It's hot. No, make that HOT. And sticky. The humidity is so high you feel like gills would help the breathing process. When you start sweating - oops, no, that's glistening - at 6:00 a.m. while watering flowers, you know it's full-blown summer. Not that I was watering at that time this morning - it's Saturday! (but I have been doing that) This morning I mixed up a little plant food at half strength and poured it in some potted plants. I'm always so afraid of burning them. I even put a tiny bit in the geranium-from-2-years-ago where little mama wren has her nest with 5 eggs. I really appreciate her MO this time, because - wonder of wonders - she built the nest facing out so you don't have to be a contortionist to see inside it. You don't even have to bend over unless you just want to get really close.

I haven't done anything on the quilt front except help Beth, who's now at the quilting stage of her newest venture. This time it's a lap quilt she's doing, and she machine-pieced it. She and Joshua are going to Mississippi for a long weekend to visit his family since he doesn't have to work next week, and she wanted to have the quilt to work on while down there. I can't wait to see what she's done by the time she gets back Tuesday!

There are several folks I really need to get embroidered/quilted postcards done for, so I have one started that I can work on in the evenings when we're piled up on the bed watching tv and on my today's list is tracing off several more. That's the part I don't care for, because it's so tedious to trace words. I think I may prowl around at dafont.com to see if I can find something a little easier than the ones I've been using. That's a really cool site if you like playing with fonts and dingbats and suchlike.

I tried a site linked from Feelin' Stitchy where you can print text of your choosing for cross stitch (wish I'd had it back when I did a lot of that!!!) or backstitch. There's only one for backstitch, and because it's still done with cross stitch type fabric in mind, it didn't give me the effect I wanted when using it one of my postcards. My trial with it is the one I'm currently working on, and I'll finish it, but don't think I'll do any more with that font. If you do cross stitch, you really might want to check it out - here's the place for charting text.

Just a quickie morning post when I should be watering the flowers on the porch . . .the above is looking across the driveway one afternoon from one end of the porch where the driveway turns up to go behind the house and the road goes on down to the gate to go up the holler (that's "hollow" for you non-hillbilly folk).

I have been enjoying "lurking" around some blogs and seeing what's happening even though I haven't really had time to comment or post. Somehow so many of you manage to get so much more done than me!

The heat let up for a couple of days, but today it's set to be over 100 yet again. At least the humidity is down a bit, and that really helps. So far Evan is managing to survive the heat while he's drilling and shooting as part of putting a new waterline for a subdivision. And, thankfully, the rheumatoid arthritis is under control at the moment.

I think I mentioned that we performed in a fundraiser for the local museum a couple of weeks ago - done and forgotten. Forgotten, that is, until folks I see at the clinic or the grocery store or wherever who tell me they just saw me on tv - the local cable folks filmed the silly thing and keep using it for filler! We had no idea it was to be filmed. We live in out in the country and are happy to have satellite tv (after several years of no tv) but we have no local programming, so it always catches me offguard when folks talk about seeing us on tv. Various performances, whether actual plays like A Christmas Carol or the annual Christmas concert we sing in, get shown again and again at the right season. It's just a hoot.

Guess what!!! Friday I'm going to the AQS Quilt Exposition in Nashville!!!! It's at the Opryland Hotel, and it is truly an extravaganza!!! It actually begins today, but I can only afford to take off the one day for it. I won't be taking any classes this year, but I sure will enjoy seeing the myriads of quilts from all over the world and all the vendors. One year I took a class from Mary Ellen Hopkins that was wonderful, and one year I took a class from Becky Goldsmith that was also wonderful. It's so cool to see folks that you've previously only seen on tv! Eleanor Burns is usually there, too....Ami Simms....all sorts of people. The quilts themselves are the best part, of course. The creativity and skills displayed are mind-boggling in the extreme!!! You can't touch them, but you can get very close and peer at the fabrics and the stitches and ooh and ahh to your heart's content! There are quilts for everyone's personal preferences - pieced, appliqued, art quilts, vintage quilts, painted quilts, wooden quilts - if you can think of it, I can just about guarantee it will be there. Can't wait!