Is It Fall Yet?

I decided not to go to church this morning - at the football game Friday night I got too hot and was sick for hours after.  I had cold chills and was nauseated and it left me exhausted.  So I slept in today and then put out some of my fall decorations.  I love doing that!  I also cut up a dozen apples I had, added some sugar (just a tiny bit), a spoon of brown palm sugar, and some apple pie spice.  It's in the slow cooker now simmering and filling the air with a sweet aroma.

I've done a bit of stitching this week.  I completed  Peppermint (Little House pattern) and Joy...

This is a wool banner (pattern by Primitive Gatherings) that I'll use on one of my mantels this Christmas.

And just for fun here's a picture of two of my favorite fall decorations - two small hand stitched wool pumpkin pillows and a hand appliqued Pumpkin quilt.

Not great pictures but we've finally gotten a cloudy day with a hope of a little rain!  It's been a long time since we had rain so we have our fingers crossed.

I started working on a new cross stitch piece last night, a primitive piece, and after getting two rows of the border in realized I used two threads and should have used one.  It would be ok except I think I might not have enough thread (it was a kit).  I guess I'll go back and take it out.  :(  And even though I worked one whole day this week cleaning in my sewing room it's going to take another day to get everything put away.  Guess that will be my project for the next couple of days since I have a meeting and some errands to complete as well.  Have a great week ya'll and blessings to you!

Here and There

I'm still on the road more than I want to be but I think that's coming to a end in the next few days.  We went to visit my older brother for the day and drove home watching this beautiful sunset.

It's not a great picture since I took it with my cell phone but isn't that stunning!

We also drove down to Monroe, LA and picked up my youngest brother who was in the hospital there getting two more heart stents - he's up to over 30 now.  We took him home and sat on his front porch with he and his wife watching the rain.

My sister and aunt came to visit for a few days and after our aunt went to visit a cousin, my sister and I spent lots of hours sitting on the deck watching the lake and talking about getting older.  Do you remember when you were younger saying you weren't ever going to be one of those old women who sat around talking about what was wrong with them?  We've turned into those old women anyway.  :)

I found this picture on Google images and even though it's not my sister and I, it made me think of us and smile.  :)

And now we're at our son's for a couple of days.  He's a high school football coach so we went to the football game last night. Today we met my cousin and her husband for lunch and then went to visit her mother (who is my ex-aunt...is that really a real relationship?...) who I had not seen in over 50 years and even though she didn't know we were coming she recognized me!  She was amazing!

Andrew, our grandson who is 6 and in kindergarten, was enthralled with the tiny little mouse our son caught in the mousetrap last night - he'd been spied the night before scampering in our granddaughter's closet.  So he announced in class today that he "had good news and bad news....the good news is we caught a RAT last night and the bad news is there was blood EVERYWHERE!"  That was just a bit exaggerated.  :)

Andrew and his best friend have played until they can't play any more!

Tomorrow we'll head home and I hope I'll be staying for a while!  I'm doing some cross stitching, finishing up some quilt UFOs, going to a quilt group meeting and doing what my older friend says - "every woman needs to sit in her house sometimes and just look at her stuff."

Home Again, Home Again

I love being what I call a "part-time missionary" but sometimes that service seems long and home seems so far away.  I was at the mission this last time for two months and my husband didn't get to go with me (though he did get to visit one weekend and I came home one weekend) so when it was time to come home last week I could hardly wait.  I've been busy, but it's a good kind of busy.  When I've been away for a while I want to "nest" when I come home.  I've cleaned out drawers and closets and pantries.  I've shopped and replenished canned goods and done some dehydrating.  Dehydrating is one of the easiest ways to store food and takes little effort.  This week I've dehydrated 18 bags of soup vegetables and some squash.

You can dehydrate frozen vegetables so I buy them when they're on sale - in this case Kroger had them $1.00 a bag.  The soup vegetables have onions, celery, carrots, peas, green beans, potatoes.  I can throw some of these in the crock pot this winter, along with some chicken broth and canned chicken and have a wonderful soup.  Or I can add beef broth and cooked hamburger and tomatoes.  The squash can be added to soup, rehydrated and then simmered with a little butter and onion or made into a squash casserole.

I want to do some canning but that will happen later when I'm not so tired from the time away from home.  Soup is my husband's favorite thing to be canned because when I'm not home he can just open up a jar and have a home cooked meal.  Since he hunts venison is our meat of choice for soup so next time I make venison soup we'll have one meal and I'll can the rest.

In the evenings I've been stitching.  I'm not fast but doing a little every day makes for some progress - I'm like the tortoise I suppose, slow but steady.  I finished this one I showed last time I posted...

I think I'll make this into a small bag to hang on a doorknob somewhere.  And then I started some Christmas, to make me think cool in the awful heat!

These are destined to be ornaments.....and hopefully before it's time to hang them on the tree.  :)

Today I'm off to see two of my siblings to celebrate Mother's birthday.  She would have been 91 today and I baked her favorite cake - Coca Cola Cake, with lots of pecans.  Our 4th sibling, who planned to come, made an unexpected trip to the hospital last night and this morning had his 30 something stent inserted.  Prayers for him would be appreciated.