More anniversary and stuff

Here's a photo of my anniversary flowers (along with some of our other plants in the kitchen). They are really pretty. My dh also scrubbed the bathroom, vacuumed, and we cooked dinner (tacos) together on our anniversary. It was a nice, relaxing evening. Oh, and he shaved, something he likes to avoid doing.

This weekend we had summery weather, almost hot. Saturday we went to downtown Hammond to what we thought would be a car show. Not many cars showed up but the Bizarre Bazaar had a community flea market, some local artists booths, a hot-salsa eating contest from El Taco Real (one of my favorite places) and great music from the Northwest Indiana Symphony. We did a really fun architectural scavenger hunt with clues you had to find on local buildings. A bit of history was provided for each of the locations.

Sunday we went to the Park Forest Art Fair. The fair is always a fun one and we've gone for ages. We thought the crowd of shoppers was noticeably smaller than in previous visits--probably the economy.

When I had some spare time, I stitched up this pumpkin mat. After I took this photo, I added a ribbon loop at the top so I can hang this. We don't have empty horizontal surfaces for mats.

The design is by Wooden Spool Designs (Thanksgiving Pumpkin) and was kitted by Erica's. In addition to the black perle cotton called for by the pattern, the kit included a skein of watercolors. (The ribbon I used for a hanging loop was actually the ribbon that tied the kit together!) The kit was very generous and I've cut out another kit I got on our August trip there. This one is a spring chick with an umbrella.

To continue my fun interlude and extend the weekend, I had dinner last night with a friend. Every time I do this, I tell myself I should find time to do it more often. I had a great deal of fun and talked her ears off (sorry!). It's just too much fun to visit with someone who has many of the same interests and tastes, stash piles and book stacks. Not too many people are willing to engage in serious discussions comparing various fusible web products! A.C.--we'll have to do this again!

Last, JLC Studios turned me on to this great time waster. Make Your Own Snowflake. It creates images somewhat similar to those I mentioned a couple of months ago with the kaleidoscope program. These rotate, too, forming new papers but this site also does a 3-D spin. Wicked!