Company

A friend of Rob's from high school is in town.  We had lunch together and then they took the camper to set it up at the park and came back.  We spent the whole evening on the deck.  We lit an oil lamp and a citronella candle.  It was cool enough that most of us needed a jacket.  And, we visited and laughed and ate.  We'd had a big lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant and nobody was really hungry, but I had some really good queso and a big bowl of Guacamole and chips and brownies and we made a meal of that.  They're coming back for brunch, so soon as I'm finished here, I'll be making a quick quiche.  

We spent the last two weekends rushing through our normal fall cleaning.  It smells so fresh and clean.  The windows are clean and I can see out to the garden.  The garden looks nice from a distance, but once you get too close, you can still see the heat damage from the summer sun.  I was able to get more done in the greenhouse.  Now, if I can just find the time to go out there and sit with a cup of coffee and enjoy it.  

Still working on the baby quilt.  I have all the pieces cut and the centers of all the blocks made and am starting to add the corners to each block.  I left the corners til last in case I wanted to keep moving things around.  I cut the center triangles for the blocks long so I could trim them to exact size before the corners go on.  I've been really glad for that extra fabric on a couple of them.  There's something about the bright baby blue block in the lower right that keeps catching my eye and distracting me from the pattern, so it might get moved and that dark gold block on the right edge that's reading as brown might have to go.  We'll see.  The baby's not due til Christmas, so there's plenty of time, but I don't want to spend so much time on it that I get bored with it and set it aside.  

Carolyn, I'm hoping that the Mom is intrigued by the way I used triangles to make circles, but you're right, it really is a circle quilt.  I've been fascinated by the pattern for years and thought it must be very difficult, but it's not the pattern that's hard.  It's the color placement.  I'm glad I finally decided to try it.  

Saturday, we watched the eclipse.  We pulled up chairs in the backyard and for an hour, the three of us visited and watched the changes that came with the eclipse.  Shadows got long and moved around the yard in odd ways and the temperature dropped and it got dark like dusk.  I'm not sure Syd had actually taken time to really appreciate an eclipse, so I'm glad we got to do that together.  A little south of here, they got a "ring of fire" where the moon centered on the sun, but the sun could still be seen around the edge.  We only had the moon slide down one side of the sun and it gave us a great crescent.  Syd got a good picture. using her camera through the glasses Rob thought to buy beforehand.    

This is the shadow cast when it shone through the trees, showing crescents like scales on the ground.  We talked about how frightening this must have been for people before they understood that it was a natural event.  

That's it for me, campers.  I love the way that Rob and I work in tandem to react quickly to changes.  We thought yesterday was going to go one way and it went a totally different way and we rolled with it, helping one another out, taking care of one another's needs.  It made yesterday pleasant and comfortable for everybody.  

Everybody have a good one.  

Lane