Catching up......

The holidays have come and gone and now it is time to settle in for the winter.  I sometimes feel like a bear that goes into hibernation and doesn't come out of the house until spring.  Lowe's finally replaced all the trim work in my living room, dining room, and hallway this past week.  The original installers did an absolutely horrible job and Lowe's had to have someone else come in and redo it. l They even painted it.  I'm a happy camper now.  Here is the kind the work they had to replace:

I've been stitching on the French Alphabet Sampler again.  I'm making progress and am finally on the bottom third.

I'll be so happy when this is done and I can work on some small projects.  Some people have multiple projects going, but that would drive me crazy.  I am a true one-at-a-time stitcher. 

I'm really bad about posting on here.  It seems my promises to post more often are much like New Year's resolutions.  They last as long as a snowball in July.

  The kids were here for Thanksgiving and we just relaxed the entire weekend.  I did a little stitching and am now on the bottom row of charts on the French Alphabet Sampler.  My d-i-l wants me to stitch it a second time and rechart it with a W instead of a J in the center.  Maybe if I live to be 100 with good eyesight. The above picture was taken a few weeks ago and I'm now on the border below the one currently showing.  I really need to take an updated picture of it. 

Tomorrow is taco pizza with the St. Louis Stitcher's gang so I'll be driving to St. Louis and plan to do a little shopping on the way home. 

This is my oldest son, d-i-l, and granddaughter.

I'm waiting for the winter storm to hit and hope we don't get hit too hard. I'm supposed to scrap with the gang tomorrow but it will depend on how much snow we get and when it stops. I got rid of almost half my scrap stash and it has been liberating. I'm able to find and know what I have now. I'm actually using all those monthly kits I've received over the years. I still have some stuff to get put away but my scraproom is greatly improved. Except for one monthly kit that I still receive from My Creative Scrapbook, I haven't been scrapbook shopping since right after Thanksgiving when I bought a Christmas paper pack and the Basic Gray calendar kit at M's.

I finally finished my granddaughter's birth sampler. It is Longdog's Bienvenue. I stitched it with silk fibers from Vicki Clayton on 28 ct. fabric called porcelin from Silkweaver. Now I need to get it laced and to the framers. I'm also having Keith's birth sampler re-framed to match Taylor's.

My next project is one I've had the chart for since 2004. It is the French Alphabet Sampler which has the names and initials of all the members of my family incorporated into the design. It is a custom chart that I ordered through Elegant Stitch. They still take orders for it from time to time. I had to buy a yard of fabric so it is a really BAP (Big Ass Project).

Happy 4th of July. I'm going to Olney, IL, tomorrow to my mother's house where my brother and sister-in-law will be. They will go back home to Carmel, IN tomorrow afternoon and then Mother and I will attend the band concert at the park. I haven't seen my brother since Keith's funeral last October and I'll be glad to see them.

I worked on getting the scrapbooking room cleared out and then organizing my supplies into my Original Scrapbox which is a 4' square that opens to 9' wide. It has over 100 drawers and cubbies to store supplies. I'm purging as I go and I'll have a huge garage sale of scrapbooking supplies only later this year.

Last Saturday I scrapped with the gang and I finished up two of the albums I started at CKU in Nashville in May. One was the Who's Who in My Life and the other was the small 6x6 album that had pages from each of the instructors. It was so much fun at CKU and I'm very disappointed they are not going to have them anymore. I know of no other event that has the caliber of teachers that CKU has always had.

In the cross stitching dept., I'm happy to report that Taylor's birth sampler is almost done. I really need to scan and post a picture of it. I'm hoping to have it finished in time for Taylor to go with me to pick out the frame for it. She is spending another week with me in a couple of weeks. I already have tickets for us to see Godspell at The Muny in St. Louis and to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL. She is so lonely and lost without Keith. My heart just aches for her when I see that sadness in her face.

Hard to believe it has been over a year since I last posted here. So much has happened. First, I retired the end of June. I'm really enjoying my time at home although I'm not getting much done. I find myself finding other things to do that are much more fun than cleaning and de-cluttering. Mike, Amy, Keith, and Taylor moved into their new home in September. It is such a beautiful place. Then came October 14, when I received the phone call no grandmother ever wants. My wonderful beautiful grandson collapsed at basketball practice and died of sudden cardiac arrest. He was only 13. There is such an empty hole in my life and I don't seem to find much joy in anything. I went Christmas shopping with my mother yesterday, and I kept seeing things that I would think, "Keith would like that." One of the reasons I retired when I did was to be able to get to KY more often to see Keith play basketball this year. A month ago I visited the gym where he died and where he would have played. It all still seems so unreal. I'm seeing a counselor and that is helping me to deal with my grief. It hurts so much to see my son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter hurting. They are so angry at the school for not buying AED's which would probably have saved his life because the autopsy report showed there was absolutely nothing wrong with his heart. Instead the district bought life insurance policies on the athletes. Dollars to pay for a life but not a single dollar to save a life. We took the matters into our own hands and raised over $25,000 to put AED's in every school in Grayson County, KY. We never want another parent or grandparent or other family member to go through what we went through.

I have neglected you terribly and will not go back to rehash all that has happened since June except to say I attended CKU in Nashville, TN and had a blast. I went by myself and roomed with a lady from Louisiana whom I had never met. We were so much alike it was unbelievable. We are both former English teachers, same age, no longer married, diabetic, nightowls, and on and on. We are talking about going to Provo next summer to CKU. I had an album class with Ali Edwards who is such a great person and then took classes editors of various magazines. It was a wonderful experience and I brought home a backseat full of free products. I hated the hotel, Opryland. It is a nightmare to navigate and super expensive by my standards.

This past weekend we celebrated my great-aunt Mabel's 100th birthday. There were over 120 of her nieces and nephews there and it was so much fun. I saw people I hadn't seen in over twenty years and probably never see again. All of her surviving nieces and nephews were there from all over the country. This is probably the last time these cousins will ever all be together. I just wish Aunt Mabel could hear and see better. If it wasn't for those problems, she would be in amazing condition.

Life continues to be good. It has now been 10 months since I had the back surgery and I now wonder why I put it off so long. I am now pain free except when I overdo or do things that would cause anyone's back to hurt. I haven't had a pain pill in months. Dr. Buchowski gave me my life back.

Next weekend is our annual stitch-in at Jeanne's in St. Louis. I haven't stitched in ages except when I have to wait for the car to be serviced. That gets done tomorrow so I'll get some stitching in for a change.

I promise not to wait so long to visit you again.

Well, it was bad news on the refinishing. There are so many pet stains that he said I would not be happy with the results as they are so deep they will remain very dark. So, I swallowed my disappointment and headed to Lowe's to look at new flooring. Since I don't plan on living here that much longer, I decided to go with Pergo laminate.

Next guy comes to measure for the Pergo. This is the installer who says, "You have quite a ridge that runs the full length of the hallway. I think you should call a foundation repair guy to have it checked out. Looks like the house has settled and it will affect the way I lay the laminate." Then he looks at me and asks if I'm going to take up the baseboard and move all the furniture out. Right, me, the dog, and the cat can do that in an instant. Guess it's time to call my sons again to come up and help dear old mom.

What started as a simple project that would cost around $2,000 is now turning into a monster that I have no idea what it will cost. Oh, I did decide to go ahead and have the laminate put into the kitchen as well.

On a good note, the bathroom and my bedroom are completely decluttered and cleaned. I like to just stand in the door and look. I did buy new curtains for the bedroom and changed the blind. I'm Goodwill's best donor right now. I don't go in the front door to buy, only drop off at the backdoor.