Good Morning! It's been awhile. Frankly, I have no excuse except that life has been busy, busy, busy. I've been busy before this and still blogged, so that's not a good excuse. I haven't even been reading your blogs. The sweaters have had me knitting at home, in the car, at church. You get the idea.
I did finish a pair of socks on Sunday. I kitchenered the toes in Sunday School and one more Christmas gift goes in the box!

I just took this picture of the pile of sweater pieces for Piper's sweater all done except the neck and button band. I hope to finish it today. I still have to buy buttons for all three sweaters, but at least the making of them will be complete. I have enjoyed knitting them, but I'm glad to have them done a few weeks before the deadline!

This has been my view while knitting on the sweaters. It's been so hot, I haven't cared about going outside anyway. As you can see, the sun is shining brightly this morning. The terrible heat wave seems to have broken here, but the humidity is still hovering around 80-90% so it's still not real pleasant outside. It was finally cool enough to take a walk after dinner last night and we enjoyed that a lot and it was wonderful to be outside again.

Lots of time has been spent with Mom. We've had two doctor appointments for her in the past four days. We always take her out to eat when she has an appointment. She loves that. Yesterday was the neuphrologist, (kidney doctor). She has lost 8 lbs since she saw him last and she certainly doesn't need to lose weight. Here we are at Cheddar's and she's having her favorite, baked potato soup. They accidently brought her a second cup of soup and she ate it all, plus her salad.

Piper and Lizzie stayed with us three nights last week and all of us enjoyed it. The puppies LOVE Piper and let her dress them up and carry them all over the house.

Of course the puppies loved it. Here they are, taking a nap. Always together. It's crazy how much they love each other.

Nap time! She is waaaay past the napping age, but a busy weekend and tennis camp in the mornings while she stayed with us wore this girl out. Can you believe school is starting already? She goes back next Monday! 5th grade! Where has the time gone?
Last weekend was the county fair and she entered projects that she had done on her own and with her 4H group. She got Best in Show and will go to the State Fair with a photo she took at the fly-in a couple of weeks ago. She also got several blue ribbons, and second and third place ribbons. We're very proud of how hard she has worked on everything.

Before I forget, I need to answer a new reader, Laura, from her comment. No, we don't live in the UK. We live just north of you in Omaha, NE! Our youngest son and his family live in London and we go visit them at least once a year. I bought the yarn when I was staying there for a month in January to help care for our precious granddaughter. We'll be going back again the beginning of September for a week.
And for the rest of you my dear friends. I'm so sorry I haven't been reading or commenting on blogs, or have written on my own blog for a few weeks. I have absolutely no excuse, except that I have been a bit down. I have no reason for it. I have a wonderful life, wonderful husband and good friends, including all of you. Really, I think it could have been the heat getting to me. You all know I have absolutely no tolerance for heat and it's been so awful. Most of you have had it too. One of the side effects of one of my meds is "heat can be fatal." I do have to be very careful. But I still have no good excuse. I'll do better. I promise.
Now that I should have the last flower girl sweater done today, I will be able to concentrate on my own shawl for the wedding. I bought two books on Amazon that have crochet borders and I'm going to try to add length and width by crocheting a border on my knitted shawl. I just couldn't face unpicking the bind-off and then trying to get those hundreds of stitches back on a needle! So, I'm going to wing it and crochet something. Because I definitely will need that shawl. I'm not used to having such scoop necked and low backed clothes. I also wish I had lost 80 lbs. before this wedding, but I guess that's not going to happen. I have lost 4 lbs! You can't tell though. :-)
Thank you all for hanging in there with me and sending notes and messages asking if all is well. Yep. All is well. God is on His throne and the world is still turning. I'm just being super lazy for some reason. I do love and care for you all and I apologize deeply for having worried you. I'll be back soon! I promise.

Blessings and love,
Betsy