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!

Warm January!

 Temperatures have been in the 40-50's, going to the 20's at night. No snow yet, which does not break my heart. 

It's 13 years today that my high school BFF Linda passed, still hard to believe. Three of my closest high school and beyond friends didn't even make it to age 60, which is so sad. So I rarely complain about getting old, it beats the alternative.

I feel like I'm in the home stretch with Quiet Time, working the bottom row. Pattern Keeper has been such an immense help! I'm decided whether to have it framed, which would give it the protection of glass, or to make a fabric border and hang it like a quilt. I hope to have it done by Valentine's Day.

I told Ralph we have to get serious about finding a painter for the family room, the last room we have to do. Some of the family room stuff is visiting the sewing room, and I want it back to normal. The contractor we had for the living room isn't calling back, so I went to my go to guy, my brother Mike, for a recommendation. So maybe I can get things going now. 

I swapped out the Christmas shower curtain for a Valentine's Day one, and got out the container to put away the gnomes. I also made brownies and iced tea.

The pix on my phone are a lot of quilts and afghans that I want to make, once Quiet Time is done. I depend on Facebook for recipes, quilt pix and afghan pix! And pix of my family. 

It's January 2023

 Wow!  We survived another year! We had a quiet New Year's Eve, Ralph was in bed by 9, as usual. I stayed up, cross stitching and watching TV. I caught up with 911 and moved on to Station 19 on Hulu. I like 911 a lot more, Station 19 is very soap opera like. 

Heather gave me the cutest gnome tree, and it lights up!

Another screen finished on Quiet Time! Pattern Keeper has made such a huge difference! I'm a lefty, and I always had printed out the pages and highlighted the squares as I did them. That meant putting down the project, picking up the page on the clipboard, and highlighting. With PK, the chrome book is on a pillow to the right of me, and with my right hand I can tap on the square I want to highlight. So much more efficient!

I want to finish Quiet Time- 2.5 years is a long time for a project, even tho I took off months at a time for other things. I'm itchy to sew and crochet, but I'm determined to finish this first.

I read 137 books in 2022, passing my goal of 100. I've set 2023's goal for 100 again. 

The end of the year!

Wow!  I've been terrible about posting! I always get like that as the end of the year approaches.

Here's one reason why! I've been cross stitching so much!

Here's what it looked like a month ago! And a completed Pattern Keeper screen! I love that PK counts your stitches every day! I've been doing an average of 500 per day, because I want to get Quiet Time done! Originally I said by the end of the year, now I'm hoping for Valentine's Day. 

We all went to Donna's for her 60th Birthday, the old Thanksgiving crowd. We started out at the cemetery to visit Joseph, since his birthday is 2 days after Donna's. It was bitter cold, so it was a short cemetery visit. Then to Donna's for appetizers, hoagies and pizza, and dessert. She had texted me and asked me to make Joseph's Trifle, in memory of him. First I've made it since his death, and I managed not to cry over it. It was well received. Mike has Dad's hat hanging on the plant/tree from their house, and elves of Martha and Snoop hanging on the trunk.

Mike, the anti Facebook guy, had his pic on it by his company.

I got a Christmas treat for my new door, looks so festive! That and my mantle of gnomes, are our decorations. We just didn't feel like a tree.

The weather for the holiday weekend was brutal all over the country. We got torrential rains at the end of the week, and single digit temps. So Heather and I cancelled our Christmas Eve day visit, and rescheduled for Wednesday. Ralph and I opened gifts for Manda and Steph on Christmas Day, and I made the turkey breast in the crockpot, which was fabulous. And enough left for sandwiches!

Last weekend was David's 39th birthday. Such a sad loss.

And we're almost done with 2022!

Yikes!

 How did a whole month go by without me posting? I have no idea!

This has been keeping me busy! I'm 87% done, not counting the bottom row of half pages, which I'm not sure I'm doing. Pattern keeper is such a game changer! I tells me how many stitches I've done each day, and how many total I've done.

This I what the screen looks like. Best $8 investment ever!

Got my second booster, and my flu shot! Felt icky for a day or so, and a sore arm from the flu shot.

Oops, not what I meant to post. I thought it was my October reads, but that's a list of books to look for.

I read Verity, on Gordanna's recommendation. What a dark, weird book! We had a nice discussion about it, though.

The election is finally over! So I can stop seeing the PA commercials. Dr Oz sucks.

A whole month!

 A month since my last post, wow! That time sure got away from me! We went from summer to fall in that month, from using the AC to having the heat and electric blanket on!

I bought a fall wreath for my new front door, and I love the way it looks.

I bought a quilt kit from a jersey quilt store that was part of a shop hop. 

I read 11 books in September, 4 on the kindle.

I made caramel in the crockpot from a can of sweetened condensed milk!

I had a page finish on my cross stitch, and took a pic since I had to move the qsnap. I'm 83 % done after 2 years.

Yesterday we went to the Berry Basket Quilt guild's quilt show, the first show I've been to in several years. We had a good time admiring all the quilts, then went to Cracker Barrel for brunch. A nice day out.

And I downloaded a trial of Pattern Keeper, an app that lets you mark off what you've done on a cross stitch pattern on the app. There is a learning curve, but I like it.

September!

 It's finally cooling down a bit! The days are now in the mid 80's and the nights in the 60's. On the down side, it's dark by 7.30 or so. I'll miss the long summer evenings.

Not much done, I took off a couple of weeks to read, but now I'm getting back into it.

I made lasagna in the crockpot for the first time in a couple of years! It made so much! We portioned it out, and froze most of it for later.

Thirteen books read in August! Total for the year so far, 100, of which 29 were on the kindle, and the rest from the library.

Here's a bigger version of our group picture. It will be our Christmas card. The girls are already planning next year's picture.

I've been making various zucchini breads. I've made zucchini pineapple, zucchini pineapple banana, and lemon zucchini, all of which were really good. On Labor Day Heather called to ask how to grate zucchini. We ended up taking the food processor to her house and demonstrating. We left the processor there for her to borrow and try out on tomatoes for salsa. Heather and Eddie loved shredding the zucchini, she said it was oddly satisfying. She made two loaves of zucchini bread, which she said they all inhaled. This year she had 8 plants, and she's planning for more next year!

This is the 7th first day of school that I didn't have to participate in, yay! Eddie is now in his second year at Stockton University, Julianna is a sophomore at Oakcrest High School, Amary is in grade 4 and Garrett is in grade 2! And the youngest member of the extended family, Ben, started kindergarten in Virginia.

All things considered, life is good.