Monthly Archives: February 2017

Folding, Folding

I live such an exciting life.  I sometimes can’t stand myself it’s so exciting.   My heart rate gets up to almost 70 beats a minute most days, my life is so exciting.   Here is what has been going on that is so exciting in my world.

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Of course, socks.  I am having entirely too much fun knitting up little socks for little boys in leftover yarn from other sock projects.    These knit together so quickly.  I am still astounded  I can actually knit socks now. Exciting.

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Train watching.  They are working on the tracks in front of our house. See that big pile of gravel?  They dumped several loads of gravel to put on the tracks.

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David and I spent some time sitting on our front porch watching them dump these three carloads of gravel. Exciting.   In another year there is going to be up to twenty trains a day going by our house.  They are trying to fix the rails and crossings to get ready for the heavy train traffic.  Molly howls every time a train goes by.  She will be howling every hour on the hour once the train traffic picks up.  Fun times. Not so exciting.

Did I say something about porch sitting?

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We spent some time porch sitting with our grandchildren.

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Some of us are porch layers.  But that’s okay.

I know there is an honorary Porch Sitting Society somewhere out there in the world, but David and I have formed our own private Porch Sitting Society with David as president and myself as vice president. Membership is open to any friend or family member who wants to join us on our porch.  People who like to sit and watch the world go by. Conversation not mandatory, but welcome. We had our first meeting last week. Some friends brought pizza, but it was too chilly to eat out on the porch so we ate inside, but we still called it the Porch Society meeting!  We plan to have them all Spring, Summer and Fall.  Exciting.

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Baking. I love to bake.  David enjoyed this pineapple upside down cake.  I don’t like it  so he had it pretty much to himself. I had made a chocolate chip applesauce cake last weekend, but we had grandsons over and it didn’t last long and I made another one today for a funeral dinner.  I still don’t have any cake to eat.  Exciting.  Not the funeral so much.

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Watching sunsets. I have noticed several people have posted beautiful sunsets on Facebook recently.  We have had some gorgeous ones.   If you never look out and see a sunset or sunrise, you are really missing something. Exciting.  God’s wonderful creation for all to see. No charge.

And last, but certainly not least, I have been in a cleaning mood lately. Early Spring fever I think since the weather has been Spring like the last week or so. My shop has been neglected and with the dogs spending so much time in it this winter, it just needed a good cleaning.  I also want to paint it sometime this year so I started removing fabric from the shelves, taking it off the boards and washing and ironing it all.

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I’ve been working on it for a couple of days.  Ironing for hours.  I don’t mind ironing, but not so much at a time.  Finally finished it all today.  I have been watching Victoria on PBS the past few weeks and got to wondering about who had to iron all those yards and yards of fabric that were in those Victorian ladies’ dresses.  The Queen had her own laundresses and ironers, I am sure, but the common folk had to do their own ironing.  No dry cleaners back then.  No wash and wear.  Mostly cottons, silks and linens.   It would be like me ironing yards of fabric all the time.  Folded and folded fabric until my arms ached.  But, it’s done now and I am excited about it.

  Talked to our contractor today about replacing the rest of our windows in our house. We have been doing that for years now, it seems, because there are so many windows in this old house. Only four more to go. We also are gutting the upstairs bathroom that hasn’t been remodeled since the 1950’s and putting in new dry wall, tile,  toilet, a new cabinet, sink and faucets. I’m not looking forward to the mess, but am excited at finally getting it done.  The last room in our house to be remodeled.  Thirty-nine years of working on this old house.   Exciting.  

Hope your life is as exciting as mine.  Bye.

 

 

Winter Wonder?

Well, the blizzard I was hoping would hit us in January never appeared. In fact, we had the warmest January in years and February is turning out to be warm also. Today it was 67 degrees out.  It smelled like  Spring.  We sat on our front porch and watched the  Sandhill cranes flying above us heading toward Camp Atterbury where they will rest.  They have a distinctive call as they fly and David heard them before we saw them. Trill your tongue against the roof of your mouth and that is  kind of what they sound like.  We saw two flocks today, but there will be several more.

I wanted January to last for a long time. It seems it’s the only month we are not super busy. A time to get things done inside before Spring.  I have knitted three pairs of sock, made one quilt and completed another since Christmas.  I also made a couple of new pillows last week from some leftover patchwork fabric I found.

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I’ve been working on this quilt for a while and was so happy to get it completed. All machine quilted.

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I used a lot of different fabrics in this quilt which gives it an old fashioned look which I was aiming for.

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These are the two pillows I made this week.  They are big and fat and comfy to lay your head upon.

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These are socks I knit for David. No, they do not match exactly because this yarn did not have a repeating stripe, but he likes them. He has to wear blue jeans and navy shirts to work at Ralph Lauren so these socks will go with his outfit.

I also knit a couple of other pair, but since they might be gifts one day, I can’t show them now.

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Oh, I forgot I made this pillow also. It came in a kit for a small wall hanging, but I wanted a pillow out of it.  I really love it.  It was so much fun to make and I’m thinking an entire quilt made with this pattern would be cute.

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We have missed sitting on our porch and when the weather is even halfway decent we sit outside and watch the world go by.  Even when we have to bundle up.

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But, as I wrote, our temperatures have been such that we sat out in our shirtsleeves today and were quite comfortable.

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The skies have been so blue. You can see the Snow Moon peeking between the branches of this tree. Last night it was full and so bright. They say we had a lunar eclipse which we missed and a comet was supposed to pass close to earth. We didn’t see that either.  I saw the moon early this morning from our bedroom window and it was so beautiful. There is something about a full moon that lifts my spirits, know that there is a God and makes me feel at one with Him.   He set the moon to guard the night, lift the tides and light our way.

Speaking of lighting my way, this dog does it for me every day.  She is so sweet and makes me laugh just to see her.

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The sun was shining on her this particular day and she looked absolutely beautiful.  A shiny coat, a broad chest and that little white patch.  OOOOh, she is so cute.  David has been working with her as she likes to bite his feet so I told him to keep treats with him and when she starts to bite his shoe, stop, tell her to sit and then give her a treat. He also has been playing fetch with her and she seems to be breaking the habit of biting on him.  He has been sorely tested by this dog I will have to admit. She has been slightly more rambunctious than any of our other dogs have been.   She has the sweetness of a Labrador, but the playfulness of a Boxer and sometimes the two don’t mix well.   We think she is more Boxer than Labrador.

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But how can you be angry with her when she has chewed up one more thing, when you look out and see her with her chin on her chair fast asleep?  Kind of like naughty children. They look so sweet when they are asleep!

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Sent out a few Valentine’s Day cards.  I like sending them better than Christmas cards because people don’t really expect to get them.

Can’t believe February is almost half over already. This year is speeding along.  One season following the other in quick succession.   Hope your year is going well. Happy Valentine’s Day.  Bye.