Pink Saturday/VACATION!

My apologies in advance to Mimi & Bebe for posting a picture they consider less than flattering!

As tomorrow is our first official day of vacation, I think it's fitting to show this picture from the Flope Family Vacation circa 2007. After all, Miss Mimi Flope is wearing her pink shirt!

Every family is normal until you spend an hour with them and we are no exception. We have several idiosyncrisies--one of them is that we have many nicknames for each other. The year this picture was taken, Miss B's friend Miss L was able to accompany us for the week and we were treated to her incredible sense of humor. She fit right in with us and The Flope Family was born.

This year, we've decided to do a "staycation" of sorts instead of spending a week in "Up North" Michigan as we usually do. We're very excited that Miss L is joining us again! We are blessed to have our own pool, a hammock and a nice firepit so we'll make use of those. We plan to spend a day in Ohio at King's Island and will also have a morning of jet-skiing here locally.

So Happy Pink Saturday everyone....be sure to check out Beverly's blog at http://http//howsweetthesound.typepad.com/ for more PINK!

Leslie

Monday Ramblings

It's a nice, slow Monday here. Sunny and 74 degrees....maybe the pool will get warmed up this week!

Miss B went to work with Dr. Love this morning. This week, in the afternoons, he's heading up a preschool Entrepreneurship Academy. That in itself is a long story! Last year he made an appearance, took off his shoes & suitcoat and sat down to read excerpts from "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" by Dr. Seuss to the kidlets. This year, he's in charge of the whole kit & kaboodle! He has a tremendously wonderful assistant though and she's got everything organized & ready to go. Plus he has Miss B helping today.

My newest grandnephew was born on Saturday. He is the #2 son of my #1 nephew. If you're confused, see this post: http://contentedinwestlafayette.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-older-brother-is-9-years-my-senior.html I've seen pictures of the new baby on facebook and he's beautiful! Congratulations Matthew & Alana!

I had a really nice weekend. On Friday evening our neighbors, the J's, came for dinner and we had BBQ ribs from the grill, sweet corn on the cob, baked potatoes, some wonderful homemade bread that Mrs. J made and fresh fruit. We taught them how to play Polish Poker and they taught us "31."
Saturday we were able to sleep in and then spent the day hanging with the kids. We played some cards and a couple of other games, had yummy crab legs for dinner (with leftover sides from the night before) and took a walk together. Then we sat in the backyard and had a nice fire.
I DID NOT want to get up for church yesterday morning and I dragged my feet into Sunday School. The lesson was entitled "Finding Hope in the Promises of God" and was based on
1 Corinthians 10:13. I was encouraged as one class member talked about "the way to escape" for her being obedience. The class also sparked some discussion between Dr. Love and I about temptations vs. trials and I always enjoy when we talk about scripture together. Then, our church service was great too: the music portion touched my heart and prepared me to listen to the next lesson in Pastor Viars' series on "Hope in Growing From Your Past." You can download or get a podcast of it here: http://www.faithlafayette.org/SermonFiles.aspx As one who tends to wallow in the past, I needed to hear how to move on!
Yesterday afternoon we watched a couple of 24 episodes from season 3 and then went to Happy Hollow Park and walked/hiked/played for a bit. We stopped at Jimmy John's and took our sandwiches to another park before heading home to sit in the backyard again.
All in all, it was just nice to relax and be together!

My laundry is going and I have a sewing project to finish up this week for a shower gift. Just in case the recipient reads this blog, I won't post pictures until after Saturday. But please stop back after that to see what I've been working on as I'm tickled at how it's turning out!

My friend Beth started a new blog (her first!) this week. You can visit her here: http://bethrider.blogspot.com/.

Have a great week everyone!
Grace & Peace,
Leslie

Zoo Photos for Pink Saturday

At the beginning of our Louisville Zoo visit (see my previous post), the tram we were taking back to the gorilla exhibit passed a flock of flamingos. Dr. Love promptly said, "there's your Pink Saturday post for this week" and gave me the idea to capture every pink thing I saw that day. Okay, not every pink thing....only flowers & animals. I don't think the general public wearing pink crocs & what-not would've appreciated being the subject(s) of my blog. I slipped in some non-pink vegetation as well that I found interesting.

Thank you Beverly at http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/ for hosting Pink Saturday! Click on her link to find the list of all this week's 100+ participants.

Leslie

My Surprise Adventure

My wonderful husband planned a surprise adventure for me while our kids were on their own trip to Texas. For several days in a row he either gave me one clue or let me ask one question about his plans. That in itself was very special; he knows me well enough to know that I'd fully enjoy the mystery and the clues. Then on Saturday, when I'd had enough, he told me our destination: the Louisville Zoo. Sometime in the past I'd mentioned that "someday" I'd like to visit a zoo without any kids with me so that I could sit and watch the gorillas for as long as I wanted. He researched and found that Louisville has a spectacular gorilla exhibit!

We drove down to Louisville (about 3 hours) on Sunday late afternoon, checked into our hotel and then scouted around for dinner. We prefer local places over national chains and we found a great one: http://www.johnesrestaurant.com/. I had a petite fillet and Dr. Love enjoyed a ribeye.

Monday morning we headed for the zoo and went straight to the gorilla exhibit. I wasn't able to take any pictures....the gorillas were inside and I couldn't get anything through the glass. I don't know how long we stayed there but I was thrilled to just sit & watch them. They all seemed to be particularly taken with the thousands of cheerios scattered around....they picked through all the greens & veggies to pick them up, one at a time. The male gorilla was appropriately named Timmy! After the gorillas, we alternated between taking the tram and walking through the rest of the exhibits.

We left the zoo in the late afternoon and drove by Churchill Downs so that Dr. Love could see it, but he had no interest in the museum. We also drove through Old Louisville and looked at the architecture-something else I enjoy. We decided to travel through French Lick on our way home and stopped at this great place in Leavenworth, Indiana for dinner http://www.theoverlook.com/. From our table we watched barges going up & down the Ohio River as well as a flock of about 20 goldfinches at a feeder all at once! We both had their fried chicken and homemade biscuits and we shared a homemade blackberry cobbler with ice cream. So good!

We stopped for the night at a tiny wayside motel in Paoli and then came on home yesterday morning. It was so fun to get away together and I feel so very loved and cared for by Dr. Love!

I have a few more pictures from the zoo that I'm saving for Pink Saturday this week so be sure to stop back by then!

Pink Saturday

Beverly at http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/ is once again hosting Pink Saturday. Please click the link to visit her and find the list of this week's participants.

This is the first clothing item I've made for myself in quite a few years. After doing a bit of sewing for Miss B, I decided it was time to try. I especially like my pink shoes. I picked them up on clearance at Macy's last spring for under $20.

Enjoy Pink Saturday!

Mini Vacation

Tomorrow, after book club of course, Miss B, Charlie & I are heading up to Wisconsin for the week to Aunt Joe's home. In & around our visiting we plan to work on our quilting projects. Aunt Joe has something special for Miss B to sew on. Charlie is looking forward to fishing in her pond as well as exploring in her woods.
I won't be able to participate in Pink Saturday this week but I plan to visit those of you who do!
See you next week!
Leslie

Pink Saturday/Independence Day

It's Pink Saturday once again. And Happy Birthday America! Be sure to head over to Beverly's blog for links to all the celebrators! http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/

Two years ago when we were looking for our home, one of the features that stood out to me was the sunroom. It's heated & air-conditioned and is on the north side of the house where there are a lot of trees so it's really always bright & breezy but never suffers from too much intense sunlight. This little chest was given to me by my friend J, she decopauged it and dressed it up. I had the movers put it in this spot in the sunroom and it hasn't moved from here. I store my sewing & craft stuff in it (but not my fabric....it wouldn't begin to hold that!).
Here's a close-up of the vignette on the top. The plate on the left was a birthday gift from J, the little framed saying was from another friend. I found the pink Lefton vases on the right at an antique store a long time ago and I still love them! The same with the little dark pink powder box (I think that what that is). The little campodimonte basket of flowers is a gift I gave my mother when I was in college. Way in the back is an unused vintage bridal shower giftcard that I found in my Mother's things.


And because it's Independence Day too, I thought I'd show you my entryway vignette:


There you have it. Happy Pink Saturday! Celebrate safely!
Love, Leslie

A Thoughtful Neighbor

A few weeks ago I helped my neighbor K strip wallpaper from what will be her nursery. She & her husband are expecting their first baby in August. A little backstory: her husband bought the house as a single guy; I think the home was vacant when he purchased it; the rooms he didn't use were left shut up. He & K were married last October. Back to the present: the paper was old & dirty-ish, the carpet was a blue-green horrendus stuff, the window treatments were dusty but I could see that they were beautiful once upon a time and I commented on that as we were taking them down.
So yesterday K called me to come over & view their progress so far. As she was showing me the room, she opened the closet and pulled out a roll of fabric! It's the rest of the bolt that the window treatments were down up in. She found it as she was cleaning her hubby's stuff out the closet and knew that I'd appreciate having it.




I'm lazy and don't want to re-roll the fabric so I don't know how much is here but it looks like a lot!


I tried to figure out just how "vintage" the fabric is. Maybe from the 70's? It doesn't look 80's to me. I'm not sure yet what I'll do with it. I can definately see it in a quilt! I'll be making some baby things for K and will be sure to at least include a small swatch of the fabric someplace on one of them!

Happy Friday and be sure to stop back tomorrow for Pink Saturday!

Miss B had her last day of summer school today. It was actually a make-up day because she missed the theatre clean-up day on Sunday afternoon. So while she was spending 3 hours on the south side at McCutcheon, Charlie and I scoped out the Goodwill down there and a resale shop or two. He found two shirts, one is collared to wear for school in the fall and the other is a tshirt. Here's a Talbot's (still looks brand new, never worn!) skirt that I scored at GW.

When she was finished and we were on our way home, we noticed a small-ish garage sale. Normally I wouldn't stop but there's been a waste container in the driveway for a few days and from the road it looked as if the house was being cleaned out. It was! I got the following for $7.

The canisters are ceramic and are marked "Holiday Designs, USA." This could just be someone's own trademark. I'll do a search for it in a bit. I know the orange lids are atrocious! I'm not sure that I'll even keep them and if I do, I'll figure out how to paint them the right color red for my country french kitchen. Does anyone know what paint to use? The glass jar is marked on the bottom "Made in Italy Crownford China Co 1966." It's in perfect shape! The letters also had an N, obviously to be used for some directional thing. Someday I'll have a sewing room to call my own and when I do, the ones spelling SEW will go on the wall! Here's another picture of the cannisters without the horrible lids.
I really do have two cats but little Henry-girl is more skittish than her sister and it's harder to snap a photo of her. I've still got this pack & play up in my room for my nephew's return visit on Friday. Mudgie says "I is a baby Momma, I is!"

Giveaway!

Over at http://candlelitequilter.blogspot.com/2009/06/100th-post-giveaway.html, Lisa is celebrating her 100th post with a great giveaway for us quilters! Click on the link to go there & enter yourself!