Sounds like a haul. I took a trip (with my next quilting student) up to Joann's. Believe it or not............drum roll here......... I bought NOTHING for myself!!!! It was hard but I guess all the money she was spending filled my needs :-) Vicky

I agree with cleaning the chimneas. I've made my share of mistakes and found out it pays off to prep you substrates before adding tiles etc. You had a good haul. Love both sets of blue plates. Yum yum. My sister and I are going to a neighborhood sale tomorrow. Hope I'm as lucky as you were today.

I bought the tassel at Marmelstein's here in Philadelphia. It's from the same line as the brush fringe on the drapes. Same as with the tassel on my upstairs doors, like in the bedroom, where the skeleton key tassel matches the trim on the drapes. I couldn't live without them because it allows you to take the key out and not lose track of the damn thing, plus they match.

We ended up with around 0.65" in the rain gauge. More would have been nicer but I'm still grateful for every drop. I think that when the storm intensified on radar, it went south because at one time the Gainesville TX airport weather station was reporting "heavy rainfall". When I saw that, I went outside and checked and there was no heavy rainfall here. They needed it more than we did, so I'm glad they get it. That county has been drier than us all summer and this rain should help the farmers there a lot. This morning we had dew on the ground (a rarity the last couple of months) and it was 64 degrees when I went outside a little after sunrise. It felt heavenly. We're headed back into hotter, drier weather though, so I'm still waiting for some lovely autumn weather to arrive. I want to see leaves changing colors and drifting down to the ground....I want to drink hot, spiced apple cider....I want to make a fire and sit around it and roast marshmallows and make s'mores. I suspect my longing for autumn weather will go on for a while, but maybe in October the weather that feels like autumn finally will arrive. kfrinkle, It does seem like one of those years, doesn't it? I keep wanting to plant lettuce, spinach and other greens and then I look at forecast highs in the 90s and decided it still is too hot. The downside to all the rain is that the humidity will drive our heat index numbers higher. I'm still glad it rained though. Maybe I'll just grow my winter greens indoors this year on my light shelf. Well, probably not, because we have three kittens who are very, very playful and I doubt that lettuce and greens on the light shelf would survive three 4-month-old kittens. The light shelf is in their favorite room----and there is no such thing as a kitten-free room with kittens at that age. It has been several years since we have had kittens (someone apparently dumped their pregnant mama "in the country" in June and she adopted us) and I'd forgotten how hard they run and play....and play and run....and climb and jump. They are upstairs right now (in the room with the light shelf) and it sounds like there's a herd of buffalo up there. In order to start seedlings indoors in winter, I will have to close the door and banish them from that room but I hate to do it now while they're still so young and such playful little maniacs. I might sow some lettuce seed in planters in the shade late this week or early next week. It just depends on what the 10-day forecast looks like by the weekend. Needless to say, even with the greenhouse covered by 50% shade cloth and all the doors and vents open, it still gets well above 100 degrees in there every day, so I can't even sow greens for winter in there yet. Dawn