My wonderful goodies!

Just thought I would pop in and show you my wonderful goodies that I received today from the lovely Pat who has a blog called The Sewing Room. I was simply overwhelmed with her generosity. Pat and I were swap partners from a swap over at Lisa's blog a while ago. It is strange how we were both paired up as we have both had a bit of a tough summer this year. If you go on over to Pat's wonderful blog you will understand. So sit back and let me show you all the wonderful things in my swap package.
All the little packages were beautifully wrapped and came with a very lovely card.
The first thing that I unwrapped was this great apron. It was so expertly sewn and I am just thrilled that it is mine!
Next was this wonderful hat and a matching pair of fingerless mitts! Oh my goodness, how did she know that I needed both! These will be sure to keep me warm this fall and winter while hubby and I are out on our nature walks.
After opening another little package I was rewarded with a new pen. This one is going into my purse for jotting things down while I am at the fabric, craft shops etc;
Can you believe there is more! Candy for my sweet tooth. The little packet of Love Hearts made me smile as I haven't eaten them since I was a child.
Look at these beautiful beads. These will come in very handy for some upcoming graft projects.
Yes there is still more! A lavender filled heart... how generous is she!
A little note pad to go along with my new pen.
Whew! Finally a British knitting magazine! This I will savor from cover to cover this afternoon while having some tea.

Thank you Pat. I am just speechless with all these wonderful gifts.
Hope you have enjoyed my "show and tell" today. It actually felt good to blog again. I promise I will try to not stay away so long before my next post.
See you soon!

Still here

Just wanted to pop in to say that I am still here and enjoying the summer as I hope you all are. My goodness August already. Time is just flying by.

I am so pleased with my hanging flower basket again this year. It does take a lot of water and feeding but it is oh so worth it. I can only imagine how much it must weigh and hope that my poor old porch can take all that weight!

I do still have quite a few things to take care of but I will be popping in from time to time just to say hello.

See you soon!

Sadness

We lost a dear family member over the weekend so I will be taking a little bloggy break. I won't be gone long... I just need a little time to myself.

Knitting

I really am addicted to sock knitting. My blue socks are almost finished. I once again stuck with a very plain rib pattern and concentrated on knitting a good sock. When I was a young girl and just starting out with knitting I wanted to jump right in at the deep end and knit a sweater with a lace pattern for my very first project. I can still hear my mother telling me that I should learn to walk before I run! So here we are all those years later and I finally did listen to her and made two pair of plain decent socks that I am quite happy with. But now.... ....well I think I am ready to run a bit and get a bit more adventurous! Look at this scrumptious yummy sock yarn. I just couldn't resist buying some. It's lovely and soft and I can hardly wait to get my little itchy sock knitting fingers on it!
But it will have to wait for just a little bit as my daughter and I will be going to the annual Lavender Festival in Sequim on Friday. We love taking a trip there to see and smell all the wonderful sights and to indulge in our all time favorite... Lavender Ice Cream! If only we could bring a trunk load home with us. So it's been a bit of a busy week trying to get everything finished around here before we go. We will be leaving quite early on Friday so we can get there at a decent time. I should have lots of pic's to show when I get home. Now that our weather has warmed up enough we have been having our dinner out in the garden. It never fails that there is at least one uninvited guest that shows up. This time it was a little chipmunk. He sat up in our pine tree staring at us while we ate. I think he was hoping for us to share our meal. Such cute little things, aren't they? Earlier in the day... and I mean really early we went out for another nature walk. It was around 7.30 in the morning and it really is a lovely way to start the day. We were the only two people about so it was nice and quiet and the air was fresh and cool. The young Barn Swallows are all leaving their nests now but still trying to get that last feed from mom. I am amazed that one of them didn't fly into us as they were swooping down everywhere. The highlight of the morning though was watching this amazing..... ... River Otter. There were actually three of them. We think it was a mother and her two babies. They splashed and played and even caught a good size fish which they all squabbled over. We stood for the longest time while hubby happily clicked away with his camera. I don't honestly think that they would have stuck around as long if there had been more people about. Lucky us!

Well that's it from me until after I get back from my little trip. Enjoy the rest of your week. See you soon!

Wool and Mink

Well these are definitely not the prettiest socks in my drawer. But they are certainly the warmest. I had this yarn laying around the house and I wanted to see if I could knit and also enjoy making socks. Well yes to both! Although not very pretty they will be wonderfully warm this winter paired up with my boots. In fact I enjoyed making these so much that....... I have started another pair! With the temperatures starting to warm up here I find sock knitting much nicer to do right now than my big ripple blanket. It is going to get just a bit to warm to sit under my ripple while crocheting it. As you know I do so love knitting with thin yarn. So making socks with this type of yarn is just so much fun. I have started off with a very plain pattern but as time goes on I am hoping to get a bit more fancy.

Now for the Mink part, I bet you are all wondering what I am talking about. No I didn't knit a pair of mink socks! But we did see...... this wonderful little Mink down by the river while walking. Isn't he wonderful! He was happily rolling about on the bank in the sun. We also watched as he went back into the river and nabbed a fish for lunch. This is the first time we have seen a Mink while out walking. I hope he sticks around. We also saw a mommy Wood duck and her babies. She was being very protective of them and kept them all very close to her.

Now I am off to catch up on all the things that were put on the back burner while we were enjoying our long July 4th weekend.

Have a super Tuesday!

Birthday and Twilight

Today is officially our daughter's birthday but we celebrated over the weekend. Her birthday barbecue was just lovely even if we did have to move the whole thing indoors. Our backyard faces a bluff that over looks the Puget Sound. Even though we are quite a bit a way we still get all the cool breezes that come off the water. It's great when we are having a hot summer day as it cools us down quite nicely. But not so great when we are only having lukewarm days. All in all though it was a terrific day. When you have wonderful family and good food what more could you ask for.
Her birthday cake was just delicious! As usual we all ate far to much so Monday was a lighter meal day to try and even things out a bit. To cap off her birthday we are going to a sneak preview of the new Twilight movie tonight. We have sneaky peek tickets for the 9 o'clock showing. Looks like it will be a late night for us. It wasn't all play and no work while she was here. We made up several batches of our whipped soap. I just love taking a bath with this! Not a bad afternoons work even if I do say so!

Well that's it for now as my day is going to be a busy one. I do have one other bit of news though... can you believe I am finally knitting a pair of socks! I have one and a half socks done already. So far things are going smoothly and I am just thrilled. I'll show them off in my next post.

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

Middle of the week

Well here we are at Wednesday already and I haven't posted once this week. Shame on me! I have a good excuse though. This upcoming weekend is our daughter's yearly birthday barbecue. So I have been shopping and cleaning in preparation for the big day. I am not sure if it will be a back yard affair as in previous years as mother nature isn't really co-operating. Rainy cooler weather will be here by the weekend so we may have to move the whole thing indoors. Oh well wherever it is we will still have a lot of really good fun.My mother-in-law came for a visit on Sunday afternoon. Even though it was a bit rainy we ventured out for a walk at our favorite nature preserve. These little baby swallows were being fed constantly by there mother. I couldn't help feeling sorry for her as she had four of the little ones to feed. We watched her fly back and forth feeding each one in turn. I bet she will be very glad to see them all on their own.
This year the Great Horned Owls only had one baby and we found him sitting on a tree branch. We think he is pretty much reared and on his own now. Although I do think that his parents are still nearby watching. He still has some of his downy feathers but he is looking more like an adult owl everyday.We were all a bit damp, tired and hungry on returning home so coffee, tea and cake helped to make us feel a bit better. This was a Raspberry Bakewell cake and it was delicious and so very easy to make. I think you could make it with whatever fruit is in season. It's definitely a keeper and the recipe is here if you would like to try it.

Well that's it for me for this week. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week and your weekend.

See you soon!