Lazy Days of Summer

A perk of being a Sam's Club employee is the annual summer WalMart Shareholder's meeting and free concerts.  In 2010, we enjoyed REO Speedwagon and Barenaked Ladies.

We went to the campground on the river at Ozark and stayed one night while Mom, Dad, Myno, and GG were camping there.  Wish we had more time for camping...the girls really enjoy it, and so do Michael and I.

Just a couple of country girls, with nothin' but undies on, playing in the sprinkler to kick off summertime!

  Pool Party for Ella's 1st Birthday!

1st time for hot rollers...they thought they were somethin' special!

   

Spring Fever!

Spring 2010 (not a typo...I'm this far behind) was filled with outdoor projects at home.  I decided to make the flowerbed around the storage building into a container flower garden.  Both of the urns are now the same color which looks better, but I still need something to hang on the wall above since there is so much empty space (took me a while to talk Michael into this because he didn't want to drill a hole in "his" building).  I'm hoping that Fin & Feather craft fair later this fall has just what I need.

 The girls and Drake planted 2 boxed vegetable gardens.  They yielded about 8 green beans and 1 cantaloupe!  Ha!  But, they enjoyed it!  And Michael resolved to make a much bigger garden next year!

I assured Michael that I could handle painting the steel entrance to our drive by myself.  And I did...but I totally underestimated how long it would take.  The mailman checked on my progress each day and was impressed with my work.  Ha!  It did turn out nice, if I do say so myself.

Just couldn't resist capturing this on camera...our pasture full of yellow wildflowers with one of the old barns in the distance.  You can't help but feel renewed in the spring when you witness

the beauty of our earth in landscapes such as this!

And who could resist these two playing hide-and-seek in Ms. Inita's flowers?

A Crazy Quilt

Grandmother passed away January 16th, 2011, and she left behind many quilts that she had quilted.  Some had even been quilted along with her mother.  In her scrapbooks, I found this poem and wanted to share.  The picture is of the 3 quilts that Grandmother gave to Billie, Kyleigh, and me before she died.

A Crazy Quilt

They do not make them anymore,

For quilts are cheaper at the store

Than woman's labor, though a wife

Men think the cheapest thing in life.

But now and then a quilt is spread

Upon a quaint old walnut bed,

A crazy quilt of those old days

That I am old enough to praise.

Some women sewed these points and squares

Into a pattern like life's cares,

Here is a velvet that was strong,

The poplin that she wore so long,

A fragment from her daughter's dress,

Like her, a vanished loveliness;

Old patches of such things as these,

Old garments and old memories.

And what is life?  A crazy quilt;

Sorrow and joy, and grace and guilt,

With here and there a square of blue

For some old happiness we knew;

And so the hand of time will take

The fragments of our lives and make,

Out of life's remnants, as they fall,

A thing of beauty, after all.

By Douglas Malloch