Progress on my Block

Here is the progress I am making on my block. I am not moving very fast on this, I have had a lot of life's little interuptions! We are starting lesson 4 on my online class already and I am way behind. One nice thing about the class is that I have been getting a lot of worthwhile information that I can apply at any time in my stitching progress. It seems most others taking the class are in the same boat that I am as far as time goes. Since I am a beginning stitcher our teacher has encouraged us to make a sampler to practice our stitches so I am doing that as well and trying to make sure I get my technique down!

One of my goals this weekend is to find some time to stitch....and find time to decorate!

Bad News - Good News

Yesterday Molly's boyfriend was on the front page of the local newspaper. Here is the link: http://www.dailyitem.com/servanos/local_story_331073205.html
This story is just heart wrenching and has been on my mind and in my prayers for a few weeks. As I understand it, the parents of Molly's boyfriend have lived here in the US for about 25 years, they have raised 4 productive children, he is a dr. with about 2000 patients here in Central Pennsylvania and she owns and operates a small asian grocery store in a nearby town. They are well respected citizens of the community. When they applied to come to the US they were single but before they were granted permission to come here, they were married and they didn't change the status on their paperwork. And now they are facing deportation in less than 2 months unless one of our senators intervene and get a bill passed which is not an easy task....so I'll keep on praying for this deserving family to be able to stay here.

On a brighter note, Molly talked her dad into buying her a new car, they finally found just what she wanted in Allentown of all places so this morning Al drove the 2.5 hr. trip to look at it and purchased it and this afternoon Steven drove Molly there to pick it up. So tonight she is the proud owner of a 2008 Mazda 3 S Grand Touring car. It's white with black interior. I hope she keeps it cleaner than she kept the Dodge Neon!

Thanksgiving

We had a nice Thanksgiving, dinner here with my sister Lindy and her daughter Meg, nephew Tim and his wife, Emily and us. Today Molly and I left the house at 6:30 a.m. for Black Friday shopping. Lindy and Megan hit the speciality shops and didn't leave town till 11:30 and were gone all day. Molly and I saw a beautiful sunrise on the way, so it made the trip worthwhile. we were home by 10 am. I bought some gifts for Molly but nothing else really. I must get on the ball and get some gifts purchased. Megan went back home tonight and Lindy will leave tomorrow.

I started to decorate tonight but since I am doing all pink and white this year, I will need a couple more shopping trips before finishing. I hope to do some stitching next week to!

Thanksgiving Preparation

My husband reminded me Thursday night that I was planning to have actual curtains or something on the windows in the sunroom by Thanksgiving, so Friday I added window treatment to my list and came home with some beaded sheers. They do make the room look much more finished.

I took this photo this morning during our first snowfall of the season. I spent the afternoon enjoying it from my window and stitching on my block for my class. I need to do quite a bit more before I will show the progress but I am slowly working on it.

Online Class

I'm taking an online class at Joggles and am quite excited about it. I read 47 pages this weekend and pieced two 8" blocks that I plan to "encrust" with threads, buttons, beads, etc. Well that is the plan. Of course in the next 5 weeks I'll be making Thanksgiving dinner, doing the traditional Black Friday shopping, cleaning and decorating for the holidays and finishing up Molly's scrapbook for her sorority sister. I have to make time for stitching somewhere! These are the two blocks I pieced today.



Yesterday was Parents Weekend at Susquehanna and the Kappa Delta sorority had a luncheon for their parents and a little ceremony where the parents got pinned with the sorority ribbons. It was nice of the girls to plan something for their parents....of course after the lunch Molly and I went shopping and it cost me a down filled vest at American Eagle... Next week is her "gotcha" day and of course she doesnt' forget an event if there is a gift involved :)

Book Club

Our book club is reading “The Mermaid Chair” by Sue Monk Kidd. I just started to read it this week and am really enjoying the book. Kristin, if you are reading this, go get the book, it’s a fast read. Book Club isn’t till the 12th you will have plenty of time to read if you can put down the knitting needles!

This week we have crafts on Wednesday night, a couple of us get together and bring whatever craft we are working on and enjoy an evening with no kids or husbands and we get to enjoy each others work, etc. A couple of us decided we would like to learn more about needle felting and we are going to discuss and decide whether or not to invest our time and $ in learning it. Anyone have any experience with needle felting?

Latest Layout

Al drove my parents to their winter home in Florida this week and so I enjoyed a few days at home alone with no responsibilities that come with being a wife or mother. I worked on Molly’s sorority scrapbook and shopped. Molly is a member of the Kappa Delta sorority and she has a “little”. One of the responsibilities of a “big” is to make a scrapbook of the pledging process to present to the "little" with all the pledging activities, etc. Since I am a scrap booker Molly assigned me the job. This is one of the layouts I did of Molly’s “little”.

Being home alone seemed like a good time to start my Christmas shopping so I’m proud to announce that the shopping has begun and I purchased a few things….ok, a couple things and I bought a few things for myself. I hate that I enjoy “things” so much…. The stores are decorated for Christmas and stocked with goodies. There were lots of sales although I don’t’ think I bought anything on sale!

New -Old Dresser!

I needed somewhere to store some fabric in my sewing room and remembered this old dresser that had been retired to the attic. I painted it and it looks so much better! I also changed the hardware to give it a more up to date look and it’s ready to store fabric!

Oktoberfest

This weekend was our town's 25th Oktoberfest. My sister came home from Conneticut, my neice Megan came home for the weekend and Molly is on fall break so she was home too. Saturday morning Molly and I got up early and hit the streets. Mostly we were interested in getting pumpkin rolls. One for lunch, one for Molly to take back to school with her and one to freeze for Christmas. I found a cup and saucer to add to my collection, and a couple other things I thought I needed at the time.

I had lunch for everyone and then Molly's boyfriend came over and they carved a pumpkin. So now I have a pumpkin for the front porch. I want to get the impatience out of the urn out front and plant a chrysanthum this week also, my porch is still looking more "summery" than "fallish"!!!

Redecorated Sunroom

My summer project was redecorating the sunroom. Here are the before and after photos. I didn't really start with a redecorating project in mind. I only wanted to get rid of the awful carpet that the dog kept chewing and pulling out so I decided to remove the carpet completely and just paint the floor until my husband got home from 6 months in Alaska. He mentioned getting new carpet in this room when he got home anyway.


So, I thought I'd try something whimsical and fun in here and decided on creamy and plum colored squares because believe it or not the purple went with the pillows and accessories I previously had in the room. After the carpet was gone and the plywood floor was sanded and I putting the paint on the floor I kept looking at the green walls and decided that now was the time to change the walls also... I keep looking at everyone's pretty rooms in the shabby cottage group that I belong to and decided that if I ever wanted to do "pink" the time to try it would be when my husband was hundreds of miles away working in Alaska.


So, I painted the walls pink and brought in a large book shelf from my sewing room, a quilt rack and some new pictures for the walls as well as new pillows for the sofa, painted a washstand that was also in the sewing room and I'm just about done. I haven't gotten curtains up yet because I am out of money currently, but I have curtains on the list and hope to get them before Molly and Meg come home for Thanksgiving vacation.


So that's my summer project!