Fall - really?

What happened to fall? We are supposed to hit 88 today! Not exactly fallish!

Okay - on to other things. Terry (in Arlington, but with no blog) won the prize pack I put together for my 500th post with her comment on Brian's b'day. She emailed me last night that the package arrived so I thought I would show you what was in it.


Everything except the pink pouch was purchased on my trip. That is a deck of playing cards - I didn't think chocolate would mail well - I did buy some, but I ate it! :)

Now, back to our trip! Did you guess how many states we drove through on the way up? We left Texas on Saturday - drove through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and landed in Pennsylvania late Monday afternoon. Yep - 10 states!

Tuesday morning we went here

of course. You can't go to Hershey, PA and not go to Chocolate World!


I tried to take pictures on the 'tour' but since you are on a little train/tram thingie that is moving the whole time it wasn't exactly an easy thing to do!

Singing cows.


Products produced so far that day.

And of course shopping!

From Chocolate World we went here

Nice little shop - I think we were there at least an hour. I met Sue (from PA - also no blog) in person for the first time! (She met us there.) Sue and I 'met' years ago on the AOL cross stitch boards but this was the first time we got to meet in person. Unfortunately I failed to get a pic of us together. (I thought we were going to get to meet up again or I would have called her back when I thought of it as she was pulling out of the parking lot!)


This was just behind the quilt shop.

Then we went to an antique place - I also failed to get a pic of that because I was focused on this house behind the antique place.

Don't you just love that white fence?

Okay - I guess that is enough pictures for today. I intended to include a pic of the street lights in Hershey (Kisses!) but I missed it and I don't have the patience to go back and put it in so I'll show it in another post.

I will show my purchases at the end of the trip - I still have a few more posts worth of trip pictures!

I've been working on some projects here. I finished a Halloween pillow but haven't taken a pic yet. I've also got two ornaments ready to go together and I'll show pics of those later. Today I'm working on a Christmas gift so I can't show that one.

Better get back to it - my list of things to finish before Christmas is a long one! (sewing - and I'm slow at that!)

Stuff

How much stuff does it take for 4 women to be on the road for 9 days?


We were in such a hurry to get on the road that first day, we forgot to take a picture so this is the second morning before we left the hotel. We had stopped at a couple of quilt shops already, but for the most part, this is how it looked when we left Texas. As you can see - we didn't exactly leave with a lot of room to spare. (I will tell you that the stroller and the small cooler you see were turned over to the other car as soon as we met up with them. :)

I wish I could remember exactly where these shops were without having to dig out my book (quilter's travel companion) I didn't get pictures of all the shops we stopped at - I also didn't get business cards at all of them. (I've never claimed to be organized!) I'm not really even sure how many shops we went in!

I think all of us made a purchase at this shop. It was a really neat shop - packed to the gills with stuff so you really had to look! It was in a really neat old building - at times a little claustrophobic but still a neat shop.

Somewhere on the road between here and there. :) We didn't do a lot of stopping just for pictures so on occasion, I just took pics out the window.

This was a neat shop too - we had to drive around a bit to find it but it was worth a stop. It is in an old train station.

This is the view across the street from Rachel's - don't you love the old buildings?
I'm pretty sure both of these shops were in Virginia.

I did take a little cross stitch to work on while on the road - in some states it was impossible to stitch - roads were just too bumpy! I did finish that little piece just after we got back and I've stitched two ornaments since then - I'll try to get to pictures of those soon - I've still got more 'on the road' pictures to show!

How many states did we go through on the way up?

Problem solving

So, we have this little thing called 'deed restrictions' in our subdivision. (yes, I know most people do these days but I'm still a newbie at dealing with it) For the most part, I think it is a good thing, but sometimes there are just things I don't agree with. Like, say, clothes lines. We aren't allowed to have them. I don't want to be hanging my undies out in the front yard or anything but sometimes there are things you just don't want to (or can't) put in the dryer - so I picked up this baby while we were in PA.


Yes, I know you can buy them almost anywhere, but this one is a little bigger (and I bought the medium size - good thing, I don't know if we could have got the large one in the car to come home!) and a little more sturdy than the ones you buy at wally world or wherever. Should last for a nice long time and it folds up and fits right beside my washing machine when not in use. Not the same as having a clothes line, but better than nothing.

Now if I could just figure out a way to have a white picket fence in the front yard. :)

Fall flowers

Saturday we were out shopping and we picked up two new faucets for the sinks in the master bath. Got one installed on Saturday evening, but the other one had a flaw in the finish so it needed to go back for an exchange. Hubby went out on Sunday to make the exchange and came back with the new faucet and these flowers.


Aren't they pretty?


There is even some pink - gotta love a fall bouquet with a little pink in it!


They are still pretty today.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

495 or 500?

Hello Friends!

I really didn't mean to take such a long break - but honestly, I could take a longer one and still not be caught up on my 'to do' list. I think for everything I mark off, I add two. Some of the things on that list have been there for over a year - meaning since we moved into this house - okay, some even longer! (I was going to organize pictures when we were still living in the apartment - still hasn't been done. Shame on me.)

Anyway - while I haven't accomplished all the things I wanted to, I've missed all of you and thought I would try to get back to some kind of regular posting. I haven't been sitting idle for the past month. We have been working on the master bath - still a work in progress, but it is getting there. I've got most of the fall decor out. I bought a mum to put in the front flower bed - we will see how long it lives since I've never been good at mums. I have it just sitting on a chair over the hole where I dug up the dead azalea. I'm still debating if I want to try another one next year or just do something else there. (you can't see the hole unless you actually walk up to the flower bed and look!) I'll try to get a picture soon - while the mum is still alive!

I also took a 10 day road trip with the girlfriends. We drove to Pennsylvania. We had a great time - we stopped at quilt shops, flea markets and antique stores all along the way. I still haven't sorted pictures, but I'll get to that and show you some. (I took around 200 so I'm sure you don't want to see all of them!) Even with all the pics I took I failed to get one of the four of us together and I also didn't get one of Sue (no blog) who drove over to Hershey to meet me in person. I was really excited to meet her and I thought we would see each other again before she left to go back home but she had some things to take care of there in Hershey so we didn't get to meet up again. Sue and I 'met' on the cross stitch boards on AOL a long time ago and have been friends ever since. I hope I get the chance to meet up with her in person again!

Autumn has been a bit busy too. She is into chasing lizards and frogs lately. It doesn't really matter what gets in her way.


This used to be a potato vine. As you can see, she completely shredded it. I didn't even attempt to salvage it.


A few days later, there must have been a critter in or around the bird bath. She had been outside awhile and when I went to see what she was up to, this is what I found. I know the wind didn't blow it off - there is too much other stuff out there that would have been overturned had it just been wind. No - I'm pretty sure hurricane Autumn was the culprit.

Okay - as for the title of this post - dashboard says this is post # 500 - according to the archives on my blog page, it is # 495. Like I said I would back in the Sept 15 post, I took the comments that have posted since then and drew a name. Someone has a package coming there way soon. Since I have the address of the person I drew, I think I'll let it be a surprise! (it isn't much and the package wont be mailed until later in the week but it will get mailed!)

That's all for now. If you are still reading - thanks for hanging around!

Long time, no post

It has been awhile, hasn't it? I'm still not ready to come back, but I wanted to take a minute to say happy birthday to my first-born.
Just a few pics - organizing pics is still on the 'need to do list' - maybe someday.


6 months


4 years


17 years


and now.

Happy Birthday, Brian!

(sorry - about the not so great photos - the first three are pics of pics and the last one I had to crop out of a group photo so it is a bit grainy)

I'll be back sometime next week - or maybe the week after - with a new post and will pick someone from the comments for a give-away. I'll count comments up until the time I make the next post!

Hope you are having wonderful fall weather wherever you are!

The birthday boy, missing posts and a break

First up - the birthday boy


at 6 months


and now!

He didn't get his favorite cake (Italian Cream) for his birthday last year but I've already got it baked this morning and as soon as it cools, I'll get it frosted!

Happy birthday, baby. Love you. xoxo

On to the missing posts - well, according to dashboard, this is post 498, but according to the archive count it is post 493. I have no idea as to why the count is off by 5 posts. Anyway - that means sometime in October I'll hit post 500. I think I'll do a little give-away. Not sure what (not a whole box like last time, but I'll find something nice). I'll just have to decide which counter I want to use - maybe I'll split the difference - which brings me to the break. I said earlier that September was a busy month for me. I'm having a hard time keeping up with myself. I keep thinking tomorrow I'll get caught up a little, then something pops up to throw my day off course and I just get more behind so I'm going to take a break from the computer. Usually when I take a bloggy break, I try to keep up with email but I am going cold turkey here and I'm going to walk away from the computer for the rest of the month. Hopefully by the end of September things will slow down a bit and I can catch up. Of course by then, there will be no way I'll ever catch up on blog reading so I'll have to decide if I want to just mark them all read or skim through as quick as I can. I'll figure that out later.

So, I'll keep an eye out for something to give-away when I get back to posting. I'll take whatever comments come in between now and then and draw from them. Since I won't be posting anything new for you to comment on - send the hubby a happy birthday wish, just say hi or go back and find an interesting post from the past to comment on and I'll put your name in the pot for the mystery gift. That's it, how easy is that? (contact info must be included so I can contact you)

Enjoy the rest of your month. I hope by the time I post again we will have a little cooler weather - it is still way too hot here! I can't even get in the mood to put out fall decor with it this hot!

See ya in a few weeks!