Lots of pictures!

I have lots of pictures to share today!!! It's my 50-something birthday today too!!! I had a nice day, I took the day off work, and slept in until 8 AM when the phone rang. It was the delivery man saying he would be bringing my birthday present at 10 AM, and he showed up three minutes early! Here is my birthday present, a brand new kitchen range! Isn't it great? I love the glass top burners...no more drip pans to clean! Hurray!!! After getting ready, I headed out the door to find the new LNS I had heard about in Tacoma, about 30 minutes from my home. I arrived, only to find they were closed!!! ARRGGGHHH! It's my birthday, they aren't supposed to be closed and half empty!!! The little teeny sign on the door said they were moving to a new location in the same warehouse mall, so I went down and found where it was so I could get to it easily next time. It's called Krazy Kat Fiberhaus in the Freighthouse Square (near Tacoma Dome) if anyone in Western Washington is reading this and wants to go there. It looks like most of the inventory is indeed fibers, and a pretty good selection from what I could tell. At least it will be closer than the next closest LNS in Issaquah, about 70 minutes away!

So, disappointed, but glad they weren't closed for good, I went and had a manicure, and came home and watched an On-Demand Movie...I think it was called Music and Lyrics, with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. It was pretty cute. Then Dear Hubby and Amy fixed birthday dinner and we enjoyed being together as a family for a couple hours. A nice birthday all around.

I have been busy stitching away on a couple of the smaller projects in my UFO basket the last couple weeks, and have finished both. I finished "The Joy of My Heart" by Lorri Birmingham (the pattern was FULL of errors, and the kit was incomplete), and I also finished stitching a needleroll by Shepherd's Bush, and did the finishing of the needleroll while watching my movie today. I am pleased with the way they both turned out. I still need to do the finishing of the LB piece, probably will be a flat fold. I feel really good that I was able to reduce my long list by two projects. I picked up a third one this evening, also, the Terri's Needlecase by Lorri Birmingham. There is a more to stitch on this one than the others, but it feels so good to be able to get some of these projects out of the basket!!

I pulled 5 boxes out of the garage this week and went through them, most of them contained very old cross stitch pieces and knick knacks from our old house that I never unpacked when we moved into this house 8 years ago. All of the cross stitch and needlework pieces were yellowed and smelled bad, so I soaked them for about 2 days and managed to get the yellow mostly out. I have ironed them up again, and now I need to decide what to do with these pieces. Two of them are birth samplers for my oldest two girls, so I will probably ask them what they would like. One I will reframe (it is a picture of a dollhouse) and give to my granddaughter. One is a stitch sampler that I created in college when I was doing an independent study in needlework. I will probably reframe that one too. It's strange to look at pieces I was so proud of 30+ years ago. DD#2 looked at my stitch sampler (I'll try and remember to post a pix next time) and said, "Wow, Mom, it's soooooo....." "70's?" I asked? "Yeah, that it's, that's some pretty wild colors!" Lime green is predominate in the color scheme I chose!! LOL!

My garden this week has been decimated by a couple of visitors with four legs...see picture. Two yearlings have decided that our neighborhood is the place they want to spend their summer and have given most of my trees and flowers an unwanted pruning, including all my dahlia buds. Bummer. Why can't they eat dandelions instead of the expensive stuff??? They seem to be fairly comfortable around people, as one of them followed Lizzie (DD#3) around the neighborhood one afternoon. It sort of freaked her out, she didn't like being followed by an animal that was nearly as large as she is!