Do I need blessing, or am I already blessed?

We were at a wedding just a few weeks ago for someone very close to our family.  It was a lovely wedding, but unfortunately, not without a bit of drama preceding the ceremony.  When I intervened in an altercation that was underway, merely to point out that it wasn't the time or place for such a display, I understandably ruffled a few feathers.  Thankfully, the participants went their separate ways, but I did receive a rather pointed look later on in the day from one of them in particular.  This made me a little wary when, just as we are about to leave, this person approached me.  I won't go into details, but this was a very odd encounter.  It seemed as though she felt the need to pray for me, which I wouldn't ordinarily balk at, but given the previous events, and her, ahhh, unusual manner, I wasn't as thrilled as I could have been.  She encouraged me to relax and said that I needed to be blessed because I had so many girls.  I assured her that I had already been blessed by having those girls.  In the end I just let her say her prayer so that I could leave without making another huge scene, but I was not at all comfortable with it.

So what do you do when someone wants to "bless" you, but you aren't certain of their heart?  Many times these people do not mean any harm, so it's not a problem to humor them.  At other times, the person may make you feel uncomfortable.  And worst of all are times when you seriously question their intent.  Most of the time I will allow someone to pray for me; as I said, people usually do so with the best intentions.  Occasionally, if I feel uncomfortable, I try to excuse myself from the situation if I can do so gracefully.  If not, I will do as I did on this occasion and allow the person their prayer, excusing myself as quickly as possible afterward.  I certainly won't allow something that's making me uncomfortable drag on very long.  And last of all are the times when you get a really bad "vibe" off the person offering to pray.  In those cases it's best to excuse yourself as quickly as possible.  For the most part, these are usually people you don't know anyway, so although you risk offending them, you probably won't see them again.  If you do, and get to know them, then you can always apologize later if necessary.

People have all sorts of beliefs, and if they are determined to pray for you they will, even if you don't stand around while they do it, and there are weird people in the world who give you the creeps when they approach you offering to pray.   But, my God is bigger than creepy people and misguided prayers.  When in doubt, pray while they are praying - louder, if necessary to get your point across.  Finally, I would add that you need to take into account the age of the person offering the prayer.  Older people may be suffering from some sort of dementia which can make a well intended prayer seem confusing or uncomfortable.  In the end, the age of the person who wanted to pray for me this time is partially why I allowed the prayer instead of excusing myself beforehand.

So, do I need blessing, or am I already blessed?  Of course the answer to that is, both.

Traveling with food.

One of the things I was never really taught, was how to take food to a potluck.  As kids, you go to family dinners to have fun with the cousins you only get to see a few times a year.  You never really stop to think about how all that wonderful food managed to appear, mouth-watering and intact.  I'm sure it just didn't occur to my mother to teach me about how to get everything to the dinner without getting green bean juice all over the trunk of the car.  But, I've lived and learned, and cleaned up green bean juice.

Here are a few things I've used to help manage potlucks.

1 - This is actually something my mom did.  It's the one thing I remember her doing, and now I know why.  We had a, not-too-large pressure cooker that she used to carry anything that had a lot of liquid in it.  The seal kept it from spilling in the car.  I don't have one, and try to avoid making anything with a bunch of liquid in it to start with, but my most recently purchased slow cooker has a rubber gasket and locking clamps that will do the same thing.

2 - Clean, gallon jugs, especially if they have screw on lids, are much better than most pitchers for carrying tea or other drinks.

3 - I use a heavy duty laundry basket to carry things in when I have a lot that needs to go.  Laying a towel on the bottom can help if the dish is hot, but it also helps keep it from sliding around in the basket.  Also, if your dish is hot, the towel can be folded over the top and it will keep it warm.

4 - If you have something that has been cooked in a 9"x13" casserole dish, you can put a cookie cooling rack on top, and stack other things on top of it.  If the dish is still very warm, just throw an extra towel on top before putting anything else in the basket.  It's a great place to put bread, if you happen to be taking that to the dinner.

5 - Non-slip shelf liner can be rolled out in the trunk, or other storage area, to help keep things from sliding around. 

6 - Find some way of labeling your dishes and utensils.  You can write directly on plastic containers with a sharpie marker, you can use a label maker, if you have one, or you could even write your name on a piece of masking tape and put that on your items.  Whatever method you use, it really helps everyone keep up with what goes with who - or helps the host(ess) know who's spoon was left at their house.

7 - Take some aluminum foil, plastic wrap, and/or ziploc bags with you.  You never know what you may need to wrap up.  It's almost a necessity if you're at a community center, or other, similar place, but it's also a good idea if you'll be at a friend or family members home.  Many family dinners are held at my house, and I know from experience, the supply of these things can be exhausted in a hurry.  Most people, myself included, don't really mind, but having to replace all your wraps and bags at once can be pretty pricey.  It would just be a thoughtful way to help out whoever is hosting the get-together.

8 - If you, or other members of the family have kids, make one of your dishes macaroni and cheese.  Then, no matter what anyone else brings (like the eggplant casserole "Aunt Bessie" constantly shows up with), you know there'll be something there for the kids to eat.  Trust me, if you do this enough, you'll become one of the kids' favorite relatives. :D

9 - Crock pots are great for taking food to functions where you'll have to wait awhile to eat.  They can be plugged in and left on warm until it's time for dinner to be served.  Most of the families at our church do that for the potluck meal we have the first Sunday of every month.  

My final tip is for when you need to take food to someone for reasons other than a get-together.  Maybe there was a death in the family, a new baby was born, or someone just had surgery, or moved.  It's wonderful to be able to bless others in this way, but sometimes people are left with a bunch of dishes they need to return.  I like to use aluminum pans, or the reusable Glad pans for the regular food, and bakery boxes for cakes.  There'll be nothing to clean up, unless they want to reuse the pan, and they don't have to worry about getting my dishes back to me.

I hope you found a useful tip in there somewhere, and if you do find yourself with a spill in the car, carpet cleaner works wonders.

I've linked this post with the Homestead Barn Hop.

Lilla Rose giveaway

Amy, at Homestead Revival, is hosting a Lilla Rose giveaway.  If you've never seen these hair accessories, you should check them out.  They are beautiful.
The clock is ticking.  She is only hosting this giveaway today, but from what I understand, she'll be having some other giveaways in the next few days.

Crock-pot Multitasking

I like finding ways to use things as efficiently as possible.  With that in mind, I found a neat way to heat more than one thing with my large (7qt) crock-pot.  

When making tacos for our fellowship meal after Sunday service, we can put refried beans in a glass container, in this case a heavy duty, 2c. glass measuring cup, and set it in the pot with the taco meat so they heat at the same time without having to take a second slow cooker.  Although it doesn't look like much meat, it was 4 1/2lbs., which was more than enough for the 7 of us that were eating, and as you can tell, it could have held a bit more.

We've also used this for heating hotdogs and chili at the same time.

Any thick glass container will work as long as it leaves enough room for the other food and is tall enough to keep the main food out of the secondary food.  A wide mouth, pint size canning jar worked well for chili since several of mine don't eat chili on their hotdogs.

This is my other trick.  

Use a cookie sheet in place of the lid and you have a nice sized surface for warming bread; in this case, tortillas for the soft tacos.  I have one a little smaller that we normally use, but I was in a hurry and this one was easier to get to.  Just make sure the pan covers the top of the cooker.

We've used this successfully for biscuits, rolls, cornbread, hamburger and hotdog buns, and obviously, tortillas.  By covering the bread with a towel, you can keep more of the heat on it.

You can heat the wrapped bread right on the lid, I have done that too, but since the lids are domed, and have a handle on them, you have to wrap the bread in smaller bundles and balance them around the handle. The cookie sheet works better in my opinion.  And for the record, if you break your lid, you can use a cookie sheet in it's place until you can order a replacement.  Which, incidentally, is how I came by using one to warm bread.

I hope this little trick can come in handy for someone else out there.  It has sure worked well for us.

I've linked this post with this week's Homestead Barn Hop.  

Check them out.  I've already enjoyed several of the links, and I'm sure you will too.

I've also linked with the Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop.

A Pounding

The folks at our church are wonderful.  They held a pounding for Ri and Superman last week and we had such a good time.  For those of you who may not know what a pounding is, it's kind of like a shower (complete with a couple of really cute games), but instead of household gifts like blenders and towels, you bring non-perishable food.  I told her you could tell we went to a church with lots of large families because she is well supplied with rice, pasta, and beans, instead of things I've seen at other poundings, like hamburger helper and boxes of macaroni and cheese.  Some of the ladies included a favorite recipe with all the necessary non-perishable ingredients she will need to make it.  Two of the families had their offerings in laundry baskets and one had theirs in one of those cute market baskets.  In addition to all the beans, rice and pasta, she has all the basic baking supplies (including chocolate chips - for us, they are considered one of the basics), quite a nice quantity of canned food, all the basic herbs and spices, and I got her some of the blends we use most, in addition to some of her favorite herbal teas.  So her pantry is pretty well supplied.  She's relieved; she knew he doesn't cook much at all, and she was afraid they'd have nothing to eat until they went grocery shopping, and that the first trip would cost a fortune.

We have such a great church family!!

Things are coming together.

We have two of these frames - his and hers.  I liked this much more than a bulletin board.

  They have little clothes pins on them and will hold 9 pictures.  We've chosen pics that range from baby to fairly recent and have them glued to post card weight paper so the photos won't curl while they're pinned up.

We've also made copies of all the grandparents they grew up with, but have passed on, and have them framed and ready to go on the remembrance table.  The large photos of Ri and Superman have been printed and framed, and the one of them together, that will be used in the large autograph frame they've chosen to use in place of a guest book, are all finished as well.

One of the three apothecary jars, and what we'll be turning into a small terrarium. 

A clock shaped like an old camera that I just couldn't resist getting for Ri, and a small, rusty lantern that will go on the remembrance table.

A large lantern and several of the pots, many of which have already been planted.  

Just a couple more plants to pot, a bit of sewing, and about three more projects to complete, then we'll be left with nothing but food to think about next week.

Two Weeks!

In just two weeks Ri and Superman will be getting married.
Am I stressed out?  About to lose my mind?  Freaking out over all the stuff that still needs to be done?  Agonizing over losing my baby?
Trust me, I've heard all these questions lately.  And the answer?
Well, lets take it one question at a time.
No - I'm not particularly stressed out.  Occasionally something will come up that momentarily bothers me, but I just take a second to remind myself that absolutely nothing can happen with regard to this wedding that will stop the world from spinning on it's axis.  Plus, I've been planning, organizing, purchasing, and making stuff slowly for several months just to keep things from getting any crazier than they have to here at the end, and so far, my plan has worked out just fine.
No - I'm not about to lose my mind.  I did that years ago.  It's much easier to function in a crazy world if you're a little abnormal anyway.
No - Sure there are some things left to be done, but all of the really big stuff has been done and even if some of the little stuff doesn't make it in the final cut, they'll still be able to get married, and the marriage is much more important than the wedding.
No - I'm not an emotional basket case because "I'm losing my baby."  I'm not losing her.  I know exactly where she'll be.  I see it as kind of a long term version of what happens the first time they take off driving somewhere without you.  Yes, you are worried about them, but things will go along much better if you get busy doing something and don't sit there and fret about the fact that they are on the road with a bunch of crazy people.  Besides, as I mentioned before, I'm really excited for her.

And, when it all comes down to it and you're really having trouble coping with something, inhale deeply once or twice, and take a moment to pray for peace of mind, solutions to problems, your child's safety and future, or for all of the above.

Re-purposing Denim

I save all kinds of fabric scraps, but one of the most useful has been denim.  I save everything from old skirts, jumpers, or my hubby's jeans, to leftover material from skirts or dresses I, or one of the girls made.  Some of the ways I've made use of these scraps are:

1) Patches.  Let's face it, not every hole someone makes in a pair of jeans or a skirt can be covered by one of those pre-made patches.  Since I take in mending from friends, whose husbands work manual labor, I've seen some pretty whopping holes.  Take it from me, lawn care guys can be the worst at making those super-sized holes.  It's easy to make your own patch any size you need by using some wonder-under (fusible webbing).  Just make sure you zig-zag around the patch so it will stand up to a fair amount of abuse.

2) Patchworking denim scraps into a triangle in order to make a pair of jeans into a skirt.  The girls got a skirt from one of their favorite stores a year and a half ago that looked like someone had taken a pair of jeans apart along the inside seams, and then sewn random pieces of denim into large triangles to be fitted between the left and right legs (front and back), in order to form a skirt. (I'll have to post about this one day.)  The skirt  was really cute, but it was also fairly expensive - around $60.  We decided we could make them ourselves, and have done so several times now.  Since I keep denim scraps on hand, all it cost us to make one very similar to the first was $4.50.  I don't know about you, but I'll take $4.50 over $60.00 any day of the week.  Thrift shops and Goodwill are great for your budget.

3) Pot holders. Since denim is heavy duty, it makes some really durable pot holders.

4) Patchwork rugs.  Here again, denim makes a pretty durable rug that can stand up to a lot of washing.  Here's the one Beenie made for Ri's hope chest.

She sewed the top together by herself.  I thought she did a marvelous job, especially since all she's ever sewn before were a couple of small pillows for her bed.  The dark pieces with little critters on them are pieces I saved when I was making what became T.Lynn's favorite skirt.  The back was made from the back panel of an old denim jumper that had started to wear out at the seams.

I'm sure you could find many different ways to put extra denim to good use, so if you haven't already, start saving it now.

I've linked this post with the Homestead Barn Hop.

Happy Mother's Day!

There is an instinct in a woman to love most her own child - and an instinct to make any child who needs her love, her own. ~Robert Brault

Happy Mother's Day to you all.

Ri's Bridal Shower and Quilt

Saturday has come and gone, and with it, the first ever bridal shower for one of my girls.  We had a great time.  Lys, her Maid of Honor, was in charge of planning, inviting guests, and decorating, and I provided the food.  Not to say Lys, and the other girls didn't help prepare the food, they certainly did.
The pics look a little blurry in the post, but will look much nicer if you click on them. 

Lys wanted to play up sunflowers since they will be in the wedding, so there is plenty of yellow and green. The girls worked very hard to get all the decorations up since the ceiling is so high and we don't have a ladder.

A small table was set up in the sunroom for the punch. This gorgeous old punch set was borrowed from my mom, and Bree painted the stemmed glasses.  They are so cute.  My mom, Lys, the groom's mother, and I each got to keep one, and Ri will get the other eight for her new home.

The girls used the bistro table, and my jewlery box to display the favors.

All the favor boxes were decorated differently.  I'll show how they did those in the next post.

The favor boxes had a trio of sunflower seeds in them; candy coated, chocolate covered seeds(in yellow, green, and brown), toffee coated seeds (Ri and Lys made those), and roasted, salted sunflower seeds.

There was plenty of food.  

M & M's are in the tall, stemmed glasses as a play on her new initials. 

We had little, drawstring organza bags available so folks could take some home with them.

Of course, we had some of Ri's favorites, like stuffed strawberries,

strawberry cupcakes with strawberry, cream cheese icing,

(can you tell she likes strawberries?)

and cookie dough dip.

There were also plenty of candles,

(Bree painted this holder too)

to go along with all the sunflowers.

They choose a few games to play, a couple of which left us in stitches.  

Now we just have to find a place to store all her gifts until close to the wedding, when we plan on going over to Superman's home to help her set everything up they way she would like.

And here's her quilt.  

As I mentioned before, I did manage to get it finished just before she got home from the girls' visit with my mom, so she didn't see it completed until her shower on Saturday.

I did an all over, swirly stipple for the background of the top, hoping to set off the flowers.  

I in-lined the petals, and quilted a flower pattern in each brown center.  Don't pay too much attention to the not-quite-straight lines.  From a distance it looks great. :D

Then I did a serpentine, open feather pattern for the border.

I think it turned out all-right.

T.Lynn's gift to her sister was a decorative pillow to go along with the quilt.  I used some of the extra pieces to make the top, then T. helped make the back (which is designed so Ri can take the case off to wash it), helped program my machine to write out, "Sisters are best friends you can never lose.  Love T....."(which she came up with herself), stitched that on, and then sewed on the button that holds the flap closed on the back. 

She did a great job. 

I'll have to try and re-locate the quilted, denim, scrap rug that Beenie made for her sister, so I can post pics of that later.  It's somewhere in the mass of gifts that we currently have sitting on, and around the hearth, just 'til we can find room elsewhere for them.

All-in-all, it was a wonderful day.

Green??

Dollwood Farms had this cute post a week ago about being green.  It was a quote from an e-mail about how the modern generation doesn't feel as though previous generations were "green", and how some may blame the previous generations for modern day problems.  There's no telling where the e-mail originated, but it does hold a fair amount of truth.  We may not have had the word green in reference to being less wasteful, but we weren't as wasteful in general.  At least, not most people.  Certainly not us.  I know we had gas guzzling cars, but we only had one, and it wasn't driven any more than it had to be.  The one TV we owned didn't stay on all the time, in fact, we only had three channels, four on clear days, so it wasn't like there was all that much to watch anyway.  Plus your mom was constantly telling you to go outside to play, which didn't bother you so much because it wasn't any cooler in the house - no AC to run two thirds of the year.  Toys that made noise did so because they required you to do something to make the noise, like bang a drum, or pound on a pounding block.  They didn't make noise on their own, using up tons of batteries every year, or require being plugged in to recharge.  Just like the e-mail said, we didn't have plastic bags, we had paper ones that your mom saved and used for everything from making patterns (for everything), to baking apple pies.  Everything came in glass, most of which could be returned to wherever you got it from to be washed, sterilized and reused.  We had two lamps in the living room, requiring one bulb each, and one overhead light in the dining room that only required one bulb.  The living room alone of my current house has, I kid you not, four recessed light fixtures, which require indoor, flood light bulbs, an overhead ceiling fan that takes no less than six (and possibly eight - but we haven't gone up to replace them, so...) of the ceiling fan bulbs, a regular size lamp that requires four bulbs, 1 regular and three small, and a small lamp that requires one, night light size bulb.  In my defense, we rarely use more than the recessed lights, which are all on one switch, but still, that's an awful lot of light bulbs for just one room.  I dread it when they start blowing out.  At any rate, my point is that I agree with her post.  We may have had things that didn't use power or resources  very efficiently, but we didn't waste nearly as much either.  If we could do things as frugally (and I'm not just talking money) as we did back then, using the more energy efficient means we have now, imagine how much better off we'd be.
Hey, I'm as guilty about some of it as others.  We don't have 4 or 5 TV's (only 2) and we all have to share a computer, but the TV runs more than it should, I do love the AC and the heat, and I'm pretty fond of most of my appliances.  It is something to think about though.  Maybe I'll use good old fashioned muscles instead of whipping out my food processor next time I'm in the kitchen.

Re-purposing

I love finding ways to save money and reuse items instead of buying new.

I recently saw a post by Julia @ Blissfully Content about revamping your old rags.  She has directions for making them on her blog.  I loved the idea, and had to try it out.

These are so much nicer to look at.  Let's face it, by the time a towel makes it to the rag stage, it's usually pretty beat up.  This is a great way to pep them up a bit.  The fabric was even a freebie from someone who decided not to go into quilting after buying a bunch of supplies.

I like making rags from a number of things.  Some of my favorites are old, terry cloth robes (makes great washcloths), old cloth diapers (although my Dad, who's a gunsmith would always talk me out of mine for use in his shop), and toweling scraps.

You may remember these that I made for Ri out of scraps left from making a couple of hooded baby towels.

Another thing I love to reuse are gallon, and half gallon pickle jars.  Several of my girls love pickles, so we can go through some large jars.  The only problem I ever had was in trying to get the pickle smell out of the lid.  I tried every trick in the book, and while I could get enough of the smell out for dry items, you could never use the jar for wet things because the smell was never completely gone.  My remedy for this was to contact the manufacturer, which happened to be a company right here in NC, and ask them what size lid they used for their jars.  Then I found a company on the internet that sold the size lid I needed, and ordered a bunch.  You just have to keep a couple of things in mind; 1) You need to check and see if the company can sell retail, and 2) if they sell in small quantities, because you probably won't need a case of 1,000 lids.  By ordering at least a couple of dozen (dependent, of course, on your family's pickle consumption) you can reduce the amount per lid you'll end up paying in shipping charges.  

Another way we like to reuse things, mostly clothing items, is to turn them into decorative pillows.  The girls have used several things to make pillows to dress up, and add a personal touch to their beds.  And though we don't wear jeans (unless we're turning them into a blue jean skirt), I've seen them made into cute throw pillows.

And here's one of my last re-purposing projects.  We recently bought a cute little bistro set to go in the sunroom.  It's taking the place of a bench we had sitting there that had several throw pillows on it.  Instead of turning something into a pillow, I took a pillow I had on the bench and turned it into a cover for the seat.  I didn't really want a thick, padded cushion, but since the walls are tan, with white wainscoting, and the bistro set is beige, we needed a little color.  I took the pillows apart, cut them to size, added some batting, and then quilted.

It's always fun to find new uses for older items.

I've linked this post with the Barn Hop.

 

He put this so well.

I ran across a quote today that I just had to share.

“To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”
~ G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World.

Well said!

Happy Belated Birthday

Sunday was Kay's birthday.  I got busy writing the post about the apple rolls and completely forgot to mention it.  Sorry honey!  Added to that, we were unable to take her to the movie she wanted to see on Sunday because the weather turned off bad after church.  We did get to take her yesterday though.

At any rate, she turned 22.  It really doesn't seem like it's been that long since she was just a little thing.  She has grown into such a lovely young woman.  She loves children and animals and wants to start volunteering at the humane society soon.

So it may be a little late sweetheart, but Happy Birthday!!  We love you so much.

Quilting and more.

I finally got back to some of my sewing.  The girls spent a week with my mom at the end of January and I spent some time working on a few projects.  The first was a bolero jacket for Ri's wedding dress.  We had already picked one out, but last month they told us it was out of stock and they could not guarantee they could get it back in stock in enough time for us to do her photo shoot.  So, I took a bolero pattern and a pattern for a shrug and worked them up in muslin for her to try out.  She made her choice and I've run up the bolero in chiffon to match her dress.  All I have left to do is add the lace.

I've also worked on some quilting.  I finished the top of a quilted rug I'm using in my sewing class and will pin baste and quilt that soon;  I kind of have to since my class is next weekend. :)  I'll take Beenie's quit to show the quilting process, and the sample piece to show binding.

I have Beenie's quilt pin basted, and I've spent some time practicing the patterns I'm going to use for the quilting.  This will be the first time I've free hand quilted an entire quilt.  I'm a little, okay, more than a little nervous about it.  I plan on doing the quilting in the kitchen so I can use the table to support the quilt instead of letting it hang off the back of my sewing table, like I did for Bree's.   I'm guessing it will be harder to move it around if the weight of it is pulling it down the back of the table.  We'll see how it goes. 

I'm working on Ri's quilt too.  I have all the circles made for the Dresden plates.  

I'm glad I just cut one and sewed it up first before cutting the rest, because I ended up not liking how small the circle was in comparison to the plate.  I wanted a larger one since sunflower centers are so big.  I'm pretty happy with this one.

I thought it was neat the way the centers were constructed.  The instructions were to cut a circle out of both the fabric and some iron on interfacing.  Then, placing the right side of the fabric together with the bumpy side of the interfacing, you sew all the way around the circle.  Trim the seam to 1/8th inch.  Cut a slit in the center of the interfacing and turn the circle right side out.  Finish up by pressing with a wooden presser.  Once I'm ready to put the plate and center on the block, I'll just arrange them and then iron the center in place.  The interfacing will help hold everything in place while I pin it and then sew the plate to the block.  I've got several of the background blocks cut out, and have started cutting the strips for the edging that will go around the blocks.  I hope to finish cutting the blocks and white strips this week.  Maybe even some of the green strips too.

And last, but not least, wedding stuff crowding my sewing/school room.  See?  I told you it was taking over.  And I had to get in that closet the other day.  Ughhh!  I've got to find a better place for all of it.  This doesn't even include the three boxes in my closet, albeit those are not too big, or this:

Yes everyone, if you can zoom in closer you'll see this is a 31 gallon tote.  Huge!  Also in my sewing room and also full of wedding stuff.  I think it's time to clean the garage.   

BTW, we will not be using silk flowers in her wedding; the flowers above are for T.Lynn's basket.  They'll allow her to throw silk petals, but the silk throwing petals all look like rose petals.  Since Ri's focus is on sunflowers we thought it'd be cute for her to throw petals that looked like sunflower petals.  Hobby Lobby had a pretty good sale on their flowers the other day, so we went ahead and picked up some to tear apart. Sounds like a good job for the flower girl doesn't it?

That's about all for now.  I plan on posting another recipe soon, but the ladies at the bank (Hi Ladies!) have requested that future recipes come with samples, so we'll see what we can arrange. 

Have a great week!!