A busy Saturday

I was up just after the crack of dawn. Okay maybe it was a little past that time, what ever. Coffee and cappuccino was made after I dressed and I was out the door with the Garmin, headed to my girlfriends house in Hartsburg.



We were headed to the Booneslick Trail Quilter's guild 2008 Quilt show. I had talked to a fellow blogger, with thread in hand and she was coming from half way across the state. I emailed her back with what I would be wearing. Unfortunately I got her reply too late and I didn't know what to look for. The Expo center was packed with quilts the best I could tell there were 398 showing. Not all were big quilts, some awesome wall hangings too.



About twenty-one vendors lined the outside of the room. My favorite booth was Liberty Homestead. I visited it more than once. I wanted the Farmhouse Blanket Babies book. But I just couldn't justify it. I did take their card and will keep it for future reference or ordering!





We spent several hours looking at all the quilt. Now if I can just figure out how to post a video of all the pictures I took, I'd be happy.



For lunch we stopped by Olive Garden. It was onto some quick shopping after that. First a stop at Micheal's for a bag of bottle brush trees. Here is what mine look like after I bleached them. Visit the Misadventures of Mama and Jack to see what she does with these trees. Here is what Bass pro was next for a camouflage sweatshirt for BT. One last stop at a quilt shop for a piece of fabric for the DIL.






I was back home by 4 and took a little rest before fixing dinner for BT.

By 6:30 I picked up the DIL and we went to Dreams to Reality fund raiser. The mission of Dreams to Reality is to help low-income women of Missouri to meet their employment goals and build self-confidence by providing appropriate interview and business apparel, motivation and follow-up support. You were made to feel like a celebrity as you sampled delicious foods, tried tasty drinks, sampled spa services, and shopped, shopped and shopped. I won the first door prize given. A picture frame. Lori and I both got a chair massage. Grand prize of the evening was a $1000 piece of jewelry, 2nd place was a trip to Las Vegas. We are still waiting for them to call us! We made it home by 10PM. A long day for me.


Check back, maybe after some quality sleep I will be able to upload those pictures. But in the mean time check out the blog I mentioned with thread in hand. She knows how to load pictures.



9:49 PM 40 degrees.

From July heat to October chill in September

It got really hot and sticky Friday evening and I had to turned the AC back on. Saturday morning it was still miserable. As the day progressed, the humidity increased.

After breakfast I started playing with my bottle brush trees. Over at The Misadventures of Mama and Jack, I learned all about stripping the color from the trees and dying them. I want to make some Halloween colored trees. I did one tree at a time, by adding bleach to hot water in a glass. It wasn't an instant thing. You have to dip and soak the tree. It probably took about 10-15 minutes to bleach them to what looks like the original color.

Now I need to get some Rye dye. (Sunday I tried food coloring.) Orange, I have a light colored tree now, but I will pick up some dye on my next shopping day. Oh and I need more trees, bigger trees. However there are none to be found in this one craft store town! Shucks!



BT finished restoring his brush hog and tried it out behind the house. He now has plans for cutting some of the smaller trees out of the woods. This would be winter project. The brush hog and tractor would fit better between the bigger trees. I can see another park in my back yard! Here he goes for the mowing. (Be sure and stop the music on the side bar, so you can hear the tractor sounds.)




Bob and Rita came to our place about 6:30. It looked like it would rain about anytime as we drove into town. Ria's Restaurant just opened a month ago. It is a beautifully decorated Greek Restaurant. We had about a 30 minutes wait in the bar. From there you can see into the open kitchen as the food is prepared. They need to improve their timing with the food. However the food, once received was excellent. BT had steak that looked Yumo! I had Lasagna, Bob and Rita went Greek, Gyro and Vegetable Pita.

While we were inside the rains started. They would continue until late Sunday morning. I got up several times during the night to see how much it had rained. It was predicted Ike would dump 5 to 7 inches on us. This is our lake early Sunday morning as the water was rushing over the top of the dam.

Saturday it was 88 degrees, Sunday morning it was 77, and by noon it was 66. We went from miserable humidity to almost needing the heat turned on. For dinner I found a new soup recipe. It was pretty good. I love potato soup but BT won't eat the kind my mother taught me to make because of the milk in it. Here is the recipe for the new one.

Sausage and Potato soup

1 lb. sausage, brown and drained

1 lb. hash brown chunks (I grated fresh potatoes)

3 cans chicken stock or broth

3 stalks celery, diced

1/2 onion, diced

2 can cream of celery soup

2 pinches of red pepper

Parsley

Basil.

Cook potatoes, broth, onion and celery until tender. Add sausage, soup, and spices. Heat thoroughly.

9:13 PM 61 degrees.