Could you just curl up next to her and go to sleep?

Growing up in South Florida I never saw snow. Ever. It’s still magical when those those first few flakes start to drift down.
Even better when I wake up to the snow on a quiet Saturday morning.

Our dining room window was just made for a cup of cocoa and the morning paper (or Google News on the laptop).

It’s hard to get any work done when I’m daydreaming looking at the view from my office.

All in all I can’t think of better way to spend the day than to snuggle up with my sweetie, my kitties and big stash of yarn waiting to be knitted and crocheted into cozy, colorful socks, afghans & frippery.

Enjoy the snow, everyone!

…said the big hairy black widow spider Kevin found when he was dismantling the skateboard ramps on our tennis court.

Sorry the pic is kinda not that great. My hands were shaking and I was sure he/she was going to jump up and bite me.

I’m so glad we found this now, and not later after it bit some kid who was moving those ramps around.

The TF (StateTen Boardshop’s Training Facility – as the kids called it) is no more.

The fence is coming down this week, bobcats will rip up the surface soon after that. By next spring we’ll have grass and a garden.

A couple days ago my mom and I were talking on the phone, like we do a million times a day. Usually it’s just “what’s happening with you, how’re the kids, so-and-so is doing who know’s what” convos. This particular day’s chat was mostly working out the logistics of The Day, the Feast and the Bird.

Sarah planned the menu, scouring books and websites for the perfect recipes. She did most of the cooking, with me just helping out with a few trimmings.

Naturally, as dessert lovers, we had an assortment of pies. The mandatory Pumpkin, and with a nod to our Floridian roots, some cool, tangy Key Lime, along with an Apple Crisp, blended from Sarah’s own recipe.

Out of the blue, while we were talking, Mom shared a tiny little treasure I never knew, she mentioned that as a girl, her mom, my Grandmother, always made her a Raspberry Pie for her birthday. I never knew. I would have been baking her Raspberry pies for the past 30 years.

Well today is her birthday, 39 again.
She needed this pie. She deserved this pie. I made her this pie.
It tasted good, a little runny.

Mom got the pie, I got the gift, a little piece of my mom.

Sorbet.  Gelato.

Maybe I’m just hungry, but every time I look at these gloriously feminine fabrics I’m reminded of  the creamy, cool, delicious gelato that you used to be able to get in the lobby of the Museum of American History.

Wish me luck and nimble fingers that I can have it finished before Sarah Belle comes home for Thanksgiving.

Pictures of my finally finished quilt and my sweet Skipper.

Washed and dried, with that fresh-from-the-laundry softness, it smells like fabric softener and lavender.  It’s got puckers, swells, ripples and dimples.   The best part is that it’s all topped off with a very bossy kitty cat.

Grace has been my constant companion while I’ve been stitching the last couple weeks, but it was Skip that called dibs on the first nap.

I might go to be early tonight. The only thing better than Clean Sheet Day is New Quilt Night, a bed tray with some hot tea, and a Kate Jacobs book, fresh from the library. Oh, and the knitting I’m working on – Pink & turquoise stripedy socks for the Brownie Brittle Lady.

If you’ll be so kind as to look closely at the squares with the tiny orange bunnies. Those are the same bunnies I used to mend all of Sgt. Bunnies jeans. My big tall boy has orange and peach Bunnies on the inside of all of his mended jeans. I used the bunnies in hope that he’ll be more careful and not hurdle barbed wire fences anymore.

Autumn was brief this year. One day the leaves were beginning to turn and the morning air felt a little crisp, the next most of the tress were naked and the leaves were rotting on the ground, ripped from the limbs by buckets and buckets of rain.

My puppy (don’t tell him he’s 11 year old) Noah and I made a little visit to Lake Brittle to see if we could find any remnants of Autumn, just so we could be sure it had indeed been here.

What a walk we had!

All in all a lovely walk in the woods.

Grace like my new project.
She’s laid on it for days, she doesn’t care if I’m actually working on it or not.

As long as I have my Grace I’ll never be alone. Or free from silky grey cat hairs.

I didn’t realize how summery my new quilt is until I started to pin it.

I knew it was going to be bright, and colorful. All I can think of when I sit and pin is how the warm sun will feel on my face when I spread this quilt on the ground at the Battlefield and relax with a good book, listening to Kevin pluck and strum. Can’t you just imagine a summer afternoon, a picnic basket and maybe a bottle of wine?

Quilting tomorrow and binding sometime this week.
It should be ready for fall snuggling by the weekend.