Category Archives: David’s and my projects

Hoosiers

I am a Hoosier girl through and through. Born and bred on an Indiana farm with straw in my hair, mud between my toes, dirt under my fingernails and chicken feathers sticking to my clothes. Days spent playing on the farm are some of my most treasured memories. There were all sorts of animals to play with and all kinds of places to play. I would get up in the morning, eat my breakfast of hot tea and cinnamon and sugar toast and run outside to the great out there where fun and surprises awaited. My mother didn’t know where I was most of the time. She just knew I was on the farm somewhere, whether it was in the sandbox, up a tree, in the haymow playing with a new family of kittens, or swinging on the porch swing reading a library book. At times I was asked to weed in the garden or help around the house or gather eggs, but for the most part I was allowed to just be a kid and have fun.

I was thinking of those days this weekend as David and I traveled the country roads of Brown and Morgan County. We got up early on Saturday morning and headed to Bloomington to a soccer tournament our two younger grandsons were playing in.

It was a foggy morning making everything look mysterious.

Past corn fields ready for harvesting.

Seeing the sun rise. Something I rarely see these days as I have become a late sleeper. I would usually be tucked away in my comfy bed fast asleep on a morning such as this, but not that day. And I am glad I saw it all.

It was fun watching our grandsons play. Both their teams won their games I am proud to report. This grandson was an excellent goalie for his team. Not one ball got past him.

It was a beautiful morning to watch the games.

Always nice spending time with these loved ones.

After watching the games, David and I set off for home, but we didn’t take the fast way. Oh, no. We took the back way. Off the beaten path. Where we love to wander.

Down lonely roads where we might see a car or two. I think of all the people who come to Brown County this time of year to see the foliage and all they see is downtown Nashville with all its stores. Shopping is fun in Nashville if that’s what you like to do and I have done my share of shopping there, but we prefer being out in the country. I am sure Brown County State Park was very busy that weekend. Vice President Mike Pence’s son was getting married in Brown County last weekend, something neither of us knew at the time. His plane flew into our city and several friends went out to see it. It’s not every day the vice president comes to your town. But David and I were wandering.

Past woods…

and old barns. So sad to say the old barns are going away pretty quickly. I wish people would take better care of them and preserve them for the next generation. My family barn is gone because of lack of care. It makes me sad.

We drove by fields where farmers were getting in the harvest.

Past old building like this and this…..

Past an old one room school. I think about the children who walked to this school which was probably heated by a stove and they used slates to write upon.

I dearly love old barns. In their day they were stacked with straw bales and hay bales and the farm animals sheltered in them. Now they either stand empty or have old farm equipment in them that is never used.

The trees were just starting to turn.

Another week and they will be at their peak unless the rains take off the leaves.

We saw some interesting Halloween decorations along the way. Even out where hardly anyone would see them, people like to decorate.

We found a restaurant that looked interesting so we stopped to eat. This is what happened. When we went inside the hostess asked us if we would like a table or a booth. We like to sit at a booth so she proceeded to sit us and give us a menu. I had thought I wanted a hamburger but they served liver and onions. I love liver and onions and most restaurants don’t usually offer it. This is the second time in a month I have been to a restaurant that served liver and onions. We perused the menu and decided what we wanted and then we waited. And we waited. And we waited. We noticed the tables all around us were getting their drinks and food and we still had not seen a waitress. Then a group of four came in and were immediately given their menus and asked what they wanted to drink and were served promptly. David and I just looked at each other. Then we got the giggles because every time a waitress was heard asking her table if everything was okay, David would say, “Yes, it is.” Even though we had as yet seen a waitress. “We must have been zapped with the invisible ray gun,” David said and we started giggling again. Then I said let’s wait and see how long this would go on. The waitresses were buzzing like flies all over all the other tables and there we sat with not a drink or a wink. Finally I said I was going to go talk to the hostess and David said, “Do you want me to? ” and I said, “No because I will be nice.” So up I went to the hostess and this is what I said, “Excuse me, did you mean to set us at a booth that would not be waited upon? Everyone around us, including a table that arrived after us, have been served their food and no one has even brought our drinks.” ” “What booth!” she almost yelled. Well, I thought to myself, “The booth where you sat us.” So anyway, suddenly a waitress that I had not seen before was suddenly rushing to our table and was getting our drinks and our order. I noticed there was a man standing where the hostess had been standing. I wondered if he was the manager. We got our food pronto and it was very good. The waitress was almost overly solicitous at that point, bringing David not one, but two glasses of sweet tea. Anyway, I won’t give the restaurant’s name as we did get a really good meal there and the liver and onions was excellent. By the way, in a previous post I mentioned a restaurant where we got horrible service as the Outback. I was mistaken. It was O’Charleys but I have to say we ate at another O’Charley’s in Indianapolis last week and the food and service was excellent and we happened to be there on free pie night and I got the best piece of pecan pie I have ever eaten,

But enough about restaurants and food.

Using this pattern…

from this blogger….

I am working on a pumpkin quilt. This is such a fun quilt to make.

I’m enjoying getting out all my Autumn fabrics and playing with them.

I am loving each block I make. Another project I am working on is molding for around the windows in my shop. Since we took down some old fencing, I decided to repurpose it as molding. I cleaned it up and gave it a light brushing with white paint.

I’m loving how you can see the swirls and grain in the wood. When David gets it installed, I will show you how it looks. Now I am thinking of preserving the rest of that wood for a bathroom I am dreaming about that I would like to see put in a little house we may build one day in our woods. It would look wonderful on the walls.

We were given this little chipper shredder the other day and David and I spent an afternoon trying to find twigs to put in it to mulch. If we weren’t looking for twigs, they’d be everywhere, but we had trouble finding any even with all the trees around us. It doesn’t take very big limbs so it takes forever to get a cup full of mulch, but we had fun playing with it anyway. It really does not take much to entertain us.

Hope you are enjoying the season.

Hope your skies are blue.

And hope your friends are close. Bye.

Calm Before the Storm

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We have lived in our old house for almost 40 years now and there has hardly been a year where we have not done something to it like removing wallpaper, putting up wallpaper, removing wallpaper, painting, stripping woodwork, replacing woodwork, putting down tile floors, removing tile floors, ripping out old floors, putting down new wood floors, replacing windows, adding a bedroom and bathroom/laundry room, putting on a deck, ripping down the deck, building a bigger deck, building a brand new front porch(which, to this date, is our most favorite thing we have ever done to this house) and multiple paintings of every room in the house. David says our walls are at least one inch thicker because of all the paint I have slapped on them for the last 40 years. One year, when our children still lived at home and the neighborhood kids would come over, one little girl asked me one time, “Are you always painting?” I had to confess to her that I love to paint and yes, I was always painting something.

Well, we think we are almost done remodeling. This year we are completely gutting the upstairs bathroom except for the big, old tub, which I love to soak in and having new walls put up, new wiring, new light fixtures, new plumbing, new cabinet and sink, faucets and new flooring put in. We are also finishing up getting all our windows replaced. It has taken several years, but they will be done this year. Yippee! Except for our hall window which I love because it slides up into the wall and they cannot find one like it to replace it, so it’s staying.

So today I cleaned the downstairs really well because I know for the next few weeks, my house is going to be tracked in, dust will fall as the plaster walls come out and total chaos will reign for a time. I’m not good with chaos, but thankfully our contractor is not one of those who takes his time doing a job. He comes in, keeps his men working until the job is complete. At least he has in the past and I have no reason to think he has changed. David has said we have him on retainer because he has worked on our house so much. We still have one bathroom to go and I don’t know if we will get that done this year. He and his men are very nice to work with and are very respectful of other’s property. I worry about my tub getting scratched, but I have been assured they will lay something in it to protect it. All the tilework around the tub is going to be replaced. I have wanted to have that done for years. No amount of scrubbing can make that tile look good, so brand new, sparkling white tile is going up around my old tub and my old tub will be so thankful! And after all the dust has settled and everything is done I will repaint the bathroom myself. I have the colors all picked out We purchased this really big, old mirror to place above the cabinet. Now I am wondering if I really want to see that much of me when I get out of the bathtub! Right now we just have a little medicine cabinet in the wall. One I am going to keep because it is vintage. Probably put in the bathroom in the 1950’s.

So, here are pictures of the bathroom as it is now. A very nondescript little room. But it has served its purpose well for these last few decades. I have bathed my children and grandchildren in the big, old tub. I have waited impatiently outside its door for teen-agers to get done doing whatever teen-agers take forever to do. I have been so sick in this bathroom, I’ve wanted to die. I have spent hours soaking in the tub. I like showers, but a good soak in a bathroom is bliss to me, especially when my muscles are screaming in pain, which they seem to do more often these days. Yes, it’s been a good little bathroom and deserves to be remodeled and brought into the twenty-first century. Or as far into the twenty-first century as I am willing to go.

The tub. One would think I would have prettied things up a little before taking this picture, but, well, this is how the bathroom looks most of the time. I am planning to be neater in the new bathroom.

We did replace the commode years ago. The old one had been there since the 1950’s. But we are getting a newer, more high tech one. Thank you for looking at my toilet. I am sure it’s been the highlight of your day!

Yes, we are keeping this little drawer by the bathtub which has absolutely nothing in it. And, yes, I do buy shampoo a lot and don’t use up the bottles.

I love this corner cabinet, but there is nothing you can do with this corner with it there. So, it’s going. I’m going to look at antique stores for a storage cabinet of some kind to replace it. Who knows what I will find in the dark, back corners of this cupboard when I take everything out. It kind of makes me sad it’s going. Is that crazy, or what? I tend to hold onto things. Does anyone want a nice corner cabinet? Let me know before next Wednesday.

I painted this bathroom several times. The last time was many years ago and my, then, daughter-in-law put the wallpaper border up for me. I have always loved this wallpaper. I will be sad to see that go too. I still am friends with my daughter-in-love although she is not technically related to me any longer. And she is a great mother to my grandchildren.

So, I will be taking pictures of the remodel. I hope I won’t be screaming in agony as the old bathroom goes. Who gets attached to a bathroom, anyway? There is a lot of history between me and this bathroom. And the people who live in our house down the road will be glad that the bathroom doesn’t date to the 1950’s. I hope that won’t happen for a long time. Bye.

This is Retirement?

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I don’t think David and I thought very much about retirement when we were younger. We were just trying to make a living and raise our three children and keep food on the table. I always heard that retirement was the time when one could kick back and relax. Do some traveling. People picture Grandmas and Grandpas sitting on the porch, Grandma with knitting in her hands. Well, a little of that happens around here, but we evidently didn’t get the message about how to behave when retired.

It seems we are busier than ever. Work just as hard and the days go by much, much more quickly. Here it is, June already. Where did May go? I spend most of my days outside in the garden or taking care of the chickens and playing with the dogs. Between laundry, cooking, cleaning, and other household chores, I keep pretty busy. I don’t know how our ancestors did it without all the labor saving devices we have now. My great-great-great grandmother had to heat the water for the laundry, wash everything on a washboard, hang the clothes outside, weather permitting, iron all the clothes and by the time she was done with that, it was time to start all over. She did this while raising a garden, canning enough food to get the family through the winter, cooking every single meal, and raising a family. Whew. I get tired just thinking about it. I can stick a load of clothes in the washer, go outside, and when I come in, the clothes are washed. It almost seems like a miracle to me. But I see miracles in a lot of things. Not all that long ago if you had leftovers, you had to get out pans and heat them on the stove and then you would have all the pans to wash afterward. Now, with the microwave, we can fill up a plate with leftovers, heat it for a few minutes and have a good, hot meal, almost as good as the original you cooked before. Miracle.

But I got off subject. I do that all the time. Here are a few things that we have been doing the last few weeks.

We celebrated Memorial Day, a day to remember our fallen soldiers and also to remember loved ones who have died. David’s grandmother always called it Decoration Day because it was the day she always took flowers and decorated the graves of family members.

I fix a pot of grass for the chickens every once in a while. They need their greens, too.

“What are you looking at? Can’t we eat without being disturbed?”

I’ve become a sock model.

Why do I always have a bruise on my shins?

See that pie safe in the background? I took that step ladder there and climbed up to see if it needed dusting on top. Well, since I haven’t dusted up there in years, I found a dust storm up there. I was a little amazed, thinking I kept a pretty clean house and there was such a dusty place almost right over my nose. I took everything off it, washed what I could to include several American flags I had in a can. I scrubbed the top three times until I felt like it was clean enough. Now it’s good for another ten years! I reckon if I looked hard enough, I could find several dusty places in my house, but I’m not going to look too hard. The thing about dust. It will always be there. It won’t go away on its own. I read one time that we could have the dust from the first Adam’s body in our dust bunnies under our beds because dust travels all over the world. Maybe I have Moses under my bed or maybe Christopher Columbus. If so, they will be quite safe there as I don’t like to dust all that much unless I really feel like it.

We had sixteen people here for dinner the other day and the kids all played in the pool. I love having lots of kids in the pool. They had so much fun. Besides that, they stir up all the stuff on the bottom of the pool and that actually helps to clean it. And the water definitely was stirred.

David and I have eaten at a couple of different restaurants lately. One was called Stone’s Family Restaurant in Mihousen. The food was so-so, but it was worth the trip to eat the fried biscuits and apple butter. We could have made a meal out of those. The restaurant is in this little off the beaten path town time has forgot. We drove several back roads to get there and the scenery was so pretty. I don’t think any place is prettier than Indiana in Summer.

The other one was in the little town of Vernon. Vernon hosts a town wide garage sale every Labor Day weekend. There are yard sales all the way along the highway to Vernon. We went one year and there was just about everything for sale, plus there were vendors selling their wares. We have eaten at this restaurant before. Really good food.

We missed the Karaoke.

This is what it looks like on the outside. Nothing special, but I don’t think I have ever had as good fish as I did there. It was done to perfection. Not greasy and not fishy tasting.

We ate there on the way back from this place. Streamcliff Farm. A nursery, winery that was having a flower sale. I was not going to buy anymore flowers this year. But…..

Of course, I did. You took a little red wagon through the greenhouses to pick up your plants.

I bought several perennials and a rhubarb plant. By the way, our rhubarb has done wonderfully this year. I have several packages of it frozen so that in the middle of the winter, we can have rhubarb pie and think of Spring.

The plants sold here are so healthy and big. I don’t know what kind of fertilizer they use, but the plants sure do flourish.

There are little gardens everywhere. I wonder what it is like to wake up every morning and know all this is yours and you can walk through it anytime?

Fish in the fishpond. Everyone needs a garden they can escape to whether it’s on several acres or on the rooftop of a city building.

There was a man there playing and singing Johnny Cash songs and he sounded just like him!

Man in black. I love Johnny Cash songs. He was a great song writer and singer.

This is what I have been doing today. David is replacing the fence boards along one side of our back yard so I decided to stain them. There will be hundreds. Today I stained forty some. He went and bought some more and some more stain, so guess what I will be doing tomorrow.

David put up the original fence about twenty-five years ago. It’s held up pretty well, but it’s time to be replaced.

Just so they won’t think I have forgotten them, here’s the puppers. Always watching for me to come out. Playmate, come out and play with me, and bring your dollies three, climb up the apple tree. Look down the rain barrel, slide down the cellar door. And we’ll be jolly friends, forevermore. My mother use to sing that song to me.

Molly looks like she has a big cigar in her mouth.

Hope you are having a wonderful Summer(or Winter in some parts of our world.) Soon the longest day will come and the days will start to shorten again. It never changes. Bye.

Where Did Last Week Go???

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Where did last week go? For that matter, where did the month of January go? January use to be my least favorite month, but through the years I have grown fond of long winter days, making things in my shop, sleeping in late in a toasty warm bed, baking and cooking comfort foods, and feeding the birds. January and I have grown rather fond of each other.

but January sped by this year like every month seems to speed by nowadays. This was what happened at our house last week.

I gave our living room a fresh coat of paint. Through the years I have painted every room in our house at least three times or more. I love to paint although climbing up and down the ladder is a little harder than it use to be.

The room was a light sage green and now it’s a sort of pinkish brown. A few years ago I painted our bedroom and wanted a soft, darker pink. It turned out Pepto Bismo pink. We lived with it. While painting with this color, I got some on my arm and looked at it and thought, ‘Ah, calamine lotion.” So now I have a calamine lotion painted room, but I rather like it. It looks really well alongside the grayish diningroom. We shall live with it.

This painting looks really good on the wall.

The fireplace mantle stands out better. I am getting use to it.

We had the wolf moon. I almost missed it, but I got up earlier than usual last Sunday and saw it just before it set in the west.

I love full moons. They say people go a little crazy during them, but they have never bothered me.

I have almost knit to the heel of another sock. Now I will have to change to double pointed needles to knit the heel flap and then the dreaded heel turn. I will have to try this when no one is around, all phones must not ring, the light must be just right, I must be well rested and alert, the moon must be in the right phase and nothing, but nothing must disturb me or the stitches will fall off the needles like they did the last time and I tore out the whole sock. How did someone figure out how to knit the very first sock ever? How did they teach themselves to turn a heel? It boggles my mind that someone did it for the very first time without any instructions. I have instructions, and it still boggles my mind!

Finished piecing my chick quilt top. It turned out even cuter than I though it would.

I could make another one of these, it was so much fun. It will get quilted soon.

Today I finished piecing a basket quilt. This was another really fun one, but oh, so many little pieces.

I love every piece of fabric in this quilt.

Of course, I continue to feed the birds. They are a continuous source of joy for me. Every time I see a titmouse or chickadee I just have to smile.

Today I was keeping an eye on this cardinal in the crabapple tree. She sat there for the longest time watching the other birds at the feeder.

I kept trying to get a good picture.

This is the best I could do. The sun was shining on her making her feathers seem to glow.

Walking around the yard I noticed that bulbs were starting to sprout in the garden.

This little bush has stayed this color all winter.

I’ve been doing a little coloring in this book.

I have ordered a tin of seventy-two colored pencils to make my pictures more enhanced.

There is something rather relaxing about sitting down and coloring a picture. I loved coloring when I was a little girl. So glad that adult coloring books are in vogue right now. I love working with the colors and shading and trying to pretend I am an artist. I saw in Sam’s Club the other day there was a Donald Trump coloring book. We had our grandsons with us and one of them wanted one, but I said his mother would kill me if I bought him one! But I thought it was funny. He got a book, instead.

I’m beginning to write stories about my two younger grandsons called “The Adventures of Tristan and Foster.” I have several ideas for stories. They always want me to make up stories about them when they visit, so I thought I would try my hand at writing some for them.

We lost Abigail this week. David went out to make sure they were in the coop and she was laying out in the garden. No feathers around, no blood.

We had been getting these really long skinny eggs lately and I was thinking one of the hens must have something wrong with her egg canal. Since Abigail died, we haven’t got anymore of these eggs so I think she got bound up with an egg. So sad. That happens sometimes with chickens. They can look really healthy, but have an egg stuck inside them and it kills them.

Besides all of this there’s been church going, cookie baking, roll making, grandboys visiting, laundry doing, book reading, dog playing, chicken feeding, Bible study planning, David’s birthday celebrating, and much more. I haven’t been to the hair dresser for months. I need a cut and color, but I keep putting it off. I am getting so lazy in my old age. Just love staying at home and doing at home things. I feel blessed. Bye.

The Needle Arts

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From the day that my mother first handed me a needle and an old sock and told me to make a doll, I have been interested in the needle arts. I still have that sock doll somewhere. From sewing machines needles to knitting needles to quilting needles I have been interested in making things with needles. My year started out with my trying my hand at knitting socks. I have made three false starts and now I am once again trying to knit a sock.

I purchased this book in hopes it would walk me through the dreaded heel. I have not started the heel yet and to tell you the truth, I am very worried about it.

I’m practicing on a sock with inexpensive wool. I am liking how it looks so far.

I ordered this beautiful yarn from this place…

It’s so beautiful, I am almost afraid to use it. But won’t these make wonderful socks?

I have never ordered wool like this and I have never rolled balls of yarn before and it took a village to get it done. If I had tried to figure out how to find the end of the yarn in these skeins, I would have been left with a knotted up mess, but David helped me and we ended up with this..

You know how in some of those old movies you would see the husband holding the yarn in both hands while the wife wound the ball? That is what David and I did. One skein down, four more to go. One skein is suppose to knit up a pair of socks.

Remember the socks I was knitting a few days ago and ripped out?

Now they are a scarf, but I would much rather have had a pair of socks to show you. Someone will be getting a scarf for Christmas next year. Ha. I can do scarves with my eyes closed. Maybe that is what I am doing wrong. Not closing my eyes while I knit socks. What a catastrophe that would be!

I’m not the only one who can ply a needle.

I wanted to learn how to crochet and David found me one of his crochet hooks and started casting on and before we both knew it, he had crocheted this….

He used up some of my old yarn and wore this to work. He got several compliments on it. At least one of us is good with the needle. I still haven’t learned how to crochet. But it’s on my bucket list.

I licked my wounds after the sock debacle and went back to what I knew I could do. Quilting. This first week of January I have already completed two quilts.

This is one I started a couple of years ago and wanted to finish it before Valentine’s Day this year and I did! This is made with Pamkitty Love fabric which I love.

Love the look of old fashioned Valentines.

Another quilt I completed was made from the book, Little Quilts All Through the House. A book I had had for several years and lost and just last week I ordered it on Amazon for under ten dollars and am so glad I did. I have made so many little quilts from this particular book in the past years and this week I made another one.

Another quilt for Valentine’s Day. This one made up so fast and I absolutely love it.

I love fabric with words upon it and this is the border to this particular quilt.

Has a French look about it. Anyway, I feel a little better that I completed a project once again as I have been rather discouraged about all the sock knitting failures. I will knit socks. I won’t give up.

This is part of a new project I just started this week also. It’s going to have quilting, embroidering, and applique on it. I am making this to wear for Valentine’s Day. I am so excited because it is my own creation and no one will have anything like it when I am completed. All these ideas just creep into my mind and suddenly I just have to create. I put everything else aside when the creative juices start flowing. Must be like the feelings Picasso, Monet and other artists must have felt like when they created their great art, not that anything I make is great art, but it’s my art and I love it. I will be showing my creation as soon as I get it completed.

Alas, the day came to take down the Christmas tree. It’s never as exciting as putting it up although I do enjoy having more room again, but I sure will miss the bright lights and cheer the tree brought into our home.

Putting away all our much loved ornaments. We didn’t put as many decorations on the tree this year, but it was just right and looked really pretty.

I will look forward to seeing these again next Christmas.

All my snow people watched with interest as we stored all the Christmas paraphernalia away. They seemed to be saying, “Phew, we get to stay out another month or two because we are snow people.”

This little guy joined the others this year.

A friend gave me this wonderful Jim Shore snowman several years ago. He is my favorite snowperson. Shhhh, don’t tell the others.

This little lady joined my Jim Shore collection this Christmas as a gift to me and she stands on a shelf in the kitchen. The person who gave her to me said it was me with all the cooking and baking I do. I took that as a compliment. I love her.

This is my new exercise ball my daughter and son-in-law gave to me for Christmas. Every time I went to their house I would bounce on my daughter’s exercise ball and say, ” I would love to have one of these,” and she listened to me. It’s good for core exercise and balance. My daughter has MS and uses it to help her balance. I love bouncing on it. Feel like a kid again!

I got this really great poster of butterflies last Fall when we were in Fredricksburg, Texas at Wildseed Farms. Don’t know how I am going to display it yet, but I love looking at it and reading about all the different butterflies. So many beautiful ones.

I’ve seen a few of these in our garden.

And last but not least, I bought a couple of inexpensive journals at JoAnn’s the other day. I love writing in journals when I am not writing here. There is something about putting words on paper. I go back to some of my old journals that tell about some of our trips, family gatherings and other things and find it such a joy to read about the good times and even some of the not so joyful times because none of us gets to live a life free of pain or sorrow. But, all in all, we have lived a pretty good life, Dave and I and I hope I can fill many more journals.

Hope you will be creative this year. If not, I hope you get to enjoy something from a creative person. Here’s to needles and yarn and thread and creative juices. Bye.

Signs of the Season

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I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We were blessed with family and festivities and all the Christmas season is supposed to be. A time of joy, peace and blessings. Now we are settling in for the rest of the winter. Cold, dreary days. Firelight flickering. Candles glowing. The days for soups, chili, and comfort food. Baking bread. The days for enjoying our Christmas gifts, if we got any, or just enjoying being inside and working on our indoor chores and hobbies.

I am in a sock knitting obsession. I started a pair of socks in the last couple of weeks.

My first time ever to knit on circular needles.

Very tiny circular needles. I found I liked the knitting part of it, but was dreading turning the heel. I think I worried about it so much I dropped stitches as I was trying to knit the heel flap, got all impatient about picking up the stitches and ended up tearing out the whole sock and now am using the yarn to knit yet another scarf. So I am back to square one in starting a pair of socks. I think I am going to order some different yarn as this yarn is acrylic and not really sock yarn and I did not like the stiffness of it as I was knitting. Maybe it was a good thing I dropped those stitches. David said, “you spent hours knitting that sock,” and I said, ” I can start again. I am determined to knit socks.” I won’t give up. If millions of women can knit socks, so can I.

I did get this for Christmas.

I am not so sure this will be any easier as there is a CD to watch and all kinds of things one needs to know before one starts. How can a simple sock be so hard? I know people who knit hats on looms like this, so it cannot be that hard. Anyway, that is what I tell myself.

Meanwhile, I told David I wanted to learn to crochet this year, also, which made him get out his crochet needles and proceed to crochet a scarf.

He use to crochet all the time and even crocheted a huge afghan. If David can do it, surely I can. He says it’s easy. Sure it is. When you know how to do it!

We had an informal table this year at Christmas. I didn’t want to be spending the time doing dishes on Christmas day.

We used paper plates, but I did find these vintage looking ones with napkins to match at Hobby Lobby.

Kids are what make Christmas so much fun.

Even grumpy snowmen are fun. Our oldest son modeling one of his gifts. As one can see, it made our grandson laugh.

Another gift I received was this adult coloring book. It has brought out the kid in me. I can’t stay away from it. I collected all my coloring pencils and got to work.

The pages are all these black and white drawings, but as you color you turn the pages into…

Little works of art.

I am having way too much fun with this book.

Other signs of the season are these…..

Birds at the bird feeders. A titmouse. We haven’t seen titmice for years at our feeder so this was a wonderful thing to see. I hope we get lots more of these pretty little birds.

The winter garden is still wonderful to see. There is beauty everywhere. These flowers only bloom in the winter. This is the first year I have had them and I plan to get some more as it is a joy to see flowers in December outdoors.

As we come to the close of yet another year, I pray for peace, for happiness, for health, and for the love of family and friends in 2016. I wish it all for you, too. Bye.

Finishing Up and Starting Again

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I have pledged to myself that I am going to finish some quilts I have begun. I have a box full of them. It’s fun to pick out new fabrics and piece a brand new quilt and I could do that every month, but there comes a time when one needs to finish what one has started. So….

This week I completed a Christmas quilt I started last year. These sheep were as crazy to make as they are to herd. Every single one of these sheep is sewn together wrong except for one. Every one. And it’s not the sheep that is facing a different direction than the rest as that is suppose to be the wayward sheep. It’s the only one sewn correctly. I am sure if you look closely you will notice one big mistake I made on one. I didn’t notice it until I had it half quilted. Anyway, as a friend of mine use to tell me, “you won’t see it on a galloping horse.” Now I have to find the horse. I didn’t follow the pattern maker’s design completely. There was suppose to be a shepherd in this quilt, but I didn’t like how it looked so I made an extra sheep and this block.

I like the way it turned out. One project completed. Check.

I finished two other quilts that I cannot show because of the season coming up. Two more projects completed. Check.

I made a skirt from some fabric I have had for quite some time. You can wear it this way.

Or this way. Almost like having two different skirts. We went over to Nashville with some friends the other day and I got a couple of tops that go with this skirt. We have been to Nashville twice in two weeks and not one time did I remember to take pictures with my camera. There was so much to photograph there but I was too busy looking.

I put together this outfit and like it a lot. Another project completed. Check.

David and I took one morning and sealed the siding on our porch wall. We make a good team and finished it within a couple of hours. Now the wall should not turn grey.

Project completed. Check.

I made a couple of brooches. I have ideas for several more.

Years ago, we needed a coffee table and there was a company where you could order furniture unfinished and not put together. You built the furniture yourself and put your own finish on it. So, I ordered this butler’s table and David put it together and I stained it a rich, deep brown. It has served its purpose for many years. The leaves on the table go up and down and most little boys and girls liked to lift the leaves up and down over and over. Toy cars have been run on this table. It’s been hammered, pounded and naturally distressed over the years. David says you pay big money to get distressed furniture and we got ours for free!

I decided it was time to redo the table so I am painting it a cream color and will distress it a little or will have some children over to do it for me.

I’m putting several coats of paint on it. When I am finished with it, it’s going in my girly room.

A friend brought me this pile of luscious fabric. I am so blessed. I will use this for sure.

Miss Molly Marshmallow is growing so fast. She runs with the big dogs and doesn’t want to be separated from them. She cries when I take Belle her walk even after I have already taken her on a walk. She is doing really well on the leash. Sometimes I let her walk herself and she will carry the leash in her mouth and walk along beside me.

The chickens are molting right now and I won’t show you a picture of them because it would embarrass them. One of them is completely bare on her backside, poor girl. She stays in the chicken house and acts ashamed of her looks, but David said he noticed today that her feathers are finally coming back in. The egg laying has been pretty sparse right now as the hens conserve their energy to grow their new feathers for the winter. I still get two or three dozen eggs a week. The younger hens should start laying soon.

Fall is moving right along. Soon it will be Thanksgiving,(when I am walking a 5K that morning before dinner) then Christmas and then we will be right back to Spring again. The seasons are running together now. I love each one and especially love the cooler weather we are having right now. Hope you are having a wonderful Autumn. Bye.

Summer

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You know that first day of June when Summer stretches out before you with all its sunny days, times to relax by the pool, read a good book, garden, stay outside until dark and watch the lightening bugs flickering in the trees? It’s halfway over already and I still haven’t done half the things I wanted to do.

We have made a trip to Chicago, spent time in the pool, had the grandkids over, gardened and enjoyed the warm, hazy days. We want to go to the zoo, the state fair, and to Cincinnati before our son moves to Florida(ah, a new place to visit.) We said we would go to at least one auction this Summer. We haven’t made it to one yet. David works so many Saturdays so we can’t go. Already Autumn is beckoning. I see pumpkins and Autumn leaves in the stores. Halloween is just around the corner. I want Summer to last at least two more months. All my grandkids go back to school on August 4th. August 4th!!! That’s taking away a whole month of Summer from them. When I was in school back in the age when we chipped the alphabet on rocks, we didn’t go back to school until after Labor Day and one year we got out of school for the Summer on May 6th. That was a loooong, lazy, wonderful Summer.

But times have changed and the school year is different now. I’m just glad I went to school when I did.

Even the garden is showing me that the last days of Summer are upon us. The sunflowers are blooming. Some of them have already been eaten by the goldfinches and lay on the ground.

The zinnia patch is growing and starting to dry into the seeds I will gather for next year.

Bernice, or is it Dorcas says, ” What’s Summer?” Chickens don’t care as long as they are fed and watered.

By the way, here are the new chicks on the block. This is our new silver laced wyndotte chick. She is so pretty. We’ve clipped her wings. She still manages to fly up and roost in a giant bush by her pen.

The black chick is our new Australorp. When they get separated, they get very nervous. Here Abby, the Wyndotte, is inside the cage and Ada, the Australorp, is outside and neither one likes it. Both will be medium sized chickens and lay medium sized brown eggs. Both have to be hunted at night up in the big bush by their pen. Last night they were in the very tiptop and we could not find them for quite a while.

Our youngest grandson. He is getting really good at swimming. Last year he was afraid of the deep water. This year he swims like a fish. I didn’t learn to swim until we got our first pool. I was always afraid of deep water too. I even took swimming in college, but never got over my fear of going in water that I couldn’t stand in. Now I can swim in the deep end and not be afraid. It’s all in practicing. You can learn about anything if you practice it enough.

Flowers in the garden. Morning glories, perovskia and coneflowers, and hibiscus. The hibicus make my yard look very tropical. They have spread everywhere from one little plant my neighbor gave me years ago. This one is almost eight inches across.

Remember the soda shoppe chair I showed you in a previous post? David chipped all the old paint off it.

He had taken the chair completely apart.

He said it looked like originally there was a copper plating on the chair.

He spent a lot of time getting all the chipped paint removed. That’s why I bought the chair in the first place. Its chipped paint, but through the years it began to look really bad. After all the paint was removed, David spray painted it.

And here it is now. I love it. I also added my touch.

I stuck butterflies on it.

Now it’s a real, girly chair that I will keep in my shop. David had also replaced the old wooden seat that was rotten so the chair can be sat in. He is so handy. He says that’s why I keep him around.

Meanwhile, since I haven’t anything better to do, I have this basket of one and a half inch blocks I have cut out over time and am sewing them together.

I figure eighty of these across and eighty down would make a good size quilt. That’s six thousand and four hundred little squares. Yes, I’m crazy.

I will leave you with a picture of Lunaria Annua, or Honesty or Money plant that grows around our garden. I can see why it’s called Money plant as it glows like Spanish coins when the sun shines through them. See the seeds inside? These will drop and reseed the plant for another year.

Here’s to Summer, industrious husbands and tree roosting chicks. Bye.

Beautilicious Beauty

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Sometimes I get so busy, I forget to notice the flowers in my garden until they have come and gone. Stop and smell the roses, Katie. So I went into my garden to photograph all the beautiliciousness that is going on right now right under my nose.

Zinnias. Next to peonies zinnias are my favorite flowers. They are so easy to grow and come in every color in the rainbow.

Almost like a dahlia. So pretty.

Love, love this salmon color. I think I painted a room that color once. But we called it Pepto-bismo pink.

I get my zinnia seeds from Wildseed Farm out of Texas. I order them by the pound and you really get a lot of seeds in a pound. I can have zinnias all over the yard. How can you not smile when you see this sunshiny color in the garden?

Two of my favorite colors together, pink and white.

Hard to believe this……

Will turn into this in a day. Sunshine from a seed.

Why don’t people believe in miracles? They happen right under our noses every single day. A seed in the ground grows into a beautiful flower in a matter of weeks. That’s miraculous to me.

Cleome. An old fashion flower that I have all over the garden. Some I have planted. Some that have reseeded themselves. They are such good little plants. David does not like them close to the pool because they like to droop over and drop their seeds right by the patio around it. So I try to keep them a good distance from the pool, but they still creep back sometimes.

They look good beside the zinnia bed.

I want to get this imprinted on my mind so that this winter when I am looking out at a foot of snow on the ground and everything is white, brown and grey, I will know that one day there will be an abundance of colors once again. God is good. He sends Spring to us when we need it most.

I found three new plants at a grocery store this week. This I thought was a cone flower or echinacea, but after I planted it and read the message with it I found it was a rudbeckia or black eyed Susan.

It didn’t look like any black eyed Susans I have grown before.

This is a coneflower. A white one that I have never seen. I have a red one, a green one, an orange one and the ordinary pink ones that I have grown for years. I hope this one will multiply like the pink ones do.

I am going to try to grow this crepe myrtle. I always thought they were more of a southern plant, but this one says to mulch it well in the autumn to overwinter it. So we shall see.

I do grow vegetables in my garden. I have dozens of tomatoes almost ready. I can’t wait to bite into that first red, ripe tomato still warm from the sun.

More green beans than we can eat.

Pumpkin blossoms dredged in egg and flour and fried in butter. Yum. What I couldn’t eat, the chickens loved.

We have pumpkin vines taking over the garden and into the flower beds. There are several pumpkins growing.

I’ve seen a couple of these big ones. I never get over the excitement of finding these in the garden. Sometimes I have good luck with pumpkin growing and some years, not so much, but so far, this has been a good year for just about everything. I think letting the chickens scratch in the garden over the fall and winter and leaving their, ahem, fertilizer, has really made the garden the best ever. They will do their work again this year. Such good chickens. I love those little girls. I will have to show you our two new ones soon. They are still being kept in a cage right now to protect them from the bigger chooks, but in a few weeks we will clip their wings and let them out. I let them out one day and they flew up onto the gate. Can’t let them do that with the dogs around.

Do you like butternut squash? I don’t know why I planted these other than I just like to grow them. They are good cut in half, sprinkled with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon and baked in the oven.

This is the pumpkin vines coming right up to the fence saying, “Let us out.” They don’t listen to me and come right on over and spread over everything. The good thing about that is that I have less lawn to mow.

Belle in the garden. I have always said the backyard garden is the dog garden because I don’t get too upset when they walk through a flower bed or eat a few blossoms. Belle likes to smell the flowers too.

Bonnie has been with us for ten years and ever since she was a pup she has been right beside me when I plant and weed in the garden. She’s a flower child dog.

We keep a small patch of clover for the bees. Actually, it’s so I don’t have to mow here!

I’ve given David a new project.

Years ago we bought this old soda shoppe chair at an auction and I have wanted to do something with it. So…..David is taking it apart and I will sand it and paint it(David will sand and paint it)and David will add a new wooden seat to it and then I will add something else that you will have to wait to see when it is finished. I can’t wait to show it to you.

Meanwhile, I am working on this, but cannot show any more because who I am making it for is nosy and reads my blog(you know who you are.) I am really liking how this is looking and I hope I can get it done before Christmas. I have five other quilts looking at me and saying, “Finish me!!!” So many quilts, so little time.

Here’s to gardens, flower child dogs and the One who made them all. Bye.

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Snicklefritz

So glad you came. Come sit a spell and read about the tale of my life.

Category Archives: David’s and my projects

Hoosiers

Calm Before the Storm

This is Retirement?

Where Did Last Week Go???

The Needle Arts

Signs of the Season

Finishing Up and Starting Again

Summer

Beautilicious Beauty