Beginnings and Endings

Last week we made a couple of trips to see our brother-in-law after he was moved to hospice. He never gained consciousness while we were there; they were keeping him heavily sedated as he went through the final process. We visited with his daughters and granddaughter and just kept them company, which is all you can really do. The last time we saw him he passsed away later that night, so I'm really glad we made those trips and also took the time to see him at Christmas.

It's never easy to lose a parent, but seeing my brother-in-law surrounded by his loving family was good for me (I did not have the same experience when my parents died, and it was nice to see how it should have gone.) I still don't care for the funerary rituals people insist on when someone dies; I find them very distressing. That said, my guy was very close to our BIL, who along with his wife was very good to me when I was much younger. So I will attend and be polite and supportive, which is the right thing to do.

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Stuff

After finding this Caron one pound skein of lovely peach yarn in my thrifted lot I raided my stash for two cakes of Mandala in Pegasus, which matches it perfectly. For practice and hand therapy I'm going to make another Worth Street Afghan with this free pattern , but this time I'll use the yarn that was recommended for it plus the one pound skein. I'm not quite ready to do the vintage/recycled linen quilt I had planned (still a bit too nervous about the idea), so I'm going to use some color therapy and make a quilt from these thrifted green fat quarters. I considered doing another Yellow Brick road patchwork pattern, but I might go with a split rail fence like this one.

Better than Fried

I cut some chives from the kitchen garden to make garlic-chive baked fries for dinner. This is a great side dish for veggie burgers. Click here for the recipe from Taste of Home.com.

The Mercantile

If you don't mind walking 33K square feet in retail space, The Mercantile may be the vintage/arts store you'd enjoy visiting if you're ever in Orlando. I certainly did. Because it was busy I didn't take any photos in the store, but it's absolutely amazing and chock full of antiques and artisan creations, most of which were pretty reasonably priced. For $21.00 I invested in a picture of sailboats for the guest bathroom I'm redoing, and a fairy mystery jar of cool stuff. The jaw was hand-painted and decorated, and utterly charming. I think I wanted the jar more than the contents. As you can see the contents were both generous and pretty cool, too. I finally have some vintage gloves to use for my art quilter bingo challenge!

Rayen

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