Thanksgiving

Just popping by to wish everyone a happy & blessed Thanksgiving!  Tomorrow I will be quite busy getting food ready to cook on Thursday ... making the traditional Jello salad, cutting celery & onions & bread for the stuffing, etc.    

Despite all the stresses & problems & other things that can cause anxiety & bring us down throughout the year, we all still have so much to be thankful for.  Right now I am thankful that I found my box of cross stitched ornaments!!!  Yesterday I pulled out a plastic container in one of the spare bedrooms that definitely has cross stitched things in it,  I sat it by the tree & opened it this morning to unwrap the ornaments, but surprise!!!  It was shelf sitters & pinkeeps & the like.  I therefore went into the Christmas/other storage section in the lower level (sounds nicer than saying "in the basement") & pulled out a bunch of boxes, looking for a label on one of them that would tell me my precious cross stitched ornaments were inside.  I knew I wouldn't have put them in a taped up, ready to move moving box, & I didn't.  They were in a plastic container.  That is where I thought I would find them at the beginning, but again I pulled out that plastic container yesterday thinking that was were they were, but I had forgotten the quantity of cross stitched ornaments I have!!!  Where I found them just a few minutes ago was in a larger plastic container.  Anyway, hooray!  I found them   : )

I mentioned in my last post that we are going to be having a bare bones sort of Christmas this year.  It seems odd not having all the decorations out & about, but that is the way it's going to be.  The cross stitched ornaments will be displayed on our skinny primitive tree ... just like when we were living in our home back in Utopia.  I have not decorated with my cross stitched ornaments since back then ... three years ago ... so it will be fun to see all the ornaments & remember the exchanges & to once more marvel at Myra's finishing skills.  I will, of course, take a picture or two to post.  

Once again I wish you all a very happy & blessed Thanksgiving!      

Okay ... Let's Try This Again, Shall We?

Oh how I have missed blogging!  I can say that I've just been too busy to post, & I will say that because it's true, but still!  I have often thought "Just once a month!  Just post something once a month!"  Time, however, rushes by & I realize that two or three months (or more) have passed & I still haven't posted.  Shame on me!  (I am giving myself a gentle slap on the hand now.)  So as the title of this post says, let's try this again, shall we?

What, you may ask, has been keeping me so busy. The usual.  Downsizing, cleaning, laundry, cooking, crafting, & the never ending dental & medical appointments.  Who said that you find lots of time on your hands when you retire?  It's not true at all.

I don't want to ramble on for too long today.  I'm just going to ease myself back into this.  T'would be nice to become a regular blogger again.  For now I will share a few photos of some of the craft projects I've been working on these past few weeks/months.  Incidentally, if I owe you an email I will answer ... truly I will!  Please be patient with me.

By the way ... CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!   Isn't it wonderful!?!?!  And I decided that today was as good a time as any to bring Christmas to my blog   : )   I won't be doing a lot of decorating this year.  Christmas is going to be very simple.  Maybe just the skinny prim tree with the prim lights & my collection of cross stitch ornaments adorning it.  I continue to fight off the urge to start stitching again.  It's rather difficult for me to have two different crafting pursuits going at the same time.  I will be knitting & think about the quilt I could be working on ... or I'll be working on a quilt & thinking about the ornaments I could be stitching.  Does anyone else experience this?  I never used to have these kinds of thoughts when I was 40-ish.  Why I can remember when I did quilting, wood crafting, painting, tatting, & bobbin lace making, all at the same period in time!  What has happened?  The times they have a-changed, I guess.

Okay ... here are those photos I promised   : )   I couldn't help but include the first one.  Although you can't clearly see the cabled mitts I knit for John (my most recent completed project), I love that golden tree in the background   : )   You can get a closer look at the mitts in photo #2.  Photo #3 shows a pair I knit for myself.

Here's a hat.  It will be a donation, along with a few other things, to an organization in this area that helps veterans.

The following photos show some of the socks I have knitted so far this year.

This is yarn I'm using to knit a pair of Christmas socks.  I just started them.  The name of this yarn is We Need A Little Christmas.  It's like it was made for me   : )

And last, but not least, this is one of the shawls I completed last month.  Shhhh ... it's a gift   : )

Charts & Kits Away!

So this morning I got ready to sit down with my 4 boxes of cross stitch charts & kits to sort through them for eBay sales.

Unfortunately I didn't find a whole lot.

I'm not surprised as this is the third or fourth time I've downsized my kits & charts.  Still, there are maybe a dozen or so listings there in that pile. Hopefully just what someone is looking for   : )

Naturally as I was going through all these charts & kits I kept thinking "Ooooo!  I need to make that!" Lol!!!  I'm very tempted!!!

I hope everyone is having a happy & blessed Sunday!

A Quick Update

I do apologize for being so neglectful of this blog. I have good intentions & that's about as far as it gets!.

I have continued keeping busy, mostly listing craft things on eBay.  There are lots of knitting things listed there now ... yarns, bags, & the like ... but also some cross stitch things.  A couple of designer floss collections, a set of mounting frames & boxes, two Liberty Hill boxes, & a Sampler & Antique Quarterly DVD.  Next I plan to sort through my charts & kits.  I have no intention of giving up stitching altogether, but I definitely have more supplies than I'll need to last me a lifetime! After sorting through my cross stitch things, I will tackle my quilting fabric, my bobbin lace supplies, & then prim & home decor.  If you're interested in seeing what I have listed, my eBay ID is lv2stitch53.

We spent a quiet 4th of July.  The next holiday will be Labor Day.  It's hard to imagine that in another few weeks the kids will be heading back to school! I am, of course, looking forward to the end of summer.

I will leave you with a photo of my latest project, a new pair of socks I am knitting.  I always sit & knit for a couple hours in the evenings.  John will sit & read to me for a while as I'm knitting.  Very comforting   : )

Another Bird Visitor

I just thought I'd stop by to say hello & do a wee bit of catcing up up.  I finally got all the Christmas things put away a couple weeks ago.   Haven't really downsized them much as I decided it was more important to start downsizing things on the main floor rather than in the lower level.  I managed to get my yarn & some knitting items sorted out in between medical appointments.  Will be starting with the cross stitch items next.  eBay or wherever I decide to sell things is going to keep me very busy once that gets underway!

A female red-bellied woodpecker came to partake of some of our seeds today.  John & I always enjoy when she & her husband drop by, or some of her kin.

Speaking of me & John, yesterday we celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary!  Where does the time go?  We traveled to Lexington to eat at our favorite seafood restaurant & spent the day reminiscing about all these years.  We're looking forward to the next 41   : )

Our temperature this weekend is predicted to be 70 degrees!  I am not amused!  

I hope all is going well with everyone!

More Snow ... Lots of Bird Photos

The snow from the other day melted away pretty quickly, but yesterday it started snowing at about 5 a.m. & continued pretty much the entire day & into the night.  A light snowfall most of the time, but quite a few periods of those big, fat, fluffy flakes I love so much.  We've been feeding the birds here since winter arrived & yesterday I got some pretty good photos of some of them ... along with some squirrel photos!  Did I ever mention that when I was in middle school, my little cousin couldn't say my name?  Instead of it coming out as "Shirlee," it came out as "squirrelly."  The family had a field day with that   : )

Here are some cardinals, male & female.

I love how I was able to capture two of them at the same time   : )

Here is a female, a mystery bird, & a mourning dove sharing their meal.

I like how this female cardinal is sandwiched by two mourning doves   : )

Mourning doves are so cute!

Here is a mourning dove all puffed up against the cold.

One of our regular squirrels.  

It might be a little difficult to see but this is a black squirrel   : )

I hope you enjoyed visiting with our feathered & furry friends   : )