A Little Fall Bling

It's been a busy week and I haven't made as much progress on Fall Trees as I would have liked - but, progress is being made nonetheless. Yesterday I was able to add the Swarovski AB sequins to one of the trees. Wow - that's some bling! I probably could have added the sequins to one of the other trees if I hadn't spent so much time admiring how they looked. I am easily distracted by bling!

I think I say this every week but I wish my camera skills allowed me to capture the wonderful play of light off the threads and particularly the beads and sequins on these trees.  I use a little point-and-shoot Nikon Coolpix which I love but it has its limitations (and so do I).  My thoughts are starting to come together on how I want to see these trees finished. But, I'll wait to tell you about that when I am closer to finishing this project.

In other needlepoint news, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to attend a Julia Snyder class in Atlanta at In Stitches this week. In Stitches sent out an email about space having opened up in one of Julia's classes and I decided to take the opportunity to meet and work with Julia. She will be working with each student helping to choose threads and stitches on a canvas of our choice. I think I'll choose something from In Stitches wonderful selection of canvases when I get there. I don't have any of Julia's books so I look forward to adding some of them to my needlepoint library. I'll be sure to let you know next week what we worked on. It will be a mystery until then - even for me!

Anna and Andrew came to visit this weekend and have just left to drive back to Jacksonville. While Andrew went on an overnight fly fishing trip to North Carolina, Anna and I had our own "girls weekend". We had a great lunch on Friday at Very Vera here in Augusta (Vera beat Bobby Flay in a throwdown on the Food Network - carrot cake was the featured recipe). We did a little shopping and then went for manicures and pedicures. We ended the day with dinner at Kurama's, a Japanese steakhouse, and came home to watch Vicky Christina Barcelona on DVD. Saturday we took our time getting out of the house but did a little more shopping and had a nice outdoor lunch at My Friend's Place at Surrey Center. 

The highlight of our girls weekend was to hear Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, speak at the Savannah Rapids Pavilion late Saturday afternoon. Ree is the author of The Pioneer Woman blog. She is also the author of The Pioneer Woman Cooks and Black Heels to Tractor Wheels. What a delightful, down-to-earth woman she is! She was making a quick swing through Georgia to promote the Black Heels book and this visit to Augusta/Evans was sponsored by the Columbia County Library. While I am very appreciative of them bringing her to Augusta, I wish that they had ordered more of her books to have available for sale and that they had taken credit cards instead of cash and checks only. I had brought my cookbook copy with me to have signed but Anna had planned to buy the Black Heels book only neither of us had enough cash with us and they ran out of books anyway. I hate to think how much the Library could have made if they had ordered more books and made it a little easier to buy what they had. I organized many book signings in my previous work and this one could have used some more organization.

But back to the Pioneer Woman. On Thursday she was in Savannah to film a show with Paula Deen for the Food Network. She didn't know when it is scheduled to air but be on the lookout for it because it will be a great show. I read a comment somewhere that there isn't enough butter in Georgia when these two women get together to cook. I don't think that comment is too far from the truth! Ree was accompanied by her husband, the Marlboro Man (in his Wranglers, boots, and cowboy hat), and her two sons. Her two boys are precious and her husband is a fine looking cowboy! Here's a picture of me and Anna with Ree -

We had such a good time having the chance to meet Ree. After following her blog and reading her books, we feel like she's another good friend of ours. We're also looking forward to her next book (a children's book) about Charley, her bassett hound.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend and I am so blessed to have a sweet daughter-in-law and the most wonderful son. We have a good time together. 

It's hard to write about all the blessings in my life without thinking of all the people in Japan whose lives have been completely turned upside down. They need our help and prayers right now. I've just made a donation to the Red Cross for the earthquake/tsunami victims. Will you consider a Red Cross donation as well?