Debbie's photo story haiku...

My friend Debbie is one of the most fun, and funny, people I know.  Tonight she texted me three photos of her geraniums that she has been prepping for overwintering inside.  She included a brief photo story clip with each photo.

Previously in the day in an unrelated conversation, I mistook something she mentioned about writing poetry, and I jokingly told her I was going to write a haiku for her.  

So enjoying her photo story, I had haiku on my mind, and then I read and reread her description under her last photo, and I realized it was just one syllable short of a haiku.  So with her permission, the following is all Debbie (except for the "just").  😂

they asked if they could

come in...but I told them it

just wasn't time yet

Thankful, grateful, blessed...

Thankful for friends, IRL and here on blog, who listen and encourage.  Thank you all!

 

Carnations were her favorite...

Red carnations for love and affection.  Pink carnations for gratitude.  Sending a big virtual bouquet of both to my dear friend on her birthday.  I miss you still.  Save me a seat next to yours.  xo

What I'm reading Wednesday...

I'm halfway through my Utah book!  Note I didn't say I'm only halfway through my Utah book.  That's the optimist in me.  :)  To be precise, I'm on page 243 of 469

 And I am adoring using this old postcard (that I recently found tucked away for safe keeping) as my bookmark.  My funny friend, Mary, sent it to me years ago after an unfortunate incident that she will not let me live down.

We both have a sometimes inappropriate sense of humor.  I read recently that a new study shows that people who enjoy dark-humor jokes are generally more intelligent and less aggressive than people who take offense to them.  Yeah.  We'll go with that, because Mary is pretty darn brilliant.  And now she has moved across the country, and I miss her. 

Making it Monday...

Today was quilting day at the library.  Most everyone was working on a mystery quilt.  I did a different mystery quilt a year or so ago, and didn't really want to do one again right now.

I worked on these butterfly blocks for a shared project the group is working on.  Each person is doing whatever block pattern they want as long as they are all the exact same size (12 ½ inches square), and made with scraps from our collection (no buying fabric to make them).  In a few months we will exchange so that everybody has one of each from everybody else, then we will each make a quilt top with all the different squares combined in it, so that each square in the quilt top is a different pattern and from a different person…kind of a keepsake quilt of our time together.  Each quilt will be different since we will each choose how we want to put our own block 'sampler' together.

Everybody else had done their exchange squares (2 of which were due today) at home.  I did the piecing at home, but I hand embroidered the antennae while at the library, because there are just some days I don't feel like packing up and loading and unloading my machine in and out of the car.  :)  When I was done with that I helped my neighbor un-sew a couple of boo-boos.  It was the least I could do, as she was falling behind due to my talking her ear off.

I love the first Monday of the month!

June 13th...

Today would have been my friend Allison's 59th birthday.  

My feet are stuck in the sand.  

She has her wings.

Girls night out...

Girls' night out around here quite often starts with an early dinner at The Cheesecake Factory...Sheila's Chicken and Avocado Salad for me.

Then on to the auction.  I had my eye on these shutters, which had more of a beautiful blue tint than they appear in the photo, and were about 2 feet wide and about 5 feet tall.  I thought 3 of them side by side might make a cool headboard.  Sadly they were selling them in a lot of 10, and I just didn't want to deal with loading 10, not to mention figuring out what to do with the extras.

I also thought this rug would look good with the blue-shutter headboard.  But it was an inch longer than my bedroom is...and since I decided against the shutters, the point was moot.

I really, really loved this typewriter, and I TOTALLY would have bid on it...  

...but it was all Greek to me.

Since there was nothing I couldn't talk myself out of, I decided to scoot back to my little blue dot before the bad weather coming in from the west hammered us.  They were talking about another possibility for large hail.

Entertaining friends...

A friend is scheduled to have a 'procedure' on Friday.  That means that tomorrow she will be fasting.  She is NOT looking forward to it...honestly, who does?

Anyway, she was trying to figure out what 'clear liquids' she could live with.  I offered to make her a good chicken broth...actually chicken and vegetable broth.  I stewed a chicken with onion, carrot, celery, and sweet potato, and then strained it.  I put the meat in the fridge to use later in the week, and filled up a quart jar with beautiful and fragrant broth.

Since I was making the broth for her, I invited her and husband to come for dinner tonight so they could pick it up and save me a trip.  :)  Then I planned a dinner that would hold her over through a day and a half of fasting.

The rest of the broth (after her quart was safely jarred) went into making Jalapeno Sweet Potato Soup (see photo above), which I introduced her to when I took her for lunch to Homestead Heritage in Elm Mott, Texas a few years ago.  I know she likes it, because she took her family back and got them hooked on it too.

I also made Italian Baked Chicken, which I knew she wouldn't eat, since she's mainly a vegetarian, but the rest of us did.  It's an easy entree which I usually serve with wild rice, but today I made Oven Roasted Veggie Rice.  I love roasted vegetables, and serving with a spiced rice could have been a main course in itself.  It was very good.

Then, to make sure she was stuffed full of yumminess before she has to start her fasting, I made what I call Makes Me Go Weak in the Knees Brownies and served it with vanilla ice cream.  I made these once years ago when we worked together, and she is still talking about them, so I knew she would be happy to see them rounding out tonight's menu.

I linked the recipes over at What's Cookin' Four Miles North of Nowhere.  

I'm also linking to What's for Dinner Wednesday with Cath@Home.  You can see her button in the right margin.  :)  Cath just moved to a farm in Tasmania, and it's Springtime there.  Lately her photographs are giving me serious envy of her fruit orchard!  

Going, going, gone...

 I hadn't attended an auction in quite some time, so I talked my friend, Pam, into going with me tonight.  There were some really nice pieces, but none that called out to come home with me.  

This fire surround was really lovely.  The photo doesn't do it justice.  It went for less than $300...I guess no one had a fireplace large enough to fit it.

I continue to be enamored of enamel ware.  I might have bid on this, but it didn't come up before I left.

This scale is one thing that I was hoping to bid on for the kitchen.  However, it went very early and for somewhere in the neighborhood of $270!  Definitely not within my budget at the moment...cough...cough.

We did get in some interesting people watching.  The average of skin surface area covered by tattoos was very high, as was the average age of attendees.  Pam said that she had never seen that many old people covered with LARGE tattoos in one place in her life.  LOL

So we spent an evening of free entertainment.  I came home empty handed.  Hubby was happy.  

Brown paper packages...

Two confessions: 

1) I am absolutely awful about letting the mail stack up without opening it.

2) I am absolutely awful about ordering books and fabric, which arrive in the mail in manila envelopes.

So Carey is used to setting aside the shipping envelopes for me till I get around to opening them.  When I noticed this week's stack today, I had a real treat.

A surprise package of goodies from Lynne!  Which she packaged in a sweet gift bag embossed with a darling turtle...and she didn't even know I have a turtle collection.

She remembered my weakness for jacks, and what a hard time I had finding metal ones!

And this adorable little kitty which is a bead soon to adorn my neck.  Lynne is an amazing artist and one of her arts is her lampwork beads.  How she imbues personality into these little guys amazes me...oh, those eyes and the whiskers!

And the package also included a handwritten note.  I love receiving handwritten notes.  :)

Thank you, Lynne!  I'm sorry if you were worried when you didn't hear from me sooner that the package had arrived.  You are a sweet and generous soul!

Home again, home again...

Oh so happy to be home!  I've toured Kasey and Beau's newly finished house...gorgeous!  I've stocked up on hugs and kisses and cuddles from the kidlets.  And Jared must have missed me, because it took almost no effort to get him to play Scrabble with me...two games...one win each.

The trip was very smooth sailing.  Rain was forecast for the first leg, with possible dangerous thunderstorms, large hail, and tornadoes.  We saw barely a sprinkle.  Made it to our destination, and then were in for a special treat.  A few days before heading home, when I knew we would be spending the night in Little Rock, I emailed a couple of my favorite bloggers from the area and was able to meet them for dinner. 

left to right:  the other Kathleen, V & C (The Stick Horse Cowgirls!), and me

After reading their blog for years, I just knew we would enjoy being with them in real life, and we did.  It was like having dinner with old friends.  Thanks for coming out to see us, V and C!  Hope we can do it again sometime.

Haircut day...

After having a lot of hair loss and scalp sensitivity, my friend felt ready to make a clean cut of it.  She asked her sweet friend (who shaves his own head regularly) if he would come to her home and do the honors.

A little Dutch courage never hurts.  We actually had a little party.

He did a great job...with compassion and love...humor and skill.

And he brought her a beautiful scarf and taught us how to tie it.  I love this photo of them in matching head gear.  

Friends don't let friends go through scary stuff alone.

The ultimate multitasker...

I always give the other Kathleen a hard time about multitasking...mostly because I am such a MONOtasker that it makes me nervous.  She has a habit of squeezing extra lines into a day planner with all her activities.  

Today took the cake.  It was her second chemo treatment.  Due to a miscommunication, she underestimated how long the chemo administration would take, and had scheduled a job interview by Skype from her home this afternoon.  She ended up having the interview by cell phone while the IV was pumping!

She never ceases to amaze me.

A trip of a thousand miles begins with a single phone call...

I arrived in Kentucky on Tuesday, and was welcomed by my sweet friend, the other Kathleen (she's the one in gingham).

We are using this visit to focus on getting healthy.  She is taking on chemo, and I am taking on my weight (too much of it) and my fitness (too little of it).  Today we both exercised and bought healthy things at the grocery store.

I will stay as long as she can stand me...we're playing it by ear.

Another road trip...

Today I'm packing.  Tomorrow I am driving.  Tuesday I should be in Kentucky.

Laundry is in the washer and dryer.  I meant to be very organized about this pack, as I will be gone awhile.  Alas, I have not been, and I may end up throwing things loose in the car.

Note to self...don't forget: computer AND its cord, cell phone AND its cord, both Kindles AND the cords, sewing machine AND its cord.  See a pattern here?  

I'll be blogging while I am there hopefully...if I remember the cords.

Uh...sure, Pam...

I had fun weekend when my sweet friend, Pam, came to visit.  She has such a soft-spoken way about her, that when she says the most surprising things, they can be a little hard to believe.

Case in point: driving home Saturday afternoon, when I turned onto my street, she asked, "Was that a cactus in that tree?"

Me, "What?  No.  I don't think so."

Pam, "Yes, it was.  Go back."

Me, "Sigh."

Second drive by...me, "I still don't think so."

Pam, "Go by again."

Third drive by.

Hmmmm.  That does look funny.

Well, I'll be...  I've only been driving by that tree for the past two and a half years without noticing.  It takes an eagle eye, I guess.  And I guess it took something else from a bird to get it planted up there.  :)

Seven random thoughts on the 7th...

Selected segment of original art by D. Eckert

1. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Caitiebug!

2. We made it to our destination safely.  SO thankful.

3. I'm blogging from my phone.

4. Writing a blog post on phone keypad is a pain.

5. Being with friends is a blessing!

6. I love GREEN! Green trees.  Green grass...except I am really in the land of bluegrass.

7. I'm not a party person...not a mingler...not much for small talk.  But the gathering today was really wonderful. People I care about. People I think about.  Enchanting child who has grown so big since I last saw him...equally enchanting sibling who was born since I last visited. Names who now have faces. Faces who warm my heart. Such a lovely time spent together. Such a great way to remember a friend.

Road trip...

My bags are packed.

My route is plotted.

I'm off in the morning for about a week.  I'll be picking up a friend (and great travelling companion) in the Dallas area, and then on to Kentucky.  

I probably won't be driving after Dallas, so I may try to figure out my new phone and see if I can do a short blog post from it.

A Map Of The World by Jane Hamilton

Oh, and this is what I'm reading at the moment.  No sure I'll get a lot of reading time in, as we will probably be talking non stop.