The past few weeks

 It will be 3 weeks tomorrow since my husband came home from the hospital.  He is still very weak and tired but we have physical therapy coming in twice a week to help build up the strength in his legs so in a bid to encourage him I do the exercises along side him, it helps us both.

He is still sleeping a lot so it has given me chance to get up into my sewing room and work on my card making.  For Mother's Day I got a couple of cutting dies from my husband and I got an Amazon gift voucher from our son and his family and I used it to buy a couple more and some card stock.  I think I have enough now to make a variety of cards.

After our anniversary came our youngest grand daughter's birthday and this was before Mother's day so I was limited with supplies.  Here is the card I made for her:-

Next will be one of the grandson's birthday and for his card I used one of the new dies which I really, really like:-

And for the inside I used new dies too

Now I liked these dies a lot so I made another similar card in readiness for another grand daughter's birthday later in the year.

Because I am naturally frugal I try to do my hobbies on a shoestring.  I use Christmas and birthday's, Mother's day's etc. to obtain the things I want rather than just purchase willy nilly.  Many Christmases ago I got a Big Shot machine.  I had never heard of them until I read about them on a friend's blog.  I used it originally to cut out felt and fabric to make Christmas tree ornaments and in the past few years of Christmas card making I used it too.  I am amazed at just how much I use this machine.  For the Christmas cards I recycle prior years cards but this new venture of birthday and anniversary cards etc. calls for new card stock although I do still try and recycle card.  For practicing I use those really annoying advertisements that come in the mail so I don't have to use good card stock and when I do use the new card I try to get as many things cut out of it as possible.  Any shape I don't use at the time I pop into a ziplock baggie for later use.  

I am also in the process of making some more Christmas ornaments to send off for my great grandson.  I cut out 5 and have made three so far. He turned one at the end of March.  My goodness, how the time flies these days! 

The weather has been a bit erratic.  We had lots of storms and rain which made the grass (and weeds) grow like crazy.  When it stopped it was too wet to mow, then it warmed up and was too hot!  We had a few nice days and we managed to make a start and this morning, early, I whipped out again to mow a little more before the thunderstorms started.  As we mow about 5 acres it is hard to get it all mowed in between storms, rain and extreme heat.  My husband is hoping he will regain more strength and will be able to get out and mow a little more.  He is desperate to get his strength back but they have told him not to overdo things as his health is not great at the best of times. We have 2 riding mowers and he usually does all the more difficult places, for now I am just doing what I can.  His well being is the most important thing.

The iris have been particularly beautiful this year.  I think all the rain has helped.  These are just a couple of many different colours of them we have.

Oh, and we are thinking of selling up and moving again!!!!!

More to come on that.....