A break in the heat! Yay!

 Hello, gang! We had a whopper of a thunderstorm last night with lots of rain, and we'll have temps in the 70's this week. It's 57 right now and won't get to 70 today. No complaints here! It's been in the 90's for a while, and kind of miserable. Everything is dried out and crispy, and the fire danger level has been very high, so we're thankful for the deluge.

Here are a couple of Sully pics to offset the large block of text which is coming up, lol. No, Sully doesn't need glasses. He was playing with one of my pairs of readers. :)

A while back he came walking in my front door looking grumpy. Then he plopped down on the couch and promptly went to sleep. Sully is always full of surprises.

I spent the last week helping with vacation Bible school at church. I haven't been doing church in person much lately. Not because of Covid, but just because I'm too lazy to drive the 15 miles. Online church makes it too easy to stay home! Anyway, I volunteered to help with crafts. We had over 60 volunteers, which is huge in our smallish church. (Compared to the mega-church folks.) Our "new" pastor (he's been here about 1-1/2 years now) is a mover and shaker. His big family pitches in and gets things done. I didn't realize that this church hasn't had a VBS in 30 years! I think a lot of seeds were planted in the hearts of the kids. There were about 130 that came. Micah and Adam went last night, which was Parents Night. They took the baby, and the three girls were participating. I stayed home with Sully and Thatcher. That's when the thunderstorm hit with the torrential rains, lol. Micah said the teens at church were running out to people's cars with umbrellas and helping people get in. It's a good church to be a part of, even though I tend to try to hide away because of my shy nature. I'll try to keep working on that.

Six hours later.  The kids popped in from playing outside and had a great time of playing with the clay I brought home from VBS. And taking turns with the Kindle. After this they went home to clean up so they could go to a cousin's birthday party and to a movie. All is quiet here right now except for the squawking of the guineas. 

I went to the thrift store a couple of days ago just to get out of the heat. Boy was it nice and frigid in there! Of course, I found a few things to buy. Some cute rubber stamps for the kids to play with, though I might also use them. A fleece throw. And a few books. I seem to be attracted to biographies at the moment. I'll probably never get around to reading these, but I'd like to! 

Every once in a while I get a hankering to read Lord of the Rings, but I don't want to walk all the way next door to borrow my son-in-law's copy. Ha ha. So I couldn't pass up this well used copy. It has a lot of character! The bio of C.S. Lewis I've read before, but he's always worth a re-read.

Some more bios, etc. 

I read the first two or three of these books long ago, but I don't think I finished the series.

This one I purchased from Amazon a while back, but wasn't sure if I'd posted it. Not a particularly "happy" book, but one that may prove enlightening. I saw J.D. Vance on someone's vlog and he seemed like a good guy with an important message.

I'm currently reading this one. I seem to be reading a lot of "end times" stuff. (But I do alternate between that and Christian Regency Romances, lol. So maybe it balances out?) Few people seem to believe Jesus might be coming back in their lifetime. Well, maybe you do, but many don't take it seriously. Kind of like when the chief priests and Pharisees didn't think the Messiah could actually come in their lifetime. I want to be ready. These books keep me looking up.

And now for the truly trivial stuff! I've been making scads of cards for the CRRR. These are starters, so two more people will add stuff to them. 

I got these ladies out of a 1950's Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I'll have to go back to that thrift store and see if I can find more. These are some of my favorites. I think my mom dressed like this when I was little. :)

These were fun to make.

These are for a Jokers swap. Most of the Altered Playing Card (APC) swaps leave out the Joker, so we have a lot of them laying around. It was fun to finally use some of them! They were required to include some flowers and something "extra". (The tiny cards.)

And I don't think I showed these. I found a book of post cards at the thrift store that were decorated with unicorn art. 

A few days ago, while on my walk, I saw Mr. Water Rat again. Right about here...

I think this is what C.S. Lewis spoke of when he described being "surprised by joy". (Also the title of his autobio. A good book, by the way!) Sometimes God just sends these little reminders that He knows what brings us joy. A glimpse of the innocent pleasures we will enjoy in heaven. This little muskrat looked like a plush toy paddling around in the river. When he noticed me he plunged under water like a little torpedo! 

And with that I will close for now. I hope you're all well and not too hot. I look foward to some cool weather this week. Thank you all for coming by to visit!

May God bless you and give you His peace that passes understanding. 
Shalom!

It's been a while! :)

 (Header art courtesy of Audrey. She took 40 years off my age!)

What a nice cool day! Have you guys been hot? We've been pretty warm, so today's mid-70's were a welcome relief. I took a morning walk and this evening I sat in a lawn chair and watched the antics of the chickens and guineas. It was their first day "free ranging". They stuck pretty close to the coop. Now Adam and the kids are rounding them up for the night. That's the chicken tractor with a tarp slung over it. Very temporary shelter to get them used to being outside before their real freedom began. 

Granny Marigold, you asked about the marsh I had mentioned. I've shown a few pics of it in the past. It's almost half a mile down the road from me. It's just where a little river passes under the road through a large culvert. It's a slow windy river with lots of rushes and cattails. It connects a chain of lakes called the Crow Wing Chain. You'll recognise the area, I'm sure. I show it a lot. 

East side of the road...

The culvert under the road. Where I've seen Mr. Water Rat.

West side of the road.

The culvert is right between the yellow and white road signs. The river cuts through woods, so it's not highly visible unless you're looking for it. Home is less than half a mile behind me.

This is a favorite car that passes me sometimes when I'm walking. There's also a Model A (or is it T?) that passes me sometimes, driven by an old gentleman. I think this is a 1940-something Chevy.

Earlier today I heard some loud bird calls outside and wandered out to see if it was what I thought it might be. I wasn't quite sure where the birds were. It sounded like they were in the woods to the west of us, but it turned out they were northeast of my house in the pasture. It was a pair of sandhill cranes making a lot of racket. Their calling was so loud it was echoing in the woods to the west. They were kind of far away, so I couldn't get a picture, but it was still fun to watch them. I was hoping they would take flight, but I eventually walked away. Then, they flew away. Sheesh.

Two of my latest books. The Phil book is kind like a devotional with excerpts from two of his books. I know, I have strange taste in books. Oh well. *wink*

I just re-read The Apothecary's Daughter. I like Julie Klassen's books. The other is a mystery that I picked up at the library book sale, I think. It's next.

Adele was drawing Pokemon characters. She's six.

Speaking of books, I picked up these two at the thrift store. The one on the left because I've heard so many people say that Dorothy Sayers is one of the best mystery writers ever. Just thought I'd sample her work. Not sure I'm going to get that far. Murder mysteries aren't really my forte. But also, I wondered if any of you have read Barbara Pym's books. Once again, I've heard her name a lot, but don't know if she's a decent (meaning clean as well as good) writer. Any opinions?

Other thrift finds included this box full of various games circa 1950's! And the pieces are all there. Now I just have to learn how to play them all, ha ha.

I also found a very vintage book starring cats. The backgrounds of the pictures were all crewel work. Sorry, but this is getting used for collage material. It's the sort of age that modern kids wouldn't be interested in reading it, but I'd like others to enjoy some of the crewel work and cat photos. A lot of the ladies at my ATC site are cat lovers and I think we all appreciate needlework!

I couldn't resist this little syrup pitcher with a squirrel handle. (At least I think it's a squirrel!)

I bought this old tin file box thinking I could put it to use storing craft things, but when I opened it, it was full of baggies which were full of puzzles...with no pictures. Should be interesting trying to put them together. 

Okay, warning. The rest of this post will be an excruciatingly long list of cards I've made for the Continuous Random Round Robin ATC swaps. Some are starter cards and some are completed, but I think I'll just post them without comment. Feel free to skip this if you aren't interested. And thanks for visiting!

This is some of the crewel work from the cat book.

And some of the cats from that book.

More crewel work...

So now I'm at the point that I suspect I may be showing some repeats, so I'll cease and desist. I always seem to get the urge to blog after 9 p.m., so now it's getting late and I'd better hang it up!

Oh! Be sure to pop over to MK's blog and see the fun video she made about Jolly's visit! (The video is on her July 24 post.)

Thanks to all that endured the ATC thing! I love all you folks out there in blogland and family that happen to pop by! Have a great week!

Shalom!