Snow Days are for Stitching

Is it Monday again already? Time certainly does fly!  We have had some extra cold weather lately considering the mild temperatures we were having.  We even had a little bit of snow around the mid part of last week. Nothing to get panicky about. There was no accumulation but it was pretty coming down. Then we got hit hard by a bigger storm several days later! A lot of ice and snow! Very pretty if you could stay indoors and watch it but a real mess to get out in! In anticipation of the storm, I filled up my bird feeders the day before.  

While we were stuck in the house because of the storm (did I mention that I was not going to try to go out in that mess?) I got a little bit done on AAFG. I am almost finished with the last part of the top section then I will move on to the bottom half. Half way finished on this monster! I can honestly say that I will think MORE than twice before taking on another BAP again! lol.

 

Speaking of AAFG. This was one of the charts that had mysteriously disappeared and I had searched for it everywhere I could think of. I finally reordered it. The day before the new chart arrived, I found the original one in my closet!!!! If I had not re-ordered it though I would probably still be looking for the original! 

 I joined the Joyful World SAL at The Snowflower Diaries blog (link in my sidebar). I had seen this little fox and blackbird floating around the internet on various blogs  that I follow. I thought he was adorable but I kept telling myself that I had enough to work on. And I do. But I finally caved. I have the fabric, some of the threads and I still need to print out the chart. If and when I decide to pick it up, I can. It might be nice to have a smaller project to work on so I can see a finish more often while working on these larger ones.

 This will probably be the last picture of the Our Father by My Big Toe that I post until after I have it framed this Spring! I finished it up this past week! It is not finished in this picture but close enough. I really did not want to work on other projects until I got this one finished up and set aside! Now I can start working on some of these others!

I am working on gathering some of my charts that I am either finished with or know I will never get around to stitching. I will be putting them on my Sale and Trade blog soon. I will let you know when they are up and ready!

Until next time, may you have simple days and an uncluttered heart!

Good Morning, Mr. Blue!

I have been absent lately from posting because of Blogger problems again. I was not able to sign on. It was extremely frustrating but after a lot of headaches it finally cleared up but, low and behold, when I was able to sign into my dashboard again there was a notice that the old Blogger interface will be discontinued! There are still a few other problems going on but I am not sure if it is Blogger or my computer.

No new starts yet. My wrist has been giving me fits making it very difficult to stitch. I thought my next new start would be from new stash but I have a hankering to work on something different. Once I decide, you'll be the first to know! During my time away from reading and posting on my blog and stitching, I took advantage of the extra time in other ways.

DH is off those horrible annoying hours and has been taking some well deserved time off. Of course, he may feel he would be better off still working since we have stayed so busy catching up on things that were put on the back burner during that time.

I made the trip to the LNS to drop of my stitching pieces for framing. It will be longer than usual in getting them back because everyone likes to take advantage of a framing sale! I love the frames I chose. Especially for the holiday pieces. Not really what I had expected to go with but sometimes you see something that just screams at you! Also, I placed another order. Just a couple of designs I have drooling over for awhile. They are both on the big side and have detailed borders (not my favorite thing to stitch) but if my finishes are as pretty as the pictures, they should be worth the extra xx's.

While we were at the LNS, there was a snow storm. Actually it was white fuzzy pollen coming from some trees behind the shop but it was coming down so heavy, it looked like snow. Everyone was looking up in confusion before realizing what it actually was! And of course I left my camera at home!

I walked around the yard and took in all the beauty that only Nature can take credit for. There are bluebirds nesting in one of bird houses again this year! I always enjoy watching them. To make it even more enjoyable, we put up another bluebird house, a wren/chickadee house and put the squirrel feeder back up! I can't wait to see the activity around them all!


My pyracanthas have grown so much since they were first planted. They were planted about 12 years ago with the purpose of covering up and hiding an old steel satelite dish pole that was cemented into the ground. Can you see the pole? It started as a practical reason but they are now one of my favorites in the yard. The Mockingbirds love this bush and take it over every Spring. Other birds try to enjoy it's shelter and fruits but those Mockers don't let them stay very long. Come Autumn, beautiful orangey berries will load the bushes and replace the white flowers.


My old dishwasher died last summer and I have been washing 4-6 sink full of dishes by hand each day. Boring and hard on my wrists but no more! My new dishwasher was delivered and I can load it up to run once a day now! How much easier and a lot nicer for me to just press a button and walk out while it does all that work!

I noticed that I have some new followers! How fun! I love finding new blogs to add onto my reading list! I have tried to visit your blogs as well but I may have missed a few out of my occasional "now, what I was doing?" moments. If I haven't visited your blogs yet or sent you a thank you for following my blog, let me say thank you now and I will try to get to it as soon as I can! My new followers and visitors are just as important to me as all the others. I added a few new blogs to my sidebar as well!

Until next time, may you have simple days and an uncluttered heart! Thank you so much for dropping by!

Stormy Weather

Another strong storm hit our area last week. It woke me up in the middle of night with extremely loud thunder and the room was lit up with all the intense lightening. The winds were bringing down trees and doing some major damage to the area but luckily not to our house or property. The weather had said we would get large hail again and it seemed that towns all around us did but it skipped by us. Good news.

Harold has told me about a family of geese that comes back every year to nest at their plant. I love all the stories he tells me about them. He said the guys can't understand why they come down there to nest and I told him it was because the geese know the spot and they consider the guys down there as family. Moma goose had four babies this year. Harold was at work during the storm and said the wind was blowing so hard that two of the babies were lost in the wind. He saw one of them trying to get back to moma and the wind was so hard, the poor little thing could not fight the strong wind. It kept falling and blowing backwards. He carried the baby over to the area where the moma had taken the other two babies for safety. Later another guy found the fourth baby under an engine and carried it to the same spot. A family reunited. I told Harold "see, she knows you guys care and considers you family". DH was afraid that moma goose would reject the two lost babies after being handled but he told me later that they are all together and doing fine.

There were several more storms this past weekend but nothing too bad until lightning hit our front yard! It didn't hit close enough to damage anything but the sound of it hitting was unreal! It even set off the smoke alarm. Some of our neighbors saw the flash of fire it created and ran outside to see if all was well too. That makes the second time lightning has hit our yard! What a scare. Did I mention that I am getting really tired of all these storms?

There were periods of sun over the weekend and during one I sat out on the deck to watch the birds. The warmth of the sun felt glorious to my cold natured side and I began to drift off as I soaked it all in until I was rudely (and painfully) awakened by a sneaky wasp that found his way up under my shirt and must have panicked (or not liked what he saw) when he couldn't find his way back out so he did the natural thing and really let me have it with his stinger - right in the stomach! Leaping to my feet, I was jumping around and yelling like I was doing some odd ritual dance when I saw him fly out from under my shirt and go on his merry way. At least he was happy.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get a lot of stitching done lately. Life has been too hectic with DH on these odd hours. I plan to pick up some stitching again once everything (or at least a good chunk of it) gets back to normal around here again. Whenever that may be!

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope to have some fun stitching news next time I post so be patient with me. Until then, may you have simple days.

Taking a Good Hard Look

As I sit here updating my blog, I am waiting on a phone call from my doctor. It is my gallbladder and I will need surgery. They will have to refer me to a surgeon and so on. I need to let my doctor know that we need to speed this up some! I got word about my dad and it looks like I will need to get back there as quickly as possible!

I told Harold that we need to move some of our birdhouses to the side of our storage building. There are some stray cats that I have been having to "shoo" away from the occupied houses because they are stalking the present tenants! I love hearing all my babies chirping so early in the morning!

There is definitely not much news this morning but the day is still young! LOL. If you get a chance, Vonna's blog is a must read today! She always has a way of helping me put things in perspective about myself and my life! Now, that's a friend!

Thank you all for visiting. I know my posts have been sort of on the down side lately. I am hoping things will begin to look better very soon and I am grateful to you all for continueing to stop by during this terrible slump! Until next time, may you have simple days and an uncluttered heart!

The Weekend Nears

So far I have only been stitching on the word portion of Bird in the Bower. It will begin to look more interesting when I get to the pictorial part of the design.

Warm weather brings out the raccoons and possums and unless I toss out some day old rolls or baked potatoes into the very back section of our yard they will come right up to the house and go through the trashcans. We have gone outside to find 3 or 4 huddled around the area looking for scraps and our neighbor has had to chase them out of their screened porch area! I love nature but not quite this much!

I have been shopping around to get a couple of thimbles for my collection. I only buy several a year so it isn't growing very fast but I am still happy with it. I have been thinking about starting a scissor collection as well. My main problem is my boys. Even though they are in their 20's, they are still like 6 year olds in the fact that they have to touch, pick up, move and play with everything that belongs to mommy! My thimble case has a glass door which sort of says "Keep Out" so there has been no problem with those yet. But scissors on an open shelf could present too much temptation for them. Maybe I could keep them in a jar inside a cabinet with glass doors! LOL.