Amazing!

It's amazing what a difference 12 days can make. Remember this picture of my crabapple tree. I posted it on April 17.






I walked out my door to get the mail today....and this is what the same tree looks like.









My creeping flocks are also blooming. I hope you can see them. They are the little mounds of pink flowers under the tree.

I won't be posting anything for a week or so. DH and I are traveling to TX to my niece's wedding and to visit our parents. I've got some stitching packed to take along. Hope I have something to share when I return.

Spring Fever

What have I been up to?? Well, not much. I truly think I have a bad case of spring fever. Remember my red tulips I shared in a previous post? Well,I now have another variety of red tulips blooming. The bulbs for these are some I found for $1 at a local bargain store. I think my $1 was well spent!

I've also caught myself gazing out my back windows because I've had these little folks visiting.










I filled and hung all my bird feeders last weekend. It seems that I have had more birds visiting my feeders than in past years. I've had finches, purple finches, cardinals, and bluebirds. I have a feeder filled with wild bird seed...and one filled with thistle seed for the finches. The little finches above chose to dine on the wild bird seed.

Sunday was the first fairly warm day in our area. Lots of folks were out and about. DH wanted to get out and this is where we went.

This is a golf course in a rural area not far from our home. He loves to play golf....I don't play at all, but I do like to walk and this course is welcomes me to walk with him as he plays a round of golf. It's a wonderful place for me to get exercise and spend some time talking with him as we walk from hole to hole. In addition to the exercise, there's a lot of nature to observe. If you enlarge the water picture above, you might be able to see a blue heron that was flying around while we were there. He landed in the end of the lake and went fishing.







In another section of the course, we saw another blue heron. He caught his dinner!









While many of the trees are just beginning to bud, the Bradford pears are in full bloom and are just lovely.









I'm enjoying my case of spring fever this year. I promise I will eventually get back to sewing and quilting and will have pictures of those items to share. Oh, and my walk around this golf course as I took these pictures was just under 5 miles!

32!!!!

What is so special about 32??? Well....as of today....that's the number of years DH and I have been married! Last night he came home from work and he was awful slow getting into the house. When he came walking in, he had these.

He said he bought them a day early so I could enjoy them all day. What a sweet thought! I think I'll keep him for at least another 32. Please ignore the alcohol bottles in the background. I didn't get all my shopping items put away yet.

Spring seems to be popping everywhere around the area. Yesterday I took pictures of my red tulips.

They are such lovely flowers. I just wish they would last a lot longer. My crab apple tree also has buds and will be a mass of pink soon.

I'll share a picture of it now and will take a picture of it when it blooms and share those too. I've also been having lots of little birdies in my backyard....cardinals, finches, and some beautiful bluebirds. Bluebirds are such vibrant blue. The one in my yard looked like this one. It so good to finally have winter GONE!

Lately my time has been spent sewing some small items. I've needed to make a few gifts and some canvas bags for DD. This past weekend I made a journal cover for a 13 year old niece.

I made up my own pattern and used one of the composition books that you can buy at an office supply store or at WalMart. I put a divided pocket on the front with a place for a pen on one side. Here's what it looks like opened up.

There are somethings I could do to improve my pattern. I'm planning to make more of them, so I will try the improvements on the next one.

This last photo is of the backside. I chose to have the flap closure fold around to the back and fasten with Velcro. This was fun to make!

Tulips and daffodils

I've done so much complaining about weather through the winter. Now it's time for me to lighten up and share the wonderful part of spring!


I worked hard last weekend cleaning out the debris from my flowerbeds and putting down fresh cypress mulch. I also planted some yellow pansies. I love the bright yellow daffodils and the red tulips in the first picture. Those are my favorites.

Where's your fish from?

Over the past few weeks I've been doing lots of label reading as I shop for food for my family. I've done that for many years now because I am a diabetic. My label reading has been for nutritional content so I know what is in an item and how it will work in my diet. Recently I have begun to read labels to find where the food is grown and/or processed. Sometimes this information is microscopic and very hard to find, but I was able to find it on every item I picked up. Somehow food processed in China doesn't have a lot of appeal to me especially in light of all the issues with lead and children's toys. I would rather buy food that I know has been grown and processed in the US or a country who tries to have cleanliness standards to protect people.

As I shopped this last week, I was going to buy some frozen fish fillets to fix for dinner. DH and I had watched a program on an American fishing boat in the Bering Sea. Baked fish with lemon pepper and a little butter just sounded so good. I picked up a bag of frozen cod. Product of China! Each bag or each variety of fish I picked up was either a product of China or product of China and processed in the US. I don't want a product of China. Is there no longer a product of the USA available?? If not, then I'm not going to eat fish. Are my supermarkets in the Midwest the only ones that are this way? If you buy frozen fish....do you look at where at comes from? Or does that matter to you?

I have not had much time for sewing lately. Spring has sprung at my house. I have been putting out mulch, planting flowers, moving perennials and even mowing a little. I am itching to get back to my sewing machine and make something. Unfortunately, today isn't the day for that to happen because I have a mountain of ironing to work on. But....maybe tomorrow will find me with a little time for stitching. I certainly hope so!