I Like Thursday #155

Hello! Today is Thursday and that means it's time for a group of us to share all things fun, funny, or just plain fantastic with other blog readers. I hope you find something here that strikes your fancy. If you'd like to read what others may be sharing, head over to LeeAnna's blog and enjoy right HERE.

I finished my book "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Journey". It was quite an interesting tale. Would I normally have picked this book out? No. Would I recommend this book? Not necessarily. It was OK and I enjoyed most of it. I read this book on the recommendation of my daughter.

I have recently started "The Lost" by Claire McGowan. It should be a more-usual book for me to read since it's a thriller/mystery. The author is Irish and the story takes place in Ireland. This makes some of the book hard for me to understand in places because of the dialog. Oh well, I'm at least getting the jist of story. 

GoodReads Synopsis

My friend left this morning -- not a part of the Likes! -- but I have a couple of pictures of her teacup yorkie Daisy.

Daisy Loved Mom

Daisy Goes Where Vickie Goes

I made a peach pie from SC peaches Vickie brought with her. I just used the recipe from AllRecipes. I let Pillsbury do the work of the crusts for me.

Here's a recipe I got for Cherry Pie Bars from my friend Treva at the last sleep-in-your-bed retreat. It was DELICIOUS!

I'm sure there was a prompt but, due to the usual busy-ness plus company coming through, I'm a bit behind on emails not to mention blog reading. I apologize for not being 100% current but that's life!

I hope you have a great weekend planned. We are expecting rain from Hurricane Francine. Sounds like there could be some sewing time for me!!

I Like Thursday #154

Hello, hello! I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend and are ready to jump right into enjoying the last of Summer and welcoming in Autumn. I love this time of year when the weather is fickle and mild temps are a wonderful surprise!

My friend Vickie spent the night here Tuesday night on her way to Omaha NE. Since she has to go home again, we'll see her again next week. The next visit will be more than a night. YAY!

I love Blue Bell ice cream. We were introduced to it when my husband was stationed with the USAF in FL. Illinois has finally brought it in and it was on sale over the long weekend. Here's a peek into my shopping cart. Yippee!

The white paper bag holds a doughnut. Living in St. Louis Cardinals Country has perks. Our grocery store gives you a free doughnut the day after a Cardinal hits a homerun in the game the night before. They call this program "Doughnuts for Dingers"! Thank you, Paul "Goldie" Goldschmidt!

While on our walk one morning, I admired the sun in this tree. I was amazed to see the leaf stems were red! Can you see that?

I also spied this beautiful lichen(?) on our morning walk. It was quite large, about 6-8" across. I don't believe I've seen one that large before. Isn't it pretty?

Did you know that last Monday was not only Labor Day but also National Hot Dog Day? I made dogs, onion rings, and zucchini. It was delicious!

Our prompt this week was what calming exercises have we successfully used in the past to maintain a level mood. Hmmm, that's a good one and I don't know if I can answer that. I can tell you that sometimes, when I have a hard time getting back to sleep, I remember how wonderful and relaxing I would feel while floating on my back at the beach in Hawaii. The motion of the waves, the sun on my front, and the smells of a beach were wonderful. If I concentrate hard enough, I can almost pretend that I am floating there again and that makes me relaxed enough to fall back asleep ... sometimes.

Have a great end to your week! If you have a minute, stop by LeeAnna's blog to see what other bloggers have experienced this past week.

July RSC Pineapples are Done!

Here it is the last day of August and I finally got the July RSC pineapples completed. Ta! Da!

Sorry about the crappy photo

I also got the last (I think) Red Threads embroidery block done. It's definitely a weird one!

Not Sure What This One is All About

Yesterday I spent and today I will be spending time with friends at the monthly sleep-in-your-own-bed retreat. Yesterday I almost finished six of the paper-pieced sashing strips. They look like this when completed.

Scrappy Kansas Troubles (mostly)

These will make 22 strips completed with only 50 to go! OMG! What was I thinking!!??!! Lol!

I do have the orange fabrics with me at retreat and the necessary tools, I hope. After completing the started strips, I will take a break from those and make the orange pineapples. Then on to the next set of six sashing strips.

I hope you are having a fun weekend too and getting ready to start the next RSC color which I believe is going to be purple. Check out these posts at SoScrappy to see what progress others made with the last of their orange RSC scraps.

Trying to Catch Up

Terribly behind but hope to be caught up with my Pineapple blocks soon. Made a little progress last night. Here are the bottoms of my teal/turquoise pineapples.

I have the tops cut and ready to go so let's see what I can get done.

Wishing you a great weekend!

I Like Thursday #153

Late again to the I Like Thursday party. Oh well, I do have a few things to share. Hopefully you had a great week and have already checked out the "Like" posts on the Not Afraid of Color blog.

Remember my neighbor's sunflowers? She was waiting for them to bloom. Now they have exploded! This picture was taken a couple of days ago. I'm sure there are more sunflowers in her garden by now. I also love the colorful zinnias standing tall in the front row.

My little tiered garden planter is coming along. By the way, many of you commented on it. It was an Aldi Find several years ago so I don't know where you can find another except maybe Amazon? Anyway, I've got marigolds, allysum,  and zinnias blooming happily. On the bottom row you will also see a "volunteer" moss rose from last year. It's happy too!

View From the Top

Desert Rose Hanging from Bottom Left

While driving to one of my quilt clubs, I spied this painting on the building. It's new and looks wonderful. We are getting our kicks on Route 66!

Taken Out My Window While Waiting on Red Light

Speaking of Route 66, I finished this 1000-piece puzzle.

LeeAnna's prompt this week was favorite meal/mealtime. I guess I'm more of a lunch person but only because I get up so early, breakfast is almost always a bowl of cereal. Currently I'm enjoying Honey Grahams! Lol! Dinner is so late in the day and, since I made it while tired from the day's activities, I'm not overly enthusiastic about dinner. But lunch is right up my alley. The other day I pulled out the fresh hatch chili Mom & I had picked up at the grocery store. We didn't know quite what to do with it, just knew they were supposed to be delicious. They were marked "Mild" so we figured jalapeno-mild since that's what I'd read online. So I treated it like a jalapeno-poblano.

First I blistered it on the stove and peeled off the outer layer. Then I stuffed each half with cream cheese, sprinkled chipotle chile powder on top, topped that with cojack cheese, and popped them in the toaster oven for about 15 minutes. Then I switched on the broiler and browned them up. Here's a picture of mine! So tasty! Only thing missing was a margarita -- too early. No margarita for lunch! Haha!

I did finish "The Dutch House" and really enjoyed that book. It was a fun and interesting read, not too deep, and had a good (but strange) cast of characters. Now I'm reading a book that my daughter recommended. It's "Endurance: Shackleford's Incredible Voyage" by Alfred Lansing. It's about Shackleford and 27 others trying to make the first way across Antarctica to the South Pole back in the 1910s. The hardships they'e endured and the uneasiness of not being in control of their situation as the ice has got them stuck and frozen still. No way the boats can sail through as everthing is frozen rock-solid. The 24-hour darkness followed by the 24-hour daylight periods has not helped their situation. I'm about halfway through and I'll finish. It IS interesting but it's not a book that I would say I'm "enjoying". There are some very rough spots that they've endured but the passages from the explorers' diaries are very interesting and give you a sense of what they're going through.

GoodReads Synopsis Found HERE

We've had a taste of Fall here lately with highs only in the mid-70s and lows down into the low- to mid-50s. Summer will be returning before the weekend is over with 90s for the highs again. It was good while it lasted, right? In the meantime I started feeling like making soup (obviously due to the weather) and made this Creamy Sausage Tortellini Soup. Whole Lotta Yum gives you three ways to make it -- Crock Pot, Instant Pot, or Stovetop. Isn't that great??? I went Instant Pot and subbed out the kale for spinach, used whold milk instead of heavy cream, and only used 4 cups of chicken broth. We loved it!

I hope you have a great weekend and can find enjoyable things to appreciate near you.

I Like Thursday #152

It's time for another round of "likes" for the week. We like to share that HERE on LeeAnna's blog. There's always interesting stuff there to learn/share/see.

Let's start in the garden, mine and others. My neighbor's coreopsis is blooming nicely around her mailbox.

On my back deck, the multi-tiered planter is finally blooming. We were gone this past Spring for a NC Bridal Shower so my seeds didn't get planted  until mid-June. That explains the tardiness.

Top: Marigolds
Middle: Zinniuas
Bottom: Allyssum

Ameren is our gas provider. I didn't realize they sweep through the neighborhoods checking for gas leaks. They found a small one in our yard. Here they are digging up the pipe. They were so kind as to be as careful as possible of my garden and then placed the bricks back in order and seeded the grass.

He actually dug a hole up to his waist!

My quilt guild had an amazing program this past Tuesday evening. Our presenter was Candyce Grisham and she showed us many wonderful ways to make Dresden blocks. You can visit her website HERE.

Amazon Link

She shared so many beautiful quilts. I wish I'd taken more pictures but I didn't remember until towards the end. Doh!

Geesh! I just realized I never posted this. Here you go -- I'm having a great Thursday!

Not Much Orange ... Yet

The past week was a blur. Monday morning I had Quilt Club at my LQS and then hurried home to get Mom to P/T at 1pm. Somehow I managed to get 3.5 loads of laundry fully washed, dried, folded, and put away with the last load in the dryer as I went to bed. Tuesday I cleaned up all the floors in the house and finished up that last load of laundry. I also worked on getting prepared for Wednesday's expedition. My friend picked me up and away we went at 8am to knock out a few (six!) quilt shops on the All-Illinois Shop Hop. I was dropped off home at just past 5:30pm and I whipped up BLTs for dinner. Man, was I tired but in a VERY GOOD way. Thursday was up & at 'em for Tips at another LQS (aren't I lucky?). After rushing home to get Mom to P/T again at 1:00 and then home again for my sister's phone call at 3:00, it was on to Dairy Queen for dinner. What???? you ask? 20% of all proceeds that evening were being donated to the Troy Senior Center. We love our Senior Center so much that we decided that DQ Dinner was a win-win. Every Friday Mom & I leave at 11:30 for her standing hair appointment at noon, followed by a little grocery shopping. We usually get back home around 3:30.

That brings us to Saturday when I was signed up for a Zoom class through The Applique Society. Class was scheduled from 10am - 4:30pm and was all about broderie perse. Dena Rosenberg, our instructor, was wonderful! The class was informative, inspiring, and so much fun! She had given a lecture to our group earlier this year and I was so impressed with her knowledge and skill that I was excited for this class.

It doesn't look like much, but this was my progress on Saturday.

My Layout

A Close-up of my Appliqued
First Flower

As for my Red Threads project, I didn't get last week's block (the elk) finished. Rats!

Looking Good So Far

We got the very last embroidery block on Friday. After 50 months, it's a relief to be done getting them. Now to finish up the elk and get that last one done. Of course there's still all the paper-piecing of the flying geese sashings that run the length of the quilt -- 88" according to the pattern!!!

So that's been my week. Busy, busy. I'm looking forward to the upcoming calm week.

If you want to see orange blocks and orange creations, head on over to Angela's SoScrappy blog. There's lots there being shared.