One Creative Family

Well I have been working on Lexie’s quilt for Christmas. She loves wolves and the outdoor. She is hoping to be able to transfer to Colorado in the next few years and then volunteer at a Wolf Sanctuary.

The center square on each block are wolves. I will be making a gray border around the panel in the center then true up the blocks and put them together. I had planned on 2 rows of the blocks around the panel, but it took away from the center too much. What do you think? The extra blocks I will be using for the back of the quilt.

<p value="<amp-fit-text layout="fixed-height" min-font-size="6" max-font-size="72" height="80">I have picked up the fabric for the next 2 quilts and will get those going next week. I have been out of commission for the last week, I'm not sure if it was allergies, a cold, or sinus. Ears are still sounding like I'm in a well. The leaves have been falling off the trees and the raking them puts so much dust in the air, I am a sneezing fool outside. The trash service people will love me. We will have 14 bags of leaves for them this week. That is ok no leaves on the trees. I have picked up the fabric for the next 2 quilts and will get those going next week. I have been out of commission for the last week, I’m not sure if it was allergies, a cold, or sinus. Ears are still sounding like I’m in a well. The leaves have been falling off the trees and the raking them puts so much dust in the air, I am a sneezing fool outside. The trash service people will love me. We will have 14 bags of leaves for them this week. That is ok no leaves on the trees.

With the increase of the virus infections please stay safe and take care of each other..

With fall in full swing here in Missouri we spent the afternoon working in the yard yesterday and then today. Front yard was raked yesterday and as I was raking a neighbor took out his new toy and drove over to our house and sthe 2 across the street and picked up all the leaves. He bought a vacuum for his riding mower and saved us from bagging all the leaves. Too bad all the leaves haven’t fallen off the Oak tree in the front, but we will see what a week from now will bring.

The back yard is a different story. We have a large Magnola tree that the leaves are huge and are all off the tree. I moved blocks to mark off for the new flowerbed in the spring. We got a new Shepard’s hook for the bird feeders. We took down an arbor that was so old it was about to fall down and the Shephard’s hook is to hold the feeder the arbor did.

These are the reason I love fall so much.

This is the house 2 doors down.

This is the Cementary about a mile from our home and my favorite place to see the most perfect trees.

This week I will be working on a quilts for 3 granddaughters. I would like them to be for Christmas so we will see, or may end up as Birthday gifts. We will have to see how it goes.

I am planning on making a few Christmas gifts for Granddaughter’s homes. I have 2 granddaughter’s who have their own homes for the first time. Then decided to make some quilts(4) and didn’t promise for Christmas, but am hoping to do so. So for the next month I will be spending lots of time in the sewing room. That is ok, I like it in there.

We have a very large oak tree in our front year. We have lived in this house since 1978 and the tree was fullly grown then so it is quite large. As it loses its leavesit also loses its acorns. While waiting for the new hotwater heater to be installed I started raking leaves and acorns my neighbor came by with his new toy.

He had gotten a big vacuum for his riding mower. Cleaned my front yard in less than 5 minutes and moved off to the people across the stree. I did talk to him about doing this to the whole yard after all the leaves have fallen. Fall is a beautiful time of the year, but right now my allergies are worse than the spring and summer, but still my favorite.

Neighbor’s yard. So beautiful. You have a very beautiful fall day.

The last few days I have been working with Granddaughter on making the house “Spooky”. A 5 yr old Spooky is a little different. We have cob webs hanging outside from every tree and shephard’s hooks in the front yard, A dressnaker’s dummy (child size) on the porch swing and will be holding skeleton heads in it’s hands. She was looking for something “really spooky” and so I helped her find an old doll head. This head is from the 40’s. It was in a sack and she took it and put it in the rocking chair. She decided to look into the sack and when she did the chair moved and the eyes in the head of the doll blinked. She screamed, ran into the sewingroom telling me that the doll blinked. She would not go near it again all day. We tried explaining how it worked and so on, but she was not having any part of it.

You have to admit it does look a little spooky

Then the next thing was to get candy ready…..A little over whelming from a 5 yr old.

Picking out what she wanted was a bigger problem.

Now for the best part of this post. The 5th Anniversary Giveaway goes to ……………..

Tierneyfrom Tierney Creates. Message me with your email and I will send it to you.

Congratulations.

Woke up this morning to 28 degrees and snow. The weatherperson is calling freezing rain and up to 3 inches of snow. I am not sure if I am ready for this. Thank goodness we were out yesterday and Saturday getting Christmas gifts. We are staying in today. The wind is really blowing today and I can’t always tell if the leaves or snow are falling. The poor birds can’t tell what is going on… You can hear them chattering out side my window.

We are still adding names to the drawing so you have until Halloween to keepadding your name. Just comment.

Today I will be making bread and Date Cake. Hubby loves it and his mother made it for him at Christmas and now I am making it for him only make them small loaf sizes and freezes them. Then he has about 4 servings when he wants them.. I do the same with bread. Days stuck inside are great days for sewing and baking.

If you are interested in a Date Cake recipe that has been used for 3 generations.

Date Cake

1 lb dates cut up 1/4 tsp salt

2 c sugar 1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs 2 1/4 c flour

2TBS butter 1 c walnuts

1 tsp baking soda 2 c hot water

Pour hot water and soda over dates and let stand while you nix the batter. Mix sugar adn butter, add beaten eggs, add water off dates, flour, and vanilla. Add dates,nuts . Pour into a Bunt cake pan (I use small loaf pans).Bake at 350 for about an hour or until done.

Enjoy

I can’t believe I have been bombarding you with the crazy thoughts in my brain for 5 years. I know it hasn’t been interesting even when I reread it I thought you are a little borig and loco. It has been fun and so with this in mind we are celebrating with a $25 Amazon gift card. Just leave a short message on this post and your name will go into a drawing that will be drawn on Halloween. I decided on an amazon gift card because everyone who uses Amazon will be able to enjoy it. Not just US residents.

Now we are in the making mode of fall and Christmas gifts. I had so much fun making my little scarecrow pillow and plan on making more and maybe some into snowmen.

Saturday Night we puppy sat our Son and DIL’s 2 yr old puppy. He got trash can from hubby’s computer room and there were little pieces of cand stuck to the bottom of the can.

Jethro did beat us to bed. He is an 180 pound English Mastiff. When he decided to play I fell into a rocking chair and the only thing that saved me from falling over backwards in the chair was the wall behind us. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t get out of the chair. Hubby came into the living room to see what was going on and Jethro found another playmate and hubby got knocked over and landed on an end table. After this we braced ourselves better when playing. He thinks he is a small lap dog.

Hope you have as many laughs in 2 days as I had puppy sitting. Enjoy your day.

This has been a month from Hell. The last 16 days have been busy and very stressful. Fainally got the driveway, porch, and patio poured and the side gate put back on.

Before. The reason for new driveway

After Love it.

The patio.

Next was fresh seed went down and watering twice a day for the next 3 weeks.

Dishwasher went out and after looking for a new one we’ve decided to wait to see if we can get parts for this one (only 2 yrs old and the motor is frozen) . Right now they have been on back order since March. Went to about 7 places looking at dishwashers and were told the same. We have only 1 out of 8 in stock and will be at least 3-4 weeks before we can get it installed. Washing dishes the old fashioned way, by hand.

Granddaughter and her boyfriend have had Covid, Patrick (her boyfriend) still has it, but getting better.

And this was in the first half of the month. The rest can only get better. Right? Right.

I am looking forward to Spring so I can put a flower bed in next to the patio. Speaking of the patio, as you can see lots of dirt.Today I had watered the yard and went out back to move the sprinkler. I had my Birkenstock sandals on and when I started walking into the mud, not thinking, I sunk into it and walked right out of my sandals. Trying to pull them out of the mud, I slipped and fell on my bottom. I looked to make sure the neighbors were not outside. Hubby was laughing so hard he could not catch his breath. Yes, he had been watching from the kitchen window. Thinking back on it, I would have laughed just as hard if it had been him. They say mud is good for the skin.

Tomorrow I will end the watering in the muddiest area so the sprinkler can stay there til it dries.

Tomorrow we are going to get some solar lights for around the patio area. They are on sale. I hope you can find something to laught at, makes life so much less stressful.

With this virus crud going on we had to cancel or vacation plans to Washington DC to see the Cherry Blossom and the sites. So we changed plans to Yellowstone, no they were closed. So we decided to do some repairs around the house. Put that money into things we’ve been putting off. Soounds good right? Well sit back with a cup of coffee or tea and hang on.

April 2020

Had an Air Conditioner company out to do yearly maintance to get ready for the summer and the man told us that the breaker system for the electric was outdated and illegal. The house was built in the 50’s and hadn’t been up dated so we said gotta be done either now or later so why not now. The work was done, we were out of electricty for a total of 2 days , not bad. We needed to call the city to bury the lines (city is going to this). We called April (twice) May called weekly June city came out and were pretty snotty because we were cheating the city. The meter was reinstalled backwards and we were stealing electricity. Their inspector came out and checked things up. They finally came out in July to bury the cable. The long wait due to Covid. These men never came in the house, didn’t even come to the door. OH well.

June letter from IRS wanting us to pay them for the work we had moving the washer and dryer up to the basement and getting a dishwasher installed. The company we had hadn’t paid taxes in years. We had to prove to the IRS we had paid for the work.

While the house was being rewired we found out the dishwasher was not wired in right, so we had to have the electric redone for that.

This month the ice maker went out and we had an appliance repair company come out to fix it and told us the issue was the plumbing. He doesn’t do plumbing. Called the plumber out and while he was fixing the pipes he noticed the dishwasher was hooked up to the cold water instead of hot water. Nice. He fixed it.

This brings us to Saturday. We scheduled to have a new driveway (from single drive to double), porch and patio repoured.

Before

Waiting for the concrete trucks

The patio waiting. The light brown is where the city dug to bury the line. The dark is fresh dirt from the patio and will be spread thru out the yard where there is still a trench from the city.

Now Sunday, I spent baking and when tried to run the dishwasher it wouldn’t work. Filled and Drained, but not run. This morning I called the appliance repair and they asked questions and then said it was the main wash motor and would be cheaper to purchase an new one. This will wait till sometime next week and the driveway is now full of rebar and not drivable for the delivery truck and no steps to walk up.

So now I ask, should we have taken a vacation instead?

You gotta laugh thru all this. Hubby said no more house repairs. Hopefully the last few months of the year will be better.

Find something to laugh at and enjoy your days.

I haven’t been on the computer much lately. Out looking for a new refrigerator, so expensive and so many not in stock and will be months before you can get them. We have put that on hold, hope this keeps working for a while longer.

Getting a new driveway, porch, and patio. These men have benn working hard and by Wednesday the pouring will begin. I can’t wait. Finished the Liberty quilt I’ve been working on. So glad it is finished and now to get ready for something new.

Today brought cookie baking, made Chocolate Chip Cookies and Butter Horns.

Then Destiny and I made little cakes. She decorated them and took them to her Aunt Alicia for her Birthday.

Hope you are enjoying your Sunday.

My week has been an emotional up and downs and not a lot got accomplished, but I did one thing that I have been putting off for a while. I purchased a chair at a garage sale and it needed recoverying so I finally got hubby to help me take it apart and put it together again.

Now I will hope this bright chair will inspire me to get creative. We will see what happens next week.

Stay safe and have a great day