7/23/24

Cutting Loose

Good morning, my friends. It felt like a lazy day yesterday, although I accomplished plenty...including housework. So how bad can it be? I hadn't slept well the night before, and so I went back to bed after writing yesterday's post. When I woke up, I went outside with the kitties to fill the bird feeders. There isn't a lot going on in the garden right now, but the echinacea are picking up the slack.


The bees love them.


I was surprised to find a flower on the Star Magnolia. This is usually one of the first things to bloom in spring. We missed it this year because we were traveling, and so I was happy it was giving us an encore flower.


There are a few more blossoms coming on.


To my right, Smitty was enjoying his favorite shady spot on the deck.

My eyes still felt heavy, and so I took a second nap after lunch. When I woke up from that, I went to work on my embroidery. Ordinarily, I do this first thing in the morning, but sleep took a higher spot on my to-do list. When I'd stitched all I wanted to for the day, I decided I'd stitched enough to move my hoop.


There's still plenty to do on this one, and so I expect to be working on it throughout the week.


For now, I've moved my hoop up and to the right a little. I'll start here this morning.


Meanwhile, Mike was finishing the work he's been doing turning our Jeep Wrangler into a "toad." (That's RV speak for a towed vehicle.) See the stuff under the bumper in the image below? There are spots on the extreme left and right where the tow bar attaches (I think), and then there is a little cap on the left where the electrical connection is. That's so the brake lights will light up when the brake is applied in the truck. Also, the silver ring on the right is the "break-away switch." If by some chance the Jeep becomes disconnected, the break-away switch applies the brakes to keep it from going walkabout.


Later, he hitched the thing up...


And then took it for a spin around the neighborhood.


Everything came back in one piece, including Mike. So far, so good. There are still a few things to do with this, but he's very close to having it ready to go for our "shake-down" trip to Moab in a few weeks.

Inside, I did the cutting so that I can start sewing together the quilt top for A Joyful Journey. All the pieces are cut except the strips for the border. I'll do those last. It seemed too late in the day to start sewing on this, but I'll have time to get started on it today.


This seems as good a time as any to say that the patterns for these embroidered blocks are up for grabs. The patterns were gifted to me by one of you, and so I'll just pay them forward to the next person. (I'm sorry I can't remember who passed these along to me originally. If it was you, then thank you.) If anyone wants them, email me. Whoever speaks up first can have them free of charge. (Edited to say they are spoken for…sorry.)

After doing the cutting, I went back upstairs to see Sadie working on her tan in the afternoon sunshine.


While I was making dinner, Smitty joined her for some tandem tanning.


To quote Zac Brown, life is good today.

Okay, so I have one housekeeping chore on the day's agenda. After that, I'll get busy sewing together the quilt top for A Joyful Journey. The weather has been comfortably cool for the last couple of days. I'm hoping it will last. We sleep a lot better with cooler nights. 

6 comments:

Barbara said...

We can be mothers and have careers. We can finish our education with children in tow. Is it a challenge? Yep. But women are made for challenges. We are strong enough to handle the challenges presented to us. It's what we were made to do. ~ Abby Johnson

dgs said...

Your garden still looks stunning. Echinacea is one of my favorite flowers. You have made great progress on your stitcher. Good to hear you have a shakedown trip planned to Moab, I just hope it won't be too hot when you go.

Sara said...

Those kitties do have a good life! Makes me smile. The magnolia bloom is really quite a dramatic flower. Beautiful.

Kate said...

Such pretty flowers! The not sleeping well one night can make for a difficult rest of the week. Hopefully you've not had any more of that. Looking forward to seeing a Joyful Journey come together.

piecefulwendy said...

Despite all the weeds, our flowers are doing pretty well this year. Yours are very pretty, and I'm glad you got to see that star magnolia. Those stitcheries are sure cute!

Magpie's Mumblings said...

Someone else was commenting that their star magnolia was blooming for the second time so I guess it must be a good year for them.
Oh my - it's a sobering thought that the jeep requires a break-away switch and the reason for it. Scary to contemplate and lets hope it's never needed!