Tired but trying to rest up on a Slow Sunday...

Hello- well it  started out as a pretty quiet week ...  and I thought I would be able to rest up but... right now I'm tired. 

Outside of my normal stuff (workout with Anna/ hangout with Elliott) I only had one doctor's appointment and one house stuff appointment... and those went well .  The yearly dermatologist visit was quick... and like my appointment with the eye doctor the conversation was more about my knee than what I came there for. The eye doctor wanted info as her husband needs a knee replacement and the dermatologist hadn't seen a scar like mine before and wanted to know all about it. I'm quite the novelty...LOL ... 

And then on Saturday things went sideways... with no prior warning the battery in my car died... arrghh... and since I was parked in a driveway, a safe place (but not my driveway)  AAA couldn't get to me for 2 1/2 hours.... arrghh... so I waited and waited and waited and waited... and when the repair guy arrived he confirmed the battery is 4 years old and  I needed a new one... but he didn't have one that would fit my car so the best he could do was jump start me and tell me to go to a AAA service center about 5 miles away... which I did. By this time it was almost 4:00 pm...they close at 5:00 pm and aren't open on Sunday... but they came through for me, got me a new battery and got me out before they closed... I left them a sterling review... I was afraid I was going to be out of luck until Monday and then I got to thinking, Monday is a national holiday... eeek... don't know what places would be open or closed...so glad for a happy ending. 

As for the house stuff, I'm planning a purchase that requires some work in the garage... I'll tell you more when I have it finalized... oh and I got a call on Thursday asking if it would be okay for the landscapers to come on Friday...yes yes yes....  I'll show you some before and after pictures next week...they were still mulching when I had to leave this Saturday before the battery issue  and it was dark  and rainy when I got back.

Now a 3 man crew tore out everything in just a couple of hours... it is amazing how much faster they can work than one old lady with bad knees and her son. The crew was so nice. They went above and beyond. Cleaned out the window boxes, pruned and shaped up the existing boxwoods, trimmed the low branches on my sidewalk trees  and even fixed the break in my drip irrigation... and the landscape looks soooooooo gooooood!!! I did have some second thoughts about this dramatic change, but I know when Spring rolls around I will be happy not to have so much to deal with.  There is still plenty of open space I can add stuff too, but I'm going to work real hard to keep the garden beds to a minimum amount of work. I'll still be able to play with my dahlias ... and to that end I'm already scouting out more exotic varieties to add ... it is so hard to resist flowers!!

As for crafty stuff, very little got done... I worked on a sock...and then remembered there is a pair I want to give as a birthday gift the end of the month and I hadn't started the 2nd sock...working on that now...

However I did get the Halloween decor out... and it took ALL day... I'm not moving as fast as I used to...big sigh...

I started with the wall quilt... with the only spider I want in my house....

this is my version of the pattern from Pen and Paper Patterns.  All the fabrics are Basic Grey Grunge... I love the lime green polka dot...

the googly eyes are glued on  and I love how they look down...

The tier tray...

up top is a Lizzie Kate piece... 

and below 2 pumpkin headed guys... the one on the left is from Prairie Schooler Trick or Treat and the one on the right is Sprout from Notforgotten Farms... 

and I love that pumpkin stack... a friend found it for me years ago at Homegoods...you don't often see yellow jack-o-lanterns and certainly not a stack of them... they light up too!

Over on the TV cabinet I have my October Hands On Designs calendar piece... 

and on this little tier tray  I have another snippet from Prairie Schooler Trick or Treat up top... and below Halloween is  from The Drawn Thread chart A Little Bit of Halloween...

And down in the center of the TV cabinet I have my little shrine to Frank....

I had never seen the Debbie Mumm Frankenstein cookie jar until I stumbled across it one day on eBay... and I had to have him... the stitched Frank is a snippet from Bent Creek ...

Over on the tier table by my front picture window I went with a witchy theme...

Up top I have a trio of witches from the Teresa Kogut chart Happy Halloween....

 And below I have another trio from Pineberry Lane ...     

     

Every year I drag my feet to get out the Halloween stuff... since this is only the 11th of the month I think I'm doing good. I so enjoy the Fall stuff I hate to put it away... and I really look forward to my Thanksgiving stuff... Thanksgiving gets short shrift ... people just jump ahead to Christmas...I wish there was more days between Thanksgiving and Christmas...I know tomorrow October 12 is Canadian Thanksgiving, which gives more time till Christmas, but then it conflicts with the Halloween stuff...and thinking about this now, I'm pretty sure I should just be happy with the way things are here in the US... thinking gets me into trouble sometimes...LOL

Now that I'm home from the battery issue, I'm pooped... it was stressful and I've gotten up early the last 4 days this to deal with the house and the landscape stuff...nevertheless,  in between the battery issue Chris was able to come and help and we got a certain family member their weekly groceries and I changed their Dexcom... so Sunday is a free day for me....yeah!!  

Prayers for all dealing with hurricane Isaias... we are getting the remnants of it today (Sunday)... that should water in all my new plants quite nicely... and now that my drip irrigation is fixed I can run it later in the week if needed. 

The week ahead looks crazy busy... I have some place I have to be every day... Monday/Anna, Tuesday/ take family member to dentist consultation and later Elliott, Wednesday/annual check up for me  and dinner out with friends, Thursday/haircut, Friday/follow up with knee surgeon and then next Sunday a birthday party to attend... not sure what crafty stuff I'll get to... I should FFO some seasonal pieces but the mood has to move me... and it hasn't yet... 

I haven't touched my sewing machine in weeks... and while I should think about Christmas stuff I may move onto  stuff I want done by January... as I type this I'm just tired... perhaps tomorrow after hopefully a good night's sleep I'll feel more energetic. I know Annie sings the sun will come out tomorrow... but she wasn't talking about this particular tomorrow... its gonna be drab and rainy... gotta wait till Monday for that...LOL

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts... I hope your week and my week goes smoothly ...

happy stitching-

carol fun 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... 

Running around on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello -- well let's see how this plays out. I'm typing this on Saturday morning... and three times now I've tried to upload pictures... and so far ... nothing nada zip... fingers crossed they appear sometime before I hit publish... so let's start with the stuff that doesn't have pictures...

 Edited to add: the pictures did appear... it took them 3 hours to arrive but they have arrived... 

They roofers came back on Thursday to fix the gutter stuff... supervisor calls me bright and early on Thursday 7:00 AM to tell me they are coming but he doesn't know what time... ummm... that isn't real helpful... they show up at 2:00pm and they are still working at 9:00pm....but I don't know how, as the sun set at 7:15pm....now there is a outdoor spotlight over my garage door and a street light on the corner but I don't know how they could see what they were doing...and I was concerned someone would fall and get hurt... the job is supposed to be inspected on Monday... oh and they sent me the bill for the project last Monday morning... obviously not paying until the job is complete...sheesh...

Moving on to the landscape project... met with the designer, Anna, on Thursday... she had a complete drawing of the layout and all the plants labelled and pictures of them... and she really did listen to me!!

Lots of perennials for color ...but low maintenance and deer resistant... and there is still room in the design if I want to tuck a few things in later... I signed the contract and I'm hoping they can start SOON... she said they had some openings in their schedule and she'd let me know... the sooner the better as far as I'm concerned.  The yard is a total mess right now and I have no motivation to fix it... I want to see a clean slate... then some new plantings... the total reveal will be in the Spring. It will be a much more cohesive look which will shock my neighbors...LOL

Insert more annoyance at blogger... I just typed 2 paragraphs that disappeared... trying again...

Lots and lots of running around this week... the dental issues of a certain family member consumed my Monday and Tuesday and still didn't get resolved... hopefully the appointment scheduled for the middle of the month will fix it. Wednesday I went to lunch with my quilty lady friends and we celebrated mine and Laurey's birthday with this yummy treat...

There was chocolate mousse between the layer of cake... sooooo good!!

Thursday was a blur...I was in and out of the house on different errands all day long... first the landscape appointment, back to the house, then breakfast with Nick, then back to the house, a beard trim appointment for Nick, stop at the grocery and then back to the house... and out to dinner with a friend, back to the house, took Nick for ice cream and back to the house where I couldn't put my car in the garage because the roofers were still here... 

Friday was quieter... thank goodness... it rained and it was overcast  and I was pooped... I did manage to get my act together and meet some friends for dinner... we have regular every other week thing going ... that was nice. 

So now it is Saturday... the sun is shining and the weather guys are saying we've turned the corner to Fall... the 10 day forecast has no temp higher than 75 and no rain... good weather if the landscape company want to come, right??

As for crafty stuff, this week I didn't touch my sewing machine... instead I knitted and cross stitched... I finished a pair of socks...

two different yet similar Opal yarns alternated every row... the knitted mitered square project is in time out... the square I'm working on is giving me fits and something else shiny caught my eye.... I stumbled on to this while scrolling IG... you can see some finished projects of this design  here ....

and this is very intriguing... I have a nice stash of Lori Holt Chunky Thread...

And here's a good look at (what I think is) all  the colors available...you know I LOVE hexies ...and what I like about this pattern is you only have to choose 2 colors at a time... long time ago I started a granny square project with this yarn but you had to chose 4 colors for each square and it was more than my little pea brain wanted to do... so I only made one square...

I'm hoping to play with the hexie project this week...

I grabbed the  closest plastic zipper bag  that was sitting by my stitching chair and gave it a nice amount of attention... this is A Cheerful Heart by Shakespeare's Peddler...

now the cover picture  shows hardly any contrast between the linen and the berries along the side... but I'm using all the called for threads and the linen I painted... and I'm happy that you can see the berries and the line of stitches in the middle of the alphabet... there was a lot of mindless, don't have to count too much stitching and that suited me as I watched a bunch of YouTube videos.

And then this arrived in my mailbox... Halloween Celebration by Primrose Cottage... I had a heck of a time finding this pattern a week or so ago...everyone was sold out... looks like it is back is stock now...

anyway... my plan is to do several of the rows as little skinny pillows... and to that end I started one...

Isn't it cute??  This is a scrap of linen I painted a while ago... and so far I've used a different orange for each pumpkin... and I picked a different green and purple than what was called for... and since this scrap is small I'm only doing like 3/4ths of the row.  They will be nice to tuck into my displays... and speaking of displays... well this is all I've gotten done...

this is my back hallway ... the entrance everybody uses... I love the Debbie Mumm Halloween panel... and I wonder how old that is?... she started designing fabric in the early 1990's... and she is reported to have sold over 44 million yards of fabric!!! I can attest that is a true statement,  because there are yards and yards and yards and yards and yards and yards of her fabric in my basement...LOL

This upcoming week looks quiet...shhhh... I have my regular stuff, work out with Anna and pick up Elliott from school... but other than that just one appointment... dermatology... scheduled a year ago... not my favorite appointment but I'm too pale and grew up thinking baby oil was a great tanning product... so I get checked out... I'd like to get the Halloween stuff out and maybe a bit of sewing... we'll see what pans out... 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... I need to run and get groceries for a certain family member and then the afternoon is free... Nick's making meat sauce and penne for dinner... .always tasty... 

I hope your week has great weather and plenty of time to do the things you want to do!!!

happy stitching-

carol fun