What's Happening?

*****Update: Thanks to one of my internet friends, I've corrected the name of the flower below! See the "I forget" below and you'll know why?

Outside my window: It's a gorgeous day---especially after all of this chilly rain. In the 80's today.

I am thinking: Should I give Mindy and Stephanie the pillows I made for them, or make them wait until Christmas?

 This one is for Stephanie. I don't know if you can see it, but the ball fringe also has little tiny green ones between the red ones.

This fleur di lis is for Mnidy. I had this one finished in a raw silk with some sort of loopy fringe. 

And lest you think I forgot Sandy---I already had her pillow finished before LAST Christmas and sent it to her for a surprise.

I am thankful for: Good friends that bring me surprises!

Nancy was antiquing up through Pennsylvania. She found this little butter pat (I guess that's what it is---it's about 4 inches in diameter) in the Liberty Blue pattern that I am just starting to collect. I don't know what I did to deserve her!!

From the kitchen: I made a new recipe last night for my freezer club. It's pretty good and easy!!

Beef and Macaroni

1 lg. onion, chopped

1 tbsp. olive oil

2 lbs. ground chuck

2 pkgs. taco seasoning

1 large can of diced tomatoes

1 box elbow macaroni, cooked until half done, drain

1 cup mozzarella

1 cup cheddar

Cook onion in olive oil until transparent. Brown meat. Add tomatoes and taco seasoning. Simmer about a half hour. Stir in macaroni. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes. Top with cheese and bake an additional 5 minutes. This makes pretty much, so you can freeze it---just leave off the cheese until baking time.

I am wearing: my around the house clothes---specifically, black pants, master gardener t-shirt and socks (I never run around bare footed).

I am hoping: to chill out in front of the tv tonight---but I have some cooking I need to do for the weekend.

I am reading: Gone Girl. I just started it. This is the book that one of my bridge friends loaned me. I got tired of juggling the book really fast and bought it on my Kindle. It actually makes me a little sad that I'm so hooked on my Kindle. 

Sort of makes my library obsolete. Still, I can enjoy reading my Kindle in here.

I am busy creating: This is my latest needlepoint project. Connie and I are doing it. She's way ahead of me. I am just about finished with the first snowman and have done just about all of the background.

 This is about the size of a dinner plate. When it's finished, it will be mounted on a large styrofoam ball on a wood base. It's a snow globe!

 I'm bummed: That I didn't get my errands done this morning. I allowed plenty of time, but when I got to the post office, there was a long line. This makes me so mad! They have 5 windows and only had one open. Why is it that people feel compelled to tell the postman what's in their package? One lady was mailing a birthday gift to her grandson in Germany, one man was picking up mail that he had held and had to tell the postman where he'd been and another was returning a pair of shoes. Seriously, do they think he really cares? All he cares about is whether you have anything "liquid, hazzardous or perishable, cash or credit, do you need stamps?"

It took me twenty minutes to make my way to the front only to discover I had to fill out some customs form (I'm mailing an envelope to the UK). I should have paid attention to that lady who was mailing to Germany. I had to get out of line and start over. I just left. I didn't have time to wait another 20 minutes. Now I have to go back out tomorrow morning and make my rounds.

I am hearing: Golf on tv. Can you spell b-o-r-i-n-g?

Around the house and garden: I took a stroll through my gardens this afternoon to see what's blooming. Spring is the most exciting time---seems like something new is blooming every day.

 This is called a "fringe" tree. It's a good under tree for the shade. The white fronds only happen in the spring.

These red berries are so pretty. I'm completely drawing a blank on what it is. 

 This was the biggest surprise---the blooms on the Russian sage Papillion lavender are so unusual. (now I remember, it's French---not Russian).  Just gorgeous.

I went out to the perennial garden to cut some of the white peonies. Unfortunately, they are already past their prime. The good news is that the pink ones haven't bloomed yet. The bad news is that these look like snake holes to me!

In other news: I was on fire at bridge today!! Not in my play---in fact, I made some pretty stupid mistakes. But I had the best cards I've had in a long time. That means next week will be---can you spell it again?---b-o-r-i-n-g! It works that way---good cards one week, bad the next.

One of my favorite things right now: Playing Dice with Buddies on my iPhone. It's a free app and is exactly like Yahtzee. Wanna play? Just download the app and invite me!

I appreciate: DVR capabilities so that I can fast forward through all the commercials.

I remember: that I have a lot of presents to wrap tomorrow. It's going to be one busy day!

I forget:  many of the names of the flowers, plants and trees that I so painstakingly studied while designing my gardens 18 years ago. That bothers me.

I regret: that Butch was sick this week. That means that most likely I'll be sick next week.

What's wrong with this picture:

I don't think I need to point it out! I love when you take pictures and have something unusual show up. I'm so easy---I like any type of little surprises.

How the weekend is shaping up: Tomorrow night, after Happy Hour, we have poker. Connie has picked a new restaurant for us girls to go to---looking forward to that. 

Saturday is Steeplechase---our annual horse race to benefit Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. Central Parking always handled the parking and we got the best parking spot. Now that Butch is retired, that's another little perk that is gone! We'll be trekking in the mud.

This year, we are taking the family. I'm trying to keep the food simple (pork tenderloin sandwiches with honey mustard, deviled eggs---or stuffed eggs---as they are known in Tennessee, veggies and dip, celery stuffed with homemade pimento cheese, hummus chips and hummus and chocolate chip cookies.  And, of course, appropriate beverages---bloody Mary's, gin and tonics, water, soda and beer. We've got it covered.

Steeplechase is the place to see people and be seen. I'm over it. I know we'll have fun---but it's ALL day. They were calling for rain, but it looks like it will be nice after all. I'll post pictures on Sunday.

Mother's Day---brunch at the club. Then I'm going to play around in my scrapbook room. A girl can hope anyway. We'll see.

I hope y'all have a great weekend too.

Procrastination 101

Considering I'm very goal oriented, I can still be a procrastinator. I hate leaving projects unfinished---I'm one of those types that finishes anything I start---I most times won't let myself start something else until the first thing is finished.

Not true when it comes to my scrapbooking. I scrapbook randomly. I wait until the pages pile up before I put them in albums. Here's what I was dealing with:

These piles might not look like much, but they represent about a hundred layouts. It was time to get my table cleared off.

First comes sorting---putting the layouts in piles based on the albums they will go in.
Second---pull out the albums one at a time and put pages in.
Third---label albums.

Seems like this should be done in a flash doesn't it? Not so. It took me SIX hours!!! I used 3 tape runners and completed 3 albums while starting about 4 more. I even had title and end pages done in advance of this process (but it seems I never have enough).

One thing I ALWAYS do is add a "table of contents" to the front of each book. Also, I'm sure to sign the back cover and date it.

This is a heritage album. I've found that by adding the "table of contents" it makes it easier for me to find a particular layout---mostly for class purposes. But recently, my niece sent me a cute photo of Evie and told me how she is pulling things out of drawers and putting things in. It reminded me of a layout I did years ago that I titled "Toddler Rules." It's about: "if something is empty, I must fill it; if something is on, I must take it off, etc."

There are a couple of reasons I like to sign and date each album. One, for posterity---my great, great, great grandchildren will have a bit of my handwriting (which is also throughout the album), but also know when it was made and by who. Even if it winds up in an antique shop someday (gasp), it will have more value if it's signed and dated.

This is what I ended up with:

There are 14 albums in progress. I actually have two more on another shelf. This is what allows me to scrapbook anything, any time I want. Way more interesting this way.

I still have about 20 layouts that I didn't put in an album yet. They are all of the Zimmermann family. I hate that they won't all fit in one album and can't quite decide how I want to divide them up. Enough for now---at least I tackled the biggest part of the job.

It always takes longer than you think. Maybe that's why I procrastinate.

Project Life

I'm finally caught up on Project Life. Thank goodness I decided to do the monthly approach.

 Just little snippets of our month. Of course, I always have stories to tell.

I probably make this harder than it needs to be, but just like my scrapbooking, I want to have a lot of photos to represent the month.

Next up...The Mega Page Gathering.

It's ALL About Elizabeth!

Not surprising since she's the reason we went to Charlotte. She looked so cute in her First Communion Dress.

She is so darn sweet!! First Communion is one of the most important events for a little Catholic girl. She was really excited.

After the Communion Mass, we went to Elizabeth's favorite restaurant---she loves the red velvet waffles. When we got home, we played games, rested, had dinner, played more games and watched a little tv.

 Elizabeth helped with the parmesan puffs.

 After dinner, Victoria started cleaning up without being asked. She's really grown in to a lovely young lady.

It's hard to let her get lost in the shuffle---she's so quiet. We're going to have a little one-on-one time when they visit in June. I'm having one-on-one time with E too.

All in all, it was a great weekend.

"I'm Good With Spacial Relationships"

or so Mitchell tells me when I ask him about how he could cram all that stuff in his drawers.

He was hunting for something and his clothes were popping out all over.

 Still, he was able to smush it all back inside.

Now he's hunting for his loafers in the bottom of his closet.

 Elizabeth took time out from her preparations to help him look. He sort of sat back and let her take over.

I had to laugh when she said, in an exasperated voice, "Mitchell, your closet is a mess." He couldn't argue with that! The shoes never did turn up. He had to settle for his Sperry's.

Talk about spacial relationships...

I swear, he's grown another 2 inches since Christmas. We had such a good time over the weekend.

Off to Charlotte

We're visiting Sandy, Greg, Mitchell, Victoria and Elizabeth. It was grandparent's day today and Elizabeth's First Communion tomorrow. We arrived to this:

 The arbor to the backyard is covered in these beautiful blooms. I've never seen this plant before.

Then, up close, these cute little yellow beauties were peeking through. Sandy said the yellow flowers were first and covered the arbor. The peachy-pink ones came after. She said it's been a lot of fun to discover all kinds of new blooming things in their yard. They moved in the fall, so had no idea what the spring would bring.

 Elizabeth made this cross as part of her First Communion prep. I asked Butch what it reminded him of and he immediately said, "Santorini!" After nearly 42 years of marriage, we can read each other's minds!! Truly, it reminded us of this:

This is one of the beautiful homes built in to the side of the cliffs overlooking the Adriatic Sea.

Elizabeth made these potholders for me to match my green and blue kitchen. I made Victoria "model" them since the matched her shirt so well.

Sandy told us about the letter she received from the Catholic Gestapo reminding her that the First Communion would NOT fulfill your Sunday Mass obligation. They have to go every week to put their offering envelope in the collection basket. That acts as their attendance record. I've never heard of such a thing---keeping track of how many times you go to Church. Auto checks are not an option. I feel bad for them. It takes the joy out of going to Church.

Then, she told us horror stories about Mitchell and his smelly, sports clothes and athletic shoes. He even admitted that he had forgotten and left his basketball shoes in his car over night. He could barely drive to school the next day for the stench!! It's a whole different ball game with boys!!

 Here we are visiting E's class room. We did a craft project together---we decorated a napkin to be used as a bread basket liner. It's really cute. I'll have to get a picture of it.

Sandy is so little that she can share a child's chair with Elizabeth.

And now, for you entertainment---I taught E one of my hidden talents:

Now This is a Problem!

Recently, there was a news report about a guy that was killed when he was sleeping because half of his house---which included his bedroom---was sucked in to a sink hole. I think it was here in Nashville.

Well, my next door neighbor called yesterday to tell me that he had a geologist coming to check out the huge sink hole that was on the property line. He called back today to say that calling it a sink hole was a little more dramatic than it really is. Basically, there's an underground stream that has eroded the soil.

In order to fix it properly, it's going to take a backhoe, gravel, fill dirt and then sod. My neighbor is getting bids. As it turns out, the biggest part of the hole is on our property.

 There's really no way to tell how big this is. It's about 4ft in diameter and about 5 ft.deep. The pipe running through it is the neighbor's sprinkler pipe.

This close up shows the endless tunnel that reaches far under our yard. Even with a flashlight, I couldn't see the end of it. My neighbor did warn me to walk around to his side of the yard to see it. Our side of the yard is seriously in danger of collapsing. Luckily, it's no where near the house. But, depending on how far it reaches, it could go under the driveway. I hope not. Then it will be even more expensive.

Keep your fingers crossed that it's an inexpensive fix.

We leave for Charlotte tomorrow for Elizabeth's First Communion. We're looking forward to a fun weekend with the kids. We'll be home on Sunday.