A whole lot of cross

 And no, I'm not upset!  I've been having fun with cross stitches and have completed the base for the latest house ornament.  This one is the book shop and next 'up' will be to add the topstitching to bring it to life.  

- For those who are missing in-person quilt shows, perhaps a peek through THESE will help!

- The creations of THIS artist are fun to see.  And have a click through the embroideries of THIS artist too.

- Scroll down through the gallery of THESE amazing artists!

- Experimenting with some of THESE techniques would be fun.

Today's quote..."Time passes so quickly.  You literally do not even notice it until it begins to show.  So, don't wait to use the good china, go on the trip, eat the cake, watch the late movie, read your favourite book, and take a chance in life...the time is now.  Live passionately while there is still time.  Remember, tomorrow is promised to no one.

Yet another does of mumblings

 I really don't understand how days can go by and I have absolutely nothing to show for it.  It seems I'm busy all the time but doing what?  Certainly nothing worth showing to you!!  Spending altogether too many hours trying to research birthday gift ideas for our soon-to-be-8-year old grandie and hours trying to tell my computer printer that yes, I really DO want to print pictures and that I'm not happy with it gobbling up nearly $80 worth of ink and only printing 27 pictures.  What's up with that?  It's had yet another influx of ink and still not printing correctly despite having had a good cleaning and alignment.  Argh.  Oh, and I won't mention the fact that we had to haul in all our balcony furniture and plants so they could paint the balcony railing which in turn led to us getting  a floor mat to cover the unsightly cement floor out there.  How does one show pictures of any of that?  

Knitting?  Well, I'm making dish scrubbies which are simply 4" squares out of nylon yarn.  B-o-r-i-n-g.  

Crocheting?  Nada.

Cross Stitching?  Some done on one of the little houses but nothing worth showing you.

Landscape?  Stuck in place on the latest one and don't know what I need to do next.  Maybe I should call it done??
Watching grass grow?  Yep, lots of that.....

- The creations of THIS artist are rather fun to see.

- And THIS one too!

- If you happen to have any interest in needle felting (or felting of any form) have a scroll through the inspiration found HERE.

Today's quote..."What is strength?  Strength is forgiving people that don't even feel sorry for their actions.  Strength is putting a smile on your face when you want to cry a river.  Strength is not hurting those who hurt you.  Strength is forgiving others"

Mumblings and a project

 First of all, I must tell you that we had a wonderful time away but, as is true of all trips, we are glad to be home.  Time spent with our #2 son, daughter-in-love and three grandies was precious and went by far too fast.  The flight to BC was relatively uneventful but we had listened to the news reports of massive lineups and arrived at the airport four hours before we needed to.  Luckily we made it through the check in/security areas in good time and had lots of time to people watch.  Coming home, due to circumstances beyond our control, we arrived at the airport just 2 hours before our flight was due and we barely made it through the check points in time...they were calling boarding for our flight just leaving barely enough time for a quick piddle break and run for the plane.  That's cutting it a little too fine!  Word to the wise - if you're flying anywhere make sure you allow at least two hours more than what the recommendation is.  And make sure you have some food in your carry on because you're going to need it.

We enjoyed family time with our kids and got to see where their school/daycare is.  5 year old goes to kindergarten and the 2 year old goes to daycare so when they were there we had lots of time to indulge ourselves with baby cuddles.  There might, or might not, have been several ice cream cones and there certainly were lots of stories to be read.  Grandpa baked cookies (twice), muffins and made our favourite oatmeal with two eager little helpers, and his scalloped potatoes were such a success that there were two 'makings' of those.  Grandma was happy to celebrate Mother's Day with family, something that hasn't happened in recent years.

One day we traveled to a wonderful orchid growers and this is just one of the beautiful flowers we saw there.  Must say that the plants they had for sale were a whole lot cheaper than what we have to pay here.  Wish we could have packed a few into our suitcases!

It's taken a few days (particularly with all the excitement of the big storm in the middle) to get back into the groove of things here.  I finally busted out the crochet hook, tackled a commission, and made these...

Pattern is the Snowman Gnome
by Jen Hayes Creations
and can be found HERE

This photo shows just some of the damage from the storm.  This tree is just a few feet north of our building...

The storm spread a swath of destruction and power outages spreading across a lot of southern Ontario.  Many areas are still without power and doubtful it will be back for several more days.  We are very fortunate that we were only dark for 25 hours.  Oddly, I had a friend who lives about 2 blocks away here for coffee yesterday and their power didn't go out at all.  When Resident Chef and I got married he thought it was highly amusing to see me rush around filling the bathtub and every available receptacle with water but coming from a farming background it's just what we did because we knew if the power went out we had no means to pump water.  Well I think I'm going to go back to doing that, just to be on the safe side.

- Some of you may enjoy scrolling through THIS blog.  

- And have a look at the amazing creations from THIS artist!

- And THIS one too!  Or how about THIS one?

- THIS takes you to a PDF showing  a different take on a knitted log cabin design that would be great for using up stash.

Today's quote is from Brene Brown...."Many of us will spend our entire lives trying to slog through the shame swampland to get to a place where we can give ourselves permission to both be imperfect and to believe we are enough"

The best of plans

 I know I promised you a post this morning but Mother Nature put somewhat of a damper on my plans.  A massive summer storm blew (!!!) through and knocked our power out for over 25 hours.  It just came back on mid-afternoon yesterday so I haven't had enough time to prepare a post for you.  There was a lot of local damage from the storm (yet to be determined if a tornado touched down but all indications point in that direction).  I've never heard a sound quite like it - continuous thunder that didn't stop.  We count ourselves most fortunate though because not too far from here a town is under a state of emergency with massive damage and power outage that is reported might be lasting for days before it can be repaired.  At last count 8 lives have been lost.  The winds uprooted a big tree just a few feet north of our building so it was pretty scary.  

So, I'm sorry, but there's not much else to share for you today.  I have been working on a crochet project which hopefully I'll be able to show you in my next post.  

and........we're back.........

 This is just a quick note to tell you that we're back. I know you ALL were just waiting to hear that particular news item.  You weren't?  Well then....

Since I'm still suffering from jet lag and nothing is getting done beyond ever-so-thrilling things like restocking the groceries and buying plants for the balcony and doing laundry, I will make this short and will hopefully return to the regularly-scheduled drivel postings on Monday.

Hope all has been well in your world!

Flying away!

 This will be my last blog post for a couple of weeks because tomorrow we're heading out to visit our #2 son and his family.  I don't know how much time I'll have to visit you all but I will try to keep up, but don't be surprised if I'm not commenting.  Not sure how well my aging tablet will cooperate for such things.  

Neither of us is relishing the angst of dealing with airports and flights but how else will we get to see our kids - there's three little grandies out there that are most deserving of grandparent-ly cuddling and story reading.  Having to be masked for what will probably end up being more than ten hours for a person (me) who is highly claustrophobic is going to be SUCH a delight, but it is what it is.  We're hearing on the news that there are currently large delays in the check in process at airports due to lack of staffing (they have the same issues as are happening everywhere else) so that means we'll have to get to the airport at least two hours earlier than we'd planned - which means 4 hours ahead of time - and no guarantees even then of making the flight in time.  

So....we might be going - and we might miss the flight through no fault of our own.  Not the LEAST bit stressful!!!  

Image by Steve Kelley 
(Washington Post)

We, all going well, should be home again on the 17th.  So, in the meantime, play amongst yourselves and remember to be nice.

Cross - but not in a bad way

 Yes, I've been continuing with the cross stitch projects and now can mark four done....four more to go.  I not only finished the stitching of the Santa House, but also added the garland and beading to the rest of the houses.  Don't know if the sparkle from the garland shows in the photos though.  It's a Kreinik Micro Ice Chenille.  

On another note, this one falls under a great mystery.  I had ordered a container of a sealant by Jacquard from Amazon and it seemed to take slightly longer than usual to arrive.  It finally appeared and tucked inside was a package of really nice paintbrushes which were labeled as being a 'gift'.  Not sure what precipitated that because I've never known Amazon to be that generous.  Who am I, however, to look a gift horse  paintbrush in the mouth!  If you could see the sorry state of my brushes you'd understand how happy I was.

And....because I haven't shared a recipe here for awhile, how about the one Resident Chef uses for oatmeal?  I don't much care for regular oatmeal so he's come up with this version that he does in the rice cooker (it can be made on the stove top too, but it takes longer).

RESIDENT CHEF'S OATMEAL

1  1/2 c. steel cut oats
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
3 1/2 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

2 T. maple syrup

1/2 c. raisins, dried cranberries and/or coconut
1/3 c. sunflower seeds

Cook in rice cooker.

NOTES:  You can use regular rolled oats, but we prefer steel cut.  You don't need to use maple syrup if you don't have any - brown sugar will do (if you have a bit of maple flavouring you can throw that in with the brown sugar).  This makes enough to eat over several days, so just refrigerate and warm up as needed.  Good cold too!

Sorry to say, I haven't had a chance to search out any links for you today...will try to do better next time!

Today's quote:  "A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority"