It's official - I'm half-way done with the afghan.....but Nicholas arrived on Monday.

I'm just telling myself that it is a very heavy afghan and he doesn't need it until this winter anyway.  Since it is all single crochet, it is very heavy, and we are hitting the high 90's already.  It would smother the poor baby right now.  Luckily I work in small blocks so I can still work on it this summer.  I hate working with an afghan draped across my lap when it's hot.

Not as many things crossed off my list yesterday as on Saturday, but a few.  I did determine that a program for mastering Excel will run on the PC (it wouldn't run on my laptop - bummer - much more convenient).  I also got the laundry done, a lot of an afghan block completed, and I started putting my quilt together.  Here's how it's looking:

I have 12 blocks to put together, each with a black or brown border, with an hourglass block at each of the corners between the light tan sashing fabric..My back was already stiff from yard work on Saturday, so by the time I cut out fabric, I decided not to do any more yard work yesterday.  I spent most of last week hobbling around after hurting my back last weekend.  I don't want to repeat that again!!!  I need to do the yard work today though - I have chicken wire to put around the garden and around my flowers to keep Luna out of them to put up.

Malorie had her baby this morning!  Nicholas Graham is the recipient of the blue quilt that I made, along with the diaper bag and various other items.  I'm still working on his afghan.  The block I am working on now is really cute, but has a lot of color changes.  That translates into "Deni has to count every single stitch or else she has to rip out every single stitch.)  Another way of saying it - I could have done three other blocks in the time it's taken me to do this one.....

I love a list with lots of things crossed off it!  Yesterday was a great day for that.  (Of course, I put things on it that I knew I would do - like grocery shopping...)  We had the Fisher's in for a BBQ last night, so I needed to mow the lawn AND clean house.  Since the weather is so nice right now, we ate on the patio, so....it too needed to be cleaned up.  I was busy yesterday!  Ralph BBQ'ed some chicken (very nicely too - he had a flare-up on the BBQ, but still managed to not burn the chicken.), pasta salad, baked beans, and corn of the cob.  Meredith brought triple-berry shortcake for dessert - perfect!

Alex had planned a trip to the beach this weekend, but I got a message from him Friday morning (his Friday night) that he wasn't going - he was sick.  Turns out the flu is going through the dorms, and since dinner usually consists of eating from a communal bowl, everyone was getting it. and passing it along  Poor baby!  He did spoil my Mother's Day present surprise though.  I had thanked him for the knife that he had gotten me for Mother's Day (courtesy of his Dad).  He told me he had an even better present for me - a Pokemon tin of cookies that he got in Tokyo.  Except......the cookies were expiring on Saturday, so he was going to eat them for me.  I would still have the really cool tin though.

Book club was last night. We read The Witness by Nora Roberts.  Since it was a 'romance' book, I made hearts for the bookmarks.  I forgot to take pictures of them all before I gave them away - so here are the ones I had left.

I've been bad about blogging again.  I want to do better - now to find a way to motivate myself to dedicate the time!  

Mom's services went well, I think.  Things went pretty much according to plan - but next time (if there is one!) I need to factor in the alcohol factor.  I thought that one brother might drink too much while we were there - and he did, but I didn't count on the attendees at the services as having imbibed a bit too much (considering the services were at 11:00.....)  All in all, I think Mom would have been proud of the service and the things that were said about her.

A few photos from her flower garden.....

My garden is doing nicely - I have little baby tomatoes, and I HAD a yellow zucchini big enough to eat.  Ralph took this away from Luna yesterday:

I was saving it for dinner tonight - salmon, rice, and fresh zucchini with mushrooms.  We can still have the fish and rice, but I'm rethinking the veggie dish.  On my agenda today - wrap the garden boxes in chicken wire!

Somebody's birthday is today......and they are 18!  Hard to believe.

And photos from today - she went swimming!!!