Cake decorating w/ Iris, Pat makes new totes

dreamsoaps
1 day ago
3 min read

In August 2024, candidate Donald Trump told a rally crowd that Joe Biden was "using the strategic reserves, which is meant for military, which is meant for war," and pledged that "We have to fill up the strategic reserves immediately."

Two years later, with the United States locked in a protracted conflict with Iran, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is doing the opposite of filling up. According to figures circulated by Geiger Capital and Hedgeye, the SPR has fallen roughly 25% in recent months and now sits at its lowest level in about 43 years, covering an estimated 16 days of U.S. oil demand, down from a 2009 peak of about 36 days.

(Read full article here:Trump criticized Biden for draining America’s oil reserves. They’re now at a 43-year low amidst a Middle East war)

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We slept late again on Saturday (7/25) …maybe it’s the weather? Rainy and dark and overcast….but I am praying it keeps up for days and days and days as I believe we are still in a stage 2 drought.

I got a second border of on my crumb quilt, so it is ready for quilting:

and got a backing loaded up for Marvella’s quilt before Iris picked me up after 1 PM.

We headed to THE FOODIE SCHOOL for our cake decorating class…which was a BLAST!!!!!! I can’t believe how well everything turned out and how much fun it was!!!

-crumb coat

-see how much smoother the outside is from the previous picture....

-piping on that swooping lace on the sides, and again on the top was pretty tricky

We were both yawning on the way home and I was an absolutely lump for the rest of the night….except for when I ate a piece of my cake:

It was yummy, but the frosting was WAY TOO SWEET for me (standard buttercream)…Michael, however, loved it :~).

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There were lots of storms about on Sunday (7/26), so that meant no long armming for me….instead I did a bunch of piddly little tasks I don’t like! I needed some labels, but had no full bobbins:

so I spent 45 minutes getting those wound:

I really don’t like that task, and I do hardly any embroidering…I can only imagine how much the real machine embroiderers in our group do it (or maybe they all use pre-wounds)!

Then I made a bunch of bindings:

By the afternoon, the sun was out, so I got Marvella’s quilt loaded up:

and made good progress on quilting it:

In the evening we had a wonderful birthday/date night celebration with champagne and puffy things:

and watched the new ROM-COM movie my honey got me for my birthday.

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Michael got ready for golf Monday morning (7/27), even though they weren’t tee-ing off until NOON. I got laundry in before heading for my computer to work on my blog before leaving for the craft group at the library. Karen and I stayed long after craft group ended, talking about all manner of things…it was really nice!

Once home, I headed downstairs and got to finish off Marvella’s quilt, and to load up the backing on Iris’s quilt before heading again to the kitchen to put together bread dough and meatloaf for dinner.

And, I keep forgetting to post these pics....friend Pat has a side gig....she stopped in the Merle Norman store in Lancaster to pick up a few things and the woman went absolutely crazy for the bag Pat was carrying (that of course she made) and asked if she would make some to sell in the store.....and Pat was off and running: