A Week?

My goodness, I can’t believe it’s been a week since I posted last! The time is flying by and there aren’t enough minutes in the day to get everything done. Dennis is working all day in his home office and then spends the evenings trying to make sense of his garage and any other odd jobs that need done. Last night he replaced the ceiling fan in my craft area that didn’t work, with just a ceiling light. I like it much better, as it doesn’t cast shadows like the fan blades did.

How are you all coping with this heat? I looked online and at 8:00 last night it was still 104°F in Spokane. We are in the 80s and 90s here, but the humidity is so high it’s hard to be outside and still breathe. I did get up early this morning and go to the cemetery to put flowers on my Mom and Dad’s, Dennis’s Dad and little sisters, and all four of his grandparents graves. They are all buried very close together. I decided not to put them on for Memorial Day  because the cemetery takes everything off and throws it away a week later. If you wait a few weeks, they leave them on most of the summer. I was trying to wait for a cooler day, but that probably won’t be until mid winter when it’s 30 below zero!😂

Tomorrow morning early I have to have Mom at the cardiologist for a nuclear stress test. They are supposed to be doing the chemical one so she doesn’t have to actually walk the treadmill. The hardest thing is for her to remember not to have caffeine. When I called her this morning to remind her no caffeine today, she had already had a cup of coffee! Grrrrr! Mandy told me to put a Post-it note on her coffee pot to remind her, which I did, but she took it right back off saying she was a big girl and could remember that. Well obviously she didn’t. Life has sure took an interesting turn since we moved back here.

I have gotten some projects finished to show you. Neither of these baby blankets have been washed and blocked yet so they are a little bit wrinkly.

I really like this one. I just finished it early this morning. The solid squares are supposed to be half squares just like the ones at the bottom of the heart but I tried both and I preferred them solid. This was really a fun blanket to make.  My Fourth of July toes are peeking out at the bottom. For the first time in my life I used sparkle nail polish! 

I finished this one about a week ago and I don’t remember if I showed it to you. Just another mitered square baby blanket. So simple to make and yet I think it makes an impact. I was trying to use up all of my scraps of purple baby yarn and I succeeded.

I don’t remember if I’ve ever shown you this rug that I crocheted from sheets. I made it over 20 years ago and it was right inside our garage door at our old house. Believe me, this rug got a lot of traffic and was pretty dirty a lot of the time. Old sheets wash so well and it still looks pretty good after all of these years.

I finished putting the border on one of my nine patch cozy memory squares.

And then I got to use some of the fantastic yarn that Debbie sent me and I made another one this week. Last night I started the border. This is what I will take to mom’s test tomorrow because it doesn’t have very many moving parts for me to lose. 😏 The border will help all of the wrinkliness straighten out like the one above.

Last Saturday we girls all went and had our nails done again. That’s my sister on the right laughing at something Piper said. And of course my two girls. Piper got both her toenails and fingernails done, the rest of us just did our toenails. My niece Chaela  is sitting next to me and isn’t in the picture. These Saturday mornings are so much fun and I’m truly enjoying being able to see my sister more. Dennis and I are having dinner with her tonight.

Goodness, although he’s got a bit of a smile on his face, he’s looking pretty serious here. Piper gave him the shirt for Father’s Day. I can’t tell you the last time I saw this man in a T-shirt. He always, always wears button down shirts. Only for a grandchild would he wear a T-shirt. This picture is over in mom’s kitchen and that’s her with her back to us. Dennis had just picked up some Little Caesars pizza after a hard day of working around the house last Saturday.

I thought I would show you what is hanging in the guestroom, also known as Piper‘s bedroom. I cross stitched this picture about 30 years ago. It has 26 different greens in it! I will never forget that fact. I thought it would drive me mad before I finished. I do wish I had framed it with a different color and not with the pink that the framing store recommended.

Mandy drew this picture in the ninth grade. Sorry about the angle but because of the placement of the bed I couldn’t get closer for the picture.

She also drew this one the same year. I really think she should have pursued art as a hobby. I think these are beautiful. Grandma has a watercolor painting that she also did the same here hanging in her living room.

I hope you are all staying safe and cool if you are being impacted by the heat dome here in the states. For those of you in winter time, I hope you’re staying warm and happy. I’m finding myself homesick for Spokane quite often these days, although I’m really enjoying time with family and friends here. We are reconnecting with some of the people at Church and Dennis is planning to attend the men’s Bible study tomorrow night for the first time.

Take care of yourselves and I’ll be back again soon. I’ll try to not let it be a week again but who knows? My life is not my own these days and that’s okay, life is always full of changes and you just adapt.

Blessings and hugs,

Betsy

More yarn!

I have been hearing from all of my favorite podcasters this week that Hobby Lobby was having a yarn clearance. So the first thing I want to share is the yarn I bought this morning.

I paid $22.29 total for all of this yarn. The regular price would have been $87.13!! I am so pleased with the sales that I got. They only had four skeins in the color way on the left, but I think I will have enough yarn for these two colors to become baby blankets.

The three skeins on the left are #2 weight so will most likely become shawls or scarves. Then the “Cozy Toes” will most likely become socks and the last little package of minis is #three weight. I’m not sure what I will do with it yet. 

I also began working on my cozy memories blanket again late last night. I haven’t gotten very far on this nine patch yet.

I also began a new baby blanket a few minutes ago using the “Tune My Heart” pattern below. I’m not using the pinks and purples that the pattern shows, but instead I’m using a pale blue/green and tan to make it more for a boy. The yarn on the hook is Baby Bee Sweet Delight in the colorway “Naked.”

Miss Piper helped babysit a little girl in their neighborhood Saturday while her mom held a garage sale. Look what she bought with part of her earnings! Oh my! She actually wore these while we played a game of Uno. She did pretty well with those long nails! She also caught a cold somewhere along the way, so I spent the day with her Monday while Mandy worked. It was a hardship but someone has to do it.🤣😍 Mandy said she’s feeling much better now and she actually went to kids camp yesterday and her tennis class last night. She’s a pretty good tennis player.

Our middle son Jamie sent us this picture last week. He had bought it almost a year ago, but kept forgetting to send it and when we moved from Washington, at first he didn’t think we would want it anymore. Then he said the more he thought about it, he thought that it might mean even more to us now. He’s right. This is where we camped for 10 years from May through October. The mat is actually made of wood. We both got a little bit teary-eyed when we saw it. We have some wonderful memories of our years at this lake. Our RV was directly to the east of the part of the lake that is 100 foot deep toward the bottom of the picture.

Last week I got a new to us dining room set. If you remember we had a table and chairs and the china hutch that were left by the previous owners. The table was not big enough for our needs. I ended up selling it on Facebook marketplace for $150. I then found this one for $300. Honestly, I can’t believe it. This set is like brand new. There are no scratches anywhere on it that we can find. It also has an 18 inch leaf to make it even longer. It is solid wood. When Dennis picked it up he commented that it looked brand new. The neighbor lady was standing there and said that it should, because she never let anyone sit on the chairs! It is super heavy and they had to take the table apart just to be able to carry it.

It is a Trestle table and it’s made very well. So basically, I got this beautiful almost brand new table and chair set for $150. Isn’t that amazing? I am really enjoying using Facebook marketplace since we moved!

The kitchen has quite a few cabinets but they aren’t very deep. Some of my larger appliances wouldn’t fit and still have the doors close. When I was in Omaha last week I found the shelf at the “At Home” store. It folds up flat with the shelves folding upwards and the sides folding in. It was very easy to put behind the seat in the truck for the trip here. I also found this picture at Hobby Lobby in Spokane at the same time. I have never, ever had a kitchen wall to hang things on in all five houses that we’ve owned, until this one. Previously all of the walls were covered with doors, windows or cabinets.

Yesterday we had a crazy day. We had an appointment to sign our wills in the afternoon but at the last minute Monday, Dennis found out that he had to be available all day via zoom to do a deposition for work. After some on again, off again appointments, we finally made it to our attorneys office in the afternoon and signed everything. It’s a good feeling to know that everything is signed and taken care of in the event of anything happening to either of us. We’ve had our wills done twice before, once in Nebraska, then Washington, now Nebraska again.

I also have a bit of good news to share with everyone. We are taking a trip at the end of July to see Alex in London. I’m sure we will have to quarantine for part of it, but I am so excited to see him, as it has been over a year and a half since he was home for thanksgiving in 2019. They had planned to try to be here for a holiday last year but we all know how that went with Covid. We’re hoping that our quarantine will only be for five days and not 10, since we’ve been vaccinated. We plan to be there for two weeks.

 I hope each of you is doing very well. We have brilliant sunshine and 95°F temperatures today. A beautiful summer day.

Blessings and love,

Betsy

My New Craft Room

Hello my friends. Dennis and I have been working so hard since we got home on Sunday night. Of course he’s working his normal 11–12 hours a day and then moving boxes for me well into the evening hours. Last night he and my nephew Tim drove clear to the other side of Omaha to pick us up a new dining room set that I bought on Facebook marketplace. More on that in a later post. 

I’m so excited to finally have my own crafting space. The family room area is on one end where we can watch TV in the evenings or I can sit and play with yarn, but the other half of the room is all mine! Here, I’ll take you on a tour. I’m sorry for the photo overload once again.

First of all I need to apologize for the darkness in the pictures. I tried turning the lights on and that just made everything glare and you couldn’t see anything. I hope you’ll be able to see enough in the photos though.

An overview of the craft room...

First is my yarn wall. This is pretty much all of the yarn that I have. It’s actually not as much as I thought I had compared to a lot of knitters/crocheters. I go through a lot of yarn. On the top of the cabinets on the left are two of the quilts I made and a crocheted afghan. On the right are totes of finished objects. The full one on top is mittens. So far I have 70 pair! Then I have several shawls for a nursing home. The two on the side that are full have baby blankets for the hospital.

This is the beautiful crocheted medallion that Amanda made for me. She has the blog “Crafty in the Med” on my side bar. And those two cubbies that you can see are the sum total of my sock yarn stash.

In the bin you see below is the wonderful sock yarn that Debbie from the “Araignee”blog on my side bar sent to me for my cozy memories blanket. Her generosity amazes me. The shipping alone was ridiculous. The porcelain doll on the right was my grandmothers. Her arm is falling off and she has some cracks and chips on her but I’ve been told not to have her restored because that would make her less valuable. I just love her and she always has a prominent spot in our house. I cross stitched the picture in 2009.

This is the final spot for my Hoosier cabinet. We tried it in the kitchen but it just seemed to want to be in the craft area. The door you see leads out to our backyard. When it’s nice weather I can open this door and the windows and there’s a nice cross-breeze that blows through.

This corner has a lot going on. Besides the baby blankets in the totes I have a lot of little sheep and llama’s given to me by knitters around the world. More of Debbie’s yarn is in the jar and my grandmother’s buttons are in the Pioneer Woman jar. Underneath the shelf is a bookcase that holds my cards and some patterns. The plastic drawers hold gift bags and tissue paper, Cross-stitch supplies and some fabric.

I found this baby doll for $.99 at a thrift store. She is the exact size of an average newborn. It makes it handy to try on hats and sweaters that I make for the hospital. The little truck and the yarn Queen sign were gifts from Dennis. We wanted to get a golden lab in the back of the pick up so it would look like Chloe, but all we could find was a black lab. Close enough!

On the shelf below is my mothers button box, some Yarn Harlot books and sock patterns, along with gifts of pincushions from Gracie “One Saylors Log” and Taci. Hanging from the door is the gnome that Meredith from “Mereknits” sent me last Christmas. 


This dresser was Dennis’s when he was a baby. We refinished it and all three of our children have used it when they were small. Now, it’s been in my craft room for years. It holds fabric and sewing patterns, along with odds and ends of craft supplies that don’t have any other home. On top is a little three door chest that holds ink and stamps, along with beads and more buttons. The fish on top was made for me by Jamie when he was in elementary school. I’ve received all three cards from blogging friends recently.

One of my favorite spots is how I have my sewing machine and desk set up. When my sewing machine is open I have a huge workspace using the desk too. I love having a place to sit down and write out cards and where I can leave my sewing if I’m in the middle of a project at the end of the day. I’ve always had to clean everything up in order to make dinner or someone else needed the space I was working in.

I made this little bunny picture about 35 years ago and it hung in our kitchen here in Omaha before we moved to Spokane.  On my desktop there is another empty pioneer woman jar and my washi tape. There is a yarn scale there on the left and on the right a box of sewing clips. I had found a little chicken sitting on a nest at an antique store that I had bought for dear Teresa’s birthday. Unfortunately, as you all know, she passed away just before her birthday. Teresa had so many collections and chickens on nests were one of them. I’m going to keep it here as a memory of a dear friend who will always be missed. 

This is the sitting area corner of the family room. Mine is the side with the craft cart by the chair. We have purchased a new sofa in May and we will give this loveseat to Dennis’s mom as it matches the sofas we already gave her. The store called yesterday and our new sofa was supposed to be in by September 8. Now they’re saying at the end of October or November! I don’t understand what all of the delays are. I took mom to the grocery store this morning and I couldn’t believe the empty shelves again. And for a pack of 100 paper plates it was $9.99! Nope. For that price I’ll wash my plates thank you very much!  In this picture and the next one are also Cross-stitch pictures that I did about 35 years or so ago.

Obviously the TV side of the family room. There are still some things sitting around here. The roaster will go into the garage once we get boxes cleaned up in there. I have to fill the hurricane lamps in the corner. Don’t you love how they wired the TV? It comes out of the wall on top! Dennis is going to relocate the wiring to behind our television set and patch the wall. I don’t think I had shown you this rug in earlier post. We got it for $99 at Costco at the same time we bought the one for upstairs. The Berber carpet is pretty hard on the knees and Piper likes to sit on the floor and play with Legos so we thought this would be a lot more comfortable for her.

I hope you all enjoyed the tour and then it wasn’t too boring for you. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend planned. If you’re somewhere cold I hope you stay warm and cozy and if we are somewhere as hot as it is here in the Midwest I hope you find a way to stay cool!

And finally, I’ll end with a scripture verse that I cross stitched a few years ago. I have it hanging around all year as a reminder. It’s on the wall around the corner from the medallion that Amanda made me.

Blessings and love, 

Betsy

Another Long Drive

We’re on our way home and should actually arrive in about 2 hours. We’ve been on the road since 4:30 this morning! We had planned to drive to Wall, SD, just east of Rapid City last night, but after several very nice young men at various hotels checked over 200 hotels, the farthest we could go was Gillette, WY. There was not one room available last night ANYWHERE from Gillette to Wall, so our drive is several hours longer today than we wanted it to be. The Black Hills and Mount Rushmore are in that area and I’m sure that’s why it’s so busy. We have to unload the POD today when we get home as well as unload the truck which is full to the brim. Dennis has to be at his desk at 6:00 tomorrow morning.

We were able to meet our son, Jamie, and our grandkids Kyleigh and Caleb for lunch in Helena, MT yesterday. It was a “bit” windy.

Kyleigh drove them to lunch in her very own car. Unbelievable that she is that old already.  We sure love these kids but they have never been comfortable being online much. They gave me permission to post these. Caleb even has his own utube channel about snowboarding in the Montana Rockies and mountain biking too.

Heading up McDonald Pass. I never tire of these views.

Into Montana from Idaho. The top of Lookout Pass. Much less snow than when I drove it in April!

We’re in the clouds!

Down we go! Brake check anyone? 80 mph around the curves. It IS fun driving.😀

So pretty.

The last mountain view’s for us for a long, long time. These are the Bighorn Mountains just outside of Buffalo, WY.

This is “Dignity”, a 50 foot Native American girl at a rest area in Chamberlain, SD overlooking the Missouri River. This photo is from the internet.

This is the back and shows the quilt she’s holding. I took THIS picture while we hurtled down the interstate at 80 mph!  I love my iPhone. 😍

He’s a trooper. This man hasn’t stopped working for months. Seriously. 

I have my mitten factory all set up on the center console.

Seeing the wonder of the mountains makes me even more thankful for a Creator who loves beauty too.

See you soon. A few more hours and we’ll be unpacking the last of our belongings.

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to comment on your blogs since I left Wednesday morning. 

I have to use my laptop to comment and my iPad to blog. I have no idea why, but that’s Blogger. I didn’t bring my computer with me so there has been no opportunity to comment.

Blessings and love, 

Betsy

This and That

I thought I would share a few things and answer a few questions that I’ve received. I probably won’t be online much over the next few days, so I thought I would take this opportunity while I’m thinking of it! I have so much going through my brain these days that if I don’t do things when I’m thinking of it, poof! It’s gone forever. I sure hope there are others of you like that out there and that I’m not alone.😬💜

I was asked where we bought our living room furniture in my last post. It was from Nebraska Furniture Mart, which Connie guessed correctly. It is the biggest furniture store in the region now from what I’m told. We bought furniture from them over 43 years ago when they were just a normal little furniture store. My goodness it has grown! The rug was purchased from Costco and I bought the curtains from Amazon before we even chose the furniture. We have ordered a sofa for the family room from Nebraska Furniture Mart also, but isn’t supposed to be in until September.

First off, I finished Miss Piper’s blanket. Here it is all folded up on the bed in her room. Most of my quilts are coming in the POD so I just have a granny afghan as her bed cover right now. The teddy bear is mine from when I was a little girl. He’s pretty threadbare in places but I still love him. Those three gray furry pillows and the black one also came with the living room furniture. I have four pillows on the loveseat and sofa now which was more than enough. Who needs seven pillows?!!

A little bit closer look at the border. It’s just simple single and double crochet. The size should be big enough for her double bed.

When I mentioned the toilet in the basement that has no sink and no place to really put one, several of you suggested this handy little toilet tank lid that takes the water you wash your hands with and fills the tank for the next flush. Thank you so much! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this myself as many, many of the toilets in Japan use the same kind of tank lid. I have this one in my Amazon cart for Dennis to look at when we get back home. This would solve all of our issues wouldn’t it? And it’s under $100! It still wouldn’t be an actual bathroom but at least you could wash your hands.

A good friend at our church in Spokane sent me this picture of my handsome hubby speaking for the last time to the congregation there last week. It’s very sad to leave them all. This same friend was just diagnosed with a brain tumor late Sunday night. Her name is Marilyn and I would really appreciate prayers for her. She beat breast cancer a few years ago and it really saddens me to think of her going through even more illness.

I thought the picture below was beautiful. I love the colors of the flowers and the “Flutter-bys” as my mom always called them.

Wishing you all a lovely week. It’s very, very warm and humid here again today so I hope you are all finding a way to stay cool. 

Blessings and love, 

Betsy