Saugatuck Day One

A couple of weeks ago my Shug and I took a couple of days and went to Saugatuck, Michigan.  It's not that far, a couple of hours away, and we used to go there quite a lot, before house building.

It's a quaint little town

with shopping, eating, wine tasting, and relaxing.

 

The stores are mostly boutique type stores. (I've made a lot of these!)

 And most stores had a place for a Shug to sit and wait!

It's very garden-y too! 

This is one way to grow herbs if you don't have any yard! 

 There are quite a few places to eat,

and some of them are right on the water. 

Local coffee shop, with the best coffee and latte's EVER!

It's a very dog friendly town too.  Dogs are not allowed inside the coffee shop, but they do have treats for them while you sit outside and enjoy your coffee.  We also noticed a lot of the restaurants that have outdoor eating, had bowls of water outside for your fur-babies!

I thought the burlap coffee bag for a bench seat cushion was cute.

And who doesn't love red! 
OK so here's the thing I used to tell my 'older' friend.  I used to not like red, at all.  And I told her I noticed that old people like red, and they like petunias!  I was probably in my 30s at the time I said that.  Well, guess what...I like red...and petunias!

And there is one thing I have discovered about us, and vacations, or even little get aways.  We need a place to stay, before we go.  If we don't have one, we spend too much time trying to find one.  It was during the week and we knew the town was full of Bed and Breakfasts, Inn's, and a couple of hotels.  We figured it wouldn't be difficult to find a place to stay.

 But when we first arrived in town, there wasn't even a place to park.  This is one of those towns that you just park the car and walk everywhere.  And we checked a couple of places to stay that the sign said, "vacancy", but there wasn't any rooms available.

So we stayed at the place we have stayed at on most previous visits.  I've stayed at a few other places in Saugatuck, but I enjoy this place and here is why.  Even though our room was right there on this end, at the top, facing the street.....

This hotel sits right on the water.  Saugatuck is a harbor town.

And when you walk through the entryway of this hotel...

this is what you see.  Water everywhere.  I mean it sits RIGHT ON the water.  There are rooms that only have the dock between the water and the room.  They also have this screened in room with plenty of places to sit and relax, for their guests.

Plus they have this pool area. 

This was from the balcony area of our room.  Now let me be clear though, our particular room did not have a balcony.  But you walked down a balcony area, so that you could go sit in the outdoor sitting area, which I did not get a picture of, unfortunately.  We sat for as long as we could before the mosquitoes started to carry us off!

The next day we left Saugatuck for some more harbor towns, which I will share with you in the next post.

Cindy Bee

The sky is putting on a show

I quickly snapped these pictures through the car window this evening.

 Do you see the heart!

 Someone was really getting rained on here.

 Then I came home and took Dixie the dog for a walk and there was even more sky show!

 I took all of these sky pictures tonight. 

 WTH!  How did this pic get in here!  I had a fun day with my friend Teresa.  We went shopping and I found a few fun things, but the find of the day....at the GoodWill store!  It was in the case so it was a bit more than most items at the store...but when I saw that fringe....well....it was a no brainer.  And PS. it is new! 

Cindy Bee

My exciting week.

You say tomato, I say tah-mah-toe! 

 I'm sitting here listening to lids pop on canning jars full of tomato juice.  I'm hoping for 14 pops.

 The only vegetable we planted this year was tomatoes. 
Baby steps.
If we do well with them, then we'll move on to something else...perhaps green peppers....or onions...or kohlrabi (kidding!)  We used to have a huge back yard FULL of veggies, herbs and flowers and it got to be too much work.  This was when we had a double lot in town.  Now, we have tomatoes...

 

Did you know that you can just clean them, quarter them, and freeze them?  No blanching required.  You can use them in soups, stews, and sauces this way. 

So last weekend we had this batch of tomatoes 

 that I froze.

 And today we had this many more and with my Shug's help, we made juice.  And believe it or not, I enjoy this kind of thing.  Not the process, but the end result.

And I went back to the cabin three days this week, for three to four hours each day, and wove (is it a word? weaved?) three or four bags. I lost track.  But I'm enjoying it.   Of course, they will need sewn and lined.  We are using up the end of the warp on all three looms.  I think we are almost finished.

 It amazes me how you can take a material and it looks completely different on a weaving loom with the warp threads running through it.

 This was red and green with a little bit of blue and cream plaid wool.

 

 Here is a picture (above) of the material and (below) what it looks like after it's been woven.

 You can see in this picture how the woven rugs get wound up on the loom.

 And I've decided I'm going to start another crochet blanket.  We commented in crochet group that we are tuning into "those ladies" who have afghans all over the place.  Well so what!  We enjoy our little group.  And I need something mindless to work on while I'm there visiting.  Otherwise I'm going to have a house full of crocheted coasters!

 

The best part of this afghan is that I went through my stash of cascade 220 and pulled out colors to match these covered chair cushions that I made.

 I am actually going to make something that matches what I have in my living room and it's reducing my stash! 
My exciting week....

Cindy Bee