Monday morning (2/27) was kind of a mess.  I broke a tooth on Sunday, so got an emergency appointment on Monday morning at 10 AM.  When we got up we discovered that Cookie had tummy trouble overnight, so her crate and various other spots were a total mess that had to be cleaned up.  We had to change a plumbing appointment from the morning to the afternoon, and I needed to get packed for my visit to Connecticut!!!  So, we did a bit of cleaning, then Michael left for golf and I left for the dentist.  I am so grateful that what broke was my temporary crown and NOT another tooth….WHEW!  When I got home, I continued to clean up after Cookie and gave her a bath and kept loads of laundry going, while also cleaning up cat throw up (everything happens at once….right?)  The plumber came by to tell us that we need a new toilet in the basement ($$$$ yowza!!) In the late afternoon I finally got a bit of time and tried to pull some crafts together that I could work on in Connecticut.  Michael and I had leftover pizza for dinner, and I called our martini night hostess to tell her that I wasn’t going to make it.  Instead I spent time packing for Connecticut and snuggling with my honey on the couch.  We tried to go to bed early since we will have to be up at o’dark hundred on Tuesday to pick up Jan and head to the airport!

Michael, Jan, waffles, bread, pizza

Michael wanted waffles for breakfast on Sunday (2/26), so I put together his favorite overnight waffle batter Saturday night and we were ready to go as soon as he finished cooking the bacon:  

Jan and I heard there were paczki’s to be had at PUBLIX, so she swung by and picked up a box of raspberry ones and came on over for breakfast:  

Everything was yummy 

and I was downstairs by 10 AM to continue to quilt on the tulip/butterfly quilt.  I worked on this all day and finally finished the quilting close to 3:30 PM.  I headed upstairs to make dough (there is NO bread of any kind in the house) and I baked off 1/2 of the dough for sandwich bread for Michael this week, 

and the other 1/2 became deep dish pizza dough….yum!  I had to wait for the bread to bake before I could put the pizza in, so we were very late with dinner, but my sous chef had everything ready for me to load it up:

Michael chopped onions & peppers for me, and mushrooms for him

layering

ready for the oven

YUMM-O!!!

Finally, by 8 PM we were snuggling on the couch, knitting and watching our shows.

butterflies, Elsie & Cookie, Thursday project, Sandy's quilt

Saturday (2/25) was another beautiful day for Michael to go golfing here at SCCL (It ended up being over 80 degrees in the afternoon).  I headed downstairs before breakfast and it took me a long time to get the program set up for my quilt, because I wanted to make sure I had a dense enough, all over pattern.  This is the quilt that I hand affixed all of those embroidered butterflies to (when I decided the quilt looked boring once it was done!) 

and I wanted to make sure the quilting helped to hold on all of the butterflies.  I finally found the program I wanted and got it saved before heading upstairs for a late, late breakfast….of course there was snuggling going on:  

I spent the afternoon quilting.  I had hoped to work on my taxes while quilting, but I had to watch every row and make sure my butterfly edges didn’t get flipped up with the quilting foot going back and forth, so that’s what I did.  I did manage to get my Thursday quilting project blocks up on the design wall:  

and discovered I need another purple one and another red one, so I got those squares cut out ready to go.  I called Sandy in the afternoon and headed out to deliver her quilt:  

She has been on a cruise for a couple of weeks and when she got home, she twisted her back and was flat out for a bit, so I told her I'd deliver.  Michael and I had fish sandwiches from ARBY’s for dinner ( we love those things) and snuggled in to watch EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL in the evening.

new quilt, driveway party!

I left the house just after 7 AM on Friday (2/24) and didn’t get back until almost 1 PM!!!  First stop was picking up Jan before heading off to the eye doctor’s.  He’s very pleased with how I am responding to the glaucoma drugs and wants to see me again in 4 months.  Then we tooled on up to Joann’s, I needed buttons while Jan bought some fabric.  Then it was back to Himebaugh’s (the Viking sewing machine store) where Jan bought bobbins.  After that we hit Michael’s for a new baking pan, Trader Joes for a bunch of groceries, then the liquor store and then home.  I’ll tell you…Jan WEARS ME OUT!!!  I had to take a nap once I got home!  One of the HOA board members swung by around 2 to check out our backyard to bring our proposal before the board at some point, and I finally headed downstairs around 3 PM.  I finally finished up loading and basting a quilt on Miss Scarlett 

before heading to the driveway to set up for our party.  The first driveway party of 2017 and it occurred on February 24 :~).  We had 11 people (but only got pics of a few):

Phil

me & Evelyn

Jim & Ann Mary

Susan

sitting, eating, drinking, and talking for several hours and it was wonderful.  By the time we cleaned up, Michael and I were both beat so it was knitting & TV watching.  Have you seen that BBC America is doing PLANET EARTH 2?  We watched the first one and it was incredible….and this series looks to be equally wonderful.

Show & Tell from SHQ, new 12 inch blocks

My honey loaded up the car Thursday morning (2/23) with my quilting stuff before heading out to golf at 8 AM.  I had a wonderful time at quilting, and Loree brought some yummy shredded chicken soup for us to share.  We had lots of good show and tell:  

free motion quilting from June....INCREDIBLE!!!!!

more FMQ from June...

yet another June creation

an adorable quilt from Jeanne

totally hand did from Sue S

a hidden wells from Denise

And I finished up the last color of blocks on my Thursday project, so now it will come home to live on my design wall until it is all sewn together.  When I go to quilting in 2 weeks….I’ll have to have a new project  :~).  I had a long talk with Mary Jo in the afternoon, then sewed after dinner until 8 PM.  I am inordinately pleased with myself….I got 7 blocks out of the leftover snowball ends that would normally be thrown away:  

I still had 8 more 1/2 square triangles left, plus 4 from the February block of the month, plus 4 other solid white blocks, so I got one more block out of that:  

Then I had 4 leftover red/white blocks from the latest patriotic quilt….

so I set those inside blue and got 4 more 12 inch blocks….

SCORE!!!  After that I was beat, so I headed upstairs to be with my honey and watch TV and knit.

Elsie & Cookie

I got my blog out and that was IT Wednesday morning (2/22) before SKYPING with Janice at 8:30 AM.  We had a wonderful time and some good show and tell before I had to leave for my meeting at the Lake House at 10 AM.  Have I mentioned that we are trying to close in our deck?  Well, a closed in structure has different restrictions than an open structure….and the county wants us to short our deck by 1-1/2 feet  :~(.  I’m really not happy about this for several reasons, not the least of which is because that would mean that it would no longer fit the footprint of the patio that is underneath it…..so I’ve been spending my time exploring what I might have to do to get approval.  The meeting was part of that exploration….and it will now be sent on to a 5^th party for questioning.  I was home by 11:30 and this was going on:  

After taking pictures, I headed downstairs and started right in on cutting and ironing my 108’’ wide backing to load up one of my quilt tops…..YES….one of MY quilts…not a customer quilt…..YAY!!!!  When I was almost done ironing I found a hole in the fabric  :~(, so had to start all over again, but I finally got the back loaded.  

Michael came home from golf and we loaded up the golf cart (including Cookie) and headed on out.  We delivered some hats/scarves to a teacher at Clinton School, then headed on down to the river.  We sat on comfy chairs; sipping our drinks and watching the world go by.  Several hikers stopped to talk and it was perfectly delightful!  By the time we got home, it was time to cook a teriyaki pork loin for dinner and Michael made baked potatoes to go with it.  After that it was knitting and TV watching until bed.

lunch at the Greenway restaurant, new blocks

Paying some bills, throwing laundry in, reading emails and posting to my blog were all I managed to get done before Paula 

picked me up at 10:30 on Tuesday morning (2/21).  We met Mary Ann 

& Linda 

at the Lake House and headed into Charlotte for lunch at the Greenway Restaurant.  I didn’t manage to score a reservation this time because I was on my way to the big FOUST sale when that happened, but Paula graciously invited me to go with her….SCORE!!!  As usual, the food was incredible:  

And the dessert…..OUTSTANDING:  

I was home by 2 PM (after a quick stop at ALDI’s) and spent the afternoon starting to sew together my re-claimed 1/2 square triangles.  Here are the beautifully trimmed triangles:  

Sewn into twosies: 

then foursies: 

for an eventual block that will look like this:  

Pretty good from something that most people would have thrown away....right?  The block will be 12 inches finished, so will fit in perfectly with whatever other blocks of the month I complete this year, and I should get 4 - 5 of these reclaimed blocks.  Michael and I decided to make one pot pasta for dinner.  I forgot to tell you that Monday night, we opened our Valentine’s bottle of wine and watched FOR THE LOVE OF SPOCK.  This is a documentary that Adam Nimoy made about his father Leonard.  It was all about his time as Spock and his impact on our culture, but when Leonard died in 2015 Adam decided it needed to be about his father's life as well.  We have been trying to find this movie for literally MONTHS…and it finally appeared on NETFLICKS and Michael found it.  Why is this important?  Because the wine we opened was a bit too dry for both of us, so I decided to use it up in the one pot pasta!  It was yummy.  

Michael sautéed mushrooms separately and stirred them in at the end:  

a few curls of parmesan and voila….dinner:  

Michael left after that for the movies, and I knit and watched TV while he was gone.