8-6-2017 Village of Schaumburg Town Square

What a beautiful place to sit and sip our morning coffee today!

8-5-2017 Stitches Midwest

Went to yarn con with DH today!!!

Look at all the eye candy!

Came home with yarn for 4 projects.  

:*)

8-4-2017 Proud Owner

...of a new toilet and shower! Woo-hoo!

Now comes the fun part...

installing them!

8-3-2017 Current UFOs

8-2-2017 A Fuzzy Wuzzy Friend

8-1-2017 Knitting Retreat

My knitting friends and I had a knitting retreat at the lake.

Thanks, Konnie, for inviting us to your cabin at the lake!

7-31-2017 Is It Morbid?

Is it morbid

that I just love my black petunias

by my front door?

7-30-2017 I Love Iowa!

7-29-2017 The BIX

This bagpiper played for over an hour as the runners came by!

waiting for the BIX runners...

...here come the runners!

Hanging with friends Konnie, Joy and Miles.

7-28-2017 I'm a Mountain Lion

7-27-2017 Spider Power

Borrowing these sweet pix of my grandsons

from my D-I-L's blog...

7-26-2017 Kindergarten

Hard to believe that our first grandchild

starts kindergarten in a few weeks!

Her daddy has been taking her over to the school

she will attend

and letting her play on the playground.

Her favorite thing, of course, is climbing!

7-25-2017 Morning Walk

Saw these on my morning walk today...

have no idea what tree this is!

Anybody?

Will have to do some google image searches!

After 6" of rain,

good luck getting out to the dock!

7-24-2017 Diana Hat

Knit up this little "Diana" hat

for one of my GDs

to match her new winter coat

which is a bright salmon pink with an aqua zipper and cuffs.

I hope it fits her!

I'm also starting her an 1898 hat

with the same yarns.

7-23-2017 Celtic Myths

I finished knitting

the "Celtic Myths" shawl last night!

The cable at the bottom

is like a zentangle in fabric

and just the cable took 34 hours to complete.

Today I will wash and wet-block it.

Tomorrow, after it dries from washing and wet-blocking,

I will steam block it.

It turned out sooooooo pretty!!!

7-22-2017 Creeks Out of Their Banks

Another hot day in the Quad Cities!

7-21-2017 Storms Continue

7-20-2017 Whew! It's Hot!

Excessive Heat Warning

for the Quad Cities...

ya think?!?!?!

7-19-2017 Lacey

7-18-2017 Time for a Pedi

7-17-2017 artisanbreadwithstev

 A knitting buddy introduced me to 

her favorite homemade bread recipes.

She gets them on youtube from

artisanbreadwithstev

I tried his basic bread recipe first

and it was moist and delicious (and easy!).
I used the poor man's "Dutch Oven" method
by clipping 2 bread pans together.

Next I plan to try the caraway rye bread recipe.

7-16-2017 Field of Wildflowers

 Blessed my day...

Nature never disappoints!

7-15-2017 Wild Goose Chase

DH and I went on a wild goose chase today

trying to find a place to purchase

a lifetime senior pass to the National Parks.

before the price jumps from $10 to $80 on August 27th.

We were told we could buy them

at the Herbert Hoover Museum in West Bend, IA.

We left home (the Quad Cities) at 8 a.m.,

drove an hour to get the HH Museum 
and were told that they no longer sell 
the National Park passes 
and that we had to go to the Mississippi River Project 
in the Quad Cities to purchase them.

So, we enjoyed the sites at the HH museum

 and then drove another hour home to the QC.

Herbert Hoover's gravesite.

A statue of ISIS veiled, the goddess of life...

a gift from the people of Belgium

for all the humanitarian aide HH provided to them

during and after the world wars.

The 2 room cabin where Herbert Hoover was born.

We then drove to the Mississippi River Project

in the QuadCities at the Lock and Dam

after calling them and hearing a recording

that they are open 7 days a week from 9-5

and were told they they do not sell them

but that we had to drive another half hour

to go to the visitor's center 

on Rock Island Arsenal.

After finding out that the entrance gate 

is now closed to visitors,

we had to drive another half hour to Moline, IL

to find a different entrance and stand in line

for half an hour to get a visitor pass to get on the island,

which involved a photo ID (which DH did not have,

so we had to drive back home and get it, 

then drive back to Arsenal Island)

and a background check.

After receiving our visitor pass

we drove all the way across Arsenal Island...

and found the visitors' center

where we were finally able to purchase the

lifetime senior pass to the National Parks.

The guy told us they have been selling like hotcakes

and he only had 8 left to sell 

before he would be issued the new ones. 

Whew!

Got there just in time!

It took us all day, but we are now the proud owners

of a National Parks pass!!!