Memorial Day Apple Pie 

My new pie plate. 

A trip to Kittery

George and I made a little trip to Kittery, Maine yesterday to go to the fashion outlets. Fashion? Most of what we shop for is at Corning, and we always hit the Villeroy and Boch "clearance closet", Pfaltzgraf outlet, Crate and Barrell and Lenox. Yesterday we bought a new pie plate. That may not seem like a big deal, but all my old reliable pie plates are big, and I wanted this one because I can make pie for two...and because it is pretty. It wasn't even on sale.

Villeroy and Boch is my favorite store, and my favorite line of china. I wish I was doing it all over again, and I would get a set of their beautiful French provincial. Everything in that store just suits me fine. It is expensive and worth every penny.

I dropped into the Coach store to lust after the handbags. Even on sale, they are way above my budget. The sales clerks were very attentive, if not intrusive. I was looking at a small wallet, to find the price. The young lady came up to me and said that it was now $99, but that originally it was $287.00. I told her, rather sweetly I thought, that originally it was overpriced. There was a beautiful straw bag marked down to $180 that really wanted me to take it home, but I decided that ... I needed to run away.

Today is church, the last day of Sunday School, and then another day of finding out what kind of trouble we can get into. I know I need to work on more jewelry and am going to make some crocheted necklaces for my Ebay Store. I hear the customers clamoring for more. I hope.

Have a great day.

Edible flowers!!! Thank you Mike and Michelle!!! WOOHOO!!!! 

The weekend is here!

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Sunny and Cool.

It is hard for me to imagine living in Oklahoma, where it is in the 90's most of the time. I was there in the beginning of April to see my mom, and already it was shorts and sandals weather. Here in Massachusetts I still have my electric blanket out. Not on, exactly, but at the ready. It is in the 50's this week, and I'm wearing a sweater in the office. Hard to believe how warm most of the rest of the country is today. I believe the northeast has a cooler spring than almost anywhere. May is usually a rainy month here, and this month we got nailed! 15" of rain in places. The grass is green and high and every blessed growing thing has grown a foot--even the weeds and poison ivy along side the roadways.

When I was a kid, we used to go on a fishing trip vacation to northern Minnesota every July. The weather was always fresh and cool and sometimes sunny. I only remember one rather dull week when it rained every day and we never saw the sun once. That was a dud of a vacation week. Yet we never caught more fish that we did that week. They were flinging themselves into the boat.

This year, in the middle of July, George and I will be at the cabin in Northern New Hampshire, praying for sunny days and laughing through the raindrops. It is a lovely place no matter what the weather.

Sometimes summers in the northeast remind me of Minnesota summers. We have our hot days, but usually the weather is mild and nice. Peoople who complain about the weather here have never lived in Chicago!

Have a great day.

Sunday Morning

I think Sunday mornings must be relaxing for some people. Not for me. Since I committed to teaching Sunday School, Sunday mornings start early and end late. I really love teaching the kids, and the class prep materials are well done and easy to follow. Our church was having trouble getting people to be teachers. I didn't plan to be a sunday school teacher, but they asked me to commit for a month, and I taught the first Sunday and loved it. I asked to be put on full time. I believe I shocked them. Teaching Sunday School means you have to be at church every Sunday, and you have homework. I don't mind. They children are happy and eager to be in class and I love to be there with them.

I'm busy this morning getting the craft materials together (bookmarks today) and getting to church early for bell practice. The bell choir is playing "Beautiful Savior" as the prelude today, and I really love this piece because I play almost every note with one bell or the other. It is fun to play, and we play it well. We will be finished with Sunday School cleanup about 12:30 and will stop at Panera's for coffee and a delicious bagel.

Yum.
Have a great day.

I see the sun!

The sun is out today and no one can quite believe it. We all came out of our holes with our eyes blinking in the bright lights. Seven days of hard rain will do that to you. There is still lots of trauma from the flooding and several roads are just opening up near us. People who lived near rivers now live IN the rivers, so we all feel bad about that.

Michael is 33 years old today! YAY Michael! What a great day in my life it was when Michael was born. I watched the first day of the Watergate Hearings on TV, and was transfixed with the process. I had labor pains all that day while watching TV at home, called Bob at work and went to the hospital at 1 p.m., had a baby at 4 p.m. and my dinner at 6 p.m. I always say I had a baby and still didn't miss a meal.

Happy Birthday Dear Michael! I love nothing better than being your mommo!

Windshield Wiper Alert

It has rained for four days. The total inches in some parts of Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire is 15". The rivers are above flood stage, and many basements are full of water. There are thunderstorms forecast for tonight. George and I took a side trip today and saw many houses with sump pumps going, and several lakes that were up to their tops, and rivers where streets used to be. Downtown Peabody, a town not far from us, is under water, and the huge Rt. One thoroughfare to shopping near us is closed down completely. We discussed the fact that if you lived in Rockport, or other towns that are near the ocean, your only highway to Boston is now down to one lane in places, and traffic is stopped up for 30 miles. Two and three hour delays are the norm on any Boston highway.

In all of this devastation, we have another little problem. George's car windshield wipers are stuck on ON. They won't go off. We laughed and agreed that it was not too much of a problem now, but will be when and if the sun every comes out again. Squeak Squeak they go, if the rain lets up. It is a funny problem.

Schools are out, many people's lives are disrupted, so my traffic to and from work is light and I'm looking forward to a nice long Monday night at home. Thank goodness we are on a hill, and our basement only seeps a little. We are safe and snug. And the wipers stay ON.

Have a great day.

The weather today is....atrocious!

The weather forecasters in Massachusetts don't fool around. When they say it is going to rain and to get out the sand bags, they mean it! The rain started yesterday morning (Friday), and it has not stopped since. That is over 36 hours of water coming down. The streets are running like rivers, and there are puddles everywhere. Driving is rather treacherous with water spraying in all lanes. That's the bad news. The even badder news is that this is going to continue well into Tuesday! We moved our flowers on the porch to keep them out of the rain, and hopefully they will not drown before the sun comes out again.

A good weekend to say in and do crafts and watch movies, and that's exactly what I'm doing.

Have a sunny weekend, wherever you are.

Oops, me bad.

I have been a very bad blog writer lately. I really can't think of many excuses. I have been working at work, and working at home (on jewelry), and I guess just trying to sandwich other things in. It is a matter of balance, and sometimes my balance scales are a bit tipped.

There isn't an hour that goes by that I don't think of Michael and Michelle's upcoming wedding in the fall. I am so excited, and I love to talk to them and find out the latest in their plans. One step at a time they are getting it all together. Last week was momentous---a new house! I am so excited for them, and it is such a beautiful place. I can't wait to see it.

George and I have been busy with church things, and I am enjoying teaching Sunday School. The six kids in my class are all bright and cheerful and ready for the lesson by the time I get to the room after church. They seem to look forward to it, and I plan a craft that we can accomplish in the 20 minutes we have for the craft time. We have a "check-in" time, when we talk about what has happened to us in the past week. I call this the "Ketchup Time." I think we all get to know each other better when we get to talk about ourselves and how our week went as Christians out in the world. Little children perhaps have even more opportunity to be with others than most adults do. They certainly mix with a lot of people during their day at school.

Have a great day.

Company Party

Today I get to host a going-away lunch for three people who are leaving from one program. The parties always fall to me, it is in my job description. Nice. Today we are having catered sandwiches, tortellini and potato salad, chips, sodas & a sheet cake that says "Happy Trails" in green and yellow. The caterer is top notch and I'm sure everything will be wonderful. 25 people have RSVP'd and I have a few helpers from another program to set up tables and chairs.

Parties to me mean a car full of paper plates, napkins, sodas, table cloths, coolers and ice. I also have to make room for the cake which I pick up at ten. George always helps with the shopping and the schlepping, and we did most of it last weekend. He also gets invited, since I don't think it would be fair to ask him to help and not feed him!

A rainy day in Boston and I have a lot of running around to do before 11:00 this morning. But I don't mind. It will be fun.

Then it is home again at 2:30 to make more jewelry!

Have a great day everyone.

24

George and I have become big fans of the show 24. I feel like I just crawled out from under a rock, but I had never heard of this show until a month or so ago. We got the boxed set of the first season, and have had fun watching this gutwrenching show. We do three or four segments at a time, without commercials. Jack Bower is a great character. We are enjoying it. It is like...exciting soap opera.