Month: October 2023

Tiny Needle Tuesday · What's For Dinner?

Trick or Treat!

Vicki4 Comments

The big question is… will we have any Trick-or-Treaters this year? It’s always a crap shoot — there have been years with ZERO, sometimes ONE, and a few times when there have been so many that we’ve completely run out of candy! It’s snowing today, so that’ll probably be a factor…

My weekend was pretty good — relaxing and not too taxing, other than a couple of Airbnb chores. It was a soup-making, muffin-baking type of weekend. Kate & I have a shared collection of saved recipes on IG, along with DM shares, and decided it was finally time to start trying them! This Sweet Potato Chowder was absolutely amazing! We had leftovers last night — with added kale. Definitely a keeper. We also made some shrimp quesadillas (mixed reviews) and a nice mushroom & leek frittata (which was also yesterday’s lunch).

How about a stitching update?

That leafy background is now white with snow.

The witches & squirrels are finished, and I’m just about half-way.

I finished the border last night, and stitched a few more branches, leaves, and acorn parts — there’s a little ways to go, as you can see.

Uncategorized

October…

Vicki2 Comments

I know you’re not over yet, but where did you go?!! Will we warp speed through winter?

The kids came over after school on Wednesday while Ali & Rod got some things done.

Ginny has lost another tooth — you can barely see the new one coming through.

I stopped at Target on the way home from a dentist appointment on Wednesday and found a couple of autumn wreath kits on clearance for $3 (originally $10!), so picked up a couple. I assisted Malina & Kate helped Ginny, and they’re adorable… they won’t hold up for more than a season, but I’m thinking that those wooden beads could be reclaimed for another project. We sent one home with Ali and I kept one for myself.

It’s been rainy & dreary all week, so I’m looking forward to some sunshine peeking through over the weekend. Tomorrow, anyway… and next week, but it’s going to be a lot chillier.

Have a great weekend!

Tiny Needle Tuesday

Half a Tree

Vicki4 Comments

There must have been some kind of cosmic tiny needle balancing last week as Vera didn’t do any stitching and that’s almost all I did (until I hit the roadblock on Saturday).

The next motif to be worked will be the dancing witch & squirrel to the left of the tree. I can’t wait!

I woke up to a thunderstorm early this morning — hard rain, thunder, and so much lightning! It hailed a couple of times, too, though I couldn’t see it because it was still so dark. Naturally, it’s garbage and recycling day so I had to drag two bins to the street in the rain. bleh.

6:00 am

The rain is all in the northern part of lower Michigan now and the rest of our day looks pretty nice — clouds, sunshine, 73F — with rain likely returning this evening.

Uncategorized · Weekending

Weekending

Vicki3 Comments

Well, I intended to do some cross stitching during laundry time at Ann’s on Saturday but I forgot one crucial item — the color/symbol key. I did a quick online search for it, which I figured would be futile… and it was. I had scanned & downloaded a PDF of the chart to use in KnitCompanion but not the color key (mostly because that’s the one part of the pattern that the previous owner marked up). I have remedied my mistake by taking a photo of the most pertinent parts of the key (which excludes most of the markup) and now I’ll have it forever.

Luckily, I hedged my bets and brought knitting, too! I made great progress on Ali’s blanket panel.

This photo was taken on October 11th.
This is 10 days later but, really, only one day’s worth of knitting (because of stitching).

It was the PERFECT day for laundry & stitching because it was chilly & raining all day. I made a couple of mugs of hot tea, and had soup for lunch. It’s that time of year.

The colors are amazing this year! This one of the maples that Rusty planted (as tiny little sticks) in our ravine a few years ago — photos don’t do justice, but it’s just gorgeous and when the sun is shining (like it was yesterday)? Glorious!

Grocery shopping, a stroll over to Ann’s to make beds (with the freshly laundered sheets), laundry at my house, a football game, more knitting… it was a great Sunday, except for the Packers’ loss.

I hope you had a great weekend, too!

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Down under

Vicki5 Comments

He made it!

Maddy said that she chatted with the pilots while Rusty was still going through security and told them THANKS for flying him over! haha. I bet he’s sleeping well tonight… or tomorrow night… or whatever night it is down there.

Kate will return this afternoon from her road trip and she’s so excited to drive right up the street and into the driveway! They’ve finally started to clean up & fill in the terrace. Not sure what the end game is… just hoping it’s not a muddy mess waiting to happen come spring.

I’ll be spending a little time doing laundry this weekend. We had such a quick turnover at Ann’s earlier this week that I didn’t get all the laundry done (I stashed it in the basement)! Thankfully, I had just purchased a couple extra sets of sheets — for just this type of circumstance — but now there’s quite a bit to launder, like double. I’ll probably stop on the way home today to get started.

There’s a pop-up flea market downtown tomorrow that I want to check out — so it’s not all work!

What’s up with you? Any weekend plans?