July Cottage of the Month -

 I finished stitching this Country Cottage Needleworks  - July Cottage about two weeks ago, but I didn’t FFO (fully finish) it until this past weekend. I love stitching these cottages, but I think I will pause working on this series. The August cottage pattern is lovely but the cottage is also blue, so perhaps I will stitch that one next summer. There are so many other cross stitch pieces that I am eager to stitch. I have definitely reached “sable” status. . . stash acquisition beyond life expectancy. At this point, I will have to keep stitching until I am 105!

Last Friday afternoon I decided to visit Eclectic Collection in West Bridgewater. Eclectic Collection is a large red barn filled with two floors of booths of antiques and vintage items. Remarkably, I didn’t find anything to tempt me, but it is always fun to look. I had not been there since before the pandemic. 

The sky was simply gorgeous, and I had to stop at Peaceful Meadows in Whitman to take this image. These cows always make me smile. Peaceful Meadows is a place to stop for an ice cream cone or other dairy delights. There used to be real cows grazing in this meadow, sadly no more.

Yesterday I went to lunch with another group of retired teacher friends. This was our first time eating in a restaurant in sixteen months. 

Recommendation: A reader of this blog sent along a Youtube site for you to check out. It’s Baumgartner Restoration, a fascinating look at the painstaking process of art restoration. Thanks, Cyndi, for suggesting it. 

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This morning (July 27th), I watched the first session of the House committee investigating what happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The testimony of the four police officers representing their courageous fellow law enforcement officers was gripping, powerful, and terrifying. 

The CDC announced today a recommendation that all students K-12, teachers, and staff in schools wear masks for the coming school year. The new Delta variant is raging in some areas of the country. The number of daily cases of infection has quadrupled since just last month. Unless the millions who have refused to get a vaccine change their minds, we may never get a handle on this as some experts warn that new variants will emerge. God help us all.