Welcome to Sis. Rachel...

Everyone hitch a ride on over to our newest bloggie sister... Sis. Rachel's blog at Happy Lil Family ! Welcome to the blogging world Sis. Rachel, we'll all be happy to hear about your sweet little family over there in OK... Love you!

My Beautiful Birthday Quilt

Here is my beautiful quilt my girls made for me. Each one of the family picked out their own piece of material. I talked to Son R. this morning and he said his came all the way from OKC with him when he was here earlier in the summer! What a treasure of a family I have and I will treasure my quilt that is so special to me. I love you all so much!

A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

I've just been muddling through life lately. Feeling a little stretched thin in places and having lots on my plate. There's been canning to do, putting the garden "to bed" so to speak and generally getting ready for fall. I've canned more this year than I have in a lot of years. It's been fun, but it's a little stressful too. Now, I'm sure I'm singing to the choir on that, because there's tons of ladies out there canning to keep themselves sustained all winter... I mean sustained as in not going to the grocery store for that can of green beans! My canning has been things like pear honey, dill pickles,sweet pickle relish, pickled beets, cinnamon pears, pickled hot peppers, elderberry syrup, Fall Gold raspberry jam, Chesterberry Jam and some last minute peach jam. I've been having fun with my steamer/juicer and steamed up the elderberries that Sis. J gave me from the forest around about and then made the elderberry syrup out of that. (Sis. D, you can have your's back! Mine turned jellyish too!) A patron at the library had me come and pick grapes at her house and so I steamed those and got the really pretty grape juice that's in my frig at the moment! I LOVE my steamer/juicer. I even threw in some of my otherwise useless apples from my tree and steamed them. The juice was delicious. No, I didn't can any green beans, we ate them fresh! Shared them with some dear visiting brethren back in August, froze some and ate the last fresh ones last night at dinner. Mmm...yummy! We did get a TON of garlic into the ground. 148 cloves of one variety, 84 of another, 20 of another and then 16 of the last kind. Each clove that we planted will turn in to a HEAD of garlic! That's a LOT of garlic if it grows. We want to make our own garlic powder and it won't be ready until late next summer. It takes a long time to grow. But my mouth is already watering for my own home grown garlic. We love garlic around here! I've been trying to sew too. In between helping my girls sew Christmas dresses and Regency Ball gowns, it's hard to get to that cute little doll I'm making for little Miss A's birthday next month! I made Daughter L two dolls so long ago when she was a little girl and I've had a fancy to make my granddaughter her own as soon as she was old enough. She'll turn four next month and by golly, I think she is ready for a dolly! I will be making it with her own little dress and bloomers at first, but then at Christmas time I will make a replica of the beautiful Christmas dress her mommy is making her! What fun! Next I'd really like to make those grandbaby boys some jammies. The Dad is still working on the house. He had a little trouble with finding why in the world a sink hole was sinking in the front yard. Don't worry! It was an old rotten tree stump that was years upon years old. He rented a stump grinder last Saturday and ground it up, filled the sink hole and hopefully now it will be fine. This Saturday we will be getting the new gutters at the roofline of the house. And then I think he will be done outside! Just in time too, because our much anticipated visiting OKC brethren are going to make another try at visiting the following weekend! Whoopee! Can you believe we are less than two weeks away from NOVEMBER?

Green House with RED door

These pictures are for Son R. living in the wilds of OKC wondering what in the world did his parents do to his old farm home.

The new color looks good, but I'm thinking what am I going to do with the plants that I carefully had selected to match the old Mauve color of the house? Now I have this gorgeous and delightfully smelling rose out front that is . . . purple. Yes, it's purple. Goes real well with the burgundy trim and RED door! I have to say that The Dad is very fond of his RED door. I'm pretty proud of it myself since Son Th. painted it. When he took the door off to bring it to the shop to paint he said to me, "Mom, you are going to be able to see yourself in this door when I'm finished with it!". I said, "Ok.", thinking really, "sure I will son!" But I tell you today, that you CAN really see yourself in that RED door! In fact, in the top picture you can sorta see how it would reflect any image with 25 feet of it. Soon, the door will have a beautiful brass kickplate on it that dear Uncle Paul used his big machines on to write "Pelkey" so nicely. It's bright; it's shiney. I mean really BRIGHT and SHINEY! We got it from FedEx yesterday and The Dad "oooed" and "aahhed" over it for a full 10 minutes and showed it to everyone in the house. (he's even brought it in to the shop today to show it off to everyone there) Then he promptly had a telephone conversation in the middle of BiMart with Uncle Paul telling him and anyone within 10 yards of us how much he loved this kickplate! Just kidding honey! I think you are cute! ;+) I'll post a picture of the door sporting it's new brass kickplate as soon as possible. So, what do you think Son R.? Will you still be able to find your old farm home when you return for a visit? Maybe not... since you might be blinded by that shiney RED door with it's brass kickplate.

The Good News is...

The good news is that Sis. C's spider bite seems no worse. But the bad news is... they are not coming this weekend. I'm so sad to not get to have them in my home, but I'm so glad and thankful that her spider bite is not getting worse. She is in tons of pain, so she needs our prayers still but thankfully her body is not sick now, just the spider bite itself is bad. They changed their plane tickets so that they can use them anytime within a year. So, we'll see them asap. Can't wait for that asap! Here's a picture of a group of us at Bro. M and Sis. C's huge dining table where they made "mi casa es su casa" (my house is your house) come alive. My heart was and still will be to do the same for them.

Visiting Brethren, on the way!

I'm so excited, I can hardly stand it! Bro. M and Sis. C are coming all the way here from Oklahoma on Friday evening and they will be here until Tues. morning. I love these dear brethren so much and I can't hardly concentrate on anything else. I'm dreaming of the wonderful visits we will have! Only a few of the brethren here in Harrisburg have met them, so I am as excited for the rest to meet them and fall in love with them too! I really want to post a picture of our finished, painted green house with the blairingly red front door, but I'll probably not get to it until next week. Until then, you'll find me getting all the "martha" stuff done for our company so that I can be "mary" while they are here!

***Urgent side note... I talked to Sis. C this morning and she told me that she was bitten by a spider maybe 4 times on her foot. She is in a lot of pain and needs the prayers of the brethren. It's already gone up her leg and throbs badly. I'll update as I hear anything... Sis. Lori