And So, Life Goes On

Just what I've been waiting for!!! More to come!!!

When David Beatty called, late Friday afternoon, asking if we wanted to join he and Catherine (Cheryle is out of town) for dinner, I agreed, asking what I could bring. Actually, what I should have said is, "I'll bring what I can." Peering into the fridge, I decided I'd fry some okra because I assumed Catherine had never tried that delicious Southern dish. So far, so good.

And it was good. If you've never tried it before, I suggest that you do. Like eating popcorn, hard to stop. For some unknown reason, upon our return home, Dumping the oil, I filled the pan with hot water and turned on the stove to soak it a bit. Except, and here's the scary part, I neglected to turn the burner off!! Waking early Saturday morning, thank God, I discovered my error. Well, my friends, we were darn lucky it was a cast iron skillet, or who knows what could have happened. We are talking about around eight hours of heat!! Once Bruce got up, I confessed to my mistake. Because the pan was now cool, he began scrubbing the life out of it, well not really, as you shall soon see. Using Comet he scrubbed and scrubbed all the years of black off the skillet. Once that was done, I oiled it and baked it to season it once again, and by golly, it looks amazing!

If this weren't one of my Mom's old pans I'd have probably chucked it, but, with a tenacious husband in the house, that was unnecessary, much to my delight.

Meanwhile, outdoors the clouds were something else Saturday morning. All points toward heaven!

A sign of things to come later on? Speaking of that, after writing my last post, I went outside to water the flowers and one of the first things I saw was a lovely Monarch butterfly on my out of control Lantana. Getting wild and free, I hesitate to cut it back as it is a butterfly magnet.

So what is the significance you ask? The very first photo of mine in the Stromberg "Gaillery" was a Monarch butterfly. Then too, moving around the yard I found a single pure white feather on the ground....

Anyway, back to Saturday. The weather was kind of iffy, and Jordan Spieth was playing in a golf tournament, so before going to the Parliament House, I finally, after almost three months, finished my latest throw. What does the tournament have to do with anything, you ask? Helps me to sit still!

There are hundreds and hundreds of stitches involved in the quilting which I did freehand. About halfway through I regretted my decision to make the rows so close to one another.

We'd been invited to go with Sherry and her girlfriend Diana to see a play and have dinner.

There are those amongst you who are probably unfamiliar with the Parliament House, so here's the deal...it is the largest gay resort in our area, and I use the term resort loosely, because it is showing it's 40 years! It has been a long time, more likely never, have I've been somewhere so overtly sexual. This, my gentle readers, is from the ladies room.

Following the dinner, we rushed back into the theater to watch the show. How I wish this had come out better....

It does, or so I think, give you a notion of what it was like. Highly entertaining is what it was like. Boy did we laugh, and pretty much, watch in amazement!

I guess I must have packed a lot into Saturday because earlier, after the pan debacle, Tommy Toot and I took a little trip over to Park Avenue in Winter Park.

For the record, I received a few looks as I set up this shot! Anyway, my mission was a book signing as well as seeing my artist friend Leah who did the illustrations.

Leah is pictured on the right beside the author with whom she has collaborated before. I met her in that artists group I attended several years ago, and I'm a big admirer of her work. When she's not illustrating, she's doing this kind of painting. I was hoping to buy our great niece Annabelle a signed copy of the book for her birthday this week, however, once I saw the book, I realized it was not age appropriate. Instead, I bought one of Leah's original illustrations. Never to early to begin an art collection, even at age six!

Well, the last laugh is on me...Hobby Lobby was running a special on McCall's patterns for $1.99, so I went in search of the pattern I threw away. Except, it was no longer in the book!! Now that was disappointing. That is what I get I suppose. In any case, I found another pattern to make a house dress, and did so on Tuesday with some of my estate sale fabric. Sunday night Bruce and I ate dinner with our friend Pat, who very recently returned from six weeks in Europe. She was so sweet to present me with a packet of various hand made buttons, which I promptly put to use.

Adorable, aren't they?

If you can imagine, while talking to Jonathan and Alissa Tuesday night, they described me as "prolific" in my blog posting. And to think that I could actually write more...

thanks for reading,

Gail

p.s. Angela is holding up surprisingly well.