Sneaking up on December

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving.  DH and I did.  We had a brisket for Thanksgiving instead of turkey this year and enjoyed it very much.

DH was able to hunt a lot and (finally!) got his spike buck.  Our freezer is well-stocked with venison for the year.  All that's left is to get a wild pig or two.

DH was able to get most of the trim molding installed in the kitchen.  We used the old trim molding as we didn't want to pay for new molding and I didn't want to paint it anyway.  Here are before, during, and after pictures:

 

We've watched a lot of football.  The Dallas Cowboys won, but my Aggies lost to t.u. and DH's Red Raiders lost to the Baylor Bears.  DH found time to clean up his shop and I've been stitching and reading.  And we think it is finally time to pull the A/C units out of the windows as the weather is finally somewhat "fall-like."

LoneStar

A Christmas ornament finish

I finished stitching a Christmas ornament for my younger nephew.  He will be receiving the "Candycane Reindeer" from the JCS 2010 Ornament issue, page 93.  It is stitched on a piece of 28 count linen of unknown color with DMC and Rainbow Gallery Petite Treasure Braid for the nose.

LoneStar

Floored

DH got the vinyl floor installed in the kitchen this weekend, and he even started on some of the trim molding - trim molding is all we have left to do before we're completely finished with this project.  Yippee!

DH started by making a template out of paper that fit the kitchen.  Then he laid the template on the sheet of vinyl with Emma's help.

Then he cut it out with Emma's supervision.

Next, he troweled glue on the floor.  He folded the vinyl in half and glued down one side, then glued down the other.

Here is the end result!

I've been stitching on Christmas ornaments for my nephews.  And if the pattern arrives in the mail today, I'll start stitching on a present for a friend that I need to get done before Christmas arrives, too.

LoneStar

Hoping again

DH is hoping to finish installing the kitchen floor this weekend.  If it goes without a hitch, we'll be able to install all the trim molding and call the project finished.  Then DH can go back to the project he was working on when this one interrupted it.

He is laying an "upper" subfloor of OSB sheets over the subfloor.  He will glue down the vinyl flooring to them.  We didn't want to glue the vinyl down to our "real" subfloor as it would probably get ruined when we remove the vinyl in the future when we do our "real" kitchen remodel instead of this "fix it enough to use it well until we do it for real" kitchen remodel.  

And then there's the fact that we calculated the height of the lower cabinets based on the height of the plank flooring we were going to install.  If we glued down the vinyl without adding the OSB sheets, my cabinets would be too tall for me.  Another plus is if this cheap vinyl gets really dinged before our "real" remodel, then it will be easy to glue a new sheet over it.

Hopefully the installation will go well.  Hopefully.

LoneStar

Oh yeah, I really DO have pink in my kitchen!

When DH and I first got married, we lived in Dallas for several years and developed the habit of visiting First Monday Trade Days in Canton, TX every month.  We pretty much decorated our house with the treasures we found there.  

I was seeking to replace my kitchen canisters at that time.  We had received a set as a wedding present, but I found the canisters too small to hold baking supplies well.  I wanted large enough canisters to hold an entire five-pound bag of sugar, flour, and corn meal.  

On one Canton trip, we saw a reproduction Planters peanut jar and bought it.  Over the next several months, we acquired three more jars of different designs.  As I was able to find two of the jars in only pink, that's the color I ended up getting.  The other jars came in both blue and pink (and a really hideous red/yellow swirl), so I got them in blue (of course).  

They have served us well over the years and hold a lot.  And no, Gloria, you can't have them!  ;-)

LoneStar

Hate canvas, er...waste canvas

Way back when (like last year after Christmas), my DBro and DSisIL asked me to stitch my nephews' names on their Christmas stockings.  I said I'd be happy to, of course.

They sent the stockings to me this past January.  I just got around to stitching the names this past weekend.  No, I'm not usually such a bad procrastinator, but I just hate stitching on waste canvas.  I especially hate stitching on waste canvas when I have to have my hands up inside of something while actually stitching.  I had to cram my hands up inside the stocking cuff to get this done.  Thank goodness DBro and DSisIL requested that I stitch the shortened version of each boy's name instead of their full names!

To motivate myself, I used silk floss.  I think they came out okay and they will go in the mail tomorrow.

LoneStar

Hopeless

Well, DH hoped that the floor would install quickly and easily.  No such luck.  He spent the morning getting the underlayment put down.

Then he started installing it.

Emma supervised.

The further along he got, the more frustrated he got with the cheap flooring.  After he had run through his repertoire of handy swear words several times, we stopped and discussed continuing or not.  We ended up taking the remaining boxes of flooring back to Lowe's and going with cheap vinyl flooring instead.

And DH is starting over.  Photos to follow.  We're "hoping" it goes well.

LoneStar

The last cabinet

DH is still hunting for that last deer (and a wild pig or two or three would be nice).  No luck last weekend and no luck so far this weekend, but the weekend is still young.

DH finally got the last kitchen cabinet remade/rebuilt and installed, and I spent the week repainting it.  DH took a badly made three-drawer cabinet and made it into a four-drawer cabinet, so the drawers are strangely sized and the knobs don't match.  It looks kind of weird stuck off in the corner of the kitchen, but I wasn't about to give up usable kitchen storage space so there it sits.  Weird is good.

DH is planning to install the kitchen flooring today.  He is "hopeful" that it will not take too long.  We'll see.  I'll take pictures of the progress and post them when he's done.  After the floor, all we have left to do is install all the molding.

LoneStar

This, that, drivel, and tractors

No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.  Thanks to everyone who inquired and expressed concern that I had.  ;-)   We've just been busy.  My days have been such that at the end of them I've muttered to myself, "Poop. Time got away again and I didn't get a blog post up."  Oh well.

I haven't stitched in over a week, and this weekend isn't looking good.  I don't know when I'll get "Bone Cheeks" done as I fear my Christmas stitching needs to take priority soon.  And that means that I'll have to decide what I'm stitching for my nephews and then get it stitched.  I also have the company Christmas party ornament to stitch, but I may wimp out and use an ornament that I stitched a while ago, but haven't finished yet.

My Dallas Cowboys are causing me grief  - as in "Good grief! What are y'all doing?!"  I may need to pull out that paper bag for my head that I used last year and wear it again.  

Have you eaten any of those Honey Crisp apples that have appeared in the stores lately?  I am hooked on them.  Our HEB either has regularly sized ones, or mutant ones.  The mutant sized ones are huge!  And yeah, I can eat a huge one in one sitting.  Emma likes apples, but I don't share my Honey Crisp apples with her. 

The soil in my part of Texas is clay-ey.  That means that the ground doesn't "perk."  It also means that by law, we have to use an expensive to maintain aerobic septic system instead of the usual anaerobic system.  Our system has three tanks, an aeration pump, and two discharge sprinkler heads.  It must be inspected and maintained yearly by law.  We have a company on contract that does this for us.  

Last week, the usual guy, Doug, was out for the inspection with a new guy.  The new guy was ogling the old tractor that we inherited with our house and land.  One of our neighbors thinks that it has been bogged down and sitting in our yard for about 15-20 years.  We've tried in vain to find someone to sell it to or even give it to ever since we've lived here.  When we lived in Kansas, our town used to have an antique tractor pull every Fourth of July - we learned all about old tractors and the people that love them.  We figured SOMEONE out there would want this old tractor.  Well, last week, we finally found him.

When I told the new guy that he could have the tractor if he would dig it out and haul it off, he was rendered speechless.  When he found his voice, he asked, "Really?  You'd just give it to me?!"  Yep.  Haul it off and get it out of the yard, please.  So he did!  When he hauled it off on Saturday, he was like a little kid with a new toy.

DH got a seven-point buck with his bow last weekend - three deer down and one to go.  Rifle season opens this weekend, so DH is hoping to get his spike buck.  Four deer is his limit by law and four deer will fill our freezer nicely.  We've already enjoyed venison steaks from the two doe he got in October.  And we're still hoping to get a few pigs.  DH has seen and heard pigs, but he hasn't been able to shoot one.  Now that rifle season is open, he should be able to get a few.

And the kitchen is nearly done.  I know, I've been saying that for weeks.  I was hoping for and end-of-October finish, but now I'm hoping to get it finished before the Thanksgiving weekend.

The weather here is turning.  We've had nights in 40s - cold enough to fire up the wood stove.  And I had to wear shoes last week one day.  I hate shoes.  I put on a long-sleeved shirt, but kept to the shorts.  I cling to shorts, T-shirt, and bare feet as long as possible.  How's the weather in your neck of the woods?

LoneStar