It's a LONG Story!

Whooomp! There Goes Another Tree!

Just when I thought I was all set to post some craft photos - a swap here, a swap there, gifts sent, gifts received ..... all that fun stuff .... I  once again woke up to the dreaded "tree falling" sound in the middle of the night! 

This is always pretty scary since it's a very distinctive sound and, of course, it's pitch black outside - 20 or so wooded acres with no street lights or close neighbors. The first thought is always, "Am I sleeping in the safest room? Is it going to land on the house - and on me?!"  

Our telephone pole is under there somewhere! No telephone - no dsl - no email - no Internet - no Facebook - no Pinterest - no Words With  Friends! Just a plain little cell phone for my lifeline - not even an iPhone! 

This isn't even an entire tree, just one "branch" or section! That's the remains of our old tool shed in the foreground and my parents' house (unoccupied) in the background.The house was not damaged. 

It extended quite a ways and actually knocked down two smaller trees as well as the telephone pole.

The smaller branches of the large "branch" seemed to just keep on going! 

Lopping off the remaining branches of the tree 

Here you can see where the piece broke off the tree. That was the second piece of that tree to fall, so we decided to have the rest cut off since it extended so far towards our house. Very expensive week!  

The Bobcat pulled the smaller logs to the truck but they used a crane for some of the larger pieces.  

There's another tree directly behind. See how tiny the men look!

It's so sad to see these huge old oaks go! They've been here so long - at least 60 or 70 years.

This all started way back (!) when Tropical Storm/Hurricane Isaac was heading up the other coast of Florida and on towards New Orleans. We had no wind but quite a lot of rain over here on the Atlantic side.  

A few days after the pole was knocked down, a telephone man came and temporarily hooked us up, but the tree people came the next day and unhooked the temporary line. Then they came back a couple of days later to finish the rest of the tree so we didn't call AT&T until they were all through. Now today AT&T put in another temporary line and said another crew will come by the end of this week to bury it. Yay! Love those buried cables!

Enough tree talk! I usually post things like this on my Aralia Lane blog (which I've also used for the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge this year), but this has consumed my time for the past two  weeks or so. Have posted so little this summer that I wanted to show something!

Time to get back to my crafts and swaps! 

Happy Tasha Tudor Day!

Tasha Tudor Day

Today would have been Tasha Tudor's 97th birthday! 

We have several of her books from back when my daughters were little girls.  Such sweet illustrations, and such an interesting life. I seem to remember that she wrote a monthly column for one of the women's magazines many years ago. Must look that up.

Several bloggers have special posts about Tasha Tudor today:

Brenda at Coffee Tea Books and Me ,  and The Tasha Tudor Family blog  are interesting. StoryBook Woods has a special post along with links to others.  These all offer a good way to learn more about Tasha, her life and work, in case you're not familiar with her.

Happy Birthday, Tasha Tudor!

What Happened to July?!

We celebrated the 4th, and now July's over! 

What happened?!!!

If I spoke German, I'd say: "Kinder, Kuche, Kirche "-- along with a few other odds and ends!

Grandsons - lots of quality time during the summer - birthday parties, church camp delivery & pickup, day camp pickup and then afternoons here, sick days, even a Graduation! 

I didn't purposely make this out of focus but decided to use it for that reason.

Our youngest grandson graduated from Pre-School! Kindergarten, here we come!!!  No more little babies - sigh.

Our church camp - about 1-1/2 hours away - the lake in the distance had almost dried up during the past few years of drought, so everyone's very happy about the rain from the two Tropical Storms earlier this summer. I think the nearer water is part of a lagoon they were using to bring water in from a nearby river. So happy to see water there again!

Yummy Oreo Cake! Wish I could bake one like that!

Too hot for much cooking here, but have done a bit from time to time, of course. We do like to eat!  Also working on clearing out things we no longer need. Gave away pressure canner and then decided I don't need my pressure cooker any more either. Who knows what will go next?

Better Than Anything Cake! 

Not quite finished! Looked better with the toppings!

Yes, it did have another name - I checked the recipes - same thing! 

We help some friends who prepare the Wednesday night dinner at church about once a month by helping set up, serve, and clean up. Another friend and I usually make the desserts, a good way to try out recipes.  Made this cake a few weeks ago, and then made 3 pies today for tomorrow night.  Didn't want to bake so they're all in the refrigerator: Key Lime, Grasshopper Mint, and Peanut Butter. After  mixing them all up, licking the beaters and cleaning out the bowls I'm not sure I'll actually want to eat any of them tomorrow night! I wonder what my friend's making?

Molasses Crinkles Cookies for a special gift

I covered the box with some of my newest Graphics 45 paper  -  "ABC Primer" - since this was for a school principal who's moving to a different school I thought she might like the box. We know she loves these cookies! The paper is obviously very "old-fashioned" looking and certainly doesn't reflect the diversity in our schools today, but I think anyone looking at it would realize that it's supposed to be from a long time ago.

Lots more activities during July, of course! My shredder has been one of my best friends as I go through paper, paper, paper. Oh, my!

Hard to believer the summer's almost over! But more fun to come!

Hooray for the Red, White, and Blue!!!

Independence Day

July 4

One of our TV stations is showing some of Andy Griffith's own favorites of his shows, so we're watching before going over to some friends' house to celebrate.  Rest in Peace, Andy.

Love these beautiful tags from a few years ago!  

Red, White, and Blue Tag Swap

Jessica Rodarte, Hostess

June 2009

Mary Ann - Andrea

Olenka - The Chateau of Remnants

Sandra - Jenny

SueSue - Bianca - Missy

Sherry - Jessica

Junkgirl - Jane

Molly - Kimberly

Fran - Casabellachic

I'm taking Broccoli Salad and a Victoria Sponge Cake filled with whipped cream, blueberries, and raspberries to our friends.  Meant to try the Victoria cake recipe for the Queen's Jubilee, but didn't get to it then so this seemed like a good time. Must take a picture when I get it put together!

Happy Fourth of July!

"Springing" in the Rain!

More Rainy Days

And a Spring Tag Swap

Another Tropical Storm came for a visit! This was TS Debby -  took days to make up her mind which way she wanted to go! At one point they feared a direct hit on New Orleans, but then Debby switched and moved over to Florida instead.

Lots of flooding and lots of rain across the state until Debby suddenly picked up and swiftly moved on across and out into the Atlantic Ocean. Just a couple of days ago, the forecast was for us to be continuously inundated until "2 a.m. Friday", but then she started moving and bid us  farewell. 

Photo "borrowed" from a friend - flooding in her neighborhood

Today we woke up to sunshine once again, but there was lots of flooding and many roads were closed for a day or two. No flooding at our house, but plenty of rain.  Someone said we had 24 inches of rain, but I'm not sure what part of town. Jacksonville encompasses over 600 square miles, so some areas probably received more rain than others.

I read that, in spite of all the rain from two tropical storms, we're still in drought!  Hope we've had our share of storms now for this year, at least.  It seems strange that TS Beryl came directly here from the Atlantic, and then TS Debby came straight here from the Gulf - hit from both directions in less than a month!

Just wish we could've sent some of this rain out West to help put out the fires!

Found these lovely tags while sorting out some boxes during all the rain!

April Showers Bring May Flowers Tag Swap

2010

Connie - Marian - Jeanne

Tammy - Natalea - Vivian

Grace - Wendy - Kimberly

Linda - Geralyn

Kathy

Jane - Wanda

Sunshine and Blue Skies again!

Rain Flowers and Sew Many More

Rain Flowers?

No complaints after months of drought, but we have had an unusual amount of rain lately, even for June, the traditional rainy month.  So when I noticed all the mushrooms or toadstools (no idea which!), I decided they must be our Rain Flowers!

Doesn't this one look like a little fairy home? So cute!

Different shades and different shapes 

Even the underside is interesting!

Sadly, no beautiful peonies or roses to show here - just these funny little "Rain Flowers"!  

BUT

A wonderful package of flowery goodness arrived a few days ago!

ArtJoyStuff's Sew Many Flowers ATC Swap

Our terrific swap hostess, Kimberly, always has a creative way of packaging the swaps.  This time she used actual pattern envelopes and pattern directions for packaging the Sew Many Flowers ATCs. What fun to receive this package!

Here's Amy's "Carefree" 

Love this little girl in the very pale blue dress!

Karla's  "Omas Buttons" 

Georgeous buttons - and so much detail. I thought the stick pin was real until I felt it (the jewel is real but the pin's part of the collage)

And Liz's  lacy floral beauty. Can hardly see the dainty fern background, but it's perfect.

Kimberly included this lovely tag for each of us. This was a 3/3 swap, so lots of fun! If you'd like to see my ATCs, take a peek here,  a post or two ago.  Thank you all so much! I love my new ATCs! And thank you, Kimberly, for once again being such a wonderful swap hostess!

It might not be too late to join this month's Mermaid ATC Swap. Check it out here! Can hardly wait to see all the mermaids!

Rainy Day Fun

Rain?  Did We Say We Needed Rain?

Yes, we did! 

Birthday Bee Basket

It does seem a little excessive, though, to have SO MUCH rain all in the same week!  However, it's much better than drought, so I am not complaining.  In fact, I've been busy as a bee.......

I had to buy this cute leftover Easter basket when they were marked down. Knew just what to do with it!

Love this cute birthday tissue paper - doesn't have anything to do with bees, but all these birthday cakes are lovely.

At least one of the little gifts is bee-themed: cute little memo pad!

Doll Ornament  from The Small Object as shown on Kiddley.com

Along with a gift certificate for afternoon tea, there's another "little person" to add to a special garland I made for the Birthday Girl's important birthday a couple of year's ago. 

She still has the garland hanging up and asks for another one to add each year.  This little paper doll is a bit more dressed up than some because she's celebrating the Queen's Jubilee, complete with flag! She's right in style with her 'fascinator', but I think I put her earrings just a little too far up. Maybe she wears them at the tops of her ears rather than on the earlobes! 

The cute frame I used for her portrait came in Michelle's wonderful "stash" swap from my partner, Leann, of The Old Parsonage. Still finding new things to do with all the goodies she sent!

And what does this have to do with the Birthday Bee Basket? Well,  I think it's stopped raining now, so that'll have to wait!