It's a Hot July!

I had the week off from my flower work this past week. So I gave myself the special treat of going to Goodwill Outlet with a friend. I didn't realize until I got home how many wonderful things ended up in my cart! I had to record it in my gratefulness journal:

Here's my cart part way through the morning. For some reason it's very relaxing for me to cull through all the bins at goodwill looking for random things. 

I've started walking three mornings a week with some neighborhood friends. We start early to avoid the heat and walk about 5 miles. 

I spent quite a few hours going through 17 years of family photos this week in preparation for Drew's upcoming graduation celebration. There were plenty of fun memories to re-discover and lots of records of creative projects to re-inspire me.

I loved this pic of James having tea with me at one of the most fabulous tea experiences ever on the Isle of Skye.

The milkweed is still blooming and I love watching all the bug life enjoying it too!

And the Queen Anne's Lace is just stunning every where I look!

I had a second day off of the flower shop and devoted a few hours to painting. I had fun with this gouache milkweed.

And I loved recording the Queen Anne's Lace and teasel this way:

And I couldn't leave me two hollyhocks out! (The art is for sale: Milkweed 8x10 $100; all the others are 5x7 and $50)

One morning I walked by myself down to the reservoir and back. It looked like I'd flown away to a vacation. 

Saturday the girls and I attended a lovely shower for a friend's daughter and I brought the flowers.

I failed to take any other pics of the shower but it was one of the first for Laura to be able to attend. She enjoyed it!

Sunday, after church, we went to a friend's open house.The sky was just gorgeous and for once I wasn't driving so I could take pictures for future painting! Look at that cloud!

And now a new week is here.....

The Annual Goodwill Shop

My sisters and I have been shopping at the December Goodwill 50% off Saturday for so many years that it has now become tradition. This year mom joined us!!! We had so much fun!

For my birthday I received money to spend at Goodwill. This was a HUGE treat for me and it was fun to look around and think I could buy things I wanted.

We started when the doors opened and managed to go to three different stores! Check out the length of the line! All the way to the far corner of the store.....

then turning the corner towards the front.....

and all the way to the cash registers. At least we could have one person stand in line and the others could look, or we could just stand and talk away.

Here we are -- the Goodwill shopping buddies!!!!!

Another nice thing is that with a Goodwill rewards card you get an extra 10% off which means everything we bought was 60% off!!! YAY! Christina was especially excited to find a couch for her living room! And I had a van.....

We headed to Christina's for a birthday lunch and a few presents -- Emily and I both have December birthdays.

Christina has our great-grandmother's doll collection set up for Christmas:

Don't you love Christina's newly painted hutch with her plaid bunting and the lovely Christmas china!!!

The Goodwill loot: my favorite find was an arran wool cardigan in an exquisite pattern, hand knit and in perfect condition. I LOVE it! Will post a picture sometime. Most surprising find was a brand new duvet cover for my bed. I have been hunting for one for many, many years and never finding one. This one is the perfect color and the right price! I also bought clothes for myself, the children and Michael. I did find a very fun pink, pleated leather purse which will make an appearance sometime and you already saw my cute snowman mug. Two wool sweaters were collected for flower making and some Christmas ornaments and tissue paper as well as a few spring decorations.

Christina had a gingerbread trifle and tea for dessert.

Lunch was delicious and welcome after all our hard work!

Then we did the couch switch-around. The new couch went into Christina's living room thus bumping her upstairs couch to downstairs and then she gave me the basement couch for my front room! I love it! I went home, posted my old couch to Craigslist, and before the evening was out it was gone! YAY!

Here is an ugly, but functional, picture of the front (play) room with the new couch in it! 

And thus ends the Goodwill adventures for the month.

Thrifting

Thrifting is one of my favorite hobbies. Of course it is also good for my flower business, since that is where I obtain the materials I need.

Last week I happened upon someone's collection of silk, and not-so-silk, scarves at Salvation Army. I couldn't resist, and came home with about 14 of them (good thing they were cheap). My favorite is a 1977 commemoration scarf for the Queen's silver jubilee. Very appropriate since this year marks her 60th year on the throne. I also like the burberry one, and that bright orange one. I used some of the scarves for stuffing Easter eggs for the ladies on Easter.

At the same store, I ran into a box of over 40 melamine white teacups. Since the price was only $4 I swooped that one up and now Christina and I are enjoying them. They will be perfect for an outdoor event.

Not every adventure yields such great finds, but it is always fun when they do show up.

Our Life, Recently

It seems there are a number of things I've been wanting to blog about and haven't yet. Andrew recently completed a little quilt. He sewed the top together on the sewing machine and I helped him to bind it together. He really enjoyed this project and kindly gave the quilt to Rachel for her doll:

Our Knit Night was a success last week with 9 of us in attendance. Three ladies learned to knit and we are looking forward to next month already:

Goodwill had their 50% off sale on Saturday. I was there, bright and early but hardly found a thing at the first store. Later on in the day Christina and I found a great selection of sweaters for crafting and I found one treasure to wear: a vintage Peck & Peck Fifth Avenue orange wool cardigan. I love it!

Here are the sweaters I found to unravel and turn into yarn for knitting!

The selection includes a cashmere and cotton blend, cotton in gray, thin pink wool, chunky pink and white mix, a lovely merino in cream as well as some acrylic in gray from Gap, which I think will still make something nice.

We had a whirlwind visit from Daniel & Crystal and Kyleigh and Micah & Molly (Daniel and Micah are Michael's brothers) on Friday night. It was nice for the cousins to see each other:

Christina and I had a delightful time on Saturday with the Chinese ladies. They were lovely Christian women and we enjoyed getting to know them over brunch before Christina started in on the knitting lesson.

Everyone picked it up quite quickly and most everyone had several rows completed on their cowls before we left.

Just getting started:

The boys are all at various stages of the respitory flu. Rachel may be just getting the flu. We'll see how our week progresses!