Yes, I'm Still Alive!

I'm not going to give excuses. Yes, I've been super busy, but not all of it was work! Here are a few highlights of the last year! (I'll show you quilt updates toward the end!)

We've been hosting lunches and dinners for friends. My sweet husband gave me a set of mid-century transfer ware  (English Staffordshire called "Welcome Home") that I can use in the fall and winter months for entertaining.  

We've been working slowly but surely on the next stages of this house. (We finished the stairway!!

We've bought a game camera and discovered that in addition to the deer, we've been visited a bobcat, a family of foxes, a family of raccoons, an occasional porcupine, an occasional possum, and a whole rafter of wild turkeys.  (Thank you, Google, I would never have called a bunch of turkeys a rafter!)

We've taken my Mama and Daddy to Boulder Dam so he could revisit his childhood home in Boulder City. My granddaddy worked at Boulder Dam while it was being built. He started out as a scaler and ended up as an electrician. We walked into the museum in Boulder City and the first picture we saw had my granddaddy right in the center!

my daddy talking to the historian

my granddaddy, third from left

We've gone on a 4,000 mile road trip to Yellowstone and back, (2,000 miles each way), stopping to climb into cliff dwellings, to examine petroglyphs, to see forest, mountain, and desert scenery. We've hiked, climbed, crawled, and walked. We've tasted regional foods. We've stood on mountaintops and waded through streams in the valley. 

We've seen bison, elk, moose, bears, and even a wolf. 

We've seen  geysers that shoot many feet into the air as well as colorful bubbling hot springs.

"We've" has modified my Jeep so that I have to climb up into it and jump down out of it, so "we've" bought me a new electric hybrid car that I love!

Now the things I have done alone:

I FINALLY finished the Spring in the Country quilt pattern that people have been asking me about for 2 years. 

Spring in the Country 

I have even made a few quilts just for my family and not to make a pattern from.

I revived an old love of decorating cakes and made some for a few wedding showers.

I built a papier mache tree in a classroom. (sorry, no after picture, just during the process)

I am healthy, happy, and just as sassy and silly as I ever was! (My sister jokes that I am a "princess".)

This has been a time for family and friends. I do not regret spending time for them or with them. My parents will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary later this summer and I will celebrate my 48th with the man I have loved for what seems like forever!! (And what a wonderful forever it has been!)

I will try to pop in every now and then to keep you updated and to share new patterns and tutorials.  I have updated my Patterns page. Thank you for hanging in there with me!!!