Estera and 6 kids (baby Samuel stayed home) came over to swim Tuesday.  They all had fun, though I couldn't really relax, consantly counting heads.  Mostly I was worried about twins Michael and Hannah, the true non-swimmers in the bunch.  On the plus side, it was extremely gratifying that Tommy and Annalise (the ones I've been tutoring) wanted to do some reading with me.

Here's the baby quilt I made for Samuel this past winter:

My hip pain is actually emanating from my glute, and <sigh> yesterday I aggravated it again.  It was trying to be better, but moving some of my scrap boxes to get at the one on the bottom (why is the color I need always on the bottom of the sstack? turned out not to be such a good idea; the pain radiates all the way down my leg, almost to my ankle.

No position is comfortable, and while the heating pad definitely helps that's not really something I like to use these days...

I've still been taking a morning soak in the hot tub (though I lowered the heat yet another degree) and enjoying the jet massage.  On the down side, my view includes all the overgrown greenery I'd been planning to trim.  But naturally all yardwork is currently on hiatus, until my glute straightens up and flies right. 

I did cancel this morning's gym session, but am hoping to be back at it on Monday.

Mary and I made a trip to TOQS yesterday so she could find fabrics to go with the panel Brett brought back from Scotland for her.  It's quite a strange panel (she just rolled her eyes at it) with weird colors that I couldn't match here at the house, and it wasn't easy even at the quilt store. But we managed to find some fabrics that will work, and also got some ideas about how to set the four squares.

I found some Michael Miller watercolor fabric (extra-wide) that'll be perfect for the Open Options top.  

Now I'm waiting to hear back from Monica 

to find out if she can get it quilted before my August 2 "class".  

 This past Saturday was a trip to Prescott for another quilt show.  When Jan and I were on the way to pick up Wanda I'd checked my car's address book and was relieved to find that Sharon was still in there.  She lives north (Jomax and I-17) and since we would be collecting her last I hit cancel for that route.  However a polite British voice was not happy with us heading to Wanda's, and valiantly kept trying to reroute us, I assumed to Sharon's.  We were virtually at Sharon's when he got annoyed with me, basically repeating something to the effect of, "Get with the program! Get with the program! Get with the program!"  

It was at that point that I finally realized it was coming from my phone (I'd looked up the Prescott High School on the map app that morning.)  Since that was the first time I'd gotten that app to speak to me (long story this past winter, trying again and again on various trips) it actually wasn't that surprising that I'd assumed it was the car, which always spoke to me.  Still, I did feel somewhat foolish, though we all got quite a laugh out of it.

Other than that it was a reasonably uneventful drive to the show (after a much shorter pee/milkshake stop at a McDonald's than the previous Saturday) though of course there were the usual idiots on the highway trying their best to cause an accident.   

I was stopped behind this NEG IQ driver at a light last week, and wondered why anyone would want to flaunt their stupidity...

Following our voice instructions we actually took a 'detour' before we got to Prescott Valley, bypassing all the traffic/stoplights and arriving at the high school via a route totally unknown to us.  Everyone enjoyed the show (Jan even won a door prize within a couple of minutes of us arriving) and of course I took LOTS of photos.  If I could have brought one home with me it'd wouldn't been difficult to choose between these two.

These are just a couple of their "Bloom Where You Are Planted" Challenge quilts on display.  Though I really admired them they will not be happening at my house. <g>  However Sharon should be getting the pattern, and I know hers will turn out lovely!

I was correct that Linda would appreciate this wholecloth SBS - as did I.

There were several chicken quilts (this was the cutest),

a couple of horse quilts, 

and several dog (and cat) quilts.

Wanda, of course, ran into people she knew, and after the show we ended up having lunch with her friend Carol at Gabby's in Prescott Valley (where we'd eaten on our last quilt show trip up there because it's a wonderful restaurant.)  I didn't get home until around 5:00, so it was another long (but delightful) day.

Sunday was Father's Day.  Sure miss Dad!

My last photos of Dad, taken during my visit just a couple of weeks before he died 

when I flew in for a week of celebrating his 90th birthday.

It was a great birthday celebration!

I didn't take as many pix that week as I should have - 

For Sunday's FD feast I'd picked up some rib eyes (which Alex grilled), corn-on-the-cob, cole slaw and potato salad, and had made up a platter of my 'famous' deviled eggs.

I also whipped up my first peach cobbler - from scratch (!), with peaches off of our tree.

We ended up having cobbler a la mode as an appetizer, with cobbler warm from the oven, and then as dessert later.  It got RAVE reviews from everyone - and there were no leftovers.

First thing Monday morning I finished up the last two seams on my Open Borders top.

Then, while warming up at the gym, I finished up my audio book The Properties of Thirst, which I highly recommend!  (Thank you, Marilyn!)  The writing is absolutely wonderful (I'm going to look for some of the author's other books), and the storyline (historical fiction) really captivated my interest.

My right hip had been achy for a couple of days, so I was glad to have an appointment at the chiropractor later that morning.  For a change he was a little confused about the issue, but tuned me up and sent me on my way.  Then even though Karen couldn't join me for lunch (she's at quilt camp in Prescott) I popped across the street to Sushi Love for a lunch of Monkey Brains. 

Sadly by Monday afternoon my left hip had become VERY unhappy (as in I couldn't stand/walk correctly) plus the pain was shooting all the way down my leg.  Happily it's been a long time since I've had pain issues like that, though I sure wasn't happy yesterday; I could not get comfortable even stretched out on the couch no matter how I arranged my body.  The heating pad helped, but with our triple digit heat (and the One-Tweens predicted shortly) it wasn't the first thing I tried.  

At least it's not as bad here as predicted to be in Mississippi on Sunday!

With weeding off the agenda until another irrigation, Plan A was to do some pruning with the electric trimmer because there's LOTS of that needing to be done.  But even though my back isn't as unhappy this morning, I've decided to skip that for a few days.

Shortly off to get my hair trimmed, and will deliver more of the Wandering Jew cuttings to Shelley.  Her yard guys wiped out the last bunch she'd gotten from me.  After lunch I'll be heading across the street to tutor Tommy and Annalise, and than late this afternoon (after naptime for the little ones) the gang is coming over to swim.

It's been almost a year since I've posted, for various reasons.  Alex has been nagging at me (for quite a while) to start back up, and today I'm finally going to put some words down on 'paper'.  

Yardwork has been a large part of my daily routine this past year, and the good news is that I'm seeing progress.  (The bad news is that there's still a whole lot more to be done!)  

Now that the heat has kicked in I really take advantage of my early mornings - though it's definitely a 'waste' waking up at 3:00 since it's not light yet.  And of course I really hit it hard each time we have of biweekly irrigation, before the ground dries up.  I've made tremendous progress ridding the front yards of the lantana that have been choking out the dichondra, but since some of the larger intruders were too tough for me Alex came over to dig them out... and one of the most stubborn cracked the shovel handle!

Wednesday Ruth dropped off the arched plant stand that I had admired at her house, and I had it in place and 'planted' before she backed out of the driveway.  NO shortage of aloe (it multiplies almost as fast as rabbits) so the photo shows only a small percentage of the plants scattered around the house/yard.

The other day Mary and I took a trip to the nursery where she picked out a variety of pretties to add to her wonderful garden.

Though I hadn't planned  to buy anything I just couldn't resist the blue salvia.  All the red ones out front are volunteers and have done well.  The hummers certainly enjoy them, and now I'll wait and see if they are just as happy with these blue ones.

I've also been quilting.  Sure had a wonderful time at the Ritter Ranch retreat in Herford back in May, with Barb and Karen and Lynn and Jean and Jo.  After I finished binding Tami's quilt, (most of) the ladies made it into the 'official' photo.  

I also made good progress on my first Stack & Whack.  (Thanks for all your help, Colleen!)

I used fun fabric, animals in sunglasses, that I found at a death sale a while back.  Here's the first quilt I made with it, which is awaiting some additional borders.

Jo B. taught me an amazing 'trick' to figure out the square root of even the hugest of numbers.  Of course computers will do that for us, but I'm still amazed at having a way to work it out on my own.  

Karen and I got together for lunch a couple of weeks after the retreat, and since she lives near my chiropractor we coordinated with one of my appointments.  We went to a sushi place she knew about just across the street, and pigged out.  Everything was good - but our favorite turned out to be Monkey Brains!  (Since her husband doesn't do sushi, she was glad to find a sushi 'partner in crime'.)

Mother's Day was spent in Cottonwood, with Alex and Vic and her parents Daeson and Dave (who we'd never met.)  We enjoyed a delicious lunch, and then wandered through the local rock shop.  Turns out that Daeson and I had both hoped that there would be an 'announcement' forthcoming - but there wasn't.

Vic's dog Oakley looks like Echo!  He's a sweetie, and we enjoy dog-sitting.

Alex is also cat-sitting for a friend who's temporarily back home with his parents and can't have the cat there.  Pacha is a sweetie, and when Alex is out of town guess who ends up cat-sitting?

To say that Brownie is 'interested' in Pacha an understatement!

This week at Foothills I finished the sleeve for Tami's quilt, so it's all ready to deliver to her when we rendezvous at Pickin' in the Pines in Flagstaff in September.  Everyone who's seen it (at the retreat, Busy Bees, Foothills, TOQS, etc.) has loved it, especially the irridescent pinwheels.

I came home from the Foothills meeting that day with tonnage of scraps that Jo W. had for me, and see quite a bit of sorting in my future.  Hopefully I'll have some help!

I've been helping a couple of Estera's kids with their reading, and some of them are going to come over next week for a sorting party.  Once I've high-graded it and kept what I 'need', Wanda and I can make another trip to Jessica's.  Lynne P. has asked to go with me (she's never seen that amazing studio) which will be fun.

Speaking of fun, last Saturday I drove Wanda, Jan, and JoAn to the quilt show in Strawberry, and of course we had a great time together.  It's a small show, but there were some beautiful quilts.  This is the one I chose if I could have brought one home with me; I liked the bright colors and the subject matter.

Tomorrow is another show in Prescott, when I'll be driving Wanda, Jan, and Sharon.  It's a larger show, plus it'll be a shorter drive.  Win/win!

This year the peach tree put out a bumper crop!  (This shows just one small branch.) I've certainly been enjoying them, and so has Pokey, who looked away (camera shy?) just as I snapped the pic.  

Of course we've also shared with various friends.  Yesterday Teri came by and 'swapped' some of her tomatoes for some of our peaches, which she's going to dry.

That's it for this post.  Time to shower and then get ready for the cleaners' arrival this afternoon.