Just some stuff..

Hello,
I was hoping to post a finish today - not gonna happen. I am still working on A Year in the Life of ... by the  Historical Sampler Company. I re-started it February 3rd

February 3rd

February 24

Pardon the terrible wrinkles - no point in ironing it just yet. It's funny how different the fabric looks! The picture on the link looks better - mine is bad. Almost done though. I got a few more patterns that I can't wait to start (stupid wip plan!!!)

ohhh purrrrdy!!

This weekend we worked on the fireplace room floor. We put Dutch oil on it....

before

during

almost done

done

 Isn't it lovely? We still have to go over it one more time with a towel. We have to cut off the foam you see in the picture - just filling gaps - put up quarter round and we can move the living room in there!! I will show a picture when we get the living room moved - we bought an ottoman to match our couch - can't wait to see it all together!! 
This state has this crazy thing called a house warranty - Scott says the realtor paid for it. One of the garage door openers stopped working a week or so ago. Scott has been manually opening it to park his car in there. Turns out it is covered by the warranty. It should cost us $75 to have them come out and replace it - not when you have me around though - then it costs $315. How did I manage that you wonder - well, let me tell you. The kid (no, really - he is 20 years old!!!) comes out to look at the opener - the one that has NOT worked for a week or so - Scott has it locked since it doesn't work - he says he disconnected it. I click the button so he can see how all it does it make this clicking noise. Well guess what.... yep, it works. Thank goodness he was standing under it - he reached up and unplugged it but not before it bent the H E double hockey sticks out of the top TWO panels. So, we had to buy two new panels. UGH Good news is they put in a very nice garage opener because despite the fact that it worked that time - it was indeed broken. The panels fit perfectly - size and color match - but still.
Here is the toolbox I bought a few weeks ago someone made it a blotchy green and black color.

This weekend I spray painted it and distressed it. Love it!! You can see how long it is up against that door!!

We found a place in town they call a flea market but it's kind of like the antique places with booths - there are some wonderful treasures (and a lot of worthless junk too) benches and old wooden tool boxes I would love to have!! Most of it has good prices and I can't wait to go back. We bought a shelf  and an ottoman - both of which I will have to show you another day. There are a few other things we want to get but they were closing so we will have to go back.
When we moved here I was excited to see the Cardinals come to my bird feeder - but sad to learn that they are very territorial so I would never have more than one set at my feeder. This weekend we had two or three (hard to tell) youngsters and the adult male flitting around in the yard. The "kids" are smaller and they played chase through the trees. They are hard to get a picture of - but here you see the adult and one of the kids

where's Waldo? Adult is top left and the little one is top right

 I also had a chipmunk under the bird feeder - if you look close his cheeks are very full!! So cute!!

 Almost all of our snow melted - we had some rain. The river down the road is flooded and the road is closed! I'm not sure if this guy was under the snow or this just happened - we hoped it was just playing dead but turns out it wasn't. I've never seen one up close - weird for sure!! Just like a huge rat!!

We have a mom raccoon and her teenager living under the porch. They come up at night and snoop around under the feeder - the mom will come right to me (I am inside with the window between us). I have not been able to get a good picture of them.

We were putting books on our bookshelf and I found my Gram's autograph book. The first entry is Sept 21, 1941. I am going to post one of the entries at the end of every blog until they are all here. I think they are great fun!! First I'll post her senior picture...

Mary Ellen Burns

 The first entry..
                                                                                                                             Sept, 21 1941
Well, Mary Ellen, this is
quite an honor to be the first to
write in your autograpgh book
just at the time you have
reached the ripe old age of 11.
But just remember, you were the dream girl that found me
first.
                         As ever
                             Joe Sherlock 

I got lucky....

In the kitchen, no less!

look at that beauty!!

  If you follow my blog - you know I can not bake!! It tastes OK but looks U G L Y (usually with no alibi) That is my first loaf of bread!! I make specialty bread at Thanksgiving and Christmas but this is just regular ol' bread. It turned out sooo good!! I used the  American Sandwich Bread recipe from the Brown Eyed Baker. A few things about the recipe.... wow is it easy!! I read through the recipe and even looked through the comments to see how long to knead it if not using a Kitchen Aid - couldn't find anything so I thought I would wing it..... When I went to bake it I saw the "note" at the bottom saying that the recipe should be made using a mixer - oops.  I used 1% milk, salted butter and regular AP flour - not because I was being a rebel - it's what I have in my cupboard!!  I mixed my yeast in with my flour instead of putting it in the milk. Kneading is hard work. I did it until I got bored - about 8 minutes haha It really turned out well. I made another loaf today - someone came to the door and I thought I set the timer but I guess I didn't so I over-baked it. Still good - of course I had to taste it!!

mmmmm

 I want to try her Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread  and Honey Oatmeal Sandwich Bread. She has a Sea Salt, Cashew and Milk Chocolate cookie recipe that looks like it might be dangerous (in a slap yer momma way) but I'm willing to try it!! I made a roast this week that was FANTASTIC!!! It was actually beef short ribs but I made them like a roast in a Dutch oven - so good!!  We are trying to keep the calories down so I made a Baked Spaghetti Squash and Cheese from Skinnytaste it is a macaroni and cheese substitute - so so good. I took a picture but it did not look tasty so you will have to look at her pretty picture!!
We had to shovel - again.... I want to remind you how steep and long my driveway is - see Scott down there? Way way down there? We didn't think it would be an issue - it doesn't snow THAT much in Indiana - right? We are inching up the most snow charts - I think we are in third with 41 inches so far. I think it's because we bought this driveway.... 

can you hear me????

deep snow!!

icicle

 I had a fun mail day - I also got Jardin Prive "Christmas". I love love love the Renato Parolin, of course - it has little birds and stars on it -delightful! I never would have done the bee pillow but I saw it on Karen's Handiwork and fell in love with it - so pretty. This picture doesn't do either pattern justice!!

I am King of the Chair!! Isn't he a pretty boy!!

We finished all the painting in the fireplace room. We are going to wash the floor by hand and put a layer of Danish Oil on it. Now, it says not recommended for floors but we don't want to use a polyurethane on it - more like a wax or oil. We tried a section and it is pretty - does not appear to come up on your fingers once it's soaked in. So if anybody knows why we shouldn't use it - speak up!!  Then we just have to put up the quarter round and move the living room stuff in there - can't wait!!
This weekend we went antiquing - we found a crazy antique mall in Greenwood - I got a tool box - that I'm going to paint and Scott got an old wooden Pepsi crate. 

Then we went and saw "Gravity" IMAX 3D - beautiful to look at - pretty intense movie. Scott loved it. There wasn't hardly anybody in the theater - love that!! I love going out with Scott - so much fun!!
Well, I am late getting this done - still have some chores to do!
Hope you all stay warm - thanks for stopping by!!

Finished!!

I am done - with virtue sheep!!! I finished the last two last night. Not sure why but the frogs were wild last night and I kept having to undo what I had done. It may have been because I was watching the Broncos get trounced. Guess this means Manning has to play another year. In their defense - the Seahawks defense was a MONSTER!!! Wow, I was impressed. I am not impressed with that little Sherman guy - ankle injury feels a little like karma to me - just saying. Anyway - back to my sheep. Here is a picture...

So I had said this year was the year of the WIP but then I did Easter by Renato Parolin - could not help myself!! I did order some new patterns this week - I have another Parolin coming and 3 Jardin Prive to add to my collection. I told Scott it was depressing to think that this year I would not be starting any of my new fun projects just working on old ones and he suggested I do a WIP and then a new one and then a WIP and a new one - that makes sense to me! I consider the sheep to be a WIP - there were 12 (24 because I'm an over-achiever) Scott didn't think so. I have one new and one WIP done this year. The next WIP is "A year in the life of..." it is from Historical Sampler Company Limited   My friend Joanie bought this for my birthday a few years ago. I tried to work on it at work but I kept messing up - and so far it was only squares - so I put it aside. It's a kit so I just pulled it out. You can tell it's from the UK because November is Guy Fawkes instead of Thanksgiving - fun!! 

This weekend we attempted to go letterboxing - I have been home for far too long!! Last time we boxed was in September of 2013!! The weather here has been atrocious. We decided to go see the covered bridges - didn't make it. We went to a state park first and did not find either of the boxes we were looking for. What a drag!! Here are some pictures though -

craziest holes in the trees here - wood bees? or wood peckers?

beautiful bridge

mushrooms!

Then it started to rain. The next two boxes we went after, we found but I was soaked by the time we were done. We went to an antique place - we were trying to find one of those big antique malls but only found a small one.

lovely fog

this little guy was snuffling around in the grass in a frantic manner - so cute

we scared him up a tree - on accident  - see his cute little face?

ice fishing? this is on the pond by our house!

look at the ivy on this tree - crazy!!

 I found this PB2 at Kroger in the health food aisle - it's really good!! It is powdered but has less calories and fat than regular peanut butter. They make one with cocoa in it - fabulous - especially when you are on a diet and would like some chocolate peanut butter on your toast!!

I put out my heart ornaments - the patterns is from Under the Garden Moon You'd have to email them and ask about the metal tree - I'm sure they know where to buy them!! They have ones for all seasons. I just took off the quilt ornaments - same company!
Over the last two weekends we have been working on the fireplace room. I only have before pictures

 Had to finish painting the walls - they are not suppose to be striped  - you can see that it's wood panels on the next picture. We also had to get all that damn paint off the wood floor. Scott used a razor to scrape off the heaviest spots and I had a paint remover spray to get the over-spray off. We pulled off the baseboards. We now have the walls painted brown.  The baseboards, doors and window trim repainted the ivory color we picked. All we have left is - we are going to find a wax to put on the floor so it still looks rustic but maybe richer, and we need to buy some quarter round trim to put in front of the baseboards - then we are done!!! We will move the living room into this room - yay!! Soooo close!!

 I saw this "Very Berry Coffee Cake" on another blog and decided to try it. It smelled like Christmas when it was baking - mmmm. If I made it again I would use mixed berries - the batter is really sweet so if the berries are tart it would taste better!

The news has been squawking that we are going to have terrible weather starting tomorrow - rain, ice storm and then snow. Bleh - I am tired of snow. Sunday morning we had to shovel our driveway which, I have said before is STEEEEEP, we had to shovel across and then salt to keep from falling  - it had ice under it from the rain the day before and an inch or two of snow on top. Here we go again....
For Christmas I got season 4 of Downton Abbey from my girlfriend Joanie. It came in the mail Friday and this weekend we watched the rest of the season - so cool to be able to watch it before it's on TV!! But I am sad that it's over - until who knows when!! So if it's snows I will watch season 4 again!!
Thanks for stopping by - stay warm and stitch on!!