Spring!

This weekend I took the boys to see Mom.  She managed to put us to work fairly quickly.  I guess by us, I should be a little more clear.  I helped her yesterday while the boys played with some neighbor boys.  Today they got to help too.

Last fall, Mom and Dad had dumped all this rock in piles around this bed.  They didn't get it put in before winter though.  Since Dad died, it would have taken mom a lot longer than one weekend to do.  I've been trying to get out to see her at least once a month so we can work on all these little projects.  Especially since it sounds like she wants to sell the house and move either back to town, or closer to it.

Anyway, here is the result of this weekend.

When I got home and checked the dog's water, I saw flowers!!  Must mean it's spring hmmm?

This weekend wasn't all manual labor!  I have gotten stitchy time since I finished part 10 of Deep Blue Sea.  Here's where part 11 is right now.

Wipacolypse - April and spring!

Hi guys!  I've been a busy stitcher in the last week.  After I finished page 9 of 1900 ABC, I pulled out page 4 of Coat of Arms sampler and I've finished that.

Then, I pulled Deep Blue Sea back out.  I don't know why I had problems getting started with part 3, but I just wasn't feeling it last month.  

North

East

South

and West

I don't know if it's spring time where you are, but spring has certainly arrived here.  We're about 4 weeks ahead of where we're supposed to be.  I took some pictures to show some of my spring time pretties.

Here's Lily of the Valley.  I think this is the first time in 8 years that it's actually bloomed.

Columbine.  This stuff survived a tornado and has spread.  

Pretty Tulips.  I didn't plant these, but this year I have 2 plants instead of just 1 I've had since 2000 when we bought the house.

And my very favorites Lilac.  I bought 4 bushes at the end of the season in 2005 to screen the dog kennel.  They've grown up and filled in and right now smell absolutely wonderful.  These are hands down my favorite spring time flower.

This year I've decided to plant a bed of lavendar.  DH isn't too enthuastic but since I've had all the utilities come out and spray where their lines are, he's willing to till up a big patch right behind the house.

Now, I've fixed my printer aka broke down and bought Dell ink, part 4 of Deep Blue Sea has been printed off and is ready to go.  Only problem is black DMC is really hard to see on black fabric.  There are oysters that have black in them and are backstitched in black.  I'm thinking of using some silver PTB instead.  I'll keep you posted on how that turns out!

Later...I've got to go stick my nose in some lilac!

Liebster award and pics

First, I want to thank Pull the Other Thread for awarding me the Liebster award!

Liebster is a German word, meaning favorite, dearest or beloved, and the Liebster is awarded by bloggers to other, newer bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers, to spread the word and help the new(er)bies gain wider recognition. The award comes with four conditions that each recipient must satisfy when accepting:

1. Choose five up-and-coming blogs (with fewer than 200 followers) to award the Liebster to.



I had problems giving this award to just 5 stitchers, so if for some reason you follow this little blog consider yourself awarded the Liebster!

2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

3. Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving the award to with links to their sites. Leave comments on their blogs so they know about the award.

4. Share five random facts about yourself that people don't know about you.
Five random facts about me:
1,  I've been stitching since I was 7 or eight... and I still have that very first project and remember stitching it and bothering my Mom to help take out the knots!
2.  I've started to get into woodworking.  It's another kind of stash!
3.  I'm better at finishing walls and ceilings (new construction) than my DH!
4.  I'm a huge tomboy.  Who would of thunk it with such a girly hobby!
5.  I really hate to clean.  Not always a good thing living with three boys.

Last weekend we went to see my folks who happen to live on the Platte River in Central Nebraska.  Every spring, they get some really noisy visitors.  For the most part they stay in the corn fields though.

Hopefully you can enlarge these pics so you can see the pretty Sandhill Cranes that are everywhere and you can even hear from inside the house!

While we were there, I finished page 3 of the Coat of Arms sampler.  I've since completed the top band for page 4 but it's going to stay in it's bag for a little while.

I've also made some progress on my piece of the patchwork for Chelsea.  Since this is stitched in tent stitch, it stitches quickly, but I so much prefer 1x1!

Now, I've got a couple of hours until the boys get home from school and 1900 ABC is out.  I finished one letter last night and one today, so far.  Just 10 more to go for page 9.

Snow and Deep Blue Sea

 

Sorry about the pic but I uploaded it from my phone.  Don't know how to flip it.  This is how much snow we woke up to Saturday morning.  Wow!  Wet and heavy which ended up causing power outages.  Brrr!!

 Here's a pic of DH trying to clear the driveway so he could go to work this morning.  Just for reference...he's about 6'1" tall.

Last night I did finish part 2 of Deep Blue Sea.  Those little red star fish just pop on the black!

Winter's here!

I think winter has finally arrived.   It snowed enough that the boys started to build a snow man. 

I'm trying hard to finish the last two pages of the second row of Lust.  I might just make it.  I finished that last completed flame in about 4 days.

I started my Christmas gift for our sitter yesterday too.  These are both sides of a little stocking ornament that will include a ribbon hanger for a tree or cabinet knob, whatever our sitter decides.  The left one will have a patriotic theme and the right one will just have a simple winter theme. 

Lust and Window update

Last week, I showed you a picture of my Window I I'm stitching with Sticklounge. I couldn't decide at the time what I was going to do with it so I put it aside for a little while and pulled out Lust instead which had been screaming at me for some attention.  Today, I've decided I've had enough of the confetti and have switched back to Window I

I've gone through my minis from the custom color forum at HDF.  I've got two different varigated colors picked out for the outside of the flowers and a couple of reds and a green.  

Yesterday, we went to visit the Indian Caves Park in southeast Nebraska.  It's about an hour and a half drive from home so that isn't too bad.  Here's some pictures that we took during our hike. 

I tried to get this little flower into focus a couple of times, but theree was just enough breeze that it wasn't cooperating.

 Here's what we saw upon entering the park.  All the trees have put on their autumn colors and it was really very pretty.

The park is right on the Missouri river and was flooded for most of the summer.  This is right along the Missouri on top of one of the hills on our hike.

 Here you can see all the colors with the river running through the bluffs.

I just thought the roots of this huge old tree looked interesting.  Couldn't you just see some little fairies or something making this home?

Where we were standing for this picture was under water this summer.  You could see the high water marks up several feet.

And my favorite pictures of the entire day.  Both my boys worn out and sleeping on the way home.

There may be another update later tonight.  Since I'm using varigated colors for Window, I'm only going to finish each square when the "lead" is complete.  There are only so many of those right now.  Then I think, I'm going to pull 1900 ABC back out.  It's sitting on my end table taunting me

Later!

Heat Wave!!

Holy cow batman!  We've gone from highs in the mid 60s to this.  Can you see right under the spedometer?  Ignore the fact I was taking pictures while I was driving.  Yes this says that the temp was 101!!  In early May!!  The official temperature was only 94 but still .  YUCK!!

This is what we did for Mother's Day.  I know you probably can't tell what exactly this is, so I'll tell you.  I've got tomato plants and 4 varieties of peppers.  YUM!  Poor babies weren't happy yesterday though.  They didn't think much of the temps either.

This is my front flower bed.  For the last 6 years, we've added to it without doing much of anything else to it.  This year I raked all the mulch off it and we added lots of goodies to make the plants happy.  Here's DH adding composted manure. 



 After all that hard work, here's the result.  Pretty flower bed.

 Last night around 12:30am I finally finished the final cardinal.  I was so close that I couldn't just stop mid cardinal!