Of Waiting Rooms and Doctor's Appointments

This past week, I've spent countless hours in doctor waiting rooms, imaging service waiting rooms, and the hospital ER with my husband. The bad news is the doctors can't figure out what's wrong with my husband and it's landed him in the hospital. The good news is that I have increased stitching time. Since it was convenient, I picked up my LHN Seasonal Saltbox piece.

Since last Friday, I've finished the border, the grass, and most of the leaves. At this rate, I'll finish this block in a few days.

Here is the piece in its entirety. Sorry for the crummy pic, but my scanner and computer weren't communicating and my tech guy is out of commission at the moment. You get the general idea, though.



To keep me from getting too bogged down in all this stuff with Mark, I have this to lighten the load.

American Pride Exchange Piece

I stitched this cute little Lizzie Kate design for my non-blogging friend, Robin, in the American Pride exchange. I used the fabric that was included in the kit, 28 ct. Relic linen from Picture This Plus and GAST, CCs, and DMC fibers. It was SO much fun to stitch! This was one of those designs that when I saw it, I knew that was the piece to stitch for the exchange.


Some quick views from the garden:

Daylily 'Siloam Double Classic' has been in my garden for 3 or 4 years, but it's never done well. Last fall, I relocated almost all of my daylilies to one section in my front flower bed. These guys seem to love their new home! They've been blooming like crazy for a couple of weeks.

The purple coneflowers are also blooming their little heads off! This is the second full season for them and they're doing so well! Such happy flowers.

This is "the look" from Hannah when her royal kittyness has been disturbed. Don't Mess with the Queen! LOL

A Stitching Related Post

Amazing, I know! I have tons of unfinished stuff, so I decided to finish a few of the ornaments I've stitched and send them to the Friends of Felines Rescue Center in Defiance, OH for their fundraiser/garage sale in June. By the way, if you live near Defiance, OH and are in the market for adding a kitty to your home, I highly recommend FFRC.





Spring is in full swing here, and everything is starting to bloom! I've been spending tons of time out in the flower beds planting, moving, and pulling weeds. In a month or so, it'll be too hot to do anything outside for 3 months, so I have to get it all done now.

Spring has Sprung!

Four Nerve Daisies and Texas Bluebonnets

Texas Bluebonnet, the state flower of Texas and very difficult to grow from seed. I don't know how these things manage to grow wild! LOL

A pretty poppy on a windy day. Always the first to pop up in late winter/early spring.

Texas Cedar Sage

Some kind of iris that popped up in my yard! I think it's a Dixie Iris, but not sure. It only bloomed for a day and now it's gone. There are others by our foundation, but not sure if they'll bloom or not.


Brazos Penstemon, a Texas native with such delicate pinkish-purple blooms. The flowers in the top pic are a close-up of the flowers. Such a delightful flower in my shady bed.

Sweet William, dianthus barbatus, a gorgeous hot pink color and very striking in the flower bed. Very hardy to my area and blooms faithfully in the spring.

I'm Still Here!

It's been several weeks since my last post, but I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. The husband and I have been busy trying to get our garden ready, I've been sick, he's been sick, I've been missing my Callie-bug, and work's been crazy. The best thing that's happened since I last posted, was that after 2 months of searching, the husband found me a new truck!!

Trusty Steed 2.0 is a 1998 GMC Sierra with 105,000 miles on it. It's a very nice dark metallic emerald green with tan interior. I would've preferred cloth seats, but I'll take the leather ones. At some point in the future, we'll probably have the seats recovered with cloth. It's got a few scratches and dings, but it's used, so that's to be expected.





I hadn't been driving the truck for more than 24 hours, when DH "borrowed" it to go get some parts for various little things that need to be fixed. When he came to pick me up at work, it' looked like this:



The lady we purchased the truck from used it only to pull a 2-horse trailer. Because she lost the key to the trailer hitch, we now have this ginormous trailer hitch on the truck that we can't remove! LOL


With the hitch on there, it makes the back end of the truck just as long as Trusty Steed was. Trusty Steed 2.0 drives better, though, and has much more sensitive power steering and gas pedal. I've almost given myself whiplash a time or two accelerating, turning, and braking. I think I have it mastered now, though.

Also in my absence, spring has sprung! Hooray! Everything is turning green in my yard and things are starting to come back to life. However, this means things are starting to grow that I can't identify. LOL It also means that the weeds are out in full force, too. I've spent the last week or so weeding my big flower bed. I've found some plants I'd forgotten about and I found some seedlings I can't identify. I also could not find 2 plants I planted in the fall that should've come back. :(

Among the early bloomers, we have purple and a very faint lavender wood violet.




Among those resurfacing, we have cutleaf rudbeckia (top) and West Texas mistflower (bottom).




The Willow Leaf Asters are back and they really multiplied!


The comfrey is blooming. I plan on planting my tomatoes near it. Comfrey is supposed to help tomatoes do well.



Things are picking up in the veggie garden, too! We've not been on top of things regarding the timing of the planting, so some of these things may not do well at all, but I figured we'd try anyway.

The onions are doing well. They should've been planted about a month before we got them in the ground, but it was snowing, so we decided to wait.


The garlic has recovered from the beating it took with all the freezing rain, sleet, snow and freezing temps.


The Romaine lettuce is going crazy! Unfortunately it's planted too close to the garlic, so I'll have to thin some out.


We finally got the potatoes planted! The husband planted these last week. They're already poking their little stems out! Of course they were almost full grown when I planted them! LOL


Lastly, the blackberries have sent out runners and are starting to grow. Not sure the husband is thrilled about that as he's not really sure he wants to keep the plants! LOL



Remember, all the pics are clickable to see larger. Thank you for reading and leaving a comment. I'll be back next time with some stitchy news....maybe...if I can stay out of the garden!

My First Finish and Progress Made!

Nature's Song Exchange Piece
Stitched on 32ct. Mt. Baker Blue linen
Threads: Belle Soie silks: Blue Lagoon, Icing, and Beanstalk
Designer: Olka
Chart can be found here: Aliola's Blog,
My "He's a Flake" piece is almost finished. I changed the color of the scarf to a red because I like it better than the called for color. I'm also going to put red berries on the hat for the holly berries.


Lastly, I've done some more stitching on my incentive piece, PS's Sunflower Garden Sampler. I'm really enjoying this stitch.



Other progresses, the totato and bell pepper seedlings are doing well and we've planted our onions! Let the gardening season begin!

A New Start, Stash Prize in the Mail, and Life in General

Last Sunday began the start of our new incentive stitching round. This time around, I'm stitching Birdhouse Sampler from the Garden Samplers leaflet by Prairie Schooler. It's stitched in good 'ol DMC and I chose 32 ct. Cream Brulee linen. This is how far I got during the Super Bowl game last Sunday. Unfortunately, the vine at the top right needs to be frogged. I'm going to leave it for now and see if I can't make it work.

On one of the message boards I belong to, there was an end of the year drawing for ornament stitchers and I was one of the 3 lucky winners! I received my winnings in the mail this week, and what a haul! Here is the first pic I took, with the ever helpful photo assistant, Tumbles and his big head.

And here's a better pic, minus the big headed kitty.

Thank you, Jan! If you've never read Jan's blog, please stop by and visit her. Such a generous lady and great designer! You can visit her design blog as well, Tree of Life Samplings. I am not responsible for any enabling. LOL

I have been busy stitching on an exchange piece. Unlike normal, I changed my choice mid-stream and now I'm stitching like crazy! This new choice feels "right", if you know what I mean. I need to finish so I can get it ready to mail off before we leave town for a few days.

We're heading south to visit my dad for a few days and to help him with a few projects around his house. He's been in the hospital with heart problems a few times over the past month. Well, he was in the hospital 4 times in 3 weeks with a 99% blocked artery at the site of one of his bypasses, but it took them until the 4th trip to do an angiogram to find the blockage. He then had a stent put in and now he's doing great. They told him that bypasses are generally only good for 10-13 years and he had his bypass surgery in October, 1997, so he's gotten some good mileage out of his bypasses. It will be the first time we've made the trip without Callie and with the little Tumbleweed. I have no idea how well he'll travel. I hope I'm not listening to him howl, cry, and meow for 5 hours!

Not too sure how the seedlings will do. We'll water them well before we leave and then pray they're still alive when we get back!



Until I return, happy stitching!

Snow Days!

So we had 3" of sleet/ice accumulation on Tuesday. Wednesday I was given the option of working 10-5 or taking a floating holiday/vacation day. Can anyone guess which option I chose? By Thursday, I needed to get out of the house as cabin fever had set in and I had 2 appointments. Driving was still treacherous, but my hubby is a fantastic driver and off we went! *Vroom* *Vroom* The roads were actually getting better, but then this morning, we woke to this:

After being put on "hold" as to what time to report to work, I went outside and snapped some pics. Here's the view down my street. My neighbors obviously didn't get the memo that there would be no trash pick up today or they didn't check the City's internet site to find out (like we did because we missed the memo, too).

This is my garlic bed. I hope they survive since I didn't cover them.

Another street view.

Don't get me wrong. I like snow, in pictures and if I don't have to get out in it, but this morning, I had to get out in it. I also like my snow melted off by the end of the day. I don't like ice and I don't like not seeing the ground or the sun for days on end. I don't think I could ever make it in cold country. Just call me a cold weather weenie! LOL

As most everyone in the US knows, this is Super Bowl week and the big game is being held in my backyard. I cannot tell you the number of out of staters that have been interviewed who've said, "Don't you people have snow plows down here?" I just want to smack them! I want to say, "Do you have central AC in your home and run it on Christmas Day because it's hot outside?" Hellooooo!! This is Texas and we don't have snow plows because we don't normally NEED snow plows!

Personally, I think the kitties have the right idea! Hunker down and snuggle up for the duration!