So I have some catching up to do

Just because I haven't posted in awhile doesn't mean I haven't been busy! Of course there is still unpacking but I am pretty tired of that. I have done a little bit of Christmas decorating and more needs to be done. I find that I am usually way behind in that department and then it seems it is time to take it all down. I think my reluctance to decorate for Christmas is because it means I have to put the fall stuff away and it still IS fall. Fall IS my favorite after all.

I made this tote and checkbook cover for a gal that missed getting the other one that I made for an online auction. This one is very similar, although not an exact copy. I have some aprons to make as well. When I have aprons and bags to make I get to shop for fabric!!!! Mmmmmm, I love shopping for fabric. Online or in person doesn't matter.

Speaking of fabric shopping the little LQS that is half a knitting store had a great Black Friday sale. If you were a key chain holder you could get in at 6 a.m. and shop until 8:30 a.m. and EVERYTHING was 40% off. Well you KNOW I am a key chain holder and I would get up that early to shop for fabric but not for plasma televisions or Nintendo games or bicycles. I mean I have priorities! Since I had no guests for Thanksgiving and college girl was not home I was free to get up and go (figuring the guys were going hunting anyway). Man it is dark at that hour! I pulled into the parking lot just at 6 and there were already quite a few cars parked out front. A clerk met me at the door and handed me a little slip of paper and said the sale was actually 50% off of everything!!! OH.MY. My heart began to race. I think THIS is an aerobic workout for me!! I kept saying to myself 'I have to be good, I can't spend too much, I must use restraint'.
There were lots of ladies there and ONE clerk cutting and the owner at the cash register, but it went much quicker than if I had been at JoAnn's and there were 4 cutters and 4 ladies on cash registers. Everyone in line was having a good time, talking, commenting on fabric choices etc. As soon as a fabric was cut a runner would take the bolt and get it back on the shelf. Over the next few days I will show you some of my treasures. This was one of my favorites. I had NEVER seen this print before, at that store or online. I have seen it since then though. Isn't that funny how that works?
This is from Alexander Henry and is called Starlings. It is so bright and cheery and makes me smile.


Here is a close up of one of the little birds. The paisleys and red swirls....mmmmmm.


My college girl is OFFICIALLY finished with her first quarter!! WOOO HOOOO!!! She will be getting on the train Thursday afternoon and will get home early Friday morning. I can hardly wait!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. It SNOWED here yesterday afternoon. Not alot but enough to cover the ground and it is mostly still here. A mile down the road - no snow.

Praise - college girl has made it through the first quarter of college away from home! My son made it to town and back, driving his truck on wintry roads for the very first time.
Prayers - again, for safe travel for college girl to get home. Also, prayers for the household of Freda's Hive. I don't know specifics and I don't need to know them - God knows! Nanette you are in my prayers. I am also praying for Dong Yun Yoon, the man that lost his wife, two daughters and his mother-in-law when the jet crashed into his home. My heart breaks for him.

Happy DECEMBER!

Okay, so it is already the 9th and my first post this month. Time just slips away from me.

I have spent TOO much time trying to re-do my blog picture. It still doesn't fit. When I have it auto-fit it is too small. ARGH! I am done. So it hangs over a little. So do I! Heck, I hang over a lot.

We are HOPING for snow today! They have been forecasting snow since Saturday night and yet we have NO snow. COME ON!! It IS December afterall.

I will post again later on. I just wanted to say HI! I am still out here and I wanted to get a new wintry scene posted.

My college girl comes home this week!! WAHOOOOO!!! We are all soooo excited about that.

If you haven't been over to Freda's Hive what are you waiting for??? BIG Blogiversary Giveaway going on over there. www.fredashive.blogspot.com.

Prayers for SAFE train travels Thursday night. That is how my college girl will be coming home. I think that will be exciting for her. Prayers that my son would be diligent with his college classes that go a week after his sister arrives home (and is lounging around). Praise - our house is on the market and it has already been shown AND the guy was pretty excited about it! He needs to bring some others to look at it - so prayers for that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The pie is on the cooling rack, I am going to start peeling potatoes soon and then I will put the dressing in the crockpot. I have a small turkey to cook so it doesn't have to go in the oven quite yet. The sparkling cider is chilled and the crescent rolls are just waiting their turn in the oven.

Missing my girl but I am so thankful that she has a wonderful family to spend the day with. We will be seeing her VERY soon and we can hardly wait. When hubby and my son return home from hunting we will have our dinner.



I hope that you spend today thanking God for every good and perfect gift. That is what I will be doing.

But I still have so much to be thankful for

The plan was for our friends to come over for Thanksgiving. They have come maybe 5 or 6 of the 8 years we have been here. They were going to bring our daughter with them.

Plans have changed. My friend's brother in law in GA has been told he has 3-4 days to live. They are in a holding pattern, trying to decide to fly to GA now or to wait. There was so much indecision. They wanted to come here, they wanted to bring our daughter home, if they had to fly out then what....they would have their dog and our daughter to get back to the big city. The thought was that my daughter could drive their car back home but....they only have cars with stick shift and she has never learned that. She has also never made the 6 hour trip alone and there is a big pass in the way. A big pass that could get snow at any minute.

We are ALL sad! Our friend's youngest boy was very disappointed. He loves to come here during hunting season.

When all is said and done though...in 3-4 days, God willing, we will still all be alive. We aren't losing a beloved family member. The sick man, who is about 48 years old, has two very young children. He has a wife who is scared of what lies ahead. There is a big family that is going to be attending a funeral very soon unless there is some miraculous healing.

So yes, our plans have changed and we are disappointed but at the same time we are also so very thankful for what we do have. AND our daughter will be heading home for her Christmas break in a couple of weeks. She has already made arrangements to spend Thanksgiving and the day after with her best friend and their family.

Praise - God is in control. Nothing takes him by surprise.
Prayers - for that young man in Georgia, for a miraculous healing if it is God's will. For all of the family members, for comfort and strength to get through this.

I think it is the perfect one

I saw it yesterday while we were giving the real estate agent a tour of the property. I opened my mouth to say 'HEY! There it is! We need to cut that down' but then I clamped my mouth shut. I didn't want the real estate agent to reprimand me for taking a tree from our property that will soon be listed. So I didn't get to show it to hubby. I think I can find it again. You know how in nature the trees look like they will fit in your living room just fine but then in reality not so much? Well guess what!? The new house has a REALLY high peaked ceiling in the living room. We are getting a BIG tree this year.

Hubby was walking around the new house last night trying to decide where to hang his deer mount (ugh). He ended up in the living room and I said well maybe but not until after Christmas because that is right where the really big Christmas tree is going to go. He just rolled his eyes and walked away.

It looked something like this;


I wonder just how high the ceiling is in the living room. Hmmmmm.

My daughter wants us to wait to cut it down when she is home in December. That would be on the 12th. If it snows too much before then it could be a problem. I will have to take hubby out there this week and show him the tree and at least tag it. I will let him worry about how to transport and set it up in the living room. I did the hard part, I picked it out!

Fabric Friday!

Yes, I know it has been OVER a week since I last posted. CRAZY! I hate that I haven't been here. I hate more that I haven't been sewing. In my spare time (that means when I am not unpacking, cleaning the old house or doing the daily routine in the new house) I am trying to keep up reading my fave blogs and perusing fabric sites. I am usually too pooped to sew by the time I get to sit down here for any length of time.

I DID take pictures of my room in the TOTAL DISASTER state. I will post those soon. I am not ready for the after pictures yet but it is better. I can walk in here. I can find a chair or two. I do not have to straddle piles of fabric or boxes to get to my tables. I still do not have my 'new' sewing machine out. That is going to take some doing to get it out of the closet. Who had the brilliant idea to put it in the closet first? I am thinking it was my hubby. He must have figured if I couldn't get to it I would do other things. Hmph.

I so LOVE when Nanette posts pictures of wonderful fabrics - ALWAYS on Friday and sometimes on some other days. I tried 3 times to link to Nanette's site and it won't work. It is www.fredashive.blogspot.com if you don't already know. I mentioned in my Quilt Show post that I had gotten some special fabrics and would post a picture. Well can you say FINALLY?

This first print is by Alexander Henry and now I forget the name of it. Sheesh my mind is like a steel trap - all rusted and corroded. Anyway I think it is ADORABLE and will really have to talk myself into cutting it. Purse? Tote? Apron? Something quilty??


And then looky here! Look at what I scored!! Ohhhhhhh, how I have loved when others show their prized pieces of Summer in the City birds. When I saw it at the show I think I was looking over my shoulder to make sure no one was going to grab the bolt before I did. I bought all that she had, which wasn't much. I think there is just over a yard. I did buy some of that companion fabric too.

Mmmmmmmm. It makes me smile. So, any suggestions on what to do with it?? :D


I hope to be here more often. I have lots of sewing projects on my planner now. I will be sewing up a storm between now and mid-January. I think it is going to be great since we have chosen to have a VERY low key Christmas. No pressure to do the sewing while trying to shop and ship and so on.

Praises - The old house is EMPTY and 90% cleaned! We met with a realtor today to show her around. That my daughter is doing well at school, will be home on TUESDAY night for Thanksgiving. That my son is doing well in school. That my hubby is strong and healthy and able to fix most anything (well except for the carpet steamer ;) ). Prayers - for safe travel for our friends and my daughter next week. That the house listing/showing and selling process goes smoothly.

No pictures today

I am home alone. Home alone in a new house. A new house with NO window coverings. I feel like a fish in a fishbowl. So I am on the laptop in my bedroom. The only window in here is onto the deck. The deck can only be accessed through the house. Unless Spiderman or Batman are nearby. So I am using LogMeIn and am able to have MY desktop on this laptop. Pretty sweet. Well except for the flat keyboard and the mouse issues. I was TRYING to upload some fabric pictures but that just was not working. No idea why. The windows would resize. I would lose what I was working on. I gave up.

So, I sat in here while Rosie vacuumed the floors. Rosie is the Roomba's name now. You know, Rosie the maid from the Jetsons? That is where I got the name. It was kind of great to be sitting with my feet up, typing away, reading blogs, and yet the vacuuming was getting done. Sweet. Now if they had one that did the dishes. Rosie got in BIG trouble last night though. She almost lost her job, let alone one of her appendages. So she is scheduled to vacuum in the late evening when we are all most likely downstairs - sewing, scrapping,dinking online or watching something on the big screen. No one heard her vacuuming. We were oblivious to the trouble she was in. Since this house is so much smaller, finding a place to line dry some laundry was tough. I set up a collapsible dryer rack in the guest bathroom and that seems to work just fine. Well almost. Note to self: put dryer rack away OR close the bathroom door before Rosie vacuums. Hubby and son went to bed about 10. I stayed up until about midnight. When I came upstairs the dryer rack was in the hallway. Huh, not where that goes. So I turned on the bathroom light and see Rosie up against the tub, battery dead. This is not good. So I pick her up and UGH....she found a sticky pest trap that the previous owners left under the sink. It still had lots of stick to it and now it was all over one of her wheels and all over her little brushes that she feels with and sweeps stuff with. I mean this is BIG TIME sticky! Poor little Rosie had tried to get out of that bathroom but must have just been going in circles or just stuck in one place until her battery gave out. I rescued her, turned her upside down and tried to clean her. I finally gave up and wrote my hubby a note and went to bed.

In the morning when I got up I saw that Rosie's brushes had now been removed and there was a note from hubby. He said clean the sticky stuff off with Skin So Soft (works great on tree sap too). Great. Do YOU know which box the Skin So Soft is in?? Me neither. So I left her there and went to town to do my grocery shopping. Well I visited the one small quilt store (she opens at 8!) and the craft store. I just needed a fabric fix. I didn't buy any though. ;) I know, hard to believe.
Hubby finally found the box that the SSS was in and he cleaned Rosie up, reattached her brush arm and put her back on the charger. She was working like a champ tonight and yes, we closed that bathroom door.

I did sew yesterday and today. Last year, when my brother in law and his brother in law came here to hunt they really liked the fleece pants that I made for my hubby and son. They wanted some! They wanted me to go into production - uh no. My brother in law drove back to the big city only to return the next week to hunt some more BUT since it was then the day after Thanksgiving and JoAnns always has a big sale, he was there at 6 when they opened. He bought enough camo fleece for two pair of pants. So you would THINK that I would have sewn them right up and taken them to him on one of our numerous trips. Oh no. Not me! Well the guys were SUPPOSED to come hunt next weekend - the 22nd/23rd. I figured I would have time to get my sewing room set up and get those pants ready for them. Change of plans! They needed to come THIS weekend! Now I took pictures of my room (the BEFORE)and I will post them next week but it is really so much worse than it looks (if that can even be possible). Trying to get to the boxes I needed - what a exercise in balance and flexibility. I could not even get to my new machine. I settled for using my old one and my serger. That was tough enough to pull off.
The pants got finished and hubby and my son took them to the old house to meet up with the hunters. I HOPE that they fit them!

I wonder if they make a Roomba that unpacks and organizes. I need one of those.

Prayers - for the hunters for the next few days. For their safety and for a successful harvest. Praise - for my hubby. He has really been working so hard on getting us moved and setting things up. He even tackled our son's truck and got that fixed.