Help! I'm stitching and I can't stop!

I thought I'd better pause and make a blog post lest everyone think I've died and fallen off the face of the earth.  I've been stitching like a fiend on several Christmas presents, trying to get them done in time for Christmas.  I think I might make it.  And no, I can't show them until after Christmas.

DH has spent the last two weekends being a lumber jack.  The first weekend he spent with his chainsaw and the tractor.  He cut up several downed trees on our property and used the tractor to carry the logs to our wood rack area.  

Here he is getting the tractor ready.  Notice the chainsaw, etc., in the bucket.  Emma had to help and supervise.  You'll notice DH is wearing blaze orange accessories.  He was in the woods, hunting season is still going strong, and we have neighbors who hunt near our woods.

 

 

He was able to cut quite a pile of wood and began splitting it.  He spent this past weekend splitting and splitting and splitting, but is still not done yet.  All three of our wood racks are filled, and he is stacking the extra wood on one side of our loafing shed.  An embarrassment of woodly riches!

Hopefully I'll have some stitching photos to share soon.

LoneStar 

Winter is finally here

Well, winter is finally here.  I know this because the temperatures have forced me into pants, long-sleeved shirts, and socks and shoes.  Phooey.  It was sad when I did laundry on Monday and there were shorts and T-shirts in there from last week. 

DH will be cutting wood this weekend as our wood racks are nearly bare.  He reserved a log splitter for the next weekend and I will help him stack after he splits it all.  I may also get to drive the tractor a lot from the woods to the splitting area so DH can keep on cutting. 

It was nice to sleep in this past weekend as DH is done deer hunting for the season as he has bagged his limit.  He will still go out and hunt for pigs, but he took last weekend off.

And I've been stitching but I can't show you what I'm stitching on because it's for a friend and she reads my blog.

I'll leave you with a picture of Emma warming her butt in front of the wood stove.

LoneStar

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