A giveaway, quilts, Amish photos and South African garden

It has been such crazy weather here.... but finally spring is definitely here. We are preparing to build a deck on the back of the house over the next month or so ... and today the Professor replaced a missing bench on the side porch. The end of classes doctoral student bash is scheduled for our house in a couple of weeks, a good way to wind down after the Professors classes for the semester. There is also one doctoral student who is finishing up and moving away...so all of the professors ( the real ones... :o) ) are invited also to say goodbye. Crawfish is on the menu... I have to admit...I have never eaten them...but I am game. Now, there is a giveaway over at Jen's blog where you can win a gift certificate. Go by and enter. I felt compelled to show the photos of a local school bus, which was parked, running, in the parking lot of a local strip mall. It was there for over an hour that I shopped. But the funny thing was that apparently they picked up their laundry/dry cleaning too... You can see it hanging in the window of the bus. Maybe I am just being gritchy, but this so reminded me of South Africa, where the school buses would be parked...at the grocery store...on teachers paydays. But they didn't just go to the store, they took the kids out of school.... too!!!! Kind of like a field trip... except it was to the grocery store. Several teachers would go together....and leave one teacher watching the children out in the parking lot. A bit of a shock, to see...till I saw this bus. I guess some things just are the same...no matter where they happen. Ok, off my soap box and onto a few quilt photos. I forgot to get a photo of the quilt hanging at the quilt shop, but do have a few photos to share of finished customer quilts. First up is a sweet little charity quilt, I volunteered to quilt for my guild.We are donating this one and a bed sized quilt to the cancer drive fundraiser. It didn't have to be done until October...but thought it best to try to do at least one donation quilt a month... the second photo shows the back side. It turned out really well. I love this red white and blue Carolina Crossroads quilt.It is scrappy...and very well done. Her mini patch squares...were perfect. What a pleasure to quilt. Next up is a cowboy quilt I did for a customer, it was a lot of fun to do.









Then a photo of my summer garden in South AFrica. It was walled in...and so pretty in early summer...this is later in the summer, after many plants had bloomed out. I sure enjoyed having Majuba keep it looking so nice. The first gardener's name was July, I adored him...but he left the landlords employ and was replaced with Majuba, who enjoyed building much more than gardening. I can say that I miss having them water and dig up the garden for me. The Professor has been filling those shoes...and when I laid all the plants out where I wanted them planted, the Professor pointed out that "Majuba" wouldn't be planting them anymore for me, so I might want to get a shovel! He is cheeky! Lastly I had to post this photo of the Amish lady and little girl putting their groceries into their buggy. I shot this when traveling in Pennsylvania last summer. This grocery store has a hitching post at the end of the parking lot...for the buggies.