Ahhh June. You’re almost gone {sigh}. But surprise, this will be my second post this month! I was thinking about why posting has taken such a back seat lately. I thought maybe I could pin it down to retirement — now that I’m retired, I feel like I have so much time but it makes it hard to actually do stuff (I work much better under pressure). Like, why is it so hard to write a blog post? While it’s true that posting has slowed down since I retired, it was already slowing a little before then. For some reason it’s just harder to take the time to write a post these days. Maybe because in the back of my mind I’m thinking … I have plenty of time, I’ll just do it tomorrow??? Oh well, chalk it up to just another mystery. I thought once I retired I’d get SO much more done. Haha.
We had a whopper of a storm last week. They called it a Derecho. Which, they say, if it had been over water, it would have been a hurricane. Our part of town was particularly hard hit and we had really REALLY high winds. They clocked them at 100 mph at the airport. We had trees and power poles down everywhere. We were without power for 2 days. Luckily, TheFirstChild and SweetiePie, who live 2 miles away, only lost power for about 5 hours so we were able to stay with them for a few days. We would have just camped out at home but the daytime temp the day after the storm reached 99F so, it was a little steamy. ;-D
Anyway, we were lucky and only lost one tree (which I attribute to the fact that we’ve lost so many other trees from storms and disease over the last 20 years that there aren’t that many left). The wind uprooted a pine tree that was dying — we were going to have to have it removed anyway, so the storm actually saved us a little money.
We were really lucky — the tree was exactly the height of the space that it fell into, so there was no damage to the house. Many others were not so lucky. Here’s a picture of a house a few streets over — the tree stump just to the left of the trailer used to be a huge tree that fell onto the middle of the house:
They had another big tree fall on the back corner of the house, so there’s a lot more damage that you can’t see. I’m so sad for these people — what a job to repair the mess. MyDadLovesMeBestSister also had a huge tree fall on her back deck — it destroyed the deck and caused some roof damage. Thankfully, everyone is ok though!
Speaking of MyDadLovesMeBestSister, she just hosted her second wedding in a year a few weeks ago. CuteNiece2 married her high school sweetheart in a beautiful beach ceremony on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.
The photographer did a great job — you can’t tell it, but it was actually raining. In spite of the imperfectly timed rain, the wedding and everything about it was perfect — everything was SO beautiful and it was fun to gather as a family again. And, where there’s a wedding, there’s a wedding quilt:
CuteNiece2 sent me a picture of a quilt that she liked and I tried my best to reproduce it. It’s a scrappy quilt, made from lots of neutral fabrics from my stash — many of which were used in SweetiePie and TheFirstChild’s Wedding Quilt.
The background fabric is a sweet little neutral designed by Brenda Riddle.
And the backing is a Riley Blake wide back from a few years ago that I had in my stash. I sent this quilt out locally (thanks for the quilter recommendation Ginny!) to have it machine-quilted — I don’t do it often, but I sort-of ran out of time. It seems like such a luxury to have the quilts machine-quilted by someone else — I’m thinking I’m going to have to do it more often.
I’m itching to start a new quilt (or 2 … or 3!) but I’m trying to resist the urge, as I have a lot of UFOs. Lots of Christmas fabrics have been arriving in the shop though, so I might lose the battle!
XOXO,
Anna
wind – ugh!!! wind can be so devastating – it wiped out over a thousand homes six miles from here by blowing flames and ash at 95 mph last December – and now i freak out every time it starts to blow…
lurve the quilt (even if it IS neutrals, which usually make me shudder)!!! the words all over the back are perfect…
Ohhh – that storm damage to your neighbors’ house is scary! Hope they have excellent insurance…..Beautful wedding pic and lovely quilt. I keep getting distracted from my UFOs by “the next shiny thing”. Although, in my defense, my current tangents are honing the skills I’m using on a quilt for eldest daughter. That’s my story anyway and I’m sticking to it. I hear you on wanting to blog but not doing it! Has blogging passed it’s use by date? I still prefer it to all the other options! Will be watching for more here!
What we’ve found since retiring is that we love having day after day at home with no commitments to go anywhere. We both love the slower paced life.
Glad you survived the storm okay. Those poor people who had 2 trees fall on their house. :(
Ohhhhh! My best friend had a huge, old tree fall on her house in the last wind/hail storm that came our way. What a mess! Beautiful wedding pic. Such happiness.
Sending love to you Miss Thimble.
Retiring sems to provide a lot of time, but I was more fficint when I still had my work! A beautiful bride and weddingquilt and a devastating storm! We have had an awfull whirlwind a few days ago and the storms are more frequent.
You’re right – where does the time go? I seem to be busy most of the time, though of course quite a lot of that is your fault, Anna!!! I’m on my 23rd quilt now. Such fun!
A beautiful wedding with some nice Scottish rain to bless it. Just as well that you didn’t have that nice American wind at the same time.
lots of damage……you were lucky………
the quilt is beautiful and so is the wedding photo……….
That was entirely too close! So glad there was no major damage. Isn’t God good!
The wedding looks wonderful, and I love that quilt!
June went by here in a blur of heat. Which is still with us.
Storms are nice to a point, and then yikes! How nice when God saves you a little money in the landscaping, though. ;)
Your quilt is just gorgeous. But how could you put SweetiePie’s quilt on the train tracks?! Now I have discovered your Quilt Projects page, I am checking out your blue and white Lady of the Lake. That’s the first quilt I attempted – ha ha ha! Still have a box of pieces in my basement. One of these days…
So lovely to see another post from you. I think there are too many social mediums to keep up with these days. It is difficult to find time for them all!!
xo Karen Juliano
Anna – I sent a message to your Thimbleanna store. Let me know!
Molly (aka in the real world as Mary)