Our long holiday weekend was muted by a death in the family which took my beloved Prince out of state for three days.
While he was away (singing and playing the guitar for his uncle's home-going), Helping Hands Hannah was at the lake with her cousins, and Miss Mary Mack and I were slogging through our low spirits and a lot of rain.
Friday I visited Oklahoma Quiltworks with Beeg Seester.
She bought a book of very kewl crib-size quilt patterns and I got to help her pick fabrics so she could get started on one of them.
It's all red and black and turquoisey, and I can't wait to see it finished.
Afterward, we came home for coffee and I showed her my many, many unfinished quilts.
It must have inspired me when I handled them again, because I spent a little time on Monday working on the grandshoots' quilt.
Some day one of my grandshoots will be cuddled up under it and I will be saying, "See this patch? I made your daddy a shirt out of this fabric when he was just a little boy like you".
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On Saturday Miss Mary Mack and I did a little shopping.
Or "retail therapy", as she calls it.
We bought some very cute sundresses for she and Miss Helping Hands.
And I bought a new pair of sandals.
When I wear them I will remember how we were shoring each other up all weekend - with our shopping trips, Chinese take-out, and West Wing DVD.
And how they were all very poor substitutes for the prince.
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We celebrated Independence Day with friends and family at a barbecue hosted by one of the married shoots.
They treated us to steak, corn on the cob, cheesy potatoes, strawberry short cake, and a scrumptious blueberry pie, among other things.
I baked a blackberry custard pie to take along.
And I baked some blackberry custard hand-pies just so we could try the new recipe without having to wait until we got there.
Yum to the tenth power, my friends.
After all those good eats, we watched a lot of fireworks.
Out where the shoots live, it's still legal to set off fireworks within the city limits.
And since there were several families involved in our celebration, the show in the front yard and street went on for quite awhile.
I haven't been that up-close and personal with fireworks for a long, long time.
It took me straight back to my California childhood...standing in the cul-de-sac with my seesters and brudders, writing in the air with sparklers and breathing in the smoke from the neighbors' big fireworks.
And they say you can't go back.
Don't believe 'em.