Whoop Whoop

Yes, the July started of GREAT! 

Unexpectedly I found out I was a winner. Sometimes I participate in Quilt Block Lottery. Every month it is a different quilt block. You can make one or more (I had time ... and felt like it ... to make 2) and you mail it to the organizer. For each block you get a chance. Now 34 blocks will come back to me. That will make at least 2 charity quilts, depending how I assemble them. Fun!

Not so GREAT. What happened to my parsley? I found 5 caterpillars on the empty stalks. I googled: who eats my parsley? The off-spring of the black swallowtail butterfly. I found a container and put them into it, with a few of the parsley left. 

And then what? Didn't want to kill them. I love butterflies. They are so useful to all of us and the environment. But I wanted my parsley too. I found an interesting blog: butterfly-lady.com

There was a slight problem though. The next day we had a lot of driving to do. We were meeting Helen half-way to get our grandson for a 3-week visit. We were going the day before to have a night in a hotel so we didn't have to do all in one day. We are retired! So we decided to take the caterpillars with us. When we had our picnic lunch we also took them out of the car because it might get too hot. You can see them in that basket on the table. 

Do you think I am silly?

I had not had time to fix something from home but this salad (from a Wal-Mart?) was not bad at all.

It was a nice rest area on I-81. The photographer didn't do very well. James is under the shelter on the left right in front of that tree ... blending in.

Checking on our new friends. Still plenty of food. Hope they are don't die. Previously they had stripped what I had put in down to the stalks.

The hotel room was comfortable. Time for one of our card games.

Oops, yes, still alive. Stripped the parsley. 

With the salad I had bought another parsley plant but it had not been enough. I was not about to buy another one. It was getting expensive. But we found this whole bunch of cut parsley for 78 cents at Walmart. The lined ice bucket with water did nicely for that.

The room also had a corner to make tea or coffee. I thought this cup was nice.

And yes, we splurged. While in the car James had made reservations for dinner. The Tavern is supposed to be the oldest building in Abingdon, VA, and has a lot of atmosphere of course. The server was very nice ... and so proud when he pointed out what was homemade. My homemade french onion soup was excellent. So tasty.

Supposedly German food. I should have known better. I am not saying it was bad. The schnitzel was nice and tender. The homemade red cabbage definately had too much clove in it and the raisons made it too sweet. I put diced apple in. Much better. 

James had New Zealand whole rack of lamb ... and cleaned the platter.

Next day - July 3 - we met Helen and William at the Virginia Welcome Center Bristol. Helen took this photo and shared with me. I was totally too busy being excited.

James and I had brought things from a Subway and Helen brought dessert and we had a nice picnic in the shade. Of course we also had to exchange things from one car to the other. Helen gave me "instructions" of which one was that William has taken a liking to the peach milk shake from Chick-fil-a. After which William turned to me, smiled and said "I wonder what you do with this information". That made my day!

After that Helen left to turn back to Nashville and we went on our way to Richmond. William has always been a good traveler. It is a long drive. We were home at 6 pm, unloaded the car, got settled and than looked for something we could fix quickly for dinner. I took William to the freezer because I know he likes those dumplings from Trader Joe's and asked him whether he might be interested. OMG, his face was pure joy with a spontanious hug. Obviously a good appetizer. 

And then it was almost time to go to bed for him. William-visit day 1 over.