The Best Kept Secret and Vacation (Lots of Pics)

WOW! has it been a busy month!  I have missed everyone's blogs so much, but hopefully I'll be able to catch up in the next few days  After my sister left, we took off for some family time up at Torch Lake in northern Michigan.  What a beautiful lake, but I'll talk about that in a minute.

Anyway, I kept a secret.  A big secret.  A HUGE secret!!  And I kept it from my kids.  Don't ask me how I did it - I almost stumbled and messed up the whole secret quite a few times, but I did it.  I secretly made phone calls, took trips back and forth to Ohio a few times to check up on the little secret, bought things (like 4,000 toys from PetCo) and took them to my neighbors so my kids wouldn't find out.  What was the secret?  Well, this is what it was:

Meet Bailey.  All 13 weeks and 16 pounds of him!  The family finally wore me down!  It took years for them to do it, but it finally happened.  Bailey is a Golden Doodle and the sweetest thing that you could ever meet.  He loves sitting on your lap, kisses and being petted.   My kids were in shock I tell you.   We had tried to adopt a puppy a couple times and it never worked out and I think the kids had given up.  When I pulled Bailey out of the car, DH was standing there with the movie camera and the kids couldn't even talk. They both just stood there with their mouths hanging open seeing me standing there with a dog on a leash.  It was priceless just like the credit card commercials!  Truly priceless!  So now we have a new member of the family, and I feel like I'm following after a baby.  Bailey is full of energy and like a devil on four huge paws, but then there are those times when he just falls over:

He's a sweetie, but I can't wait until he's potty trained and stops waking us up howling at 5:00 a.m.

Our vacation was wonderful on Torch Lake.  I've lived in Michigan all my life and don't know how I ever missed this lake.  Crystal clear and uncrowded.  Beautiful.  My husband rented a boat, and I could tell some crazy stories about that (like he doesn't know how to drive a boat, but I'll spare him the embarrassment).  Okay, I won't!  LOL  He was so afraid to take the boat across the lake from where it was dropped off over to our cottage.  The lake is only about 1-1/2 miles across, but he was worried, so he pulled out his wallet and handed me all his money.  LOL  He thought he was going to drown!  I knew exactly what was going on and later told him so.  He was sheepish about the whole thing and I told him that he was lucky that Catie and I didn't hightail it to the antique stores and spend it!!

We also beached the boat a couple times, but I will spare DH the embarrassment on that.  But do you know how heavy a boat is to unbeach it?  Ahem!!  Me pulling it out into the lake so we could start it up, and I'm fully clothed and wearing the only bra I took up with me and there is no washer or dryer?  And later standing with a hair dryer trying to dry it out?  Ahem!!  But we had a great time once DH got over his fear -  we tubed from it, fished from it, skirted the lake, and just had a wonderful time in it.  Here are a few pics from vacation (you can skip these if you hate family vacation pictures):

Alden - The nearest town

The cutest shop - Alden's Mill - with more kitchen gadgets than you've ever seen in your life crammed into this quaint cottage

One of the spectacular sunsets, but taken on a cell phone so you don't get the full impact

DD relaxing (or glamming - however you want to look at it)

Torch Lake is located on the 45th parallel - we got a real kick out of this sign

DD tubing

Us girls relaxing on the boat - my freckles come out in the sun

Watching the sunset

Getting the campfire ready for s'mores

Loved the name of this alley in Charlevoix

And all the boats in Charlevoix Bay

And the town clock

And all the flowers in the town.

And this says it all - Summer - I'm so sorry that it's ending.

We all had a great time and even DH was hesitant to come home.  We drove home at a very leisurely pace and visited some antique stores along the route home.  DH is NOT an antique shopper, so you know that he didn't want to go home if he allowed me to drag him into those shops.

On the crafting side not much at all,  but while my sister was here I picked up this yarn from a store in Frankenmuth:

Even though I did take cross stitch up North with me, I didn't feel like pulling it out.  I also took this yarn along.  In the early mornings when the others were still sleeping, I would sit with my cup of coffee watching the water lap on the beach and knit and I did get a little bit done:

I love the colors of it - reminds me of the color of the sunsets - and as you knit it it forms a spiral - so much fun!!!  I think I've seen it called a Potato Chip scarf too.  Easy pattern and it works up quickly.

Well, that's it for me.  I'm still recuperating from vacation, learning how to be a mom to a little baby (dog) again, and gearing up to get the kids ready for school.   It's going to be a busy couple of weeks.

Thank you again so much for all your wonderful comments, and I'll definitely catch up with everyone soon!!

A Fast Two Weeks (Lots of Pics)

My head has finally stopped spinning.  It's been a crazy two weeks!!!  Thanks for all the comments on my last post about the antics with my son.  Nothing ever came of it for which I'm happy (and so is he), but he learned a great lesson and there's been a lot of egg jokes flying around here.   Actually, he's pretty embarrassed about the whole thing.  I hope that's the worst that we'll ever face.

My sister was here for eleven days and left yesterday.  We had a great time, although maybe not as crazy as in prior years given the fact that my son's foot was really in poor shape after his soccer field collision, so it was hard for him to hobble around.  But we had a lot of fun and I'm always sorry when she leaves!!  We did our annual Chicken Dinner thing at Frankenmuth, went through all the stores except Bronners (I think it's been too hot around here for me to envision Christmas right now), visited antique shops, etc.  She also got me into a lot of trouble buying things (gotta blame someone, right Sis?).

Stitching took kind of a back seat and quilting was nil, but later in the evenings when we were resting, I did get a little more done on Susanna - not much, but a little:

She coming along slowly but surely, and I do like the colors in it quite a bit.

We found some great new antique shops, although one reminded us of a place out of a Stephen King novel (definitely not a place I want to go to again), but we found some really great new antique shops, consignment shops and barns, and, of course, I can't come out without anything, can I?  I think I would have done more damage if my son's foot was feeling better, but I didn't want him walking on it more than he had to, and crutches are definitely not something you want to take into an antique store.

First find was a chippy table for my craft room!  Just what I was looking for!  And the woman at this shop was practically giving things away.  In fact, when I looked at her in stunned surprise when she gave me the final price, she said that she wanted me to come back so therefore the great prices!  Like Arnold says, "I'll be back!!!"

Some of the things on the table were from a few other places we came across:

This child's lunch pail - just had to have it - it's RED!!  And for some reason, I've really developed a love of these things.

Lots of little things - three pincushions.  The silver slipper is stamped with "Bruno" although I don't know if that means anything; three pairs of antique scissors, molds, rulers, a glass jar and another Anchor Hocking piece.  I think it's just a candy dish, but a frog fits on it perfectly.  I think there are a few other things, but I'll post those another time.  They were all for great prices and I think I've found the secret to cheap antiquing - get a long distance from the big cities.

Then I came across this cabinet - I've got this thing for little drawers, so I just had to have this as well:

Then a baby's antique gown to hang under the shelves in my craft room or I may frame it - not sure yet:

We also made it to the quilt store - a couple of them - and a yarn store.  Not a good move because I didn't come out of those places unscathed either, but I won't post those things now.  My sister did see a quilt that she liked and since she lives on the coast, it's perfect.  She doesn't quilt, so I've been recruited to make it.

Luckily the center is a cheater panel otherwise she'd be waiting for years until I got my applique skills honed, but since I also put her to work while she was here, I think that she deserves a quilt.

Her vacation wasn't quite as leisurely as she probably hoped.  I put her to work helping me put up shelves in my craft room.  I've wanted new shelves for ages, but it's a two person job, and DH has been working on his own shelving adventures in the garage, so I recruited Sis for the job, and this is what we did!

The closet!!!  Oh happy day!  There were some of these funky wire shelving things in there and they weren't worth the power to blow them to Minnesota, so we ripped those out and installed these.  I've got a little spackling and touch up work to do from the other holes, but TA DA!!

Then we put some over where my sewing machine goes:

TA DA again!!!  And we also put one up over my cutting table (no pic).  The reason the level is on the shelf is that my husband didn't seem to think that two women could put up shelves and make them level. Typical male, right?  Well, all were level except that bottom one.  He snuck down when we weren't looking and said it was off 1/16 of an inch.  Okay, now 1/16 of an inch is no big deal to me, but......we hightailed it up to the local hardware store, bought some washers, inserted them above the brackets and screwed those babies down!  Perfect!  We'll show him!  HA!

Now my room is really a disaster and I won't be able to get in there for a couple more weeks as I'm in for a couple more busy ones.  Today is one of rest, but tomorrow, I've got to start packing for our trip up north.  It's been such a full summer that I'll almost be glad when the kids get back into school so I can relax........and stitch.......and quilt!  Well, in fact, I will be glad when they go back to school, just don't tell them!!

Well, that's it for me for now.  I'm really sorry that I haven't been able to visit blogs over the past couple of weeks, but I'm going to try to catch up at some point.  I know that I've missed reading everything and seeing what all of you have done.  I'll try to catch up soon and thanks again for all the wonderful comments on my last post.

Oh, and I may have to start up Comment Moderation soon.  Seems that I've been getting too many Viagra and weird comments, so I may do that.  I know it's a pain, but I'm tired of seeing comments about how I can improve my sex life or requests for money because someone is a prisoner in some jail in some country I've never heard of before.

Stitch lots and I'll try to catch up on everyone's blogs soon!

Life is Like a Bowl of Chocolates

.....you just never know what you're going to get, do you?  This has been one of those weeks where I've gotten a lot of things, and some of those things were things that make a mom's heart sputter.  I'll get to those in a minute.

First was some framing.  I didn't know what I was going to get with this white frame.  I wanted something that would go in the room where it's intended as it's a very light room, but....

My Quaker House

Blackbird Designs

40 count French Vanilla 

I sat on this piece forever (since July 2008) and didn't know if I wanted to make a needle roll out of it or frame it.  I think I want to take the frame off and paint it and sand it down and have some of the white show through.  What do you think?  Also, the matt is not quite that color - more of a green blue - don't know what is up with the camera!

I started a new project because I was getting a little tired of Adam and Eve's, so I kitted up a few things and started on this:

Susanna Lane

The Scarlett Letter

This is really a lot of fun to stitch.  I couldn't get a closer picture of it because it's fairly wide, but I managed to get that done in the past week.  It's the one of the things that calmed my nerves.

I also got four more of the As Time Goes By quilt finished.  It helps when they're already cut out - just sit and put the pedal to the metal:

Now eight down, four more to go.

Calm nerves are just what I need right now.  It's really been a week - starting off with a visit to my front porch by the men in blue - well actually, one man and women and they were dressed in brown - Oakland Country Sheriff Deputies.  Kind of a scary thing when they come knocking at 12:30 at night.  Well, it wasn't anything too terrible.  Just an incidence of some eggs being thrown at my son's friend's neighbors and my son's car being there and the license given to the police.  Since my son didn't have the common sense to leave the scene of the crime, he's on a few days of grounding.  Now, I've been known to throw a few eggs in my time (it was always a big High School Senior Skip Day thing - rite of passage), so I kind of have to smile.  If that's the worse thing that he gets wrapped up in, I think I'm blessed.  But the grounding should serve as a gentle reminder to tow the line.  Whether he had an egg in his hand or not, throwing at people (if that's exactly what happened) is not a good thing.  He's had Physics - he knows the consequences.

But then two days later, I'm in and out of hospitals with my daughter and then my son.  Possible pneumonia with DD and possible fractured leg with my DS.  You have to love a good time, don't you?  No pneumonia for DD, but possible asthma.  UGH.  And DS - huge collision on the soccer field during his summer gym class.  Diagnosis - badly bruised and sprained ankle and leg - not broken, thank goodness.  Of course, all of this with my son has to happen while I'm sitting in a car dealership across town with my tires and brakes lying on the floor!  That's enough to frazzle a mom's hair.

So to calm my nerves in between all these fun events, I stitched and fiddled around in the craft room, unloading shelves, going through things.  Physical activity is a sure fire way to calm myself down.  And I found another pizza box treasure.  An I Spy Quilt that I started for my kids.  It was part of the reason I saved up to buy an embroidery machine just so I could embroider the words on the side.

Did I ever do that?  Of course not - this is what it looks like:

Two rows put together.  And my favorite blocks so far:

My sister and my son when he was smaller, and for some reason that zebra driving the car cracks me up. 

And, of course, we have to have a block that has something to do with sewing:

I've pulled this quilt out and am going to try to finish it up.  My kids are both older now, but I still think it will make them smile.   Everything is cut out and ready to go, so no excuse not to.

Well, that's all the news that's fit to report this week.  What a week!  Dear sister is coming in tomorrow and I can't wait.  But I've got a ton of things to do before she gets here though and haven't been a very good blog reader this week at all.  I don't know how much time I'm going to have in the next few weeks, but I'll at least look, if I don't comment.

Have a wonderful weekend!! 

  

What Happens When My ADD Rears Its Head

I have to give a shout out again to Valerie once again for winning my giveaway.  I'm so thrilled you won!  Actually I wish that everyone could have won, but I don't think I could find enough flower frogs.  Perhaps in the future!

I have made so little progress on stitching.  I don't know what it is - summer?  And I notice a lot of my blogging buddies are experiencing the same thing.  I know that I have a hard time sitting down at night.  But I got a little more done on my A&E sampler:

Not much since the last picture.  It's been too hot to sit under the Ott light even after the A/C was fixed.  I even started a new stitching project although there's not much to show - a non A&E!!  Hopefully, I'll have a progress picture next time.  All I have now is a lot of green!!

All this weekend, I had a song going through my head - Let's Go Crazy by Prince.  Not my most favorite songs by him, but I couldn't get it out of my head.  My intentions were to get into my craft room and clean out the closet for my sister's arrival so that we could put the shelving in.  Well, one thing led to another - resulting in a huge mess.  I know, my blog started off as a stitching blog, but bear with me - you just gotta go with the flow, right?

All the Farmer's Wife blocks done for the month.  The pink and green one at the bottom was the one I had to recut and piece over.  Now I'm caught up and awaiting next months!!

Next part done on the red, black and white quilt!!!

Two more Civil War blocks.  Although the one on the left seems to have a serious problem that I didn't notice until I went to iron it out.  I know what I did and have since ripped it out to resew, along with those blocks from my last post - UGH, I hate ripping things out.

Now this is where the ADD comes in.  Those pictures above were done here and there during the week when I could catch an hour or so. Then I thought it was time to get into the closet and clean it out for the anticipated shelving, but what resides in the closet?  Well, pizza boxes with quilts in some form of cutting, or finishing - along with a multitude of other things that catch my attention.  I've posted a picture of the infamous pizza boxes before.  They're just the right size for holding my projects.  Anyway, I start peeking into the pizza boxes (even though they're all labeled) and I come across projects all cut out and ready to sew.  I have a tendency to go through marathon cutting sessions so that I can sew to my hearts content when I have the time.  Now my mind is much more into sewing than clearing out the closet, so ADD kicks in and this results:

Four blocks from a quilt called As Time Goes By.  Aren't the colors wonderful?  Do you see why I just had to sew and not clean???  They were all cut out - calling my name!

And if that wasn't enough, more ADD kicked in and I decided to now start on something else.  I posted these blocks a while ago:

At the time I posted them, I had good intentions of moving right along with the quilt.  But I think that was when I painted the room and packed everything up.  Well, I couldn't find the blocks after.  Not anywhere.  Well, they made an appearance in the closet cleaning (in an unmarked box), so I started on the next section:

Nothing much to see here except 12 blocks in progress with the next row pinned on and ready to sew!  The quilt will look like this when it's finished although that will be awhile seeing as I have some kind of problem sticking to just one quilt at a time.  But variety is the spice of life, isn't it?

All this quilting craziness resulted in this mess - it looks like a bomb hit this chair:

Now surely you can see the garbage bag to the left side - I honestly was trying to clean - honest!  LOL  Well, it has been cleaned, but that's what everything ended up looking like when I was finished for the day.

And then to add to the craziness I had to purchase these - like I don't have enough going on, right?  I couldn't resist - I saw them on Amazon and had to have them.  Just love Amazon for those great prices:

I just love working on the Farmer's Wife quilt so much that I want more!!!  I think I have to be totally certifiable with the Nearly Insane quilt though.  I've seen it done in red and white fabrics.  Stunning.  I'd post a picture, but hate to snatch a picture from someone's blog that I don't know.  Just let me say, that my heart did a thunk when I saw it.  So in addition to starting on Dear Jane here in the near future, I'd say I'm set.  Or perhaps crazy!  Crazy is good, don't you think?

Well, that's been my week.  I'm off now to string lights into a huge (stage sized) piece of fabric to replicate a night sky for my DD's play.  I can't believe the performances are next week.  This summer certainly is flying by.  The next couple weeks are going to be crazy ones with my sister coming in and a small vacation, but hopefully I'll find time to keep up with blogs and maybe some stitching and quilting too.

Thanks again to everyone that entered my giveaway and to all the new followers - I was overwhelmed how many new ones I saw.  I'll be tracking down your blogs soon and  I hope that you'll stop and say hello every once in a while.  I love reading your comments!  Have a great week!

AND THE WINNER IS.............

Wow - I'm amazed at all the people who signed up for this giveaway.  Hello to all my new followers and to all the ones that have been following me for a while.  I'm overwhelmed!  Out of 193 entries (giving for some people having one, two or three chances), the winner is:

Since Mr. Random Organizer doesn't like me pasting pictures, I had to pick with my eyes closed:

It's Number 14 - and Number 14 is:

VALERIE OF FOG CITY DWELLER!!!!!  Congratulations Valerie.  Send me your snail mail and I'll get this right out to you!!


And thank you to everyone who entered - my new followers (wow, I can't believe how many jumped on the bandwagon), and to all my old followers too.  I'm so glad that I've met all of you!!!!!!

Giveaway Reminder, My 100th Post and Not Much Else

I really don't have much to say, but wanted to remind everyone about my giveaway.  If you haven't signed up, just leave a comment on my previous post.  I'll be pulling a name first thing on Monday, July 19th.  I'm really taken back by all the new followers that have jumped on board.  I'm so happy to meet all of you and if I haven't visited your blog yet (if you have one), I will soon.

And yes, this is my 100th post!  Woo Hoo!  I can't believe that it snuck up me.  I feel like there should be balloons and dancing boys!  A champagne bottle uncorking or at least some sparkling water.  Well, maybe not on the dancing boys - my DH may not approve!  LOL  But I'm having a hard time believing that I've made this many posts.  I promised a giveaway when I reached that point and it will happen.  I think that I'll combine that and my 2 year blogging milestone together.  Or maybe not.  Maybe I'll sneak in another giveaway after the current one.   Aw, two more giveaways would be better, right?

Not much has been going on around here.   Not much stitching and not much quilting either.  But I do have a small finish that I had framed:

Petites Lettres Rouges

Freebie from Blackbird Designs

I sat on this piece for the longest time trying to figure out what to do with it.  A pincushion, a flat fold, what?  I finally decided to get it framed because I need some small things for my craft room.  The matt color looks too pink in this picture - IRL it looks more like the lighter letters of the sampler.  I think it came out sweet and will look great in the craft room.

The reason there hasn't been much going on is that our air conditioning died.  Boy, this has been a year - first our furnace earlier in the year, then the appliances and now the A/C.  I guess that's what happens when the house reaches the 20 year mark.  We've been without it for a week.  Long story on that one - one company not diagnosing the problem and giving us freon we didn't need.  The condensor was blown - so it's been a back and forth thing trying to get it fixed - by another company.  The new A/C is being put in as I write this, but it's been rather hot to do much of anything.  Sitting under my Ott Light and stitching was just not something that I wanted to do.  But that should be the last it, hopefully, as far as major expenses.  I think we're going to be living on hot dogs and beans for a while!  LOL

The basement has been relatively cool (thankfully), so I did get in a little quilting, but not much - it's hot standing around an ironing board too.  I worked on the Marti Michell quilt.  There are six of these blocks.

Why is this one not totally put together (nor the other five)?  Well, I pulled a stupid human trick and sewed the corner blocks the wrong way (and there were specific instructions to watch orientation which I obviously ignored - DUH), so the green and white squares have to be all taken off (all 24 of them) and put back on correctly.  UGH!!!  The more I work with this quilt, the less I like it.  The fabric has to be some of the thinnest I've ever worked with, stretches like crazy and so having to rip out anything is a tedious process.  So on to Plan B:

The Farmer's Wife Quilt - Two more down and one to go and I'm caught up for the month!  The one on the right, Corn and Beans, gave me headaches.  It's not perfect, but I'm happy.  And I see a wrinkle in the black and white one - I'll have to investigate that - probably an ironing error.  The third one would have been done, but the rotary cutting instructions that came with the BOM didn't jive with the templates so I have to cut out a whole new block.

I haven't posted any thrifty finds lately - probably because there hasn't been much, but I do have a few.  I found this glove mold one day while I was out and about at an antique store I had never seen before:

I've never come across a glove mold in any of the stores I had been in before and it was a pretty good price I think - $10 so it came home with me.

This weekend I was on a secret mission.  I can't disclose any details right now, but will next month.  Anyway, I drove to Ohio and my destination was really close to Sauder Village, so I stopped in.  I had the T-Bag pattern, but had to pick up these fabrics.  I just love pink and black:

Then another sign for my craft room:

The sign seemed fitting because I feel at times that I'm going at this quilting like a crazy fool.

Ohio has a ton of antique shops, thrift stores, etc.  I wish that I could have stopped at every one that I saw during my journey, but I only ended up stopping at one.  I'll try to stop at more when I go back in a couple of weeks.  But I did find a couple things all for under $10.  A deal to me:

The je t'aime ribbons came from the quilt store, but I came away with yards of pretty laces, a jar full of buttons, and the large glass jar filled with crochet cottons and hankies that someone was edging.

Pure Irish linen:

I was a happy camper.  Hopefully when I go back in a couple weeks (with sister in tow), we'll get a really early start, do what we have to do and mindlessly drift our way back home via all the antique stores.  Speaking of  my sister coming in - she's all geared up for our annual antique tour, touristy dinner at Frankenmuth and all the other crazy things we got into while she was here last year.  Her price of admission: putting up the shelves in my craft room.  I'm the crafty one (although she paints), but she could appear on an episode of This Old House for all the things that she knows how to do.

Thank you so much for your response to my giveaway and don't forget to sign up on my previous post if you haven't yet.  I wish that I had enough flower frogs to send one to everyone.  But I guess the best I can do is find them and give them away.  But thanks again for being a regular follower, a new follower or a lurker.  Your comments mean the world to me.