A sad day

 Yesterday turned out to be a sad day. When Ralph got home from breakfast, we went to the grocery store. When we got home, we realized we hadn't seen our feral cat Donald that morning. 

He went looking, and found Donald dead in his little house in the garage. He was all curled up and peaceful, like he had just gone to sleep. 

This is the only pictures I have of Donald, and I took them from a distance. He never got trusting enough to get close to. 

We had trapped him and had him neutered in 2016, and I think he was around at least a year before that. The vet at the time estimated him to be between 5-8 years old. He got his vaccinations and chipped also at that time.

Donald wandered a bit, but spent most of his time in our yard, deck, and garage. He had a heated house for cold nights, and had food always available. He loved to lay in the sun, and for some reason in the bird bath. 

We gave him the best life we could, and we will miss him. I'm comforted that he lived much longer than most feral cats, and died peacefully. Rest in Peace, Donald, see you at the Rainbow Bridge.

Wacky Weather!

 It's supposed to be 72 today! In February! And by Saturday it'll be 35! It's insane. While it's warm here, Steph has inches of snow! 

Tori's afghan is coming along nicely. I'm trying to do 3-4 rows per day. Each color is 2 rows. I love the color combo- she said her favorite color is dark green, so I went with that. 

We took a carload to St Vincent dePaul this week, yay! Most of it had been sitting waiting for us to get around to taking it. And I gave away a set of dishes on the buy nothing group. 

Ralph is at breakfast with his Veteran's group, something he does every Thursday. It's good for him to spend time with those who have a common background. 

Some pics for inspiration! 

70!

 My birthday was this week, and I'm now 70! How did 70 years go by so fast? Every year my brother Mike asks me how old I am now, and every year I reply that I'm still 3 years older than he is. 

This is the inspiration photo for the new afghan I started.

These are the colors. It is for my great niece  Tori, who said her preferred focus color is dark green. I give people a color choice sometimes, but I pick the pattern I feel like working on.

The pattern is called Dune and it's from the Attic 24 blog.

That hair! Amary and Julianna have the same beautiful curly hair!

Ralph got me this fun basket of goodies for my birthday.

My end tables came yesterday, Ralph will put them together. They match the TV stand so well!

And the light colored set can go to a new home.

What a winter!

 The only snow we've had is a dusting, and that is just fine! We had a bitter cold couple of days, and I just stayed in.

The big news is that Quiet Time is done! 

I even initialed and dated it, on the lower right side of the railing area.

This is the part that I did using Pattern Keeper. Talk about a game changer!

The new furniture is here for the family room/den, and it looks great! 

The new color, Topsail, brightens up the room so much!

Julianna got her gown for her Sweet 16 party/ball next month. I can't believe she's so grown up!

This is what the den looked like before- what a mess! The painters fixed the beams by encasing them in sheetrock and painting them with ceiling paint. It looks like a different room now!

I got a Valentine's wreath, and it looks so nice!

I only read 8 books in January, I was so focused on finishing the cross stitch project. 

And it's 45 out, so no snow coming here! Yay!