Great Holiday Weekend/ What does the 4th mean to you?

What a glorius weekend!  The weather was just beautiful.  Do you ever stop to think what does the 4th mean?  To most of us we think of freedom, independance,liberty, a pariotic time to appreciate this great country we live in?  I too think of all these things but mostly FREEDOM of religion which our country was founded on.  So with that thought I became a member of the church I had been attending for over a year now.  It was so nice.  Then that evening we watched fireworks as well as watched the ones on tv from the Boston Pops  and the Capitol Court and the Macys one from New York.  Just think Americans everywhere were all celebrating in their own different ways the birth of our Country.  Monday we decided to go for a picnic which is something I haven't done in ages.  So we packed up the ice chest and my dog Gidget and drove to Fish Lake and then around Lake of the Woods.  We parked at an empty camp site (everyone was leaving Monday) and enjoyed our  lunch all around the beautiful trees that gave us great shade.  Oh it smells so good up here.  Gidget enjoyed walking and sniffing all the smells of the forest.  We took a nice walk.  We went for a ride and enjoyed the views .  Everything looked so nice and green.  Have to do this more often.  Isn't it great we live someplace we can do as we please?  Have we taught our children and grandchildren how lucky we are to live in such a great nation?  It is our responsibility to let them know how lucky they are.  Sure our nation has alot of problems right now but thank God to all the men and women past , present and future who have fought to ensure we keep our freedoms that this country was founded on.

My first Friendship Quilt

Here is my friendship quilt that was made with a block swap I joined on MaryJanesFarm.  There were 6 of us and we each made 2 different blocks and sent each person 1 of each block and kept 1 of each for ourselves.  It was so fun waiting for them to come in the mail.  I made 3 blocks so it would come out even.  The quilting was done by machine, however this photo is not so great so I don't think you can see it. I have 2 more quilts I am working on and if and when I ever finish I would like to join another swap.  It also is a way to meet new people and make new friendships.  After I finished my quilt this morning I ironed, cleaned my room and then took the vacum all apart and cleaned it all out.  I washed out the filter and then got a razor blade to clip out all the strings and threads and dog hair or whatever that were caught in the rollers.  Now it's just like new. Oh and I did a load of wash too, put away the dishes from dishwasher, clipped the dog.  Man I guess that now I am walking over 2 miles every day I am getting lots more energy.  Didn't realize how much I had done untill I wrote it all down,.

Canning Cherries

Today two of our local KLAMAT FALLS CHARMING CHICKS came over and we made cherry jam.  We made 35 jars, some pints and 1/2 pints. Nothing feels more rewarding then looking at all those jars of homemade jam.  Blackberry is my favorite but this tastes pretty good.  We even made some sugar free jam using sugar free pectin and agave syrup. 

Mary and I had never tasted the agave syrup but that jam is GOOD let me tell you.

Julie brought over a great 2 burner propane camp stove so we could have more batches cooking at one time because Mary only has 2 burners but we could not get the stove lit.  With 4 of us gals here we had no luck.  Wonder what the problem was.  Anyway with just the two burners and an electric hot plate we did around 8 batches of cherries.  Of course after pitting all those cherries we all had red all over us but that was fun.  Its always nice to do these type of things with friends.  It makes the job go faster and always more fun to talk with friends and catch up.  We plan on doing pickeled beets next time we are in the canning mood and later in summer do what comes from our gardens.

Victorian Tea Party-Farmchick style

Last Sunday, Mary and I hosted a Tea Party for our Charming Chick Sisters and our monthly meeting.  Oh, what  fun it was.  First off, Mary had all these gorgous tea cup sets and mentioned she always wanted to have a tea party, I said , hey great opportunity we are hosting the June meeting so we decided to do it.  We had a fun time gettin everything ready for it  Everyone had to wear their bonnets and aprons.  We served cucumber sandwhiches, oriental chicken salad in lettuce cups, stuffed peppers and shrimp.  We had scones that Mary made that were to die for as well as miniature muffins and Russian Tea Cakes. We served hot tea and a delicious Victorian Iced Tea.  We also had 4 new girls come and all 4 joined our group.  That was just awsome because we now have a big bunch of gals with diverse talents we can all learn from.

Our next meeting is going to be a pot luck Mexican style at Robins house.That is Mary in the pink hat and yours truly with the black hat ,  What  a pair!  We all had on our Queen for the Day attitude and it was so much fun.

thrift store shopping in Bend

Last Friday a few of us Charming Chicks went thrift store shopping in Bend.

first off no one knew where they were going so we tried out Gails new gps system.  Well all it did was tell us the thrift store we wanted was 200 miles away from where we were.  We knew that was wrong. We drove around alot and did find several thrift stores by accident.  We each found some treasures to take home.   We met up at 8 am. and then went into Klamath Falls to pick up Faith and then on to Bend.  I have lived here over 1year and this was my first time there.  Lot of stores compared to this area.  I liked the area.  It was very pretty.  Naturally we had to stop for lunch so we opted for the Olive Garden.  It was nice and our waiter  took our picture for us.  At our first stop I found a neat rose embroidered table cloth and a great red trimmed wine glass. Now I have to find matches to it.    The weather was just perfect that day too. After lunch we got busy looking for more shops.  Mary and I both found treasures and aprons for our tea party.

Gail found a chair and some other goodies and Faith found some stuff too only I don't remember what it was.

We also found a neat St.Vincent De Pauls, wow , so clean and nice.  It was such a nice store.  Will have to go back sometime and check out everything again.

By 6p.m. that evening we were getting pretty pooped out as you can tell from Faith and Marys picture here.  Even if we had not found little treasures it was fun just sharing the day with good friends and conversation.  We all need to just get away now and then.  We got home around 8:30 that evening and had absolutely no trouble falling to sleep.We are always ready to go again.

Brookes' graduation

Last Wednesday my grandaughter Brooke graduated from St.Annes in Lodi, Calif. and will now be in high school. She is the oldest daughter of my younger son.  It is so hard to believe she will be in high school.  When I was young ( I was once you know) I used to hear my Grandmother and Auntie say "my how time flies"  I would think , no it goes by so slow, now here I am saying and thinking the same thing.  I couldn't attend Bookes graduation so my daughter took picures of her and her two sisters for me.  Nothing like being a Grandma.  Wish I lived closer.

my first swap block quilt

I belong to Mary Janes Farm , our local chapter is Klamath Falls Charming Chicks. We are women with farmgirl attitude. Whether you sew, bake, knit, hang clothes on a clothesline, have animals or even just have a windowsill garden, you are a gal with a farmgirl heart.  I went on the Mary Jane site and became involved in a chat for quilters.  We had a block swap in March and I received quilt blocks from different areas of the United States and I sent 2 different block patterns out to differnt ladies.  Here is my quilt I have put together.  I just need to put the binding on the edges and it will be finished.  I am so happy with it.  I have only made one quilt before this.