Yesterday was busy, but I feel as if I got quite a lot on my to do list done. I cut out the pocketbook and I cut out a pattern for a bridesmaid dress I have to make. Sometimes it seems to me that cutting out paper patterns and cutting out the material take the longest amount of time in a sewing project. Today I am shooting for quilting the two outside pieces of the bag and cutting out the main body of the dress. Since it's Wednesday I have to make salsa. I have made it the last four Wednesdays in a row. On Thursday my husband takes it to work and sells it. Since the weather here has gotten a bit more rainy and chilly my tomatoes are not coming in so fast. I don't know how much more salsa I can make. Yesterday Captain Kitty and I got the kitchen cleaned, except mopping the floor. Sometimes I seem to have a hard time fitting household cleaning in my days. The papers were late this morning so I got up at the regular time and mopped the floor before I went on the paper routes. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.

Sew Long for Now!

My new favorite snack. I actually like the Krogers brand better, this is a heavenly snack with almonds and the bottom covered in almond bark. Can we consider it healthy?

Last Friday everyone here worked together and we cleaned the back verenda. It has been used as a catch all over the summer and it was in bad shape. We could really use an out building. We keep talking about getting one, but then something else more urgent comes up and the money gets used. It took us all day to clean up that area. Saturday we spent the day shopping and running errands. Sunday of course was church, and yesterday I had more errands to run besides lessons. I really need to get some sewing done, oh, I did repair a pair of jeans and hem the sleeves of a rain coat on Saturday. Today I am shooting for cutting out another of the purses I have been making this summer. I may even try to cut out two at a time, I need a new bag. I have to go buy more canning jars this morning. I have been selling salsa to my husbands co-workers. I make a hot salsa that for some reason they like. It's so bad I will not even test taste it. I have sold four dozen jars of it so far and they are asking for more.

I was excited because yesterday I also found trading card holders that I have searched for for months. I wanted them to organize my coupons. I finally found them at Toys R Us. As large of a city as I live in and that's the only place I could find them. We have four super Walmarts and not one of them had them. I guess collecting baseball cards is not as big a hobby as it used to be.

Sew Long for Now!

With summer ending we replowed the upper garden and planted buckwheat along with turnips. It is coming along nicely as you see in the photo.

This is a plant I put in over 13 years ago. I don't remember the name of it, but it started from a clipping he gave me. I really like it because it is no maintance, grows with lots of sun and not a lot of watering. It has always attacked butterflies in the fall because that is when it blooms. This year it is attracting the bees. I couldn't capture what it looked like in real life covered with honey bees, bumble bees and butterflies. I have two of these in my front yard. Since the honeysuckle trimming didn't root well I am thinking of using some trimmings from this and planting them on the front hill...hmm.

Sew Long for Now!

A while back I mentioned an interesting sewing project I was doing. Here it is. A friend of mine from church bought some costumes at a yard sale. They were in good shape, but needed minor repairs. I repaired the head of this costume and the bottom of another over the weekend. It had to be all done by hand, but that was ok since my sewing room was still a mess from the sorting of the supplies given to me.

Awe, don't look so blue!

Sew Long for Now!

These are some dishclothes I knitted this week.

I want to let everyone know I am ok and I am sorry about the short blogging break. My computer got ill and had to go to the computer doctor for a week. I didn't realize how much I had come to depend on it until it was gone. Everyday I would find something I needed to do, like pay a bill or print a list I had customized, and realize I couldn't do it. It was probably the best time for it to happen though. A lot has gone on around here.

Some who know me know that every year I move bedrooms around in our home. We literally switch people to other rooms. Last year I switched five sets of rooms around and said I would never do it again because it was so tiring and such a lot of work. Well...last week our youngest came and ask to move his bedroom into where my sewing room was. Poor child, he has had his bedroom moved every year for eleven years. At first I said, "NO!" But, then after thinking about it and the advantages of it we decided it would be a great idea. He first ask to move into his older brother's room. We wouldn't let that happen because his older brother may be at school most of the year, but he does come home and we want him to feel that this is still his home and he does have a place he belongs. It took two days to switch. Getting his stuff moved and put up took one evening, it took two days to get the sewing stuff moved! I have too much stuff. Speaking of which, I was blessed beyond words during this week. A friend of mine who used to sew a lot, but who stopped years ago is cleaning out her home. One of her sons and his children are moving in with her. She no longer sews, she is now into scrapbooking. She brought over three car loads of stash and stuff and gave it to me! You would not believe the beautiful things she gave me. I could start my own sewing store! She told me last night she still had more. I found place for lots of it, but there is so much more and I will have to find place for it.

Our oldest came home for the weekend. We had a lovely time. I made all his favorite meals and we just spoiled him. The General also took off the whole weekend and it has been a real family time. On Saturday the General made us all breakfast. His famous blueberry panCAKES.

This is one cooking in the electric skillet.

Here is one on the plate. He makes them as big as plates! I am amazed how he flips them one handed. I would break them all to pieces.

Sew Long for Now!

Psalm 34:1-4 "I will praise the Lord at all times. I will constantly speak his praises. I will boast only in the Lord; let all who are discouraged take heart. Come, let us tell of the Lord's greatness; let us exalt his name together. I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me, freeing me from all my fears."

I need this reminder more often than I care to admit.

Sew Long for Now!

My mother-in-law's birthday is today. I made her this bag as part of her present.

It's lined with lots of pockets. I finished it yesterday and hurried to the post office to mail it priority so she would have it soon.

Today I have hemmed some items, embroidered a couple of shirts, and am making some of my ultra hot salsa. The men at the General's work love it because I make it really hot and they have been asking to buy some. I am also going to send some to our oldest and his friend's at VMI.

Sew Long for Now!

Summer's winding to a close around here. Our oldest is back at college. Our youngest has celebrated his birthday. We spent another day up at the lake, with an afternoon visiting my folks and playing in their hot tub.

I have my mother-in-law's birthday gift almost done. I am making her a pocketbook. I have been crocheting another shawl and a dishcloth. I have some hemming to do for a customer, more shirts to embroider coming today, and some very unusual sewing that I will post a photo of later.

Our new school year starts next week, so this week I have lots of organizing to do.

Sew Long for Now!

I lay in bed last night thinking about my day yesterday. It wasn't a typical day because of all the special things going on around here this week, but it was not an unusual day because sometimes our life is filled with interruptions and we have learned to flow with that.

It started out typical. I got up at 2:30 a.m., but since the papers had not left the dock I cleaned the kitchen instead. I packed the General's lunch. At 3:00 a.m. I woke up Capt. Kitty and she went me to deliver the papers. We made it home before the General left for work and I got to tell him good-bye. Then I laid down for a nap. I didn't sleep well the night before because I stayed up watching a movie with the children.

My alarm went off again at 9 a.m. and I found the birthday boy waiting for me. We spent some time together and then I went to work on paper work and computer work. While on the computer my sister called and I had to locate our parents, because they were not at home when she called them. I found them and told them the news.

After I got off the phone I made pancakes and put dark chocolate chips in them as a surprise for lunch. The birthday boy loved it! Capt. Kitty didn't mind either. Our eldest wasn't up yet. I left him alone because he goes back to school in a couple of days and there will be no sleeping in then. After lunch I watched a movie we had rented with the children and then the eldest and I went shopping. We went for him to pick up a few items he still needed to go back to college and to pick up a few items for the birthday boy and for our trip to the lake today. Of course we picked up the cake, I don't know how to make ice cream cake.

It was so bitter sweet to see our eldest pay for the things he needed with money he earned working. I watched him make choices in clothing items that up until now I had always picked out and purchased. It's good to see him mature and take responsibility, but on the day my youngest turned 11 I guess I felt weepy. I have no more babies.

We called the General on the way home and had him take the birthday boy down stairs as we set up the cake and presents. Then we all sung "Happy Birthday," and brought him into the room. He opened presents. We were going to make chicken for supper, but the General decided this deserved a treat and he ordered pizza. We saved the cake until later.

I made it to bed at 7:30, but the cat kept coming and getting into things in our room so it was more like 8:00 before I got to sleep. Not much housework or such done, but lots of time was spent with the ones I love.

I have to get off here! Good news though. My sister just called and my great nephew was born at 10:30. He was 8 lbs and 20 inches long. I will not get to see him until next week though because they live a ways from us.

Sew Long for Now!

Eleven years ago today I went to the hospital with great fear. After numerous tests and sonograms we had been given the option to abort our child. We were told he would not live a year because of a terrible disease. We chose to live with what God gave us and love him any way he came. In the O.R. after getting an epidural and being prepared for the c-section we were introduced to a pediatric neurosurgeon who had been called in because of his "condition." I have never felt so much fear as during that time in my life. Our God is an awesome God. Our son was born healthy. Our miracle baby turns eleven today. He suffers from an acute imagination, but that's about it!

Happy Birthday!

Love Mom

They are finished. 204 hankerchiefs are finished. Swhhhhhhh.

The finished stack.

Sew Long for Now!

152 hankerchiefs have been embroidered so far. I am trying to finish them before Thursday. That is our little bee keeper's birthday. This weekend our eldest son goes back to college. We are all trying to stick around home or do things planned together. We will not all be together again for awhile. The weather here has been beautiful for the past several days. I heard though that heat and humidity were headed back by next week.

Sew Long for Now!

A little while back I found a blog called Cats, Crafts, and Penguins . It is a truly lovely blog. When Marie had a give away I ask to enter my name. I was so happily excited when I won. I received this beautiful dish cloth in the mail this week. I wish I could have used the editor on the picture to lighten it, but for some reason it wasn't working this morning. I will ask the General to look at it.

I haven't been embroidering the hankerchiefs lately. I had two more digitizings to work on. Today is hankie day. I will get back to work.

Life here is going as usual. We are awaiting the arrival of my newest great nephew. My sister's daughter is expecting a boy. We were hoping he would come yesterday. 8/8/08 would have been a neat birthday. I have to check with my Momma, but I think he will be my 19th great nephew or neice. I am pretty sure my parents have 18 great grandchildren.

Sew Long for Now!

I have spent the day working on the hankies so CK baked chocolate chip cookies. She makes the best chocolate chip cookies, much better than mine. She used chips that were 60% dark chocolate that the General picked out. Yum!

On the hankie front I have finished 74 as of today. I am trying to finish them by next week.

Sew Long for Now!

Greetings!

I have been doing a bit of cooking lately. I think the little bee keeper is going through a growth spurt. He seems to always be hungry. Since I don't buy a lot of boxed treats I have to keep up by baking. I have been making biscuits or pancakes every morning. I have also been making cookies, cakes, and other snack type foods. This has kept him satisfied! That boy can put away some muffins, he will be 11 in a few weeks.

On the sewing front I finished one digitize and am working on the hankies. Over the weekend I got a call to do another digitize so I will work on that next. I am so blessed to be getting this work! God is always faithful to us even when we don't deserve it.

Sew Long for Now!

This is a monogram I put on a laundry bag yesterday. It is for a customer to give as a gift to a student going away to college. That's the only sewing I accomplished. I have another digitizing to complete and the hankies to embroider. I did work on lesson plans and making a reading list for the little bee keeper.

Speaking of the little bee keeper, he was taking pictures with my camera yesterday.

Here is a new picture of the bee hive he took. The bee numbers are up these days. Today I will hopefully be as busy as these bees. I need to water and pick in the garden. The kitchen needs cleaning. I need to sew and digitize. The laundry needs some attention. Captain Kitty finished all her last year's books, but LBK still has some lessons in Math and English to finish. There are meals to fix and the lesson plans to work on. Definitely never boring around here!

Sew Long for Now!

Our eldest and two of his friends went hiking up Dragon's Tooth yesterday and this is a picture he took from the trip. I love the mountains where we live. I have always lived near these mountains, either in this valley or in the Shenandoah Valley north of here. The mountains played a big part in my growing up years and I have a love for them.

I finished embroidering the four shirts that ended up being five over the weekend. I digitized a design for a customer and that was about it on the sewing front. I still have these hankies to embroidery and a laundry bag to monogram. I have loads of ideas twittering around in my mind of things I would like to work on. First I need to get through school planning for the next year.

This is a bloom on one of our okra plants. Don't you just love the blooms of okra? They are so lovely. Last night I fried up some for the General. The little bee keeper picked a mess of green beans this morning and ask me to fix them with supper tonight. So I will snap those and cook them this afternoon. Oh, we have had three tomatoes off the vines! When I got the first one yesterday I came and made biscuits for breakfast. Oh, the taste of home grown tomatoes.

Sew Long for Now!

I can't believe it's Friday already! Boy, has this week flown past. I embroidered 7 shirts for a customer and then found I was out of stabilizer. Yesterday was Bernina club so I picked up some more stabilizer, big spools of black and white embroidery thread (which I seem to go through a lot), and a varigated with purple and green to try on a project. Don't you love the bright bag the store put my purchase in? I love the bags this store uses and save them to wrap presents in.

A customer had brought me 204 hankerchiefs to embroidery for a wedding on Wednesday with a swatch of the color used in the wedding. I totally forgot to find matching thread yesterday so I went back today and picked it up. While there she had another customer for me to digitize something for and a drawing to give me an idea. I love digitizing. It is so fun to play with stitches on the computer and then see what that produces when you sew it out. I also have another customer to call tonight to see if I can help digitize something for. I also have four more shirts to embroidery for some one by Sunday.

On the garden front, I picked more green beans yesterday. I put up another four quarts. There is okra and kale that I need to do something with. I am waiting for my tomatoes to turn. I can just taste a nice homemade biscuit with fresh warm homegrown tomato slices...yum.

Sew Long for Now!

I have been finding a strange insect on my green beans. I found it left the leaves full of holes and lacey looking. I decided to do some research.

Here is what it looks like. I found it is a Mexican bean beetle larva. I have never seen these before. I have been picking the leaves with these insects on them off and discarding them. Also, this morning while watering my herbs I saw my parsley was either brown on almost gone. I looked closer and found this culprit.

A black swallowtail catepillar. They love parsley and this guy had almost eaten all mine. I removed him from my parsely.

Part of growing things is dealing with the creatures who like what you are growing.

I redid that shirt yesterday for Captain Kitty. It isn't great, but it will do to wear around the house. It looks good on her so I think I will make her another one in a smaller size.

Stay cool today!

Sew Long for Now!