What a difference a few months makes....

I saw this old photo taken in early March of my front yard and I was amazed at how different it looks now that everything has leafed out, bloomed and grown....here is a comparison if Blogger will let me upload two pix tonight. Hey! It worked!

Today is my dear friend Von's birthday! Wishing you the happiest ever Von! (oh, by the way to answer your question, the new shed's dimensions are 8 foot by 10 foot. Not very big, but large enough for all the tools!)

Here's yesterday's picture!

Here is the picture of the concrete we poured yesterday for our new shed. For some reason Blogger would not allow me to upload it in yesterday's post! Maybe it has decided that one picture a day is all we get right now!!!

I'll try and post more pix as this shed takes shape!

Another Finish!

I have finished the next Shepherd's Bush ornament, this one from 2004 called In A Stable. I changed the colors slightly to match the previous ornaments a little better....the pattern calls for a different color for the words, and since I want to sew these all into a wall hanging when they are all done, I wanted them to match. I was pleased with the result, and it was very quick to stitch up.

We had a very nice Father's Day. We did some yard work and house work on Saturday, then Saturday night at midnight I went into the office to help out with a software upgrade for the credit union software...Not sure I was alot of help, but I learned alot. My co-worker said it's the quickest upgrade they have done, and called me the good luck charm. I don't know about that, but I was back in my bed by 4:45 AM...so it wasn't too bad. We have to do the upgrades in the middle of the night, when the members are probably sleeping and not wanting to use the ATM's etc. So I slept in till 11 AM while John was at church, and then at 1 we went over to my folk's house for dinner and presents...we also celebrated John and my birthday's as well as Father's Day. Had wonderful time visiting and playing with all the grandkids...my sister Nan has two grandkids, Austin and Chloe, and they are alot of fun. So it was good. I had fun. I came home and stitched for awhile and we watched a couple DVD's. I got them for John for Father's Day, The Man from Snowy River (one of our favorites) and an old black and white movie called Pride of the Yankees, about Lou Gehrig. It was a pretty good movie, but then we like baseball movies.

This morning we had a slab poured out back for a shed...we've been needing to get our garden tools out of our overcrowded garage, so this will be a great addition...it is going to be surrounded by raspberries and my grape vine, I'll try a picture tomorrow. (Blogger won't let me upload any pix right now, so I will try later.) I picked a small bowl of raspberries tonight, I can hardly believe how early they are this year! We are going to have more than we can handle if anyone wants to come over and pick some!! LOL!!

More pictures...

I saw a note on Blogger when I signed in that there is supposed to be a scheduled outage at 8:23 a.m. pacific time...not sure if that is tomorrow or if it was today..

So here is the remaining picture of the Shepherd's Bush ornament I couldn't get uploaded yesterday...looks like it is going to work today. I started the next ornament (In a Manger) this morning, but didn't get a whole lot done. It's a bit different than the rest of the series in that the vine is not on the outside of the design, but sort of entwined in the stable roof. It will be fun to have something a little different.

Here is a picture of my new "drawers" as Von requested...I am really pleased with them and can hardly wait to find some cute ceramic pulls. I have envisioned pink roses...hope I can find some like that! Behind on the chair is a quilted table runner (same pattern at other end) that I found at a garage sale last week for $2. It's had some use, but still in excellent condition.

Well, my ebay thread bidding has been interesting. I made myself a promise that I would not bid over 80% of the price I could buy new threads in the store...and I am amazed that people will keep bidding higher than that. I am looking for Weeks Dye Threads if you didn't read yesterday's post. I won one set of 20 skeins this morning, at a very reasonable price. I had another set of 20 with 2 minutes left to go and someone outbid me in the last minute. Arggh. Oh well, they went over my limit anyway. I could have bought from the store for the same price. I immediately found two brand new sets of 15 I think, so I will start over again. It is just toooo addicting!!!

Tomorrow is John's birthday, so Lizzie and I went shopping tonight...shhh! It's a secret, I won't tell what we bought...but he would probably be embarrassed if I told anyway!

It was a Happy B-day!

I had a very nice birthday today! I slept in a bit this morning, then stitched for awhile. I finished up the Shepherd's Bush ornament, Wisemen Came...and played with my granddaughter for a while...it was fun to spend a longer time with her as I haven't been able to do more than see her for a few minutes each morning before I leave for work. She is really changing, growing up!

This afternoon I went to an antique mall that I hadn't been to in ages and found a great little five drawer cabinet for my stitching room. It has just finger holes for the drawers, so I am going to go see if I can find some pretty ceramic drawer pulls for it. Then this evening the whole family joined us at Olive Garden for dinner...all 10 of us including my parents. We had a great time...the wait staff even brought me out a little birthday cake with a candle and sang Happy Birthday to me. Such fun...here is a picture of Alana and Allison and Christopher.

And as I promised a picture of Wisemen Came...I also attached the charms to the first three SB ornaments, so I took new pictures of those too. Blogger won't let me upload all three pictures of those first three ornaments, so I will try and get the last one done tomorrow! Lots of pictures today. It was a very good day...but back to work tomorrow!!!

I can't think of a catchy title....

It's been a busy weekend, but fun! Yesterday John took me shopping for my birthday present..I had really been wanting some new patio furniture to go under our gazebo, so that's what we got! The chairs are so comfortable, and makes our outdoor "room" very inviting! I am planning on spending lots of time out there this summer. I went to a wedding shower this afternoon, and then mowed the lawn. John started the footings for a cement pad for a new shed to be built soon, and I pulled weeds and spruced up the flower beds a little. I am so pleased with the yard this year...after seven years of very hard work, it is finally paying off and looks fantastic now. Most of my flowers are one time bloomers, and have bloomed out now, so I need to get some annuals one of these days to fill in the bare spot...I like petunias as they bloom all summer and into autumn with the first frost. Perhaps next weekend I can get busy on that. We have a wedding to go to tomorrow night (on a Monday, so odd, I think this is the first weekday wedding I've ever been to), then Tuesday is my birthday. I am taking the day off of work and planning on pampering myself with a pedicure and stitching to my hearts content. I think the family has something planned but I am not sure what. Thursday is John's (DH) birthday, and then Father's Day on Sunday. Lots of fun this week!!!

I have finished Life's a Stitch, I actually finished the first part of last week, but didn't get around to posting a picture yet. I ended up using Waterlillies instead of the DMC overdyed. I just couldn't seem to choose one of the DMC colors to use, and so went with my all time favorite, Pistachio Nut for the outer border and Peach Cobbler for the inner border. The rest of the colors are regular DMC. I am pleased with how it turned out. I am back stitching on Wisemen Came (Shepherd's Bush ornament) now, and just have the words and the vine around the outside to do. Maybe I'll get a picture up this week.

I've gotten bit the Ebay bug again this week. On a whim I decided to see if anyone had the 2002 Just Cross Stitch Ornament issue up for bid, and found one at a good price, and I won the bid! I am so excited as it was the only year I didn't have in my collection, so I am hoping it will arrive in the next day or two. Now I am bidding on several collections of Weeks Dye Works threads, but the prices are so close to what I could pay in the LNS, that I am not working to hard on trying to win those bids. I've decided my next collection is going to be WDW threads...all of them! So many of the patterns I like now are using them extensively, so I think it will be worthwhile. If I do it a little at a time, it won't hurt so bad. I will probably sign up for the Monthly Bits club for these too.

A Sunday post...

Happy Sunday everyone!! Amy has a new post on Alana's EEG results..please see her blog for the whole story, but here is an excerpt:

Alana's EEG is normal, but they said it can't rule out seizures. She hasn't had any in a week, so I'm hoping she was just having episodes, and that was it. She has another appointment on the 9th, so we'll go from there. I guess the next test would be a 24 hour EEG, so I'm really hoping we don't have to do that. The hour we kept her still last time was one of the longest hours of my life! I wish we could just move onto something else

On the home front, Amy and I hit about 15 garage sales yesterday looking for some items in particular, for instance a high chair. We didn't find one, but found some treasures anyway. I picked up a couple of tea table cloths, one is hand made Battenburg lace...absolutely beautiful. I also found some lace curtains (from Belgium says the lady...perhaps...she had a European accent, so maybe they really are), and several lace doilies for 50 cents each. Lots of other treasures too. It's fun when you have things in particular that you are looking for!

I have made some progress on Life's a Stitch, I didn't use as many of the overdyes as I thought I might. I picked out some colors that appealed to me and then chose a couple DMC overdyes to go with them. The one is so subtle that there is little variation in it at all...I am not really happy with it, but I am too lazy to take out all those stitches that I already have in. I've tried twice now to load a picture, but Blogger is not cooperating... perhaps tomorrow! I am off to sit in my chair stitch the day away....

Some yummy threads and another finish!

I had seen on the Nordic Needle newsletter that DMC had some new overdyes available...well, I LOVE overdyes, so I needed to check them out. I went to all the craft stores in town that carry DMC, and none of them had stocked them yet, so I decided to see what I could find on the internet. I googled the overdyes, and ended up at Stitching Bits and Bobs, and decided to go ahead and order them. This was on a Friday afternoon. By dinner time I had an email in my box that the order had been shipped!! Talk about quick service!!! and they were in my mailbox by Monday afternoon! I was so pleased, I plan on using Stitching Bits and Bobs ALOT! I even signed up for their monthly Bits club, receiving 3 skeins of Caron Waterlillies every month.

Anyway, back to the overdyes...I would liken them to Weeks, with perhaps a bit of a softer feel. The colors are definitely in the line of Weeks, not the variation drama of Caron. I plan on trying them out on Lizzie Kate's Life's a Stitch this weekend. Here are some pictures of the threads. I'll post a picture of Life's a Stitch when I get it finished.

I also finished up a tiny project that I started on the plane coming home from Disneyland last month..I am very pleased with it, sorry for the blurry picture.

So far, we have not heard anything from the neurologist regarding Alana's EEG. I am hoping we will soon. Thanks for continuing to remember her in prayer.