Long musings from a cold Texan

Most of the USA is having problems with winter weather, and my part of south central Texas is included. Our high today will be about 35 degrees. The high inside my house will hit about 55 degrees. Space-heaters and a mostly drafty uninsulated house make me hope for a short, warm winter and several more pairs of sweatpants. Oh well. It will only be for one winter. And tomorrow will be warmer. Now if the sun would only come back out, but that ain't happening until next week. Bummer. I may wilt.

The weather outside isn't "frightful," it's squirrely. On Saturday and Sunday, we had sun with temperatures up in the 70s. One day last week, we had snow down here! I hate snow unless I'm skiing on it. Here's a picture:

I've made great progress with the mound of boxes in my den; I have about eight boxes left. However I've run up against the problem of having no place to put certain things because they will go in a place that DH hasn't had time to build yet. Cabinets, shelving, or my promised built-in computer/task desk for example.

After listening to my wails of woe, DH decided to put off work on the new bathroom (with my approval) and stop and build an underbed storage unit for our bedroom. We spent an afternoon hammering out (i.e. arguing and discussing) what we wanted in said storage unit. Then DH had to spend another half day drawing out the plans on several pieces of graph paper to placate his engineering soul and meticulous woodworker's heart. Next, we had to make a trip to town for lumber. DH also had to clean and organize his shop enough in order to actually be able to work in it. He hopes to begin cutting lumber tonight.

Wtih unpacking, I've been too busy to stitch. Oh, those of you lusting after and plotting ways to acquire my stitching chair should take heed: my chair is protected by my new Watch Frog. If my chair is removed from its rightful place, the thief will forever be plagued by stitching frogs every time they sit down to stitch until their dying day. Bwahahahaha!

It was really nice to unpack and set out my pirate collection yesterday. I don't have many as pirates are hard to come by. This makes the ones I do have even more special. Here's a picture of them:

Speaking of pirates, Sue Hillis Designs has made available a cute little pirate Santa freebie that matches her "Yo Ho Ho Ho" pirate Santa. You can download it from her website here.

Well, after I get our very late Christmas letters all ready to mail out, I'll be spending the afternoon stitching. It's too dang cold in the house to do anything else.

Stash, books, and a place to stitch

Well, we are now P.O.D.S.-less as it was picked up this morning at 8:15 a.m. It's weird to look outside and not see it sitting in front of DH's shop.

I received all the Redbird Designs patterns that I ordered from 3 Stitches and have enjoyed drooling over and fondling them. I got the complete quilt block alphabet series and three others. Whee-e-o!

I managed to carve out a place for my stitching corner and get it set up. Now I just have to dig out yet another extension cord to run my lamps. (We have no power to any of the plugs on this side of the den right now.) BUT! I can stitch whenever I want to! Yeehaw!

And I'm making a dent in the boxes. Even though I meticulously scaled stuff down and got rid of a lot of things before I packed up for the move, as I unpack boxes I find myself saying, "What on earth possessed me to keep this?!" So I have a couple of Salvation Army donation boxes going, too.

And yesterday, as I unpacked books, I kept getting distracted and sitting down to read favorite parts of favorite books. Fun, but it slows down the unpacking and putting away process. Books to me are like old friends. The books in our library have all been read more than once, and most of them multiple times. They don't get to stay in our library otherwise. Forget about not being too rich or too thin; you can never have too many books.

This and that and a frog

As always, thank y'all for your comments and encouraging words!

Saturday was my day to drive to Austin for the IH35 Stitchtogether. I got a lot of stitching done on my current WIP, and am close to finishing it! And I calculated that the last time I stitched on it was at the November Stitchtogether. Very sad.

There were five of us there - Mary, Lynn, Di, Sandi, and myself. We always bring food and we all brought "mealish" food this time; there wasn't a dessert or any chocolate to be found! ACK!

We also exchanged Christmas ornaments. The rules were that ornaments could be stolen twice before it was declared "owned." We must have all been very mellow as no one stole anything. I received an ornament from Di that she designed herself!

Blogger has this new "Followers" feature. I was interested in doing it on my blog, but it took it SIX MINUTES to load on my dial-up for each entry. So it ain't happening on this blog. FYI - pretty much if your blog is listed on mine, I read it.

Over Thanksgiving, we visited DH's family. One of his aunts is an avid crocheter. She spends all year crocheting animals, toys, slippers, and bookmarks to sell at a local annual craft fair. Many of the designs are her own. I always HAVE to go look at all her creations. She keeps them in a spare bedroom on built-in shelves that cover an entire wall, and they fill the shelves! (I know, I should bring my camera next year and take a picture).

Anyway, just as I was about to leave the room, a spot of green caught my eye. It was the most adorable frog! I bought him with intentions of giving him away at an IH35 Stitchtogether. But he's so darn cute that I ended up keeping him for myself (sorry ladies) and perching him where he could be guardian over my stitching area and keep annoying stitching frogs at bay.

Well, I'm off to unpack several of our eleventy-billion boxes of books. Y'all have a great day!

A new creature

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." - 2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)

Monday, I opened an e-mail and learned that a former coworker and friend, Robert, had lost his battle with cancer, and had passed away at home with his wife and daughter on Thanksgiving Day. He was 52 years old. DH and I immediately cleared our schedules to drive up to east Texas to attend the funeral on Tuesday.

Like many funerals, it was a time sadness. But for me, it was a beautiful example of old things passing away once a man knows and follows Christ as his Savior; he becomes a new creation and a different person.

Robert and I began working together in the summer of 1979 in a prosthetics lab in Dallas, Texas. I was just going into college and he was just getting out of college. We were both interested in a career in prosthetics (fabricating and fitting custom-made artificial limbs for people). We worked together for around eight or nine years and both became Certified Prosthetists before going our separate ways. Robert bought a lab in east Texas and struck out on his own, and I got married and moved to Tennessee with my DH. We've seen each other in person only a few times since then, but we kept in touch.

The Robert I worked with was the "old Robert." He was a little wild, did some foolish things, lived in the moment, but was basically good-hearted. I thought of him as the older brother I didn't have. He had three brothers and no sisters. We were friends and occasionally fought like a brother and sister. He had a girlfriend, Mary. She was very level-headed and was a woman of faith. And at that time, though Robert understood the concept, he had never believed in Christ as his Savior.

Well, Mary and Robert got married, and Mary came to work at the lab in the office. I got to know her and really liked her. Whoever came up with the saying, "Behind every good man is an even better woman," must have been talking about Mary.

Robert grew up; he matured (as we all hopefully do). He and Mary had a daughter, Melanie, whom he often called "Babycakes." And then one day, Robert believed in Christ as his Savior. He became my brother in Christ. He was a new creation; he changed. He began attending church and seeking after God. He became active in a men's Bible study. He met with other men to pray early on Saturday morning. He became active in his church community and sought ways to help folks in need. And when he was diagnosed with cancer, his church family rallied around him and his family.

The funeral was a celebration of Robert's home-going to heaven to be with his Lord. I rejoiced as I listened to friends and church members give testimony of the changes in Robert's life. I could almost hear the Lord saying to him, "Well done thou good and faithful servant!"

After the funeral, DH and I were talking over the passage of time and old friends. We figured that the last time I had seen Robert was in the early '90's at an Academy Meeting in New Orleans. (Academy Meetings are national yearly educational and scientific lectures for prosthetists and orthotists.) DH last saw him in March of this year, again at an Academy Meeting, where Robert told him of his battle with cancer. DH said that he and Robert really seemed to connect with one another during that visit. I said, "You were brothers in the Lord and knew it."

Anyway, I will be keeping Mary and Melanie in my prayers. And I will be praising the Lord who keeps His promises to those who believe in Him, and thanking Him for the life of my brother Robert, a new creature.

YEEHAW! An empty P.O.D.S.!

Okay, I tried to post on Monday, but Blogger kept omitting my formatting. I am very particular about formatting and don't like it to be omitted. After three tries, I gave up.

Tuesday, DH and I drove up and back to east Texas to attend the home-going celebration (funeral) of a former coworker and friend. I'll post about that tomorrow.

Yesterday, I ran a bazillion errands in town including a trip to Wal-Mart and the Post Office (in December - ACK!!). But last night, our young friend Preston came over to help DH UNLOAD THE P.O.D.S.! That's right, it's empty! All our furniture and lots of boxes are now in the house! YEEHAW!!

Here's proof! And that's my stitching rocking chair behind all those boxes! WHEE-E-O!!

DH and I are avid readers and have lots of books - you can never have too many books. After carrying the umpteenth box of books into the house, Preston commented that he was not going to date or marry a girl that liked to read or collect books. (He was kidding.)

A floor without glue...

...won't stick down. Yep, we ran out of glue. Poop.

We got 1/3 of the floor glued down last night. We would have had the whole thing done if we'd had the glue. We could have made the half-hour drive into town, bought more glue at Lowe's, and then made the half-hour drive back home. But Lowe's glue is $5.00 more a bucket than Surplus Warehouse glue and Surplus Warehouse closed at 5:30 p.m. Based on our calculations, we need six more tubs of glue. Oh well.

DH will pick up more glue today on the way home from work. He will save $30.00 and the time and gas for a trip into town, and we will get it done tonight.

DISCLAIMER: If you are doing a vinyl floor "right," you don't glue it down to OSB. You use something like higher grade plywood and you are careful to mask or match the seams of the plywood. You use a higher grade (thicker) vinyl over a wood subfloor. Our vinyl is thin enough to strain tea through which is what you'd expect at 44 cents a square foot. Or you glue it down over smooth concrete. We are not doing this floor "right." We are doing it cheap and temporary, and don't care that we can see the OSB seams under the vinyl. We only care that we can clean it easily. A 4' x 8' sheet of OSB was $6.28. The same size of "proper" plywood was $21.99 a sheet. This was a tightwad no-brainer.

Back to your irregularly scheduled blog post.

Here is a picture of what we got done. You can get the idea anyway. Yep, the vinyl floor is a fake wood plank pattern.

For the rest of the week, we will be engaging in Thanksgiving festivities in various places with sundry people. There will be turkey and talk of deer hunting. There will fishing. Hopefully, there will be stitching. DH hopes to actually deer hunt at several points during the weekend. I hope to get furniture into my den. We will see what transpires. I'll post if I can, but don't expect me back until December 1st. Y'all have a Happy Thanksgiving, and count your blessings!

Our weekend floored us

No, I haven't stitched all weekend. *whine*

Our den floor plans prior to this weekend were to caulk all the cracks between the den floor boards as a temporary one to two year fix (eventually, we'll replace the old floor with a new engineered wood floor). In preparation for this, I spent two days meticulously vacuuming crud from between the boards and then scrubbing the boards clean with a scrubber sponge and soapy water. The floor looked nice.

Then, we figured out two things: 1) prepping for caulking and doing the caulking would take us about 30-40 hours of time (ACK!), and 2) even with the caulk in the cracks, to keep the unfinished boards looking nice, I would have to scrub them at least every other week. Scrubbing them took me a total of six hours. I ain't gonna do this every two weeks. I like a clean floor, but I'm all about ease of keeping it clean and cleaning it easily.

So we put on our thinking caps. We decided to buy cheap vinyl flooring to glue down . Easy to clean, easy on the budget, and it would cover the cracks. Off we went to Surplus Warehouse for cheap flooring.

Then DH got to thinking again. We wanted to reuse the old floor boards and gluing vinyl down on them would make this very difficult. DH decided it would be best to remove all the old boards and underlayment, assess the sub floor, add a new sub floor as needed, and then glue down the vinyl. (One nice thing about that nasty polyurethane glue used to glue down engineered wood flooring, it will stick to vinyl so we wouldn't have to pull up the vinyl floor before putting down the new wood floor in the future!).

So that's what we did. Here is DH wrestling the old screws out of the boards before pulling them up.

The black stuff under the boards is tar paper. And see all that dirt and crud left behind after my meticulous vacuuming? YUCK!

Next, DH rolled up the tar paper.

We found a weirdly floor underneath. It was half painted plywood flooring and then half plywood and OSB over unpainted boards. We think the part with the plywood/OSB was at one time a porch floor.

We also found evidence of a previous owner, or at least painting helper.

So we covered the entire weirdly floor with a layer of new OSB. DH fitted it and I screwed it down. We ran out of daylight and energy, so we stopped here. Tonight, we will glue down the vinyl; a picture tomorrow.

Then, I will FINALLY be able to move in my furniture!