It isn't possible

How can this cute little fellow be all grown up?

18months

14th birthday

two years ago Brian was living in Illinois so we went to visit for his 27th birthday and took him to Chicago (it is a shame he doesn't look more like his dad, huh?) Yes, mom went up the elevator in the Sears Tower - not a pleasant experience. Fine at the top - just getting up and down that were an issue.
Today he is 29. How is that possible?
Happy Birthday, Brian!

exchange package

I got this months ornament exchange package in the mail yesterday. Isn't it cute?

Noel Birdhouse by Brittercup designs from the 2004 JXS ornie issue. It is going to be so fun to put all these ornaments on the tree this year. (which is not to say I'm looking forward to putting up a tree, but that is a whole other story)

This was the whole exchange package. I love everything in it.

Aren't these buttons just too cute? I'm thinking when Bertha and I get better acquainted, these would be super cute on a stitching bag!

Quilting class was fun last night. I have a few more pieces to cut out before next weeks class but I should be able to get that done with no problem. We didn't break out the machines this time but we will start sewing pieces together next week.

That is the good news. Now the bad news. (When it rains, it pours). Something is wrong with my van and it is going to have to go to the carspital. :( It has been doing strange things the past couple of weeks. (spastic wiper blades for one thing - that'll drive ya crazy!) I was out doing my next to last errand today and when I came out of the cleaners it wouldn't crank. Nothing. Dead as a doornail. Of course hubby is 45 minutes away and couldn't get away from work anyway so I called kidlet #2. He came and tried to jump start it and that didn't work either. After we sat there debating on what to do, I was going to get out and tell them (cleaners) I was leaving it there and would be back to get it later this evening when hubby gets home and the buzzer came on when I opened the door. I tried it again and it cranked. Whew. I came straight home (bypassed the pharmacy - I can get it next week, no biggie) Just pray it doesn't take too much to fix it. It needs to last me a couple of more years. We were supposed to go shopping for hubby a new(er) ride tomorrow so I guess we will either go in his no a/c truck or borrow daddy's. He doesn't want to take mine out of town until we can get it in next week to see what is up. (his daily commute is 60 miles, mine is 3 so he really needs the more dependable vehicle at the moment) I'm just glad it didn't decide to not crank last night when I was 30 miles away after dark!

I currently have 318 feeds in my google reader. No way I will ever be able to get through them and make comments. I will be lucky to catch up w/o leaving comments!

Guess I should go get some dinner ready - I don't think we will be going out to eat tonight!

If I don't lose my mind, I'll post again soon. If I do - well, it might be awhile!

Bertha has wheels

Big Bertha is now packed in this (rolling) bag (minus the tag!) and ready to go.


We are meeting Sherry for lunch and shopping, then this evening we are taking a quilting class.

These are the fabrics I picked for my quilt. I may end up in a corner with a dunce cap on before the evening is over. I can now thread Bertha w/o dragging out the book, but that is about it. Need to wind a new bobbin? (and I will once I get my thread for the quilt) Gotta get out the book.
Wish me luck!

She's a lady

That was a song once, wasn't it?
Autumn usually sleeps all curled up - sniffing her butt. I guess she thought she needed a stretch yesterday and this is what I was greeted with when I walked through the living room.

Just so lady-like.

I just can't seem to keep up with myself these days. I can't get my blog feeds below 150. I get that far, then when I come back they are over 200 again. I can't just mark them read and start over because I might miss something really good!
A lot of things have been going on here that keep me from spending too much time sitting in this chair - not that that is a bad thing, just that I'm having a hard time keeping up - which is why my posts are so far apart.

I got this in the mail yesterday.

I've only had time for a quick flip through so far but I'm anxious to have time to sit and give it a good look.
Tonight is stitch night and it is my turn to cook. I made dessert last night (nothing creative, I had a brownie mix in the pantry) and baked my cornbread. I'm going to put stew in the crock-pot before I head to work. Not very exciting but the best I could do for this week. Maybe next time I'll be more creative. Stitch night is a good time to try something new. As long as we have something good for dessert we can deal with a 'nope, not gonna make that again dinner'.
Hope you are having a good week.

Feelin' Fallish

Well, not so much today, but the last few days it has felt a little fallish - today it is warming back up!

I put a few fall things in my little porch house this morning. It still needs something - not sure what. Maybe more leaves? I'll have to do some thinking on it. This is the only fall thing I have out so far. I did wash the glass and ceramic pumpkins and I picked up some candy for them while I was shopping this morning.

I think I'll go wander through the antique mall on my way back to pick up my scripts at the pharmacy.

Enjoy the rest of the day!

(btw - spell check doesn't think 'fallish' is a word! you know what I mean though - right?)

A dog, a clock and a cake

What do these things have in common? Nothing, except that those are the pictures I am posting today.

A dog.
This is Autumn's favorite place to sit. (other than the chair in the living room) If anyone is in the kitchen, she is right here on the rug in front of the stove (I see the rug needs a washing!) I guess she thinks this is the best spot to watch for anything edible that hits the floor. (and she usually catches it before it hits the floor) If you are trying to cook you have to constantly make her move so you can reach the stove.
Apparently on Tuesday she thought she would have a wasp (or bee) for a snack. I left my camera at work so I couldn't get a picture of her Tuesday night. Her face was so swollen she could barely open her eyes. She looked pitiful. By the time I got home yesterday, she was back to her normal self. Since it wasn't the first time, I'm sure she didn't learn her lesson and the next time anything flies close enough for her to snap at it, she will. Goofy dog.

A clock.
This clock tower is on a corner in the middle of our little town. There is a clock on all 4 sides (but they only put the sign on the front) Several months ago the clock was removed for repair. I'm not sure how long it is supposed to be before the clock is replaced. I don't remember it having a chime, but the clock has been here way longer than I have so I will take their word for it. Every day when I am downtown I think I should take a pic to post but I always forget.

Yesterday when I was leaving work, I noticed this on one side. I assume this was a result of Ike, but I don't know that for sure. I didn't notice it Monday or Tuesday, but from where I walk across the street it isn't that noticeable. I noticed it when I drove around the block yesterday. (and when I was stopped taking the pics I was getting strange looks from the people in the other cars - obviously non-bloggers!)

And a cake.
Hubby's b'day was Monday so I baked his favorite cake - Italian Cream Cake.

Off to the doc today where I'm sure we will once again change meds in our quest to rid myself of the never-ending headache. At least I have stitch night to look forward to tonight!

Meet Big Bertha

After the weekend we had, the weather was perfect yesterday and looks like the same for today. 50s in the mornings and 70s in the afternoons - my kind of weather. Not that I'm picky or anything.
Progress on things around here is going rather slowly so I thought I would introduce you to Big Bertha today.

Big Bertha came to live with me about a month ago. So, either I have committed myself to learning to sew or I should just be committed. We are still getting to know each other. BB is the reason for the recent office re-do (this picture was before the table was finished) I'm still moving things around - trying to figure out what works best where - but I will show more pictures later.

I know I'm behind on some responses and I will get to them. I'm also way behind on reading blogs and while I will read all of them, my comments may be few!

Most of the clean up in our yard is done although none of the furniture and stuff has been put back where it goes. I will probably put the fall stuff out as we are putting that stuff back. We still don't have a house phone. In addition to the neighbors tree on the phone line, I saw another (larger!) one on the line on the other end of the street. They were working on that one yesterday but as of yet, they haven't done anything with the one next door. There are still a lot of places here in town - well, all over east Texas - with no power so no phone is not a problem. (and we do have working cell phones)

Hubby has been working long hours since the beginning of last week (because of Ike) and it will probably be that way (at least) the rest of this week so things around the house are moving slower than usual.

That is it for today. Just wanted to let you know if you left a comment, I really appreciate them and I'm working on getting back to you! (if you left a way for me to respond - I really like it when I have an email addy to respond to. (hint, hint.)

We had a visitor

We had an uninvited visitor named Ike.

When we first got up Saturday it wasn't raining yet but by daylight we were getting rain and some wind.





by 10:00 the winds were getting stronger. I couldn't get pictures of the gusts that were stronger than this without going outside and I wasn't going to do that! (I took this peeking out the front door - when they got stronger the winds pushed the door closed on me!)




At some point, the city came out and put these up on the road in front of the house. There was a line down farther down the road, but you wouldn't believe how many people just went around these (I should have kept count) until it finally got so rutted out on both sides I guess they were afraid of getting stuck and started turning around.


Our front yard about mid-afternoon. If you look in the distance at my neighbors yard you see this


just behind that pole, you can see the stump from a tree she lost several years back. That one fell to the front and landed in the street. This one may be on the side street some but I didn't walk that far. (it started raining again)

It did take down the phone line - we are still without a land line. You can see in some of the pictures that we have huge trees like this in our yard. I'm sure they are all about the same age and every time we have strong winds/rain, I'm afraid this is going to happen in our yard. She has been lucky that hers have fallen away from the house.



the other side of the front yard


back yard beside driveway. I thought my flamingo whirly thing was close enough to the fence to be protected but he bit the dust.


flower beds didn't fare well - most of the cannas were shredded so I just cut them all back.


Blue butterflies didn't fare well either. We staked them back up - hope they survive (they still had blooms on them though!)

we put most of the yard stuff up as much as we can (not a lot of room in the garage since oldest kidlet has an apartment worth of stuff out there) all the metal chairs were behind the garage but it did catch this one.




back corner.

All in all, we fared pretty well. The power went off and on a few times during the day (so I kept the computer off all day) After the rain and wind were gone, at 12:30am on Sunday - that is when our power went off. Have no idea why, but it was back on when we got up yesterday so no real problem there. It blinked a lot yesterday but never went out, thank goodness!

While we were cleaning up all the debris from the yard, we had to watch out for these guys


I don't know if you can see them if you enlarge the pic, but trust me, there are thousands of little ants in there. We have several of these in the yard.


I thought it was amazing that my one hydrangea bloom is still on the plant. I may have to cut it and bring it in to dry.

I haven't ventured out to see anything around town, but I know there were lots of trees down and many people still are without power.

And for Rue - I decided to cook my peas Friday night, just in case we didn't have power on Saturday, at least we could have cold peas!


When we had power late Saturday afternoon, I cooked some cornbread to go with them - yumm.
So - we are trying to get back to normal today. Schools are closed here today due to power outages but since I don't have kids that young, that doesn't really affect me. I'll be heading in to work in an hour or so. I haven't heard if downtown has power or not. (if not, I'll be home PDQ)

I still can't believe we made it through with minimal power outage - ours usually goes out before the wind even thinks about blowing! We were really lucky.

a quick post

Thought I would pop in and make a quick post while we still have power. The wind is picking up and it is starting to rain lightly.They tell us to expect the power to go out and stay out for several days. Oh how fun. This was supposed to be a girls crafting weekend but I had to cut it sort because of Ike. (I'm using great restraint by not typing a not nice word here - I'm thinking it though) I went to my friend Sherry's on Thursday and wasn't supposed to come home until late tonight but I had to come home late yesterday instead.
I thought I would show you the pink pig (from the Red Thread piece)I stitched on the other night.
If it isn't too hot after the power goes out, I will try to get some stitching in. (when Rita took out the power, it was so flippin hot that time you couldn't hold a needle in your hand for the sweat! the power was out 3 days that time - yes, I know it was out much longer in other areas but we won't go there.
Naturally - hubby is heading in to work. I hope he can make it home at some point. I guess one of the advantages to having two grown sons still living at home is that at least I won't be here by myself all day.
I'll be back - soon I hope!
Everyone in Ike's path - stay safe!

For Rue

Daddy brought me another 'mess' of purple hull peas yesterday and since I had shelled the last two, hubby shelled this bucket full.


Rue - this is what they look like after being shelled. Next time I cook some, I'll show you what they look like ready-to-eat. :)

While hubby was shelling peas

I stitched on a pink pig!

Red Thread update

I finally finished the August square and since I had to take the piece off the Qsnap to move it over I thought I would take a picture. It is really hard to get a good picture since it is so long. Despite the fact that I have done a lot of frogging on this piece (I think I stitched August twice!) it is still fun to stitch. I hadn't opened it up all the way in awhile (I have the excess rolled and pinned to keep it out of my way) so it was fun to open it all the way for a look.

Just shellin'

No stitching here last night. Daddy planted fall peas this year since the summer ones didn't produce so well. He picked these for me yesterday and I shelled them last night.

My fingers are only slightly purple today, but my thumb sure is sore!

Have a great weekend!

What Gustav left behind

This is the total left behind by Gustav (well - in my yard at least)

one half inch of rain. We won't talk about the traffic in town, since it should have mostly cleared out by now. Tuesday it was bumper to bumper heading south out of town. (I didn't go near the main road yesterday so I can't say for sure)

We are also having cooler than normal temps which meant when I got home at 5:00 yesterday there were still morning glory blooms - they usually melt by noon. I'm sure the cooler temps won't last, but it will be nice for another day or so! They say the sun should come back out today.

I'm steadily working on the Red Thread project. I'm still working on the August square but I have hopes to actually catch up and finish the Sept. square this month.
Off to do those 'Thursday things'.
Have a great day!

So far

so good. This is all the rain we have had from Gustav so far.

The power went off at 10:30 last night, but came back on immediately. It is a little breezy out, but I think we have dodged most of the effects of Gustav. I'm sure we will probably still get rain, but it doesn't look anything like what they were predicting on Sunday. Whew.

Monday morning glories

I guess I am a little over-excited about the morning glories. That is why I keep showing pictures! Trust me, I've taken way more than I've shown. :) This is the first time I've planted them and I am just so happy to see them blooming!

This is actually a picture of the blooms from yesterday.

These are the blooms from today.

lots of blue butterflies

the lantana is pretty much taking over the flowerbeds! There really are nandinas planted behind the lantana. I think I'm going to have to move the lantana soon.

As you can see, we had lots of sunshine this morning but the clouds have started moving in now and there is an occasional breeze. The wind is supposed to pick up as the day wears on. We have moved everything in the yard to where it can't do (hopefully) to much damage if it gets as windy as they are telling us it is. When Rita came through we had just enough wind to knock out power (for days...) and very little rain. (which meant we had no a/c, high humidity and hot temps and not even a hint of a breeze) I hope they have been giving Gustav more credit than he deserves and we don't actually get the wind and flooding they are predicting. Just in case - I'm hoping just moving all the furniture on the front porch up against the house will be good enough. The back deck should be pretty protected since it has walls on the south and east sides. I do still need to take down the wind chimes and the window that are hanging from the deck cover. I'm thinking that may be a good job for the hubby since he can do it without having to climb up in a chair and I can't. Now I guess all we can do is wait.
I hope if you are in the path of Gustav you are safe and sound - somewhere else (and I know thousands of you are here in East Texas) and I hope the damage is minimal when you return home. Hopefully Hanna will decide to just go north and not actually hit land. (yes, I know, wishful thinking, but hey - can't hurt!)