Monday, May 24, 2010

Summer has arrived...

with a vengeance! We went from temps in the 50's last week to 80 and humid this weekend. Thankfully, it was cloudy most of the time but when the sun broke through in the late afternoons, it was like a steambath. Great for the flowers, etc but not so much for me who is quite heat intolerant.

So what was I doing during this steamy weekend--quilting that monster auction quilt! Almost all of yesterday was spent at the machine, draped in that quilt, red in the face, and sweating like crazy! I'm sure it was quite a sight! But, I managed to finish 3/4 of the straightline quilting and will be able to get most of it finished tonight. For the solid blocks, I'm thinking of a feather wreath design but haven't found one yet in my machine quilting books. If I can't find one, I'll do the Celtic-type design I used for the other Irish Chain I made last Spring. It'll be a nice change of pace from all the straight lines.

As soon as that quilt is finished, I swear I'll be in my flower beds and get them all cleaned out before going on vacation and before my knee surgery. The poor flowers barely show up, the weeds are so healthy in there! Fortunately, Don is taking on the gardening chores for the most part--with my supervision, of course. ;)

Yesterday he also started getting the swimming pool ready for the summer and it'll be ready for use in a few days, thank goodness! We've had an above-ground pool everywhere we've lived since the early 80's. When we got the first one, I was somewhat embarrassed at having such a luxury, but then I realized that we didn't have what a lot of other families in WI have--speedboats, snowmobiles, campers, 4-wheelers, etc--and in those days, we NEVER took vacations, so we had a pool instead. We've lived in 4 other places since then and have installed a pool at each house (except in Superior WI!) and now I consider it my air conditioning. With the pool to jump into on hot steamy days, there's usually no need to turn on the air conditioning in the house for most of the summer. And our kids have had hundreds if not thousands of hours of fun in the water--my personal favorite is to get everyone in the water for a cut-throat game of water volleyball. As soon as Lily grows a couple more inches, she'll be playing with us as well.

2 comments:

  1. We put our pool in for the same reason as you, Barb. Ron got very few vacations as manage of a lumber yard, we live in the country where there weren't many kids around, so the pool was our vacations. We imported the kids friends frequently and really just enjoyed it as a family. Now I enjoy it alone a lot, but a nice leasurely float is the perfect thing after weeding.

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  2. We too have had a quick change in the temperatures and it is so steamy here as well. Where the heck did spring go? I don't mind the heat but the steam? Yikes! I just need to break down and turn the air on but I hate to the heat just went off last week. UGH! Can't wait to see the quilt all done.

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