Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone!! As of 9pm the the kitchen is put back together, the house is cleaned, pies & rolls baked and the presents are wrapped & under the tree that was put up just yesterday. The Christmas decorating was much simplified this year...just no time, energy or desire for anything else.

It was 9pm, but they're under there.

Kitchen is finished, or at least as finished as it's getting for now.

 

And here's where we started from:

Quite a difference!!

Now I'm going to get the bird ready to go in the oven bright and early in the morning, then have a piece of pumpkin pie and think about getting to bed. I'm TIRED.

Lookin' better

Before I go to bed tonight there will be another coat of primer and a coat of finish paint on the upper cabinets. The end is in sight.

Progress

Bottom cabinets with primer.

Primed cabinet doors & drawers. So lovely in the living room.

The last two photos show what's going on in my sewing room. No sewing, that's for sure.  Since I took these pictures I added another coat of primer and then after supper. a coat of finish. Hoping I can get another coat on tomorrow after work.

A New Christmas Carol

I came across this on another blog and decided to share:



Now, doesn't that build up your Holiday Cheer....and wish you had that kind of talent?

Today's the day

Lori asked when we'd see some of my painting. Today's the day, here are a couple pictures:

The color shows more true in the second picture. It's called Nutmeg Frost and the surprising thing is that the dried color on the walls is actually a little bit lighter than the sample, which is good, since I thought it might get too dark. I really like it. The DH wants to start taking the doors and hardware off the other cabinets to paint yet before Christmas.....but I tell you, I'm tired and the walls could really stand another coat.

There's still a few boo-boos to fix too. It's funny how when you correct one it causes another. It's so much easier to just paint everything white, then there aren't any boo-boos to fix.  LOL

Life's little surprises

Anyway, on Wednesday I finally broke down & went shopping. Needed some things for next week & it's too late to order & get them on time, so off I went.  I only went to three stores but they were busy, busy, busy. I will repeat....I hate the new layout at the Wal*Mart store. I about walked my legs off in that place looking for what I needed. And, if they expect people to spend any time in there shopping they should turn down the heat a little. Since I avoid shopping whenever possible, here's a picture to prove I went.

 

As if me going shopping wasn't a big enough surprise the real surprise came a little later in the evening. I was on the computer and a window appeared saying I needed to restart so AVG (my anti-virus program) could finish an update. Now, this has happened before so I just clicked OK and waited for it to reboot. It didn't. And wouldn't. Windows 7's automatic fixes..uh,uh. Now I don't know if some code-writer at AVG got careless, if they got hacked or if I was lucky enough to receive a fake update, but it changed the drive letters. Drive C is supposed to be the operating system, Drive E is the Recovery partition. The "update" had switched the drive letters around so my poor computer received a literal lobotomy.....couldn't remember how to boot itself up. I knew I'd have to reinstall Windows and  I always set my personal computers up so I have a Drive D partition where I keep all my personal data & knew it would be safe. At least I thought so. For some reason the reinstall took away my "Downloads" file on the D partition. Strange. (Update: Guess what? I found the contents of the "Downloads" file in my downloaded audio-books folder. Imagine that!! So my recent experience with reinstalling the OS wasn't quite so strange.)  Reloading programs is tedious and time consuming, but all is mostly back to normal now. The whole episode has convinced me I need to subscribe to a backup service, probably Carbonite.

So that's what I've been up to the last couple of days. No sewing at all, I'm sad to say. No genealogy and not much reading either. Still piddling with the kitchen redo. Maybe I'll get it done before I hit retirement age. LOL

 

Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We had our family Thanksgiving on Sunday so today it's just the two of us....and Daughter's dog....the cats are hiding.  We're having roast chicken and all the fixings. DH doesn't care for turkey white meat so going the turkey breast route is out.

Did I mention before that I'm babysitting Daughter's dog over this holiday weekend. Don't you think he looks pretty content?

Sometimes he does the cutest things. Last night he decided he wanted to take his stuffed kitty outside. So finally I put him on his leash(he's a runner) & he picks up his kitty, takes it out and carefully lays it on the porch while he goes out in the yard to take care of business. Then he comes back, carefully picks up kitty and brings it in the house. Silly dog. I just stood there laughing.

This is the lastest quilt....a Quilt Group quilt that went to a member's son who was in a car accident. I only quilted it & did the binding.

 

TGIF

Friday.  Since my last post all the damned blasted wallpaper is off the walls and two big deer have been cut up on my kitchen table.  Guess who still has some meat to wrap.

All the blocks for Orange Crush have been sewed together and have been pressed since this picture was taken. The star blocks are shown in an earlier post.

I have no idea when I'll get to lay them out to put the top together. When you have a refrigerator setting in the living room with the furniture pushed out of the way to make room it doesn't leave much space for laying out a quilt. LOL After seeing the blocks next to each other I kind of wish I had used a brighter red in the star blocks, but what I used was what I had at the time..................and I don't do do-overs!!!!  It'll be fine, just a little darker than it might have been.

Enjoy your week-end. We'll be having Thanksgiving at our daughter's on Sunday and celebrating our younger granddaughter's 12th birthday.

Another step done

Lately, I haven't said much about progress on Orange Crush...because there hasn't been any, but today I finished putting these together. Thirty of them.

I'd slop wallpaper remover on the wallpaper and then while it was soaking I'd go sew two or three blocks, scrape off the wallpaper and repeat, repeat, repeat.

Now I can start working on the ORANGE part of Orange Crush. Do you suppose I'll get this top done before Bonnie starts posting clues for the next mystery later this month?  That's a mystery in itself.  LOL

Heart quilt

Last week I was working on a Heart quilt that I couldn't share a photo of. Since it has now gone to live with its recipient I can post a picture of the quilt & the new owner.

 

Our quilt group makes these quilts from group blocks to give to people who have had some sort of set-back. Wanda's had a pretty rough year so we're happy for her to have one of them.

As for me, I'm still stripping wallpaper....hope to have it finished by the end of the week.  I work at it until my hands & shoulders hurt too much, then quit for a while. The fridge will have to be moved out to really finish the job. Then it's washing everything down, putting on primer and finally painting the color. If I could only make up my mind about the exact color!!!!!!!!!!!  LOL

I'd rather be sewing

No pictures today. I'm having so much fun stripping wallpaper off my kitchen walls!!!  NOT. If you want to come help me just leave a comment with your e-mail & I'll give you directions for how to get here. How's that for an offer you can't refuse???

I just wonder what stroke of decorating genius possessed me to put that stuff up. As the saying goes, what goes up must come down. Must have forgotten that little detail. Anyway, if anybody even suspects that I might be thinking of looking at a wallpaper sample book, ever,  please come slap some sense into me.

My goal is to at least have the walls, ceiling & woodwork all painted by Christmas and have the new flooring put down. Probably the cabinet painted that requires moving the fridge too, so I don't have to move it a second time. Then I can take my time over the winter scrubbing down the cabinets & painting them. It'll be tedious, but I'll just take my time. I just wish I hadn't procrastinated for three years on this...my hands hurt a lot less back then.

New record set

We had THREE Trick-or-Treaters last night. That's right, THREE. A great improvement over the past two years when we didn't have any at all.  I remember when my kids went out....I think they hit every house in town. Aren't kids greedy for candy any more? Or is it that their parents are driving them now and will only go to the streets where the houses are close together?? Halloween just isn't what it used to be.

Tomorrow I work at the election so it will be a loooonnnngg day. Predictions are for low voter turnout so it could be boring as well. Maybe the school board race or sheriff's race will bring them out. Hope so. I hate sitting there trying to stay awake & thinking of all the sewing I could be getting done if I was home. How many complaints do you suppose there would be if I set my sewing machine up on the table next to the ballots & kept myself busy.  The County Clerk's phone would probably be ringin' of the wall. LOL

End of October

Happy Halloween Comments
                   

What the heck???

That's not fog and it's not a dirty window on my storm door. It's SNOW!!! I really thought we'd make it through October this year without seeing any of this stuff. Why can't those folks in ND & SD keep it in their own states and not send it to NE?  We really wouldn't mind if they were a little selfish this time. Really, we wouldn't.

It's just showers, but still......that storm could go further south than predicted and then I'd be really bummed. Oh well, got in another quilt top today so I should hustle my buns and work on the ones already waiting, snow or no snow.

Sunday at home

After sleeping in this morning I spent the better part of the day sewing together a quilt top out of group heart blocks. No pictures yet.....not until after the recipient gets it next month though I doubt she reads my blog.

Would you believe the Alco store in O'Neill no longer sells fabric?? They still have yarn and quilt batting, but I wonder for how long. Didn't see any notions at all. How the heck do they expect people to "shop at home" when they don't carry what we want? I hadn't been there for a few months and the whole store had been redone. Totally rearranged and so much stuff in it you can hardly push a cart through it. All I can say is "Thank God for online shopping" since it's about the only way to find reasonably priced fabric. And Alco's fabric was usually pretty good quality too. I always liked their $2.99 a yd. sales.

My daughter called me this afternoon to tell me my oldest grand-daughter's good friend from Norfolk Catholic had been killed in a car accident last night. Only 17 years old, such a tragedy. It was a one-car accident so no one knows exactly what happened. The Pierce Co. Sheriff's Dept. is investigating but they suspect cell phone use might have been a factor. If so, these kids are learning a lesson a very hard way. The kids who were friends with the girl all congregated at my daughter's house, the parents showed up and the school guidance counseler was called in too, to talk to the kids. A pretty shaken up bunch...they'd all been together last night going to haunted houses. Not the quiet Sunday at home my daughter's family was expecting to have.

Goin' batty

This afternoon we took the window air conditioners out to store away for the winter. It's a two person operation. DH goes outside and holds it so it doesn't fall out the window and I get the window open and the AC lifted up and pulled inside. The bigger one in the LR is awkward so he comes inside and we both carry it out to the garage. The smaller one in the sewing room I can lift out of the window by myself, put it on the table and then close the window. That's where I got a little surprise....a bat had taken up housekeeping under the AC, between it and the bottom of the window. I'm sure glad he wasn't awake enough to fly out into the house. From the evidence he left behind, I'd say he'd been living there for a while. Anyway, he's history now.

On the quilting front, part of Part Four of "Orange Crush" is finished and now I can start putting blocks together as shown:

Here's a pic of the quilt I got quilted on Friday:

All made out of Thimbleberry fabrics and I quilted it in one of my favorite designs....Bayside. A nice curvy, flowing pattern.

And this is my Nicky, relaxing in her favorite position....flat on her back with all four little paws sticking up in the air. Silly kitty......

Moving right along

Part three of "Orange Crush" is finished:

This is the last of the tiny little pieces. Now I can move on to some larger ones and start putting blocks together.

Things are going kind of slow this week. I came down with a nasty cold on Saturday, and though I'm starting to feel better, I just feel tired. At least today I can breathe again. Sunday afternoon was Quilt Club and I stayed home. I felt really lousy and didn't want to pass my germs on to the others. From what I hear I was the only one that didn't make it, but everyone should be glad I stayed away.

DH and his cousin are sitting in the kitchen peeling apples for T.'s freezer. Kind of funny listening to them talking like a couple of kids. :-D I just keep out of the way and let them go at it.

Part Two...

of "Orange Crush" done.

On to Part Three!!! More little pieces, but not so many of them.

My son's chocolate lab who passed away of cancer last Saturday night. R.I.P. Jenny.

I always called her my grand-dog since they don't have any kids, just dogs. We'll miss her a lot and will always remember her as the BEST dog. Here's her "puppy picture." 

(Oops, I looked back and see I posted that first picture before. Oh, what the heck, she was a great dog. She can have her picture on my blog twice.)

Orange Crush

Part one:

 

Part two:  Cut out & ready to sew.

 Have a batch of apples in the dehydrator and that's about been my day. If anyone would like to come and put dishes in the dishwasher and cook supper, that would be fine with me.

Bad news on a beautiful day

After a couple of chilly, rainy, even stormy, days I'm really enjoying a perfect fall day today. Blue sky, about 70 degrees, light breeze. Just the kind of gorgeous Fall weather we wait for all summer. I feel like I should just go outside and sit in the sun, soaking up as much of its warmth as I can.

But even on such a beautiful day there is sadness too.  Last week my son's Chocolate Lab, Jenny, had a biopsy on a lump that they found on her belly. It turned out to be cancer so this morning they had x-rays done to see if it was localized or if it had spread. Unfortunately, it has spread to her lungs and the vet says it's a very aggressive strain. She said normally a dog could have from four weeks to six months to live, but as aggressive as this cancer is they probably shouldn't count on much more than the lower end of that estimate.  Son & Daughter-in-law are just broken hearted. Jenny is only eight years old and they thought they'd have her with them for many more years.

 

Our beautiful girl. Great personality, loves kids, loves to swim and hunt and go camping. According to my son the best dog ever.

Marathon sewing.....

...produced this mountain of 4-patches this afternoon:

Someday these will become an Orange Crush quilt so I put the Orange Crush icon over in the sidebar. I love the Bonnie Hunter quilts, but they sure do have lots of little pieces. (The better to use your scraps, my dear.)

Not much else going on around here. We had FCE Club last night at Eileen's new house. While it's not a big house, it's so nice and open that it seems bigger. Her kitchen cabinets were made at a local cabinet shop and are beautiful and I just love her countertops. If I had the painting all done in my kitchen I'd seriously consider getting some just like them. Is it a compliment to copy someone's design choices?? I hope so, because I wouldn't mind being a copy-cat where those countertops are concerned.

Sunday morning

Here I am, back in Pierce, staying with the kids for the weekend. Just having a peaceful hour or so while the two younger ones are in Sunday school. The Oldest is awake, I can hear her music, but she's having her own peaceful time before the others come back.

Daughter sent pictures and called to let us know all about the blue skies, sunshine, sandy beaches, palm trees, sight-seeing, etc. in Mexico, but she forgot to get out warmer clothes for the Youngest. A bit challenging to find clothes for Sunday school this morning.....he wound up going in shorts, the long pants we could find were high waters or way to big around the waist. Hopefully God won't care that he went with cold, bare legs.

So, what do the kids do while Grandma is here? Let's see.

Obviously, they like computers. The Oldest usually watches TV, uses the computer and texts simultaneously.

Here's Max. Do you think we should get him a computer too???

I hate shopping

Seriously.  But, I got to Pierce last night and saw that my daughter had gotten the big ad for Herbergers' Good Will / Fall sale......complete with coupons. They had ankle boots on sale so I snitched one of her coupons and headed to Norfolk this morning once the kids were off to school...and after I made a trip to the HS to take Oldest her forgotten laptop.

Walked in the door near the women's size area and right away found three tops, all marked down. Tried them on, they fit, so headed for the shoe area. They had the boots I liked in my size, they fit (remember, ON SALE) so I paid for my stuff. Used my snitched coupon, signed up for a Herbergers card to get another 20%, got an instant percentage off because it was the first day of the sale. Good deal. Found out the 20% card discount was good for the whole day.

Sometimes it pays to know the right people & be from the right place.  This is their Good Will sale so for every item you bring in for Good Will you get a 20% off coupon. In chatting with the sales clerk I found out she is the granddaughter of some people I know from Orchard, maybe her grandfather is even related to DH. I told her I hadn't found out about the sale until I got to Pierce so hadn't been able to bring in my Good Will stuff. She was feeling kindly towards me by then and gave me some coupons anyway. I promptly headed back into the store and found two pairs of slacks & three more tops plus a necklace, an iridescent purple purse and a housewarming gift I needed. Used my Good Will coupons, card discount and instant discount. If I have to shop this is the way to do it.  Herbergers' is kind of expensive normally but I love this annual sale and it's a great place to shop......so much variety it boggles the mind.

Here's my haul.....minus the necklace and housewarming gift I see.

Now off to the library to look up some genealogy stuff.

A little bit done..........

Some Heart Blocks made.

My quilt group uses these for donation quilts. Also have a container of fabrics in pairs for 4-patches and more strips to cut into segments.  This is the sum total of my quilting activity this past week. I won't be doing much during the coming week either since I'll be staying with the grand-kids a couple days at the beginning of the week and then again over the weekend.

DH is busy picking apples and more apples. This year we're asking a few dollars per bucket instead of just giving them all away. Spray & Tangletrap are expensive plus it's a lot of work. Our freezer is filled with as many apples as needed and I still have canned pie filling from last year. I'll dry some of the Golden Delicious when they're ready, but there's no need to go overboard.

As you can see, I've been playing with my blog background again.  These new templates that Blogger is offering are really cool.

Not really among the missing..............

.............it just seems that way because I post so seldom. Life can be pretty mundane a lot of the time and I don't think you want to hear about it every time I do laundry, wash the dishes, clean the bathroom or vacum up the cat hair, do you?  Didn't think so.  I just haven't been very motivated this summer to do a lot else. I've sewed a little but not enough to always have something to show in a post. I've read a few books, some page turners, others I struggled through. I've worked very little on genealogy and I know my profile says I like to do digital scrapbooking but the most I've done there is collect freebies off the Internet. There you have it. Booooring!!

But now......halleluja.......I've finished something I can show, even though they're not mine.  I finally got these two old tops quilted and bound.

They turned out pretty well, maybe not exactly square, but then they weren't made that way to start with. The second one is my favorite and has several fabrics in it that I would dearly love to have a yard or two of (I think I mentioned that in an earlier post) and they both have wonderful navy blues with tiny white figures. And they were truly made with the maker's scraps. The pieces in the blocks of the first one aren't very big but some of them were cut from pieces that had been pieced two or three times to make them big enough.  How many of us would bother doing that now? Definitely a case of "use it up."

I have a few old tops of my own and working on these has me ready to dig them out and finish them up. I think that would make their makers happy.

Quick post........no pictures

Now that the weather is cooler & less humid I finally feel like doing something. This morning I took one quilted quilt off the machine and put another one on and quilted quite a bit of it. They are both customer quilts and are old tops she bought at an auction.  I'd love to have a yard or two of some of the wonderful old fabrics in them.  I'll post pictures when they're both finished. I have to check to see if the customer wants me to bind them as well. If so I'll post the pics after that's done too.

So...................

.....if you've read Jennifer's blog you know she came to Quilt Club last night intent on unloading some of her UFOs.  Here's what I came home with:

We made these blocks at the Nebraska Heartstrings sew-in in Fremont in March. I need to make 8-9 more blocks and then this stack can be assembled into a QAYG quilt for donation.  Jennifer was happy to let me steal some strips from the ever growing scrap basket to use in the extra blocks.  It scares me to think what she might bring to the next meeting. I vow, whatever it is, it isn't coming home with me!!!

Here's a photo of the QAYG quilt I made from scratch [with five blocks made by quilt-friend Sandy] and finished a couple weeks ago:

If I'd been using my head I'd have thought to finish it before my niece's wedding so I could have dropped it off while I was in Fremont.  But................that's the way my summer has gone.............just haven't been on the ball like I should be. Just ask my fellow Quilt Club members.  I totally spaced it off last night. And since I'm the one with the key to the library they all had to stand around waiting while the hostess called me and I madly scrambled about to change clothes and get there.  Fun times!!!

Getting ready

Two of the grandkids will be coming to stay for a couple of days late Thurs. afternoon so I need to get ready. A trip to the grocery store will be in order since they expect things that I don't ordinarily have on hand, like Oreos, toaster waffles and chips. If that kind of stuff is around I eat it and I definitely don't need it!!! You know, the "see food" diet.

Another "must" is getting their beds ready. I have a set of bunkbeds in my sewing room that they sleep in when they come to stay. Of course, they don't come to stay all that often so I tend to pile stuff on the beds, especially the top one. It just makes such a good spot to get things out of my way...........until I have to move it all.

Sunday I had DH help me put the smaller AC in the window of that room. They always complain its too hot. That's probably because you need long underwear & a winter coat at their house in the summer, especially in the basement where two of the kids have their rooms. With the AC in their room here they may wake up with icicles hanging off their noses in the mornings.  Call me strange but I don't like it quite that cold in the house.

Hot, humid wedding

Saturday was my niece's wedding in Fremont at Hormel Park. HOT and HUMID, but a beautiful wedding nonetheless. She did all the decorations and flowers herself.  That art degree is paying off already. The reception & dance was in the nice, air-conditioned Love Larson Opera House. Towards the end of the dance though, the AC was having a little trouble keeping up. The newlyweds & their friends danced up a storm.....literally. We came home in a fantastic lightning display. I had my camera along and snapped a few pictures:

The young man two spaces to the right of the groom and the two young men at the right end of the row are my nephews.

The happy couple.

I think she took her colors from her favorite pair of cowboy boots.

Father/daughter dance.  I have this pic to prove my brother danced. Twice actually. He danced with his wife for the wedding party dance. But that was IT.

Today's topic is..........................

...............................ZUCCHINI!!!

Some of them got a little bit big. My overachieving DH planted four hills, against my advice I might add. We've been trying to eat them as veggies but just haven't found any way of cooking them that we like. So today is Zucchini Bread day. And I think maybe a chocolate cake with zucchini in it from a recipe I found somewhere. I think the rest will get grated and frozen so later I can put them in EVERYTHING....soups, meatloaf, lasagne, spaghetti sauce, chili...................ice cream topping!!!!!  And then I'll  personally go hoe the plants out. Can't trust that job to DH.

For a quilty tidbit.....I HAVE gotten QAYG blocks put together in rows. Next step....pairs!!!  Exciting stuff.

June just slipped away

Here we are in July already. I looked back at a few previous posts and see that I'm not much further along with projects than I was half-way through June...........the lost month.  I DID go ahead and get a new camera to replace the one that quit working..........didn't think anyone would want to look at fuzzy pink pictures. :-)  I got another Canon, a PowerShot A1100 IS. I was looking at a bulkier Nikon but decided I'd use it more if it was small enough to carry around in my purse or inconspicuously in my hand. Like I said, I really didn't accomplish much in June but here's some pictures I took playing around with the new camera.

The front of my house all decked out for summer. This is the sum total of my flower gardening. I wish those orange lilies bloomed all summer.

Here are a couple quilts all ready for the Premier. They're both old tops that a lady bought at an auction. I'd like to keep them both! In the background is the pile of QAYG blocks I've showed before, still just setting there waiting to be joined into a quilt. I've heard patience is a virtue.

And a picture of my beautiful black kitty. Do you see the questioning look on her face?  She couldn't figure out why I kept snapping pictures of her. Thought I was nuts, probably. She's having a rough time of it this week. We're babysitting our son & DIL's three dogs this week while they're on vacation. She was hiding and I finally found her under the bunkbeds this morning after I pulled out everything stored under there. The other cat was outside last evening & the dogs chased him so we won't see him for about two weeks. He likes to be sure the coast is VERY clear before he comes back home after a visit from the dogs. We'll just have to keep food & water out for him & hope he comes to get some. The thing is, if the cats just wouldn't run the dogs would leave them alone. There's just no fun in a cat who won't run and be chased. Try explaining that to the cats though!!!  :-)

Hope everyone has a happy & safe July 4th.