Update II

Did some mid-summer garden maintenance earlier this week in the heat and 100% humidity, so I've been quite happy to return to the coolness of the sewing room, sipping sweet tea and listening to stuff via iPod.  I did just download from my library one of Edward Rutherford's monster-sized books (Paris: A Novel), but I've never read any of his other works - historical fiction stuff, looks like.  Oh well, easily removed if I decide I hate it.  I'm on the wait list for Brown's The Inferno and Carl Hiaasen's new one Bad Monkey.  I'm hoping that one might have something to do with the real-life monkey that was on the loose in the Tampa area for something like nine months last year, just hiding out in back yards and suddenly appearing on balconies and scaring the bejeezus out of people.  Oh Florida, you are such a freaking gold mine of you-can't-make-this-stuff-up stories.

I have turned to downloading podcasts quite a bit when I can't find a good book and I'm currently mining the archives of The Nerdist.  Though generally not big on watching stand-up comedy shows, I'm really enjoying listening to Chris Hardwick interviewing/chatting with other comedians.  Most I've never heard of, but sometimes he talks to people like Alton Brown or Mark Hamill or Lily Tomlin and the conversations get crazy funny.  Recent ones with Tom Hanks and Mel Brooks and Billy Connolly are just hilarious.  Good thing I'm alone in the house - laughing yourself to tears at the sewing machine is probably a very strange sight.

I've sorted through all the pictures of our June-July gatherings with family and friends all up and down the East Coast and will start tomorrow with a little travelogue.  I'll get the popcorn all ready.

Evie and Isabella riding out a Florida thunderstorm on the sofa with Grandpa and Grandma.  --cds

Update

I get mad at myself when I let so much time pass without posting something.  If nothing else, this little blog helps me keep my life in order allowing me to look back and check when we did what since 2009 (coming up on five years in Florida already!).

June-July of this year have been particularly memorable because once again we were able to gather (almost) all of our kids together in one place - unfortunately Randi had to return to Utah for work and couldn't make the trek to Vermont with us.  Next time we may do another of those meet-up-in-Florida-overlapping-vacation get-togethers because nothing is better than watching all your grandchildren playing together.

My photography skills continue to suck, so the one photo I was determined to get right failed miserably.  All I wanted was a picture of the four grandkids all together, a photo I could enlarge and frame up and hang on my wall and look at every day.  Well, due to circumstances entirely my own fault, this is what happened:

First off, it was our last evening together; it was nearly bedtime for the little ones; it was hot and humid (Marcus sleeps in the A/C which is why he's in a knit sleeper); Ruthanne dislikes her picture taken in the best of times; Evie was just plain mad at us all and refused to remove the black sock (?) or put her knee down; Bella did her very best to set a good example, but kept forgetting to hold Marcus up a little straighter.

So, these are my grandchildren.  They are adorable, sweet, cranky, lovable, hilarious, ornery, beautiful, playful, pesky, talented, smart, and crazy fun to be with.  And next time, I'll spring for a studio portrait sitting.  --cds

T. S. Andrea

Our first tropical storm is circling about outside our house at the moment - off and on rain since about 4:00 a.m.   I've been listening to the local TV weather guys out of Tampa for most of the morning and I was just sitting here staring out the window since the rain and wind were picking up a bit and I hear the weather guy say "we don't want people to be staring out their windows."  Yikes!!

I do take these things seriously, of course, and I understand the dangers of flying debris.  But I was actually just staring at my soggy outdoor cushions and thinking I really should have brought them inside last night.

We were about to head out to the grocery store because our Utah family arrives in Florida tomorrow night, but I guess we'll wait until this afternoon.  Funny, they were here last year about this same time when T. S. Debby blew through.  I haven't looked ahead at the names of the other projected storms yet, but I so hope that the E name will be Eliot and it will start out as a Tropical Storm.  T. S. Eliot!  Oh, come on, it's a little bit funny.  --cds

Ho Chi Minh Trail Revisited

You're thinking this is going to be another one of Claudia's boring history rants, aren't you.  Something she's been reading triggers a little history lesson she's going to share because EVERYBODY loves history just as much as she does.  Well, you'd be wrong.

Well, maybe not too wrong -- I do happen to be re-reading A Bright Shining Lie, a really good book about the Vietnam War, re-reading because I happened to watch a History Channel doc on the War (well done, I thought - lots of interviews with 60-65-year old vets).

However.  The Ho Chi Minh Trail I am referencing is the effing trail of ants that has been running along my ceiling molding.  These are not the normal smallish black ants, or the even smaller fire ants that we have to watch for on our patio outside.  These are teeny-tiny, rather light in color, smaller than a pinhead.  They travel along the trail in packs of three or four, heading in both directions.  Sometimes they meet head-on, exchange a few words of greeting, or maybe saliva or something else disgusting, and continue on.  If there is a dirty plate left on the counter (HUSBANDS!), they make a beeline, ummmm, antline to the plate.  So gross.

I think they might be ghost ants???  They don't bite and they really don't get into my cupboards, perhaps because every speck of food in my house is either in the fridge or in a jar, an airtight plastic container or zip bag.  Seriously, buy stock in the zip bag company -- I'll make you rich.

So, yeah, I've been googling ants and ant killing techniques like mad.  I may go with the Borax and powdered sugar concoction.  A good squirt of Raid works like a champ, of course, and is very gratifying (drink this, suckers!).  But you can really only smell that stuff for a short time before you can feel yourself sprouting antennae and a thorax.  I'm off to war.  --cds

As Promised...

Grandkid update photos!

The Utah girlies attended a wedding yesterday, Randi's next-to-youngest brother Michael got married.  My girls look so sweet and grown up.  Such a nice family shot.

Oh yes, do check out the footwear below; they are their mother's girls, very stylish!

Three generations of lovely Utah women - left to right, Randi's sister Tessa, her daughter Olivia, Randi's mom Becky is holding Evie, Isabella and Randi.

Evie and Uncle Nate, Randi's oldest brother:

The Utah-ers will be here in Florida in three weeks -- yay!  Grandpa and I are moving into exercise-mode in the (probably vain) hope that we'll be able to keep up with them.

And our Vermont babies:

A couple of pix from March, I believe.

From our most recent trip earlier this month - Marcus in his camo sweats:

Ruthanne did a lot of earth moving.  The weather was fabulous during our whole visit.

Ruthie also loves role-playing - reminds me of the hours I spent with Isabella on this deck while she was a beautiful princess and I was either a handsome prince or scarey dragon, witch, or mean stepmother (I NEVER got to be the beautiful princess).  Here Ruthanne is a Kitty-Mom (love the beads, huh?).

She buckled her baby in this stroller every-single-time.  Such a good parent.

Picking flowers for the baby.  The forsythia was in beautiful bloom while we were there, but we just missed seeing the lilacs - they were still in a tight bud.

Do not despair.  I'll have more pictures up again soon. But before I go, a Happy Birthday to MY baby, Joshua, 32 years young today (yikes).

 --cds

Long Time Gone

Our mockingbirds are raising a child.  It peeps incessantly from its hidden home in the bushes alongside of our house.  I'm thinking that probably right now it's the human equivalent of a twelve-year old.  It can achieve a low sort of swoop from the bushes to the branch of our smallest palm tree, but it still peeps for its parents to bring breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Which they immediately do, because even mockingbirds are not immune to the anguished call of a hungry babe, and let's face it, all parents are suckers that way. 

So, yeah, I've returned to my poor neglected blog.  In my defense, I've been having technical difficulties uploading photos to my ancient laptop.  I now own a Samsung Tablet, so modern and speedy, but who can type on one of those things?  I'm a one-finger-texter at best.  Pardon me for being able to type 110 words a minute on a regular keyboard (thank you very much, dear typing teaching Mrs. Folsom - I always liked you even though you were a fearsome looking woman with an unfortunate underbite and the cool kids made wicked fun of you).

So now I've had to get used to using a new browser, Google Chrome, instead of Internet Explorer to post blog photos.  I don't know why - I just scrolled though a bunch of help topics until I found one that said to try Chrome and turns out that worked.  See?  Baby mockingbird on the back of the chair.

Tomorrow hopefully I will get back to the important business of posting pictures of cutie grandchildren, which is, of course, why blogs were invented.  --cds

Sewing, Sewing.....

I have been sewing.  Miss Ruthanne has a fancy dress occasion coming up, so I wanted to try my hand at a fancy dress. 

This is a simple pattern, but the light blue polka dot makes it look pretty dressy, I think.

That and the ribbon trim - it's my favorite bit, made from one of the embroidery choices on my Bernina, blue thread on a piece of white grosgrain ribbon.

The zipper is in and I'm starting on a little white jacket to go along with the dress. The dress has an underskirt that I made out of white muslin and tulle I had on hand, but I'm trying to score some nice organdy or batiste for future garments. I can feel myself falling into the world of heirloom sewing. Oh yes, there is a world of heirloom sewing. I love the Innernet. --cds