The purge and organizing bug!

I've been bitten by a bug!  That's the only explanation for what is going on around here!

I've purged, ordered and inventoried all the freezers and the big frig upstairs.  It was crazy.  I'm sad to say I threw out a significant amount of food as it had been in there so long as to be unrecognizable (and would be yucky to eat.)  I doubt I've ever done the freezers before, or not for at least three years!  Now I can see what's there and I plan to eat all the meat type stuff before I buy more.  I'm also adopting a plan to keep an inventory, including the date I put it in there, so that this doesn't happen again.  I want a serious stockpile but I don't want it to go bad!  Do have to inventory the cabinets next.

I've made pretty good progress on the suffering for 15 minutes with the books.  I've finished the three shelf bookcase in the kitchen (cookbooks) and have only two shelves left on living room bookcase #1 (of 2 seven shelfers.)  I am pleased with the progress.  If I can continue this pace I'll finish next month!  Still have to buy a BIG hard drive for the photos-may be a while before that can even begin.  I can apply the 15 minutes to cleaning up my garage-oh joy.  It does work, even these little 15 minute increments.  Just being able to say I can quit in 15 minutes makes it easier.

Also I've been hand-quilting every day for an hour and I am happyish with that progress.  I do hope I get faster and better as I practice.

It was 70F today-yep in January-which won't last but Quinn and I have enjoyed the past two days of walking with my having to bundle up against the cold.  This afternoon I walked in a short sleeved shirt and no jacket.  It is to cool off again now but it was a nice break!

Happy Australia Day!

To my blogging friends down under!

Happy Australia Day!

Stay cool and away from the bush fires!

Cross stitch progress

I always mean to do this on Wednesday but last night I set up the photo only to discover the camera batteries needed to be charged!  So I'm a day late, oh well.

Last week.

This week, only the red behind the bear and most of the white!  I'll begin another critter tonight.  It was my goal to finish the X's this month and begin the backstitching in February.  I think I might just make it!  It'll be close but I'm hopeful.  I think it's the only thing on track for this month, sigh.

Feeling a bit poorly today, bad headache plus sinus drainage.  I thought last night I might be coming down with something as I could not get warm.  I don't feel terribly sick just sort of off.

It's been very cold the last few days, cold enough that Quinn and I haven't been getting in our walks, sigh.  Unfortunately, the fact that we've-well I've Quinn goes out whatever-been shut in by the cold has not resulted in great gobs of anything being done!

Weekends over.

This past week was a flurry of taking care of other folks, or helping them out in some way so not much actual work got done.  That's okay though because people ALWAYS come first.  I've done a little work on the paper piecing and a little cross stitch, a little (very little) housework and a bit of moping about.  The Mid-winter blahs have set in, we did have a couple of days of warm and windy weather so Quinn and I got in two walks a day instead of the one or none we'd been managing.  That's great for my diet but not for my knees, sigh.

Today, we had a family dinner.  We used to have them every Sunday but life got complicated and I stopped cooking for the whole bunch.  After Rob and Tanya moved into their place I decided that the only way I was going to get to cook was if I had them all over!  Today we had our big Mexican feast-it was yummy even if I do say so myself!  Made a very big mess though.  Oh well, dishes never hurt anyone!

Tomorrow, I have an appointment with the knee doc, really hoping he has some relief to offer.  I know that at some point I'll have to have them replaced, sigh.  Actually, I'm all for just doing it and getting on with my life but I doubt that will happen.  

Hope everyone has a good weekend,  Aussies try and stay cool and out of the way of the fires!

Reading

I'm just back from my monthly BIG shopping, it used to be every other week but I'm up to once a month or less now.  I might not have gone today but we're having a family dinner on Sunday-Mexican was requested, of course-and there's quite a bit of stuff that best fresh for that.

I went to Walmart last night, big purchases there, 40 plastic chargers- 20 each in green and gold- for future holiday dinners.  At 29 cents each I didn't think I could go wrong!  Then, as I was nearby, I went to Joanns.  No real exciting purchases there, quilter's safety pins, basting spray, etc.

Today I hit one of the Quilt shops nearby looking for borders and backing for the pink quilts-no luck.  I didn't even find a fat quarter I wanted.

At Sam's Club besides the food, I got a new toaster as mine has decided it no longer wants to toast anything, not even on high, sigh.  I also bought this:

The final book in the Wheel of Time series.  I find myself oddly reluctant to begin reading it though.  It's the last one, when I'm finished I'll know how the story ends, there will be no more books.  After reading the books (this one makes 14) in this series for some 12 years I'm not sure I want to know what happens!  Never fear I'm sure this is only momentary!

This weeks edition of Cross-stitch!

It's that time again, for a cross-stitch update! Here's where I was last week.

And here's where I am today:

The Bear is finished-actually looks like a bear this week!  Only two more animals and some background stuff then I'll be ready for backstitching.

I did get the second quilt top sewn together but haven't found the space, with good lighting, or the time to get photos of them.  I've been looking around on the internet at fabric for the borders and backing but I'm just not sure yet.  In the meantime, besides doing some serious cross stitching every day I've been making hexie flowers and working on the SECRET paper piecing project.  I continue to be surprised by the fact that I LIKE, I mean REALLY LIKE, doing English paper piecing.  I don't really like making the same block over and over and believe me I'm making the same thing over and over and loving it.

My sewing room is a total disaster.  I've been cleaning, or trying to, but it's a slow go.  There is just too much in there, I'd hoped that finishing things up would make a difference but I don't know if that's going to be enough.  I may have to have a purge!

Suffer for fifteen minutes!

I'm trying to get better organized and get things finished this year so I have a couple of projects that will likely be on-going for this entire year!  I've used what Gretchen Rubin calls the "Suffer for 15 minutes" plan before and it really does work!  I just spend 15 minutes doing those things that look like such an immense undertaking that they will never be finished.  I have two for this year.  First, inputing all the books in the house on the computer-then adding them to dropbox so I can check the list when I'm out  preventing my purchasing a book more than once!  If you had any idea how many books I own you'd know why this seems an insurmountable task! Second, scanning all the photos onto the computer and then creating photo albums-I have them all organized, using the 15 minute plan, but no one looks at them in the boxes I'm hoping that changes if they are in books.  I need to buy a huge external storage device first!

I've begun the books and it's actually going better than I thought it would.  I'm using a spreadsheet instead of a database and just inputing in alphabetical order by author, I'll only list the author of multiple books once so when I get to Nora Roberts/J D Robb that should fly!  I've made different sheets for different catagories so it will be easy to locate the cookbooks section, or the fiction.  Perhaps I should add a column with a Y/N for "have I read it?"

Yesterday I put together Pink Scrap Quilt One and today I'll put Pink Scrap Quilt Two together, when they are ironed I'll post a photo.  Both will be waiting for borders until I find just what I'll looking for in fabric.

Very cold this morning and snowing a bit.  We didn't get any of the snow yesterday the guessers said we would and they didn't mention snow this morning!  Shows what they know.  

Rain!

I woke to the blessed sound of rain this morning and it has been falling off and on all day.  We are still classified as in a drought so every drop is appreciated.

There's just one little problem.  I have a four footed child who was bred for the damp, cold Shetland Islands!  (Off the north east coast of Scotland, towards Norway!)  The problem with that is this:

Can you tell how wet she is?  She's been out there in the rain most of the day and likely never even felt wet against her skin, sigh.  You can't keep her in-she goes crazy!  What you can't see is the underside of her and all the mud she collected.  She, and I have both had showers now so she is even wetter.  She is also peeved with me!  I won't open the door for her to go back out!  She'll really be peeved when I don't let her sleep with me!

Cross Stitch Wednesday

So there's been some progress made on Bri's stocking:

Last week

This week

Hope to keep going and get this one done.  I have three more to make before I'm caught up!

Design Wall -or in my case pool table- Monday

I finished all the alternate blocks for this quilt yesterday.  Only made 30some more than I need so I guess this is the first of two pink and pastel quilts!  I only want to make it twin size as I intend it for Nora.  Hope to have these sewn up this week!

12th Night-the last Day of Christmas

The tree in my bedroom.

I love decorating for Christmas, hence the fact that I have 4 trees!  The top of my bookcases hold several North Pole Cottages and I drink my tea out of holiday mugs!  That said, tonight is the last night for the outside lights, tomorrow I will drag all the boxes down from the attic and begin packing everything up.  Sad.  The house always looks so bare when it's gone.  Then I will dig in and scrub the house back to normal, change out the few seasonal things I keep for winter and get on with it.  Until the Monday after Thanksgiving!

Cross-stitch update

I haven't posted a cross-stitch update for quite a while.  In fact, the last photo I could find was this one from MARCH:

 Compared to this one I took tonight.

I should be much further, in fact I should be finished.  All those weeks of not picking up a needle really hurt!  I'll be working on it some more in a little bit.

Yesterday, Rob and Tanya came to borrow my food saver and brought me these!

Aren't they beautiful?  I am loved.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!