LHN Seasonal Saltbox Progress

Here's this past week's progress on my future masterpiece! Thank you to everyone for your encouragement to compensate instead of frogging on that house. While I normally would've just done that, since it wasn't too much to frog and I didn't think the fence would look right next to the house on the right side, I went ahead and frogged. I think that was the right thing for me to do. It probably would've driven me crazy if I didn't frog! I have a boo-boo on the fence, but I'm living with that!

This week, I'll move onto my incentive piece, LHN's "Heart of America". Here's my starting point.


For a peek into the garden, check out my gardening blog, The Haphazard Gardener .

Monarda and Mealy Blue Sage

Wordless Wednesday (on Thursday)

A Frogging We Shall Go, A Frogging We Shall Go...

...High ho, the merry oh!, a frogging we shall go!! Are you singing along yet? I know you love to frog your work as much as I do! LOL

I now remember why I haven't worked on my LHN Seasonal Saltboxes for awhile...I have to frog!! My little red house is missing one row of stitches. It's supposed to have 3 solid rows of stitches under the bottom window and it only has 2. Of course, I didn't write myself a note or anything when I put it away, so I didn't figure it out (again) until I'd done the snow on the right side and the tree tops. Thankfully, there's not much there to frog and it should go quickly.


I'm really avoiding that frog, so I think I'll work on the fence to the left of the tree before venturing out with Mr. Frog. Thank goodness for my "Lift & Snip" scissors! They really make frogging larger sections so much easier!

A Finish...Finally!

Design: Another Snowman Ornament
Designer: Val's Stuff
Fabric: 28 count Wedgewood Blue from The Blended Needle
Fibers: Crescent Colours

This is a complimentary design from a newsletter from Stitchville USA. I'm sorry I don't remember which edition.

Happy Father's Day!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I am so thankful for my daddy. Yes, I'm 40-something years old and I still call my father, "Daddy". I'll be the first to admit that I'm still a Daddy's girl, too! My husband occasionally has a difficult time with that, but I try not to let that side of me out too often. My dad lives in San Antonio and we go to visit him about twice a year, but we talk on the phone at least twice a week, sometimes more. I keep trying to get him to come visit us, but so far, he's not taken me up on my offers. Maybe we'll be able to bring him back with us after our next visit "home".

Hosted on Fotki

Hosted on Fotki

I love you, Daddy!

Just Testing

One of my online photo hosting sites offers widgets. I've never used this feature, so I'm trying it out! Here are some June blooms from my flower bed.



Here are my finishes from 2003. It's nice to go back and see what I've stitched! (Click on the stack o' pics to change the picture.)



Have fun!

Wordless Wednesday

Not Much Progress on Saturday Night Stitch

I've been stitching on my ornie for the past week, but alas, no finish. It just seems that gardening and life get in the way on most days, leaving me spent and lacking no motivation to stitch. It doesn't help that God's turned the heat up outside either. Since we don't want my entire paycheck to go to the electric company, that means the AC doesn't go below 76º in our house, and when it doesn, it doesn't usually last long. Normally, we set it at 78º during the day, which I find stifling, so I turn it to 77º and crank up the ceiling fan.

Also, I've been having a horrible time with tightness in my upper back and shoulders leaving me with headaches that last for a couple of days. It's hard to stitch when your head hurts too much to concentrate! I've started to do some exercises to stretch out those muscles, using my little massager (okay, Mark's been using the massager on me), trying to sit up straight and watch my posture, and I've been limiting the repetitive muscle useage. This has cut down on the muscle spasms and helped relax those muscles, but they're still tight. The chiropractor told me I need to stop doing whatever it was that was making them tense!! Yes, I pay him to tell me this kind of stuff, can you believe!?!

Here's where I started:
Here's where I ended:


In the garden, things are heating up and most of the plants are loving it! The cantaloupes (muskmelons) have finally taken off and are blooming like crazy. The little girl cantaloupes have finally shown up, so maybe we'll have some fruit to show soon. The watermelons are taking over the universe in the backyard. We've got 5 more baby watermelons on the vine right now in addition to the one that we've had forever it seems. That one should be ripe in time for 4th of July. It's just the right size for one serving for both me and Mark. LOL The beans have taken off and I've harvested some of those already. The okra is really starting to shine in the heat. We've battled hornworms on the peppers and the tomatoes and aphids on the okra, peas, and beans continuously since planting. I didn't realize that vegetable gardening was such hard work that required such diligence to fight predators!

Hornworm chowing down on one of the pepper plants.

Jalapeno Peppers (Can we say, "Salsa?")
More Cherry Tomatoes
The watermelon patch overtaking the yard
Okra bloom, finally caught one open!
Sunday's harvest

Heart of America Update

This is as far as I got on HOA this past week. I'm doing well on my commitment to stitch for at least one hour a day. It really does help that it's getting hot outside!

This week, I'll move onto an ornie I started last month. I should be able to finish it this week.

Don't Faint!

With the temperatures rising outside and the mosquitoes coming out to play (and bite me), it's time to start my summer hibernation in the nice cool air conditioned house. Since May turned into June so quickly, I decided to be more intentional in my stitching. I've committed to stitch at least one hour daily. An amazing thing happened....progress on my incentive piece!! (*gasp*) I thought I'd totally finished this block, but after I scanned it I realized I forgot the little heart on the bottom swirly thing. It's only about 6 stitches, so I'll do that quickly before starting the next block.



Some sweet scenes from the veggie garden.







Lastly, my husband was up at 3AM a few nights ago doing a breathing treatment (asthma) and this is how he found our 2 girls.


They seldom tolerate each other when awake, but they managed to both snuggle up on this old comforter and sleep the night away. I didn't know we had a double bed for them! :)