I'm Back!

Hello Gentle Readers...

Who used to say that? Miss Manners? I think so.

After an extended absence, I'm back. For those of you who don't know, my dad was diagnosed in November with a variety of cancers and passed away on March 13. His funeral was held on March 18 and 19 in Alabama where he was buried near his late girlfriend. Personally I think my dad was too young to go but I had no say in the matter. Rather than send sympathies I asked people to purchase themselves flowers or a plant because my dad loved to look at flowers. So please be sure to treat yourself well. I'm pretty sure we all go 'round only once.

For some reason, I have The Spring Cleaning Fever! You might think this is because it's spring but I'm one of those people that only gets The Fall Cleaning Fever. So today, I'm rushing about the house, taking down curtains and washing them (twice because they still look dirty!), scrubbing floors, dusting things (don't you LOVE Swiffer dusters? - I absolutely HATE to dust, such a waste of time) and making a stab at all things dirty in general. I sat down here for a rest because my back is killing me after all the vacuuming.

I just finished vacuuming Star and I'm not kidding. The poor thing sees the vacuum coming out and she comes running. Since she was a puppy I taught her that the vacuum is NOT to be feared. The vacuum is our friend! Obviously, she took this lesson to heart. She likes to be vacuumed and what person hasn't thought "why not just vacuum the source of all this hair?" DON'T WORRY! I'm terribly careful about her ears, etc. I pretty much just do her back and sides and she seems to think it has something to do with grooming. If I get the vacuum out and DON'T vacuum her I get the doggy evil eye. That is NOT a pretty thing coming from a golden retriever. :-)

That's why I thought she'd be a natural for the Bissell box dog and asked my whole Homestead email list to vote for her one week. I have to tell you only 21 people voted for her and she didn't win. :-( Maybe I should have included a picture of her being vacuumed. To tell you the truth, I don't have a Bissell vacuum, but I do have a Bissell carpet cleaner. I won't use that on her though, it's hot water! :-) Anyway, maybe BISSELL SHOULD READ THIS AND SEND ME A FREE VACUUM TO TRY ON HER! What do you think about that?

I took 3 projects to stitch on in the car while I was gone. Not a lot of stitching got done, I should tell you right up front. I did stitch a little on the April tree which is a red, white and blue number. Lighting in the hotels was pretty poor and for some reason on the road I couldn't concentrate. In fact, I pretty much looked out the window. Spring has begun in parts of Kentucky with daffodils at the side of the road.

Maybe I'm in the cleaning mood because I have a semi-big-ole birthday rearing it's ugly head at me this week. In case you're wondering, I'm halfway to dead. You figure it out, I don't want to mention it. All I know is I keep realizing I haven't done a lot of what I wanted to do in life. So this August I'm going to Yellowstone. That's right! Me and my hubby. ROAD TRIP! If you're really lucky, I'll take the computer and post pictures along on the way.

Okay, that's it for now! Check back another day for more in my exciting life! Theresa

Some Stitchin'

Time for more pictures - in case you thought I was slacking!



The heart is the February Rainbow Gallery Heart and was finished a while ago but I kept forgetting to take a picture. I haven't done the REAL finishing work yet. But it's stitched and that's what counts here.

Next, my progress on Galaxy. I'm thrilled with this piece and this time, decided to work downwards instead of across. Mostly because I finally chose my silk. The one to the bottom that you can see I'm still stitching is done with Gloriana silk. It's called Rosebud and is really pale.

I think that overall my Watercolor choice is not dark enough but too bad. I like the colors in them. :-) And I REALLY like the colors I chose to go with them. So far anyway! I can't wait to put the star in that starts in the corner with the bright green! This piece is GREAT fun.

Off to stitch some more!

Now That's a Plow!

There I was grocery shopping and minding my own business while the 8" predicted fell. Apparently Meijer's has contracts with owners of John Deere products for more than just produce. This puppy cleared more than 2 lanes at once. I hope YOU don't run into this one on a county back road!

Bath Day...

Okay not me! Don't worry, I shower daily. Today was a bath for Star. I've been taking her to a groomer for over a year but today I decided to do it myself at home. The last two times I took her to her usual groomer they haven't trimmed her feet so...I bathed her myself in the downstairs shower. I suppose I should have taken a picture of her all wet for you but that would have been mean. Kind of invading her personal space don't you think? :-) Maybe next time.

She was terribly good about the whole thing. She doesn't run away from the blow dryer, in fact tries to catch the air. Don't ask me! She's done that since puppy-dom. And then she enjoyed the brushing and the trimming and all the extra attention. Oh and she looks good too. :-)

I had so much fun Saturday with the 3rd Saturday stitchers. They decided to give everybody at the table names for what they THINK they look like. You know how sometimes you meet somebody and you think "Barb! She doesn't look like a Barb to me. She looks like a BETHANY!" And then sometimes by mistake you call her Bethany? Okay, you don't know? Well we have one stitcher who keeps calling me Tricia and somebody else Gail. Don't get me wrong, I LIKE being called Tricia. I even answer to it! But it was making us all laugh so we renamed everybody. Apparently next month we're having a test on our names. Our FAKE names. Wish me luck because I didn't write them down. But I do remember one of them because I recited the Lizzy Borden poem for it. You know, Lizzy Borden took an axe... That one. Who could forget that one?

I think you had to be there. After all, you learn SO MUCH when you go stitching. :-)

Off to bed! Hopefully I can show you my progress on Galaxy tomorrow during the big snowstorm.

I Hate Vacuuming

Today is the day when I run around and do everything. I have a complaint so hold on to your hats.

I went to Meijer's to grocery shop. I was greeted with lots of drywall, big white drop cloths covering the usual stuff around (including where the grocery carts are!) and a general air of depravity. Okay not really depravity. But I'm not happy. They JUST CHANGED my Meijer's about 3 years ago. I put up with it then. But now, they're changing it AGAIN to look like the Hartland store. BAH! I don't like the looks of that store. What do I have to do, go shop at Kroger? I couldn't find stuff, they shrunk some of the aisles down to jam in the products they moved, grrrr...So now you know that I'm getting old and crabby and don't like change.

Then I went to the local bird store to buy a new water heater for the bird bath. Pretty exciting, I know. Oh my gosh (OMG?) they had like FIVE to choose from. What luck! We can't have our birds without water. Our other one bit the dust sometime during the week. No, they don't seem to bathe in the winter, just drink like little horses.

In between those trips of course, I hit the library, post office and McDonald's for an ice tea. I had to stock up for this BIG SNOWSTORM we're expecting. I can't wait to see Star playing in the snow again. It's practically mud out here right now.

Then I had to come home and unload everything. The fun times began with Star and I taking a winter walk. Brrrr! No, I'm not healthy, I'm trying to lower my cholesterol. Quit laughing. Then I decided to vacuum the 20 lbs. of dog hair out of the car. I usually do this weekly in the fair weather months but WHO wants to be outside vacuuming their car when it's 30 degrees out? So that's done. Then I had to come in and vacuum inside. The only good thing about that is Star is constantly at my heels. No kidding, this dog LIKES the vacuum cleaner. "Somebody" taught her it's a good thing. She especially likes being vacuumed. Don't you think that Eureka would like a video of my dog getting a vacuum?

Oh stitching! Yes, you'd like to read about that! My ANG chapter decided for the next 3 mos. that we would do either Galaxy or Sierra. I went with Galaxy because I love stars. (Duh.) It's kind of a quilty looking thing but you can change it to your own colors quite easily by just choosing a light and dark Watercolors and then 13 perle cottons and a couple of metallics. I'm actually doing this one for ME - in between all the shop models. I didn't get too far this weekend. Maybe I should give up vacuuming? :-)

Theresa

Thoughts on Upcoming Birthdays

So...some of my dear sisters and hubby keep hassling me to find out what I want/need for my birthday. Which is for MONTHS yet. Tonight Chris informed me that it was a MILESTONE birthday. I told her "Yes, it's a milestone, not a TOMBSTONE."

We both thought that one was good enough to share with you. :-)

Stitch on! Theresa

Hearts and Housework

So today my choices are to do housework (blech) or finishing. I'm not so great at finishing. First I did laundry, made a chicken and sausage pie for dinner (yum!) ran the dishwasher and then looked at all the housework. BOOORRRRINNNG. I'm off my schedule since I grocery shopped Saturday after work.


After doing a tiny bit of actual MENDING on some clothing, I whipped out the January 2010 FREE heart from Rainbow Gallery that Janet started for me and I finished stitching. Talk about a team effort! I'll add this chart as soon as I can. There's going to be a heart a month. Talk about fun. I love hearts.

That's Crystal Braid, Very Velvet and Neon Rays in there. Don't look too close because I saw some spots I should have added more Crystal Braid but I left it at work so I went and finished it anyway. Hey, I had the sewing machine out!

Anyway, if you've ever done finishing, you know why I usually send mine out. First, it takes too long. Secondly, mine usually comes out a little - er - misshapen. But this one isn't too bad. If you're going to do these, run to the fabric store NOW for some awesome heart fabrics. It's that time of year! I also got some lace for a song that has hearts on it. Kind of hard to see it in this picture. What a bummer, you can't even see my twisted cord hanger I made too.

So I have this nice fabric for the backing and some nice lace and I ACTUALLY REMEMBERED how to pin the lace on for it to come out the right way. The first time I ever made a quilted pillow in a class about 20 years ago, my ruffle was inside the pillow. Not good. You should have seen the look the teacher gave me. I had to go back to the shop ALL ALONE for remedial pillow sewing. How embarassing.

It gets worse. I start pinning and realize I don't have a hanger. So back upstairs through the ribbon box, but do I have the perfect burgundy ribbon? No. Do I feel like going to Joann's to buy it? No. So I search through my floss and decide 814 is the best color. There I am, attaching a doubled length to my cupboard knob and twisting away (and then it falls off and I start over) while Star looks on. She was much more interested when I was cooking of course, but you never know what might fall on the floor.

Finally, I get it twisted to my satisfaction, and tie a knot in both ends so it won't untwist. I pin THAT to the heart and sit down for some careful sewing. I remember to leave a hole to turn my heart inside out.

It's all sewn together and I'm clipping the seams when I realize that I have (most stupidly) sewn, pinned and sewn the hanger on so it will nicely hang INSIDE THE HEART with the knotted ends on the outside! (sigh) I only rip out that part of course at the inside point and turn it around and sew it in again. That along takes a good twenty minutes because of course I BACKSTITCHED IT THERE so it would be EXTRA SAFE. What an idiot. I should have cleaned the house!

NOW you know why I send out the finishing. Can't you just see getting your standups back upside down and backwards? :-)

Theresa