Friday Swap

Nancy Huggins just sent me these nice place mats that she stitched. I'd been wanting to replace the ones I had before as they were getting shabby. I love country checks. I didn't bother to iron them to see how they looked on the table. I'm trading them for one of my stitcheries...

and some mice..

 The pattern is from Stag Lane primitives who you can find on Ebay and also Pattern Mart. I haven't made the mice in some time but they're really realistic. Fun to tuck into a bookshelf or use in unexpected ways.
I'm always open to swaps!

Our weather has cooled down and is very nice right now. We've been gardening and pulling alot of weeds. Weeding takes up much of the gardening work now. Alan pulled out all the onions and I've dried about two quarts so far. Nice to have to throw into soups and stews. I put the dehydrator outside as it stinks so bad with the onions and it worked out great.  We're going to put in more tomato plants where the onions were. I want enough to make more tomato soup later.
I'm thinking of closing down my other Home Sweet Stitchery blog as I just don't have time to devote any more for two blogs. If there is any links or anything on there you'd like to save, please do so. I'll keep it up until the end of the month.

More Fire News and Pinterest

Yesterday afternoon the smoke from the fires really settled into our valley and the air was full of the acrid smell of fire. Rather awful really. It was so strong we went outside and looked around as it felt like our house was on fire. Thankfully that wasn't the case. Warnings were put out to stay inside and if you had asthma to have your inhaler close by.

As I type this, most of the fires are out now which we are all thankful for. The air is much cleaner now too with no smoke smell anymore. All of the fires were in San Diego county, none that I am aware of in Riverside county.  Most of the fire that effected us was from the Camp Pendleton fire. Fires are common on the base as they sometimes use live rounds which set off brush fires. They have their own fire department which is very good.

Its been very hot, summer temperatures! In the high 90s and low 100s. We've had to turn on our AC unit which we don't like to but its almost a necessity. None of our roses are blooming, they stop when it gets this hot. According to the weather report, our temps should get back to normal in a day or so. Usually this time of year, its still in spring temperatures of 70 or so.  We've been harvesting peas which are a delight and the tomato plants are blooming so it won't be too long for them. Alan planted green beans but they're not  up yet.

 I'm on Pinterest and thought I'd share a couple of neat things I've found.

                             I found this on Hometalk and thought it was a great idea.

Below is a tutorial for a Cathedral Window pincushion. I've made Cathedral window ornaments before so it is a fun project. 

and lastly..make a place for the birds to snack. I always put out water for them, especially in this hot weather. I've seen these vintage snack sets at the thrift shop for pennies and wondered what I'd do with a set. Now I know! I found this on Home Talk too.

  

                  Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Fires

I haven't posted in some time. Alan's been rather ill and its been very hot here, in the 100s, with high winds.
He has a test done yesterday  and it turns out he has  diverticulitis. He has to go back in a couple of weeks for further tests. It was really rough getting ready for the test as he's a diabetic. No beef or pork for a week, then soft food, then only liquids..it was tough. But it was a relief to find out what the problem was in any case! I asked for prayer and God answered.

As you've probably heard, there are 9 fires in Southern California. Most in San Diego County.  Carlsbad, where the worst fire is, is very familiar to both of us as we lived in North San Diego county for years and years. We have friends who live there and also some of our locksmith clients are there. The closest fire to us is in Camp Pendleton.
We've been staying inside most of the day as the air quality isn't good. Smoky skies plus its very hot and windy. Today seems to be better.

                                                These photos  are in Carlsbad. Scary!

                                                       Please pray for our fire fighters.

Organizing, Hot Days and Changes

I've been busy for the last two days organizing my craft supplies and going through things I've kept but will probably never do. I've got skeins of floss scattered throughout so am gathering it up. Organizing it isn't difficult but time consuming. I like to organize my floss in these little plastic boxes according to color.I can see what colors I need to get, right now I'm low in brown tones so today, I bought a brown lot of DMC floss on Ebay. I'm also getting more metallic thread which I'll organize separately. I'm only about 1/3 done as I still have to go through my crafting boxes, and a cabinet. Phew!
I've been experimenting framing one of the stitched cards so see how it looks.

 

I think it looks kinda cute. Going to put this in the main bathroom which has a black/ white green theme.

We've also started repairing the house. Mainly painting.After 8 years, the walls need to be painted. With the new washer/dryer, Alan painted the laundry area and it looks so nice. He's going to be painting the rest of the hallway, the woodwork and bedroom doors. Our boarder, Josh is moving out in the next day or so and our youngest son Matt is moving back home. That room will be painted next, hopefully in the next couple of days. Matt has been living on his own for well over a year but decided to move back to save money. We will miss Josh, he's been with us almost 3 years and has become like  a member of the family. Having a boarder can be a good experience if you find the right person.  Josh is moving in with family, his grandmother and uncle.
 The weather here has been hot and windy. The past two days have been really bad with smoke from the fires up north of us. The sky was brown with smoke and some ash. The wind was in the 40-60 range and we have much debris in the yards, both front and back. The wind blew all the dead branches out of the large trees in the front so it was littered with them plus lots of dead leaves from last year. Still having to clean up that mess too. The fires were well over 50 miles from us but the heavy winds drove the smoke our way.

That's about all the news in our neck of the woods!

Monday Wash and A few Local Photos

We received our new washer/dryer  this weekend and we're  happy so far. The washer cleans well although its a little loud. The dryer is great also. They both have energy savers which we use too. Right now I'm soaking some white towels in Oxiclean. When Alan removed the old lines from the washer attachment hose, the pipe cracked inside the wall, and we had water pouring out from the baseboards. I threw down the first towels I could find,( naturally they're white) while Alan ran outside and turned off the water main. He had to open the drywall and replace the pipe that broke. Then he put in new drywall, and decided to go ahead and repaint the entire laundry area. We don't have a laundry room, just a pass through to the garage. He did a wonderful job and no one would ever know there had been a problem. I married a very handy guy!

I thought you'd enjoy these lovely photographs of our little town of Menifee. A local photographer, Amy Medina took these and shared them on Facebook.

Yes, there are many areas in Southern California that aren't concreted over, at least not yet!

Friday Happenings

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter and a great week. Its been warm and sunny here. Our garden is doing well.
We were able to have funds to get a new washer and dryer which will come this weekend. We looked around for sales and found a good one at our local Lowes. By going online, we also saved an additional $140 by finding another store that was selling them cheaper. Lowes matched the price plus we're getting a mail in $100 rebate. It really pays to do a little research!

We opted for the normal agitator type washer, not the high efficiency ones, one because of cost and also because of the online reviews. Simple is better, I think.

I also made my first strawberry pie of the season! I found this recipe online and its very good. I really like the crust as its more like a sugar cooky. Just click on the link and enjoy. There's even a colorful video.

The only substitution I made was Splenda instead of sugar. I didn't have any almond flavoring either but it wasn't noticed. The only other things I've been up to is stitching a few cards. This is one of my favorites. I've got some new ones in the works, teapot and cups, a New Home one and more.

Happy Resurrection Day!

Encouragement

 

I saw this on Facebook and knew someone reading this post today needed some encouragement. No matter what the media says, times are still tough for alot of us.

Have a great Wednesday!

Fun Friday

A good friend sent me this..very punny! I thought I'd share a few things that have been sent to me or I found on Facebook..Have a fun day!

 

Does this happen to you?

.

 

Thursday Chat

If you entered my giveaway last month, our winner was Judy Mc Garry and her card is on its way to her as I post this. If you didn't win, another giveaway will be starting by tomorrow.

We are continuing to do spring cleaning and I have my mind planning re arranging the living room furniture. It will depend on if I can the male members of the family engaged as the pieces are too heavy for me to move myself. Our youngest son is moving back in and will be bringing us a nice sectional sofa which is in better condition than the ones we're using now. Our leather sofa we had was destroyed in our house fire so we've been using cast offs. He has a nice glass table too with chairs which  we may put on our patio as we could use more seating out there. It has a black wrought iron frame so would be ok, I think.

We've had rain this week which is always a blessing. Mostly raining at night and the garden is doing very well indeed. The plants seem to do so much better with natural rain. Our peas are up and taking off and I plan on planting the zucchini next before it gets too hot.

  It rained so much, it flooded the patio as you can see.

      The iris are blooming!