Country Living Fair

What a great weekend! Shannon invited me to go with her and two other people from work to Columbus, Ohio, for the Country Living Fair. I can't always take off work, but this time I could. I am so glad that I did! We had an excellent time, even considering the rainy, hot weather. The venue, the state fairgrounds, provided plenty of room for all of the tents, displays, seminars, and, of course, all of the people.
These are spinner gourds. We learned how to take dried gourds, clean them up, and then polish them so that they last for years. By the time we left at the close on Saturday, this display was looking a bit depleted.It rained on Friday, and rained, and rained, and rained. I love this vendor's interpretation of an umbrella tree. I was glad that I made the trip to the store before we left home to buy a small, foldable umbrella. I bought a Country Living tote bag on Friday so that I could carry my raincoat (too hot for it in spite of the rain) and the goodies that I bought.
This was one of my favorites, obviously. The shop is in Iowa, and this is the quilt commissioned for Country Living. I bought this pattern and another little one. Shannon's going to try needle punch, and Vicky liked the looms.
Speaking of weaving, I bought a long, narrow basket to either hang or to use on the dining room table. Her baskets have been in several magazines, and although they aren't oak, I just really liked them. I bought a few other things, but this was the big prize.
One of the best parts of the fair were the seminars. This one by Country Living contributing editors taught me about tablescapes with flowers and holiday items. The other one I enjoyed was no-sew or low-sew bags. We need to have a no-sew bag party now. The presenters made the ideas seem accessible and easy enough for me to try.
The road trip from Huntsville to Columbus takes about eight hours, but when you're comfortable in a new rental van, and you enjoy the company and laugh enough, the trip doesn't seem that long. Driving home through Kentucky was exciting considering the "wind emergency" in the state. This tobacco truck isn't something we see every day in Huntsville. We made it back safely by early evening even though Hurricane Ike hiked the gas prices. We saw the highest price here in Huntsville, $4.89 per gallon on Governor's Drive. Our last fill-up was a mere $4.59, but there was a ten gallon limit. In any event, I am glad I spent the weekend with Shannon. Such fun! I would love to go back again.

Louie Says "Roll Tide"

It wasn't pretty, but Alabama beat Tulane last night. We weren't planning on it, but at the last minute we decided to do pay-per-view and watch the game. We don't mind paying, but why can't they broadcast in high def? We figured if we bought the pay-per-view for all of the games that weren't on regular TV, it wouldn't add up to the cost of going to even one game. Anyway, Louie loves football games. For him, it means that both his people are in the same room watching television, so he can sleep on either lap. Halftime is a quick trip down the block, and then more love for Louie. I remember last year each time we would yell because of something in the game, he would get terribly excited and upset. This year? He opened one eye once, but besides that, he just snuggled down and napped.

Labor Day Laziness and Louie

Elephants on Parade is finished. Nope, not Republican elephants. These are happy batik elephants. I bought the center panel at the Mountain Vally Quilt Shop in LaVeta, Colorado at the quilt shop in July.
I played with some decorative stitches and beads. I am going to have to learn how to do free motion quilting, I guess. Happy colors, happy elephants, happy quilt.

Sunday morning we headed to Scottsboro for the First Monday Art in the Park Sunday. Crazy name, but it is the art show on Sunday which coincides with the monthly trade day each first Monday on the Jackson County Couthouse square in Scottsboro. The biggest one of the year is always Labor Day weekend. This is such a typical hazy view as we drove east past Paint Rock on 72. We didn't ever make it to the trade day because it was too hot and humid and because we spent our money on baskets. We saw the table of white oak baskets and hurried over. We have been buying from B. L. Kelly for about fifteen years now. He lives in Rainbow City, and he does all of the work himself on his baskets. He only goes to several shows each year, but he has a loyal following. He said he'd been busy all morning selling, and what we saw out on his tables was all he had left.
Mr. Kelly signs his baskets for us. I wonder how many he's made all together? I wonder how many we've actually purchased? Lots. We are thinking of gathering them all together in one place to take a picture. I asked him if he minded us taking pictures, and he said we weren't the first with a camera yesterday. He'd like us to send him some.
Mr. Kelly and his wife always recognize us and ask after our family. They told us they are closing in on sixty-three years of marriage. When I said they must have married young, he said he was sixteen, and she was seventeen. Who says marriages like that won't last! Let's see, we're closing in on thirty-three. In thirty years, we'll be about eighty-six. Hmmm.Louie didn't get to go along, but he is enjoying his weekend too. Don't let this lap dog fool you into thinking he's innocent. He has his own baskets of toys, so he's discovered that if he dumps over baskets, they usually have something in them. If his leash basket is in his reach, he dumps it so that he can steal the plastic picker-upper poop bags. He also stands on his hind legs, strains to reach the kitchen table, and when he can knock the basket off, he's rewarded with paper napkins to steal. We've found trails of napkins through the house on more than one occasion.

Weekend Recap

Friday night - 11:00 P.M. Meghan, Justin, Bridger, and Taplin arrive after a long drive. Bridger got out of the car asking for apple juice and a movie. What grandparents could refuse such a sweet guy? Louie is happy to have company and share the pallet on the family room floor.Friday night 11:45 P.M. It might be close to midnight, but Taplin is still a happy little one. Clean jammies, a bottle, and Mommy is all it takes. He's grown so much in the last four weeks. Saturday morning, 9:00 A.M. -- Breakfast with Cherise, Jenny, and Meghan and their husbands. It's hard to believe these three graduated from Grissom ten years ago. Three fine young women, if I don't say so myself. Cherise lives in D.C., and Jenny lives in the Dayton area.
Saturday, 1:00 P.M. No nap for Bridger. It's time to play. He can build roads and race cars for hours and hours. Brrrrmmmm, brrrrmmmm. When he get tired of that, he takes a break for a puzzle or two, then back to the cars. Hours and hours of cars. 2:00 P.M. Saturday - Aunt Shannon and the boys share a moment. I guess Louie is one of the boys. Later in the afternoon -- Uncle Nathan takes a turn with Taplin. 4:oo P.M. Bridger and Taplin get to meet Nathan and Shannon's nephew, eight-month-old Mac. 6:00 P.M. - Spiderman protects his mom. He's our super-grandson!
Taplin's looking all grown up. At four months, he weighs 14 pounds 12 ounces, and he is about 26 inches long. Check out that hair!Taplin is a happy baby. He cries for his bottle or when he first wakes up, but he is usually ready with a smile. His arms and legs are on the move, and he is wide-eyed and curious.9:00 P.M. Saturday -- It's an Everette Sandwich. Don't squish Taplin!! 10:oo P.M. Two tired guys watch some T.V.
Sunday morning, we take it slow, and then the Millers, Everettes, and Etheridges head out to lunch before the boys and Justin and Meghan hit the road south.

Sieze the Day

Saturday morning, we decided that life is short. We needed to leave the laundry and cleaning and the work world behind and put some miles on our new car. Shoot, gas is down to about $3.50 a gallon, and we're getting about 34 mpg on the highway. Why not! If you don't recognize the city, it is Nashville. We went downtown to the Farmer's Market first. The colors and buzz of people made it seem more like a festival. Tomatoes were in abundance, but we didn't buy any this time. We did get green beans, new potatoes, and peppers. I don't think we can eat all of the peppers this week, but we did have one chopped up in our hash browns at lunch today. Sweet, sweet flavor. Look at the size of these guys. They are sitting in my giant dough bowl, so the ordinary sized ones look little. However, the truth is that the bigger red and yellow ones are actually giant. The market is in several buildings. We had a terrific fun in the international shop, which seemed to primarily carry Indian spices and foods. Since we ate at an Indian restaurant this summer in Denver with Allen's colleagues who are from India, we recognized many more of the items than we would have. Their prices were excellent, so we came home with a bag of treasure like star anise and colorful mint coated fennel seed. That is typically used as an after dinner mint.We opted for small bags, not the giant size like this bag of turmeric. I rarely, if ever, have used turmeric and cannot imagine why anyone would use this much unless it was for a restaurant. Shopping for food left us hungry, so on the way to the quilt store in Franklin (you didn't think we'd skip that, did you??), we ate at the Franklin Chop House. I had beef medallions cooked in garlic butter on a bed of mashed potatoes and fried okra on the side. Excellent.

Louie felt left out yesterday, I guess. Today, he had a long walk with Allen and several other short walks too, but that didn't mean he was too tired to stay out of trouble. While I was sewing, he kept attacking my foot that controls the sewing machine. Not a good plan at all! I tried sewing with him on my lap, but that was just impossible, so I picked him up and planted him on the sewing stool I have stowed under my cutting table. I couldn't tell if he was terrified or terribly proud of himself for being up there. Poor Louie. He loves spending time with me, probably even when I won't play his games, but tomorrow is a school day.

Thank goodness for weekends

If Louie could read, maybe he wouldn't be so busy stealing things. This is a catalog. Maybe he wants to go shopping. The key thing is that he can get our attention by stealing things. If we could conquer this problem, he would be the perfect pug. More or less.
This is what Louie thinks he should do on Sunday morning. It's pretty much the same thing that I like to do on Sunday morning. Of course, I actually read the paper, while he likes to snuggle down by me while I read. He enjoys having me home, and after going back to school this week and spending so many hours there, I agree with him totally.

I don't know why these pictures look fuzzy because they really aren't if you click on them to enlarge them or if you look at them on my Flickr pages.
In any event, I finished this vacation projects last night! I had such fun making this batik quilt. I hand pieced the blocks mostly while we were in Denver, and I found the green sashing material as well as the backing at the Great American Quilt Factory there. Then I machine quilted it to the best of my limited machine quilting ability, and I finished the binding last night. I am calling it Paintbox because it reminds of of a watercoloring box when the drips from one color spill into another. Right now it is hanging on the banister of our balcony.
Who is the handsome little fellow with my handsome son-in-law Nathan? Let me introduce Nathan's sister Michelle's baby Mac. He is just adorable.
I love hand pictures. Nathan and Mac are playing a duet. I don't think Mac had played on a piano before. He was a little shy at first, but he had fun with Nathan and Shannon pressing keys.
Oh Louie, you're being as tolerant as a pug can be, aren't you! Louie turned one in June, and Mac is about seven months old, born at Christmas time.Saturday was a horribly hot, muggy Alabama roaster of a day. The heat didn't keep it from being a busy day at the Farmer's Market. This is Peaches and Cream corn, just the best in my opinion. One dozen ears for $5 - a bargain this year.The pepper guy had a bounty of colorful vegetables. We bought poblano peppers (for stuffed peppers), some jalepeno peppers, and green peppers. The colors are vibrant, and the green banana peppers reminds me of my quilt. Besides the corn and peppers, we also picked up green beans, potatoes, watermelon, zucchini, onions. Support your local growers.