My week of visits with old friends

First, let me say my friends aren't old, and neither am I!  It's just that I got to see a lot of friends from long ago this past week.

I had brunch with Carol and her sister Sherri at Panera's on Tuesday. We girls go waaay back. We were neighbors, and Sherri and I were school buddies from first through ninth grades.  (I then moved away from the neighborhood.)  Sherri was in town, visiting from North Carolina. 


Now I don't  know what you think about the quality of the above picture, but we think it's darn good!  Especially since it was taken by the 3 year old in the next picture!

Yes Ms. Lizzie joined us too. She enjoyed her white milk and M & M cookie, every crumb of it.

This is another picture Lizzie took. It's my kind of picture, blocking Grandma out! Sherri kept telling her to move her finger off the lenses. She would do it until she hit "click" button. 

Thursday night I went to the street fair downtown. There I ran into Mary.  I think this picture (that I stole from her Facebook page) reminds me of "Queen Mary". Mary was another one of our classmates. Sherri and I went all through grade school with her.

I also ran into sisters Rose and Rita from the same neighborhood. I spent so many days and nights are their house. They went to the parochial school, but Rose and I are the same age.

I also ran into Cledis and his wife Clarine. Cledis and I were in the same high school class. GO Cole R-V Eagles!


What an awesome week! Life is Good!

Tonight's blog

I received this today from my friend Scott. Scott reads my blog all the time!  Thanks for your support Scott!

We got MAIL

Remember this? 

It started out looking so innocent.

Nice gift wrapping, suitable for any occasion.

Okay maybe pink and blue would have really given it away!!!!!!!!!!!!


Yes we are going to be grand parents once more. We will be adding baby McCranie to our brood come December!  December 31 in fact!


The opening celebration was done via web cam with both sets of Grandparents unwrapping matching gifts. Grandparents Mc and Grandparents T, were ecstatic.


Congratulations Rusty and Sarah, we love you guys and are looking forward baby Mc!

A little more sewing

This is the quilt I made about a year and a half ago for our Casita Camper. (I can't believe I don't have a picture of it quilted. 

Anyway, we need another quilt in the camper for those chilly nights. So I dug into my stash and found some leftover fabric.

This is what I came up with. I will either use cotton batting or a wool batting and do a lot of practice stitches when machine quilting it. That will be a lot of tugging I'm sure with my Elna Quilter's dream machine.

Next week is the local quilt guild meeting. We are to bring a homemade pin cushion in a brown paper bag. We then will do a swap. I've been looking on Pinterest and Google for weeks now. I came up with one similar to this.  I tried it twice and it didn't work out. So the blacksmith told me how to tweak my seam areas and this came out pretty darn good on the first try. I forgot how much fun it was to cover buttons too!

While I have been doing all the sewing the blacksmith is doing some filing of his own.

Missouri Pickers

Yesterday, the blacksmith and I rode along with Tammy of Flat Creek Farm and her blacksmith hubby to northern Missouri.  

The guys are helping Mara, who recently lost her blacksmith hubby, get his tools and equipment ready for an auction. 

We thought they should really be called the Missouri Pickers! (My I love that butt shot!)

Dorothy the cow greeted us upon our arrival. (Blacksmith's can make some amazing things!)

Mara is keeping her husband Ed's orchids alive. Gosh are they beautiful! I really wish you could see these two blue ones in person. I've never seen a flower with that bright color. She tells me all they need are 3 ice cubes every Tuesday!  Right, I've never be able to grow them like that.

This fuchsia one also is spectacular!

It seems all three of us blacksmith wife's like handkerchiefs.  Mara let me pick all I wanted from her stash. I found these purple ones, including some that Tammy had already returned. 

When I got home I went through my pile and pulled all the purple ones out. I then found two more on Ebay. I am collecting purple ones to make another blouse for me.

You can read about my last blouse here.

Lizzie's QUILT

I got little Lizzie's big bed quilt back from the quilter last week. A high school friend is a long arm quilter, and I gave her the freedom to do almost anything with it. Thank you Brenda you did an awesome job!!!

I love the swirls and the fence rows.

Bigger swirls!

Brenda really made the butterfly show up with the stippling.

Her name stands out now, at first it seemed to be an optical illusion.

This is her bed that Grandpa restored. Her Daddy bought if off of craigslist for $25. 

She looks pretty happy with a new big girl bed and her new pink and black quilt!

What have I been up to?

We've been experimenting with our wild turkey.  We have several packages in the freezer since the blacksmith got two birds this season. 


For this meal, I ground the turkey using the meat grinder attachment on my Kitchenaid mixer.  I then browned it and added a package of taco seasoning. Oh My Gosh, were they good. No way could you tell it was wild game. As for the beans, they are my home canned pinto beans, thank you Judy for the recipe!

Later in the week, I ground another package for burgers. I added bread crumbs, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, onions, and salt and pepper. The blacksmith then grilled them and added some BBQ sauce.

They were excellent!

Today I tried Judy's recipe for Pork n' beans. Same link as above. 

The taste was as good as Van Camp's.  I ended up with 6 1/2 pints. Since I haven't opened a jar since they were canned, I can't give you a full review. I will say, they looked a little over cooked and dry. Perhaps, I should have added more broth as they cooked. Time will tell. 

Sewing has been high on my priority list. I found this clothes pin bag pattern in a quilt magazine given to me by my friend Tom. I made 3 of these cute little bags. Do I have a real clothes line?  No, but that won't stop me.  Oh well, they will just look cute hanging in the laundry room. I bet Margie, that I gave the purple pansy one to, will find a use for it.

The first part of May, I won a give away from Dar, a fellow Missourian. Her generous package included a charm pack, a big spool of thread, a package of quilting needles, and some fat quarters. I immediately pulled out my charm pack book and found this pattern. It will make a great table cover come fall. I love the colors. 


I've also been blogging over at O B Blacksmith.