Retreat day #1, rain on roses

By the time Paula showed up at 10 AM on Thursday (4/23), I felt like I’d already put in a full day’s work.  I did my regular blog/emails in the morning, got sausage soup (recipe from Barb W….I LOVE this soup….Barb, thank you so much for introducing me to it.  I was looking at my recipe and it is from 2014!!!!  Hard to believe it was that long ago!!) in the crockpot:

and helped Michael to put away groceries after he did a significant grocery shopping trip.  

Paula likes to read her horoscope in the morning, and her words for Thrusday seemed especially prophetic:

''Attend a reunion.  The information and experience you gather will impact the decisions you make.''  

One of our fellow SHQ'ers set up a ZOOM session for us and Paula got it working on her IPAD so that we could socialize for a bit with other members.  We finally settled into sewing:

Cookie visited with us on and off:

moving from chair to chair as is her wont!  Paula brought yummy chef’s salads for both of us for lunch:  

and of course, her creamy and luscious mousse for dessert.  I am really glad she makes it and brings only 2 servings.  I made it once, and am afraid to make it again as I think I would eat the ENTIRE recipe at one sitting  :~).  

It rained overnight here and one of the times after I took Cookie out, I headed out to take some pictures....there were rain drops on everything and it just looked beautiful (we have at least a dozen blooms on our rose bush):

you probably have to click on this pic to make bigger to see the raindrops

Paula and I sewed until almost 4 PM and I can honestly say that without her input, this quilt top would not be sewn together correctly in ANY way!!!  She corrected my mistakes numerous times.

Anyway, at 5 PM the soup was done (it was a perfect day for it, very overcast and a bit on the cool side) and we shared quarts of soup with 2 sets of neighbors….it was wonderful!!  

I spent a bit of time in the studio after that and got my quilt all cleaned up and on the to-be-bound pile:  

Arizona Mary and fellow quilter Jan also decided to have a little retreat: