Friday at Last!

I am so glad it is Friday! It has really been a long week. My daughter, Amber, came up to my work and had lunch with me Tuesday and Wednesday which was nice. She went back to Louisiana yesterday and I miss her already. I have been helping with Vacation Bible School at our church and last night as I drove up to my house I saw Amber's red truck was not there. Of course it wouldn't be because she had gone back to Louisiana. But it really made me miss her and just as I was pulling into the drive she called me on my cell phone! Talk about telepathic! She had just gotten off work and she always calls me when she gets off work to tell me goodnight. She knows I go to bed early. I don't know when she will home again.
At least I have my daughter, Tara, at home. This is her last summer before senior year. So it won't be long before she will be heading off to college. I sure am going to miss her, too. She and I love watching Lifetime movies together. Some Saturdays, when her dad is working the day shift, she and I will sit on my bed and watch Lifetime movies all day! It is such good mother, daughter time. My son, Keith, has 4 more years of school. But he is not into the movies I like, of course! I guess we all have to face the fact that our kids grow up and leave home. It just makes you kinda sad. Amber and Tara were going through old photos the other night and I would look at my kids baby pictures and wish they were still little babies and toddlers again! Oh well, we can't turn back time.
Keith went on a church trip to the beach this morning. I just realized they were suppose to bring snacks and drinks so we ran to the store on the way to pick him up some. I was so worried about him not having enough to eat. He said "Mama, calm down. I will be fine. Daddy gave me some money." I looked at all 6 feet of him and said "yes, I know you will be fine. It is just a mother's place to worry. I just want to be sure you have enough to eat." He is 14, 6 foot tall and about 200 pounds. I don't think he would starve. But you know mama's will always worry about their children. And I will worry about him until he is home safe and sound this afternoon!

Tara

fMy daughter, Tara, was looking at my blog last night and saw that I do not have a picture of her on here. She told me I needed to put a picture of her on here. So here it is. This is my beautiful daughter, Tara and her prom date, Steven, before they left for the prom in April. Let me explain who Steven is. He is not her boyfriend. He is just a friend. Steven had a crush on Tara forever it seemed like, but she only liked him as a friend. Several months before the prom she agreed to go with him only as friends. Since they made the date and before the prom Steven started going out with another girl. So his girlfriend went to the prom with Steven's best friend who is also a friend of Tara's! Sounds confusing, doesn't it! Also at the time of the prom Tara had a boyfriend who lived in another state!
I think Tara is a very beautiful girl. Not only on the outside but the inside also. She is such a sweet, compassionate girl. She will be a senior this year and after she graduates she plans to go to college to be a Special Education teacher. She worked with the mentally challanged kids at her school last fall every day during her 4th period class and really loved it. Those kids loved her. They still run up to give her hugs if they see her on the school campus. I really think she will a great teacher for these kids with the kind and compassionate heart she has. I love you, Tara! You're gonna be a great teacher!

Treasures from Aunt Vivian & Sassy

In my last post I told you about all the crochet thread that Aunt Vivian gave me. Now I am going to show you some of the projects that she was working on and hadn't finished that she gave me. First is this gorgeous round blue tablecloth! I am going to try and finish it. Even though she crochets left handed and so her stitches are going in the opposite direction mine will be, I think if I just unravel enough so that I start at a new row and go forward it will work. Here is a gorgeous white tablecloth made by the same pattern as the blue. Aunt Vivian has a retangle table, but she told me that she really wanted a big round table. I have a round table and when I finish these they will look beautiful on it!
This is an oblong tablecloth she gave me. I found the pattern in one of the books she gave me and I believe all it need is the edging crocheted around it and it will be finished!
The next two pictures are piles of doilys she had started and never finished! Most of them are fine like they are and I am just going to block them and use them!

This is a beautiful Christmas doily she was working on. It just needs one row of red edging around it to finish it! I am going to get it finished to use this Christmas.
There were several small doilys like this one in there. I think she may have been going to make more and put them together for a bigger project. I think they will be great for some of the memory projects I make. I already have one in mind with pictures of Aunt Vivian on it and some of her crochet work!
I just loved this crocheted flower she made!
This is a quilt Aunt Vivian gave me that she had been working on. There are 10 squares, so I will make the quilt with 9 of the squares. She has completely hand quilted almost 8 of the squares. She has a little left on one square and then two squares are not quilted at all. I can't wait to finish them and get this quilt put together. I don't have any quilts or any hand work from anyone in my family except some of my mother's embroidery. It means so much to me that my aunt gave me these things.
My aunt's daughter, Sassy, gave me the ribbon and lace below. She does a lot of sewing. She makes a lot of things for her grandkids and some clothes for herself. She also does machine embroidery and hand smocking. She is trying to get me into smocking. That is one thing I have never done and I plan to try it.
Sassy also gave Amber and me the fabric below. Amber loves the bike fabric on the right and plans to use it in a quilt.
I bought this fabric. Don't know what I am going to do with it, but just loved it!
I, also bought this fabric, Saturday. We went to a couple fabric stores and the book store before going to Aunt Vivian's. I have to go to these places while I am there since it is 70 miles to Mobile and we have no fabric stores here.
The next two pictures are of fabric I bought. Don't know what I am going to do with any of it, but I'll add it to my stash and find something to do with it!
Aren't the colors so pretty? The camera does not do them justice! I just love fabric!

Visit With Aunt Vivian

This past weekend was a very busy one. On Saturday, the kids and I went to Grand Bay, Alabama to visit with my Aunt Vivian and Uncle Junior. Aunt Vivian is my dad's sister and she is married to my mom's brother! So her children are my double first cousins. Aunt Vivian did not get to go to our family reunion. My daughter, Amber, was really disappointed. She said Aunt Vivian was the main one she wanted to see. So we just decided to go see her! All three of my kids went with me. We had a great time! True to southern style Aunt Vivian had a big meal cooked when we got there and of course I ate too much! Aunt Vivian is a very talented person. I didn't know until she told me Saturday that she used to make all her and her kids clothes! She also crocheted and quilted. Her hands bother her a lot now and she cannot crochet with small thread anymore. So she asked me if I wanted her crochet thread. I said sure. I figured it would be a few ball of thread. Imagine my surprise when she gave me the heap of thread in the photo below! The photos do not even do justice to the amount of thread it is!I was so excited! Not only was there thread, but there were all kinds of doilys that she had made. Alot of them are not finished and I am going to try to finish some. The only problem is Aunt Vivian crochets left handed and I crochet right handed! I didn't think about this until I got home and was looking at the doilys and was thinking something was strange and then it dawned on me! We had been discussing the fact that she and Amber are both left handed earlier in the day. There are some absolutely beautiful tableclothes that she was working on and I plan to finish some somehow. I did not get to take pictures of them last night as my daughters came into my room and started going through old photographs on my bed. Hopefully I will get some pictures tonight.
Aunt Vivian also gave me this pile of small granny squares. There are not enough for an afghan. I'm thinking of some other projects to make with them! She also gave me all her crochet magazines and a book! I don't know how others are but to me it is like being given gold! My Aunt Vivian is such a sweet lady. I wish we lived closer together so I could see her and my uncle more. Plus several of her kids live close by her and one daughter lives with her. It would be nice to have them all close by. But Grand Bay is 90 miles from me and with the price of gas it is hard to go there often.
Will post more photos of a few other surprises Aunt Vivian gave me tomorrow!

Family Reunion Group Photo

I wanted to put this photo on my blog as it is much better than the one taken with my camera! It is one my cousin took of our family line at the reunion.

Amber & Diane

This is a picture that my cousin, Sassy, took of my daughter Amber and me at our family reunion. My daughter has really long hair but she keeps it in a pony tail most of the time. I really like the way Sassy edited this photo. It really makes me look younger! I know you are all looking at the piercing in Amber's nose and saying what is that?! I am sure that a lot of you have seen lots of people with these piercings. However, I live in a very small southern town where this is not the common thing. Imagine our surprise when Amber got home from Lafayette last week and walked in with a nose piercing! I don't really care for it and I think it takes away from her natural beauty but as she reminded me she is 20 years old and can do what she wants. This is true. I just love her and as most parents do I worry about her. We had finally gotten used to the ear thing going on and now have to get used to the nose! She has been stretching the hole in her ear for a couple years now. You know these are just outward things that really don't matter. Inside Amber is a very beautiful and loving person and she is very smart. There are worse things kids could be doing then stretching their ears and piercing their noses. I know Amber will read this as she reads all my blogs. I hope she approves of what I have written. If not she will let me know! My darling hubby is working on putting lamanent floors down in my younger daughters room. He started yesterday but ran out of the flooring and had to drive 70 miles this morning to get more at Lowe's! We live in a very small house and my father lives with us. So all of Tara's bedroom furniture has been sitting out in our carport since yesterday! There is lots of her things all over our den! I feel like our house is totally topsy turvy! My hubby should be finished with the floor before I get off work and hopefully all Tara's stuff will also be back in her room by then!

Special Keepsakes

In my post yesterday I told you all about my family reunion this past Saturday. Well, my father's youngest sister, Jackie, had two special keepsakes that my two brothers had given her. These two brothers died at very young ages. She gave me the keepsakes at the reunion. It was so sweet of her to part with them. She had kept them for a lot of years. The keepsakes are in the picture below. The key was given to her by my brother, George. It is a small key that you would use in a bubble gum ball bank. The cross was given to her by my brother, Keith. If you put it up to your eye and look at the light through the middle clear stone you can see the Lord's prayer in it. She said Keith gave her the cross in 1960. He would have been 8 years old and George was 6. That was the year I was born. I am not sure if that is when George gave her the key or not. I will always treasure these two very special keepsakes and the aunt who gave them to me. She was just a little girl herself when they gave them to her. She was only two years older than Keith. This is a picture of my brother Keith and his wife and baby taken at Easter in 1972. Keith died at the age of 24 in a mobile home fire in 1976. If you read my very first post you will see a memory wall hanging I made in memory of him. Keith and I were very close. He was 8 years older than me and treated me like his little girl instead of his sister. I was only 16 when he died and I still miss him very much.
This is a picture of my brother George. He died at the age of 13 in a shooting accident in 1967. He is the only one of us who had red hair and blue eyes like our father. This was the last school photo taken of him. My parents got it back after he had died. The photo was actually black and white but George's eyes were almost totally closed in the picture and so my parents took it to a man who had a studio in town and he redid it in color and opened the eyes. His hair was really more auburn colored than the photo depicts. I don't remember a lot about George as I was only 7 when he died. But I do remember that he was very talented with his hands. He made a small table and chair and some clothes for one of my dolls. Surprising for a 13 year old boy!
This is my favorite picture of my two brothers. They were only 2 years apart in age and very close.
I do have another brother. His name is Freddy and he is 2 years older than me. I will post his picture later. He lives down in Florida and has a lovely family. We don't get to see him very often, but we talk on the phone when we can.

Family Reunion

This weekend was really great! We had a family reunion on Saturday for my daddy's side of the family. Below is a group shot of my grandfather's line. There were 7 siblings in my grandfather's family. There were people at the reunion representing 5 of these siblings My grandfather was the oldest sibling. Although, he had 6 kids himself not too many from his line came. Only one of his children has died and of the 5 still alive 4 of them were there. But there kids all live distances away and have jobs and such that prevented them from coming. We had a great time with the ones who did come. One of my grandfather's siblings died right after WWII at a very young age and had never married. There were close to 100 people there. As I said this photo is only some of my grandfather's children and there children and grandchildren. We did group photos of each of my grandfather's siblings lines. I hope this makes sense. I only posted my line. It is not a really clear picture as the battery was getting low in my camera. I've got to get a different camera!
This is my father, Benny, and his siblings that were there. Starting on the left is, Benny(age 76) (real name George), Aunt Jackie(age 58), Uncle Goat(age 72) (real name Jerrold), Uncle Junior(age 77) (real name Ivy). My aunt is by my grandfather's second marriage so she is a good bit younger than the three guys. Notice my dad's Jacket?! It was in the 90's outside, but he wears that jacket constantly! Makes me hot just looking at him!
This is my great Uncle Wilbur and Aunt Doodle (real name Annie Lou). She is the only one of my grandfather's siblings still alive. She is 17 years younger than my grandfather and 9 days older than my grandfather's oldest son! This past Saturday was also Uncle Wilbur and Aunt Doodle's 60Th wedding anniversary! There daughter, Peggy, is the one who set this whole reunion up! She worked long and hard on it! Isn't my aunt's hair beautiful? It is snow white. It looks even whiter in real life. Her father had the same white hair and so do my dad and uncle. I hope mine is that beautiful when I get that age.
Do you notice a pattern in the above writing with everybody's names that I have mentioned?! I don't know what it was about the 30's and 40's but everybody had nicknames! I did not even know what my Aunt Doodle's real name was till I was grown! Same thing with another of my dad's sisters (not pictured) from his mother's first marriage. In case you didn't catch that my grandmother was a widow with 4 kids when she married my grandfather who was 17 at the time! My dad still loves to give people nicknames! Crazy, huh?!
So anyway, it was a terrific reunion! Got to meet lots of Dumas' I had never met before! And found out lots of information for my family tree research!

Aunt Doodle's Dolls & Big Daddy and Big Mama's House

The reunion, Saturday, was held at my great aunts church. Then afterwards a lot of us went over to what is called "The Ole House". This is the house where my great grandmother and great grandfather lived with their 7 children. My daddy and some of his siblings lived here for a while when they were little. also. My great Aunt Doodle's house is a beautiful brick house built right beside this one. Her two daughter's have beautiful brick homes on one side of her house and one side of the ole house. My great aunt took care of her father when he was old and sick. Her mother died at the age of 67 of a heart attack and her father lived to the age of 85.
My great Aunt Doodle makes porcelain dolls. Years ago she fixed up the ole house and made it into a porcelain doll studio where she has held classes on making dolls for years. She makes some beautiful dolls and the clothes she sews for these dolls is out of this world! Saturday she told us she was in the process of moving her dolls to her home as her health will not permit her to keep up the ole house. I know I get a lot of my handwork talent from her and her mother.
Below is a picture of my daughter, Amber, standing in front of the chimney at the back of the ole house.And this a Amber in front of an old shed behind the ole house.
This is my great Aunt Doodle with one of her dolls!
This is a bed in one of the rooms of the ole house filled with Aunt Doodle's dolls! There were lots more dolls in the house and I took some other pictures. I will post more later. The old bed in the picture belonged to my great great grandmother. The quilt is one that Aunt Doodle hand cross-stitched and hand quilted. Aunt Doodle also made the tea set on the table at the foot of the bed. I just love going to this ole house and will miss it when there are no longer any dolls in it. It is great to still have a part of my heritage standing.

Memory book of Friend

This is Christina, a fellow quilting friend who just turned 80 years old. She is such a sweet lady. She belongs to a quilt guild in city that is 70 miles from where I live. The town in which I live is so small there are no quilting guilds, quilt shops or even a fabric store. In the guild Christina is a member of she was the door greeter for a few years. Every month she would make each member of the guild a little something and pin it to their blouse as they came through the door. There are about 80 ladies in this guild and so it kept her busy making all these little things, but she loved it. Since I couldn't go to the meetings with her she would always make me one of the treats and bring to me where I work. For a while I kept these all pinned up on my bulletin board but then I decided I needed to do something special with them. So I made this little book with them inside. Of course I put Christina's picture on the front. Isn't that a beautiful azalea bush she is standing in front of?
I put eyelets in all the pages and then threaded these sheer ribbons through them to hold the book together.
I traced Christina's hand and appliqued it on to the back of the book.
Below are the pages with all the little doodads that she has given me on them. On two of the pages are poems that she has given me about friendship. Christina is one of the most dearest ladies I know. It has been such a pleasure having her as my friend. You will never guess how we met! I was working in the fabric department at Wal-Mart almost 9 years ago and she would come in to buy fabric for quilts and such and we just got to talking each time and before long were the best of friends!
As happens a lot the following photos have turned sideways and I don't know how to get them back straight! Hope you can still tell what the pages look like!



Christina has the most energy you have ever seen. She has a sister-in-law who is 90 years old and still quilts up a storm!

My favorite purse I have made

Good Morning All!
The weekend was way too short as always. Got all my housework done on Saturday as usual and made a big pot of homemade soup. I love homemade soup. It is really best in cold weather, but I was just really craving some Saturday. I used to peel and cut up all the potatoes and carrots, but now I cheat and just use canned. So much easier and faster! And on these hot summer days you need everything to be the quickest and easiest you can get it!
On Sunday the family and I went to church. Hubby was off for the weekend. He started back on days today. This shift work is really getting to him. He especially does not like the nights. I don't know if I would like working 12 hours shifts at night myself. His body just has a very hard time readjusting to the different shifts in his sleep pattern.
Sunday afternoon was just a lazy afternoon. The hubby and I watched a movie and I embroidered. Only have one picture of my current embroidery so I decided to put up these pictures of my purse I made. It is hand embroidered, hand beaded, and hand sewn (except for the lining). I put some of my very favorite Bible verses on it. It really helps when I am feeling down to just be able to look at my purse and read God's word.
This first picture is a whole view of the front. This is a close up of the front.
This is a closeup of the back.
The next two pictures are closeups of the two sides.

As you can also tell, I love buttons! I have put several on my purse. I have huge jars of buttons at home.
I will post some pictures soon of my embroidery piece I am working on now. I have taken one picture of part of it, but that is all. I am doing an all over embroidery piece like I did the book cover in an earlier post. I have even done another road runners on it. I'm not really sure what I am going to do with it. I started out thinking that I was going to make a purse out of it. Am not sure if I still am or not.
Hope y'all have a great and blessed day!
Diane

Memory Embroidery

Check out this cool website! This is an embroidery done by Jenny Hart of Dolly Parton. I just love her work! http://www.jennyhart.net/

I love to do a lot of different kind of embroidery. Not just pre-printed or the normal stuff. I like to do memory things. Like things that represent people or events in my life. On the inside of this book cover is a silly picture of a Road Runner bird that my brother, Keith, had drawn on his binder when he was a senior in high school back in 1970. The first car he had was a Plymouth Road Runner. It was red and he loved that car! I made a copy of the picture he drew and traced it on white cotton fabric to embroidery. I also put my children's names on the inside of the book cover.
On the front I put a butterfly because, as you can probably tell by all my butterfly quilts, I love butterflies. I put my initial and a Red Bird and rose button in tribute to my mother who loved both. The back is just a design that I saw in a book and liked.
I can hardly wait to try embroidering a portrait myself! I think I will do one of my mama first.

More Cats!

Yesterday was a busy day at work. Was glad when it was over! When I got home I worked on my family tree stuff. We are having a family reunion one week from today on my fathers side of the family. I wanted to get all my stuff I had put into this program on my computer printed out and put in a notebook. Well, I ran out of paper during the printing process and had to run to Wal-Mart for more. There must be about 400 pages! I have been doing research on my dads side of the family as well as my mamas for a few years now. Sometimes it can be a really slow go. It seems like you get only so far and can't go any further! I know my ancestors came from France. There are Dumas' all over the place here in Alabama who can trace their line back to this one Dumas who came over from France. I know we have to be descended from this one man, but I have not been able to track my line all the way back! It would be helpful if I could go to North Carolina and do some research, but this is impossible right now. I do most of my research online. I've gotten as far back as my great great great great grandfather, but cannot get any further back! It is so frustrating! Well, I've shown you our other two cats already on this blog so I couldn't go without showing you the third and youngest. This is Molly. I couldn't ever seem to get a good picture of her as she is always on the go! And every time I would take a picture her eyes would close. But somehow Daughter T got a couple good shots of her. She said I just didn't know how to do it right! You know 17 year old daughters are so much smarter than their moms!
Molly looks like a tiger in the bush here!
This is another picture of Daughter A's cat, Apollo. I told you all about him in one of my earlier post. Daughter T took this picture also. She thought he looked so cute sitting in this box and he does! Cats always love to get into things!