our wall of fame...

 One of the things my spouse of five months and I have discovered is that, when you merge two households, there are some things you can dispose of and some things you can't.  Extra furniture, excess clothes, too many toasters, blenders, dishes or microwaves, they can all be donated somewhere, or, in some cases, just tossed.  But family pictures are a different matter.  We both have wedding and other pictures that range over three generations.  So we decided to take some of our favorites from both families and hang them on a large blank wall in our guest bedroom.  We have hung wedding pictures of our first weddings, our parents' and grandparents' weddings and other individual photos of interest including my first father-in-law in his WWI uniform.  We also, wisely I think, put a label on the back of each picture identifying the people.  In case you're concerned, we have not disposed of children and grandchildren pictures, they are scattered in abundance through different rooms of the house.  

I should have taken this picture in the daylight, but you get the idea. We still have more wall space that can be filled but have decided to take our time deciding what else to hang.  We don't want to scare off all our guests.  

eating well..

 Today, according to my west coast brother, is "Great American Picnic Day."  Since I recently blogged about the panic situations that can occur at picnics, I will not now claim to love picnics. However I do like to eat, just inside, at a table if you please.  Happily we got to do that this evening.  My granddaughter and her boyfriend came to town and we took them to dinner at Cinco de Mayo, a new Mexican restaurant on Maplecrest Road. The burrito I had was really excellent. I've never had a Mexican dish with black olives in it before but I recommend it. I also enjoyed the really authentic refried beans.  Everyone else seemed to enjoy their dinners also, if the way they cleaned off their plates was any indication. Then, of course, we topped it off with churros for dessert.  I mean it's only fair to check out the desserts at a new restaurant, for comparison purposes of course.  They were delicious, fresh, warm and generously coated with cinnamon sugar.  The service was also excellent, the decor was fresh and nice and new, and the prices ranged from very reasonable to pricey.  All in all, a great place for a Friday night (or any other night) supper.  It beats a picnic in the grass any time.

going back in time...

 Today my spouse and I took a trip to the Amish bakery out east of Fort Wayne.  I know I've talked about the wonders of the bakery before and it didn't disappoint, but today I was also really enjoying the scenery.  Obviously we were in Amish territory and it almost felt like a trip back in time.  We passed two young boys driving their horse drawn cart, and saw so many horses in the pastures.  Some were big muscular plow horses while others had the elegant bodies of carriage horses.  It was especially fun to see the babies, I mean foals.  So many of them in some pastures.  The corn in the fields was knee high and looking good.  Laundry, hung on clothes lines, waved in the breeze.  Talk about a "green" way to dry clothes.  What a way to save the planet.  There were some signs of the 21st century of course.  Cars passing on the roads, and, most fun of all, there were large arrays of solar panels on many of the barn roofs.  I guess if there aren't any visible power lines running to the house it's all ok.  I've known several Amish who have had cell phones for years.  It's really not easy to make a living in this country without making some adjustments to modern life, and I applaud them for adjusting where they must, but I still really enjoyed the beautiful rural scenery we drove through.  Then we drove home in our air-conditioned car and ate humungous cinnamon rolls for lunch.  Ah, the good life.  

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 My spouse and I have just finished watching the presidential debate.  At one point he said that the best thing about this debate was that it was almost over, but then it went on for another half hour.  It really was nice to have someone to watch it with, and that's the best thing I can say about this debate.  Good night.

a new beginning..

 Yesterday I showed you a finished weaving project I had been working on for months.  It had been interrupted by getting married and moving from my apartment to our house and an unexpected illness.  But I did finally finish it.  This is my ninth project like this.  I call these works 'stitcheries' because while I am stitching an image on a woven background, it's not nearly as elegant as a tapestry would be.  Today we took it one step further.  With the help of my Wonder Spouse, we figured out a way to string my loom for my next project.  Between us we were pretty creative.

On the right side of the picture you can see my lap loom firmly attached to the old kitchen table which was move to the basement when we moved my dining room table and corner cupboard into the breakfast nook.  Streaking across the picture is the warp thread which needs to be stretched out to its desired length before it can be wound on to the loom.  It was really nice to have my WS helping me with all this.  It's much easier than doing it all alone.  By the end of the afternoon I had the loom all set up and the first three rows of the fabric finished.  Then we treated ourselves to pizza at B. Antonio's. We deserve3d it. The working title of this piece is "Recess."  I'll leave it to you to imagine what that might look like.

new art...

 I'm so excited.  This evening I met by Zoom with other people from my church about our up-coming Parish Art Show.  That's what they're calling it, even though, as Presbyterians, we really don't have parishes. But never mind.  I'm excited that two of my weaving pieces fit the theme and will be shown.  The rule is that they should never have been shown in our gallery before.  Mine fit that criteria as well as the general theme of building bridges not walls.  I should mention here that we have a very nice gallery in the lobby of our theater, where I've also displayed some so-so talent from time to time.  One thing I especially like about this show is the fact that it's allowing continuous submissions in September, October and November, so when I finish the piece I'm just about to start (I have the idea, but need to buy a particular color to string the loom) I will be able to enter it.  My ever-patient spouse thinks it's pretty funny that I could possibly need a color I don't have, but it's true.  

Here's a sneak peek at one of the pieces I'll be displaying.  Can you find the bridges?

so different

 This evening my husband and I decided to watch a movie.  It's a great way to avoid commercials.  A friend had mentioned to me earlier in the day that the movie "Oppenheimer" was available on TV now and so we watched it.  It was fascinating, very intense in parts, very sad in others, full of intrigue, well worth the three hours it took to watch it.  But while I was watching it I kept remembering when it came out in the theaters.  Do you recall "Barbenheimer?" The movie "Barbie" was released the same weekend.  People were flocking to movie theaters to see both movies and the news went on and on about how successful both movies were.  I'm almost ashamed to admit that at that time I went with three girlfriends to see "Barbie" but never got around to seeing "Oppenheimer."  But what a contrast.  "Oppenheimer" was dark while "Barbie" was so pink it actually hurt the eyes.  Lots of laughter in one, not so much in the other.  I'm glad I've finally seen both movies but I'm wondering if I could ever convince my history loving spouse to watch "Barbie?" 

Ha ha ha ha ha!