The Joys of August

I have decided to count count the many joys of having and endless winter-summer.

1. A greatly reduced power bill when your air conditioner has gone only for less than one hour all summer.
2. A much lowered water bill when you do not have to keep everything well moistened.
3. An early appreciation of the autumn colors when the trees are already changing into their gorgeous yellows and reds.
4. A full on turkey dinner with all of the trimmings so you can heat up the kitchen.  Trust me...it smells and tastes wonderful in August!!

    5. A garden that is so slow in coming around that we will still be enjoying tomatoes in December.

    6.  Weather reporters having lots of statistics to share with us and endless reports on our record cool summer. 

Can you tell how happy I am that we are having such a wonderful summer this year?  Can you sense my happy face?????  I am rejoicing because we do have a forecast of highs in the low 70s for the next seven days.  We haven't seen a 70 in the forecast for weeks now.

 Certain things say summer to me and one of them is sunflowers.    DH always plants a row of sunflowers for me to pick and bring in for bouquets during the summertime.  Don't they just look happy? 

They are always wonderful to have inside the house as well.

We are really enjoying the orioles this year.  We have had so many of them and between them and the hummingbirds we are going through five pounds of sugar a week.  They are at the feeders from sunrise to sunset.  Next to one of the feeders we have a wind sculpture.  It is hysterical to see the orioles sit on it as it goes around and around.  I wonder if they ever get dizzy.

The colorful male.

Two females.

Several of the males have now left for their long journey South and the females will be following shortly.  We will miss them when they are gone.   Some mornings I will have more than a dozen hummers at each feeder as well.

We took some more of the grands to see Toy Story 3 in 3D.  I enjoyed it as much this time as last - maybe even more.  I apparently missed a few of the good lines last time.

Sewing this week has been one of those frustrating events.  I would love to sit and sew for hours at a time, but it seems this week was more sewing in bits and pieces.  It is just a good thing that I have a room designated to sewing so that I don't have to clean it up each time I sew.  I finally tackled the large mending stack and finished that off.  As well I managed to get the last block finished on my Jelly Roll Quilt Along.  After putting all the blocks together I decided to change a few of the blocks. 

I absolutely love this quilt top now.  The colors are so perfect for our home and will be a welcomed covering for the cold bones.

I have also been working on my seemingly endless pile of blocks for this months Schnibble quilt.

Then there is also this little pile of pinks for the newest granddaughter. 

Blogger is not allowing me to center some of my pictures on this post so I apologize for your eye having to wander here and there.

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers regarding my cousin.  They seem to have come to the conclusion that it was a heart attack.  It is a shame and such a shock that an athletic young man should be struck down like that at forty four years of age.