And now we sweat.

103F todays high.  9:25 pm 90F plus 40% humidity.  I hate hot weather!

A finish of a different sort

Today I installed my new headboard.  Make up of the two end pieces of my baby crib!
Here's what I started with.

Once these were sanded down, glued together in the center, holes filled and several ~ read many~ coats of white spray paint applied I added french cleats and hung it on the wall to get this.

Perhaps not perfect but it suits my bedroom and I love that it cost less than $50!  It's hung on the wall because my bed is so tall (30 inches from floor to top of mattress) that it would have been lost behind the pillows!  That would have defeated the purpose of adding a headboard.  One more step towards a completed bedroom.  I always seem to have trouble actually finishing any room!

Purple Blocks

I finished this month's scrappy blocks on Thursday.  Purple this month, had to buy the fabric for these as there was not much purple in my stash!  I'm getting quite a pile of these blocks, 30 now.  I have some colors in mind to replace the colors I don't want to put in the quilt, such as lime green and two blues.  I'm going to try and do the green before the end of the month.

Here's the purple:

Gadgets

I have a collections of kitchen/cooking gadgets.  Larry used to buy them for me at Christmas each year, until I told him to stop!  I have  most all of  the appliances a girl could wish for:  Kitchen Aid stand mixer,  electric hand mixer, blender, emersion blender, food processor, etc.  But for years I have wished for a simple old-fashioned egg beater, not a "wonderful wire whisk" but an egg beater.  So I bought this one.

An OXO egg beater.  The black handle doesn't show very well on my black counters but it is a stub, which is very easy to hold.  It comes apart for ease of cleaning and I just love it!  Whips up French toast mix like a dream and is easy to whip cream or egg whites.  I use it several times a week.

We've been eating a great many simple green salads this summer.  Having found that even Rob will eat this:  a slab of iceberg lettuce, a few slices of cucumber, some tomato and some Feta cheese.  Sometimes we add grilled or roasted chicken, yummy.  Anyway, after cutting the lettuce it turns brown on the edges and looks icky for the next time so I bought this:

A lettuce knife.  It's plastic and doesn't turn the lettuce brown-or at least not as soon.

Don't you just love gadgets?  Do you have a favorite?

Quinn

Yesterday I put a bandana on Quinn for the first time.

Doesn't she look cute?  Patriotic too!

I don't think she liked it much though.  While I was stitching until it cooled off enough for an evening walk she messed around with it until she looked like this:

Oh, no who is that masked puppy?!  

It would have been completely off except I mistakenly caught up some fur when I tied the knot!

Finished!

I finally finished this rag quilt.  Made from the leftovers of the quilt below(finished in 2009)--it's actually one row wider!

I still have a bag of 1 1/2" strips of some of this but it has gone to the garden for tying up things!  There aren't any wide strips or backs left - thank goodness.

 I think it will go to Beth's house, as the one below did.  I guess it will be Kolby's.

I am so glad to have that off my list!

Such a lazy blogger I am

It's been another week since I blogged!  Where did my intention to blog each day go?  Just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I've been a total lay about though.

All the stones are in the ground layer of all the walls!  I need to buy some more on Wednesday to finish up but just putting one atop the other is a cinch!  I may need to add a few more blocks on the ends but that's only a few minutes work.  I wish I could say that the project was finished when I get those blocks laid, unfortunately that is not the case, sigh.  I still need to finish the drain (cut it off and add rock above and below so it doesn't fill with dirt. First, I have to go buy the rock.) Then I need to fill the beds with dirt, dug up from other places-other projects, and lastly I must go buy a load of compost to put on top. Good thing I have a pick up truck.  In the meantime I have to decide what to plant in them, hum.  Anyway, there is a light shinning at the end of that tunnel and it's getting brighter every day!

I have the headboard glued together, the big holes filled and a coat of primer on.  It was too windy today (currently 24 MPH out of the south) to spray  paint and will be tomorrow as well.  Here's hoping we have only gentle breezes on Wednesday.  It should only take a couple of days of decent weather to have it finished as well.  Boy, I'm checking these things off at the moment!  Even better, I'm not adding anything to the list either!

I have finished all the stitching on the flannel rag quilt!! Yeah!! I began snipping today and will do a bit more tonight-hope to have it all done for washing on Wednesday.  Then I have to take some time and tidy my sewing space as well as catch up on some other projects.

I am feeling stuck inside right now.  The heat and humidity have combined to create air quality that is not too great and my allergies and asthma have kicked in-not bad enough to head for the MD but enough to take the air out of me!  Poor Quinn is feeling the heat, evening walks are pretty short and don't allow for any big runs as she has so much fur.  Imagine how hot she gets wearing her winter woolies all the time!

Hello, anyone out there?

I've been gone from blogland for a bit, no idea why.  For the last week I've kind of felt like I was on vacation without leaving home!  The weather was dry, cool (well not hot as hades anyway) and clear.  The kind of weather I just want to sit and read while the soft breezes blow over me, so basically that's what I did!  Of course, I will now pay for it!  House is a mess, yard work to be done etc, etc, etc.  Today, I got up and went to work.  I've put in a few stones in the retaining wall I started last July!  It got too hot and then lost in the Kitchen redo.  I finished up the bottom part of the second wall (photos coming I promise) and tomorrow I will work on the top walls.

I've begun prepping the ends of my old crib-hey the youngest is 26, it's old! I'm planning to convert the ends into a headboard for my room.  I've looked and looked for a headboard (or even a bed although that would be a stretch-small room) and I can't find one that wouldn't over-power the room.  So-o-o-.  I've already sanded them and today I glued them together-currently clamped together!  I need to go get a 1/4" dowel rod to fill some holes and then I'll paint them white.  When finished I'll hang it on the wall as my bed is quite high.  Again, photos soon!

I haven't turned on my sewing machine or picked up a needle in a week, sigh.