FREDDIE FUNGUS

Thanks to some much needed rain the last few days, I had a grand time tromping around in my pine thicket with the trusty camera, sweating my buns off in the heavy humidity and high 90's, in search of the mushrooms which popped up all under the trees in the damp blanket of pine straw.  I wallowed around on the ground with the fire ants and mud and loved every minute of it.  Isn't God just awesome?

Our grand kids all detest eating mushrooms and so all mushrooms (those we eat and those we take pics of) are known as Freddie Fungus at our house in an effort to get them to try the spaghetti sauce with mushrooms in it.  Actually some of them have tried Freddie Fungus sauce and found it pretty tasty. 

PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

Do you just despise all the junk that gets hung on the fridge?  In an effort to cut down on the clutter, I came up with an idea that uses found/free magnetic pieces.  Every so often we get a free telephone book and it always has an advertisement for a local lawyer (ambulance chaser) or some other type of business which is on a 5" x 5" magnetic piece.   So, I print out current pictures of the grands and attach them with scrapbooking adhesive dots to the free magnetic pieces.  The kids love to see themselves on the fridge, the little ones love to play with them and constantly rearrange.  It would be such a shame to throw old Richard Schwartz in the trash and waste a good magnet.  Several years I managed to come home with about 50 of the magnets from my office phonebooks and used them for children's Sunday School projects.       

  

TRAINING A COUNTRY GIRL GRANDDAUGHTER

My older grandchildren, boys and girls, know how old fashioned, square, country, non-techno, uncool, non-movie watching, ipodless their Nonnie is.  I think that about covers it.  The two youngest still just love me the way I am and think I can do no wrong. 

This week our just-turned-11-years-old granddaughter Amber spent several days with me.  We decided to do some different things together and had so much fun.  We spent a couple of hours one afternoon in a local consignment store.  A new adventure for her.  She really has a pretty good eye for what she likes and is a fair price.  She has Bieber Fever, so of course we were in search of something purple to use in redecorating her room.  Amber was a bit pleased that I know who JB is and that purple is "his" color.  I guess I can understand her infatuation, my first real star infatuation was Paul Peterson.  Wow, that really dates me doesn't it?   Anyway, she had a wad of money ($15.00) in her new purse from Paris that Aunt Paige sent for her birthday.  She was ready for business and determined not to go home empty handed.  The picture frame was just the thing to put Justin's picture in and cost only $4.00 and was purple.  Perfect! 

Next we went to an antique store.  She loves old fashioned stuff and is very interested in the great depression; not the one now, but the one in the 40's.  She enjoyed looking at everything in the store and was plum full of questions about everything she saw and then she saw it - a bling, flat-bill cap.  Love at first sight and it was only $6.00.  The whole thing was covered with sequins and beads and had a zebra/leopard pattern.  I must admit it was very cute on her and went perfectly with the duct tape bracelets she was sporting.  Amber is our little "Amelia Bedelia" and sometimes wears some of the strangest get-ups you have ever seen. 

All week we have been enjoying our meals on the back porch in the swing with the new cushions.  We watched the birds and butterflies through my binoculars and tried to get pictures of them.  We even trekked through the woods to check out the game camera - nothing but raccoon pictures on it.  Here are two of the big butterflies we watched, a monarch and a zebra swallowtail, I think.  Getting a good picture of a butterfly is really hard.

AMBER MAKES AN OREO PIE

Note the duct tape bracelets.  Don't you wish you had thought of colored/patterned duct tape?  Me too.  The kids love it and have spent a young fortune buying every color and pattern they make.  They stick it on everything imaginable, no matter how much it costs.  We all know that duct tape sticky never, ever comes off.  Is it duct or duck, anyway?

Amber loves Oreo Pie and I talked her through the recipe.  She made it all by herself with her own personalization - colored sprinkles! Of course we had to lick the beaters and spatula!  You can get the recipe at nonniesgoodeats.blogspot.com. 

All you grandmas out there, go enjoy a grand kid.  They will be too busy with their own social life to want to spend much time with you before you know it.

A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

Save the leftover juice from your cooked vegetables to use this winter in making homemade soup.  It is already seasoned and makes a wonderful soup base and it is free.  I start out with a fairly large container and add to it until full.  This winter I'll put the frozen juice in the crock pot with other ingredients, craft or shop all day, and supper will be ready when Johnny gets home from work.

  

ONE CRACKED POT - 3 NEW TREASURES

You will learn something about me today that I am not very proud of.  Now don't get me wrong, I am not a "pig;" but then again, I am not the greatest housekeeper.  My least fav things to do at home are sweep and vacuum.  Oh yes, did I forget dusting.  There I have said it.  Along with all that is the fact that sometimes things can just sit there for awhile before being cleaned under and behind.  In this case it is a very good thing. 

A couple of weeks ago we had a huge gust of wind shoot across our front porch - minus any rain which was desperately needed - and it blew everything over.  As we lay in bed wondering what all the crashing noise was, little did I know that I had a cracked pot out on the front porch!  My large Mexican style pot with tall curly sticks and a bit of Ting-Ting in it was laying in a big ugly heap.  The arrangement in the big pot was not exactly pretty, but it suited me and was just the right thing for the porch.  It required absolutely no upkeep and was a bit rustic looking.  I was sad when I saw that it was all cracked and I just didn't want to deal with the clean up right away.  It has been too stinking hot lately!
Finally I decided it must be cleaned up, remember I hate to sweep, and I would just have to deal with trying to replace it or rearrange the porch decorations.  What in the world was that thing down in there?  Oh my word, a HORNET's nest!!!!!!!  Yikes!!!!!!  After waiting, poking and checking the thing out, it was decided there were no angry tenants still living in there.  See, if I had been a great housekeeper, I probably would have been eaten alive by those hornets!  Now that they had had plenty of time to move on, I began to get excited.  The nest was pretty small but very interesting looking.  What a great find!  Yet another natural thing to decorate with.  At least all was not lost when mayhem blew through the other night.  We've all seen what kind of ugly things Mayhem can do on TV lately.
With new interest I realized the jug was broken into only four big pieces, a huge chunk of the top, about a half of the bottom of the pot and two pieces which made up the middle of the pot.  How great that the top could be used as a piece of yard art in my flower bed around a stump which we are watching slowly rot away right in our front yard.  Then I turned the bottom half to check for more cracks and to my astonishment it was sitting perfectly level on the rough jagged edges.  Yippeeee, I had a new little table to use beside the old rocker.  What a happy accident and three new treasures.

This chunk just looks great nested right in among the pieces of old rotten stump.

This is the bottom of the little hornet's nest which is attached to a thin stick of Ting-Ting (a curly wooden stick covered in gold glitter).    About seven years ago my son-in-law brought me a large hornet's nest he found in the woods.  I really love the natural look and cherish both of them.



The new one looks really tiny compared to the one Joe found in the woods.  Actually it is about the size of a man's fist. 

COMFY PAD FOR THE OLD SWING

Hancock Fabrics has great sales and I am such a sucker for fabrics and sewing/craft notions on SALE!!!   You just never know when that sewing urge will hit, so by all means you must squirrel away a little bit of everything, just in case.  Anyway, I decided it was time for a nice comfy cushion for my old swing on the back porch.  Back during the cold, cold winter (Oh how I am missing that cold rainy time of year.) HF put their indoor/outdoor fabric on sale for about 60% off and I found a stripe piece and so now was the time to get busy and use it before I decided I no longer wanted blue stripe.  Actually, I already am not as fond of it as I was in January, but it is just a swing cushion and I will only be looking at it everyday through my kitchen window for the next five to ten years.   Oh gosh, it sort of smacks of nautical and I have never really been a fan of nautical motif.   Oh mercy, just stop this now!!

Not only did I use the sale fabric, but I managed to re-purpose an old wool Army blanket as the padding inside the cushion.  Who in the state of Mississippi will ever be able to sleep under wool anyway?  The feel is just what I wanted - not plush, but comfortable.  More than comfortable was the fact that it was very reasonably priced - free.  I needed a cute pillow to add to the look and didn't have anything on hand that was exactly right, so I just cut apart the stripes and pieced them back together to make a solid color pillow top and used another scrap accent color for the backing.  Now all I need to do to complete the look is totally redecorate the other things on the back porch.  As soon as we get a good break in this heat wave - 100 degrees today, again - I plan to tackle that - maybe about October.

Don't you think a cute cushion or something was needed?

       
This will be a perfect place to sip a tall glass of Crystal Light lemonade in the cool of the evening and plan my redecorating frenzy.

HAS IT REALLY BEEN ONE YEAR?

July 1st - Oh my, it really has been one full year since I retired from the school district and my job as the administrative assistant to the superintendent and the Board of Education.  The world didn't quit turning and the schools didn't have to all shut down because I wasn't at work.  Retirement will really show you just how important you really are - somewhere between a worker bee and a puff of wind.  I truly thought I would need an adjustment period and go through a feeling of loss of importance.  Actually I never really looked back.  The only real thing I miss is the friendship of my coworkers.  No problem though, there is always Wal-Mart where you eventually see everyone you ever knew right there in the female products isle and Facebook where no secrets or feelings are too sacred to share with everyone.

Now spending time with grand kids, veggie and flower gardening, sewing, scrapbooking, traveling, photographing all kinds of grandma type things, building birdhouses and running endless errands takes up all my time.  I surely did not have time to work this year anyway.  I am truly loving this new season in my life and look forward to every day and the blessings of it.


MILITARY WIFE PURSE

Our oldest daughter Paige is married to Joe who is a career Army guy serving in Ramstein, Germany.  She sent one of Joe's BDU (basic daily uniform,battle dress uniform or something like that.  I'm not really certain the exact meaning.) shirts and asked me if I thought I could make her a purse out of it.  She saw a picture of one on line and thought it was a cute idea.  After looking at the picture I thought surely I could do that.  Well, upon receiving the shirt and enlarging the image on the internet, I realized I might have promised something that could prove much harder than anticipated.  I searched all the pattern books for a similarly cut purse pattern and I could not find anything that seemed right.  When I started taking the shirt and cutting it up and looking for large usable pieces, it occured to me that we needed to have a much larger son-in-law.  Alas, I had to piece quite a few tiny pieces together.  Then she informed me that pink animal print would really make a cute lining.  Being under a stiff timeline - she was coming to Texas for our grandson's police academy graduation in just a couple of weeks - I really didn't have time to shop on line and wait for delivery.  After three hours of scouring Rankin County for pink wild animals, I came across pink zebra print.  Who knew there were pink zebras!

Luckily I made a prototype out of denim and Mississippi State fabric lining.  It turned out really cute, but much larger than I thought she really wanted.  So after rethinking my pattern, I got started piecing and trying to make it as nearly like the picture as I could while using pockets and other unique features of the uniform. 

If you have never really looked at a BDU, it has some really well thought out pockets and placements of velcro to help the soldier get the quickest and easiest use of all the features as possible.  Also, the shirt is contoured to the shape of their bodies which means there are many more seams than in a normal shirt. 

Well, here is what I finally came up with. 



This is the back of the bag. 



This is the front and has the pen/pencil pocket and the large velcro flapped pocket.  Above them are the velcro base strips which will receive Joe's last name patch and his US ARMY patch on the other one. 



This picture shows the lining and the detachable pouch pocket which has a velcro strip on the back that will attach inside the divided lining.  There is a cell phone pocket inside and several other flat pockets with flap closures.  The whole purse closes with a velcro flap which can close both sections or just one. 

Paige really liked the purse and seemed very pleased with the overall plan of the pattern.  Pink zebra print was just exactly what she wanted.  She has gotten quite a few comments back in Germany on base from other Army wives when they have seen it.  They want to know where she got it.  I Made sure she told them that there is not enough tea in China to make me make more of them.  All in all, it really was not so hard once I figured out a pattern.  Next time we need to look for a fluffier soldier and a timeline which is not during gardening season. 

As for myself, I kind of wish I was an Army wife so I could sport one.  It really is a cute idea. 

Oh yes, grandson Nick did graduate from the police academy.  During his second week as assisting officer in training they had their first murder in his district.  He and his partner were the first officers on the scene of a stabbing.  Believe it or not, just a few minutes later the backup officers were able to apprehend the druggie who committed the crime.  We are praying that God will keep his hand of protection on Nick, shower him with wisdom and protect his heart.