Wildlife Wednesday

The human kind

Stranded visitors

Happy 4th!

Still in recovery mode

We had a delightful weekend celebrating the upcoming nuptials of this charming couple:

GS-2 and Fiance

Saturday's event was a down-home elegant affair in in an upscale Nashville condo building hosted by our DIL's card club friends. 

Casual dining at its finest

The club members provided all the food, including an assortment of home-baked pies.  But I have to say, the smoked bologna and pimiento cheese sliders were the BOMB!

Sunday's affair was a shower hosted by the church women where GS-2 grew up. 

The decor of travel-related items was over-the top!  It was so nice to see how the ladies felt about GS-2 and how warmly they accepted his bride.  Her parents from California also attended both events and it was such a pleasure to get to know them.

In between events we were loading my van with more boxes (we had overlooked a closet under the basement stairs with more quilt-related stuff) and I was waiting to see/hear from landscape/lawn guys to get some work done.  I am ticked (putting it politely) beyond tolerance for how difficult it is to get help, I won't even qualify it by saying "decent" help, in Nashville right now.

Soon after the wedding in August I have a quilt cruise and two retreats/camps, both of which have complicated cutting requirements.  What was I thinking!!!  I'll be lucky to even keep up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  At this point, I think the wedding quilt will become a Christmas present.

Catching up

We're back at House 1 for the weekend events leading up to GS-2's wedding in August.  No stitching came with me so I thought I'd catch you up on a few things now that all my pictures have come unstuck from the cloud.

First the wall hanging in the living room.

The center is a panel; I don't recall the pattern name for the setting.

The photographer is crooked, not the quilt.

As if I don't have enough quilts of my own,

I put a pair of my mother-in-law's Iris quilts in the "purple" guest room

(even the shower stall and toilet are periwinkle).

They were made from kits in the 1960s.  She did beautiful stitching. 

 The frames laying on each bed hold two of MILs water color paintings of flowers --

 one is peony and the other is rhododendron, 

very appropriate considering the plants in our garden.

Speaking of the garden, look what survived the deer attack ...

I'm afraid of what I will find when I return, though, 

since DH forgot to remind the HVAC guys to close the gates after installing the AC unit.

And in the sewing room, all the blocks have been trimmed and

 are on the wall waiting to be artfully rearranged before assembly.

Five and Dime from Loose Change

No, that's not a black and white photo; the fabrics are all shades of gray and cream.  

I just realized that today is the last day of the month 

and I have made no more progress on the turquoise RSC Loosey Goosey column.

Loosey Goosey

Finishing Touches

It's been too hot/humid/rainy to work outside the last few days so quite a bit of progress has been made getting settled inside.  The wall hanging is up in the living room and the two guest rooms are semi-ready for company, but for some reason those photographs will not download from the cloud.

So you'll just have to take my word for it, progress is happening.  We have loaded the top section of the Jackson press ...

... and the good china was unboxed and put away, along with table linens in the dining room.  But the table is still piled with things I intend to part with.

DH installed a hanger for brooms and Swiffers ...

... and I reorganized the pantry.

Still no activity in the sewing room.  Maybe after today's grocery run ...

Wildlife Wednesday

And the Tribe increased

What poem is that from?

From 3 to 4 and now 10!

The nerve!

Can you believe this?

Remember all the problems I had with deer eating my day lilies at House 1?  Well, I have seen exactly ONE deer on our property since we moved into House 2 and it was headed across the lake with bigger fish to fry.

About a week ago I ventured into my secret garden on the east side of the house and noticed that we had one day lily in bloom.

At that time I noticed another group of day lilies on the other side of the secret garden, loaded with buds.  A day later when I checked on the progress ...

It's a bit difficult to see, but all the buds have been very neatly chomped off!  Apparently the HVAC guys left the gate to the garden open.  I have not seen any deer; what else might do such an expert job of decapitation?  Could it be my baby rabbit?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the secret garden the other day lily survives and thrives.

By the way, I have tried the comment fix that several Blogger folks have recommended and I would appreciate a comment to see if it works.  I feel so bad that I have missed or failed to respond to comments over the last few weeks.  Let's hope the problem is resolved and life gets back to normal.

Making Progress

Looking more like home

The furniture arrived Wednesday, but about all we could accomplish was placement in rooms.  The piles of boxes had to wait while we returned to House 1 to clean out the garage.  Thanks to

1-800-GOT-JUNK

(They took off before I could get a picture.)  

Honestly, if you need to get rid of a bunch of stuff, or even one bulky object, they will take care of it.

We spent most of Saturday emptying boxes and filling drawers.  I was hoping to get at least one room back to normal and since the living room is the first room a person sees on entering, that's where I began.

Living room before

We put the big sofa that came with the house in our family room and everything else (except the rug) went to Habitat Re-Store.

Living Room today

It's starting to feel more like home!  One item still on my list is putting up the wall hanging

It will hang over the same old wash stand as it did in House 1.

Living Room at House 1

Sunday's focus will be the dining room which is also visible from the front door.

Needless to say, there was NO stitching last week, though I did go to Devo and Sew on Tuesday and cut (or, rather, attempted to cut) a class project for a September retreat.  Unfortunately it is the kind of cutting that required attention to detail, not something to be done in public.  I wasted some fabric and may have to replace it with something else.

Maybe I can treat myself to some sewing this afternoon.