Daisy, Daisy. Give Me Your Answer Do.......

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Have you visited Daisy Cottage Quilting yet?

One of my blog friends, Sharon,  has started her own online quilt shop and she's going to have some REALLY cute fabrics and patterns. Personally, I 'm looking forward to the kits she's going to put together.  If you sign up for her newsletter I think she's still offering a coupon too!  There's a button over to the right on my sidebar if you want to link back to her shop in the future.  Now, I just wish there were more hours in the day to make something out of those cute fabrics!

I'm half crazy, all for the love of you........

(Now, name that tune!!!)

Just Re-Arranging the Furniture

You might have noticed that I'm still doing a little remodeling around here. I'm trying to figure out the best way for posting some of my photos in a larger format.  I kind of miss the cute blog backgrounds though so I may go back to using those again.  Let me know what you think.  It's kind of like getting in the mood to re-arrange the furniture and then once you get it all done, discover that the original arrangement was the most practical!

In the meantime I'll share another photo from our trip to Stream Cliff Farm a couple of weeks ago.  The Radio Flyers were all lined up and ready to go at this garden center.  The photo in yesterday's post was from there also.  They have some of the prettiest, primitive type gardens there. We were there shortly after a morning shower and everything was so green, but I admit I did a little color enhancing, but not much. Their hydrangeas were beautiful too and I have a bunch of great floral shots that I should post from time to time this summer.  If you look closely in the garden path photo, you'll see a mirror at the end of the path and guess who is caught in the reflection! 

Meet my new toy!  Last week I received an invitation to a special service day event for Viking sewing machines at The Smocking Shop.  Since I've had my trusty Designer II for about eight or nine years and had never taken it in for service, I thought it was due for a little maintenance. (Though I love that machine and it has never given me any problems!)  Of course while I was there, they were offering demos on the top of the line Bernina 830.  If it would only cook dinner and clean the house, I could have been sold on it!   I've been thinking of getting some type of embroidery machine for some time so I decided to wet my feet with this little Bernette Deco 340.  So far I'm still just playing around with it and trying to figure out what projects I'd like to try.  I'm signed up for a class this Thursday so I'm looking forward to some help in figuring it out! 

Just like many of you, we've been having some serious summer weather around here.  Little Mr. D spent some time in Grammies pool last week to cool off.  It's hard to believe that he's got a birthday coming up soon! 

Fourth of July weekend will be here soon too.  It's going to look lie a family reunion around here with all the kids, grandkids and some great grands expected to descend upon us.  Can't wait! 

Please pardon me as I do a little photo posting experiment. Thank you.

Kimberly's Audition: Kim's Crazy Life - OWN TV

A few weeks ago, a friend and former neighbor, Kim, submitted this video for her audition to Oprah's search for the next talk show host.  I first met Kim when we moved to Indiana almost ten years ago.  I remember she would sit on her front step as she watched her kids play and if she wasn't talking on the phone, she'd strike up a conversation with anyone who walked by.  I was always amazed by her energy, her "gift for gab", her ability to remember song lyrics and her remarkable talent for sharing funny stories and sayings.  Now those kids are teenagers and the family as moved to Michigan. Kim's still the same but now she's aiming for bigger and better things!  So if you've got a few minutes, please click on this link to her audition and vote for Kim to Host Her Own Talk Show on Oprah's OWN Network. 

Kimberly's Audition: Kim's Crazy Life - OWN TV

(Kim also has a blog. Check it out too!)

Thank you and Miss Kim thanks you too!

I ♥ Faces !

Something a little different today.  In my quest to learn some better photography techniques, I joined an online photography community, I Heart Faces.  Every week they have a different photo challenge and this week it is "All About Babies".  Since I have just a "few" baby photos, I thought I'd try to enter.  One problem, I'm only allowed one entry!  It is so hard to choose!  So have almost an hour of browsing through hundreds of photos of my three adorable grandsons, I came up with this one.  I think the charm of this photo is that with the morning light along with the messy "bed head" captures  little Mr. D's personality in a candid moment.

"Bed Head Hair"

Be sure to go check some of the other entries at I Heart Faces!

This is the Random Stuff...

Not a lot going on around here, so  just some random odds and ends from this week for this blog post.

My Endless Summer Hydrangeas are beautiful this year! 

Last weekend we rode up to Spring Mill State Park for lunch at the lodge and a little fun in the Pioneer Village.  Someday I'd love to have a place to plant some hollyhocks like these we found at the Grist Mill.

The guys checked out the water wheel and the saw mill. 

A beautiful day for a nice ride and a delicious meal  with some good friends!

Little Mr. D came to visit.  He's growing so fast and loves the new bargain toy Grammie found at Once Upon a Child. He'll be walking soon! 

I've been working on finally getting some flowers planted out front.  This photo was taken last week and they look so much prettier now - just forgot to go take a new pic.

And YEA !  I've been sewing!  This is the beginning of a quilt just for me.  Several weeks, maybe even months ago, I bought this kit at Among Friends.  It is made using Rouenneries by French General.  I've still got two different borders to go but so far I think it's looking pretty good.

So how's that for some randomness of the week?  This coming week will probably be just as random - but that's life!

Weekend Destinations - continued

Then on to Bangkok .....

And Athens...

Okay - you know we didn't really go to any of those places either, but the Chicago area is a goldmine of a destination for those who love to eat..... and yes, we are that family!  The Thai food was enjoyed at an outside table at a nice little restaurant near E's house, however the mosquitoes enjoyed us as much as we did the food.  The Greek restaurant we found by accident after a  tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright residence in Oak Park.  A pleasant surprise on a rainy afternoon! 

The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust operates tours of FLW's home and studio in Oak Park, IL.   As a birthday gift to her dad, E made reservations for Memorial Day.  This was a good time to travel to downtown Chicago as the traffic was light. We were early for the tour so walked around the surrounding historic area a little and took a few photographs.  

This is the main entrance view of the FLW home.  Not what one would think his home would look like, but this was built early in his architectural career and his signature styles were still developing.  The interior was quite unique though and some of his engineering techniques were unusual too.

These two homes were in the historic area and I'm pretty sure were on the walking tour. They are more typical of the Prairie style that made FLW famous.  Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain when we were done with the interior tour so we'll have to come back some day to learn more about the area.  We'd like to visit the Robie House sometime too.

The main reason we ventured north this past weekend was to attend the baptism of the littlest grandson, W.  J and J chose to have their second son baptized at the church that his mama attended while growing up in Wisconsin.  Since so many of her family was in town for another baptism and birthday party, it worked out well. 

Little J was lucky to spend some time with his oldest cousin.  He learned so many big boy things in their time together.  It was fun to watch him try to imitate appropriate church behavior! 

Little W was happy to enjoy the sun  at the picnic in the park while

Grandpa and little J inspected the creek from the bridge.  They(meaning the grandsons!) are both growing so fast!  The weekend went quickly and before long it was time to head home.  It was nice to spend some time driving around our old Wisconsin neighborhood and seeing how things have changed.  And it was great to see the kids and our DIL's family again.  It's convenient that E lives close by so we could drive up from her home and be able to attend the baptism and nice picnic afterwards.  And we always enjoy our visits to the Chicago area, it's just too bad that there's that city traffic to contend with or we could ride the Harley!