Happy Mother's Day

Tori sent this beautiful Iris bouquet & it continues to amaze all of us. Each day, another flower, another beautiful color!
Imagine my surprise, and a gift,Willow Tree Mother and Son, from Nicholas
Thx Tori & Nicholas : ) I love you both!

Happy Easter!

Buddy, without his bandage. DH & I struggled to remove his bandage. So far, so good.

holiday pics taken by Tori

Tree decorated by Tori, Tree skirt made by my Mom
Honey & NIkki under the tree
Nikki joins Raggedy Ann under the tree
BUDDY

Season's Greetings!

Happy Sweetest Day!

Gifts from MIL

I finished reading John Irving: The World According to Garp. And started Mercy Seller. Mercy Seller is most excellent. Nice link HERE, with more info on this novel.

I enjoy reading - from books - first thing in the morning. The best time of my day is after the boys & DH are off to school/work. I like to get the laundry sorted, start the loads & enjoy 50 pages from a novel. Fiction,usually. At the end of the day, after the evening meal, I enjoy picking up needlework & listening to audiobooks while I stitch. It is best to have both the book & audiobook of the same title - author. Tho, sometimes that is not possible. I want to read Angela's Ashes [memoir] next -- I own the book & found the audio book at the library - read by the author. Guess that will be the 'next' read on my list!



When I received the great big yellow bowl, gift from MIL - chick bowl, I wasn't sure what to do with it. I thought to purchase some Easter candies & place them in the bowl -- only problem was, what if the pets get into it? While I was at Walgreen's, I noticed a sale on soft peppermints ... and the pets won't bother with peppermints.

I have been asked why I have more than one blog .... errr, that is kinda difficult to explain. I started with Xanga & found many very good book rings - lots of readers with lots to say about their hobby. There were very few stitchers - so, I started a blogger site for my stitching. ooooh .... lots of bloggers are stitchers! And when Blogger started the 'beta' stuff -- I opened up this blog to mess with the new template, etc. Some blogger accounts switched to word press, etc -- but I think I have enough blogs now : )

Now, I have Xanga - for books & the book rings.
Stitches of Life II for books & cats & non-stitching [yes, some of my GFs don't stitch].
Stitches of Life mainly for my needlework hobby.

ENOUGH blogs!! I swear.

Spring Flowers + Spring Musical

My Inlaws visited on Sunday. We went to the High School Musical performance during the afternoon. Alex was a Skater Dude & #45 Basketball Player & "A" for the Drama Club scene. Nick was in the pit, played the trombone. There are three more shows coming up this week-end.

Tonight, Alex is going with the Drama Club to Michigan City.



Tori selected these spring flowers about a week ago. I should have taken a photo then. There were many small pink roses in the arrangement. Now, I have them in a dish to dry. The 'eggs' are candles / chick belongs to Alex [gifts from MIL]

Our tree

I was going to take down the decorations today; however, my Sister-in-Law + Brother-in-Law will be visiting on Sunday & I think I'll leave them up a few more days. This is our artificial tree. My husband bought this for our first Christmas together - which must have been 1980. After I put the lights on & the boys added the ornaments, it didn't look too bad!

We usually have a small pine tree with root ball - which allows us to plant it in the backyard the day after Christmas. We have several nice trees growing!

Hope everyone had a nice holiday. We are looking forward to the New Year feast. I'm planning to make paella & the boys will watch the football game on t.v. Need to make sure I have all the ingredients. ttfn

Getting the table ready ...

There is an un-named cat who enjoys chewing on the ornamental grass. Lots of little bite marks on the ends :D
Wonderful bouquet for our Fall celebration.

Happy Sweetest Day to Me ...

Roses from DH .... and,

look what i received via e-mail ...

Photo from Tori

Tori is modeling her new pink hat. It is part of her Halloween costume.

While looking thru some papers, I came across my Mom's recipe for Popcorn Balls. This was a family favorite. We would make them every Halloween afternoon. The neighborhood children loved them [for those children/parents who didn't know our family, we had a selection of very boring candy]. We enjoyed them so much, we would make a batch for Thanksgiving & decorate the balls into turkeys [with construction paper & toothpicks]. Finding this slip of paper makes me smile. Now to share:

Pop seven cups of popcorn [I think yellow popcorn works the best]

In saucepan, medium heat:

1 c Sugar

1/3 c White Corn Syrup

1/4 c Butter or Marg

1/3 c Water

1 Tsp Salt

Heat until drops form in cold water. Add 1 Tsp Vanilla.

Mix into 7 cups of popcorn - roll into balls. Can make apx 80 balls from three lbs of popcorn