The Surprise Party

Yesterday Shannon, Jeff, and Madeline came over and brought me a birthday present and visited for a while. Bob had my antique clock repaired and gave that to me for my birthday present. I thought I'd had a great birthday - even though I celebrated a day early.

Today, my birthday, I went to work as usual, had a stressful day as usual, and returned home expecting to spend the evening alone (Bob is usually gone in the evening). However, that wasn't the case. When I arrived home, it looked like every light was on in the house and there were two cars in the driveway. It was a party! Bob had planned this party two weeks ago and invited Ryan, Lisa, and the kids; Shannon, Jeff, and Madeline; and Tony and Donna. He must have been very busy all day because the dinner was delicious and the table looked beautiful! Bob made home made dinner rolls, mashed potato casserole, corn, salad, and beets. For dessert he made lemon merigue pie and angel food cake (my favorite) without icing! It was a wonderful evening with presents too! Ryan had taken an old picture of my grandfather several months ago (I had actually forgotten he had taken it) and had it restored and framed. I just loved it. Ryan actually looks like my grandfather did when he was in his 30's. I received many wonderful gifts, cards, phone calls, e-mails and notes. This truly was a special day for me. Thank you to each of my children and friends for filling this day with love and memories I'll always cherish.

New Project

Bob has been spending every spare minute cleaning out the barn so he can repair the floors in preparation for a big barn conference for his churches this coming June. The scrap metal pile is growing almost daily. Bob has found quite a few treasures and I enjoy my weekly tour of the barn to see the progress and take a look at the treasures. Bob has found several chairs. One chair didn't have any legs, but the rest of it was in good condition, so he thought he could nail it onto a log and use it for a stool. I agreed that would be a good idea as long as it stayed in the barn. A couple of the chairs were quite nice, but were in need of having the seats re-caned. We spent some time exploring information on-line which described the caning process as a good weekend project. So, Bob decided he'd give it a try. We ordered the supplies on Sunday and we found the package on the porch last night when we let the dogs inside to be put to bed for the night. So, tonight Bob started his project. Since he's starting on Thursday it'll give him a good head start and hopefully a completed chair by Sunday night.




I sure hope this project doesn't last as long as my quilt in a day project has lasted. I've managed to stretch my quilt project into 17 years. I guess we'll see who finishes their project first. I'll keep you posted.