Visitors -- Part 2: Philly

The day before the Affirmation, all of us gathered for a trip into Philly.   Hopped the train the Center City. Left to right: German daughter, Boyfriend of German daughter, D#2, D#1, and Godson. 

Lunch at Reading Terminal Market, where each of us found something
to our  liking. Finding seating was even harder than deciding what to eat!

Wonderful Friends, D#1, and I took a lengthy stroll to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia where we

visited the Mutter Museum, which calls itself "America's finest museum of medical history."   Since it was the first such museum any of us had seen,  we couldn't say if it is the finest, but it was memorable! 






 Beside the Museum is a welcoming and peaceful  garden, planted with over 60 varieties of medicinal plants, and offering benches on which to rest and relax. 

The younger contingent took the subway to South Street where they enjoyed looking around.

and making new friends.

German daughter and Boyfriend took a return train, while Wonderful Friends, daughters and I grabbed some dinner and then took in an evening show at Comedy Sportz. 

Reasonably priced, this family-friendly show never fails to elicit howls of laughter!   I think we have a new "in" joke among ourselves "Sploosh!" and I am certain that we will find the hand signal for the "groaner" foul useful in the future.  H/T to D#2 for the suggestion!    We chattered and laughed some more the whole way back on the train!

Visitors -- Part 1: Affirmation

In a variety of ways, I've been playing hostess lately.  Wonderful Friends of many years came to visit for a long weekend. While they didn't stay with us, we planned all our time together, as we have so little of it.  Then German Daughter (and Boyfriend) came to stay for a few days before taking flight back across the Pond.

Wonderful Friends are husband and wife K & K (Godparents to D#1) and son is S, my Godson -- he of the wild quilt presented as a high school graduation gift.  D#2's Godparents were very old friends with family connections back to my father's college years and are, all too predictably, no longer with us.  When we were planning the visit, K & K asked if D#2 would like them to become a more-or-less "official" pair of Godparents, no disrespect intended to the originals, of course.  While there is no longer any potential need for them to truly take a parental role and raise my daughters, we all welcomed the idea of somehow sealing this long-standing relationship and strengthening the connections between our two families.

I talked to our pastor about it and he suggested we do an affirmation of baptism service following the regular Sunday service that we planned to attend during our visit.  We were all quite agreeable that this was an excellent suggestion!   On Sunday, August12, we gathered at the font in St. Paul's and reaffirmed her baptism, with K & K as sponsors, and then we remembered our respective baptisms.

Thanks be to God!

Quilt Day and W.I.B.W.O.

A few weeks ago, St. Paul's had its semi-annual Quilt Day.  

As always there was great food 

excellent company (here's Bobbi),

and a variety of projects to admire.

(Pat's fascinating kaleidoscope)

(makes me want to get out black and white fabrics and PLAY)

 

(A bad photo of a great quilt by Bobbi! Hope this is "clickable" for detail.
I will find just the right project for my Kaffe collection... soon...)

My progress for the day was to

1. determine that the mystery quilt top I'd completed needed 

different binding than what I'd chosen (when it was still a mystery).  

This one is next up for the long-armer.

 2. pin-baste the 30's repro V-block baby quilt

I recently started hand-quilting this, just for funsies.

3. lay out and begin to sew together the blocks for my scrap 9-patch HST top.

Top is now finished. I have to piece the backing and sandwich.

Planning to quilt it on my Lizzie (QE4) as my guild comfort quilt.

Since that day, I've been keeping busy too.  Even finished up a couple of projects:  

bound the Traditions charm quilt

      

quilted and bound Jelly/Fish/Race

and bound A-Tisket A-Tasket (a block swap quilt).

I set the blocks into a top a couple of years back and just had quilted by my talented long-armer.













Almost finished with a couple more tops too.  Saving that for later.

Progress report: month 25 (July2012)

(Above in honor of the Olympics -- which I haven't even watched!)

Progress on a few new and different goals this month!

Completed:
24. Trellis & clematis planted by front porch
     [replacement home improvement goal]
47. Have prints made from digital photos.

Progress:
7, 26, 28, 99. Kept up-to-date
     (Gave away 10 more books)
16. Bought new lamps for upstairs bathroom.
20. Scheduled electrical work for August (to include installation of above lamps).
30. Completed Living Will (and had notarized); downloaded forms for will.
33. Tallied 106 workouts in one year -- just over 2 per week average.
48. Watched 12 movies:
     The Departed
     Stranger than fiction
     Torch song trilogy
     The Axe in the attic (documentary)
     Six feet under (TV: season 4)
     Moonrise Kingdom (theatre)
     Leverage (TV: season 1)
     Moneyball
     From Hell
     The Ides of March
     Thank you for smoking
     The Dark Knight rises (theatre)
     10 things I hate about you
      Ed Wood
49. Read 4 books:
     Swamplandia! (Karen Russell)
     The Devotion of Suspect X (Keigo Higashino)
     Maus, v. 1 (Art Spiegelman) [graphic novel]
     What came before he shot her (Elizabeth George)    
59. Booked airfare and hotel for trip to London at Christmas.
      Will meet D#2 and be joined by D#1.
84. Extra contributions: St. Paul's Memorial Garden, Unicef
93. Volunteered to take tickets at Hiway
101. Blog post: Where am I now?

Quilts: finished binding Traditions, finished binding A-Tisket, A-Tasket, quilted Jelly/Fish/Race on QE4, finished top for Rebuilding Philadelphia quilt

Priorities for August:
6/9. Work in basement some more.
18. Work on deck!
20. Have electrical work completed.
21. Schedule gas line installation and buy gas stove.
30. Make will and have notarized.