Around the House

I've been working (a little) on my April Step. Surprise, surprise! You didn't think I'd do it, did you? I may not get the whole thing finished, but I'm making progress. And progress is the point, right? The one thing about quilting is that every few minutes of work put into a project is progress. It doesn't come undone unless you deliberately undo it. Every stitch you put in is there for good. Quilting is not like laundry or dishes, that need to be done on a daily basis. I think that's why I like quilting so much. I can always see progress, even if it's minimal.

We had a surprise visit from #1 son on Thursday. Here he is with Dad, just before leaving on Saturday.

Now you see him, now you don't.

Saturday found Pete hard at work in the yard. I don't know what it is about him and trees. He hates leaves. To his way of thinking, the best way to get rid of leaves is to either take away branches or take away the tree altogether. Saturday was a "War on Branches" day.

He didn't touch the tree on the left; he had his way with the tree on the right. (You can click on the picture to make it bigger.) He's now talking about pulling out the tree on the right completely. sigh. (I like shade and privacy. He likes things "neat and tidy.")

The neighbor's tree had a branch that hung over our yard by at least 15 feet, if not 20. You can see the stub at the top of the photo, where he chopped it. The tree didn't like his efforts, and rewarded him by conking him on the head as it crashed to the ground. Pete declared victory, since he was still standing and the limb wasn't.

You can also see that he chopped back the mandarin orange tree. We won't have mandarin oranges next year - all the blossoms went to the dump.

Here is the ground underneath the orange trees, once he'd finished. This is his favorite look: dry hard dirt. It's nice and clean and makes him smile.

It's best for me to stay indoors while he's busy in the yard. There's less conflict that way. On Sunday I whipped up a feast for our College/Career Fellowship. Since I was at the quilt show last week, I wasn't there to cook for them. When I am here, I make sure that feed them well, so they'll miss me when I'm gone.

Yesterday's menu was: bacon-wrapped steak, new red potatoes with dill, sauteed mushrooms, grilled onions, green salad, fresh Visalia-grown strawberries, angel food cake, lemon tea cakes and home-baked chocolate chip cookies. mmm-mmmm good. Conversation was at a minimum during dinnertime. I think they liked it.

And last but not least, here's Charlie. He's feeling MUCH better, and seems to have recovered from last week's fever. This morning he came in from an outdoor romp. Charlie, Charlie, you look so silly with those spiderwebs on your head. It is not a very attractive fashion statement.

And on that, I'm off and running. There are still wrap-up details to do for the quilt show. One of these days I'll be able to put BOTV 2009 to rest, but it won't be before the end of this week. Then, I might just get back to pictures of quilting.

A girl can dream....