How fast time passes

My son turned 30 last week. How did that happen? 

Wasn't he an adorable baby?

Here he is this past Thursday when we treated him to tickets to a Billy Joel concert at Madison Square Garden in NY. He has always loved Billy Joel's music even though the hits occurred way before he was born. He was so excited to be there.

We made it a celebration for all of us. We all know many of Billy Joel's songs. I think it is a Long Island thing.

We went to dinner at Casa Nonna. This was a restaurant that we hadn't been to before and we loved it. Good food and great cocktails.

I finally cut out all of the heart shaped plastic canvas for my coasters. I had to enlarge the pattern as it made really small coasters. As it is they will still be somewhat small. I searched through my yarn scraps to find a bunch of different colors. There is a yellow somewhere too. It is a great way to use them up.

 I started with the mint green. Not much progress yet.

 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. I hope to finish this heart and maybe one more today. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are up to.

Finally, I will leave you with a picture of my daughter's puppy, Ruby, from Christmas. 

She is so adorable.

Thanks for stopping by!

Valentines' crafting

I am trying to find crafts that I can work on that I can share with everyone. 

I was looking through my old Crafting Traditions magazines and came across these coasters that I have been wanting to make. I am hoping that I can work on plastic canvas fairly pain free. I have loads of yarn so I only had to purchase the plastic canvas.

It turns out that these coasters are quite small, so took out my graph paper and enlarged the pattern. I may not have enough plastic canvas to make eight coasters now, but I will make as many as I can cut out until I get some more plastic canvas.

I also made some other craft purchases as well. 

I needed two DMC floss colors that my local ACMoore has been out of for a while. I bought a needle minder, a glove to massage my hand (I figured I would try it) and a magnifier so I can work on 28 count linen. I have a project in the works that I keep making mistakes on, because I just can't see the threads. I hope this helps.

I have been adding one or two rows per day to my infinity scarf.

The lace weight yarn makes the progress look even slower, but I am loving the look of this light-weight scarf. I expect I won't get to use it this year, but that's okay.

Yesterday, I busied myself making Individual Chicken Pot Pies that can be frozen from America's Test Kitchen. They were somewhat involved for someone who really would rather bake than cook, but the filling is tasty and they look pretty good if I do say so myself.

Here they are all ready to be wrapped and frozen.

I am trying to find as many different recipes for one or two that can be frozen as my 91 year old mom doesn't really like to cook for herself anymore and therefore doesn't always eat well. These have to go into the oven for over an hour, but really that is all that needs to be done. The recipe makes 6 pies, so this time I am keeping two for Hubby and me, two will go to mom and two will go to my MIL. 

Today I will make a Beef Barley soup that Hubby and I like. I planned all this cooking in anticipation of the predicted snow storm, but thankfully all we will have is a whole lot of rain.

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 working on my secret cross-stitching as well as my coasters. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Snowpeople and baking

When I was putting away all of my Christmas decorations I decided to leave my snowpeople collection out for the month of January.

As you can see, I have quite a few snow people. There is even another snow-couple that was already packed up when I decided to display these, as well as two snowman candles. I didn't intentionally try to have a collection. It all started with the four little guys up front and the one with the plaid scarf. There was a vendor at a local Christmas craft fair that made these snowmen and I would buy just one each year. That wood-worker stopped selling them and I just started finding others that I liked. 

This year my son gave me this cute little couple.

It is supposed to be a tree ornament, but it is much too heavy to hang on our real tree and is the perfect size to blend in with my other snow-people. I love it.

I know that many of you are dealing with quite a bad snowstorm today. We are lucky here on Long Island that it is passing south of us. Not that I wouldn't enjoy a snow day off from school, but I really don't want to have to shovel. Hubby did get our snow-blower fixed last week though as the threat of a storm was there. It stopped working at the end of last winter. I hope everyone stays safe, warm and dry.

It is very cold here today though and that prompted me to make some Cranberry Nut Muffins from a Taste of Home magazine from many years ago. I have many past magazines that I want to make recipes from, so I hunted through them this morning.

They are quite tasty with a cup of Stash Irish Breakfast tea.

That is all for now. There are no stitching updates at the moment. 

Thanks for stopping by!

One row a day

I am trying to crochet one row a day on my lacy infinity scarf. It is working right now. 

I complete my hand exercises immediately afterward in the hope of preventing any further pain. 

I have also started stitching my secret cross-stitch. This is the one and only picture you will see of it until it is completed and gifted. 

I have the piece on a double hoop that sits on my lap so that I can stitch with my left hand only. It is a slow process that way, but it too is working right now.

I am hoping to make some progress on this later today. My son is visiting again this weekend so I will work on in after dinner most likely. 

We took our Christmas tree down yesterday so that it can go out for recycling tonight. I also packed up some of my son's ornaments that he can take to put on his own tree next year. I am doing the same with some of my daughter's ornaments also. I will slowly take down the rest of the decorations over the next week after work. 

Speaking of Christmas, I realize that I never shared any photos from that time. Here is my daughter and her puppy, Ruby. 

Ruby settled in to our home just fine. Isn't she adorable.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy New Year!

Wishing all of my readers a Happy and Healthy 2019!