On this day. . . 54 years ago

 

Bread was $.21 for a loaf, mayonnaise was $.29 a jar, and three cantaloupes were $.89.  A Coke was .15 cents!

Catsup was 4 bottles for $1.00, a 12 pack of pampers were $.89.  Cotton work pants for men were $1.80 with a matching shirt at $1.00.

Portable dishwashers were $209. A clothes dryer was 99.00 with free delivery. Sealy Posturepedic mattress and box springs were $79.

A Ford Mustang was $2,707.

The average income was $7700 and minimum wage was $1.60.

Also, it was our first date, 54 years ago. Oh, the memories.

Here’s to many more!

Birthday and Valentine week

Birthday weekend and week was fantastic. Turning 70 isn't so bad after all.  I might even try it again!

For those that texted, called, visited and sent cards, THANKYOU!  I feel very special. Almost 400 texts on Facebook were amazing! I tried to thank everyone, but I sure I missed many. 

From Saturday to Monday, I was pretty much spoiled eating almost every meal out. Between the  Blacksmith conference and the kids I was treated well.  

It was also a day to remember it has been 3 years since my breast cancer on my birthday. God is good.

My family and friends spoiled me with gold earrings, Hobby Lobby gift cards, and one friend even sent me 70 packets of my favorite Trader Joe's coffee, one packet for every year. Then she also gave me a gift certificate to Rooster Creek Quilting store. Don't think I'll have a problem spending of the gifts. 

As for Valentine's Day, it's the end of an era. Insert sad face!  For many, many years, my Valentine tradition was to buy the blacksmith Maple nut goodies, as seen above and burnt sugar peanuts shown below. 

Production on the maple nut goodies was ended sometime last year. They were replaced with a maple coating over individual peanuts.  The candy is way too waxy.  

So, this year I just bought him a bigger bag of the Burnt sugar peanuts.

I received my traditional heart shaped box of Russell Stover chocolates. The best in my opinion!

 

Lori, my daughter in law, and Lizzie shared their sweet treats with us again. They are to die for chocolate covered strawberries, sugar cookies, and red velvet cookies. I am safe to say they didn't make it 24 hours here in the house. 

Life is Good!

A week full of family fun!

The Florida family came for a week!!  I'll let the pictures tell the stores and show the fun we had. 

Grandson Alex's girlfriend Josie became 6-year-old Logan's girlfriend!

Josie and Alex play on our ping pong table we uncovered. 

The computer games were kept hot! From 6-year-old to almost 21!! I did leave up a small Christmas tree too, for a few surprise packages. 

The little boys loved the 2nd Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa!

Darts and riding Uncle Jeremy's 44-year-old ford tractor, Fun!

 We ate well. Lori made oreo balls and ice cream cake.

Uncle Jeremy and Logan handy work.

One day Sarah and I took the boys to the new bridge to an island on the Missouri River at Jefferson City. 

Grandpa gave a few shooting lessons. 

Alex adjusts one of his helmets and Connor to go 4 wheeling in the snow!

Rusty brought his new toy home. The grown guys all had a ball with it.  So much in fact the family up here bought one.

This was our walk to the island, with the Missouri State Capitol in the background. 

Homework in his pajamas. 

OUR FIVE GRANDKIDS!!!!

Uncle Jeremy and Logan do some creative writing. Also known as brand your donuts!

Grandpa started a snowball fight. We are so glad the Missouri cooperated and gave them snow. 

Logan gives Josie and hello kiss!

Grandma goes sledding!  I survived too. It was so much fun. 

Oh, that Uncle Jeremy gives a whipped cream lesson!

The week was perfect, family meals every night. The Missouri weather cooperated perfectly giving them snow for their arrival and clearing up when they sadly had to leave. 

Life is good.

Christmas 2021

A few pictures of Christmas day, mostly taken by my great daughter in law. 

Family ornaments, from the antique German ball ornaments from the husband's Grandmother to one from the grand kids. Family, that's what it is all about!

 

Front hallway.

We have the television connected to video and are watching the grandkids in Florida open their presents. They then watch us. 

Pictures at lunch were taken in 2 shots, dang we need to get an extend a stick for our camera, so we can all be in the selfie!

The blacksmith checks out our new speakers to extend our surround sounds. 

This picture is my favorite. I had a pillow made with Lizzie's cat on the front and back, from pictures her mom supplied me with. Walmart photo made the pillow!!

She was so excited!!

Josie and Alex opening presents. 

Here's the second shot!

This was my favorite gift to Lizzie. 

Hubby put his Christmas presents under the tree. Two antique double barrel shotguns. Thank goodness I didn't have to wrap them!

Playing with my phone camera!

The tree rotates, but I didn't capture that.

The kids gave us a digital picture frame. They downloaded an app and can send us pictures. It connects to the internet.  

 

Aunt Sarah and Uncle Rusty sent Lizzie this gigantic cozy hoodie. Santa brought the Florida boys one too!  Imagine that.

Alex is proud of his t shirt for college next year!

Our traditional Missouri grandkid picture with bonus of Josie, Alex's girlfriend!

Connor, our Florida  boy likes warm and hoodie pajamas. Guess we did pretty good picking these out!

 

This cracks me up!  As if Grandpa went shopping, or even knew what gifts I bought!

Sarah takes another traditional Christmas photo!

My favorite little tree with many antique ornaments and of course tinsel!!!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas. Ours may just continue next week, when the Florida family will be in Mid-Missouri!

365 block challenge quilt is completely pieced

Here it is all pieced.

If I have the counted correctly my quilt has 11,180 pieces in it!! It finished out at 84 by 105 inches. 

Since January 1, 2021, I have worked on this weekly. I could hardly wait until every Friday morning to receive the email containing the 7 blocks of the week.  Every block is different, no 2 alike. They start as 3 1/2 inches and when sewed together make a nice little 3-inch square block. 

I purchased the program to make this quilt from Sentimental Stitches. It is a technique called paper piecing.  I ran the patterns off onto tracing paper, and then sewed through the paper, then removing it before sewing the blocks together. 

 I believe Gay is offering this pattern again for 2022 if you hurry!

This is the fabric I used the most of.  It's a bolt of fabric I purchased from a friend when his wife, who was an expert quilter died.  It's very old, only 36 inches wide. I would cut off a couple of yards, wash and dry it and iron it before I used it in the quilt. I did not wash the colored fabric. 

I sewed the entire quilt on this Singer model 206 K machine. It was manufactured in 1953, a year after I was born. It's beautiful with a domed case.  It's the first vintage black zig-zag machine I have acquired. 

I posted pictures to my Facebook account and most times to my Instagram account of the 7 blocks of the week. It was always hard to show the actual size. Sometimes I used coins for references. 

This is the very first week!

It's always fun to look at the back. 

Here's a close-up back view. 

I liked this one, notice I fussy cut the star to be in the middle. 

Of all 365 blocks this one had been picked probably as most people's favorite.  A square in a square.

A good block to embroider the year it was pieced.

This block contained 65 pieces of fabric. I thought that would be the most.  However, the following week, one came with 68 pieces of fabric. 

 

68 pieces of fabric in one 3-inch block!!!!

This is maybe my favorite block.  Something about it looking round, I guess.

There's always lots of tiny pieces of paper everywhere. I use tracing paper to print my patterns on. 

Now I need to get it in the frame, and I will be hand quilting it. My plan is to quilt around every 3-inch block. 

Life is good.

Now on to the next adventure, thank you Sentimental Stitches, the next project is 4 1/2 blocks!