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....

Last night, after watching a couple episodes of 24, Dan and I set out on a covert operation. I needed to take a picture of the new window display and you can't get a good one if it's light out. But I always feel like I'm doing something wrong when I go at night and take pictures of the shop window. Like I'm casing the joint or something which I know is silly since I have the key and the alarm code but nevertheless I always am fearful the cops will show up and arrest me and since we already had covert ops on our mind after watching 24, that's how we referred to our outing. We told Amy we were heading out on a mission and we'd be back when the world was safe once again. We received an eye roll for that one! Kids, they have NO sense of adventure! Dan wanted to blacken our faces so we wouldn't be seen, but I nipped that idea in the bud real darn fast! That would be a tad bit hard to explain if the cops did show up. Add in the fact that secret agents don't carry any i.d. (oops! we both forgot to take our driver's licenses), and we'd have really been in trouble! Lucky for us though, the mission was a success and we didn't see hide nor hair of a cop anywhere. You're probably wondering why I'm telling you this story. Well, remember my last post where I said I have another finish to share? While I was in the midst of the covert operation, I slipped inside the shop and took a picture of it! So without further ado, here is Just Another Button Company's July Cup O' Tea!



I didn't like the original location of the white star buttons, they were supposed to be on the blue part. I prefer them on the red. Frame is by Zaps Frames.

And just in case you want to see the window I did, here's a picture of it. With the exception of the wedding dress and the brass candle holders, both purchased at Goodwill, we didn't spend any money for props so I had to make due with what I had. I think it turned out quite well, don't you?




That's it for today. Thanks for stopping by! And if you comment, thanks for that too!

A Finish!

I finished Geranium House by LHN today. My boss wanted me to use over-dyed threads so I had to do a bit of a conversion. It's stitched on 25 ct. vintage country mocha Lugana 2 over 2. I'm not sure I like how I did the initials on it though. Might have to remove them.

I have another finish but I forgot to take a picture of it before leaving work. I'll post it later.

My daughter Abby called just now. Her boyfriend Jake left town for the summer yesterday. She was at a cookout and was the only one there without a guy. She's trying hard to be a big girl about Jake being gone but it's going to be a big adjustment for her. They've been dating for a year and a half and this will be the first time they've been apart for any length of time. It ought to be an interesting summer!

I think I'll go stitch for a while and watch Mental. Have you seen it? It's kind of quirky but I like it.

Have a great night!

JulieM