Big full day

I had a big full day today. Started off going to Dunnellon, an hour's drive north of here, with three friends for a Girls Day Out. We wanted to go to a bead shop there, but it was closed. We did make the Stitch Niche which is a cute house that has a different shop in each room. So you have the quilt shop, yarn shop, embroidery shop and then the book store. Very clever idea and very nice.

Right across the street was the Grumble House Antiques. Oh, my! This was a happening. The house is beautiful with wonderful woods, banister, windows.

Then each room is chuck full of stuff!!!

Even the working bathroom is a place to sell merchandise. Very cute.

We hit the local thrift store benefiting Habitat for Humanity, which was a lot of fun. Everything was labeled and sorted - very organized. We really liked it.

As we went around a corner I saw this statue of the Blue Brothers - life size even. It stands in front of a motel...
Next we went to lunch in a really nice restaurant called The Front Porch.

I had a Cuban sandwich which is much like a panni that has sliced pork road, ham, salami, swiss cheese, mustard, and pickles. Then it is pressed on a grill and flattened. It came with a cup of Spanish bean soup. It was yummy. Then we all too advantage of the speciality of the house homemade pies!!! Here is Kitty, me, Kathy and Lee with coconut cream pie and real, real key lime pie. Sing along with me now, "heaven, I'm in heaven".

We got home in time to go to Stitch and Discuss :). Now take a look at all the different types of hobbies going on. Most of the ladies bead, but then there is hardinger - a form of cross stitch on linen using yarn, quilting and knitting.

My friend Kitty is knitting these amulets using 000 knitting needles - very thin metal needles, using #8 Pearl thread. It is very intricate. She does beautiful work. This amulet is small - like two inches wide by an inch high. Now look at these pendants that Betty beads. They are pictures but made entirely out of stringing beads. Look closely and you can see the individual beads of different colors.....amazing work!
Here is a sample of hardinger cross stitch. It is very pretty and are used as throws

Now you would think that would be enough of a day to call it quits - right? Nope - several rvers in the park went to dinner last night at a Chinese buffet in Brooksville. So I mentioned it to Jim and he said "I'm in". So we rustled up our buddies Lesle and Bill and off we went to Brooksville for dinner. Oh, my goodness, Buffet City was the best! They had nine food stations, along with a sushi bar and a Mongolian grill. They had roast beef, pizza, mashed potatoes and gravy along with all the usual Chinese buffet dishes. But they had six soup choices and I chose Miso Soup....yummy. They had some very different foods like raw oysters on the half shell, clams and mussels in the shell, and baby octopus or was it squid? He's Bill with his delicacy and the serving dish full of them.

For $10.99 each we certainly got our money's worth. Buffet City was exceptionally clean and the food hot and tasty. I wish we knew about this place earlier so we could go there again. But we are moving on Tuesday so we'll have to wait till our next trip to Florida.

I had a full, wonderful day - it was great.

Remember - you are loved!!!