First Green Beans of the Season!

Aren't they gorgeous! This is the first year I've planted this variety, "Borlotto Solista", an Italian import. Can't wait to cook these up and see how they taste. The peppers are from a couple of plants that survived the winter out in the garden. They are a hybrid, "Sweet Spot", and they are great! Not a trace of heat to them, but very crisp and tasty.
These beauties came in with me today from the back yard. The hibiscus is one I've had for years. It's actually a lot more orange than it looks here. The purply/lavender one is an Althea, an old-fashioned flowering shrub, which is also a member of the hibiscus family.
This is my Mother's Day bouquet from our daughter Ru. Even three days later, they're still beautiful! They are really prettier now that the roses have opened a bit.

I'm off to do a little sewing now. Hope you have a great afternoon!

~Elaine~

Happy Mother's Day! (I Actually Made that Skirt!!)

I am so proud of myself. I made a new skirt for myself yesterday. I haven't made anything of a clothing nature for myself in so many years, but I DID IT! Yea for me!

And I even made this cute little pin to go with it. I already had the amazingly cute jacket. I found it at a great Macy's sale a couple of weeks ago.So, today I had a whole new outfit to wear to church for Mother's Day. I'm so happy. It's the little things, right?

Have a great Mother's Day yourself!

~Elaine~

Fabric and Projects

I have done a little bit of fabric shopping lately. Now that I know Wal Mart is getting rid of their fabric department, I feel obligated to check it out every time I'm there :). I've made some fabric purchases there lately, but the selection is getting thinner by the day. Fortunately we have other places in my area to shop.

I haven't actually made any clothes for myself in YEARS, but I bought this fabric and pattern and I think I'll give it a try.

I have another little quilt project going.

By the way - Sew, Mama, Sew has a vintage smock sew-along going on right now. Looks interesting!

I made this little lady years ago and gave her to our daughter. She recently returned her to me, and now she and her chicks are overseeing everything here in the sewing room.

SO, now all I have to do is get started doing something!

Have a great day.

~Elaine~

The Road Ahead

"Go make great memories, but make sure you make them with dignity so you will always be proud to look back on them."

I just read that in an email. It was the last words of a mother to a son going away to college. What profound advice. I have a lot of memories I've made that I'm NOT proud to look back on. I don't worry about them, because I've asked for and received forgiveness, but how much better it would have been, and what a lot of pain I could have avoided had I not made them in the first place. I was just one of those people who had to learn from experience instead of taking the easy way and believing what older and wiser people told me. Now I'm one of the older and wiser people, and too often those I'm trying to advise don't listen to me either.

None of us knows exactly what the future holds, but we can all be sure there will be challenges ahead. That's just a fact of life. The journey will be a lot easier if we don't also have to carry the useless baggage of regret.

Have a great evening!

~Elaine~

Neverending Turkey

Not really, but it sure seems like it sometimes!

We are having some lovely cooler weather right now, so on Sunday I put a turkey I had bought on sale earlier in the oven to cook while we were at church. Then, when we came home, it was a simple matter to heat up some dressing from the freezer, some succotash, gravy, and voila! a nice little dinner,

complete with some strawberry/banana jello.

Then, Sunday night after church, we had grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches.

Monday, for dinner it was steamed stir fry vegetables with turkey over rice.

This was really good, and for dessert we had the simplest thing in the world to make - a dump cake. I just put a can of cherry pie filling in a cake pan, "dumped" a dry yellow cake mix on top of it and dotted it with pats of butter. Bake at 350 degrees until bubbly and you get a delicious finish to your meal.

Today we had some MORE turkey, cubed, cooked slowly with diced Italian style tomatoes, served over spaghetti noodles, with coleslaw and a wheat roll.

Okay, I'm through now. The rest goes in the freezer.

I think I may have overdone it. I'll wait a while before having turkey again :)!

Have a great evening.

~Elaine~

We Have A Winner! Make That Two....

It is with great joy and happiness that I announce the winners of the Bloggy Giveaways Carnival for Muddling Through:

The beautiful tatted bookmark

goes to Amy , and my notepad/pen holder

goes to Wendy .

Thanks to everyone who left a comment. I hope you all had as good a time as I did. Free is my favorite word!

Have a great weekend!

~Elaine~

It's All in How You Look At It

Isn't it funny how you can look at a thing, and see it in a whole new way? I happened to look at my kitchen window a while ago and saw this.



It was so pretty, in an abstract kind of way, that I looked again.




And again.






And then I pulled the shade up, and here is what it really is.





Funny, huh? I like both views. Just never hurts to look at things in a new way, does it?



In other flower news, guess what????? I have buds on my brand new lemon tree! (And really, calling it a tree is stretching it.) I'll be watching that closely. Real live lemons from our own front yard. Wow! I can hardly wait.

These guys are mighty pretty out there, too.






And in craft news, I think I'm working up to another quilt. But this time I will not be quite so ambitious. I'll just do a lap quilt and not a queen size!

Enjoy your day!

~Elaine~