During our upcoming river cruise in France we'll have dinner with a host family the evening we are  in Tournon.  

It is customary, thought not necessary, to return your hosts' generosity with a small gift.  If you do bring a gift, we recommend that you bring something the whole family can enjoy, or something that represents your region, state, or hometown.  Get creative and keep it small - peach jelly from Georgia, maple sugar candy from New England, orange blossom soap from California; something that can be used or used up is best.

 I decided that some hot pads for use on the table (made with southwest fabric) would be useful and easy to pack!  Unfortunately, I am out of Insul-Bright (insulated batting meant for oven mitts, pot holders, etc.), and neither Michael's nor JoAnn's carries it.  Good thing Mary and I are going to QUILTZ on Tuesday, because that's where I got my last package. Of course that didn't stop me from making up a couple of blocks today (shown here with their backing) so I'll be all ready for assembly upon my return home on Tuesday.

This one is the Friendship Star, which I thought was appropriate, surrounded by cactus, with blooming cactus fabric for the back. 

This one uses Southwest fabrics/colors also.

Plus I already had another one (made with Mimbres turtle fabric a while back) that just needed binding, so I'll have a package of 3 to present to my host family.

More or less stymied at this point, I figured I'd go rake up some more of the leaves before Friday's upcoming irrigation.  (Maybe we'll get all of the leaves raked up before they start falling again in the Fall?) Though both trash cans are full, they will be emptied tomorrow, so I could have a pile raked and ready to scoop into the cans.  Except when I went out to the shed to grab a rake, Tom reminded we're expecting high winds tomorrow.  Since those leaves are already matted down from the last irrigation, no point in stirring things up!

The computer totally flipped out while I was working on today's post, and I was afaid it was a virus that wiped out 90% of my desktop; rebooting didn't seem to help.  Tom worked on it for a while without any luck.  Eventually he gave up, and I looked one last time, and somehow (when Tom asked me how I did it, I HAVE NO IDEA!) I found all the missing stuff and was able to put it back on my desktop.  Close shave!

That was more than enough excitement for one now.  

Now I guess I'll go back to working on the baby bib.