Normal Heights Community Meal

Normal Heights Community Meal, originally uploaded by Matthew San Diego.

Free dinner is exciting, no?

I'm feeling pretty grateful to good folks from my church and from the Normal Heights UMC, for providing gracious hospitality and good food in our third free neighborhood family meal tonight.

And, I'm especially grateful to my dear husband who caught the excitement in pixels.

flowers

I've been having fun playing with flowers lately; I'm getting ready to be florist (and preacher) for Emily's wedding next month. Which gives me more lovely excuses for arranging beautiful things I find in local gardens.

new toys

What a weekend it's been--two exciting new toys for craft adventure.  :)

Matt tried the chainsaw jig we ordered to make it possible to mill the trees we've had to cut down on the property.  The potential uses of this gorgeous oak could fill my imagination for hours...  The first goal, though, is turning it into useful things.  Like balusters for the balcony railing.

And (I have no idea why it took me this long) I finally tried my hand at free-motion quilting.  With my new $5 darning foot, I've now reaching something like quilting perfection in finding a quilting technique that's fast, fun and doesn't require precision.  Oh, the joy!  Here's me in my pajamas, playing away this morning.