A good weekend

The IH35 Stitchtogether on Saturday was loads of fun. We had our largest group yet in attendance -15 people! We had four new ladies, and Karen's DH hung out with us and he is a stitcher, too!

I spent a small part of the day doing a framing demonstration. I had my box of framing tools with me and showed everyone how to use them (and told everyone where to get them cheap). Later, DH showed Cindy's and Karen's DH's some of the finer points of frame assembly using man tools that he brought along.

We had lots of great food. Mary, our resident organic gardener, brought some of her bumper crop of "mutant" cherry tomatoes. DH and I brought some home and I ate a bowlful of them like grapes. There's nothing like a home-grown tomato for flavor.

And I got in a lot of stitching time this weekend, so I've made a lot of progress on "The Alamo." I've got a bush to finish on the left side, and then a big tree on right side needs stitching before I begin backstitching everything.

A couple of finish-finishes (FFs)

DH is finally over his poison ivy. I'm glad; I was tired of smelling Calagel all the time. ☺ He finished his Prednisone, too, and is back to his usual self.

Here are pictures of a couple of finish-finishes. You know what I mean - you've done the stitching AND finished/framed the stitching so that it can be displayed/gifted, etc.

The top picture is of "Boo Y'all" made into a cube, and the second picture is of the Fourth of July Quaker freebie made into a knob hanger. I'll be taking these to the IH35 Stitchtogether on Saturday to show them off.

Wildlife and Violarium's blog contest

One of the reasons DH and I love living where we do is the wildlife. (Maybe not cows so much.) But we do enjoy birds and birdsong, and assorted wild critters. We have a lot of deer on and around our property.

My deer-hunting-obsessed DH notices the deer, and knows the habits and haunts of many of them. He always has a pair of binoculars handy to gaze out the windows.

He has gotten so well acquainted with some of the deer that he has named them. Last night, he took a picture of "DD" as she grazed near our back yard fence. She is called DD - short for "driveway deer" - because two out of three mornings, as DH drives to work, he finds her arising from bedding down for the night near the end of our driveway. She was hanging about waiting for DH's corn feeder to go off. He has it programmed to distribute feed at 6:30 morning and evening.

What do I call her? Hopefully come fall, I can call her freezer meat. Now before you all gasp and call me heartless, think of the many farmers and ranchers who name their cattle and then slaughter them for meat.

DH is not a sport hunter hunting for antler trophies. He is a game hunter; he hunts to provide us with food. Okay, he really does enjoy the hunting aspect, but we use and eat most of what he hunts. We eat venison or fish he has caught three or four times a week.

And normally, I'm not one to post about blog contests, but this one is for a very nice prize; a 712-page book with 800 different cross stitch alphabets. You can register for it over at Violarium's blog. Also, take at look at the Violarium website as it is nice ONS with unique patterns located over in Finland, Europe.

And I'm really looking forward to the IH35 Stitchtogether this Saturday. I'll be stitching on "The Alamo" instead of my Quaker freebie. I'm to the point where I have a lot of mindless no-count filling in to do, so I won't have to think too hard.

WIP and Emma's new teddy

No, not that kind of teddy. Y'all get your minds out of the gutter. Geesh. I had to run by Hobby Lobby today to pick up a couple of things, so I went next door to Petco to get Emma a new toy. The stuffing was finally coming out of Kitty, so she was "retired" to the trash can.

I swear, I don't know how she knows, but Emma ALWAYS knows when there is a new toy for her in the shopping sacks. She's been carrying Teddy around all afternoon (while squeaking him endlessly) and is reluctant to put him down.

Here is a picture of my WIP, "The Alamo" by Art Ventures. It actually looks like the Alamo now.

Leaves of three...

We had grand plans for this weekend. Billy was supposed to come out Friday and he and DH were going to finish the trim painting on the addition. It didn't happen.

Last week, DH happily put up his new tree stand. He did not plan ahead and go out and kill the poison ivy growing on and around his preferred tree with Round Up a couple of weeks before putting up the stand (like his wife counseled him to do). He wound up with a raging case of poison ivy and had to go to the doctor for a shot and a round of Prednisone, in addition to the topical treatments he was already using.

Due to the poison ivy, DH did not want to do anything outside in the heat - understandable - so he canceled having Billy come out. So then he was going to work on the new bathroom in the house out of the heat. But the Prednisone made him feel bad. So that didn't happen either.

He did rally enough to take me into town for some Shakes frozen custard.

And he did throw the ball for Emma. Here is her reaction when asked, "Do you want to throw your ball?"

Here she is waiting for DH to pick up the ball with the Chuck-It and throw it. The Chuck-It is a handy-dandy invention that grabs the ball so you can throw it without getting dog slobber all over your hands.

Happy Fourth of July!

I was speechless

This morning, as I ate my morning oatmeal (with blueberries!), I perused various blogs and message boards. I was shocked to read of something that happened to a lady in today's modern and so-called enlightened and tolerant age.

This lady, a fellow cross stitcher, had a car wreck in the last year and the accident left her in a wheelchair permanently. She is understandably still getting used to her changed life. So in an effort to meet people and do something she enjoys, she set out to join a local crafters group. She had received a flier in the mail inviting one and all to this "friendly group."

It was anything but. When she arrived, the main doors of the building were locked, so she had to wheel around to the side door and knock until she got someone's attention. When a "person" answered the door, she asked if they could open the main door so she could come in and join the craft group. She was told in a real condescending tone of voice that the "special people's group doesn't start until this afternoon." She said that she was aware of that but as she had no mental deficiency, only a physical one, she would like to join the friendly craft group. Basically, the other "people" in the group came over and they all told her to come back later as she'd be more comfortable in the other group with her "own kind."

At this point, the stitching lady told them off and left. These "people" laughed at and made fun of her as she went back to her car.

They messed with the wrong gal. She went home and contacted the proper authorities (she lives in Australia), and things happened quickly. The group was banned from the public building pending investigation and criminal charges may be brought against them for discrimination.

Good grief! Too bad she doesn't live in Texas near the IH35 Stitchers; we'd love to have her. We're a diverse group, but we all stitch. And one of us uses a walker or scooter sometimes and I'm hard-of-hearing. Most of us are a little on the looney side at times. But we all stitch. And we have manners. I didn't think "people" like that group existed in today's society. Land sakes.

I'll leave you with a picture of a redneck fire alarm.

A weird day at Wal-Mart

Yesterday, I had a weird Wal-Mart experience. Weirder than "normal" as Wal-Mart is always a bit on the other worldly side.

First off, Texas weather was being its usual self; weird. I went into Wal-Mart with the sun shining. I came out of Wal-Mart into a raging deluge of flood proportions. I figured that since it was summer and in the upper 90s, I'd dry out sooner or later. So I ran to the truck and got soaked in the process. Now, when you run into the rain, you generally only get mostly the front and top of you wet and that's exactly what happened to me.

I got in the truck and discovered that I needed gas, so I drove over to the Wal-Mart gas pumps. The only pump open was only partially under the awning, so I pumped gas and got wetter. When I hung up the nozzle, I realized that I had not put my credit card in it before pumping the gas. Yet it pumped anyway and printed me out a receipt. I realized that the ending credit card number was not mine and that some moron had stuck their card in and then hadn't pumped the gas.

The smug and gleeful two-year-old inside me said, "Cool! Free gas thanks to a clueless moron!" Then the adult inside me smacked the two-year-old upside the head and went into the gas station to rectify the situation by canceling the gas on the unknown card and putting it on my card.

Next, I went to Hobby Lobby which is couple of miles from the Wal-Mart. It wasn't raining on the Hobby Lobby side of town. It was as dry as a bone. (Texas weather, remember?) So there I was, wet-headed, wet on the front of all my clothes, and dripping in spots. I got a lot of odd looks from the dry people in Hobby Lobby who were on the dry side of town.

One lady ventured to comment on my humid condition. I told her to go to Wal-Mart and she'd get as wet as me because it was raining in the parking lot there. She didn't get it. I had to explain. It lost something in the translation. She probably thinks I'm off needed medications or something. Some people have no sense of humor.

A note from my stitching chair: I've been stitching happily on "The Alamo" and I'm probably about one-quarter done. I'll post a picture later this week.