As usual, there is a lot going on in our house. School for our college kids has begun, one doesn't live at home but with the "playdates" he makes with his brothers and family dinners, he's around a fair amount.
Since we homeschool, we can choose our start date, we have always started the day after labor day and will again this year. We have one more week of summer before schooling begins.
Jonathan had a busy summer, with occasional lawnwork jobs and some work for our cleaning company. He also took on the task of maintaining and sprucing up the yard, which included trimming trees and bushes, fixing up the edges on a couple of bush beds and cutting out an area for the swings, which will soon be filled with pea gravel. This way we don't wear out the grass and he doesn't have to move them all the time to mow under them. Here is the "before" picture, I guess since the pea gravel isn't in I haven't yet taken an "after" picture!
Lucas and Mike have enjoyed a few fishing outings this year, one of them in the canoe. He caught 5 small fish on one outing but threw them all back. This one was a keeper, a 2 1/2 pound bass. The week before Mike got one that was just a bit bigger, I'll be making them a fish fry lunch one day soon.
The wedding plans are in full swing, we found her dress last weekend, she bought invitations today, she's been gathering bits and pieces of things. Rebekah made her own veil last summer and offered to make Rachel's for her, so we got beads to get her started on that as well. Things are well in hand at the moment, we'll enjoy that and hope it continues.
Today was a rough day, one of those where nothing seems to go right. We were out running errands, Ruthie, while mostly cooperative, was also just not in a very social mood and she ignored or grunted at most people who talked to her...and there were many today. We found a hat on the dish soap shelf at Walmart, it was on a shelf at Ruthie's eye level, and looked at me, pointed that tiny finger at it and said "hat? Tootie have it?" She pulled it out and oh my, she loved it (she loves hats anyway, but oh my) so we used some of her allowance money to buy it. I think I will be trying to find some plain, child sized fedoras that we can decorate for her to wear.
And, the quilting. It's not been a good summer for that, it seems. I did do quite a bit of piecing earlier in the summer, but have not done nearly as much as usual since. The upside of that is I really felt like I had a summer vacation. The downside is I feel like I have to really be focused the next few months to accomplish what I need to. The wedding quilt is underway (pattern picture on the right,) I have a quilt in the hoop that is nearly done, and a couple more tops that I have fabric for and just need to get the ball rolling on. Rebekah got her Tablecloth Quilt for their anniversary, which was fun.
Rachel bought a laptop for school and we needed to make the house a wi-fi hotspot. I guess "NEED" isn't quite right but it would most certainly make it much more enjoyable for everyone not having to share one wireless modem. Brian had told us about a place in town that buys old gold and broken jewelry so I figured I'd see what I could get for mine. I had accumulated quite a bit over the years, and hoped to get a couple hundred dollars for it...enough to buy the hotspot adapter that I needed and fabric for a couple of quilt tops.
