A finish and some flowers

 I have finished the Bobble Baby Blanket! Isn't it pretty? 

I am so glad that I purchased this yarn and decided to make this blanket on a whim. No, there is nobody expecting in my family. I have decided to keep this blanket to either save for one of my own future grandchildren or give to a little one I meet along the way or eventually donate. For now it is residing in a closet with the Butterfly Baby blanket.

I have already begun another crocheted baby blanket. I made this about 16 years ago for a friend's baby and vowed I would make one for a future grandchild. Again there isn't one on the way yet. I want to be prepared.

Isn't that elephant so adorable? 

I also planted the flowers for my front porch pots. I had thought I would change things up this year, but I returned to my tried and true geraniums and sweet potato vine. I do think that they look pretty. I have plenty more plants to pot today. Yesterday was spent washing the windows in my living room.

I also planted the pots on Mom's front stoop. These were her Mother's day gift from me. 

I just have to show you the beautiful japanese azalea that my mom has.

My hyacinth were so pretty a couple of weeks ago. 

My azaleas are blooming also.

Still waiting for the coral colored one to come into full bloom, but the lavender and the pink are putting on a show though.

I added many stitches to Santa. 

I have been working on the red and some pale blue in the hat's trim. I am really enjoying adding stitches to this.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site and see what other bloggers are stitching. Today I will be planting my pots, but I hope to stop and add more Santa stitches this afternoon.

Thanks for stopping by!

When it Rains

 Happy Mother's Day! 

I am so happy that our son is visiting us this weekend. He actually planned this visit not only for Mother's Day, but to give me a hand as Hubby had hernia surgery on Thursday. Hubby came through the surgery wonderfully and was feeling great all the rest of the day Thursday and most of Friday. He was walking around just fine and having no trouble getting up and down from the couch or even walking up and down the stairs to our second floor. I was even able to leave him for a half hour each day to take a quick visit to mom. Then the nerve block that was used wore off Friday evening and the pain and discomfort began in earnest on Saturday. Thankfully our son drove up yesterday morning so I have some help. He or I can help out my mom or Hubby's mom if necessary. Mother's Day will be quite low key today. 

Now for the 2nd story about Thursday. Hubby is showering to get ready for his 7:45 am surgery appointment. I had just finished showering and was on the first floor gathering a water bottle and the newspaper. I hear a "click, click, click" which turned out to be a "drip, drip, drip" of water from the top of the window in the downstairs bathroom to the bottom. Now this window is directly below the shower in our bathroom and there was a puddle forming. Needless to say there wasn't much I could do except dry up the puddle and leave a towel on the windowsill at the time. This did manage to distract Hubby from some of the anxiety he was feeling about the surgery though. After a plumber's visit on Friday, it turns out that the drain pipe has dislodged (I thought the problem had to do with the water regulator as I now have to turn the handle all the way up to get hot water. I was worried that the tiles that we recently - two weeks ago - had regrouted would now have to be busted up.) The plumber will hopefully be able to fix the drain pipe this coming week from the outside of the house through the overhang. He will also be changing the regulator for the hot water....no tile busting needed. 

Now about the 2nd story about our son's visit. Unfortunately his car was rear-ended in traffic on a local parkway in Brooklyn about 30 miles from home. The damage isn't much thankfully and our son wasn't at all injured. The car that hit him wasn't registered. On a better note, my son gave me this beautiful hanging basket of flowers for Mother's Day. 

On Friday, the deck guys came to replace some boards and part of the railing cap as well as seal the deck against water. All of our patio furniture as well as our grill are currently on our back lawn.

Speaking of the back lawn...a bunny decided last Sunday to start burrowing to make a nest right in the middle of it. Now this must be a first time mother bunny as our back lawn is right out in the open. Needless to say, after checking the area for possible babies, we discouraged Miss Bunny from continuing her burrowing by covering the area with an overturned garbage pail. We saw her hopping around the yard later this week. Hopefully she found a more suitable place for her nest. 

On Tuesday I realized that the air-conditioning in my car wasn't working. Hubby had noticed a leak under my car when it was parked in the driveway that we knew wasn't oil. My car went in for repair on Wednesday and is all fixed now. It is 15 years old and I think it is getting to be time for a new one. I had the same air-conditioning problem last summer.

So you can see, the past week has been a case of "When it rains, it pours".

Despite all that going on this past week, I did manage to get a bunch of stitching in on my secret project. Here is a little peek. 

I am filling in the half-cross stitch background on the upper half of this piece. Once these stitches are completed the upper half will be complete except for backstitching which I will leave until the end. I am making steady progress, but I can't work on this over the weekend while my son is here.

That means Santa will be getting all the attention for the next few days. I really enjoy working on Santa, because I get to stitch large swaths of one color each time. 

I added some stitches to his hat since my last update.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I will be taking care of Hubby, visiting with our son, stitching Santa and maybe planting some flowers. That is for another post.

Thanks for stopping by! 

New SAL project

Three Boats has been put aside for now as I realize that I just can't juggle working on 3 different cross-stitch projects especially when 2 of them are time sensitive. That being said, I will now be sharing my Santa Christmas stocking for my Stitch-along updates as the other project is my secret stitching. I will return to posting Three Boats updates once Sant is finished.

 I have been steadily working on this stocking to have ready for my son-in-law for this Christmas. The last time I shared this piece on my blog, I had finished filling in Santa's face. 

As I have mentioned previously, I am not filling in any of the white stitching until most other colors are completed as I want it to stay as clean as possible. I wash my hands before I stitch on Santa, but the white can still get dirty from handling. Currently I am working on a small part of Santa's hat. It is nice to add some more colors.

A happy cheer for the fact that my son received his second vaccine yesterday! Now only my daughter and son-in-law are waiting on their second which they will get in about 2 weeks. My son will probably be visiting next weekend for Mother's day and to give me a little help as Hubby is having hernia surgery this Thursday. 

Thanks so much to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other talented bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. You will see a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, 

Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

 Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, 

Daisy, Anne, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, 

Linda, Helen  

Thanks for stopping by! 

I've been bestowed "Outstanding Blogger Award"

 My dear blogging friend Kathi of Design Orginals by KC has bestowed on me and a few other bloggers an "Outstanding Blogger Award". I am humbled that she enjoys visiting my little blog each week. I always visit hers each week also. 

The goal of this award is to get to know each other better, not really to tout the award. Here are the questions with my answers that Kathi asked of each of her nominees:

What is your favorite color/what color do you have the most of in your craft area?

I would have to say that I like all colors. Usually my answer is purple, but I rarely make any crafts with that color. I would say that I love blue. My bedroom and kitchen are blue, but my living and dining rooms are red with green. Go figure. I really like almost any color. 

What is your favorite time of day to craft and what craft do you choose first?

I will craft any time of the day, but I mostly craft in the afternoon after work. When I am on school vacations, I try to get an early morning start on my crafting so that I can work on more than one project per day. I most likely choose to cross-stitch. 

What is your favorite season outside and why?

I think my favorite season is Spring as I get to plant all my flower pots and it becomes warm enough to sit on my front porch and craft or read.

What type of crafter do you wish you had more of in you? (Ex: I wish I could applique better)

 I would love to be able to knit sweaters that truly fit and are to gauge. I would like to have the time to make more quilts.  

There are several bloggers whose content I enjoy each and every week. I will bestow the "Outstanding Blogger Award" to the following:

Karen at Pumpkin Sunrise

Diann at Little Penguin Quilts

Renee at Hand Stitched Treasure

Jocelyn at Canadian Needle Nana

I would like them to answer the following questions:

Do you do anything else while crafting? (i.e. listen to music or a book, watch TV, etc.)

Do you prefer crafting alone, with a friend or in a group?

Beach, lake, mountains? What would be your preferred place to vacation/visit? 

What is your favorite genre of music?

Okay ladies, I hope you accept your award and bestow it on others to allow all of us to learn about each other and discover "new to us" blogs.

Thanks for stopping by!

Progress

I have finished filling in Santa's face and have not started adding a pale blue to the pom-pom of his hat. 

I have also added some stitches to the Secret Stitching. A few more leaves and flowers.

I have decided that the Bobble Baby blanket is the size that I want and I have started working on the border. This is a close-up of the border with lots of bobbles.

Here is the whole blanket.

I am hoping life is going to be a little easier. As of this past Thursday, Mom has a full-time live in aide. There will actually be two aides, one every other week. I no longer have to sleep at Mom's house at night. I will still have to portion out her medicines and make freezer meals to have on hand. Mom is a picky eater and doesn't like what the aide cooks, so I try to have items in the freezer that just need to be heated. Heck, sometimes she doesn't even like what I cook and most of what I make for her I learned from her. 

Hubby and I were able to enjoy a day out yesterday. We visited the Bayard Cutting Arboretum. It has a small parking lot, so there weren't a massive amount of people walking around.

These gorgeous bright red rhododendrons were the first flowers we saw. Isn't that color beautiful.

There is a very scenic river walk that we enjoyed immensely.

I don't know what type of flower this is below, but it was very pretty.

I was amazed at the way the roots of the trees pushed up and out of the ground near the river.

This is one very large evergreen. There were people walking on the other side of it when I took this photo, but you can't see them at all.

Below are some beautiful japanese azaleas.

There was a Holly Walk. Only one bush had any berries on it.

There were a few ponds on the Rhododendon Walk.

The view in the opposite direction. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. It is a miserable rainy day here so I am going to make a cup of Irish Breakfast tea and scroll through some of the blogs, then I will add some stitches to my secret stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lots of stitching

I am not exactly sure why there were some slow days at work and after work, but they did allow me to get a whole lot of stitching completed on Santa and a little bit on the secret stitching.

Santa's face is filling out. I just have to keep stitching the pale peach color. 

He even has eyes now. Do you see him winking at you?

The secret stitching had some more green leaves added as well as some pale blue and white flowers that are somewhat difficult to see and not evident in this photo.

They will come alive when the outlining is completed. 

These pretty pink flowers in front of my house have bloomed.

They are a welcoming sight when entering the house.

There may be a light at the end of the tunnel in my quest to find my mother 24/7 care. I will update you next week as that care is supposed to hopefully start on Thursday. Fingers crossed. There have been a whole lot of phone calls and virtual assessments happening this past week.

To put a smile on everyone's face, I was placing an yard ornament and turned around to see these two bunnies facing off.

I quickly took a picture and then eased my way toward the fence that is too the left so that I could go up those stairs that you see and back into my house.

I got to take a couple more photos of them.

Aren't they cute?

 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Grab a cup of tea or coffee and pop on over the her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I think I will work some more on my secret stitching or Three Boats. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Stitch Along Update

Once again, I can't believe how quickly three weeks have passed by! I can't say that I have spent much time at all on Three Boats. I am trying to put as many stitches as possible on the Santa Stocking and the secret stitching. Here is where Three Boats was at the last update.

At least this time, it is easy to see the progress that I have made over three weeks.

Along with adding some stitches to Three Boats yesterday, I decided to treat my mother (and me) to my grandmother's sour cream coffee cake.

Just smelling this baking brought back so many childhood memories. It tastes so delicious too. Here is the recipe in my mother's handwriting.

Mom stated that she grinds the walnuts for the topping, but I just chopped them. Mom actually told me that she liked that better when she had a piece yesterday.

Speaking of mom, she is doing okay now that she has been home a while. Despite being approved for 24/7 care from Medicaid, we are still paying for 12 hours of care a day and I am still staying overnight as, so far, none of the local approved home care agencies has anyone available for 24/7.  I have been told that they can't provide services for anything less than what has been prescribed. That just doesn't seem right. I am so tired and frustrated. 

A big thank you to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea, maybe a piece of coffee cake, and take some time to visit the other talented bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. You will see a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, 

Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

 Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, 

Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, 

Linda, Helen  

Thanks for stopping by!