside a postcard here!  The flowers were indescribable.  The scent of lavender was so strong in the air I just wanted to sit among the flowers and breathe it in.

Sweetpeas, hydrangeas, roses, daisies....oh my goodness.

And vegetables happily grew right in the middle of it all.  I'd never seen artichokes growing so that was a happy surprise for me.  :)

Ireland was beautiful, just as I expected, but in my mind the English countryside was not only stunning but also comforting.  That's an odd word I know but it was so neat and tidy and literally looked like a patchwork...a field of golden ripe wheat beside a a field of green oats beside a pasture of sheep.  Loved...

And here's a picture of my husband and I having dinner in Dublin.  Our 50th anniversary is this coming October so we were celebrating a bit early.  :)

Unfortunately the day before we got home my sister had a second stroke so, of course, I immediately got in the car and came to Jefferson City, Missouri, where I am right now.  She's doing fine...her speech is slow for her since she's usually a speed demon talking :)  and she is weak and tired but we're so thankful that it wasn't worse.  She assures me she didn't really have a stroke, despite the fact that she felt like a gun went off in her head, she couldn't talk, she couldn't see, etc.  Her ER doc and the other two doctors she consulted tell her she had a stroke, she has all the symptoms of a stroke, but her philosophy is if she doesn't believe she had a stroke maybe the whole thing will go away!

Yesterday I drove her down in the country to the Mennonite store to pick up a few things and in the afternoon we canned 7 quarts of tomatoes and 4 pints of salsa.  Today we'll can a few potatoes.  The garden is about finished now and it's time to plant a few things for fall but she's fighting dizziness so that's going to have to be put off another week or so.  She's a strong person, and strong willed too.  :)  So it will all get done even though it might be a bit slower than she likes.  We work a little, rest a little, work a little.  It's not a bad way to do things.

I'll just be here a few days before I head home to attend one of my grandson's wedding - I wouldn't miss that!  And when I get there I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the sewing room getting ready for the next two blog hops!

Can't wait to see what everyone is making!