thank you for your input! It's nice to know I'm still "alive." Last year I wrote a note on this forum called "stopped dating." I really thought I had lost interest, then I met someone but that went to hell in a handbasket very quickly ...the "I dont get it, what happened" entry on this forum I wrote about 6 months ago. It's interesting, looking back now, at the personal growth progress I've made since that first entry. That is not to say that starting to date again is necessarily a "great personal growth" but rather all that happened inbetween then and now. I am not a fan of hidden agendas either. life is interesting, and is even more interesting when one realizes it really has a purpose rather than to simply endure the mundane daily routines.

Ernie I am bad to the bone but do not tell any one. Wackyweeder I wish you were here working your weeding magic on my weeds. OH My. Ernie you have me pegged for loving purple. Turquoise too. Yes I am doing The mannequin Thelma and have a couple more in my attic/loft to do. And two more I already did. I am going to have a houseful of Mannequins. I had to have cataract surgery last summer so had to put Thelma aside while waiting for my eyes to settle down after surgery. In the mean time I worked on other projects that were not so visually demanding. And there Thelma sits waiting in my dinning room. With no table. LOL. I really need to finish some thing before going onto the next thing and I am winding things up now. I want to finish my hallway wall and making a gazillion grape leaves and also need to cut probably the same number of grape vine pieces. This is so boring. I am mounting the green leaf glass onto mirror bits. Nothing artistic about it just boring. I also need to compete the arbor sections to install on the wall then build my grape vine. Then get some sort of lighting and I hope to no longer have a long dark hallway. Then I will move back to Thelma. I need to lay her all the way across my worktable and cutting table and need to clear room to do this. I am sure when you are ready you will start on your mannequin. they are fo fun to do and develop such a personality. In the mean time hubby has cancer so I do not want to get too tied up in a project while needing to tend to him. There is just so much do to all the time. Holding down the fort. The out come will be grim. :'( Soldering on............. I am glad I have my art and animals to turn to.

Thank you. I have been neglecting my gardens so much this spring lol. I am keeping all my roses but have been moving and removing alot of the livestock "toxic" type plants and replacing with non toxic and food/fruiting plants. So basically everything is a disaster haha. We also are expanding our veggie garden quite a bit so I can fit in a few more 4x8 raised beds. I have roses, bananas and other crazy plants stuffed in my veggie garden too now. We are also making new goat and pig pastures. Its been so hot & muggy that it has been slow going. I hope fall comes early!! Which rose society do you belong to? I keep thinking I need to join a rose society. I am almost out by Callahan. A tour might be fun if/when I ever get my stuff together, lol. I dont really have a fancy garden or anythibg just hodge-podge flowerbeds and pot ghettos with a bunch of farm animals mixed in Haha. I wish you were my neighbor! It would be a huge improvement over the ones I have now lol. We live in an area with lots of crowing roosters and people with llamas, horses, etc not everybody likes to be woke up at 5 or 6 am to rooster serenades. :) but I like it. We got these 2 little Nigerian Dwarf girls recently. They are so little, smaller than the bottle baby Lamancha doeling I have even though they are a few weeks older than her.

I think it's hard for a lot of us to post anything because it's mostly the same ol' same ol' with this pandemic and we are sick of talking and thinking about it. I'm between quilt projects and it's been hard to make myself decide on the next one. But I'm also busy trying to fill a big order of masks for my DIL and Granddaughter for school although it's up in the air when and how that will start. I've also just finished a 3-week journey into the world of sourdough which culminated in a little mini-contest between just me and a friend. I won. But it was close. She was the one who begged and nagged and pushed me into doing it because she wanted to and wanted someone to do it with. So I finally caved. Let me tell you, if you are working don't even consider it. It's like taking care of a baby. So now I have these 2 different starters and now I'll have to keep coming up with ways to use it since I invested so much time and flour getting them going. The bread is drop-dead delicious though. If you like sourdough. Hopefully when I get these masks done I'll come up with another quilt project, I have to have something to take my mind off of the worldly goings-on. BTW I am so sorry for all the sadness and hardship going on with some of you and will say a little prayer. Oh and we have such a deer problem here there's no way we could grow hostas. We have 4 does who have dropped fawns on our property this summer. We were eating our Sunday breakfast last weekend and here comes one of the does right up to the lanai in the back where I have canna lillies and terrestrial orchids and it stood there right in front of us and had it's breakfast. One pot of the cannas is completely eaten down to a nub.