Happy (belated) Thanksgiving.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  We had stayed in town with Greg's dad and step-mom and got a visit from his sister and her family on their way to Ft Smith, AR.  It was nice to not have to drive up to Wichita, especially since we had Aiden's birthday on Saturday, too.  I forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures from Thanksgiving.  I am sooo organized, not.

This is our little "princess" complete with a used belt sander belt tiara.  She was playing princess mommy and I tried to get a picture of her unaware, but it didn't turn out very well.  We don't usually have used belt sander belts lying around, but we did a minor home improvement project since Greg had extra time off.  Here is a picture of the seat in our bay window as it looked when we bought the house...

Not sure if you can tell here, but it is upholstered with a brown upholstery fabric shot with blue and rust threads.  It was ok, but after three kids, it had come un stapled from the back edge and was really hard to vacuum clean.  The bay window is a favorite cat perch and that fabric was just like flypaper to the cat hair.  So I pulled it up and found a really nice woodwork detail that Greg has spent that last few days fixing.  The wood had cupped on a few boards and shrunk, so he removed it all, re fitted them, re stained and poly-ed them.  Here is the result.

Now, I still have to refinish the facing and the drawers, but for now, that will wait.  Its too close to Christmas to start that project, too.  And lest you think I didn't stitch any, here is Great Lakes Lowland.  Not a huge amount of progress, but there is some.

I guess I should wrap this up.  My last load of laundry (for the day) just finished spinning.  They are just sheets, so I may hang them out in the cold air and let them get really fresh in the cold.  Everyone take it easy!

Finally, a finish!!

I can finally report a finish!  I guess I should thank Nancy for doing a little prodding to keep me going on it.  I probably wont get it framed until after the beginning of the year, but by then I hope to have Great Lakes Lowland done, too. 

And lastly, this is what happens when you get interrupted when cleaning out kitchen cupboards and have to be away for more than five mins.  This is Pimple and Floofy, lounging in the dishes cupboard.. Silly kitties.

November 20 update

Sorry for the not so great picture of my WIP.  I was in a hurry to get this picture and update up.  It has been a very busy week, as they always seem to get around this time of year.  I only have about 4 more rows on this and I am trying to get it done.  Bad time of year for that. lol

Yesterday was a FUN day.  Not like big things went wrong, but just a lot of little ones.  You know its not good when you realize you brought home the work keys at midnight the night before. 

So, I get up and start getting the kids ready to go to school and to take the keys back to work.Everything is good, Greg takes off and I go to get my keys when I realize they are on the front seat of the Mustang, on the way to Wichita with Greg....DAMN.  Kids, get your butts in gear we need to hustle to school.  Its only about 3 blocks, but when they need to be there no later than 8:10 and its after 8 already.

Managed to get them there on time, just, and get back home to feed Mariska.  Promptly fall asleep sitting on the couch.  Wake up at about 11 am and call Mariska in to preschool, not because she is sick, but because mom is an idiot.  Patrick has his 1st grade Thanksgiving feast and I need to bring 50 servings of something.  I have already decided to do mini pumpkin bread muffins.  I get everything (hahaha) out that I need to realize that I don't have any oil.  Crap!  I call father-in-law to see if I can borrow any and if he can run it over.  No answer.  I finally borrow some from my neighbor (Thanks Nancy) and start to mix stuff up just to realize now that I don't have any baking soda...panic.  I can't go begging next door again, so I go off to hit the net and see if I have any alternative.  Find out I can use self rising flour and omit the soda and salt.  I don't have the whole 3 1/2 cups, but I do have almost 2.  So we used that and 1 1/2 cups of regular flour.  They did come out ok and in just the nick of time.  Pulled the last pan out of the oven at 2 and needed to be to the school at 2:15.  Again, just the nick of time. 

Work was ok, picked up some extra hours buffing the floors on one of the other dr.s offices.  And it was nice to get out of the house, put on my ipod and just zone. 

Today, Patrick complained of his tummy hurting and I told him he had to go and if he still didn't feel well later, I would come and get him  99% of the time he is ok and I don't hear from his again.  Today he called at around 10:30 and is now home on the couch watching TV.  I am about to take his little sister to school and come home and do some laundry and stitch. 

Looking for opinions.

I went to one of the thrift shops in town yesterday and I found a frame for a quarter.  It is a nice wood frame, so I picked it up.  I was thinking about framing The Sweetheart Tree's "The Price of Freedom" in it for Greg.  What opinions do you all have? 

Iv'e been tagged

6 Things About Me

I was tagged by Patty  to share six things about me.
The rules are as follows:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know your entry is up.

 

I haven't done this before so, here it goes...

 1. I am adopted.

2. When I was almost 5, I was kicked in the face by a horse and my nose, orbitals and tearducts are all rebuilt (poor mans version of Six Million Dollar Man.  You know, " We can rebuild him, we have the technology....)

3. I played clarinet and bass clarinet from 6th grade through most of high school, but I always wanted to play trumpet or guitar.

4. I hate driving.  No reason, just don't like to do it.

5. I can troubleshoot a PCB (printed circuit board) to the component level after and in-circuit test.

6. I worked in a hospital kitchen for 6 years during high school and college.

 

Now, I tag...

Angie

Christine

Christine in IN

Carla

Nothing much to report

I have decided to be better about posting.  I don't' have anything new to post on the stitching front.  Been working too much to get much stitching done.  And since I just received the new Stephen King book in the mail today, I doubt I will get much done for a while

I do have some photos of a house they are moving in town.  Greg looked at this house when we were looking 3 years ago.  The local Methodist church owned the place and was asking only $29K for it, but you had to move it.  They wanted the land for a parking lot.  It is over 100 years old, 3K sq feet, six fireplaces (3 chimneys) numerous built ins.  I didn't get to go into it, but I looked in the windows the other day.  It looks fantastic!  But we couldn't come up with land and the $$$ to move and then repair the place.  Moving costs were quoted at over 100K because of the partial masonry and all the chimneys.  I guess the church ended up giving the house away, but it is still gonna cost some change.  The people that took it are able to do the repair and restoration work themselves on the weekends until it is finished, according to the paper. 

Front of the house,  Porch has been pulled off and the house is roughly 5 feet in the air right now.

Here is the back where they have had to remove 12 feet of the kitchen.  It had windows all the way around.  Looked really nice.

The side where one of the chimneys was removed.  I wish I could be there when the actually move the house.  It still amazes me they can do this.

 

Have a good rest of the week all!

Happy (?) November!

Well, it has finally decided to feel like late fall here, just south of Oz, in the backwaters of Kansas.  Cloudy, cold rain and the high temp is only supposed to be 49.  Still, I could be in South Dakota or North Dakota.  Sitting here at the puter with the thermostat set at 65 and a sweatshirt and shoes on.  All I really want to do is crawl back under the big fluffy comforter on my bed, or the afghan that my grandma made me on the couch.  Ah well

Nothing much new going on here.  Greg is working on helping his plant get the inventory and assets moved up to Wichita and Norman from the plant they closed in Apodaca, Mexico.  Apparently it has not been the easiest of transfers because inventory lists don't match what is actually showing up, so they are scrambling to find room for it all.  Keeps him busy, which actually keeps him happy.  His cholesterol has been good, BP good and the blood sugars have been reasonable.  He did let it get down to 40 the other morning, but he promised that won't happen again. 

Bekah got all A's in school, which is what I expected.  She is reading at what they judge a 5th grade level.  That doesn't surprise me.  Both parents love to read, she didn't stand a chance. :)  We have worked diligently on the spelling after two really atrocious tests first part of the year and she consistently gets 100% or misses only one.  She is starting to try and assert independence and I am finding that I have to pick and choose more battles.  The other day it was over wearing a jacket to school.  She didn't want to even though it was only going to be in the mid 60's.  Fine, but when we walked home and she started complaining about being cold I just said tough. You made your choice.  Not that it is that far to walk home, only about 3 blocks.

Patrick, has been a bit of a stinker.  He really needs to be challenged, apparently.  He gets bored too easy.   We talked about this with his teacher, and found out why he was getting cards pulled.  (Their way of discipline.  Green=ok  Yellow=warning Orange=miss 5 mins of recess and so on..)  Turns out he was being a wiggle worm and not allowing others to work.  And he feels that coloring with crayons is below him.  He wants to use markers, so he was just scribbling with the crayons.  We had a talk with him and discussed what he was expected to do and today is the first time all year he gets to go to the treasure box!  He had only one Yellow in the last two weeks.  I am so proud of this, because I know how much work went into this for him.  His grades were great.  He is reading chapter books, reads at almost a 3rd grade level and catches on to math concepts quickly.

Mariska is enjoying her preschool and has learned to sight recognize almost all of her letters now, something I was having a hard time with.  She could recognize the W in Walfart, but I couldn't associate the letter with its name.  DeAnna really made good strides with her.  She is smart and stubborn and causes even more grey hair for mom and dad.

On the stitching front, I updated my progress on Great Lakes and Atlantic Seaboard in my WIP folder.  Haven't felt much like stitching lately.  I need to get so much stuff done and I just don't have any motivation.  All I feel like doing is sleeping. 

Speaking of stuff to do, off I go to clean a rabbit cage and reboot laundry.  Take it easy everyone and I will sit down and catch up again on all your blogs later today. 

WIP

Pieces I am working on