#2 Grandson Visit

Other than stitching a dozen more columns in my Kantha quilt - I'm participating in the Alison Glass Stitch Club Kantha Sew Along - sewing room time has been limited.

That's because our 12 year-old grandson, Austin - second-born, in the order of grandsons 😊 - from Texas, spent a week with us. He's getting so big! Exactly 5' tall now.

We picked him up in Orlando, after he'd spent five days at Disney Parks. It might have been a little difficult for Nana and Bapa to "compete" with Disney, but we did our best!

Riding the golf cart is always one of our (four) grandsons' favorite things to do. We also played boccé three times, going in the morning because of 90-degree plus afternoon temperatures. 

Plans for other activities, like a private archery lesson, and a trip to Homossass Springs wildlife park, had to be cancelled when we learned Austin's mom had come down with COVID. After testing Austin, we learned he was positive too. Thankfully, he didn't get more sick than a headache (fixed with Tylenol), and some congestion. After that, we mostly stayed home to play Rummikub, watch a few movies and Aerial America, and generally "hang out." 

playing Rummikub

Early Friday morning we left home for a meet-up with Austin's dad in Sulphur, Louisiana. We went a day early so we could stop in Mobile, Alabama at USS Alabama Memorial Park where we toured the aviation building, USS Drum submarine, and the USS Alabama battleship. It's a very interesting place to visit and we would have stayed longer if it hadn't been so hot!

Austin on the battleship

After an overnight in Lafayette, LA, we met-up Saturday morning in Sulfur to hand-off Austin, feeling sad about saying good-bye. It sure becomes comfortably normal to have a young person around the house.

Hubs and I took a very long 12-hour drive back home, arriving Saturday night at 11:35 pm. 

Now it's back to more of this as I finish the last few passes to make each line ¾" apart.

Once that's done, I'll add one or two more passes between each ¾" line. 

This is my design wall, as it's been for several weeks now. Four projects! At the top is my Prudence EPP; on the left and right sides are improv projects á la Sherri Lynn Wood, and in the middle is my Quilting Guild of The Villages "30" challenge piece. I'm determined to make progress on something this week!

Car-riding time allowed me to finished listening to an audiobook, and read the second book in Elly Griffiths "Ruth Galloway" series. 

Book Recommendations

Dead Ringer by Lisa Scottoline is about Bennie Rosato who owns a law practice that's nearing failure. If Bennie doesn't find new clients, she'll have to let go a staff of crack female lawyers and assistants. But it's tough to get new clients when someone is making Bennie appear to be an irresponsible dog-owner, a drunk, a thief, and a liar. Bennie suspects it's her identical twin sister who's come back to make life miserable. She not only has obstacles to overcome, but a new hunky-looking man wants to help catch her sister.

This is possibly one of the most humorous books I've listened to. The author has a delicious way of turning a phrase, and making a situation laugh-out-loud funny.

But once again, I wasn't diligent to read the book synopsis before I began. I realized as I was reading it that there was a back story I was missing. Ah-ha. This book is #8 in the "Rosato & Associates" series! Good grief. I prefer not to jump into a single book that's part of a series. 

Linda's score: 3.7/5.0

The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths is part of a series, and I knew that going into it. I've only been able to find these "Ruth Galloway" books as e-book, but reading on my iPhone has been satisfying, as was this book.

Once again, forensic archaeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway is involved in a summertime dig in northern UK. She's called to a demolition site to check out bones that have been found under a door threshold. The house being demolished was build decades ago as a private residence, and later turned into a Catholic children's home. Now the area will become a block of small trendy homes. Ruth must determine if the small bones are indicative of ancient Roman's belief in bodies put into foundations to appease a god, like Janus the god of doorways. The more Ruth digs into finding out why the head (found in a well) has been separated from the torso of the bones, the more warnings she gets to stop her investigation. In the meantime, Ruth is coming to terms with her first pregnancy, how to tell her born-again Christian parents about it, and when to tell the father... the already-married father. 

Linda's score: 4.0/5.0

Have you seen advertisements for the July 15 release of the movie Where the Crawdads Sing? Yep, they've made the wonderful book into a movie produced by Reese Witherspoon. Though I don't often go to the theater, this is one I want to see. Linda