A Discovery...

When I go through things it always seems like I discover other "things".  This time it was going through some things from my brother and I found a couple of items that I thought had been lost.  The first item goes back to late 60s or early 70s I think.  My brother Tony was curious if the Bromeland side of the family had any coat of arms or anything so he paid a place to search it out.  I remembered seeing the shield and what was told to me were unicorn horns on top but after that I never saw it.  I found it while going through some of Kerm's things.  It seems he had given it to his son along with the grandmother clock that mom had.  They always kept it in there.  The other item that I have is the program from when Mother and I went to a luncheon for the King of Norway.  That was in 1975.  My copy of the program is so beat up that it almost is unrecognizable so I am taking the pictures from the one mom had.

I tried to get a pix of the other pages, which I did, but they don't work well in posting them here.  I couldn't blow them up large enough to read the print.  It was the meal and actual program etc.

That led me to getting back into cross stitch after finishing up my "hang in there cat" and that was a journey by itself.  I found an old UFO that I thought would be good to do and pulled it out look at.

It has a unicorn but I would just turn the unicorn into a horse I think.  So I pulled everything out and ...oops.  Nope.  Not going to happen.  Working on 28 count evenweave might have been good 40 years ago but not now.  I still want to do it but will have to see what size Aida cloth I need and then if I can find it.  So I went on to another UFO project.

 I love this one and pulled out the pattern but that is as far as I got.  I will work on finding the Aida cloth for it and enlarging the pattern so that I don't ruin my original which was from a magazine as well as making it larger.  Then on to getting the floss and finding the Aida cloth large enough.  I might actually have some of that but I'll let you all know.

By now I was determined to find a cross stitch project to work on.  I pulled out a couple of more kits that I had dropped and decided I didn't want to do any more so that canvas is set aside to take out the stitches and recycle the canvas into another project.  FINALLY!  I found what I could work on.  It's a Christmas NOEL kit that I had.  So I am happy that I found something but guess what.  I forgot to take a picture of it!  I guess that means you'll have to see it next time around.  LOL.

Until then have a wonderful and safe day.

Remembering.....

As most of you know, my brother Kerm passed away.  This post will take me down memory lane.  So first of all, the obit had this to say about Kerm.

KERMIT P. BROMELAND

Born: September 17, 1942
Died: July 20, 2015

Kermit P. Bromeland, 72, of Sycamore, Illinois, died Monday, July 20, 2015, at Kishwaukee Hospital, DeKalb.

Born September 17, 1942, in Sandwich, the son of Kermit Stanley and Edith (Chamberlain) Bromeland, Kermit married Roberta Madison on April 23, 1966, at First United Methodist Church, DeKalb.

He had worked 39 years at Del Monte. Kermit was a veteran of the US Army, having served during the Vietnam era. Kermit and Roberta were huge supporters of current and retired military personnel. He was widely known as "Mr. Fix-It."

He is survived by his wife, Roberta; son, Matthew (Julie) Bromeland of Sycamore; grandchildren, Madison and Gwen; sister, Bonni Feltz of DeKalb; and many nieces and nephews; along with all of the friends who knew and loved him and relished his sense of humor and joy of life.

He was preceded in death by his parents; brother, Tony; and sister, Pat. 

Now for the rest of the story...

Kermit (or Kurt, Kerm, Kermie) was a great brother.  He was 14 years older than me which made it easy growing up.  I wasn't underfoot and he I don't remember him being in the house except for short periods of time.  Oh I know he had to have been living with us but my memory doesn't go back that far.

I never doubted that Kerm loved me and I know that he knew I loved him.  We weren't the most demonstrative to each other but we knew it.  In fact I introduced him to his wife Bobbie. Here's the story as I remember it.  

Kerm was old enough that he would have been drafted and sent to Vietnam.  The recruiter came out to the house and said if Kerm enlisted he could make sure that Kerm wouldn't go to Vietnam but could go to Germany.  Not sure how that worked but Kerm enlisted and yes, he went to Germany.  Of course we wrote letters to him every week and even sent reel to reel tapes to him.  Later on we learned that he couldn't understand 90% of what he said but he didn't want to tell us that because we might have stopped sending them and even that 10% that he could hear made him feel like he was at home.  I remember the whole family would sit around the large dining room table and take turns telling him what we did that week.  Even Patti and I.  Of course our big events were things like "we found a new stray dog and we named him..." or "I went to the library today", etc.   

One time Patti and I asked him in our letter to him what we could do.  He wrote back saying he would like to have a girlfriend when he got home so we could find him one.  He even gave clues like

She has to be around 6' tall because he was 6'3"

He liked blondes so we had to ask Mom what "blondes" meant.

and she had to have a nice smile and be nice.

Patti and I had a mission.  Keep in mind that we lived in the country outside of a small town.  There weren't any women that seemed to match Kerm's criteria.  One day, while going into DeKalb for weekly errands like laundry and groceries, mom and us girls were in line for groceries.  Patti and I kept staring at the clerk and mom was starting to get mad at us because that was rude.  Mom kept giving us "that look" but we ignored it.  Finally it was our turn to check out and while mom was busy putting groceries up on the belt, I opened up my big mouth and said to the clerk "Wow, You're tall.  How tall are you?"   She laughed and said 6' 1".  Then she smiled and we liked her smile and we asked if her hair could be called blonde.  She laughed and said yes.  By this time Mom was about ready to kill us but the girl said it was ok.  Then the big question.  "Would you like to write to our brother in Germany?  He's in the service and he wants a girlfriend who is tall and pretty and has a nice smile.   Do you want his address?"  Mom was MORTIFIED!  Patti and I were happy.  Bobbie, real name Roberta, gave us her address since we didn't have Kerm's address on us.  I always wondered if mom had it but just didn't want to give it to us since she was so embarrassed.  In the next shipment of letters we sent along Bobbie's address and her and Kerm started to correspond.  The rest, as they say, is history.

They got married and were together ever since.  Here are some pictures which I like.

These pictures are Kerm and Bobbie showing Grandma and Grandpa Chamberlain her engagement ring.  (Notice the quilt being used as a chair cover).

I always thought that Kerm had a James Bond look in this picture. 

Kerm and Bobbie always were cooking out.  This picture is one of the first one that they did. 

That's Kerm in the plaid shirt.  Bobbie did great watermelon bowls!

This picture is much later when he is cooking out at his farm.

The last picture for now is where Kerm, one Christmas at Mom's Senior Citizen Housing was standing next to his Granddaughter Madison.

Madison is all grown up now but I think this is a great picture of them.

R.I.P. Kermit Philip Bromeland

Remember the embroidery floss project?  I made progress on it.  This is what it looks like now.  The fullest box covers 200-699.  I find that I have a free box so I might split that to make more room.  I have a third box for numbers 900 and onward.  I just noticed that I put 700-800 as my label when it needs to be 700-899.  An easy fix but I'd better do it soon or else I'll forget.  LOL.

I need to sign off now and get back to some stitching.  My cat "hang in there" cross stitch is almost done and I hope to finish it this weekend.  I'd have taken a picture of it to show you but my phone camera isn't working for some reason.  My regular camera is at work so next post you'll have a picture.

Everybody have a great day.

Life's Upheavel

Wow, the last two weeks have been so hectic!  It started with a severe allergy attack that, to quote one friend, made my face look like somebody stuffed the Stay Puff Marshmallow man into my cheeks.  This happened the day after my birthday (hello to age 59).  Then, of course, that meant it was all swollen when we had visitors from the Truman State University come visit.  The good news is that after a week of Zyrtec (1 x day) and Benedryl (every 3-4 hours) my face got back to normal (for it).

During that week I had Josephine Hammersley (daughter of my good friend Dan) out for a week.  it turned out to be very good week.

Then the other shoe dropped. My brother, Kerm(Kermit) had a massive heart attack and is in the hospital in the ICU.  It's not looking good so we are just in a holding pattern.  So I'm torn between work and waiting and trying to keep occupied.  What do I do to keep occupied?  I go shopping for new storage boxes for my embroidery floss.  I have three large plastic boxes and bought two more since I've outgrown the three.

So while I was doing laundry this morning, I was winding embroidery floss onto the bobbins.  The bobbins on the right had side are the ones I got done and the gallon size plastic bag on the left is what I have left to do.  Once I have them all wound up, I'll see how I can divide the floss up between the FIVE containers that I have.  All nice and organized for my next project.  Then when I do the project I'll go and pull them out and put them in a small plastic container that will be more portable.

The other things I did was to go to my neighbors garage sale. and picked up a small crock pot.  I wanted a small one so if I wanted to take a hot dip or something to work or buffet then I can use it instead of my monster crock pot.

I put a can of tomatoes next to it for reference so you can see how tall it is.  It was just the right size to try putting in a chicken thigh to see if it works.

IT WORKS!  Just large enough for the chicken thigh and then I made mashed potatoes with the juices from it.

Well time to get some more work done so I'll chat later.

Everybody have a great day/afternoon/night.

Happy Birthday to me!!!

Yep, it's that time of the year again when I celebrate another birthday.  My 59th birthday to be exact.  It's been a busy week getting to my birthday but a delightful one.  I've had company all week so that meant, you guessed it...I had to clean.  :)

Those bags underneath are various UFOs where I have pulled specific material for that project

Ignore the garbage bag on the floor.  But at least most of the fabric got put away.

even the kitchen got cleaned or a bit more organized

Just note that the dishes are all clean.  Just not put away.

See?  Nothing on the floor and I washed the floor too!

Not much could be done with the bathroom but it didn't look too bad.

Yeah, I took the picture after my shower and had to hang up the towels to dry.  The black marks above the register have been there since I moved in (2003).

So I felt pretty good about getting the apartment cleaned.  On Monday I got the call that it was time to run to Elburn to pick up Josephine Hammersley who was going to stay with me for a week.  She had been in Chicago to attend an Anime Con and then she was going to take a Teaching English as a Second Language short course in Chicago.  She needed a place to stay in between the two so she stayed with me.  There wasn't any problems on Monday but on Tuesday I woke up to:

Just what I wanted to see (NOT!) especially when I had company as well as at work Truman State University McNair scholars were coming out for a visit.  I put my hair down and it wasn't quite as noticeable but still!  I had made arrangements earlier at work to half days off so that I could spend time with Jo while she was visiting and I'm glad that I did.  Not sure how much visiting we did because I was wiped out from taking allergy meds and Ibuprofen.

By Thursday the swelling had gone down to:

It's slowly going down so that is good.  I'm still taking allergy meds and Iburprofen.  I did manage to work on another block while Jo was here.  

I also managed to cut some 2 1/2" strips from fabric that had been given to me.  Not sure yet what I'll do with them but they are cut and waiting now.

Friday Jo took me out to the movies to see Minions!  It was good.  We then came home to eat ice cream and watch Despicable Me.  Enjoyed all of it.  

Good times have to come to an end and they did this morning.  Jo packed up and took her heavy suitcase down the steps and into the car.  She had packed up some of her Con things and mailed them home but then filled up the space in her suitcase with food for the next 4 weeks.  Yummy goodness like ramen, Chef boyardee, tea, and Vienna Sausages.  Thank you Dollar Tree.  It was a great time shopping (oh and don't forget snacks)!

Here is Jo as she was about to get out of my car and walk up to the train depot to get her ticket to go back to Chicago for the next four weeks.  Good luck in your course Jo-Chan!

I hope everybody has as good a day as I'm having.

Happy Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July everybody...or at least those who celebrate it.  Even if you don't celebrate it I hope it will be safe day for you.

I had to stop working on things for a little bit to get ready for I am to have company next week.  The daughter of a friend staying with me for about a week as she is in between attending an anime conference and taking a short course for her potential work.  I've been busy cleaning and lining up projects I can work on while she is here.  :)

I am almost done with the kitten cross stitch...no really I am.  Hopefully it will be done by the end of July.

July's bucket list is Hawaiian Applique.  I have my pattern picked out.  Don't know if I will make it a pillow or just small wall hanging so keep posted for updates on that.

Now to get out the brats and start to cook them.

Have a wonderful day!