A Finish!!

TGIF!! This week has been a slow moving one for me for some reason. I really need the weekend to go slow too. I'm leaving on vacation next Thursday and I have a ton to get done before then! There is cooking so I don't have to do it while I'm there, laundry, packing, stash packing, cleaning so I can come home to a somewhat clean house, (Dan's not going so I never know what it will look like when I get home), getting the dog to the vet for shots, checking out a photography studio for Amy's senior pictures, not to mention I have to work today, tomorrow and next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Wish me luck!

We had a storm roll through here the other day. Nothing too serious, I managed to make it home and in the house with about 30 seconds to spare before the hurricane force winds blew through. After the storm, I looked outside and saw this lovely sight:



I finished the new freebie by Paulette at Plum Street Samplers. It was a quick stitch and so cute. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with this piece when I started it.
A flat fold, a small pillow, frame it.....then I got it off the q-snaps and it hit me, a brick!! It was the perfect size and shape to put on the front of a brick! It would make an awesome door stop! So yesterday when I should have been framing customers projects, I worked on mine instead. Here is the finished piece. I haven't done something like this before so I wasn't sure how it would work. What do you think?





I like it. A Lot! Can't wait to show it at Last Saturday stitching tomorrow. Speaking of stitching, why didn't someone out there in blogdom tell me what the thread pack for the Peace Sampler by A Stitchers Hand was going to run me? $240.00!!! Are you kidding me?? How am I supposed to justify that expense to Dan? He's a pretty understanding man but come on...$240.00 bucks! Even he will sh*t a brick on that one! :) Sorry couldn't resist the pun.

Well friends, I best get a move on. I need to eat breakfast, check out blogs, make a grocery list, clean up the kitchen, figure out what to make for supper tonight and head to work. You all have a great day and a fantastic weekend if I don't talk to ya before Monday. Thanks for stopping by and an extra thanks for posting!

Thrifty Finds

Happy Tuesday! I thought I would share my thrift store finds from Saturday since I don't really have any stitching to share today. I've been too busy to stitch a whole lot. First, let me say that thrift shopping with my husband is always an experience. He digs through every little thing, every box, every bin. He looks up high and way down low. Which I guess isn't a bad thing in a thrifting partner except he has a tendency to find the strangest, most oddball things in the store and then he wants to bring them home. To my house. Like I don't have enough crap of my own, now I have to find a place for his latest gonkculator (his word) or doodad. There was this one item he wanted at the first store. He wanted it baaaad. I wouldn't have given it a second glance. But Dan, he takes it down off the highest shelf, starts playing with all the parts, ooohing and ahing over the thing like it's a newborn baby or a cute little puppy. I left him to his fun and went to browse the books. Pretty soon he calls me over and says I want to show you something and he takes this tall piece of metal down off the shelf and asks me what I think it is. I got nothing. Finally I say, is it a drill press?? Giving me a disgusted look he rolls his eyes and says no, it's a wine bottle opener. Wouldn't it be great for mom for Christmas??? It would look so cool sitting on a bar. Sure Dan, except your mom doesn't have a bar. "Does it even work?" I ask. The excited look fades from his face ( it's kind of like kicking a puppy) and he shakes his head no and says, I don't think so. But he starts showing me how it would work if it did work. Yeah, that's cool Dan, come over here and look at these old smelly football cleats. Aren't these sweet? Reluctantly, he put the cool wine bottle opener back up on the shelf and came over to check out the cleats. I checked the internet when we got home and found something similar to what he was looking at. It's actually an expensive little item. If it worked, and his mom had a bar to sit it on it might have been a great Christmas present. Here's a picture I found of Dan's treasure:


If you read my previous post, you know our mission for the day was to find a bed frame, headboard and possibly a footboard for Abby. We didn't find that at the first store we went to but I did manage to find these there:


The amber plate and pedestal bowl caught my eye. I'm a sucker for glassware and I thought they would look great in my diningroom. Here's a shot of the whole area. Not sure if this is where they will stay but for now it's all good.


I also found this little silver dish. No particular need for it but I thought it was cute and so I brought it home with me.


It's currently in the kitchen hutch. The general consensus is I should use it for mints or jewelry.


You can almost see it there on the middle shelf. If you have your readers on and enlarge the picture anyway!

After the first store, we headed over to the Salvation Army. Browsed that store for a long time and I kept pointing out things to Dan and saying, ya know that would be really cool if we painted it up nicely. Whereupon he would show me some freaky little item he had found and say, if you decide to buy something here I'll get this too. Back went my cool little find cuz no way was his freaky thing coming home! No bed to be found at the SA so we moved on to Thrift America. Lots of neat furniture items and shelves there and two 4 poster beds in the correct size. I called Abby to get her opinion on the 4 poster style. "I was thinking more of a sleigh bed mom." Right, at the thrift store. Are you kidding me?? Bought some books for vacation but passed on the 4 poster. Off to another GW to see what they had. This store was busy. Really busy. I sent Dan over to the furniture area while I started perusing the glassware. Pretty soon he comes over and wants to show me something. "They have a bed?" I ask. No, they have a neat old dresser with a mirror and a rocking chair but no beds. OOOKay.....you were supposed to look for a bed. What do you want to show me this time. He takes me over to the small appliances, bends over and picks up this brightly colored box. It says Rival Ice Cream Maker on it. I see. What are you going to do with that I ask. He says he thinks it would be fun to make ice cream when we go on vacation. But I'll only get it if you buy something here. So now it's on my shoulders. I finishing browsing the store quickly, hoping that nothing catches my eye and then just as I was about to say lets go.....I see a white basket just the right size and shape for holding cross stitch charts at the shop. Crap. Taking the basket, I tell Dan to go get his ice cream maker and to meet me in line. You would think I had given him a hundred bucks or something. Doesn't take much to make my man happy. This is Dan's treasure for the day.


And this is Dan using his treasure on Sunday:


The ice cream was delicious btw but I have no idea where I am going to store the thing!

By this time it is getting late and I have a hair appointment I have to be at so we decide to head home. I tell Dan to take Abby back to Thrift America and let her decide whether she wants the 4 poster or not and I head off to my appointment. When I got home, Dan was in the garage. He was already painting the bed. Did you take a before picture sweetie? No, I didn't think about it was his response. So, I'm sorry but you will have to imagine the cream and gold french provincial look it had before it's makeover. This is what it looks like now.


and....


Looks pretty good for $60.00. We also fixed the lamp that Abby found for free when she was out with her friends garage saling. It needed a new cord. Pretty cool light I think.


That's it for our weekend of thrifting. Dan is still talking about his wine opener find. I'm not sure we've seen the last of that one.

Gotta head to piano lessons with Amy so I best get a move on.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Bad Dog!

Meet Kallie. Kallie is the baby of the family. She's 4. She's spoiled. And she's trouble. You might not think so at first glance. You might think she is a sweet little loving maltese/yorkie mix. You might. But you'd be wrong....
Kallie's favorite toy in the whole wide world is a pop bottle. Big ones, little ones, doesn't matter to her. If it's plastic and it has a hard lid on it, she wants it. If you are sitting on the couch minding your own business drinking a soda, Kallie is right there watching your every move. Sometimes, there is even a little bit of drool coming out the corner of her mouth as she watches you. Her eyes following every movement you make. Bottle goes up, Kallie's head goes up. Bottle comes down, Kallie's head comes down. Whatever you do, don't set that bottle down and walk away. Because it most likely will not be there when you come back. Adam discovered this the other day. Our dogs are allowed on the sofa, they sleep with us every night. BUT.....they are not allowed on the tables. Period. No.dogs.on.the.tables. They know this. They know they will be in deep hooey if they get up on a table. Or so we thought. Adam thought he was safe because he put the bottle away from the edge of the table. Adam was wrong! I caught this when I came into the room.





This bottle still had a good amount of pop in it so she was having trouble picking it up and carrying to her kennel. It also had the lid on, which was a good thing cuz we would have had pop all over the place otherwise! And I would have had to do something ugly to Adam for leaving an open container where someone could get to it. This is what happens to the pop bottle after about 15 seconds.


another 15 seconds later and this is what happens......


After that it just gets worse. The bright side of Kallie being addicted to pop bottle chewing is she will never have to have her teeth cleaned. Them babies are sparkly white! So now you know. If you come over for a visit sometime, don't leave your bottle alone, not even for a minute....ya never know what might happen to it!

I made a bit of progress on the Princesses. Doesn't look like much considering the amount of time I have spent on it but progress is progress and I'll take it. This was on the 9th.



this was as of ten o'clock last night. (click to make larger if you like)


So what are your plans for the weekend? Dan and I are headed out soon to pick up a bed frame for Abby. She doesn't like her antique bed and wants something new. Then we will scour the thrift stores for a head board we can paint black for her. After that there is mowing, cleaning, laundry and tomorrow the in-laws are coming back to take the aunt to the airport so they will be here. In between I hope to make some progress on the cleaning of my basement room that used to be my craft room/barbie room but was overtaken by my husband for his business he had. Business no longer exists so the clean up has begun. And we are talking a long hard clean up. But that's a story for another day....

Till next time friends and thanks for stopping in and posting comments!

Have a great weekend!

Geranium House is Framed

Good Morning! It's finally going to be a hot one today so I broke down and turned the A/C on. I could handle the heat and humidity but the rest of the people in this house are wimps! It's been a busy couple of days here, the in-laws were down to pick up Dans' aunt from the airport so the house had to be cleaned for that. I had 5 cross stitches to get done for a customer that is moving soon and wanted us to do the framing before she leaves. She has stitched the Sue Hillis maps of all the places she's lived. She has Nebraska and Hawaii yet to stitch and has said she will mail them to us for framing when she gets them done. Abby and her boyfriend could be broke up, she wasn't really sure the last time I talked to her. She went to a College World Series game last night after work and I haven't seen her yet to see if they worked things out. They both have some growning up to do in my opinion. Adam is taking Amy to a CWS game this evening. Amy has never been to one before and it was on her to do list for this summer. I made sure to tell her she was not to get on the bus with the team like her momma did at that age! Adam will keep her out of trouble I'm sure. I used to find that sort of thing fun. Not the bus, well okay that's a lie, the bus was fun but I was referring to the games. Now, you have to go so early, park 3000 miles away, people are rude, it's just not so fun anymore. Somewhere along the way I have become a fuddyduddy. Is that a familiar term to you? Or is it a family thing? What it means is, I am a stick in the mud. I have become what I swore I never would. B.O.R.I.N.G. I find I'm not really all that upset about it. Which makes it even worse. Oh, well, I am what I am I suppose. Maybe it'll swing back the other way when I'm 80 and I'll be one of those cool old people jumping out of planes on their birthday! Do you suppose they do that to make themselves feel young again or because dementia has set in and they don't know any better? Guess I'll have to wait 30 years and see!!

On the stitchy side of things, I started the new freebie from Plum Street Samplers. Paulette lives here in the Omaha area. We haven't met but I'm hoping she'll find her way to our shop sometime. I've talked to her about a trunk show for fall so we'll see. I've also been working on 12 dancing Princesses, darn confetti stitches take forever! I'll update my progress on that in a day or so. Finally, I've framed up Geranium House. Such a pretty chart!


I think it turned out quite well. I debated on the frame but stuck with my original thought on it.

So You Think You Can Dance is on tonight ! Just a reminder to those of you that maybe haven't tuned in. You really should. Oh! Did anyone watch the new show on TNT last night? Hawthorne was the name of it, with Jada Pinkett Smith. It was good. I'd watch it again. And lets not forget about Saving Grace. Or skanky ho cop as we like to call her. The new season started last night also. And The Closer started last week. I can remember when summer was a barren desert where TV was concerned. Thanks TNT. I appreicate having new things to watch while stitching in the summer! Keep up the good work!

Well, I best get myself moving here. Gotta pack my lunch, eat breakfast, brush my teeth and head to work. Amy needs the car today, she has a journalism meeting this morning so I have to go in a bit earlier than usual.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Common Courtesy?

Good Sunday Afternoon Everyone! It's been a beautiful day here today. Dan and I have been outside trimming back the jungle, I mean the bushes in the yard. We've filled our yard waste container, our garbage container, 2 other large garbage cans and 5 large yard waste bags. Obviously the gardener hasn't been doing her job! What the heck does she think she gets paid for? Oh, wait, I'm the gardener and I certainly don't get paid for doing it! Silly me. Do you like my Lily pictured above? The irises quit blooming about a week ago so now it's time for the lillies to do their thing. The daylillies are doing well in the blooming department but the asiatic lillies have been slower. Little orange (above) was my first for this year but this morning when I went out I saw this:

Big red bloomed overnight. I love the color, so intense! Unfortunately I am going to have to move her. And her friends. They have gotten so big and need more space. The question is...where to move them. I'll have to think on that one but right now I'm so tired I can't think of anything but taking a nap.

I would like to know what happened to common courtesy? When did it become acceptable to do things like play basketball till 2 in the morning? Or have (close your eyes if you are easily offended) sex on your back deck till 2 in the morning? Or, like last night, a party in your garage until 2 in the morning, when the cranky, tired, fat old lady across the street finally had enough, looked the address up on the county assessors website, got the owners name, found their phone number in the book and called them to tell them it was time to take the party inside. Their response you ask? I'm sorry, were we being noisy??? You are drunk as a skunk and you want to know if you were being noisy? Give me a break! At least the couple on the deck having sex were amusing to listen to. Up till then I didn't know you could go on like that for hours at a time. Of course we sorta ruined their fun by yelling out the window (close those eyes again!) to finish her off so we could get some sleep! And the thump thump whoosh, thump thump whoosh of the basketball would have continued if we hadn't yelled at them too. So when did it happen? We live in a nice neighborhood. When did we become a society that could care less if anyone else has to get up in the morning? I don't know about you but my momma taught me better manners than that. So, for all of you out there partying, having sex, playing basketball or fighting with your spouse, take it inside after midnight and give us cranky old people a break!

New Stash!!

We got a small order in today. Bent Creeks The Branch and The Brown Dog. Too cute!! I'm anxious to see the rest of the charts for the The Branch. But, as cute as these are, I was more interested in the other charts that arrived because they were mine....ALL MINE!!! After my last post, I'm pretty sure this addition to my stash will cement in everyone's mind that I must be doing drugs, or I'm certifiably insane. We all know I'm already going to spend the next 30 years working on the 12 Dancing Princesses but today I added some inspiration to my collection! This beautiful chart is not new but when I ran across it in a blog somewhere, and for the life of me I can't remember where I saw it (must be the drugs) I knew I had to have it. Isn't it gorgeous??




Ahhhh, but that's not all I added. No, I couldn't stop there. That would have been the smart thing to do. But not me, nope, I had to REALLY screw with my mind and order this little beauty too.


30 pages of insanity. JUST.FOR.ME.

Now before the men in white coats come to get me, I need to say thanks to all those that have visited my blog and left such nice comments. I'm as happy as a pig in poop that people I didn't bribe or threaten have enjoyed my posts. :) And those that I did bribe and threaten I really am sorry about that. I'll try never to do it again.....until next time anyway!

One other thing, as you know, I love to watch TV and one of my favorite shows is So You Think You Can Dance. This year is going to be the best yet! Last nights show was so good! If you haven't ever watched it, you should give it a try. These kids are so talented.

I think I see the white coats headed this way so I best skedaddle on out of here. Have a great night everyone!

Popcorn Balls, Books and a WIP

I took the day off today. We were in desperate need of groceries, a clean kitchen and fresh sheets on the beds. Knowing there wasn't much going on at the shop, I called the boss and asked for the day off. The worst that could happen was she'd say no. But she didn't. Thank you Mary Ann! It's not the nicest day outside today, cloudy, cool and at times rainy so after the grocery shopping, the laundry and the kitchen cleaning, my mind turned to comfort food. The bag of marshmallows was calling my name. L.O.U.D.L.Y! What's a girl to do? She makes popcorn balls! I only make popcorn balls once or twice a year. Dan shouldn't eat them and I certainly don't need them. But today I couldn't resist. Don't they look yummy?? They taste pretty darn good too even if I do say so myself.


Of course comfort food got me thinking about other things to do on a cloudy cool day in Nebraska and that led me to thinking about all the good times I had reading books to the kids when they were little. This is our library. We love books. Except for Dan . He hates to read. Remind me again, why did I marry him?


Before I turned them on to the book The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, they each had their favorites. Mine as a child was The Three Little Horses at the Kings Palace.


Adam loved Where the Wild things Are by Maurice Sendak. He loved it so much that it's falling apart at the seams and even though he's 24 I can still recite the book word for word from memory. That's quite a feat considering I can barely remember my name most of the time! When I ordered checks the last time I saw they had Where the Wild Things Are checks and I just had to order them! Too cute! Amy, the youngest of the three kids loved a book called We're Very Good Friends, my Grandma and I by P.K. Halliman. She and Gram are very close and Gram read that book to her all the time! Then there is Abby, the middle child. Her favorite was The Twelve Dancing Princessess by Ruth Sanderson. She loved that book so much that when she saw this pattern

by Heaven and Earth Designs she begged me to stitch it for her. Never having stitched or even seen a HAED before I said sure, I could do that. Stupid stupid stupid! What the heck was I smoking??? 59 pages long, 28 count over 1 and lots of black. Lots! Okay Julie, you can do this, it's just one stitch at a time right? It's no harder than any other chart you've stitched. WRONG! I set my original goal at 1 page per month. At that rate, in 5 years it would be done. I started this in January. I have 1 page and a bit of another done. Well, technically, even the one page I have done isn't done but that's a whole nother can of worms! I'm now operating on the 30 year plan and I can almost bet money she won't even want it by then!! Shoot me. Just Shoot Me. Now. This is what I have done so far.



So what book was your favorite as a child and what book is your childrens favorite? I have a 3 year old nephew so I'm always on the lookout for new books to buy him. Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Amy is telling me it's time to watch some 24. Maybe that will put Dan in the mood for another covert op so I can take close ups of the stuff in the window for Chella. We'll see....