how did it get to the end of May already?!

as I write this I'm having a hard time figuring out where 5 months of the year have gone already -- yes, time must run faster as you get older!

this had something to do with it

and on Friday the final papers on the sale of my parents house were signed

the buyer is going to "flip" it, so I'll be watching to see what they do to the place

early in the week my daughter, son in law and Mr Cute were here to help us set up a gardening area in the back yard

Gypsy was a great help too, as you can see by this picture

Saturday morning the DH and I put the plants in the ground --- tomatoes for putting up and for eating during the summer and poblano peppers which we like the taste of for everything from chili to scrambled eggs -- and a zucchini -- even though my daughter planted one and will share, I need to make pickle relish for our food storage this year, and zucchini is my preferred veggie to make it from, so I hoping for lots of production in both yards (we also eat zucchini raw in salads, roasted as a veggie with an Italian meal and a number of other applications)

since we've not gardened in this yard before, it will be interesting to see how this spot produces

keeping our fingers crossed!

yesterday evening I finished the beading on this piece

now I need to get the backing (which will be a soft black upholstery velour) put on and make the beaded clasp

here's lookin' at you!

quilting on the red dog piece continues

I think it gets better the more stitching I do, and my stitching gets easier as I do more of it too

I had to take a break from working on this early in the week because I was waiting for the fusible I use to arrive

now that is it here, it's back to work, and so far I'm pretty pleased with it

no week is complete without some utilitarian stitching

Mr Cute needed a new sun hat and his mama brought this very cool ninja turtle fabric

this was the best hat yet in terms of my being happy with how it came out -- guess it's time to make the DH a new one with the new techniques I used for this one

office dog

studio dog

big dog!

 Gypsy is 4 months old now -- at her vet visit she weighed 25.6 pounds and got her rabies shot

on Saturday morning she gave us a scare when the pupils of her eyes looked strange -- one being very small and the other very big -- glad to be able to call a vet that knows her and get reassurance -- apparently dogs do this sometimes and on a brown eyed dog I would never have noticed -- oh those devil eyes!!