The Weekend Report

I had such a pleasant weekend!

It started Saturday morning with a trip to LaPorte, IN for the Midwest Stash Exchange at House of Stitches. It's about an hour and a half drive for me but well worth the trip. I saw so much I wanted to buy but had to exercise some restraint. It'd be a long walk back to Three Rivers if I spent my gas and toll money on stash! One gal had some great bargains on Shepherd's Bush kits, but the one item I kept picking up and putting back down was The Riddle by The Drawn Thread, all kitted up with fabric and silks. I tried my best to justify it as a 'house expense' but in the end I had to pass. I wish I'd had the sense to get her name and email address! I'll be crying myself to sleep over that one for a while!

Got back home around 2:00 and after a quick trip to the grocery store we went out to the lake to grill burgers and putt around on the pontoon boat. Anyone else have the feeling we're in for an early fall? Maybe it's just all the back to school ads I keep seeing, but I feel like summer's almost over and I need to spend as much time outside and eat as much potato salad as I can.

Sunday was a lazy day, doing a few chores and taking care of paperwork. We made Tex-Mex rice for dinner and had it with leftover taco meat and fixin's from Friday's dinner. Deee-lish! I would have sat outside on the front porch to eat it but we seem to have attracted every cat in the neighborhood this past week. We'd been putting a little bowl of kitty krunchies out for a stray and it didn't take long for the news to spread. I had three of them lined up and waiting for breakfast this morning at 6:00 AM!

I found some time to stitch Sunday evening and got a little more done on A Wish For You. It finally dawned on me to stitch all the windows and the door so I wouldn't make any mistakes with the checkerboard part (hopefully). Why didn't I think of that before?


It's back to the drywall and sweating through my undergarments today. What a pretty picture that must paint! There's no AC upstairs and it's stiffling hot in the closet we're working on. I'll be soooo happy when we get it finished.

Hope everyone enjoyed the weekend and had time for some stitching and potato salad!

Midwest Stash Exchange

Just a happy little reminder to all you stitchers in the northern Indiana area (because I almost forgot myself!)

The Fourth Annual Midwest Stash Exchange will be tomorrow at the House of Stitches in LaPorte, Indiana from 10:00-3:00 Central whatzit time.

More details are here.

Anyone else planning to go?

Sweet Popcorn in a Bag!

(The title of my post is something we heard being shouted by a vendor selling kettle korn at the Ballpark in Arlington. We now use it as a sort of expletive as in, "Sweet popcorn in a bag! It's hot today!") (Yeah, we're weird.)

Not much progress to report on A Wish For You but I have an excuse! We took a break from all things 'house-renovation-y' and visited the Shipshewana Flea Market in Indiana. What a fun place to spend a day! I wish I'd taken my camera! (Because what this blog needs is more evidence of my lack of photography skillz, right!?!)


I've used some of our purchases from Yoder's Meat and Cheese Company to prop up my q-snaps for the picture. I could easily spend my monthly grocery budget there on cheese alone! And yes, that's a bag of kettle korn, or "crack-korn" as Edgar likes to call it. It is addictive, that's for certain! We had ourselves a Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving type of dinner last night, feasting on cheese and crackers, and kettle korn. Not sure what we'll have tonight but I know it'll involve cheese!

Don't even mention the Rangers to me! They blew a 6-1 lead over the Yankees last night, losing 7-6. I'm sure the neighbors must have heard me yelling at the TV and wondered what was going on! (And true story... my daughter woke me up at 2am one night in TX to tell me there was a roach in her room. The neighbors must have thought some horrible crime was being committed because after 15 minutes of us screaming while we tried to kill the damn thing there came a knock at the door. All I can say is some folks don't have much of a sense of humor at 2am! Maybe they were just trying to politely ignore that I was dressed in Hawaiian luau print boxer shorts and had monkey slippers on my feet!)

Oy! Half the day is gone and all I've managed to accomplish is measuring for shelves in the bathroom. Does that even count as work?

I think it's time for a snack...

Two New Projects

A heartfelt thank you to everyone for the sweet comments on my Winter Wonderland finish! It's so nice to hear from folks who stop by my little corner of the webbernet!

As promised, I started A Wish For You. I started with the easy peasy part of the checkerboard house but I'm going to have to start being careful because some of it looks a bit tricksy when you get around the windows and door. It might behoove me to pop over to the library tomorrow and make a working copy of the chart. I can just see me getting off by one set of squares and then spending three days scratching my head trying to find the mistake. Anyhoosie, here's how she's lookin' after last night's stitchin':


I also have another DIY project in the works. This time it's an upstairs closet that needed some 'revision'. The sheetrock on the walls was about 1/4" thick and full of holes. I swear, the stuff they used was more like cardboard than sheetrock. And when I say holes I don't mean nail holes. These were more like somebody put their fist through the wall. Again and again.


I'd never be happy with just patching the stuff and hoping it looked okay, so out it all came.


We're taking the opportunity to put in some insulation while we can. The only insulation in this house is in the attic, and I know this is just a closet but the way I look at it is every little bit helps, especially up here in the frozen north. I'd hate to not make the extra effort to do it and then regret it later on.


In closing, my work gloves (yes, I know they're actually garden gloves but I like them because they're thicker than the cloth ones but not as thick as the heavy duty leathery type) would like to offer a round of applause to all of my bloggy friends, commenters, followers, stitchers, and DIY'ers!

Hooray! And thanks for stopping by!

Happy Dancing in a Winter Wonderland

Winter Wonderland
Blackbird Designs
Fabric: 30 ct. Dark Chino linen from R&R Reproductions
Fibers: Weeks Dye Works & Gentle Arts
I'm happy to report that Winter Wonderland is finally finished! At least I hope it is! Twice I've thought I was done only to find a few stitches I missed. Chances are there's one or two more!

Next project in my to do pile? Another BBD! I've had A Wish For You kitted up and waiting in the wings for almost as long as I've been working on Winter Wonderland. I can't wait to get started!

Another Project

This one is of the DIY variety and, like Winter Wonderland, is almost complete.

The old house I bought back in 2007 was in need of some major repairs and updating. Okay, that's putting it a little mildly. Check out the bathroom...


Yeesh! It's hard to imagine anyone actually using this bathroom!

First order of business was to remove all the old fixtures and flooring. We also opened up the little closet-sized area where the toilet was, planning to completely rearrange where things were...



Next came all new plumbing and electric, tub, toilet, sink, vanity, lighting, mirror, faucets, tile, paint. I'll skip over the bazillion pictures of the work in progress and show you how it looks today...





Quite an improvement, don't you think? There's still more trim work to be done, and I'll be adding some shelves in the area to the left of the sink but those things have been put on the back burner while I work on other projects.

I've just realized this means my bathroom has officially become a UFO!

Almost There!

All that's left to stitch are the bits and pieces in this corner and I'll be finished with Winter Wonderland! I swear someone's going to have to super glue me to the chair first because I'm just not gettin'er done! I must have an acute case of finish phobia! Is there a cure??

Whoa!

That's what I said when I pulled Winter Wonderland out of the q-snaps to take a progress picture. I've only been able to stitch a little bit here and a little bit there, but goodness! It's growing! I had to stand on a bucket of drywall mud (everyone has a 5 gallon bucket of mud in their kitchen, right?) in order to fit it all in the picture. And while I was up there I had to do a little jig because I'm just soooo excited to be this close to finishing!

In other news, Michigan is now home to it's very own oil spill. An estimated one million gallons of crude oil seeped into the Kalamazoo River from a broken pipeline that is almost as old as I am (don't ask!) and is now on it's way to Lake Michigan.

Booms have been set up to contain the spill ...
and critters are getting baths...
Let's all hope they're able to clean this mess up soon!

My Laugh for the Day

I'm off to go twirling on the beach in my white spandex yoga pants!

(P.S. While the commercial is great, I tried a free sample of this product and did not like them. At all.)

I've totally lost my bloggy momentum so here's a quick progress pic of Winter Wonderland. I'm fairly confident I'll finish it this year so I went ahead and stitched 2010 for the date. Just hope I didn't jinx myself! Does the '2' look a little big to you? I goofed and made it one stitch too tall. I need to have at least one mistake, right? So I'll leave it in and avoid the dreaded double jinx!

Gonna go watch the end of the Rangers game. They're playing Detroit so we have it on a local channel. One of the many things I miss about Texas is being able to catch a Rangers game on TV. I don't follow them as close as I used to but they're still my team! Heck, one of my very first cross stitch projects was the Texas Rangers logo! (It's changed a lot since then!)

I Love Watermelon

I needed a break from Winter Wonderland so I stitched up this freebie from The Sampler Girl.


It was a really quick stitch even for sloooooow me. I started it a couple of days ago and finished it up last night while watching the Mythbusters put duct tape tall tales to the test.

(BTW, the myth where they tape a car to a street light actually worked! It was great!)

Looks like we're in for some rain today. I sure hope it cools things down a bit. I've been wilting in this heat! Is everyone else managing to stay cool?

That's about it for me this morning. Think I'll make a run to the hardware store so I can get started on one of these...

We Interrupt Tonight's Stitching

No sooner had I sat down and made that first stitch when this guy dropped down out of nowhere and onto my magnifier. Right under my nose!

Whatcha workin' on??
I tried whacking him (rather timedly) with a rolled up newspaper only to have him hop off the light and into my tennis shoe.

Anyone care to trade lives? Just for tonight?

Good Times, Noodle Salad

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend! We were out at the lake both Saturday and Sunday, soaking up some sun, lighting fireworks, and proving that it is indeed possible to survive for two days on hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans, and noodle salad. (You need to say 'noodle salad' like Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets!)

I took a bazillion pictures while we were out cruising around the lake so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites.

There was an abundance of happy screams and giggles carrying out across the water from this small campground:

I love this house:
I'd go crazy with flags and bunting if I owned it!

These folks were getting ready for one heck of a party:

And here's the Rambler, Her Very Self, après noodle salad:
(I was attempting to suck in my chin and nose for this picture!)

Dinner tonight is ham sandwiches and potato salad because I'm still in that holiday frame of mind! Once I get some corn on the cob and watermelon in me I should be good!

Happy 4th of July!

HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

JCS Ornie Preview

It's time for the annual ornament sneak peek from JCS! Have you got your copy yet? We were up in the 'big city' (Kalamazoo) yesterday so I popped into Barnes & Noble and after minimal pestering managed to find an employee willing to dig through the magazines they hadn't yet put out for display. Hooray! The squeaky wheel got it's grease!


I couldn't resist picking up a few new cooking magazines, too. Those slick, shiny covers with their colorful foody photos are too much of a temptation! And Paula Deen always makes me smile!


We went out for broasted chicken dinners last night so lunch time saw me in the kitchen pulling apart our leftovers for chicken salad.


It's all sooooo good!

Killing Me Softly...

...with gravy!
This time it's chicken pot pie. Very yummy, and look! There's veggies! So it can't be all bad!

Finally!

Woohoo! I put the last white stitch in the house this afternoon! I'm so ready to move on to something that actually requires some counting! Luckily, I have plenty more little bits and pieces to finish on this one.

This weekend was the local Water Festival in Three Rivers. I was hoping they'd have a Tilt-a-Whirl which was my favorite ride growing up, but no such luck. I don't know if I would have paid $4 for a ride anyway. We visited the farmer's market and got some bread and home brewed root beer but that's about all that piqued my interest. I swear, I'm turning into such an old fart! A cheap one at that!

I hope everyone had a nice Father's Day weekend! We smoked a pork roast and made pulled pork sandwiches which we ate with cabbage, corn on the cob, and a most excellent orzo salad. Yum! (I'd post a picture if I had one, but y'all would just hate me, haha!)

Calling All Janeites!

I saw on Mary Kathryn's blog that there is a group read of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice starting today. Check out Pride & Prejudice Without Zombies if you're interested in reading along. All of my books are still in storage so I dashed over to the library this afternoon and picked up both the audiobook and the LARGE PRINT edition. (Squinting causes wrinkles!) I'm planning to listen while I stitch, but I thought it might be fun to follow along with the book, too. I can even make a "beep" sound when it's time to turn the page!

Chapters 1-7 tonight! I have a busy night ahead! :-)

(P.S. Did anyone else have those read-a-long books that came with the records? I had The Jungle Book and practically wore out the grooves on the record, listening to it over and over and over. It was the only thing that got me to stop playing Yellow Submarine over and over and over.)

The Ugly, The Bad, & The Good

The Ugly: One beautiful Saturday morning in northern Indiana my daughter did this...

The Bad: I've been helping her shop for another car which means dealing with these guys...

The Good: We are very thankful that she was able to walk away from the accident with nothing more serious than some cuts and bruises. My pretty girl...
"Can I borrow your car, Mom?"

A Better White

The consensus here was that the Shaker White looked better on the house than the Oatmeal. (Although if you ask me, the Shaker White looks far more oatmealier than the Oatmeal does. Go figure.)

Here's a quick pic of my progress:

I hope everyone had a chance to relax with some stitching this weekend! We've been having quite a bit of rain here but managed to sneak in some grillin' out at the lake Saturday evening. Poor little me who doesn't like brats had to make do with a steak... darn!

Someone in Kalamazoo won a $36 million lottery jackpot on Saturday. I had a momentary glimmer of hope because I'd given my daughter a dollar we'd found while shopping and told her to blow it on a lotto ticket. Alas, she hadn't bought one so there went my early retirement. And new car. And beach bungalow with a cozy stitching room. And stash. Lots of stash. It was mine in my head for about 30 seconds, though!

Thanks for visiting! I'll be back soon with another Winter Wonderland progress pic!