moving along . . .

So this morning, I did a thing.  I hid my blog.  Or rather, I made it private.  Who knows ... at some point I may go back and make it public again, but for now, I need the space to write and upload pics, without the need to field comments and return blog views. *Edit* 5/3/21:  I've taken it off private, but eliminated comments.  There, all better!

***Note to self:  DELETE the above, you selfish thing you, if you ever make the blog public again!  

We had a crazy week.  Snow flurries , threat of snow, ice, then real snow meant we had no office hours this week!  

Here's pictures taken Thursday (the morning after), Friday, and finally, this morning.  You can definitely see it fading, but still trying to hang in there!

The girls got some good snow, too!  I was so glad!  This county is so big, we often don't get the same weather.  Point in case, my parents, who live twenty-five miles south of us, got nothing but rain. Boo!

I love this pic with all the tracks in the snow.  NONE of which are human! Such fun! It's cool to see hard evidence of the little feeding station ecosystem we've created!  Ha!!

So anyway, coupled with a short day on the Thursday before Valentine's Day (staff lunch and enrichment), followed by a holiday Monday (President's Day), and I've not worked for nine days. (Okay.  I've not gone *in* to work. I have worked from home, just to be clear.)  Ten days including Sunday, before going back to work on Monday.  LOL!  Then I work two days and am off for the rest of the week to celebrate my mom's 80th birthday with two of my sisters!  We're piling up on my folks and reliving the good ol' days for the long weekend.  Should be fun!

I finished both Christmas table runners, hand quilted and bound ... one for Jules and one for Lar.  I should probably make labels for them, but I'm so lazy.

They're similar but different.  Have no idea which one will get which.  I'll gift them when they arrive on Wednesday; we're going to stop and have a sisters' lunch at Chicken Salad Chick before we head to the folk's house.  :)

I've also been slowly working on stitching down the wool on the Hospital Sketches blocks.  Finished the utilitarian stitching on this one . . . 

I know it needs some embellishment via fancy stitches.  It just *needs* it.  I'll get busy on that.  Eventually.

I also played around in EQ designing a foundational pieced kimono, for a friend, based on a pattern by Betty Blais. 

I just love these fabrics!  It's a blend of Asian prints and batiks. Yum! I upsized it considerably, to make it a wall hanging. It would be a pretty to display in the spring/summer!

I still need to get out in the Nook.  Time wise this would have been the perfect week for it, but it's just been too darn cold out there.  We have been able to get out on the sun porch, with the propane heater going at full blast! 

So glad we've been able to use this into winter.  I'd have hated getting it screened in late November and then not being able to enjoy it until Spring!

Enough for now.  We lost power last night and it didn't come back on until 10:30, so we lost a big part of the day!  Perhaps I'll make this a weekly thing ... to share pics and tidbits of life, so I can recall them when my memory struggles.  Bahahahaha!!!

:)

late out of the gate . . .

So.  Obviously my resolution for 2021 wasn't to spend more time on the blog.  Ha!

In fact, I didn't make resolutions (I haven't done that for the past several years, actually).  I took stock of 2020 (for what it's worth, am I right?), and instead made a couple of goals. Really, I just made a goal.  I finished my complete read of the Bible on December 24, but decided it was a lot of reading (the Bible in a year) without a lot of study.  So this year I decided to start over again, read just a chapter a day (which actually spans out to three years), and give some good study time to each chapter.  So I guess I made a goal for 2021, 2022, and 2023.  Heh.

That being done, I moved on to my word of 2021.  And instead of reinventing the wheel, I just went where I'd already gone.  So here's my word . . .

Isn't that pretty? It's on my desk at work. The word art was done by an apprentice of a local artist, Caroline Taylor.  She does beautiful work!

I wanted a quilted piece, too, to commemorate my word, so I drew it out and stitched it up pretty quick.

Tah-dah!  It's hanging in the alcove where I sit and read/study.  Just a pretty reminder of what my goal is.

I pulled out my Hospital Sketches BOM in wool and have made some good progress.  I still have the stitching to do on the majority of the blocks, but I love where this is going . . .

This piece deserves a blog post all of its own to cover the story behind it, so I won't say any more right now.  Except to say (of course), that this was a lesson in counting it all joy, for sure!  :)

Also, I made Ewenice . . .

Whom I'm completely in love with.  ♥  Isn't that a sweet pattern?  It's available here for free.  You're welcome!

Ellie turned NINE last month.  Holy guacamole!

She's such a beautiful girl, inside and out!  She also had a very Harry Potter birthday.  Fun times!

My nook is a hot mess and needs a lot of attention in it before I can be as productive as I'd like to be.  I've found ways around it (or rather, I've burrowed out a place to sit/iron/cut/sew).  Maybe when the days are longer.  And warmer.  Or maybe not?  Those days are typically reserved for the lake, but I got a little sneaky bonus day last week . . .

Todd had pulled the pontoon out to have its annual maintenance performed.  They finished up and we needed to get it back into the slip, so we drove out last Friday and launched it and drove it back to its spot.  It was easier for me to manage the boat and Todd to maneuver the truck/trailer, so I had the helm.  It was a lovely ten minutes of sunshine, clear skies, and no breeze. Doesn't that look inviting?  The water was a nippy 40 degrees that day.  That'll take your breath away!

This morning's sunset was also stunning (though no warmer) . . .

Just stunning!

That's it for now.  Peace be with you!

:)