What IS She Up To?

There are mountains of fabric piled everywhere! 

Just when I think this house (and most importantly her sewing room) can't hold another scrap, Mom makes a trip to the fabric store and comes back with MORE fabric, buttons, ribbon, rickrack, patterns, and who knows what else! 

 

The sewing machine will hum almost non-stop for several hours in the afternoon. 

Tea!

This past Thusday, a friend from church, Miss Sharon, took us to a tea house called The Potted Geranium  in Greensboro to celebrate my graduation. 

The house was built in the early 1800's. The owner beautiful restored it before turning it into a tea parlor. The house is my favorite style (square farmhouse) and it even has my much loved yellow siding!

The food was really delicious! Jacqueline and I had chicken salad on croissants with a house salad of spinach, cranberries, walnuts, some sort of cheese, and the most wonderful dressing!  Mom had turkey salad and the same type of salad as Jacqueline and I had.

We had a delightful time of food and fellowship. We really can't thank Miss Sharon enough for taking us there, especially since we will going there for a certain holiday in November! ( Yes, birthdays, especially mine, are holidays).

The gardens behind the house are lovely and very well kept. I thought this bird house was very cute.

Of course before we left, we had to get a little antiquing in. I bought three books one of which was pre-turn of century edition of Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. The edition is not in the best of shape but I thought it would go very nicely with the old book collection I have and I am rather a sucker for all books Elizabeth Gaskell.

The town is very quaint. This is the First Presbyterian Church. The brickwork and the magnificent doors are astounding.

Coming Soon!

The Classics

Cafe and Bookstore

Wouldn't that make a perfect bookstore & cafe? With the smell of fresh-brewed coffee, new books, and my homemade, right  from the oven, blueberry muffins, coffeecake, lemon squares, and maybe slices of apple pie in a glass case, it would be heaven, at least for me.

Blueberry Picking

We went blueberry picking with some friends and their small children last week.  It was so much fun!  The only problem is that we have to find something to do with 11 lbs of blueberries!

The bushes are huge and loaded with berries.

The berries really aren't that tart. Jacqueline just caught me in mid-air.I couldn't stop eating the blueberries! The whole way home I had one hand in the pail! I wonder if my tongue will turn purple!

11lbs!  We froze some (it is the only way Mom will eat blueberries), made some blueberry ice cream for Dad, and some blueberry muffins with struesel topping.

Swimming Lessons

Miss Laura and some other family friends asked us to teach their children how to swim. Jacqueline and I were a bit unsure at first since we aren't great on our technique but it has been a lot of fun. All of the kids are so sweet and fun to be around. We are meeting about 2-3 times a week in our pool with a 30 minute lesson and some free time after when all the moms and any children who aren't taking lessons can get in and swim too. We all thoroughly enjoy  both the fun with the kids and the fellowship with the moms!

The Shelter of God's Promises by Sheila Walsh

    In The Shelter of God's Promises Sheila Walsh presents nine foundational promises to help the reader get their eyes off their circumstances and looking into the face of God.  These promises include Provision, Peace, Confidence, Love, Grace, Hope, Strength, More (not materialism, but more of Himself), and Home (an eternal home).

     Walsh begins by reminding us that, "Culture has driven us to think of promises as personal fulfillment, when God's promises are not about us, but about Him and being saved by Him.  God's promises are an expression of His Holiness."  All of the promises rest upon us realizing that our life is about Him and bringing glory to Him.

What I appreciated most about the book is the way she entwines Biblical and modern examples and then continually brings us back to the place where we must learn to rest in Christ.  For example, under the promise of Provision, Walsh uses the example of the Feeding of the 5000.  We all know the story; but she draws our attention to Christ's compassion; not only for the 5000, but also for the disciples.  He puts them into a boat for a brief retreat, to help prepare them for what is to come.  Once the sermon is over, Christ requests that the crowd is fed.  Here, Walsh points out, the challenge for the disciples is not to concentrate on what they do or do not have, but about giving what we have to Christ and looking to Him for the answer.  The truth of the matter is that the disciples did not have the ability to feed all these people, and isn't that true of us also…."Without me you can do nothing" …we forget that and scramble around to meet the demands of the day.  But that is the whole point.  It's about God and what only God can do.

This book was a great encouragement.  I will keep it handy because it will be worth reading again.While my opinions are my own, I want to thank BookSneeze for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Freaky Friday!

Don't worry, we'll go back to normal tomorrow!

Catch-Up: Pool Part 2

Dad asked some of his buddies from work, Mr. Ron and Mr. Doug, to  help install the liner. These guys were a big help. I don't think that the four of us  could have done it by ourselves!

How many engineers does it take to open a box with a liner inside?

Laying the liner out

pulling it across the pool

Almost done!

Mr.Ron brought his dog, Abigail. She is twelve years old and spent most of the time in the shade.Jacqueline,  being the animal person that she is, instantly made friends with Abigail! 

The vacuums are to pull the air out and push the liner as close to the wall as possible until the pool can be filled with water.

After Mr. Ron and Mr. Doug left and we started filling the pool with water, Jacqueline and I decided to start sliding down the slope into the water. We did get fairly wet by the end but it was worth it!

                       The noise in the background is two vacuum cleaners going.We didn't realize at the time just how loud they were!          

Dad decided to stand behind us while Mom was taking our picture. But he slipped down the slope and crashed into us instead!

Wet, but very very happy!

Catch-Up: Pool Part 1

With as busy as we have been over the last month (and probably will be for the rest of summer), I haven't done a very good job blogging. So this is the first of a few " catch-up" posts.  

At the beginning of May, we replaced our pool liner... by ourselves! Those have to be the most grueling few days I've ever known! The entire bottom of the pool had to be re-surfaced! It took us several days just to do that. 

Mom and Dad did a trial run to see how long it would take to mix and apply the pool-crete.

Jacqueline measured 41" from the top so we knew how far up the wall to apply pool-crete.

 

Isn't she ornery? 

 

Me, catching a frog (or toad. I can't tell the difference!) that was living on the bottom of the pool

 

mixing pool-crete. 

Jacqueline would flip the pool-crete on the wall and Dad would smooth it out. 

Resting

Almost done for the day. Hooray!

Trowels at the ready!

 

Through out the very long ordeal, Jacqueline never lost her sense of humor. Here, she is hanging herself in despair. This humor usually kept the rest of us laughing our way through long days and aching backs instead of snapping at each other.

 Drink Girl.

"What would YOU do for a Klondike bar?"

Surveying his handy work.

 

" Are we done YET ?"

I'm FINALLY clean, and I'm very tired. So leave me alone.