I am so glad it is Friday

It has been a heck of a week. I did get the eight drumhead cover tote bags sewn together last evening. I didn't bother turning them right side out. I can do that sitting at the merch booth when I have nothing to do.

I try and get my first 4300 - 4500 steps in before I work by walking the road at the office. A couple days it was just too humid and warm outside so I walk laps around the office. Last night this was the air quailty index

This is this morning's index. It was 63 out and humid so I walked my mile and got my 30 minutes of exercise inside this morning.

I am glad to be off for the next four days. I am not very happy at work. One of the PM's is all of a sudden in a big rush to get some jobs closed out so now they think it is only going to take 5 minutes to get this done. NOT! Then I was told I was going to another location and be on site for a big project. This is going to mess up things I already have scheduled. For this new project I have to be in a training session for SIX HOURS today! At least my zucchini plants greeted me this morning with some new blossoms.

Have a great 4th of July and I will catch up with you on the 5th. My big plans are to get the zucchini in the ground, work on the flooring and trim, and quilt on the Lorain t-shirt quilt.

What has been going on

Last night I pressed the tops of the drumhead tote bags so now I can sew those 8 bags together.

I haven't been sewing in the evenings as much because I am tired! I have been concentrating on getting in my steps everyday. I have been getting in my 30 minutes of walking before work despite the humidity and smoke from the Canadian wildfires. Here is a picture of the neighborhood last night showing how hazy it is. I stopped at the library on the way home and was shocked how the air smelled like burning wood.

That fellow at work cut my flooring for me so I can now finish up installing the trim in the living room over the 4th.

I was outside after work checking out my Shasta daisies. I thought I would post one more picture of them before they fade. The are already looking raggedy! A neighbor did stop me and went on and on how pretty my yard looks.

The coneflowers in the center bed are now blooming and the bed is finally getting filled in with daisies, California poppies, coneflowers, and lavender. I have some marigolds coming up too and the black-eyed Susans are coming along.

My red pepper plant has some blooms on it. Maybe I will get a couple peppers.

Now for the cornhole tournament report. My partner bought us wrist and headbands to wear so we looked the part of serious competitors. We were in the first round and got skunked 11-0. Our performance was pathetic, but everyone gave us kudos for our wardrobe efforts! LOL!!! It was a fun day and the competition was fierce. There are some really good cornhole players where I work! The marketing guys ended up winning. We had a bar-b-que for lunch. Here is my partner before the competition.

Laying out wood cuts and cornhole bean bags

One of the fellows at work has a table saw and he said he would trim up some oak flooring for me so I can finish installing the baseboard in the living room and bedroom. Here is the square of flooring I had bought a little while ago

Here is an example of my problem. When I put the baseboard in place, there is a gap between the floor and the trim. There used to be shoe mold that covered the gap, but I don't want to install shoe mold because I don't care for it.

I went around the house and found all the spots I need just a bit of flooring to fill in the gaps. I took the bundle of flooring apart and drew the layout lines how I needed the flooring cut to fill in the gaps. Here are the pieces all marked.

Tomorrow at work we are having our 4th of July Bash. Part of the celebration is a cornhole tournament. I thought my teammate and I should practice so I made some bean bags for us to toss at lunchtime once I layout the spacing for the court.

My other two zucchini plants that are still in their pots are flowering like crazy! It is raining again right now, but this afternoon the rain goes away so maybe I can get the zucchini in the ground tonight. We have received .45" of rain in the last 24 hours which is great. The next chance of rain is Saturday.

I did what I could

I was tired and not feeling well from Wednesday thru Saturday last week. I don't know what was causing me to feel so bad, but by Sunday I was finally feeling better. Friday I went to the neighbor's house and watched John Wick Chapter 4. I have to see the movie again. There were so many new characters that I need to see it again to put some of the pieces of the story line together. Let's just say there were a lot of long fight sequences! Saturday I was up to greet the tree guys at 8 a.m. The first truck pulled in

Then the second truck

Then the chipper backed up into position

The second truck trimmed the arborvitae

While the first truck cut back the stuff that was close to the garage. They had everything cleaned up and were gone in an hour. All those trees are the neighbor's and overhang on my property. The squirrels will not be able to use the trees to get on my roof now.

Again, I wasn't feeling good so I would work on project bags and then rest on and off all day. I got a bunch of vinyl cut for more bags. I have to still cut the fabric for these future bags.

I have the zippers and vinyl fronts ready for 10 more bags.

On Sunday I got 8 project bags completed. I have a girlfriend that wants to buy some from me so I am making a bunch for her to pick from and I can always used the leftovers.

I then turned my attention to tote bags. The room where I have been keeping extra projects in progress, well, the room was a mess. So as I straightened up the parts for tote bags, pulling out the handles I wanted to work on, I straightened out the room. I have two twin beds in there so organized everything I had piled on to of the beds - finished quilts, more fabric for tote bags, batting scraps, alterations, and assorted other projects that need done. I did pull out the handles for the bigger tote bags for drumheads and decided to press and sew those. I don't like the fabric at all, but it was free so I made myself get the handles done. Now that the worst of the job is over, I can start putting together the bags. I did not get to quilting on the Lorain quilt.

Early Sunday morning I saw the twins in the backyard. I haven't seen them for two weeks.

The Shasta daisies are blooming out front. 

The smaller coneflower plants that I bought about a month ago are starting to bloom.

The three bigger conflower plants I bought and planted at the same time are growing, but have not sent up any flowers yet.

Thank goodness it is the weekend

I'm tired. I have been averaging 10,000 steps a day and I'm tired! The only thing managed to do was to get outside and water the plants last evening. There was a possibility of rain, but I couldn't let them go two days without me watering them. So far today we have gotten .1" of rain and clearly that won't do much. I did find a piece of wire mesh and wrapped it around the zucchini to keep the deer from eating any more leaves.

I was talking to a woman at work about my Lenten Roses yesterday and she was interested. Her and her husband built a house so this will be the second summer they are working on the landscaping. I went ahead and dug up a plant for her. She had a place that is shady she can plant it. This way she can live with it and decide if she wants any more.

My plans for the weekend are tonight to go over to a neighbor who has a streaming service so we are going to watch John Wick Chapter 4. I am excited to finally see it. Last time I was able to check where I was in line to borrow it from the library, I was number 129. I haven't been able to look to see if they finally received the 12 copies of JW Chapter 4 so they can start lending them out because the library got hit with a Ramsonware hack. The library is still running and you can check out material, I just can't get into my account online yet. Saturday morning the tree service is coming to cut back the neighbor's trees that are overhanging my yard. It is to the point where the squirrels can jump on the roof.

The rest of the weekend I plan quilting on the Lorain t-shirt quilt, getting a few project bags made, and getting some tote bags made. The next show for the band isn't for a couple weeks, but we have five shows the second half of July and seven in August. Between all that I will try to get some rest. Have a great weekend!

Busy day

i didn't have time to do any quilting. I had thawed out some ground chuck for meatballs and baked them last evening. This will be meals for several days. While the meatballs were baking I did dishes.

I have been walking in the morning before work instead of cross stitching; I would rather cross stitch! I can't walk at lunchtime because it's too hot and the UV rays are at their peak. I do try and get some cross stitching done at lunch now. I am working on this sweet little sampler. Who knows where I got the picture, but I am stitching it from the picture.

I am not obessessive that what I stitch is exactly like the original since I always add my own bit to each piece anyway. It is a fun little stitch so far.

After 37 minutes on the indoor bike to get my activity calories in for the day, I was done so I didn't water. The flowers and plants will just have to survive until tonight and I will give me a drink.

Pin basting done, more fencing needed

Fianlly the Lorain t-shirt quit is pin basted.

One of the zucchini plants that is still in the pot has a fruit forming! I need to get it planted.

This morning I check the other zucchini that is in the ground and something came along last night and ate two of the bigger leaves. Ugh! I guess I will have to put up a fence around it. Damn deer!

One coneflower has bloomed. There are many more to come.

I didn't get much of anything else done last evening since I had to spend 32 minutes on the indoor bike getting the rest of my activity calories for the day. I was already tired so it took every ounce of energy to get that done and the plants watered.

Pin-basting almost done, cross stitch finish, and zucchini

I am almost done with pin basting the t-shirt quilt. Interruptions and watering the plants got in the way of me finishing. I have circled the area that still needs pin basted.

I did finally get this small cross stitch piece done. This was suppose to be for me, but a girlfriend saw it and she said she would like to make it into a little pillow small and give it to a friend. I needed to change the bunny to a cat. Really? I went on the hunt for a cat. So now I can give this to her to finish. Now I have to decide if I want to stitch it again for me.

I saw last evening that one of my zucchini had a blossom on it and this morning the blossom opened! I have to get this in the ground before a zucchini starts to form. The poor thing is root bound.

T-shirt quilt progress, gardening, and a visitor

It took a lot of messing around to get the last border the right length and width, but after a couple hours it was finally right. I added it on, got the backing ready, and by Sunday afternoon the quilt was almost half pin basted. It is measuring 72" by 95".

I spent 3 hours Sunday morning clearing out weeds. The bed next to the front of the house only had a few. It looks like the marigold seeds I threw down a couple of weeks ago are finally coming up. I decided to plant my jalapeno in this bed. It has been sitting outside on top of the garbage bin and the deer have not touched it so I am going to live on the edge and plant it without any fencing. It will get plenty of sunshine and it looks like the buds are already forming for the peppers. This is my first go at growing jalapenos.

I then went after the weeds in the center bed. The was mostly clover that needed pulled out. I got the garden rake and pulled out a lot of leaf debris from the bulbs that had died back and used my nifty new triangle garden hoe to get any weeds out from under the mugo pine.

I bought that hoe from ProHoe instead of the other place I had bought my other new hoe from. ProHoe's shipping was only $18, which was a lot less than what I paid for the other hoe's shipping. I bought the OOG Rogue model with the 54" handle. I kind of wish I had gone with the 60" handle. After gathering two 5 gallon buckets of weeds and stuff, the center bed was looking better.

The coneflowers in this bed are getting ready to bloom

The area on the opposite side where I had removed the day lilies is now showing signs of life with the California Poppies I planted

and the Black-eyed Susans are starting to show themselves!

I had just enough space to plant one of my zucchini plants. The three zucchini plants I have are still on top of the garbage bin and the deer have not touched them so I threw one in the ground. Let's see how it does.

Saturday morning I was in the sewing studio and look who came to visit. He stood there for a  minute or two.

I don't see that many bucks; they usually stay in the woods so I was real surprised to see him. This morning before I left for work I looked along the side of the house to see if there were any chipmunks in the traps and saw a doe. I didn't see any fawn.