Tiny Needle Tuesday 8/22/23

 Hello and Good Morning,

How are you?  I am well.  I slept well (8 hours - woo-hoo!) and believe I am ready to face the day.  We ended up just getting our flu shots yesterday - the new Covid booster will not be available till mid-September.  I'm still not clear why CVS scheduled us (since that's where we have received our other boosters, so they have our records....).  Whatever!

Yesterday Fletch cleaned out the bird house where the wrens had nested.  Not a very pleasing nest - lol

The little wren building it struggled to get twigs, etc. into the house.  It provided for good entertainment watching him/her, but it also provided for sloppy nest building.

And, no frogs at the water feature yet, but some sparrows were sure having fun cavorting in the water yesterday!

(Taken through my kitchen window)  At one point when I looked out there were six birds around the water and more waiting their turn!  While Fletch and I sat on the patio a little later, they would not come in, but they were flying all around hoping we would leave so that they could get back to splashing and having fun.  

Well friends, it is Tuesday, so time for a Tiny Needle update.  A bunch of progress has been made.  First up we have the cacti triptych:

It won't take long to finish the Prickly Pear portion.  This is such an engaging piece to stitch - I'm loving it.

There was also some progress on the Sampler Aux Bouquets.  First an overall view:

And then a close up of what was done this past week - a few more blooms in the vase and another winged friend.

The vase seems to be taking FOREVER to complete and I confess to being a bit weary of PINK.  Fortunately I am still enjoying this piece a lot too.  Good thing as there is still much to stitch on it.  I think I am roughly half way through (yup - it is going to be a BIG sampler when completed).

Good news - the parts for my washing machine already came in!  We got a call yesterday while we were out and about saying they could come today.  However, we already have plans (and I'm sort of caught up on laundry anyway), so we are sticking with our Thursday date.  Good to know that everything is ready though.

Cloudy and grey here today.  Hopefully it will not get too sticky out.  Wishing you all a wonderful Tuesday - do something FUN!!

Monday, Monday 3/6/23

 Hello and Good Morning,

How are you?  It is a sunny day here.  Still chilly (just 32), but sunny and, at least for the moment, it looks as though the winds have died down.  Today I will be playing catch up after having Friday off.  I know a ton of emails came in for work, but I have not yet looked at them.

The trip to Ikea on Friday was nice.  Not as long as I would have liked...and next time I will go solo and leave Fletch at home.  I wanted to wander a bit more through the Marketplace section - so many great kitchen finds, but he was anxious to get in and get out (where's the fun in that??).  But, I did find the wine glasses I wanted as well as some new kitchen tongs and a fun set of dish towels that I will send down to Leslie to brighten her day (all slices of fruits and veggies in bright colors).  Please keep Leslie in your thoughts and prayers...my best friend...another cancer diagnosis...tomorrow is her 2nd chemo treatment.  She is a trooper, but this is more than anyone should need to go through.

Back to Friday...we also stopped at an Asian market where I found the Japanese eggplants I wanted.  And then we did have a very nice lunch out.  It definitely was fun to have a different day than my usual Friday conference calls!

Dee and I did meet up on Saturday to knit, chat, sip coffee, laugh, solve the world's problems, etc.  If only we ruled the world!  The balance of the weekend was filled with both pleasure and chores (a little laundry, changing out the tablecloth and napkins, sweeping the kitchen, etc.).  I read, knit a little and stitched some.  A good balance of things.

Sunday morning as I was fixing coffee and thinking about making breakfast I glanced out and saw two Red Winged Blackbirds at our sunflower seed feeder.  I'd been hearing them for a couple of weeks and seen one or two on the ground.

Not the best picture taken through our back door, but you can see the band on the wing of the one to the right.  (The yellow object is a kayak hanging from our patio ceiling - LOL).

Thanks to all the cooking I did last week we have a ton of leftovers in the frig.  Some dinners for this week are already made!!  Last night we had some of the leftover stew I had made in the crock pot.  (There is yet more left for another meal!).  The only thing I made to go with it was a new recipe for Mushrooms with White Wine and Brussels Sprouts.  

I used this recipe but skipped the heavy cream.  The mixture looked so good at the point where I should have added that, but I decided to keep it lighter.  Very tasty.  I did use a mixture of cremini, oyster and shitake mushrooms.

While the sprouts were roasting, I looked out and the moon was already up!

Almost full - the app on Fletch's phone said it was 98% full.

Last night we watched Genius - highly recommend!

And, that's a wrap for me.  Time to pour another cup of coffee and dig into the work emails.  Wishing you all a wonderful Monday.

Weekending 8/29/22

 Hello and good Morning!

It's kind of grey and overcast here (dare we hope for rain??) which is causing me to feel rather sluggish this morning.  I'm sipping coffee, but the jolt has not yet set in.

More snapdragons - they just keep coming and coming.

How was your weekend?  Mine was very nice.  It started on Friday when our cleaning girl/woman showed up for the first time.  Oh man!  What a fabulous job she did,  The house looked so clean and smelled so good by the time she finished.  Karyn brings her own supplies for cleaning except we gave her the stuff we use on our hardwood floors and she uses our vacuum.  Except, as luck would have it, our vacuum stopped working on Friday.  LOL  It was old (had been my parents, so it had an extremely long life) and both Fletch and I had noticed it wasn't sucking very well recently.  Oh well.  I had another, cheap little stick vacuum that she could use and I ordered another vacuum before Karyn left on Friday.  The new one was delivered on Saturday and all I can say is that our carpets have not been this clean in years!  It's a powerful thing!

I met up with Dee on Saturday morning for our usual chatter, knitting and sipping.  My knitting was about nil - nothing was working for me that morning.  But, I managed to unload some of the zucchini cookies (which are very good BTW), some zucchini bread with cranberries, some tomatoes and a few jalapenos.  The tomatoes continue to come in like gangbusters.  Yesterday I picked 8 large tomatoes and over 50 sungold cherry tomatoes.  We are overrun!

Saturday my friends the crows showed up.  I enjoy them so much and we often have a few around but on Saturday there were eight - a murder!

This group wasn't all that vocal and they didn't stay there too long.  Soon they were flying over our house on their way to somewhere else.

The other week Kym had one of her "garden dispatch" posts that showed a hummingbird.  Fletch and I usually see hummers in the afternoon while sitting on the patio.  I tried to get a picture on Saturday, but it is HARD.  Using just my cell phone's camera doesn't help.  But, Sunday morning, early, I noticed one flying around our Rose of Sharon.  Then it went to the feeder we have hanging on the clothesline and then, finally, perched on the line and I was able to snap a picture!

A little blurry, but you can see the hummingbird and it's long beak on the clothesline just to the left of the feeder.  Our hummers are not real colorful.  I've only seen a ruby throat here once or twice.  Ours are mostly a dull green/grey on the back with a pale chest.

I don't know about you, but growing up there were things that my Mom fixed that I didn't really care for.  Some I still don't (liver, for example, yuck!).  But some I now love.  Parsnips and turnips fall into that category.  I am particularly fond of Gilfeather Turnips and in years past I would always pick one up at a country store in Wardsboro, Vermont when we were up there.  This past year I found an organic seed company that carries Gilfeather seeds.  I was thrilled and got two packages...one for my brother who gardens a ton and one for Fletch.  This weekend we harvested our first!

Not the most attractive item, but boy did they smell sweet right out of the ground.  Typically they are harvested after the first hard frost, but we could not wait.  I peeled them and cut them up and then boiled them.  After an hour they were still hard!  So, we did not have them last night as planned.  Instead I let them continue to cook while we ate and we will have them tonight.  Once they had softened up, I simply mashed them with butter and pepper.  The tiny bit that I tasted was delicious - so sweet.  I think we may let the rest stay in the ground until after a frost.  The other ones are small still, but I'm thrilled that we've been able to grow them!

And now it is time for another cup of coffee and to get started on Monday.  I hope your week is off to a great start.

Friday Felines

 Hello and Welcome to the Weekend!!

This is my "Friday From Hell" but today it is not.  Every other Friday I have 3 conference calls in the morning:  one at 8:30, one at 10 and one at 11.  But today both the 10 and 11 conference calls have been cancelled.

In the realm of stupid things, yesterday I received an Outlook invite for a conference call next Friday from 4-5 p.m.  I emailed the person setting up the call and basically said that was ridiculous!  Who sets a conference call for 4 p.m. on a Friday?  It has since been changed to Tuesday at 1:30 (and I was tempted to reply again saying 1:30 is my nap time, but then I thought better of it - lol).

We need a few groceries, so Fletch and I are going out after my 8:30 call to do that so that the weekend is free and open!  Hopefully with a tad bit warmer temps.  35 here this a.m.

Moving on to Friday Felines.  You may recall that I told you all that Tyg has been hanging out in the office with me, ever since Fletch put up a bird feeder at the front window.  Here is a White Crown Sparrow sitting in the lilac bush waiting to come in for a snack (sorry you get the benefit of the window screen...)

And here is a Purple Finch at the feeder:

And the sweet Tyg.  He was breathing heavily here:

And finally, hoping that the window would somehow open up:

And then, after pawing the window and the bird or birds scattering, poor Tyg looks so dejected.

His antics sure provide me with a lot of chuckles!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 Good Morning!

Well, a bit more snow fell than was forecast!  Here is what it looked like all morning (well, from 9:30 on) - a downy at the suet feeder and other birds flying in to sample thistle seeds and meanwhile the snow coming down like crazy!

All told, we ended up with an additional 5" or so.  By 2 p.m. the snow had stopped and temps had risen above freezing.  It still felt cold and damp to me, but Fletch went out and shoveled a path to the birdfeeder as well as out to the compost area.  We did not get the forecast rain, so there is still a lot of snow on the ground.

It was a good day to say inside and have some tea.  I had a fairly busy morning work-wise, but the early afternoon provided an opportunity for some knitting and stitching.  The past week was a pretty good one for my tiny needle.  Here's an overview of where my Quaker Autumn Sampler now stands.

You can see the middle motif is finished - complete with a hunter and a deer!  In addition to finishing that motif, I managed to stitch 3 leaves, the letters X, D and Q, a small bird to the right of the D and the larger bird with a branch (of something) and a red beak.  Here's a close up:

Still quite a bit to stitch on this, but I can tell the end is in sight!

I tried a new recipe last night that turned out delicious!  Encilada stuffed mushrooms:

Portobella Mushroom caps stuffed with a mixture of sauteed onions, pepper and garlic.  Then you add some frozen corn and a can of (rinsed) black beans.  A bunch of spices, some fresh chopped cilantro and a small can of red enchilada sauce.  I baked them at 400 for about 20 minutes then pulled them out to add some shredded cheese on top and sliced jalapenos on mine.  I made fresh quacamole to go with it.  So yummy!!

Hope everyone is having a great week!  

Friday Felines

Good Morning!

TGIF...though this morning I have 3 conference calls.  Yuck.  This is my new routine every other Friday:  a call at 8:30, another one at 10 and yet one more at 11.  That sort of blows the day.

But it is Friday and it is a holiday weekend.  This will be a strange Memorial Day, but then the entire year has been strange.

So I have a tale of Tyg for you this morning.  Wednesday night I went to bed as usual and then was woken at 1 a.m. by a "banging" at the back bedroom window.  I rolled out of bed to look and there, hanging on to a very thin metal edge was Tyg!  Yup - he had climbed up on the patio roof (not unusual), but then had jumped (HIGH!!) and held on.  He shortly thereafter dropped back down to the roof...I opened the window wide and got the screen out of the way and that beast jumped again right into the window opening and came into the bedroom.  After that, of course, he wanted me to go downstairs and give him some treats.  Oy vey!

I was wound up after that so sat up reading for about an hour.  And then, 4:30 rolls around and Tyg prances into the room meowing and clawing the rug to wake me to let him outside.  No, I did not open the window and put him out that way...I went downstairs and let him out the normal way.

I sure hope this is not a new routine (he was out all last night and did NOT come up on the patio roof that I'm aware of - and did not jump up to the bedroom window.

Here he is:  beast extraordinaire!

In other news:  the catbirds are back and the Goldfinches have arrived (in color):

Beautiful birds.

We went over to Colin & Mailing's last night for a fire.  We hung out for about an hour which was nice.  It got surprisingly cool.  Not sure if we are going to do a cookout with them this weekend or not.  They have a lot they want to get done around the house (gardening, mowing, etc.).

Yesterday afternoon I walked along the towpath at the canal.  No blue herons in sight.  Plenty of turtles (as usual), and not too many people on the trail which was nice.  I remembered to map it this time and was surprised to see that it is 3.2 miles that I walk when there.

No real plans for the weekend - hopefully plenty of knitting.  Perhaps this is the weekend I'll put away the winter stuff and get out my shorts and capri pants?  Whatever you do - have a good one!

39 and Mud!

Good Morning!

Whew it was rainy yesterday - torrents came down on my way home.  But, it eventually stopped, Colin came over and grilled hamburgers for us and then suggested a walk.  He wanted to go on the River Trail in Valley Forge Park, so we headed over there.  The trail was very wet and muddy and then this happened:

Yup - I ended up slipping and sitting down...hard.  It was gross.  Luckily Colin had some cardboard in his car and I was able to sit on that and keep the seat of his car clean.  My phone was covered in mud and now I can't seem to charge it, so I guess I'll be stopping at the Verizon store this afternoon.  My little finger is swollen and bruised, but other than that I'm fine.  I showered as soon as we got home and then the clothes went in the washer.  All the mud came out😊

Meanwhile, here we are 39 years ago:

(Oh that hat!!).  No special plans to celebrate our anniversary...just more of the same wedded bliss - lol.  Really, it's been great and here's to many more years together.

This year we have two pairs of nesting wrens!  The first is in a bird house hanging on a branch of our apple tree:

And the second is in a gourd hanging on our patio:

Look at all those little twigs sticking out!  And now there is more than one hole in the gourd (they have a front and a back door!!).

Wrens have nested in both places in prior years much to Tyg's enjoyment.  Neither one is a particularly safe place - Tyg climbs the apple tree all the time and just under the gourd is a large trashcan for yard waste - Tyg often jumps onto that and from there it is an easy reach to the gourd.  I'm hoping that both families survive.

I'm looking forward to the weekend.  We have plans to meet Colin & Mailing for breakfast tomorrow (within walking distance from their home) and then walk over to the Farmers' Market.  We have some errands to run after that and Colin is going to grill some lunch for us.  It will be nice to hang with them a bit.  And Sunday Dee and I are going to meet up!  Finally!!  We haven't gotten together in about a month, so it will be good to catch up (and perhaps have a little retail therapy??).

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend - enjoy!!

A Near Disaster Averted – Miracles DO Occur, a Fresh Start and Sleepy Birds

Hello All,

 

How’s that for a post title?  Well, the shawl is not finished, in fact it is where it was when I left off with last Friday’s post.  After being so sure I could whiz through the final rows, I somehow managed to screw it up royally during lunch on Friday.  What a mess.  And, my lifeline was at the very beginning of the lace work (15 rows back).  I think I remember saying here that I should not work on the shawl or any lace work while at work.  True, true.  When I knew for sure that I had messed it up, I just threw it in my bag.

 

After a glass of wine that evening I decided to tink it back.  Ha!  That didn’t work, so in my frustration I just pulled the needles out.  This is where the miracle occurred:  I was actually able to pick up the stitches once the needles were out.  I did not have to rip it back to the lifeline!  Some of the stitches were twisted, but I managed to correct them when I knit a row.  But, I had miss-guessed the row I was on, so that didn’t work either.  I put it away for the night.

 

Saturday morning (which was wicked cold – about 8 degrees!!) while having coffee I looked at it again.  I tinked the row I had done the night before and then knit the correct row.  And it worked out!  Whew.  I debated about moving the lifeline up to a new position and wasn’t going to, but fortunately some sanity prevailed and the lifeline has been moved (just in case…).  At that point, I put it away again and decided not to mess with it for the rest of the weekend.  I need a rest from it and, I’m sure it needs a rest from me.

 

Needing something to knit, I cast on a new sock.  These will be for my son (since the last pair didn’t fit).  The yarn is Schachenmayr Regia in the colorway “pinstripe.”  And the pattern is Petty Harbour which I have knit before.  An easy pattern to memorize and I think it will look good in this yarn.  This is where they were as of last night.

 

They are in my bag for working on during lunch today…believing I can do this without messing it up – lol.

 

Yesterday was still bitter cold, but we got up and went out to breakfast.  Later was grocery shopping and interspersed throughout the weekend was a lot of laundry, cleaning bathrooms, scrubbing the kitchen floor, etc.  Fletch installed a new LED light over the kitchen counter on our driveway side.  I love these lights!  I can see!  He had installed one over our sink a month or two ago and what a difference.  Now I want to find some (large and long) to replace the fluorescent lights we have on our patio and in our basement. 

 

Sunday afternoon I looked out our back door and saw two birds napping!  One was a downy woodpecker on top of our suet feeder (that picture didn’t turn out) and the other was this nuthatch hanging on to our peanut feeder.  Not a great picture – taken looking through our (somewhat dirty) sliding door onto the patio.

 

This morning was still cold, but birds are singing their Spring songs and it is sunny.  Temps are forecast to rise all week.  I’m ready for sun and warmth.

 

Hoping everyone has a great week!