Cactus Pumpkins

Took a workshop today 

 Jac and friend

with the family 

 Mary

at the nursery where Marie works

 Leanne and Marie

and it was so. much. fun!

The surprise of the day was how good Leanne was at this. Her succulent pumpkin was amazing!

As was Mary’s - but she’s an artist so no surprise there. 

The skin on my pumpkin was too tough for the pins to penetrate, so I stole used a baby pumpkin meant for the little girls. . . 

and gave my original one to Leanne, who made me this ⬆️. So gorgeous!

There’s another workshop later this month 

and I keep thinking maybe we should do this again . . .

Relaxing

Jac went with me to pick up Donovan from school one day last week when she stayed home “sick”.

That girl knows how to make herself comfortable. Have iPad, will travel anywhere (but she’d prefer if I could arrange for wifi next time . . .)

Pumpkins!

I love Fall. 

And pumpkins.

And excuses to take pictures of pumpkins.  

We had a 2 hour window today -  

Leanne gets out of school early on Thursday’s - 

so we packed up these three

and headed to our local farm stand 

and feeding zoo (no petting allowed, dang it.)

Our rule for picking and purchasing pumpkins

is that you must be able to carry whichever pumpkin you select. 

Easy to explain, 

easy to enforce follow,

and Pop doesn’t wind up with a sore back 

from loading everyone’s treasures in the car. 

Win, win, win.

Pumpkins!

Good News

Lily’s biopsy results came back and . . . 

no cancer! Hooray!

 Pet me 

She has advanced irritable bowel disease 

 Using Alexa for a pillow

and will be on special $$ non-allergenic food and low-dose steroids for the rest of her - hopefully long - life.

 Yes, I was using that mat.

The food is already making a difference - Lily’s not gifting us with multiple piles of partially  digested food every night. In fact, as far as we can tell, she hasn’t thrown up once since the diet change. 

I’m so happy. She probably is too.

Irresistible

Couldn’t resist starting the fall Christmas cactus? palm frond? project.

It took longer to resize the pattern pieces and get them to fit on the paper than it did to make the first two blocks. 

I wanted to make 8” blocks - turns out there’s a reason all the published designs are 6”, since that’s what fits easily onto 8.5x11” paper. Finally got 7” pieces to (barely) fit and I’m a happy camper. 

Two blocks down, 33-ish to go. 

Birthday Boy

Happy birthday weekend to this guy - 

Marie and company took him to see the WWII exhibit 

at the Reagan Presidential Library on Saturday,

which was a hit with everyone, including Jac and Leanne.

I’d offered to let Jac stay home with me (quilting day! whoohoo!)

but she turned me down flat. 

I guess helicopters and horses

are more exciting than art projects and ice cream.

Tonight was dinner with the CA fam.

Good food,

good times,

good birthday.