The Bakery

J was involved with a bake sale on Saturday. She's taking a class called SEVEC this semester - it's an exchange with another school, to work on community projects together. Her class will be going to Toronto for a week, and also hosting kids from Toronto for a week. They do their own fundraising, thus the bake sale. We did a lot of baking! Cookies, muffins, and brownies. I found a good recipe for Double Chocolate Muffins. Also made monster cookies, chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips and S'more muffins. Yum. Too yum! The sale was a good success - they mostly sold out!

Sewing today . . .

Today I was working on a duvet cover for K. We are going to be doing her room in a Western theme, since she's such a horse lover. Her room has been Quite Pink for several years, but it's time for a change. The first pic above is of the duvet cover (please pardon the blurry pics - I was in a hurry), in progress. I picked up the pre-cut 8-inch denim squares at the local thrift store. I've sewed together 10 strips of squares, with 14 in each strip. The picture is a little misleading - it looks like some of the strips are narrower, but they're just overlapping because I've not sewed them together yet. The next pic is of some bandannas I want to use for a bedskirt and a couple other fabrics I want to use for throw pillows - the one on the right looks brownish but it's actually a small red/off white check. Also in the second pic is a sample of the wallpaper border that we'll be using. We aren't totally decided on paint colors for the room, but are thinking about having a brown feature wall, and the other 3 blue to match the sky in the border - I'm open to suggestions! The third pic - we thought horseshoes would be neat to use with the curtains - to hold up a swag or something. It will take me some time to get everything done, with homeschooling, etc. Hopefully I can make some good progress in the next few weeks.

No chance hath brought this ill to me;
'Tis God's own hand, so let it be,
He seeth what I cannot see.
There is a need-be for each pain,
And He one day will make it plain
That earthly loss is heavenly gain.
Like as a piece of tapestry
Viewed from the back appears to be
Naught but threads tangled hopelessly;
But in the front a picture fair
Rewards the worker for his care,
Proving his skill and patience rare.
Thou art the Workman, I the frame.
Lord, for the glory of Thy Name,
Perfect Thine image on the same.

-Selected- This is from Streams in the Desert - author not given.

"The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me;
Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for ever . . ."
Psalm 138:8

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end."
Jeremiah 29:11

Hymn #189 Little Flock Hymn Book

1)
O God of matchless grace,
We sing unto Thy name!
We stand accepted in the place
That none but Christ could claim.
Our willing hearts have heard Thy voice,
And in Thy mercy we rejoice.

2)
'Tis meet that Thy delight
Should centre in the Son!
That Thou shouldst place us in Thy sight,
In Him, Thy holy One!
Thy perfect love has cast out fear,
Thy favour shines upon us here!

3)
Eternal is our rest,
O Christ of God, in Thee!
Now of Thy peace, Thy joy possessed,
We wait Thy face to see;
Now to the Father's heart received,
We know in whom we have believed.

How much we take for granted! What a cold, cold heart I have, that I could so often forget Him, after all He's done for me. And yet He remains constant, unchanging, loving me all the same.

And now, a pic of The Fuzzhead

Here's a pic of Rascal, J's dog. He's kind of a mutt - a mixture of Bichon, Jack Russell terrier and mini-schnauzer. He's a pretty good dog, except that he's paranoid that at any time a stranger will come and eat him. At least, that's what we've guessed he's thinking, according to the way he freaks out and barks like mad whenever anyone other than family comes in the house. Or one of us walks in with a hat on. Or makes any kind of knocking sound. Or someone drives their car on the road 1/2 mile away. Sometimes we're kind of clueless as to why the barking starts. If the smoke alarm comes on (when I'm broiling, for instance) he'll shake for a good half hour. To be fair, I suppose I should mention his good qualities. Let's see . . . He's snuggly. He knows where to do his business. And best of all, he doesn't shed!

C's acrobatics and crokinole. Yes, he does school, too.

C DOES do schoolwork. I took a picture of him working on his math, but he wasn't very happy about it, and let me know that it was against his policy to allow me to put it on my blog (who knew?). But he was okay with me using the flip-from-his-loft-bed and crokinole pictures. We just got the crokinole game about 2 weeks ago, and it's been a HUGE hit around here! C and I play crokinole every day (does it count as Phys. Ed.????). For some reason, he is better at it than I. I know - I'm not Canadian - that must be it! That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. :o)

4-H Communications Night

On Monday evening, K had speech night for her 4-H club. Every member has to prepare and present a speech for thier local club. It's really good for them - there was a marked improvement over last year. She did a pretty good job! Can you guess the subject of her speech??? Yes, the pony.

Wow - this pic turned out a bit big on the post. Oops!

Sorry, kitties . . .

Today K was reading my blog, and let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I have bungled the genealogy of our cats in a previous post. Sorry kitties - it wasn't on purpose. When one has a very fertile momma cat, keeping track of the litters gets a little confusing!

Hubby was home today working on various projects around the house - he assembled shelving for K closet, capped the wall ledge in her room, planned what to do on our garage landing/entry (he's going to be installing 5 open lockers there - one for each of us, with a bench, hooks, and upper shelves - I can't wait!), installed a light there, cleaned up the garage, etc. Much appreciated! I spent some time prepping walls for painting. When we built this house, we painted everything white (Bridal White, to be exact) because I was feeling like I had made so many decisions about the house that I just didn't even want to think about colors. I thought we could just do a room at a time as we wanted. Well, here we are 11 years later, and some rooms are still white. So, we're soon painting the entry, laundry, hall, and both upstairs bathrooms. I will be so glad to get this done. The walls in the entry needed a lot of touch up with filler - it's a very high traffic area. I'll have to post some pictures of the work in progress, but not tonight.