One busy three days!!

I took a half day's vacation on Friday to get some errands done and just to get out of this place. 130 miles later I had gone to the bulk food store in Sugarcreek, the courthouse in New Philadelphia, Miller's Creamery in Dover, and Marc's in North Canton. The caramel corn that they make at Miller's is so good and was for a Christmas present for a lady at work.

Saturday I got to Earth Fare at a little before 7 a.m. for their grand reopening and scored a five dollar gift card. I could not believe how many people were there at 7 in the morning! Next I went to breakfast with an x-cousin. Here is the French toast bananas foster that the ladies beside us had (the tables were very close together so you were very friendly with them),

my x-cousin got this quiche that had cranberries and walnuts

I had bacon and cage free eggs with the biggest croissant I have ever seen! The croissant was heavenly! I took the croissant home and put it on my palm so you could get an idea of how big it was.

Next stop was an Italian grocery store that I had never been in. I needed a wavy pastry wheel so I can cut apart my ravioli that I am making for Christmas. The smell in the store was incredible! They had a frozen section of all kinds of things, the most heavenly smelling hot out of the oven bread, and loads of different brands of pasta. Of course they had all kinds of cheeses, a huge deli counter, and homemade deserts individually package to grab for lunch. I will be shopping there in the future!

I got home just in time to head out again to help my nephew hang some wallpaper in a recording studio he is building for a fellow. Michael wanted to break up the walls between the sconces so we added the wallpaper panels and then after the walls are painted, my brother and Michael will frame the wallpaper panels with wood. I didn't get home until 7 p.m. and I was tired.

Michael gave me this lovely box of flavored green teas for helping him out. He is such a thoughtful guy!

Sunday included four loads of laundry, wrapping one more Christmas package (yes I thought I was done too! LOL!!) and addressing Christmas cards.

I also managed to finally get the secret project pin basted!!!!! I can finally start to get it quilted! Here is the back.

Before I left the house this morning I was thinking if there was a way to cook butternut squash in a crock pot. I googled Crock pot butternut squash and found direction on how to cook a butternut squash in a crock pot. You put the whole squash in the crock pot and turn it on. Mindblowing!! LOL!!! Low will take 6 to 8 hours, high about 4 hours. I put mine on low. I can't wait to see how this works.

This morning I had to move my desk again for the flooring guy. I went from here

to a restroom that the fixtures have not been installed yet.

My fridge and microwave are sitting in the corridor just outside the room because there is not enough room in this restroom for them. Thursday I will haul my file cabinet home and the Friday I have to move out to the home office. I will have to store the table, fridge and microwave in my garage too.

I have to take tomorrow off because the tree guys are coming to cut down a huge pine tree that the raccoons use to get on the roof. I will be glad to get that done. Have a great day!

Yeah it is Friday.

It has been a long and stressful week at work. I was told I have to move my office from the job site to the home office 15 miles away. I don't like working out of the home office, but there is only enough room in a tiny space for the superintendents - well, at least that is the story I am getting. Right now I plan on moving next Thursday and Friday unless the project manager tells me different. So here is a shot out my current window on the second floor.

I am taking vacation time today to get some errands done. As soon as I get home I am going to focus on getting some sewing done. Have a great weekend.

What's the deal?

I did get my leaf blower put together - it took all of 1 minute LOL!! I tried it out and it has a lot of power! It almost knocked me off my feet! The air blowing is adjustable, but when I have it on full blast I almost have to hang on to it with both hands. Right now it is just sitting on the garage floor so I will have to find a place to keep it. I wish I would have bought one years ago.

We got a dusting of snow last night. It must have been very wet because some of my ornamental grass was bent over with the weight on the frons.

Lately I have been lacking motivation to get anything done. What is the deal with that? I don't know why. Maybe I will try making a list of three little things to get done each day and maybe that will snowball into getting more done. I looked at my list of things to do around the house - I have a white board with the list by room of what needs to be completed - and the list is quite long! It will never get done if I don't work on it! I also pulled out my UFO list to report on Vicki's blog Colorways by Vicki Welsh my progress on my UFO list and that was just plain sad! LOL!!! Nothing much knocked off the list for this year. I need to get my act together.

Scarf is done ... again

I spent a lot of down time knitting this weekend. I finally knitted the last 13 3/4 inches and now the gray scarf has been re-knitted and is ready for winter.

Saturday I met family at a place called A-1 Japan; it is a hibachi restaurant. It is always a lot of fun. We were seated with a group of women celebrating one of their birthdays so our chef was cooking for 10. The food was so good as usual. Yes, there were lots of flames. No one was injured in the cooking of the food. LOL!!!

When you have a birthday you can buy this desert of ice cream and a brownie that is served on a spinning lotus flower that has sparklers. Also they play music and this person with a mouse head comes out and beats on a drum. It is quite odd, but people go there just to celebrate their birthdays because of this.

Before dinner I stopped across the street at the new Marc's store - it is a grocery store - and picked up a few things. My sister in Georgia had told me about a new Mike's flavor - Tangerine - and they had some! It is quite tasty!

The rest of the weekend I spend doing the usual jobs - laundry and dishes.

I am so glad it's Friday

It has been a long week. I did get more t-shirts hung up on the design wall and here is what it looks like right now.

I still have a few more I have to work in somewhere. I don't want to put them on the back. I think once I start sewing them together I will be able to work a few more in. This is going to be a big quilt!

My Christmas present to myself came. I will put this leaf blower to good use and save my shoulders which always end up sore after raking. I think it will be too wet this weekend to try it out.

Have a great weekend!

Next project

Although I am not done with the project I can't show you, I am already working on the next project. I had taken it off the design wall to work on the secret project so it is going back up! It is a t-shirt quilt for my nephew's cousin. The t-shirts are all cut up and interfaced so I am now arranging them. Here is what I have so far.

I still have a pile of them to figure out where and how I am going to incorporate them all!

I received a box yesterday with two more Christmas presents. This is the last of them except for a bottle of wine I need to get. Wrapped!

I watched my neighbor's house when they were out of town over Thanksgiving so they are watching when boxes arrive at my house this week and sticking them in the garage. We have never had problems of thieves taking packages, but I have several coming this week so I don't want to take a chance. Besides, this will make feel better that we are watching out for each other.

Relaxing, sewing, knitting, yard work, shopping

It was a busy four days! Of course Thursday was all about relaxing and talking to family. I finally got the top done for the project I can't show you. Yeah!! I got the backing sewn together, the batting cut, and cut out the binding. I will work on putting the layers together after work this week.

I had to take my car in for a recall repair. The dealership is across the street from a Home Depot so instead of just sitting, I went over to the HD got some steps in and picked up another item on my Christmas list. I still had a bit of time when I got back to the dealership so I got some knitting done on this scarf and later on while I watched TV - almost 4 inches.

Friday I started with the yard work despite the fact that it had rained and was still misty at times. I spent four and a half hours mowing, raking, trimming, and placing rocks. Saturday I worked in the yard another 4 1/2 hours and on Sunday 1 1/2 hours. I hauled 19 loads of sweet peat mulch up the hill from the backyard where I had stored it under a tarp

to the front center flower bed and for around the zebra grass.

Here is what the edging looked like before I finished ripping out the old plastic edging and placing the rocks.

Here you can see the contrast of the rich, dark mulch against the dirt. I had set the lavender plants high so that I could mulch them heavily so I needed to get them mulched before the ground froze.

And here is the center bed all done! I did have a big Shasta daisy plant that I split up to fill in the area around the Mugo pine. I should have lots of pretty white flowers next year!

I covered most of this bed with the black plastic I had on the mulch pile. The plastic will help kill the weeds over the winter. This bed has been a complete mess for years so it is time to clean it up.

As I hauled mulch from the back to the front, the deer were watching me.

Most of my shopping is being done online. It is great not having to deal with crowds! I got everything wrapped I have bought so far. I have a couple things still coming and I have to go get a bottle of wine, then I am done!

I did do some shopping for myself and I am very excited about one purchase. I will show it to you once it arrives.