Something About Nothing

We went to The King's English  bookstore this evening and had an enlightening experience listening to and meeting the author Gail Carson Levine.   I am thankful for Facebook because without it today I wouldn't have known that one of my daughter's favorite authors would be less than 5 miles from our home.  Gail Carson Levine has written delightful books such as Ella Enchanted , Ever , Fairest and 15 other books. Em was nervous about meeting such a famous author as you can see in this photo. Em was so nervous that she didn't say a word to Mrs. Levine while she was signing the books. But Mrs. Levine was gracious enough to take a wonderful photo with Em after signing all four of the books we had brought.  She did this for every person who came through.  (Of course there were only 1/10th the amount of people at the book signing than there were when I went to have Ree Drummond sign The Pioneer Woman Cookbook last year).  She is a tiny ...

It's time for babies to start leaving their nest around here. We found a robin fledgling sitting on the ground under one of our peach trees this evening. Annie and I walked right up to him without him moving an inch. He seemed to be sleeping and gathering energy for the next phase of life. We poked him to make sure he was still alive - he was. His parents were up on the electric wires keeping a close eye on him. We worried about him and checked on him several times as well. With a little internet research I found that we should leave him alone and let his parents work things out with him. However the article said that if we were concerned for his safety we could see if he would sit on our finger and then put him on a tree branch to get him up away from danger (aka - Cougar, the cat next door). I picked him up and he screamed bloody murder. It was quite cute actually but I got him to sit on my finger where he sat contentedly. (And btw "Don't touch baby birds because their...

Last week I decided it was time to finally dye the dress and shirt I purchased from Dharma Trading last summer. I thought my girls would enjoy dying them with me but it turned out that only one wanted to participate. Typical. However it wasn't typical as to which girl wanted to participate. They like to keep me on my toes. So, the dress looked like this to start with: And after a little color It looks like this I'm thinking I might dye it again and give it more color.  My daughter, however, was pretty happy with it as is! The hooded t-shirt started out like this: and after a lot of dye It looks beautiful!  But you will have to take my word for it because my daughter loved it so much she took it to camp with her before I got a photo. I also gave freezer paper resist and shibori a try.  I will have to do another post once I have photos of the finished products.

I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree. -- Joyce Kilmer My neighbor's two trees were cut down today. They were beautiful and provided a place to play and served as a home for many birds. We are all sad to see them go but after many years of contemplation my neighbor decided it was their time. The person who took down the trees said that the roots of the two trees were supporting one another and if one was taken down than the other needed to go too. I missed the willow being taken down but was able to document the taking down of the pine. Here is the beginning of taking down the branches. The branches were then put into the chipper. I...

The only shop I hopped in was the one I work at: Whimsy Cottage. I worked every day of shop hop and had a lot of fun meeting new people. My girls came with me to work the first day and helped out by stamping peoples passports. They are so good at entertaining themselves as well as others! Although I'm not sure Em looks so excited in this photo! We finally received a big shipment of Wool we'd been waiting on and it was so nice to have several people in the shop to help process it.  It is so beautiful. And while I was in the shop taking photos I got one of Emotional Anna and her little bat, not that anyone cares. ;) She such a cute, sad little girl. Have you ever attended a Quilt Shop Hop?

I've been sewing a lot lately - store samples mostly - just haven't taken many photos. This cute little dress is a Tina Givens pattern called "Little Goddess." Cute dress but the 2/3 size has a small neck, one that would probably not fit over a child's head.  If I make this again as a gift it will need an expanded neck hole. I also made this cute pattern for the shop but didn't take a photo.  Oops.

We attended another wedding reception with a photobooth - can I just tell you how excited I am every time I see one? My husband just wanted to visit with people so he missed out on the fun. I think my favorite photo is where E and I are staring at each other and A is pointing at us. I have a couple photos from the wedding reception which were sent to me by one of the Bridesmaids but I wish I had photos of everything there. There were games on every table for the guests to look at or better yet to play with. You can barely see in the background the "booths" with popcorn, snowcones, cotton candy and really good soft serve ice cream. My girls decided that this was "The Best Reception EVER!" One of the things I loved were some movie posters on the wall. A cousin helped to make the posters.  The Bride and Groom were featured in each mock movie poster and you can tell that they had a great time posing for the photos.  I think my favorite was their version of "Tw...

We have had an unusual amount of rain here this spring and the plants are loving it.  I am also loving the fact that I haven't had to turn on my sprinklers or set up my drip system yet.  I think this luxury will end soon and I will need to get the drip system up this week so that the plants will be able to keep growing just as big and beautiful as they are now.  This tomato has especially enjoyed the rain. The bag experiment continues and is succeeding thanks to the rain.  These will definately need the benefit of the automatic drip system because I am not a reliable enough waterer on my own.  The bag on the left is cucumbers and Scarlet Runner Beans, and the bag on the right is suppose to be lettuce, however I'm not sure if the one little plant is lettuce or a weed.  I think I need to replant in this bag.   All four pumpkin seeds I put in are growing in the side yard.  I'm looking forward to pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies and pumpkin s...

We had a wonderful day at the temple yesterday.  I loved seeing so many friends there sharing a day dedicated to the Lord. Today we are back to reality. The two youngest are now out of school and want to spend all their time reading or on the computer. The oldest is still working at the Capitol and hoping to find a job in Arizonia via the internet so he can move before he starts his 5 year stint of law school/phd program. And the forgotten middle child has not one but TWO fabulous internships in wonderful San Francisco.  She leaves in three days and still needs to move out of her apartment and bring all of her things home. Add to this that I need to repair a sweater for my sister so that my daughter can deliver the sweater to my sister when she goes to SF, we have not one but two wedding receptions Friday and an 80th birthday party on Saturday.  Not to mention that I have projects to finish for Whimsy Cottage before the Wasatch Front...

Today we are spending the day at the Salt Lake Temple with our ward family.

 few things have gotten in the way of my posting about a great retreat I attended at the end of May so I am going to catch up today. I'm also going to attempt to post more often this summer and not worry about the posts being long and epic. I've noticed that I enjoy reading blogs that post everyday more than those that post irregularly like me. We'll see how that goes. ;-) Hideaway Valley is a wonderful place off of Highway 89 in the middle of nothing - well I can't exactly say "nothing" because there are some lovely ranches, and an occassional home out there.  The building is actually five or six homes that were built together under with a large common roof.  It is very difficult to explain.  Suffice it to say that it is a great place to hold a retreat!  There is a very large ballroom in one of the houses which includes a full kitchen and lots of restrooms.  We used the ballroom for sewing and eating some of our meals. The home we stayed in had 6 bedroo...