~Grandparents~

When I was typing the last post, I was thinking about my grandparents, in particular my Grandma Brown. I remember after she had her stroke and her and I were sitting watching TV one evening and I was working on a blanket or something. She told me she was kinda disappointed that I had not taken up her quilting. She always thought I would be the one to take that up, but after watching me that evening, she then understood why I did not quilt, she could see how fast I could do a blanket in crochet.

But thanks to my oldest son, Buck, I think she would be proud of these!!!

Yes, they are Crocheted Quilts... Buck had asked me to make him a blanket for Christmas, and this is the one he wanted, handing me a book that he borrowed from Mandy's (his wife) Mom. It was the Log Cabin one at the top. Then a couple months later, Mandy's mom was working on the Double Wedding Ring and could not get one part to come out right, could I figure out what she was doing wrong, so I started the bottom one. About halfway through this one, I thought "Grandma would be happy, I have taken up her quilting, just in a different form".. The Log cabin one was really easy, but the Double Wedding Ring, was a challenge. Over the past 3 years I have made 5 of the Log Cabin and 4 of the Double Wedding Ring ones. This one I kept for myself.. I want to do a Log Cabin baby blanket. One of the girls that works in the main office of the Company Larry works for has just had a baby girl, I think I will this one for her... I'll pick up the yarn for it tomorrow..

This one I did again at the request of Buck, unfortunately the one I made for him burnt in the house just 6 weeks after I gave it to him, but because of the Grace of God none of them were injured, just stuff lost. I call it the Color Wheel Grannyghan.. Notice it starts and ends with Red,,, Red and Yellow make Orange so Orange is between the Red and Yellow. Yellow and Blue make Green, so it is between the Yellow and Blue, then Blue and Red make Purple, so it is between Blue and Red.. To add a little variety I added the pastel version of each of these colors alternating them between the dark colors. I thought it turned out neat. I have sold several of these as well. It is kind of a quilt since it is all these blocks put together.

I think this is all for today. I am off to paint the tank on the tractor that I have sanded and primed. We are coming right along on that old treasure we bought just 2 months ago. I will post update on it soon..

Have a SAFE BLESSED WEEK!!!!!!!

~Baking~

On Friday evening, my kitchen looked like a bakery... I was baking Cinnamon rolls for my oldest Grand-daughter, Cember. She is in SIS ROCS, a club at her school that raisies money for charity. There was an antique car show in Sheridan this weekend, and they were going to sell baked goods there. Cember told her teacher, My Nana will make Cinnamon rolls for us and she makes the BEST!! Now how do you tell them NO.. Not me. She had to have them (I need 35 Nana) 7 AM saturday so I told her I would do them Friday nite and bring them to her.

When I arrived at 6:50 Saturday morning, there were 9 people awaiting my arrival. They had decided that my cinnamon rolls would be breakfast for all working that morning. Good thing I had made 48 and taken them all to her. I spoke with her later that afternoon and she told me they were gone before 8:00. Everyone LOVED them. I told her and Gabby, Nana is always good for baked goodies when you need them.

Then I realized I had Amish Friendship bread to do that nite. It was the 10th Day and the starter had to be finished and bread made. I made 4 loaves, 2 Lemon and 2 Chocolate/Chocolate Chip.

Let me back up a little. About an hour after I got in from work, Larry and I are discussing what is for dinner, I am thinking something simple, since I have baking to do. But NO... He decides he wants Shrimp Gumbo, so off to Wally World we go, I need Shrimp. When we return, I get the gumbo started, then I start the bread dough for the cinnamon rolls, after I have it resting, I do the Amish Bread and get it in the oven, stopping to stir the Gumbo and add ingredients to it. While the Amish Bread is baking, I make out the cinnamon rolls and let them rise till the bread is done.

I get the bread out of the oven, cinnamon rolls in and we sit down to eat Gumbo. Boy is it good. I love Gumbo, this coming from someone that used to eat one thing at a time and washed her plate between items, yes I did do that... Then Larry happened and that came to a halt, but I am still particular about something, I will NOT eat raw onions, celery, tomatoes, mushrooms, and a few other things. But I eat more casserole type things (foods mixed together) than I ever have before. Mom and dad were shocked the first time they heard I had eaten Gumbo.. I think they have kinda gotten over that now.

About the time dinner was through and I had the dirty dishes put in the dish washer, the cinnamon rolls were done, I mixed the icing and got that on them set them aside, finished the kitchen and sat down for a minute. Noticed it was close to 10 and decided to go to bed... It had been a full evening, but the house smelled WONDERFUL!!!!!

Up at 5:30 Saturday morning, put the rolls in a container and headed off to the school...

Moral of this story, it does not stop at you kids volunteering you for things, you Grand Kids do it too!!!! I LOVE them and feel proud that they want me around them and don't think I am an old foggie!!!!

~Another Year Older~Another Year Better~

Today (Actually Tomorrow, the 25th) Aunt Net will be another year older... Not sure how old she is in the first Pic (bet you wonder what I got that one).. But she hasn't changed much... I remember when I was a little girl and you would take us to Whitaker's store to buy candy when we would come to visit. Can't say that was a LONG time ago, because you are not that much OLDER than ME!!!!!!! I am closing in on (Five-Oh) rather quickly... You have always been very special to me, as are my other aunts. I remember when you and uncle CW lived just up the highway from Grandma's and I would come stay with you. Then you moved to PB and I did not get to see you as much, Then I got married, and life got real interesting. Now we are both Grandmothers and what a treat that is. Sorry, I have not got a copy of the Cindy Crawford pic that Sheri was supposed to do for you, so this will have to do for a recent Pic (sorry, I tried to crop out CW and it did not work).

HAVE A WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!

~Blankets Finished~

Sheri, these are for you...

I have finished the last of the blankets for the Race for the Cure Raffle. I was told today, they have already sold 500 tickets. That is great and we still have 3 weeks to go..

This is the first of the 2 I did. It is solid pink, worked in double crochet, except skipping every other stitch to make the ribbon shape open.



This one is worked in brown single crochet, changing to pink to form the ribbon pattern in it. These were done for one of our nurses for their fund raiser for Race for the Cure.
This nurse remembered me saying I had made Rocky a flag before he went to Iraq. She was a very strong support for me while he was over there. So this is the very least I could do for her. I will let you know what the final dollar figure is for these 2 blankets.

Until next time. Good nite all. I have 3 little girls to get to bed.

~Game Cam~

Larry and I just got a new toy... James helped us purchase a Game Cam. For those of you that do not know what that is, It is a camera that you place outside somewhere around a trail that wild game make to get pics of them without you being there. It is awesome. We put it out on Saturday evening. That night we got 23 pics, 21 of deer and 2 of possums. Last night we got another 29 pics, this time about 8 of them were of rabbits.

This Pic is of 3 does eating at 6:15 am on Sunday morning. they laid up all nite during the storm and them came out early in the morning to eat. The camera has an infrared lens on it, so it takes night pics without a flash.

This is 2 bucks coming out late yesterday afternoon to eat. We keep sweet grain out there for them to eat. This feed costs $9.40 per 50 lb bag and we feed about 50 lbs a week. Not too bad. They are well fed deer. There is one that is about a 10 point, I am sure that one will meet his demise this season, if not by Bruce, then by someone in the lease behind us.

Last Monday evening Bruce killed a wild pig in this same area. I will post a pic of the skull mount of it when it is finished. Bruce said he weighed about 250 lbs or so. His tusks were about 4 1/2 " long. We love living out here with all the wild life. Larry has never lived anywhere like this before, so this is all new to him. I have lived in a couple of places with wildlife all around, but this is still exciting.. Now he tells me there is another piggy out there. Hope to get some pics of it soon. I am hoping for a frontal shot of the Big Boy out there, where you can see his antlers real well. May have to print and frame that one.

Well, time to go to water aerobics. Not sure if I need to do that, I am beginning to get stopped up and it is kinda cool here. Oh well, I will be fine..

Until Next time:::

~Open House~

I hosted an Open House on Thursday nite, after Water Aerobics. Everyone had been wanting to come see the house, so we came after class on Thursday nite. There were 10 that came. I explained to them I am not through with the inside yet, we have put very little on the walls (just cannot bring myself to put all them holes in the walls). Still trying to decide where I want what put. I think I have decided which wall to put all the family pics on. May start that this weekend. It is raining outside here and is supposed to do this for the next 5 days or so (thanks Hurricane IKE). So, we cannot work on the tractor, can't sand, because we cannot prime the pieces. So I guess it will be an inside work weekend.

Back to the house, everyone kept saying how pretty the house is and how much they love it. We really love it here, I was a bit anxious when we decided to do this, because there is no neighbors and I will be here by myself at nite quite a bit and the garage is not directly attached to the house (I have to walk across the breezeway to get into the house). But I have done very well with that. It does not bother me like I thought it would. I love being able to see the deer, the hummingbirds and other wild life in the back yard (still have not seen a squirrel). Oh, by the way, The piggy is gone.. Bruce caught him rooting in the edge of the yard on Monday nite and his 7mm rifle took care of him. He is doing a European mount of the head. I will post pics when it is finished. Last nite he informed me there are new piggy tracks out there. I had hoped we would get here Thursday nite in time to maybe see the deer in the back, but it was 8ish when we got here and it was too dark. Oh well, maybe next time. I had baked that day (Kelsey helped), so we had Chocolate Chip Amish Bread, Pumpkin Bread and Cinnamon rolls for a treat. Everyone took home a doggie bag for breakfast the next morning. I really enjoyed having everyone over. Larry was in Miss. and Bruce was coon hunting, so it was just us girls. We talked about a book someone was reading, "A Night with the King" about Esther. I found the DVD of it online yesterday. I told mom I am going to order it and us girls will have to get together and watch it. It sounds like a really good story. I will let you know when we watch it.

Well, I guess I better get my day started. I have already emptied the dish washer and folded a load of towels. Now I am going to get dressed and decide where I am going to put what pictures on this well. I have the boys collage of all their school pics I am going to put in the center, then I am going to put all 3 of the girls birth announcements up there and then I think I am going to print some more current pics to put up there and not put the older ones, maybe a few of the special ones (not that they are not all special, they are, but you know what I mean). I wish I could put up every picture I ever took of them, but there is not enough room... I also have to go to WalMart to get one more skein of yarn to finish the Race for the Cure blanket for our nurse, only like 3 rows and the trim. I will post pics of that when it is finished, then off in the mail to her. I am anxious to see how much they raise on these 2 blankets. She put the first one in their booth they did at the fair for Breast Cancer awareness. She said it was a really big hit, every one loved the blanket. I can't wait to see what they think about this one. I like it a whole lot better than the first. I will post pics of both of them when I finish this one.

So until next time.. So long..

~Remembering Jeff~

What a very Heart wrenching time it has been for my family these past several days. On Saturday we got word that my cousin Jeff had been killed in a tragic hunting accident. A very young, 36 year old father of 4 girls, Bethany, Emily, Maggie Mae, and Alyson, and husband to Denise. So full of life and loved living. For the last several days, we have sat and listened to and told of stories of things that Jeff had done in his short life. We have laughed and cried. During the funeral the preacher mentioned a story about a toilet being blown up at school, I made a mental note to ask Uncle Roy about that one, I had not heard that. They talked about how he turned his life around and started living it for the Lord. Jeff was a very talented Machinist, what some beautiful iron work he had done. There was a beautiful center piece he had done for the Christmas center piece I saw, it was a cross with a stainless steel trimmed brass heart in the middle of it, 3 gold candles around the bottom and 2 wrought iron roses with a hummingbird on it. It is gorgeous. What a legacy those girls have to remember.

He is planted (not buried, as the preacher said, when you "bury" something you want to forget it, we do not want to ever forget Jeff. When you "Plant" something you want something good and wonderful to come from it and that is what we want, even thought right now, we cannot imagine what GOOD can EVER come out of something so tragic and senseless, but it is part of the master plan), over looks Uncle Roys Lake in his back yard. It will not be long before Uncle Roy has a gate in the fence right there where Jeff is and the underbrush cleared out of the trees between his deck and Jeff's grave. Before I left last night he was talking about those very things. This is almost the exact view from Jeff's grave, ( I borrowed this photo from Sheri, THANKS SHERI, by the way that is uncle CW on the dock), Only between Jeff and the lake you can see the chicken house.

As we were sitting on the deck yesterday afternoon, I asked about the commode thingy... Well, as we all know when Jeff was younger, he was quite a rounder.... But this is really something.. He and his "FRIEND" rigged up 2 candles to burn only a short time and when they burned down it would ignite "2" fire crackers (each equal to 1/2 stick of dynamite). They rigged this up between classes and lit the candles just before heading back to class. As they were sitting in class, Jeff turned to his friend and said "it should be going off just about "NOW"", and at that time, it blew, blowing the toilet apart and parts of it out into the hall and water running everywhere. Jeff just sat there looking "Innocent". They were in their meanest teachers room at the time and she looked square at, you got it "JEFF"... Nothing was done, because they could not prove he had done it, but she KNEW!!!!! Always getting into something.

Another story that was told was about his class ring.. Boy did Uncle Roy get "Snuckered" as Jeff's friend said on this one!!!! Jeff asked Uncle Roy if he would pay for his class ring if Jeff paid the first $50.00. Uncle Roy thinking OK, it would be about $200.00, Sure I will do that. So Jeff ordered the ring. A few weeks later, he came in and showed Uncle Roy his friends ring and told him, if he could get back to the Jewelry store before 5 he could get his that day too, so Roy asked him to get his Check book... Roy proceeded to make out the check and asked Jeff how much it was..... To his AMAZEMENT and DISBELIEF ( not sure why that one, because after all it was JEFF).... He was told $849.00!!!!!!!!!!!! Jeff had ordered a pro ball player ring, with a REAL RUBY in it and a DIAMOND in the middle of the RUBY... Then to make matters worse, he would sit on the bus and cut squares in the glass on the windows with the diamond and peck on them till they fell out, leaving holes in the glass... They all knew it, because after all, who else had a DIAMOND in their ring.

There are so many more stores like this about Jeff, but time nor space permits listing them all, But Jeff was a FUN person to be around. He will truly be missed by all who knew him...

Channel 11 in Little Rock did a tribute to him on the 10 o'clock news last nite. Here is the link to the story: http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=72288&catid=2 What an honor to him and to our Family.. The church was so full yesterday, so many friends, family and loved ones. The first song that was played, Kris Kristofferson's "Why Me Lord" sung by Jeff... He wanted to learn that song and sing it in Church, because his dad always sang that song. A song sung by Aunt Rosie, "Paid in Full" was played and several others by my cousins and their quartet, one of them Raymond had written, but right now I cannot remember the name of it. Will look that up and post it later.. Beautiful songs sung for a Beautiful person. So many emotions...

Jeff We LOVE you and you will be MISSED by all who knew you!!!!!!

~HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET PEA~

Sept. 4, 1999

My Little Gabby Girl is "9". When did that happen?? I remember the day (night 11:54 PM) you were born. My second precious little girl.. How happy we were. Cember was only 17 months old, but what a big sister she was. You are growing up too fast, please slow down and enjoy being a little girl. You are your daddy's daughter. You are so much like him when he was your age. You have a beautiful smile. I so enjoy being your Nana. I love the time we spend together. You are a real joy to me. I hope you have a WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY!!!!! We will celebrate on our Next Girls Nite.. I hope to have a new Art Organizer put together for us. Until I see you, Nana LOVES you!!!

Gabby took this pic of herself on our LakeHouse weekend. I think she did real good...

~Power Sweet Power~

Just a quick note to let you know we now have POWER again. Thank you Entergy... We really needed rain, But not THIS MUCH>>> It is still raining hard and steady for over 48 hours straight now.. Not supposed to end until late tomorrow evening..

Nite all

~Rain - Rain - Rain~

Okay, Enough already. We have had constant rain since Monday evening about 9 or so and still now it is RAINING!!!!! We are about to float away here.. We are having really strong wind to go with this rain. It blew hard enough it blew my swing and frame off the front porch yesterday afternoon. Luckily it did not hurt either one, the frame came apart, but Bruce says it is not hurt. I am very thankful for that. I think we have had about 6 or 7 inches of rain since it started.. I drove through water twice in less than 1/2 mile to get to the hwy. There is some major flooding going on here. Then to top it off, we lost power about 1 or so this morning. So, now power, no automatic garage door,, boo hoo... Spoiled, you got that right. I had to manually raise the door, then drive out and get out and manually CLOSE the door. When I got back in the Yukon to leave, I realized I did not have my glasses on, so I had to find my way to the back door, pouring down rain, unlock the door and feel my way around the house to my glasses. By the time I left, I was drenched. I have called the power company and we may get power back tonite around 9 or so, oh well, I guess I can live with that. At least I do not live in Louisiana, where they may be out of power for the next 2 weeks or so. I like to visit there, but I don't think you could pay me enough to live there. I don't mind rain, but it would be AWESOME, if it would rain only at night and be pretty during the day... Oh well, my grass needs the rain. Just glad we did not put out fertilize on it this weekend.

Just heard the rain is supposed to stop sometime early tomorrow and be pretty through the weekend.. Yeah..