June Marches On

It's a dark and cold day here at the resort.  We even have the heat on!  I confess to sitting here in my jammies and robe while I contemplate what I'm going to do today.  Given the weather, it's safe to say I'll be spending the day inside.  Meanwhile, my sweetie is out in the woods helping some foresters try to determine what's wrong with their plantations.  (FYI:  plantations are what foresters call areas where they have planted trees.)  Hope he stays warm and dry!

I picked up my knitting again after a few weeks hiatus. I've made enough socks that I thought I knew what to do next without looking at the pattern.  Turns out, I was wrong.  I had to pull out several inches on the heel, but now I'm a few rows into the correct sequence.  I predict I'll be knitting on this cozy, indoor day.

On the scrapbooking front, I have completed seven pages in the last few days!  Yay for me!  Onward and upward: summer of 2002 coming right up.  :-)  I do have a problem though--when I finish this album, as in use all the pages that are in it, I will have used the last of my Creative Memories supplies and they went out of business.  I have checked locally and on the internet, but it seems albums had changed dramatically since I was last busily scrapbooking, and I don't care for the new styles. I hope to be able to get some from a new company that is supposedly taking Creative Memories place, but so far my attempts to meet up with the consultant haven't panned out.  I guess I need to try again.  There's always Ebay, but I don't shop there and really don't want to try although I may have to in the end.  

And in the sewing room?  I had to order some fabric for the center of the runner I'm working on, but it came a few days ago so I can get back to it. 

Looks like I have plenty of fun projects I can work on today.  Guess I'd better get in the shower and get started on this day!  ♥      

Saturday...and the End of May

I am amazed to think that tomorrow is the first of June. Summer is arriving and it feels good.  My sweetie is hard at work on the front landscaping so I'm planning to reward him with a big ol' homemade pizza for supper.  He said it sounded wonderful, bless his heart.  

Down in the sewing room, as I mentioned yesterday, I'm working on a new table runner.  Earlier in the month, while my brain was recovering from being at Mom's and helping her, I needed to sew.  Since the kit for this runner was laying out, it was a no-brainer to start it.  I didn't have to think about finding a pattern and then the fabrics to go with it; all was in readiness.  So runner it was.  

The border on this runner is composed of, are you ready?  One hundred fifty-six pieces.  Yup, 156 pieces! Stitch, stitch, stitch.  Eventually they will go around an appliqued center piece that will feature the leaves you see in the middle of the above picture and will look like the border on the runner pictured below (also shown in earlier blog posts here and here).

I have the fabric to make the last runner in the set which uses a big border type fabric for the center rather than an appliqued one.  At this point I'm not certain I am willing to do another of these borders, but maybe in a few months...

Meanwhile, on the scrapbook front I've make it to Keaton's arrival (he was twelve in February).  Oh well, I'm getting closer to the present!  ♥

Catchin' Up -- Again

Due to Mom's illness, my blog has been left standing by the side of the road for too long, so I may be posting several days in a row here.  Shocking, I know!  

We have not yet come to a conclusion with Mom's medical issues, but we've found that while it is serious, it does not involve anything life-threatening, which is a relief. She's dealing with things that she'd rather not at the moment, however, and weighing a difficult surgery against going with the current treatments.  Not an easy choice for someone who will be eighty-nine in just three months.  

Meanwhile, grandsons Cameron and Keaton have just finished another year of school and with it came Cameron's graduation from eighth grade!  

Oh how that boy is growing!  He's taller than his Grammy now, with Keaton not far behind.  They both had a great year of school and did so well.  We are very thankful and blessed to be their grandparents.  (Picture shamelessly stolen from the school's FB page.)

I'm slowly working away on another table runner from the Keepsake Trio quilting pattern by Laundry Basket Quilts and will post about that soon.  Another pair of socks is also on the needles and scrapbooking pages are being created.   

And last, this is just for you, Hallie.  Here's a picture of this morning's toasted cinnamon raisin English muffin halves as they came out of my fabulous new toaster (plain, no butter; peanut butter added after photo):

And this concludes today's update.  Stay tuned for more, hopefully tomorrow!  ♥

December!?!

I started November off with such high hopes of blogging more often and even got in three posts by the 7th. And then...  After Kathy emailed me yesterday to see if I was still among the living, I realized I needed to stir myself to action.

I have all kinds of good excuses.  First and foremost is the fact that I've always been a one-track person, or one dimensional, or to use a new computer-age term, linear. All to say, I do one thing at a time.  Everytime I try to multi-task, I muck something up.  And truth be told, I usually don't even think to do more than one thing at a time unless I'm forced by circumstances.  Does that mean I'm boring?  Probably.  But that's the way I was made!

So, the most exciting news is that I started scrapbooking again!  Yes, after about five or six years, I'm back at it. Dan's moving of his office freed up my former space and I finally got in the mood to transfer my things back over and begin.  I've done a year and a half so far!  I'm currently working on Christmas 2001.

I'm blessed to have such a great workspace!

I also worked for some days on a machine embroidery project for a friend who works at a local store.  I never take on outside embroidery/sewing work, but when Cyndie asked, it sounded fun so I said yes.  I worked up a design for them and then stitched it out nine times on aprons.  The problem was, the aprons were made of a heavy coated fabric and that made it very hard to stitch on.  I had to lower my machine speed to 1/4 which made the process looong.  And the fabric also dulled needles at an alarming rate.  But the aprons turned out to be adorable and everyone at the store loved them.  I forgot to take a picture, but a big stuffed teddy bear is wearing one in the store's front window, so I hope to take my camera to town and snap a photo to share soon.

Both these projects have taken my time, one at a time, over the last few weeks, and they're my excuse for being away for so long.  I'll be back soon as I have other things to write about.  ♥

A Tale of Dust and a (Minor) Renovation

Don't you just love titles?  So what could this one possible mean?  Could it be that I am actually dusting? Well, yes.  In a way.  Actually, it's a by-product of a frustration with our family room.  Somehow over the last few years it has become a repository of stuff.  Yes, that's the word--stuff!  And it's not been pretty.  Yesterday when I climbed off the NordicTrack, I took a real look around and I definitely didn't like what I saw.  I finally made myself really look and that's when I decided IT WAS TIME.  I definitely needed to ponder the situation and so my plan of action did not kick in until this afternoon. (I had a haircut appointment and a shop staff meeting this morning.)  

So, armed with several dust clothes and my trusty can of Pledge, I descended the stairs to the basement at two o'clock and began.  First to the TV area.  Piles of DVD's and VCR tapes (yes, we are so backwards as to not have a DVR as yet) awaited me.  There has been some activity in that area of late as we finally got a wall mount installed for our TV thanks to Eric, Cameron and Keaton, who put it up over Christmas.  There had been shelves on the wall before with a space for the old style "fat behind" type of TV, but as we all know, they've "gone the way" for the most part and the space definitely wouldn't work for our larger flat screen model.  Dan had worked hard repairing the wall after removing the shelves and then we sort of dropped the ball, except for purchasing said TV mount. Which sat on the floor in its box.  Along with the TV (actually it sat on a stool--for two years).  Anyway, I digress. 

Back to dust.  Yes, there was dust on the counter below the TV along with those DVD's and tapes.  My plan is to somehow use the counter for scrapbooking.  I lost my perfect scrapbooking area when Dan "retired" and began his consulting business.  Across the family room from the TV area was another much longer counter with drawers below and shelves above.  It worked perfectly for spreading out my pictures, albums and all the paper and trims I used.  Plus, the computer was right there, too, to be used for the journaling to accompany the photos. But, it became Dan's office and it has worked well for him. Except it is one more thing to detract from the room's "family room" purpose.  And so, things just started piling up.  And up.  

BUT!  I have taken action!  The dusting led (as I knew it would) to sorting of piles elsewhere.  Where, oh where, could I store my scrapbooking things and still have ready access to them?  Aha!  The wooden chest we use for a coffee table.  What could possibly be in it?  Well, I'll tell you.  Calendars.  Forty years of them. Records of baby teeth, first words, dentist appointments, school conferences, birthdays and special events.  Time out for a trip down memory lane.  They had to be saved.  A new home will be found for them, and quite a bit of my scrapbooking supplies fit into the chest.  

And so, I moved around the room, moving, sorting, and piling.  I'll soon be back down there, doing more.  I needed a break and here I am.  I am started, however, and I will not be stopped until I have succeeded in reclaiming this lovely room to be more than an office and a TV.  Stay tuned.  ♥

Moments in Time

I'm up to my ears in stuff. Really! Tuesday I spent the afternoon with my friend Anne, who is also my daughter-in-law's mom. She invited me over to do some scrapbooking. Yes, I scrapbook. I first started after Matt and Amy's wedding when a friend invited me to a Creative Memories get-together and I took some wedding pictures. By the end of the afternoon, I was hooked and went home to rework the albums I had.

I started with our first album as a married couple. I pulled the photos from those old sticky "magnetic" album pages and put the pictures on new, acid-free paper. I journaled on every page, and slowly made progress. Over the next few years, I got very close to "real time" on several occasions, but then I would burn out or get busy with other things. Until Tuesday, I hadn't scrapbooked in several years.

Well, you can guess what's happened. I'm a woman possessed! When I got home, I began to dig through piles of pictures and memorabilia. I'm very sentimental and anything my loved ones have given me is precious. Scribbled notes created by little hands with color crayons? I've got them. Valentine's cards with Jolly Ranchers stuck to them with tape? Right over there. Pictures of tiny baby toes? Yup. Oh my. Yesterday I was moved to tears by my treasures. And the real reason I've been digging through every single pile I can find? I can't find Cameron's baby announcement. And it's time to do his "Welcome to the World" pages. Ack!! How can I have every thank you card given me by my students and not be able to find the announcement?!? I must remain hopeful.

So, no pictures today. Who needs to see heaped piles of cards, pictures, stickers and colorful paper? I'm off to search one more time for that announcement. Wish me luck.