Coffee-A good investment

I met some friends for coffee this morning. I'd love to do that more often, but holy cow, $3.79 plus tax for a medium vanilla latte?? Sometimes I economize and just have a "coffee of the day", but it's just not the same. I can have coffee of the day at home for pretty much free, so what's the point? Anyway, I think someone has got to be making a lot of money on my special treat latte. I doubt it's a poor coffee farmer though and apparently it's not the owners of the coffee shop as the place is for sale. I noticed it wasn't as full today, maybe the coffee regulars are taking a break due to the economy.

*******

I don't know if I'll get around to posting tomorrow. We have a couple of days off from school this week, so we are heading out Thursday to do some college visits with SD. Our main destination is Duluth. I love the area and I hope the weather will be good enough to do some walking around. The have a beautiful lake walk and lots of fun shops and restaurants. It's quite a bit further from home, but I won't be surprised if that's where she ends up going.

Leaf Therapy

The fall colors are at their peak right now here in southeast Minnesota. This one red leaf outside my back door caught my eye. I wonder if the rest of the vine will turn red too or just this one brave little leaf. Yesterday I bagged 5 huge bags of leaves, but with today's strong winds you can't tell. I find it rather therapeutic to rake leaves. You can always tell what you've accomplished, having a clear lawn and bags of leaves to show for it, but it takes no real mental effort, so the mind can wander to other things. I was teasing SD, that I came up with a theme for her grad party. I'm really getting ahead of myself with that one since I should be thinking about TB's confirmation in a couple of weeks. Besides that no one really has a theme for their grad party. I was thinking more of her invitations and something to do with rock-climbing. Last night at dinner we were throwing around some ideas...Scaling New Heights...Climbing Towards the Future...etc. etc. Any other ideas? After dinner we went to a choral concert and really enjoyed it. Our favorite piece was "Agnus Dei" arranged by Barber if you're familiar with it. It was really beautiful, especially with the strings accompanying it.

A Super Easy Fall Project

I have finally gotten most of my fall decorations out, but I still needed some kind of a table runner for under my fall leaf candle holder. I got this leaf at a Partylite candle party a few years ago. I had intended to make a lovely quilted table runner for my dining room table, but it hasn't happened yet. Last night while I was in a cleaning flurry, I decided to look for the fall leaf fabric and came up with this little project that took about 15 minutes. I think it looks nice and it would be a good use for any large pattern fabric and could be made by anyone with a sewing machine and an iron, so I thought I'd post directions. First cut two pieces of fabric the same size in a square or rectangle. Then iron on some Wonder-under type fusible webbing to one of the fabrics on the wrong side. Peel the paper off of the backing after you've ironed it on. Pin the two squares together right sides together. Sew a 1/4 to 3/8 in. seam around all 4 corners leaving an open space a little larger than your hand on one of the sides. Turn the whole thing right side out and push out the corners and seams so they are flat. Lay it out on your ironing board and pat it out flat checking to see that the side seams are even and the opposite side fabric doesn't show. Start ironing on the side opposite the opening and use a hot iron to get the fusible webbing to stick. When you get about 2/3 done, fold the ends in on the opening making sure that side looks "square", pin if necessary and finish ironing. I used a little iron on hem tape to close the opening after I had ironed everything else. That's it, you now have a little table topper that you've created yourself. I put Christmas fabric on the other side so I can flip it over when the time comes. I may still get that runner made, but this will do until then.

Weekly update

Here's what I've been doing lately...

*****

I started a new block of the month group on Friday. It's at the same shop I did BOM at last year. It's a really good deal, you pay $5 for the first block and each month you return with a finished block, the next one is free. I was the only one from my group that got the whole top for $5. Of course I spent money on other stuff at the shop, so it's not like they lost money on me. The new series has applique, I told myself I can't do it (it costs extra) unless I get last years top all put together by next month. We added another friend this year and we all do breakfast afterwards, it's really fun and I look forward to it each month!!

*****

We had the last home football game and the after party at our house on Friday. It was pretty chilly here Friday night. We lost the game, but the band has really improved since their first game. The band will be doing an indoor concert later this month. They travel to Disney World over Thanksgiving and will be in one of the parades there. I wish we could have gone too, but there wasn't enough extra cash around.

*****

We got Senior Daughter's senior pictures taken last week. We got the proofs back and they turned out really good. Another thing to cross off the list. She has already applied to three colleges and we're doing some more college visiting in a couple of weeks, so we may have a college decision soon too.

*****

DH and I are both a little over-committed when it comes to church activities. I'm in two choirs, women's group, helping with confirmation class, funeral coordinator, etc. We have a funeral this week, so that adds a little extra work. DH is helping with a lot of carpentry work for a renovation project and has spent several evenings at church. It may be nearing completion this week, we're ready for a break.

*****

Meanwhile, I have not done any sewing since I got SD's dress done. I should be down there right now, but it's not going to happen tonight. I'm going to be putting in a few extra hours at work this week, so I will be happy for a little larger check next month, but it pushes everything else aside. Things have slowed down a lot for DH. He's a realtor and the uncertainty of the financial system is keeping people from the housing market. Hopefully it will settle down soon.

Canine Capers

Okay, there were no capers, but I was trying to think of a cute title for a topic that's not so cute. Once again today, I did something I never thought I'd do when I was growing up on the farm. I paid good money to have the dog's teeth cleaned. It feels wrong in many ways, but I guess there are worse ways to spend money. Drugs, gambling, booze,.... okay maybe not booze, but there are worse ways. It had gotten to the point where he had breath so bad it could knock out a horse. I could actually smell his breath when he slept under my side of the bed. I started thinking it was probably bad for his health and feeling guilty for not taking better care of him. So now we need to be responsible for brushing his teeth everyday to avoid this problem in the future. When I was at the vet, I noticed they had a job opening so I told SD about it and she went right over and applied. She wants to be a vet, so the experience would be great for her. Maybe I could get a discount!! They were nice enough to dress him up in a Halloween neck scarf when he went home.

A busy weekend

It was quite the busy weekend around here. It was homecoming weekend, so that meant a parade Friday afternoon, game Friday night, and the dance on Saturday night. It also meant getting college son to and from college to spend the weekend. I had a women's retreat most of the day on Saturday. I wouldn't have gone, but I was the only one from my church on the planning committee, so I was obligated. After I got back, I fixed daughter's hair and make-up for the dance and spent the rest of the night on the couch. Sunday we had obligations at church all morning, an afternoon baseball game for TB, and then DH and I drove CS back to school. So a few highlights:
* The weather was perfect for the parade, game, retreat, dance, and the drive to the cities. A few clouds here and there, but the fall colors are getting so pretty.
*The dress turned out pretty well. Her friends thought it was "retro", I don't get that, but she looked nice in it. Her date's tie turned out a little wonky, but I think he just wore it for pictures. He brought me flowers as well, not sure what to make of that, but it was a nice gesture.
*The retreat was nice; held at a church camp in a beautiful area fairly nearby. There were several friends there and as I said the weather was nice. I didn't benefit from a true retreat on a spiritual basis as I would have liked, but there were too many contributing factors for that to happen.
*Lastly we always enjoy taking CS back to school on a Sunday night. We usually take him out for dinner before we drop him off and it is a nice chance to catch up. We went to an Indian place with a buffet last night which was kind of a stretch for a couple of Iowa farm kids. It was okay, but a lot of new flavors and some of it was really spicy.

Lovely Fall Day

It is a beautiful day here today. We got some much needed rain last night, so everything seems very crisp and clean and the sky is a brilliant blue. I hope this nice weather will hold for the homecoming game Friday night. TB's marching band puts on a special show after the game. College son is coming home for the weekend for the first time since going back to school. The dress turned out good enough for Senior Daughter to wear, so I am very happy about that. It may be awhile before I tackle something like that again. I'm anxious to have the time to get back to some quilting. I have many projects waiting for me and I would especially like to make something for fall. I finished a wall-hanging this summer that I am rather proud of, there are quite a few errors as usual, but it's finished. It took me a long time as usual. I'm a firm subscriber to the "Better finished than perfect" philosophy. It was intended as a spring/Easter wall-hanging. I finally finished it in the middle of summer ( a couple of years after the Easter in question). I decided to hang it up for awhile anyway. I think I will take it down today and bring out my Fall decorations. I was inspired by Joan and her beautiful Fall decor. Usually it nears Halloween before I get things out. Ha