Quick post, mostly pictures...

Even though I had my surgery almost immediately after I got my new metal working supplies, I did find time to get in a little soldering practice beforehand.  Both pendants are made from copper sheet metal, not soft enough, by the way.  I had to anneal them with the torch when they became work hardened.  The only solder I had on hand was plumber's solder on a roll, heated with a hand held butane torch, actually did pretty good.  My next purchase is jeweler's solder and a specific head for my torch.

Both pieces turned out quite nice, considering the rustic nature of the work.

As I patiently wait for my eye to heal, I'm trying to read with glasses, trying to read without glasses, digging in the old Fred Sanford drawer for drugstore readers...  I even removed one of the lenses of my regular tri-focals, but that didn't help much.  Here is a shot of one of the things I tried...

As you can see, this is me with no make up, the day of the surgery.  I'm still figuring it out. At least I'm staying on top of the drop-in-the eye regimen. Sheesh...these things will never end. By the way, hubby is looking for a Beanie Baby parrot that I can perch on my shoulder. Argggg, matey.

In addition to showing how beautiful I look sans paint and spackle, I am going to share several more pictures that I took when sister was here in April.  Our uncle was quite house proud and tried to keep everything looking so nice.  His house was filled with family pieces of furniture and the outside was ablaze with color each summer from the flowers that my grandmother (who lived with him) kept in the planters on the front  porch.  Geraniums of various colors, scarlet sage, indian paintbrush...every summer people came by to see "Ethel's Flowers".  Alas,  Grandmother and Uncle have both gone to their great reward and since the house was left to us kids, we decided to sell.   Neither Peri or I wanted to pack up and move back.  Once we left the small town we grew up in, we realized we were much happier.  All that being said, you can be sure that Grandmother and C.B.  are spinning in their graves every time they look down and see this...

What in the H-E-double hockey sticks has this woman done to our house?  Apparently she is a fan of  University of Virginia, which would account for the orange shutters.  The reason for the pink flamingos I'm sure is to just p. everybody off.  As in thumbing her nose at the rest of the neighborhood. Actually, it's kind of funny.  The best looking house in town turns out to be the worst looking house in town.

Our Mother's house, on the other hand, looks much better than it did when we sold it after she passed away.

We all spent many hours in this house and it does a body good to see the improvements that were made to it. 

We visited three cemeteries and I took lots of pictures of gravestones.  This little cemetery is where I played when I was a little girl living with Gram and CB before we moved to the new house. 

You will see in the left of this shot the glass doors of the firehouse.  This is where the house was that we lived in.  Torn down to build the firestation.  There were lots of hedges between the church and our house and I loved to duck through the bushes and play in the graveyard.  I'd be willing to bet that I played Barbies on people's graves.  Things certainly seemed different back them. 

So I guess that's all for today.  I'll leave you with a picture of two cute babies...

Fooled you, didn't I?

Have a great week and stay cool and happy and soon enough I'll be posting about having my other eye fixed and then who knows what I'll get into.