My Day

 I decided not to do any crafting today that would stress my eyes,  If I do something every other day than that will be plenty for quite a bit.  

So instead of starting my day with thinking what to do, I started out my day with getting mugged by kittens.

There are far worse ways to start the day!  :)

After that, I came inside and decided it was finally time to refile back some of my floss.  I usually put the floss after using it in a project in a large baggie and then when I get enough of a collection I will refile it back into the storage containers until I need them again.

I'll take a picture of my floss containers after these get added back in.  :)  Of course this doesn't include the projects where I have already set aside all the floss for those projects.

I'm not sure if I showed you this or not yet so I will post it just in case.  :)  A friend of mine send me some fabric that she had dyed.  These are five inch squares which is a good size to get.

Thanks Deb!  You did a great job.  Not sure yet what I will use them for but I will definitely use them.  

That's it for this trip.  Time to get off the computer and do another load of laundry.  Sigh,  LOL.

 

Have a great day/wonderful evening everybody!

Progress on cross stitch and doctor's report

 Today wasn't too bad of a day.  Still have to type on my notebook and will need to take in my laptop to the repair shop but at least I have y notebook.  Other good news was concerning my eye doctor's appointment.  I don't need to go back to him until another year goes by or my eyesight gets worse.  He gave me two prescriptions that I can use IF I want to.  One is for a single lens prescription and the other ones is for a bifocal.  I can use them or just continue using the readers that I get from Dollar Tree.  It was nice that he showed me what things would look like without any prescription and then what it would look like with the glasses.  I couldn't the difference with the long distance so he thought that the readers would work just fine for now.  I do need to start to decrease the doses of the steroid drops and just watch for changes in eye strain etc.

With that good news I decided to dig out the mini owl HAED cross stitch pattern and made some progress on it.  I managed to get 200 stitches done!  

Now it is time to stop using the eyes so much and relax a bit.  :)  

I hope everybody has a great day!

What's next up to stitch

I am slowly making progress on picking up on stitching again.  I have finished three quilt blocks since my eye surgery and today I fused down a third to work on.   I'm only going to post the picture of the new one since the others you have seen more than once since they were UFOs.

This is another block from the Simple Yet Elegant BOM.   I like to take a picture of the block after  find the DMC floss I'll use so that if the floss gets misplaced  I know I was planning on using.

I put up some of my Fleur blocks to get an idea (inspiration to continue with it).  There are a couple of those blocks which aren't sewn down yet but they will be soon(ish).  :)

Another thing I was working on was cross stitch.  I picked up the cross stitch stocking to work on and found the red that I was going to be using.  Thank you Susan for sending it to me.  :)

I've also done some cooking (the crockpot chicken and rice) but the second picture (Philly Cheesesteak Sloppy Joes) is one for in the future.  Doesn't it look yummy?

That's about it for this posting.  I will finish with some Kitten/cat picture.  Can't get enough of them, right?   Until my next post, enjoy your day!

 

Happy Birthday to Me!

 How did I get to be 66 already?  There isn't enough time to do all that I want to do.  Of course that doesn't take into account that I really don't know what I want to do since I've retired.  Obviously the main thing is to live.  Sounds simple right?  Perhaps that is the key.  Simplify things and enjoy life.

I have been blessed with friends who remember me.  I've gotten some really pretty birthday cards and even got a package from my friend Susan.  She had put stickers in my birthday card and can't wait to use them.  I took a couple of pictures so you can see how talented my friend Susan is.  I love my pin cushion and decided that it can hold SOME of my small scissors.

She also sent me a small table runner or a placemat.  I've put it on my computer table so my laptop can sit on it.  I think it is adorable and love it!

I also wanted to shout out to Nikki to say thank you for the cute stickers in my birthday card.  I do so love stickers!

I had my eye surgery yesterday on my right eye.  That means today I go back and let the doctor see how it is.  We will be going to Jonesboro instead of Memphis this time so Dan doesn't have to drive as far.  That's good because...he is cooking me dinner!  Isn't that sweet?  I've been hearing about his crock pot chicken recipes for over 10 years and he promised me he would make it after I moved down here.  Today is the day.  He has more than one but I think he is planning on the chicken and biscuit recipe.  We'll see.  

Getting eyesight back and not having to cook your meal sounds like a good birthday to me!  I hope you have a good day also.

Another hot day

Today is another hot day.  It is to be expected since it is, after all, July.  I've been told that July and August are the hottest months.  We are almost half way done with July so we'll make it.  Right now it is 91 degrees but the heat index puts it at 105.  Yeah, it's hot.  I will hate to see what my electric bill will be next month because of running the a/c and the fans. One thing at a time though, 

First up is typing on my laptop.  Yep my desktop crashed again.  Not sure why but I'm mad at it so it is sitting in the corner for now and I will be typing from my laptop.  The laptop is larger than my Notebook so that is good.  Obviously the screen isn't as large a what the desktop was but at least it is working.  I also feel proud of myself for getting the scanner/printer to work with it.  I'm still trying to upload/recover some files but I'll make it work.

Next are some pictures of the kittens.  They don't like the heat much either.  One day I didn't see them at all but the next day was a little cooler and before I knew it, I had five kittens and six adults showing up at breakfast.  My neighbor, Miss Mary, left to go on vacation for a couple of weeks and asked if I could use the cat food she had because she didn't want anybody to have a key to her house just to feed stray cats  She has 3 that come to her house and we think that some of them are the same ones that I have.  Not to pick on anybody but BC, or Daisy as she calls him, seems to be eating at both places.  LOL.  Of course I said that I would gladly take the food so I found myself with 13 pounds of dry cat food and six cans of canned food.  I won't deny that it was very helpful!

Did you see that Sunny has discovered how to climb the tree?  The tigers haven't climbed that high yet.  They are still trying to figure it out. 

Another thing that I found myself doing was cooking.  You'd think that it being so hot that I wouldn't want to cook.  I was almost to that point but then Dan gave me a bunch of pork that he needed to get out of HIS freezer and I had to cook some of it right away before it got too freezer burned.  It took me a bit but I finally had the pork thawed enough to separate the pieces into smaller packages and put it back in MY freezer.  I made note of which packages had to be used first.  That is why I made my creole pork chop recipe.  I really need to change the title to Italian pork chop recipe.  Creole is what Betty Crocker called it.  It is a recipe from the Betty Crocker Cooking for Kids Cookbook.  I'm not sure if that is the official title or not because I lost the cookbook YEARS ago.  It was my first cookbook that was totally mine.  This recipe was a favorite of the family's and my brother Tony would buy the ingredients and ask me to make it for him.  He would always ask to take left over sauce home so that he could put it over mashed potatoes the next day.  It uses pork chops (or any kind of pork), Italian dry salad dressing package, onion, stewed tomatoes, green bell pepper.  

As I was putting away some canned vegetables that Dan had also given me, I noticed that I had an abundance of Black Eyed Peas.  I know that I can use them in chili's and almost anything that I would use regular beans in but I wanted to try something else.  I found a salad recipe to try and it didn't turn out too bad.

It also allowed me to use up some corn that I had to take out of the freezer in order to make room for the pork.  LOL.  It didn't turn out bad at all.  I had leftovers so I mixed them in with some rice for a variation of fried rice.  Good way to mix up leftovers.

With the heat wave, it seems that my energy is also zapped.  I did manage to start working on the tulip block.

I am slowly working on hand appliqueing it using the buttonhole stitch.  I have almost all of the green parts done.  I only have one stem and five leaves to do and then I'll start on the tulips.  I have my thread all picked out so it won't take me long to start.  For the green stems and leaves, I usually thread six needles at a time.  I'm only using 1 thread of the DMC so it works out well.

Time for me to put eye drops in.  I have eye surgery on my right eye on Monday in Memphis.  Then Tuesday it is day one post op check up in Jonesboro.  I'll keep everybody up to date.  In the meantime, stay safe and try to keep cool.  

What I did today -- not much!

   I will admit that I didn't do much today.  It didn't seem like it anyway.  Let's see....

  I watched/read 7 videos/posts on recipes and copied them down.  that, of course, made my hand cramp up a bit since I didn't type them but hand wrote them.  What did I copy down?

Chili Cornbread Casserole

Pinto Bean Fritters

Peach Cobbler for 1 or 2

Sausage, Egg and Grits Casserole

Earthquake Cake

Lentil Rice

Oatmeal Spice Cake with Caramel Frosting

  Then I was going to go outside and take out my garbage but I was held hostage by Smidge and three of the kittens.  Smidge decided to feed them on the porch and right in front of my door.  They looked so cute and comfortable that I didn't have the heart to open the door and make them move.  The garbage can wait.  It wasn't going anywhere.  I'll take it out when I feed them for the evening.

 Then I took a couple of stitches on a cross stitch pattern that I had started last year and not done anything for a long time.  It is done on 18 count Aida but the Aida is white and it is words so it wasn't too hard to work on.

  I should go and do some button hole stitching on leaves on a quilt project but my eyes are tired so that will have to wait.  I'm happy that I can do some crafting even if it is not for long.  I'm trying to listen to my body and when my eyes start to hurt I stop and close them.

  That's about it to report today.  Some progress on things and yet not enough.  LOL. 

  Before I go I would like to wish my good friend Susan a Happy Birthday!  :)  I hope it is a good day for you Susan.

  Take care and I'll write more another time and perhaps post some pictures.

today's pictures

 Ready for more kitten pictures?  If not, I also finally put on some nail polish (Color Street - No Way San Jose).  Not the best job but at least I got them sort of on.  I haven't been able to put on polish since my eyes got bad so this was another good sign.

 

Now on to more kitten pictures.  Have to take them while they still are in the area.  :)

That's it for now.  Time to put in my steroid drops and then perhaps a nap.  LOVE retirement since it allows me to rest whenever I want to.  :)

Take it easy everybody and have a great day.

More Kittens

 Wow.  I woke up this morning and fed the cats and discovered that I was seeing double.  It appears that Smidge had THREE kittens not two like I thought before.  Two of them look awfully familiar so I will hopefully have them around long enough to name them all and figure out their personalities.

I do know that the one I just discovered this morning has a lot of energy and likes to pick on Sunny.  That's ok because Sunny picks right back.  If you want to see them tumbling around for a little bit go to:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/24X95XTG2R7JfkbU9

I think that Mom is taking a head count and discovering that the noises behind her are two of the kids.  Where's the other one?

I saw this next picture on Facebook and had to snag it.  I could see one of the new kittens doing this.  Hehehe.

That is it for today.  I just had to share the pictures of the kittens while I still have them.  One year ago their mother, Smidge, was doing the same thing and almost the same size.  We'll see how many stick around and for how long.  

Everybody stay cool and have a great day!

Father's Day Memories

 Memories on Dad

I didn’t have a father, I had a Dad. He died when I was in 5th grade so my memories of him are limited but those memories always make me smile and I hold them in my heart.

Dad was full Norwegian and grew up with parents that barely spoke English. I never knew my Grandparents on Dad’s side. But I heard they didn’t show a lot of emotions and taught Dad that raising children was women’s work. It was ok to spend time with the boys because they would be men, etc. Still I knew that Dad loved us and it is those little things that made it all worth while.

Little things like:

We couldn’t go to bed until we found where Dad was and gave him a hug. It didn’t matter if he was in the garage working on some wood project or in the living room listening to the TV. We always said we loved him and he would put give us a one armed hug. He might have said he loved us but I can’t remember. I remember him smiling and nodding and for me that was enough.

He would go fishing with the boys and they would help around the farm as they grew up and such but he didn’t ignore us girls. He would make these statements out of the blue like “I’m out of root beer” (even if there was a full gallon sitting over in the corner) which meant we had to go to A&W to get some and if we were quiet and behaved we would get small root bear floats. He would then pick up a gallon (in real glass containers) of root beer and we would drive home. Not much conversation was held during those times but we soaked up the good feelings.

Every or every other weekend we would go to Wisconsin Dells/Lake Delton where we would either stay with our cousins (Lake Delton) or in our own trailer. That was a trailer that was before they put a/c units in it, before refrigerators (although we had a small area where he bought a block of ice that lasted most of the weekend), and before bathrooms in the trailer. Dad would bring a couple of turkeys from work up with him, give one to Tommy Bartlett so we could watch his show for free, and then give one to the guy who had the trailer park that was a couple of blocks away. In exchange we could then use his showers and bathroom. Then before we went home we would have to go to the local roller skating rink and while my sister and I would slowly go around that HUGE (to us) rink, we kept asking Dad to skate with us. He kept saying no until it was the last skate. Then he would take each of our hands, one on each side of him, and skate around the rink. Just that once. He was worse at skating then we were but he did it for and WITH us.

The other time that he would do something with us was during the Sandwich Fair. We would go every year and, if I remember right it was on Sunday, so Dad could go see the races and demolition derby and we could eat Mom’s fried chicken, apple pie, and other food. Pat, my sister, would go with me around the Fair in daylight but when it got dark, we were to go home. Before we left though, Dad would take us on one ride. It was the same ride. I’m not sure what it was but it was low to the ground, I was squished between Pat and Dad and then we would be whirled around and around. Once again, it was a one ride only rule with Dad. But it was enough. The other big thing on Sunday nights was The Fugitive. I don’t mean the movie but the old TV series. It was the one show that Dad “wouldn’t miss” and the bonus was that we could watch it with him and stay up past our bedtime! He was very patient with our questions of “will they get the bad guy tonight?”

Dad was a patient man. He never got tired with my questions when he and my brother Tony tried to teach me to follow football. I didn’t care who won, I was in my heaven. I was between Dad and Tony. It was Tony who eventually told me if I wanted to follow the ball, just waited until I saw a bunch of guys on the ground. The guy and the ball would be under all of that. It worked; eventually I was able to follow the ball from the snap.

I was fortunate that my short time with Dad held good memories. It wasn’t colored by neither teenage angst nor disagreements about “why can’t we” and such. I never felt deprived during my childhood and that was partially due to Dad and the memories that I have of him.

I'm Back - sort of

 Hi everybody!

  It's been a bit since I've updated my blog but now I have news.  Not only do I have news, but I have GOOD (if not great) news.

  I had surgery on my left eye and now I can see through it again.  Actually I am seeing better out of my left eye now than I am out of the right eye.   The doctor said that everything went GREAT!  It must have since I left the Eye Center with a big smile on my face.

Yes, that is me leaving right after the surgery.  I was thankful for an eye patch that I could see through.  It helped out a lot.  I had to wear it for approximately a week.  The first 24 hours I had to leave it on 24/7 but by the third night I only had to have it on for sleeping to help protect the eye.  My eyesight improved a little bit each day.  

Then ONE day...I noticed I didn't see the floaters, which looked like black DMC floss that was laid over my eye in a stained glass design, any longer.  After that images started to become more clear and, OMG!, I was able to thread a needle.  Ok, I needed to use a needle threader but I still could thread a needle.  

Obviously, once I could thread a needle it wasn't long before I was testing out if I could make a cross stitch.  My first test was one of the blocks on my cross stitch quilt blocks.

It took about three days to get to the point where I could do some "decent" stitches.  I wasn't complaining though.  It was a huge step forward.  Next up was a couple of  blocks from "Simple Yet Elegant".  They had already been fused down but not stitched on.  I started to work first on the bird since I don't like that block.  

I now have only the greens to do.  I am working on the stems and then I'll do my thing on the leaves.   That means count up the leaves and see how many I should do each day.  I might do three leaves per day and then by the end of 9 days that block would be done.  First though is the stems.

Then I will do the tulip blocks just because they too are already fused down and just needs stitching down.  Of course both of these blocks are bright and easy to see which was another reason to start with them.

Things were going so well that I was able to schedule my right eye surgery.  That will happen around my birthday (July 12) which means that by August I might be able to go for a regular eye glass exam.  Exciting news indeed.

Well that is it for today.  I'll just leave you with this quote that I saw and had to grab.

I hope everybody has a great day!

Health Update

Hi everybody!

  I thought I would take a couple of minutes out to update you on my health issues.  I still have eye problems but I am now scheduled for eye surgery on my left eye on June 7th.  Hopefully that will help out a lot.  After a couple of weeks of recovery from that, I will have an appointment with the doctor about what will happen with my right eye.  The left eye is by far the worst.  If you think of the eye as the numbers on a clock, I am only seeing the small area between 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock with my left eye.  I am making progress on it but hope you will keep me in your prayers for a successful surgery.

   That isn't the only thing that has happened recently.  This isn't about MY health, except for the increased blood pressure, due to aggravation.  My computers hard drive died and I lost around 3 years of data including my cross stitch and quilt patterns.  I'm in the process of reloading all my programs and recovering what I can through emails of my patterns.  Then I will probably, put them on Mediafire.  I know I have a lot of patterns there already but it never hurts to double up on them, right?

  THEN, a week after the hard drive died, my phone died.  Ummmm, it took a swim and was not recoverable.  I  NOW have a new phone but, like with the computer hard drive, I have to reload some things on it to get it where I wanted it to be at,.

  I'm still hanging in there and will spend some time now trying to figure out what to work on first after my eye sight.  LOL   I'll have to let you know.

   I hope all of you are in good health and are being creative.  Have a good night/day and I'll let you know how things go.