It was a spectacular day for brunch with Bishop Lamb and the Incarnation Vestry and clergy. The food was great and the Mimosas were made with apricot nectar – yum! Here are a couple of photos of the dining room:

My friend, Patty, did five of these arrangements for me. Isn’t it beautiful? I think I will print this on fabric and make her a postcard!

When I have new guests at my house, it is always interesting to hear what they have to say about our eclectic art collection. I would say that a large percentage don’t comment at all and some tell me that they feel as if they have visited an art gallery. With this in mind, I am going to start a new weekly entry on my blog, calledWhat’s Hanging at My House. Since I showed photos of the dining room, that is where I will start the tour.

Or was it quilty pleasure! At my age, nothing feels guilty anymore. But I do watch All My Children and One Life to Live, if I am home. It started with my mom and I used to say to her, “I will never waste my time watching those soap operas!”

And, I am somewhat addicted to Mah Jong Solitaire on my computer – such a great way to waste time – it is how I meditate!

Chocolate , however, is not a guilty pleasure. It is health food – has antioxidents, raises your endorphin levels – eat more chocolate and don’t feel guilty.

My quilty pleasure is buying fabric!!

… and then the sun came out and then it rained again, etc, etc, etc. So it was a good day to clean my fabric closet. I had all this home dec type stuff – left overs from past projects, fabric that never made it to a project – you get the idea. So I bagged up stuff that the quilt guild boutique committee can use to make stuff and put the rest in a bag for the silent auction table.

Then there was the yarn container – ugh! I used to weave and I sold my loom last year, but kept some of the beautiful yarns. I realized that I will never use them. I sorted out the baby yarn for the guild preemie hat knitters, saved some stuff for my future knitting projects and put the rest in a bag to take to Emily, our youth minister, who just bought a loom and is learning to weave. IT FEELS SO GOOD TO PURGE! Plus there is more room for the stuff I will use.

We had a great guild meeting yesterday. Such wonderful show and tell stuff. I am always amazed by the quanitity and quality of work that the members do. Here is a photo that my friend Rita took of me showing the straight and narrow banner. Notice the funky red linen outfit that I got on sale at Chico’s – a place I frequent.

Click to see a larger view.

Sunday, the Bishop is coming for his annual visit to do baptisms and confirmations. The vestry always has brunch with him after the services and it is always difficult to find a place to seat us with some privacy SO I said come to my house. I have to spend tomorrow cleaning the house, shopping for food and doing some prep work. I love to entertain large groups of people. I love doing the linens, using the good china and serving fabulous food. There will be Mimosas!

Whew! I came home Saturday evening and have had to hit the ground running. Sunday morning I was Eucharistic minister (something I love doing!). Sunday afternoon I had to finish up the guild newsletter to send to the printers and update the SDA website. The church needed 8 X 10 postcards done for an upcoming event so worked on those. All day Monday, I worked at the SDA office and processed 72 new members. SDA is having a major growth spurt. Today I had an 8:30 meeting with The Skeptical Priest and another board meeting for Numina, our Center for Spirituality & the Arts. Came home and crashed – couldn’t get anything done so went for a walk with Steve and Maggie. It was a beautiful day.

Anyway, since I haven’t done anything on the creative side, I thought I would show some pics from my Portland trip. Here are my lucious new shoes (they are suede) and the organdy napkins:

Here is Steph with Mia and Miles:

Here some pics of Mia:

Miles decided to be silly!

Here is the pensive Miles:

I enjoyed my few days with Steph, Jack, Mia and Miles soooo much. S & J are wonderful parents. It is such a pleasure to hang out with them. The kids virtually watch no TV or videos so they are extremely capable of entertaining themselves with art projects, make believe and reading books.

On my to do list: finish the Pointless Sisters Shared Blocks quilt (mine is called I’ve Got Your Number) and get cracking on the Eigth Deadly Sin. Mine is Indifference. My icon of indifference is W. While looking for images of him I found this. Click on this and have a good laugh!

It is my last day in Portland. Yesterday, I finished this scarf that I have been knitting since December. The yarn was very difficult. It is a gift for Cynthia, my hair dresser, who made my hair red and spiky!! While I was knitting it, onlookers would come up and look at it very closely because they thought I was knitting with beaded yarn. So, I decided to add beaded fringe to the ends. Looks cool, but it does tend to tangle easily.

My son-in-law is an architect, who just started his own business at home. Before he left the firm, he was given a box of Jack Lenor Larsen fabric samples. Many of them are silk. I got to go through them and fill a bag to bring home. Some are small but will be great for post cards – some are larger and I have some ideas for my journal quilts for those.

On Thursday, we dropped the kids at school and went shopping. Stopped at Nordstrom where I found shoes, but not Steph. She didn’t find a watch either. Then we went to the new Crate & Barrel – it is huge. I bought a set of organdy napkins in primary colors which I am going to use in a fusing project. Steph bought a lovely placemat which she turned in to a pillow. You can see it on her blog soon. In the afternoon, we went down to Hawthorn St. to Imelda’s (isn’t that a great name for a shoe store) and Steph found summer sandals. Then we went to another store and found a great watch with an orange leather band. Neighborhood stores are the best. I think she is very happy with her birthday gifts. Then we found artichokes – 5 for five dollars. This is Mia’s favorite food. We bought Thai style Halibut burgers and sweet potato fries to round out the meal. She made Asian slaw to go on the burgers – it was delish!!

Last night Steph made homemade pizza with spicy turkey sausage, broccoli and artichoke hearts – yum! It has been a wonderful time for me to spend time reading and visiting with Miles and Mia and to have someone else do the cooking. I feel ready to go home and get back to my normal schedule. Mark is picking me up at the airport and driving me home and will spend the night with us. I think we will eat out; I’m not ready to decide what to have for dinner and do the cooking!!