Slow Stitching

   Happy weekend,

Friday we  were fogged in til noon-that was unusual-usually it will burn off in a few hours. The weekend has been very cloudy and overcast but pretty warm for end of December. There are some wicked storms coming in over the US next month though. The warmer weather has brought in the fisherman this weekend-perfect weather for it.

  I am not a movie watcher usually, but the last couple of evenings I found really really good movies on the You Tube app for the tv. One I had not seen before. I am still amazed at the better choices  over what Directv streaming offers in movies-so glad I saved money and went with the free apps for movies. Last night Larry and I watched Popeye cartoons-a blast from the past haha.

  I am finally feeling a bit more calm and ready to get into crafts again.  I had started hand stitching my first little bag together and then had stopped to bake up a few Christmas goodies.  I picked it up today to work on. I almost thought I messed up but I didn't. These little bags have a lining so am figuring out how this goes together.  I used a heavier quality cotton muslin for the backing of the stitches-will give the bag more body and stabilize the hand stitches I am thinking. I am anxious to get this first one all figured out so I can go on to the next.  (Ignore the time stamp as I need to figure out how to get rid of that. It seems to only show up in the photos when I post it-strange)

  I decided to stitch a back stitch for a stronger seam

 Most instructors do not use knots to end with, but being this will be a bag I thought knots will keep everything more secure and not work their way out. I haven't seen anything yet that looks all that secure to me..

Any plans for New Years Eve?  I will be making us a shrimp boil-I will be staying up to watch the celebrations on the tv-I always do-looks like better hosting of shows this time

It's the Day After & Ramblings

   Good morning-day after Christmas,

       No snow here but it was cold and dreary looking. We enjoyed a lot of the day just watching pelicans and sea gulls fishing in the lake. I can't remember if I had shared this photo or not it was taken with my newest camera

  We are also seeing the Canada geese more now too-floating down the lake or on our shore line.

   Christmas eve afternoon our water went out-we are on a well, and everything is old and outdated here at our lake house.  I always keep gallons of distilled water for our commercial coffee  maker so we used that to flush the toilet and I heated up water to wash dishes. I only hand wash dishes anyway so that was not a big deal for me.  I have never wanted anything at all to do with dishwashers-and one needs to remember to clean it out good on the bottom which many do not-ugh. Actually there is a dishwasher here that I have never turned on, I wanted to take that out-and turn that area into more cabinet space.

    After the no water issue, Larry's Directv streaming connection totally quit working Christmas eve night. He has had trouble with it ever since we got this service but rebooting did not help this time. Larry mostly watches movies and more on streaming apps on his tv and computer now. We have found the movies offered by Directv are not worth the money. I also just recently changed our service to save a lot of money-eliminating all the movie channels and also there was way more sports than I needed. I only watch my teams not everything.   I did just add in Stars for now to finish watching the Outlander series.  We are finding loads of things to watch free on Tubi and You Tube. I could not find the Tabernacle Choir that I like to watch on Christmas Day- but found it on You Tube-amazing what is offered there now. I even found an old detective series based out of England on Tubi,  that is really good. So I called this morning early to send Larry's hook up back and Larry is happy using the apps.   I think choosing what apps you want is the future for streaming tv shows. There always so  many channels added to packages that most never watch. Being pretty much stuck indoors these days we do need a tv still. Although I never turn mine on except in the evenings, I record most sports shows to zip through the too many commercials.  I find that the nfl channel will always show the football games that are televised elsewhere for extra money. I got to watch the KC Chiefs win last night.

   Somehow I lost the remote that goes to my tv so I wouldn't be able to cut totally from a service. I love sports though and HGTV etc , so will see how this goes, going forward for me. To save money I can always go down more in package choices from Directv streaming 

  We waited til this morning to call our friend nearby to help us with the water issue. I had bought a new part last time this happened a few months ago.  It took him several hours but hopefully it is fixed now. He would not take money for his time so I gave him bags of my chocolate popcorn and included a small canned ham that I had just bought at Sav A Lot before Christmas. When I saw this canned ham it reminded me of my Mom, she was a farmgirl cook but always had this on hand for soups or when we went camping. 

  So far no snow here at all, but this week we are to get a lot of rain-so will watch for ice early mornings. 

The tamales turned out really good that I made, we had those Christmas eve. I froze the rest that were cooked, and the rest of the meat filling too,  to make up later. For Christmas I decided to make a Hanukkah  meal for Larry with corn beef. Not having water I didn't want to mess with the latkes or noodle kugel that he enjoys. I will be making Reuben sandwiches today for our main meal. I forgot to pick up the rye bread for Larry so will use the loaf of gluten free bread that I have on hand.

  I want to thank everyone that had sent me a lovely Christmas card-I really enjoyed them up on the mantel. When I last food shopped I picked up a bag of large headless frozen shrimp. We most always boil shrimp for New Years Eve, 

  Enjoy the rest of your week

 

Merry Christmas

 Merry Christmas Dear Friends

Brrrr It's Been Cold & Football

   It has been very very cold here with the wind added in. Next couple of days a bit of a warm up coming in, which will be nice. The other morning early at dawn I couldn't believe there was a fishing boat on the lake-it was in the low 20's F brrrr The fisherman must have had some sort of heated clothing I am thinking.

  With the strong winds that gives white caps on the lake-I know crazy right?-it has been much fun watching the sea gulls fishing. Still a few pelicans around as well.

  I made  a couple batches of the chocolate popcorn this morning that we love-glad this freezes so well so I can hide most all of it for later-smiles. (note I should have the recipe for this on a past post-search tool at end of blog page, or I posted it on my Instagram page just now as well.)

Over the years I have made couch blankets for my favorite sports teams. Do you have those if you are a sports fan?? 

   This was a great football weekend for me-Notre Dame college game was awesome-there in South Bend Indiana near my hometown of Mishawaka It was very cold with lots of snow there.  They had it all cleared out for the big game-Notre Dame won this playoff game, so they will be in a bowl game New Year's day. 

    This blanket I made probably 30 years ago at least. I had found this Notre Dame Fleece panel but it was printed edge to edge on the fabric. So I bought the yellow fabric and stitched the panel onto  it and cut the fringe.  This gave it more body too and very warm and cozy as well.

   My Green Bay Packer blanket finally wore out a few years ago, I may need to make another one. I had made that one back in the -80's.  I did splurge and had bought a huge KC Chiefs blanket a few years ago.  I don't usually like polyester but they are lite weight, and make into very warm and cozy blankets

   In the front of this photo is a vintage rocking chair with a pillow I made for a seat cushion. This was nautical fabric that my blog friend in Greece sent me several years ago-thanks Mia. I had enough fabric to make a couple of pillows.

  I need to run some errands tomorrow so glad it will be warming up for a few days. Around us will be getting lots of rain but I think here at the lake we may get missed.

 Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays. 

         and Happy Winter Solstice 

  

Good Afternoon Tuesday & Photos

    Hello Friends,

Before the weekend I got all the Christmas treats made to give away. Was also able to get them all to friends except for one-she is having car problems and not able to drive up as of yet.. 

   This week I will make a few gluten free cookies and make up a couple batches of my chocolate popcorn for us and for our neighbor that lovesssss  all things chocolate..

I mixed up the gingerbread cut out cookies yesterday, so will bake those up tomorrow. Yesterday I made up a childhood memory cookie. I don't think I have ever made these cookies since leaving home after high school graduation.  These were always one of my favorites growing up. Large soft puffy cookies-so good. I made these gluten free, used half butter and half coconut oil, and there is allot of sugar in the recipe so I used half organic white sugar and half Splenda. This recipe also uses buttermilk-so I make some with milk and lemon juice. Once baked you sprinkle on sugar while warm. I just kept out a few and froze the rest.

  Smiles I have a working camera. This one is more of a learning curve so I need to get the book out to understand it. It also took Larry quite a bit of time to set it up to unload photos to the computer. I never would have been able to figure that out.

 

  We are back to warmer weather again for several days now.  We did have a light glazing of ice early this morning, so I waited for that to all thaw before heading to our small Wal mart for a few items.

  This year I have been buying the suet blocks for the birds-so far the squirrels have not bothered those-well as of yet haha.  I also dug out a large seed feeder that was a gift from our neighbor a couple years ago. Hopefully the squirrels will stay off of it this year.

  We have been enjoying a very awesome large full moon this week. Last night it was a deep yellow. So neat looking over the water. This camera did a better job with this night photo I took a few days ago,-still need to learn the different settings on this camera. I am used to just point and shoot-nothing else.

  Note: the blue and green lights in front of the photo-are under our dock and boat.

  One of the birds we really enjoy watching is  the shy wislet Note: I have been looking in our bird books and online and can't find this bird. do any of you know the spelling? Larry pronounces like I spelled it-but that must be wrong. His tail is flat and usually stands up like in this first photo.  He has been coming around most every day now since it has gotten cooler. He is here year round as well.

    Have a good rest of your week

Christmas in the Kitchen

   This week I have been making up Christmas treats to gift, Mostly for our workers that are friends and always there for us when we need them.

  I have made two batches of peanut brittle and one batch of cashew brittle early in the week. The cashew brittle is for Larry.

I made gingerbread and white sugar cut out cookies to gift-so those are wheat cookies. Will frost them tomorrow. I also made up three batches of dark chocolate bark with nuts and candied fruits for toppings.

  I guess do to my age now, my back really gets to me working in the kitchen over a few hours now. So  I take a break with the heating pad-smiles.

  I will make up a batch of the chex mix to gift most of it-I use gluten free cereals, crackers and pretzels. That freezes well too. I may also bake up a batch of my chocolate popcorn-so good-that freezes well too.

  I grew up making dozens of different Christmas cookies-always fun for me to dig out the now vintage cutters.

  Amazon just now put my camera in the mail-that was really slow for them to mail out almost 2 weeks. Hopefully it will come by end of this week and will work out better than the previous two cameras.

  I started watching the Mo Town Christmas music show tonight-I recorded it to skip through all the commercials. It was really good. Mo Town records started when I was 10 years old, but I remember enjoying the music into the '60's  The only Christmas music show I have enjoyed so far.

  We woke up to just a dusting of a little snow-that melted right off. We are back to pretty cold again though, but thankfully I have not had to dig us out of snow. Last year we didn't get any snow at all.

  I also got most of my Christmas cards into the mail. The international ones went out this past Monday so hoping those arrive in time. I do still enjoy sending out cards-I get very few in return but it is one thing I enjoy doing. I bought stamps before the last price hike. I usually make my own but I found really nice cards on Etsy that a watercolor artist turned into high quality cards with envelopes.

  Enjoy December and the Holidays my friends.

   I found Snoopy to share 

Good Morning Monday-This & That

   Happy Monday and New Week.

Do you shop online?  We live rural so I find it easier and less expensive to shop online for many household goods especially. and Today is Cyber Monday.  I don't have Amazon Prime but if you do they have loads of specials going on.

  We are still very cold here-in the 20's F  Some days with wind

The second camera has broke and doesn't work-sigh  I liked this one,  but didn't like that it used AA batteries instead of those flat lithium batteries. I could only take about 8 photos before I needed to change batteries-didn't think that made sense. The third time I took photos the camera stopped working. We tried different batteries to be sure. I bought this one on Walmart.com as they had the best online price I could find. Nice that I can take it into the store to get my money back right away. It needs to warm up a bit more though for me to get on the roads. We have had a thin glazing of ice here for a few days. Looks like mid week we will get out of the 20's F for a day or two.

 Soooo bummer I have spent lots of time looking at cameras-again over the weekend. I chose one that Larry thought looked good but it has no reviews-I always read reviews to help me choose a product, since I can send it back from Amazon I just ordered it.  Never have had so much difficulty with cameras before.   

  We are still enjoying watching pelicans and seagulls on the lake. and I am back to being aggravated by the squirrels eating all the bird food-sigh. They are funny to watch but if they would share I wouldn't mind so much-but No they stay and eat til  all the seeds are gone. Oh well that's squirrels haha  I did set up a suet feeder that they haven't bothered as of yet. That has been bringing in the woodpeckers.

  Do you watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Christmas parade?  I didn't enjoy that at all this year, perhaps do to  my age now. I recorded it so I could buzz through the too many commercials. I didn't know any of the singers except for a couple. When Santa arrived on his too cool float which I thought was the highlight of the parade-they only showed about a minute of it before they ended the show. I won't watch that again

  I did enjoy watching good football games including an exciting college Notre Dame game-they should end up in the top 10 with an at home playoff game. I recorded some of the new Hallmark Christmas movies-again to buzz off the too many commercials and was super disappointed with the film that was based on the KC Chiefs football game. It featured Kelce's Mom-who is always at the games but Wow this was major dork haha. It was really bad.   I find myself watching more Christmas movies on the Great American Family network now instead. The plots have more substance.

   On a happier note-I did finish most of the deep cleaning in our main living areas. I do still need to tackle my craft room with a good vacuum and dusting-and perhaps a bit of organizing. Soon I will need to downsize but am not ready for that yet., as I never know what craft I want to "play" with.  Now the house is in order, hoping to get back to my slow stitch bags.

Happy December Everyone

Browsing online for pelicans in Missouri-I found this one at Truman Lake

and this one taken in Sedalia Mo