Clothesline on a Sunny Day

This is one of my favorite things about spring time and warm weather.... getting to use the clothesline! Most of the pollen has settled, so yesterday I gave my clothesline a good cleaning and hung out bed linens! Those sheets smelled so yummy last night and I slept so GOOD! If you will enlarge the picture, you will see my beautiful clothespin bag, made by Debbie at Homemaking Dreams. She makes these and sells them in her Etsy shop. I have really enjoyed mine and it looks so pretty hanging on the line. (My daughter was here yesterday when I was hanging out the sheets, and I realized that we are the only house in the neighborhood with a clothesline. I mentioned it to her and wondered if my neighbors are jealous. LOL)

Sweet baby smiles

Our son in law Troy was able to come home from his Army duties for three weeks, due to a broken thumb. We are sorry he broke his thumb, but boy, are we glad to have him home! This is Troy, my daughter April, and "their" dog, Tumpy. Tumpy was glad to see his "daddy".

My son, Will, and his wife, Ashley, and our baby, Avery! Tumpy loves Avery and wants to be so close to him!

Oops.... Daddy I got you... again. This is quite common these days. It's funny to watch my son with spit up down his back.... it doesn't even bother him. Back when he was a little boy, he would have freaked out if a baby spit up on him. Isn't love grand?

And now.... look at this beautiful smiling face! Tonight was the first time Avery had met his Uncle Troy. He looked up into his face and gave him this beautiful smile! We all got smiles on this night... unfortunately, husband was away at his job and missed all this sweet fun. It was wonderful to see Avery smile at me and to know .... this smile is just for me. I love him!

This is Troy, April, and Avery... I can see lots of love in this picture! I don't want to rush them, but I look forward to the day that Troy and April decide to have children of their own. :o) This grandma business is fun!

Happy Goodwill!

Just when I tell myself to stay out of the Goodwill store, I find something like THIS! I love this plate and it's just perfect for my kitchen. The blue color makes me think of summer time, I love the bird as my husband has turned into an avid birdwatcher (does that mean he's old?), and the sunflowers remind me of my friend, Trish, in Kansas. I love this plate! I love having a Goodwill store in town.... I drive into town at least 2-3 times a week, and the Goodwill store is always a stop I make. You just never know what new treasures have arrived from day to day. So, forget it... I'm not staying out of Goodwill.

Tag: Seven things

I accepted a tag from Ancient One to list seven random things about myself. She received the tag from my niece, at Field of Dreams, who is a military wife blogging about her life while her husband is in Afghanistan. Here goes:

1. I recently became grandmother to this beautiful little baby boy, Avery, who is now 8 weeks old. I am so in love with him.... he gets prettier everyday... which is almost impossible as he is just about as pretty as pretty can get!

2. I am 46 years old... almost 47.... married to a Wildlife Captain with the state of NC. I am a nurse and work part time in a nursing home. I love old people.

3. My dream is to be a "retired" RN and devote my time to my husband, my family, my home, and God. Not necessarily in that order. :o)

4. I like to craft.... especially embroidery and quilt making. I'm not the quiltmaker I want to be yet, but I dream of quilts all the time. I want to take a trip to Western NC to see the barn quilts that are painted throughout the area on old barns.

5. I have two children.... a son, who is a 6th grade math teacher (father of Avery) and his wife who stays home with Avery and is a wonderful mommy. I have a daughter, who is a hairdresser, married to an Army soldier who is graduating from basic training tomorrow. She also has a blog... check her out... and tell her I sent you.

6. I have three dogs.... all of which I somehow inherited from daughter mentioned above. I truly love the dogs and enjoy having them around, even though they can be a pain in the butt sometimes. They do bring me a lot of joy. My mom would never dream of letting us have an inside dog when we were growing up. I felt the same way until we fell in love with our current little dog family. I have now decided that ALL children need at least one dachshund in their life before they grow up. They are way better than teddy bears to sleep with at night.

7. Our family has moved quite often in the past 13 years and husband and I are now waiting to see if one more move is in our near future. I really like my home and where I live now, but have decided if I need to move with my husband soon, then I'm willing... it's all in God's hands.

I'm not going to tag anyone specifically, but if you play, pleast leave a comment so I'll know to read yours!

Contentment

It's been a great Easter weekend, a wonderful Monday (spent most of the day with my husband), and I'm looking forward to spending today with my daughter. Recently, I was having second thoughts about working and wondering if I should go back to work full time. I felt like I was wasting too much time worrying and could be spending that energy doing something else. I have been doing a lot of praying, reading, and reflecting. I am exactly where I want to be right now (except for not living with my husband full time). I am working part time, I have a beautiful new grandbaby, and I have so much more time for family and my home. I have decided to stop all the worry and ENJOY just being.... being here, loving my home, loving my family, loving my God. A thought came to me a few days ago (thank you, God): stop dreaming about the future, it is HERE, it is happening... live it! I love this beautiful weather and hope to get busy in the yard this week. I'll leave you with a few quotes on contentment:

"Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty"

"Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels."

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not, remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." (my favorite)

"We may pass violets, looking for roses. We may pass contentment, looking for victory."

Have a wonderful day, my friends!

Avery...what else?

Life... it's all about Avery... what else is there? He is growing so fast. His mommy and I took him to have his first pic's made yesterday. He did amazingly well... so wide awake and precious. His Auntie April went too and we all had a great time together. He left with his mommy and daddy for his first beach trip yesterday afternoon. He will spend the rest of the week there with his other grandparents. This boy is going to be so rotten! He took his new play quilt that Grandma made with him. I hope the weather is gorgeous so that that he can feel sand on his little toes for the first time ever! You guys have fun and we love you!

Avery's Quilt

I finally finished Avery's little quilt. I want this to be his "anytime" quilt. His mom can throw it in the floor, on the ground, in the sand.... anywhere she wants to lay baby down to play. The only thing I need to do is embroider his name and date on the back corner, which I hope to do today. It was a pure joy making this little quilt for our baby.

L@@kie!

Look at who is growing up so fast! Little Avery is 5 weeks old and weighs 8 pounds 10 ounces. He is growing so fast. He has been over to visit Grandma's house a couple times. Grandma has an interesting time dealing with the curious dogs, but so far, so good. I'll be glad when Avery is big enough to show them who's boss! :o)

Gotta show you this fabric. This is actually a set of pajamas I saw at the thrift store yesterday. They caught my eye, but I really thought nothing of them.... until last night. For some reason, those pj's flashed into my head and I thought "what an awesome "boy" quilt". On my way to get my yearly mammogram done this morning (yay, me!) I stopped by the thrift store to get those pj's. The fabric is a nice quality flannel, pj's made by LL Bean. I sort of hate to cut them up, but that is the plan. Don't you just love this fabric? Don't you just love all my plans for "things to do"? I keep telling myself to stay away from Goodwill... I already have more projects than I will EVER complete. But something keeps drawing me inside the store.... addiction? It could be worse!

A Visit from Avery

This sweet little fellow is coming to Grandma's house for the first time ever.... tonight!!! He is three weeks old now. It will be interesting to see how the "fur" children will like him. They may end up in the garage tonight, if they don't behave. Can't wait! Don't you just love this picture? His mommy took it.... of course, if I had been there, I would have been pushing her out of the way and picking him up! LOL

Snow Day???

So, it's March 2nd... and we are expecting snow. Historically, NC gets some of its largest snow storms in March. The computer "models" can't seem to agree on how much, if any, we will get today. So today will be more like the days before sophisticated weather equipment, and we'll just wait, watch, and see! The good news is: I don't have to go to work today. Lately, I've been scheduled to work when all our snow storms came through. I had to worry about how to get to work. Not today though.... bring it on!!! I have food in the house and plenty of things to do! Sounds like a good sewing day to me. Happy Snow Day to you all!

Trash or Treasure?

I went "thrifting" today and paid $1 for this unopened embroidery kit. I was hoping it would be Raggedy Ann inside, but it was Andy, which is still very very cute. My first thought was to open it and stitch him up into a cute little hand puppet, as I really enjoy stitching. But then I started to wonder if it had any $value$... it was made in 1976 by Bobbs Merrill Company. I've researched online and cannot find anything. I can't decide if I will keep it or try to sell it on ebay. Any opinions?

Looking forward...

This picture was taken on a special day for us. This is the day we found out about our new grandson who would become a part of our family in a few months. This was also the day that we picked and put up the corn, that my son grew in a small garden on the edge of our property. We are hoping to have a much larger garden this year, and even though our new grandson, Avery, won't be a lot of help in the garden this year, we look forward to the coming years, of watching him learn and play, and get dirty in the garden with us. Life just keeps getting better and better!