Friday Night With Friends

It's time again for Friday Night with Friends!  Thanks Cheryl!

First, I worked on the back stitching on Izzy's Stocking.

There is a LOT of backstitching on this one.

I will have it finished by November's end-I am determined to hang it with the rest!

Then I stitched the final blocks together for a mini quilt.

I didn't have enough turquoise for a row in the hash tag quilt plus I need a small quilt to hang over the door in Ceili to block out the light.  Ceili is decorated in turquoise and brown, well a little navy too!  I'll add some borders today then it will be ready to sandwich and quilt.

When that was finished I sewed the blocks together for three more rows of Hashtags.  I am not putting much (read any) thought into how these go together just pick one up and add it to the others!  The rows don't have any rhyme nor reason either although I'll mess around with them some.

Here are the completed rows so far.  I've run out of room on the design wall!

This is the first time I've done a Rainbow Scrap Challenge Quilt when I didn't just fiddle and fiddle with placement.  I like this one though.

I like it so much that I've decided to do the Big Blocks the same and instead of making yellow blocks (I hardly have ANY yellow in the stash) I'm going to sash and border them with yellow. 

I'll have both of those ready to sandwich soon.

Pretty good night stitching along with friends all around the world!

 

Halloween Cactus!

I think my Christmas Cacti are confused! 

Out of the nine different colors I have all but two are covered with buds and blooms.

They have spent the summer out on the patio-on the shady side of the house-enjoying the air, the rain and the light.  When it starts getting cold, I bring them in and put them in the window in my office, it's warmer up stairs and there's winter sun.  Guess that's what makes them happy!

They will bloom for several weeks and make me smile whenever I see them.  

Really hope something is still blooming when Christmas comes!

 

October Snow and the ever helpful Quinn

Yesterday saw the first snow of the season.  October seems early to me but the National Weather Service says we had it in 2018 and 2019 as well.

I can't remember! And Don't Care!

It was a pretty one, wet so it stuck to everything.

Except the streets.

The Mexican Heather was still blooming so I hadn't dumped the pot yet, Pretty blossoms in the snow!

It has likely frozen now and I will clean and store the pot.

Quinn has decided to clear the table of snow!

By eating it!

She'd better work fast, the snow is already melting!

 

Camping!

Quinn and I set off last Monday on the last camping trip of the season.

I've been to Crowder State Park before but it's been several years-like 11!  Kolby was a 2 maybe 3 month old at the time.

It was cold and it rained.

That didn't change this time!

It was cold and it rained.

Not hard but miserable making to be outside.

Finally, on Wednesday morning we woke to blue skies!

So, I decided we'd take a drive into Trenton and then to Chillicothe.

I discovered this wonderful old building!  The local Library, in Trenton. 

Not much else that I wanted to investigate so back on Highway 65 southbound to Chillicothe.

I was there a few years ago to a little quilt shop called Cuts and Bolts and hoped it was still open!  It was!  So I had a wander and bought a few pieces of fabric possibly for next years Temperature quilt.  Or NOT, who knows at this point!

After that we hit Walmart, because it seems impossible for me to bring everything I want from home!

By the time I'd finished my shopping the blue sky was no more and it was raining, again.

I thought I'd take a less traveled road back to camp so we turned left onto highway 190.  It would have been a beautiful drive if it hadn't been raining!

The clouds were kissing the tops of the hills.  We went through Jamesport - which is an Amish community.  There are several such communities in Missouri, mostly because the land is less expensive here than back east.  There is also a fairly large community of "ex-Amish" in Columbia.  It is odd to see their buggies on the road and the horses in full harness tied up next to the buggy.

We returned to the camper, tired.

Thursday, again gave us blue skies so I took the camera out to take 'COLOR' photos!  I tried the lake but unlike the day before it was so bright that I only got WHITE photos (way overexposed even at the lowest setting.)

This little tree was well into the underbrush but so bright !

A bigger tree nestled between several cedar trees, that dark green really sets it off.

A close up of one branch.  I like this one a lot.

That day was the only day I sat outside to read and it got HOT.  In the 80'sF (30C) so I had to dig out the fan!  I did NOT resort to the air-conditioning though.  I'd had the trailers heater and a small electric heater going most of the week.  That night a storm blew in bringing lightening and thunder (Quinn was not impressed and at 3 am woke me for loves!)

The storm was ahead of a cold front and it was much colder, windy, and again, raining.

Friday was going home day so I packed up.

Emptying nearly everything out of it for the winter. 

Then gave it a good cleaning, hooked up and we set off.

I've often said that I would like to sell my house and live in the trailer just traveling around.  This weekend reminded me that it isn't much fun when the weather is crummy.

Quinn doesn't like it as there is no place for her to be out of the way.  She sighs heavily  and moves when I need to go past her.  

I'm sure I'll have Ceili for a while longer and will go out, but I don't think I'll live in it for long than a few weeks.

The cold front we met up at the campground came here as well and there is snow in the forecast for tonight (1-2 inches).  A bit early but it will only stick on the grass and overpasses and will only be around a day or two.  Winter comes.

 I'm going to go stitch.

 

Zooming right along!

Friday afternoon and evening I spent stitching with the Chookshed girls.  It's always so much fun to just listen to women from far away and to see what they are stitching!  I'm so grateful that Chooky does these.  All the girls "down under" are stitching on Saturday-all day and into the night!  I began about 2:30pm CDST and worked until 9 pm or so when my eyes just got too tired to count stitches.  I spent the time working on Izzy's stocking.  I have done some work on it each day since I finished Ryan's and had reached the point of having only the last snowman to stitch!  (Far left) So with the exception of his pink cheeks and carrot nose I finished him.  Then yesterday I finished the face and began backstitching while I waited confirmation of the spelling of her full name.  ISABEL is about halfway on now!  

This is the last of the stockings!  For the first time EVER I will not have any "temporary red stockings" hanging along with the stitched ones.  

I hope to finish up by the end of October!

 Yesterday and today I worked at making hashtag blocks in yellow and they are finished now.  I'll be putting them up on the design wall later in the week.

In other things, I'm headed out in my camper/caravan. AKA Ceili tomorrow for four nights.  It's time to empty her for the year and it will be good to get away and look at something different.  These walls are starting to close in!

Still working on figuring out the photos, I think I'll be spending some time on that while out camping.  I always try to take photos on these outings so I'll have something to work with.

12 years

 Twelve years ago today I wrote my first blog post.  I had only learned of blogging the month before and had been hitting the "Next Blog" button from my SIL's blog.

2008 was the year of the doctor.  My husband, Larry, had found a small lump in his thigh and after two needle biopsies and one open biopsy was diagnosed with. a pleomorphic liposarcoma.  A rare soft tissue cancer that is presumed by the Veteran's Administration to have been caused by exposure to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.

During the summer he had radiation to the site and at the end of summer they removed a tumor about the size of a small cantaloupe.  He spent days in the hospital. I spent days with him and each night I came home and made phone calls.  One to each of our children (except the one who lived with me) and one to each of his sisters and to his mother.  So six times I repeated the same message .  I was exhausted.

The last day in the hospital the drain in the wound fell out and a month later it had filled with so much fluid that it burst open the incision site-twice. Once in the doctors office while the doctor was in the room.  So, it was back to surgery to have the wound cleaned out and a new drain put in.  More phone calls.  

A CAT scan of his lungs was ordered and 16 tumors were found.  So Chemo was begun.  5 days in the hospital, two weeks off and repeat. More time with him at the hospital,  More phone calls.

That was when I decided to start a blog.  I sent everyone the address and said I would update them all via the blog rather than by phone calls.  That mostly worked-although sometimes they got impatient and called me!

There was more surgery, more chemo, more exhaustion for us all.  Then after two courses of chemo didn't work he said no more. By then it was 2009.  2009 was the year he was laid to rest at the Veteran's Cemetery and we began a new normal.

The blog helped me manage stress during all this and has become an important part of my life.  It helped me get out of my head and smile when smiling seemed pretty far away.  Reading blogs from all over the world has been amazing! I don't plan to quit even if sometimes it might be a while between posts!

Other September Goings on

 

September is the month I try to make all the doctor visits and there are blood tests etc  Even Quinn has a Vet appointment in September.  This way I don't forget what month I should go to what doctor!  It ran over a bit this year as today was the last of the appointments.  Eye doctor today-all is well, cataract surgery is just amazing!  I've also done the primary care thing, a mammogram (Chooky and Judy will be glad to know) again all well.  Then there was the Orthopedic one year follow-up on the knee replacement.  That was not so great.  I seem to fall into the 5% of folks that have significant pain-his possible explanations were: infection ( blood work negative so no), the button under the knee cap moved, or possible allergies to either the metal or the plastic.  There would need to be blood tests for the allergies and I would have to pay for them out of pocket which would be fine but all those possibles would require surgery to fix.  At the moment I am not willing to admit myself into a hospital for a non-life-threatening problem!  SO, I am wearing a compression sleeve for now and that really helps.  Quinn and I have been taking daily walks around the neighborhood, not our usual 3 miles but we'll get there.

September is also the month when the gardens begin to look scraggly, I have only a few pots left to empty and clean, the big garden beds to ready for winter and the usual grass cutting and soon leaf raking.  All the Christmas cactus have been brought inside and hauled up to the second floor for the winter.  Several have buds on then already.  The sweet potatoes are from a large pot I planted, inspired by Denice's VERY big pot, not too bad considering the size of the pot.  I will say getting them out of the pot proved to be difficult!

I did a dismal job on the Want To Do list for September, very dismal, not even worth mentioning!  I'm not putting up an October list!

October is for leaves turning and falling here.  The temperature is up and down but the trend is down-we are to have 80F/30C days this week but dryer so not turning on the AC again this year.

October is a big month for cleaning in advance of the holidays and I've already made a good start!  The Garage is clean, even swept and my office has left the first floor and returned to it's usual place upstairs and is tidy!  It seems I re-arrange some rooms ALL the time! The first floor is next and then the studio.  Boring stuff but I'll be more settled when it happens.

I'm still working on how to do all the new technology, I think I fixed the no reply thing.  Now if I could only fix the photo in the header thing!  If I don't figure it out soon I think I'll just take it out!

Stay healthy!

Blessed Be.

September stitching

Let's begin the September stitching with the current progress on Izzy's stocking!

I only have a group of three snowmen in the toe and the "Snowdeer" to finish!

I'll be off to backstitching very soon.

I really hope to finish it this month-

Not a lot of other stitching going on because of that goal!

Also in September I finished all the nine patches for the Civil war quilt!  Next up for that is to sew the rows together.  Another October goal.

RSC flip-flops in red.  I posted a photo of the Hash tags and big blocks earlier in the month.  So all the RSC blocks in red are finished.
This months color is Yellow (the last one) perhaps I'll get to pulling the fabric today-or not.  (Sorry the photo is dark-I edited it in light box but apparently there is a save function I haven't found yet!)  I'm thinking I won't participate in RSC next year.  I have a short list of quilts I want to do next year and none of them lend themselves to that format.  Plus, I'm REALLY tired of these blocks!  (ALSO, my stash is getting pretty small!)

For Future sewing I ordered all these fat quarters in flannel-for a Trail Mix quilt. 

I have some scraps of flannel to add to them.

I'm looking forward to next year for that.

Well, this is annoying!  I've tried multiple times to change that blue type to black-NOPE!  Not even sure how it came to be blue! Shrugs!

New Address

Well,  Hum.

I've been away for a while, sorry.

Not my fault and not the fault of Blogster.

(Who'd thunk that was true?)

Anyway, when I started this blog 12 years ago I tied it to a different email address.

I hadn't figured out how to change the email addy but I could access the blog so I didn't worry about it. (Okay that is my fault.)

Almost a month ago now my other address disappeared from blogster.

Could not sign onto the account.

Contacted Customer service and after two or more weeks they finally said they had deleted the account due to inactivity.

I am in the process of putting it up here.

Please.

Be patient.

Apple updated my operating system and I lost the use of my photo editing software and my word processing/spreadsheet software as not compatible. Ugh.

There were a couple of other computer programs that changed as well at the same time so I've been trying to figure it all out.

I have lots to tell you!

Soon!