Here it is July already. Where in the world has the year gone? One place it went was lickedy split right by me and until today I hadn't seen any of my grandchildren since Christmas, two of them since before Christmas. But today was delicious. DD's 3 oldest are in Florida for the month with their father and he dropped them here today. Tomorrow we're taking off for Tallahassee with the 3 of them to celebrate the 4th on my sister's boat and to visit my mother who lives in an assisted living residence close to my sister. Later my son's two were dropped off my their mother and my son joined us for pizza festivities in the evening before taking his to home. After they had left I looked at Bill and said "They didn't use to take up so much space!" He replied, "We're blessed, arent't we?" Oh, yes indeed.

Those of you who have been with me from the beginning will remember my daughter's twins. They were born at the same time as AnnTheGran's Design exchange. I've taken care of the first 5 grands from the time they were born until the time they started "real" school. When the twins were born I was caring for my son's two and my daughter's little boy. Because Jen was home on maternity leave I had only two to care for and had the time to get that first little page online. When the girls arrived for their first day in Grandma's Day Care their oldest cousin had begun pre-K at an all day charter school, so I had only the four. (Only!) And so it went, as the years flew by and the older children left for "real" school until I was left with only the twins. And then, in 2001, the unthinkable! My daughter and her family moved to Kentucky, a day and a half's drive away. She compounded the audacity by having another baby. In another state. Sixteen hours away. And sent him to day care. (DD is a middle school teacher.)

The upshot of this is that, although today was deleriously joyful (and long and tiring!) I still have one grandchild I haven't seen since Christmas. So, on Thursday I'm leaving on a jet plane to spend a few days with him, and DD and DSIL, of course. Grandmas's should NOT have to go 6 months without hugging their grandchildren. That's just wrong.

As you an imagine, machine embroidery has not been forefront in my mind the past few days. I don't want to leave you in the lurch without an embroidery fix, so I've uploaded the printable PDF file for a little project that I created a while back. You can download the design files and the instructions here. I hope you have some fun with it and it gives you some ideas for free standing embroidery projects of your own.

To answer JanMcKinstry's question, "What is a pocket full of loonies and toonies?" Loonie is the nickname for the Canadian $1 coin. I'm sure that nickname came about because there's a picture of a loon on the back of the coin. Toonie is the nickname for the Canadian $2 coin, I guess because it's two dollars and the word rhymes with loonie. 

 mattersoftheart comments, in reply to my blog about the way I, personally, hoop towels, that she's tried everything and can's seem to get the towel to soften up. It really does take a warm scrub in the washing machine to wash and rinse it all out. Sometimes more than one wash. Don't use a heavy wash away, like Romeo which is more for lace and other free standing projects,but a light weight topping. Let me know how you fare. 

 I'm going to hit the sack. We have a long day tomorrow, haven't even begun to think about packing. Y'all have a safe and happy-end. TTYL,

Ann