A little of this -- a little of that

 An employee of ours got this Poinsettia for me in 2016 and it did wonderfully in our house, but I needed to move it to make room for a Christmas Cactus so I brought it out to my office.  Within 2 weeks it looked like this.  My office is a death sentence for potted plants.  :(  Cut plants last a long time but not potted.

 This was January 13 and we had to go to Toledo which is a 4 hour trip.  It took us a little over 5 hours to get there, but God took us safely there, and back home again the next day.  God is good!

 

 This series of pictures was taken outside Dale's office.  A momma and her baby came strolling up and got a bite to eat at the bird feeder.  They were there for a long time.  I went and sat in the window seat and watched them.  I wasn't any farther than 6 feet from them, of course there was the window between us.  We just had 4 deer in our front yard a couple of days ago.  I love to watch them.  Just don't like to meet them on the road!

 This is my first attempt at making a Cathedral Window quilt.  I have loved them since I was a little girl.  My Granny's best friend used to make them all the time and was going to show me how to do it but you know how it is with best intentions.  I really wish I had made the time for Lizzy to teach me.  It would have meant so much more than learning from the internet. People ask me how big it is going to be.  I just shrug my shoulders and say I don't know.  It may only be a wall hanging or maybe even just a pillow top.  Depends.  lol  It is mostly hand sewing so it will be a long process and will be a carry along project.  The only machine sewing is sewing the muslim squares together.  I tried doing those by hand but was not getting the seam allowance just perfect and the squares were not coming out square.  So machine sewing for 3 seams in those and then the rest is hand.  This will go with me on camping trips.

 This is Betsie, our oldest dog, she is 11 now.  She is not supposed to be on the couch so she waits until Dale goes to bed and then she jumps up on it.  If she hears him coming down the stairs she quietly gets down and acts like she was sleeping on the rug all along.  Silly dog, I am there watching her.  

Doll clothes

I finally remembered to download the few pics of the doll clothes that I made for my great-niece for Christmas.  Actually I forgot I wanted to take pictures until AFTER I had already wrapped the box up.  :(  Fortunately I remembered before I gave them to her.  I was even able to take the ribbon off, unwrap the box and take my pictures and rewrap the box with the same paper and ribbon!!  I could not believe I was able to do that and you couldn't even tell I had undone it.  Yay me.

 These are the 4 outfits I managed to get made in the short time I gave myself.  I was pretty pumped over them.  I think they are cute as can be.  Maybe a bit old fashioned for now, but the pattern was a reprint of one from the 50's.  It was all I could find locally. 
I might make more doll clothes and open an Etsy shop, who knows.  I do enjoy making them and also making Barbie doll clothes, I have a small tote full of them and no one to play with them anymore. 

 This dress was made from fabric I found in a tote that came home with me when my beloved Mother-In-Law passed.  Since the clothes were for her great-granddaughter I thought it very appropriate even though Finley had never met her.

 This was made from a fat quarter that I found in town when looking for a pattern.  Those elephants were just too cute and the mini polka dots were just great.

 I had bought this flannel to make a nap blanket for my Mom when she was in the nursing home.  I had made her one and never did get around to making this one up.  Makes very cute jammies, I think

This pink is a knit that I bought somewhere, sometime and decided it would make a really nice coat since it would go with both of the dresses.  I added the fancy row of stitching down the front to avoid having to do a hand hem to keep the facing where it belonged. 

The pillows I made for the kids, grand kids, and great-grand kids were all very cute and very well received, but I forgot to take pictures of them.  Maybe one day I will have everyone bring them back and take a group photo of them.

 I bought this nativity and creche many years ago when a Hobby Lobby opened up in Chillicothe.  I have tried many ways to light it and usually just end up shining a desk lamp down on it.  This year I happened to remember that I had a clamping bulb (like they put in those plastic Santa's and snowmen that you sit out on your lawn) and decided to give it a try,  I works like a dream.  May not give me as much light as the desk lamp but I like this light much better.  It sits at the end of the hall.  My 2 cats and my small dog like to lay in front of it.  They don't mess with it, they just lay there.  They want to be near to the Baby Jesus.  Smart  little fur babies.

We actually had a white Christmas this year!!  It has probably been over 20 years since we had one.  I had totally given up on wanting one.  I was so surprised to wake up and see the snow.  I know it is just a barely there coating, but it is white.
It has been so cold that we still have the Christmas snow.  Today the high was mid 20degrees F.  Very cold for us.  The rest of the week is not going to be any better and Friday is supposed to be a high of 16.  Next week may be a bit better, but not much.

Christmas is almost here....

No pics today. 

I had the wild idea to make some doll baby clothes for my great-niece for Christmas.  Not a problem except that I didn't get this idea until last Sunday.  Nothing like putting pressure on yourself. 

I wasn't able to start sewing until Tuesday evening.  I have managed to make a dress and a pair of PJ's so far.  I have a coat pinned to the fabric but that is all,  I want to make the coat and at least one more dress for her.

While going through my fabrics and a tote of fabric I brought home when my beloved mother-in-law passed I found all these neat quilt patches that I suddenly had the brain storm to make into pillows for the 6 grand kids.  Then I found a few more and decided to make a pillow for each of her 3 boys and found a couple more and decided to make them for the 2 great-grand kids even though they had never had the pleasure and good fortune to know her.  So now I need to make 11 pillows on top of everything else.  I have to have the pillows done by Christmas Eve as that is when we all get together to celebrate.  I have plenty of time.  :)

So why am I on here instead of sewing?  Because I am at work (I work in the family business so this is OK).  Just as soon as I get payroll done and D or J come back I am going to the house to get busy.

I will take pics before I give the things all away. 

Joan is coming to Christmas for at least one more visit.  The year she passed and we cleaned out the house I found all kind of gifts that she had already bought for Christmas, and she left us in June!  Since I am now the oldest female of the family I gathered everything up and saved it until December and then I went through everything and made a gift bag for everyone.  We had some tears and lots of laughter.  She was missed but it made it sort of like she was still there.  Which she is still there in each of our hearts.  She was a lovely lady and very well loved.

In addition to all the sewing I still have to make sugar cookies, sugared pecans, a couple of pies, clean up the house, and put everything away after sewing.  I have to sew on my dining table as my embroidery/sewing room is a wreck and I can't even get to the counters to work.  That is going to have to be taken care of after the holidays!  I miss my sewing space.

The Chick-a-biddies

 This is the day we got the chicks back in June.  They have grown a lot since then.They are no longer little fluff balls but full grown egg laying chick-a-biddies. 

This is some of the eggs.  As you can see we get all sizes of them and quite a few colors also.  My hens that are supposed to lay brown eggs really don't lay a true brown color.  They range from a soft blush to a soft pinky-brown.  I love the colors and I love the way they look in that small bowl. 

This is what they look like now.  I just took these pictures this morning.  As a matter of fact I disturbed them while they were taking their morning bath.  They are silly things but they are all healthy.

I have a mix of Ameracaunas, Black Astrolorps, Favarols, and Light Brahmas.  I also have a few older Buff Orpingtons from last year.  They are quite a colorful bunch.

Black Astrolorp

Favarol

Ameracauna

2 Light Brahmas

A "few" pics of Lily. :)

 Just a few pics I took of Lily.  She is so pretty that I just had to share with whoever happens upon this site and decides to read it..  I am not the best photographer or even a very good one, but I enjoy taking pictures occasionally.

 This is our TV watching chairs.  They are really comfy.  They recline, rock, and swivel.  I could do without the swivel as it makes my chair turn when I do not want it to.  But I'll adjust. 

 A close up of them so you can see the nice little table between them.

 Our sofa bed for the occasional guest.  Only been out twice so we have not had any guests yet.  I did try to make the bed down once just to see it and didn't get it down quite right and also did not get it latched back into place so when we got to where we were going the bed was half way down.  Dale had to fix it since I didn't really have any idea of how to do it.

 My stove, oven and fridge.  Small but workable.  I have baked cookies in the oven both times we were out.  The range has only 3 burners, but then I am not going to be fixing a holiday meal in it so it is fine.

 My itty-bitty microwave.  And I do mean itty-bitty.  But it is big enough to get my bacon cooker in it so it is big enough.  I don't use a microwave very often.  I don't like the way it cooks food.  But it does a great job on bacon.  (Have you tried the little individual brownies and cakes that you cook in the micro in a coffee mug?  The ones I have tried are very tasty and just the right size so you don't over do.)

 Another part of the "kitchen".  storage and added counter top.  I keep my toaster and coffee maker on top of this and use it to put out food when we have company.

 My island sink.  I forgot to take the covers off of the sink.  The covers make for more counter space when I am cooking.  Love it. I you look close you can see a finger hole in the counter where one of the sink covers is.  the other is almost twice that size so a nice double sink.

I even have a ceiling fan in the living area!

 Our dining table.  It can sit 4 nicely and in a pinch and if you extend it out you could put a 5th person at the end of the table.  This RV is set up as a couples traveler.  It only will sleep 4 people.

 Another view of the table showing my fireplace and TV.  I actually used the fireplace last weekend when we went camping.  It was cold outside and rainy, but toasty and warm inside.

This is what happens when you are messing with you phone trying to download pictures and not paying any attention to what you are doing.

Actually we went camping 2 weekends ago (Nov 3&4).  We got there Friday and stayed until Sunday.  We had a meeting in Bellefontaine so we and a couple of friends took our RV's instead of staying in a hotel  I loved it.  I didn't get to really spend much time "glamping" but I got to take Lily out again.
That was the2nd trip and the last trip of the year,  We have winterized her and I just need to do some further cleaning and she will be ready for her long winter's nap.  I can't wait until time to take her out again.  Not sure where we will go next spring/summer but I am hoping for a lot of camp-outs. 

Our first trip out in the new camper

 

I know this is titled first trip but I had to show my little Coley.  He had been down in the cellar nosing around.  He loves to go down there and given half a chance he is there.

 This is "Lily" the evening we brought her home.  Not a great picture but I was standing in the middle of the highway trying to get this picture so I was in a hurry and didn't really try to frame it and get everything in. 

 

This was as we were leaving for our first camp out.  Not a really good pic but you get the gist of it.  The one below is better.  She really looks good behind Dale's new (to him) truck.  He didn't really want a black truck but that was pretty much all he could find and it really looks sharp pulling the 5th Wheel.  Plus, Dale loves to wash and detail out a vehicle so black is right up his alley, since they need constant cleaning. 

  

I didn't take any pics at the campground.  I am about the world's worst at taking pics now.  I used to take pictures all the time.  I have loads of them but I guess I just got tired of looking at the world through a camera lense and just quit.  That happens sometimes.  

We went to Lake Snowden which is about 35 or 40 miles away.  We had to be in Athens on Sunday evening so this was our only choice to be able to camp and go to the meeting.   We took Betsie with us and she had a great time.  She got to take walks with Daddy so she was happy.  She is definitely Dale's dog.  She loves me, but I am forgotten in a second when Dad is around, lol.

We are going out again weekend after this coming one.  Going up around Indian Lake.  Unfortunately for us by then most of the campgrounds are out of season so we can only get electric.  No full hookup and no dump station.  We will manage. 

I hope I do better this time than the last trip.  I came down with a pretty bad sinus infection which meant lots of antibiotics and then I got sick and ended up in the hospital and then I caught a cold when I got home so I have pretty much been sick since the camping trip.  If I do that again Dale has threatened to sell the camper. He better not.  I just need to get used to camping again.  :)

I have the camper mostly packed.  It is a chore packing a camper from scratch.  Pretty much all of the stuff I used to have for camping is now gone.  I didn't think I would need it so it has been given away or sold at yard sale.  Oh, well.  I enjoyed buying the stuff for her.  Besides, when we camped before we had the kids young so we didn't have nice stuff in the camper.  Now we are older and camping alone so I told Dale we are now "glamping" lol

Still need to get inside pics of Lily to show just how pretty she is inside.  Maybe I'll do that this afternoon, and maybe I won't.