Good Monday morning!

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a lovely weekend in spite of the news around the world. I’m trying to take my own advice and just watch a little bit of news. Just enough to keep informed but not too much so that I’m overwhelmed with it all. And then I pray and try to leave it at God’s feet. Of course the Ukraine and its people are in the back of my mind all of the time. Dennis went to the Ukraine several times on business and has many acquaintances there. He went to Romania and Croatia often and understandably, those countries are nervous as well with what’s happening. He has many friends there. I know all of you are just as concerned as I am. I will continue to lift them all up in prayer throughout the day and night as they come to mind.

All of my free moments have been spent working on this cross stitch kit. I had forgotten just how long it takes to do solid blocks of color like this. All of my respect to those of you who do a lot of  cross stitch with blocks of color. I did change the elephant from two shades of blue to the two shades of gray. The dark gray on the top of its head is actually an ear. I’m trying to change some of the blues out to make it more girly.

I still have a monkey and a giraffe to do and the baby is due in just three weeks! Oh well. We will probably just take it with us when we go visit. The visit is planned for late April. I should be able to get it done by then shouldn’t I?

My poor February socks are nowhere near being done. I still have an inch or two of the foot and the toe to do on the first sock as you can tell. I’m a bit disappointed in the yarn though. In the past I have always had plenty of yarn left after a pair of socks with Kroy yarn. You can tell by what’s left in the skein that there isn’t much there. They are exactly the same size that I always knit. I’m thinking I may need to use plain black for the toes. Otherwise, I really like the pattern that’s being made with this yarn.

I saw this blanket on Facebook this morning. The lady said she bought it from an Etsy shop. Isn’t it cute? I love those little puppy tails. I’m debating whether to buy the pattern or not. I have so many baby blanket patterns already.

Dennis got a new toy this weekend too. We ordered this pit boss from Amazon. It is for our camping trips.

We decided to go with a griddle instead of a grill. It’s portable and can sit on the table top. We also bought the adapter hose so we can use big propane tanks instead of those little one pound bottles. They go so fast and are so expensive. The grill that we had at the lake was 10 years old and it had lots of rust on it and was pretty much worn out. We used it virtually every day in the summer out there. You can cook everything on this that you do on a grill, plus more. Pancakes, bacon, grilled sandwiches, etc. can all be made on here along with the regular hamburgers, kebabs and other meats. You can buy a cover for it as well as a stand to sit on, but we’re going to wait and see if we actually need those things before we buy them. I’m excited to try it out.

Yesterday after church, we took mom for a drive to Mahoney State Park. It is between Omaha and Lincoln. We also went to Platte River State Park and Louisville State Park. They are all within about 10 miles of each other. We camped at all of these places before we moved to Spokane but haven’t been there since our move. My goodness how things have changed! Mahoney has a snowmachine and even though it was in the upper 50s yesterday, kids were out tobogganing on the hill. They have horseback rides and a tree top adventure area which I think are zip lines. There is a big swimming pool with slides and also a movie theater. There is a big lodge with a restaurant and lots and lots of cabins. It is huge compared to what it used to be. We have reservations to stay there at the middle of April. It will be our shakedown trip with our little trailer.

This is a bit later in the day now and getting posted much later than I planned. For some reason Blogger would not work for me this morning so I’m trying again. Meanwhile I went and got my oil changed. What a gorgeous day we have. It’s 71°F outside. I took my sock and I sat outside on a bench while they changed the oil and it was lovely then I came home and took Zoey for a nice long walk. Wishing you all a wonderful Monday.

Blessings,

Betsy 

Very Cold after Very Warm!

We had such a beautiful day on Sunday. It got up to 64° and after church and a quick lunch at home, Dennis and I spent several hours puttering around at the camper. He cut down the bed frame to fit the queen mattress better. The camper came with a king size mattress, but we asked them to exchange it for a queen because it was there was not much room to walk around the bed. We have always had queen size beds so that’s not a problem for us. I hung up all of the command things in the shower. Shampoo and soap holders, towel and wash cloth hooks, etc. We have put those in all of our trailers and they work wonderfully well. I also put some kitchen things away and bathroom towels. Meanwhile Dennis was hanging up the paper towel holder, my knife rack and key rack. Lots of little things, but it makes it feel more like home and much more comfortable to be in.

Yesterday I took mom to her doctors appointment where she was put on insulin for the first time. She’s such a tiny little slip of a thing, but her pancreas is just not working as it should. Later in the day I picked up her insulin pen from the pharmacy and I went over last night to give her her first shot. I’ll go over every night for a while to make sure she understands what she has to do, but I do think she’ll do just fine giving herself the shots if she just remembers to do it. She is very frustrated that she has to have another medication. She also realizes that her memory is not doing very well at all and that frustrates her even more, which I then think makes her forget more. It’s a never ending circle. She has gotten exponentially worse with her memory in the past couple of weeks. I think it has to do with her sister being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She has just had too many bad shocks in the last couple of years.

I don’t remember if I told you last week that I broke a window in the living room when I was washing them. I couldn’t believe it. I had to be at the glass repair shop at 8:00 yesterday morning to get it repaired. They had ordered the new window from the factory and they put it in the frame for us yesterday. Thank goodness that was yesterday and not today. Yesterday I was wearing a sundress with no sweater. Today it’s 25 below zero with the windchill! As they say, if you’re in Nebraska and you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute and it will change. 🤷‍♀️

So that’s what I’ve been doing the past few days. Not a lot of time for stitching but I’ve been trying to do as much as I can, when I can. I have been enjoying the cross stitching and I even have something to share for tiny needle Tuesday! That rarely happens.

I couldn’t decide which picture to share because Zoey was so cute in both of them so I thought I would just show you both! Doesn’t she have the cutest little profile in this bottom picture? And yes, she has both Dennis and I wrapped around her little paws.

You can almost see the shape of the lion in the lower right corner. That weird blob by the lions feet will eventually be a turtle. I am having fun with this.

This is the February square for the “Jayda in Stitches” Tunisian crochet blanket along. This is called the full stitch and I did make a few little errors but it’s not too bad! It’s not too late to join in. She releases the pattern by video the first Friday of every month, so you have lots of time yet to get the January and February squares done.

I received some sweet valentines in the mail. This one is from Debra. She has the “As I See It Now” blog on my side bar. We have been blog friends for several years now. Thank you for the sweet, sweet card Debra.

And this one came from Sam. Her blog is “Self Sufficient Sam” over on my side bar. Isn’t this just the sweetest card? Sam has been feeling very ill the last few weeks and I would appreciate prayers for her to be back to herself.

Remember I mentioned at the beginning of the post how cold it is? This is where little Zoey is right now. She’s buried under all of these blankets on my lap! I wanted a dog I could have on my lap while I did stitching projects and I sure got one. She is the most affectionate and cuddly little dog we have ever had. She likes nothing better than to snuggle in nice warm blankets and cuddle up right next to you. She seems to love Dennis and I equally. That is one of the things I love about him working from home. She is used to having both of us around all of the time.

Well, I seem to of writing a news letter today. Sorry about that. I think I don’t have anything to tell you so I put off blogging and then once I start it gets very long. I apologize. I hope you are all staying nice and warm if you’re up here in the north and enjoying the warmth if you’re down south. Take care and may God bless each one of you today. 

Blessings and love, 

Betsy

It’s cold again.

Hello everyone!  How is February treating you all? The weather has been very strange here this winter. It will be very cold for a couple of days and then it will be unseasonably warm. We only had that one snowfall quite a while ago and nothing since. We’re being told possible snow flurries next week sometime, but everyone is afraid that we’re going to get lots of snow in March because we’ve been so spoiled all winter. I’ve actually worn my flip-flops quite a bit! Tuesday it was 63°F. I spent the afternoon at the new trailer putting the dishes in and making the bed. It was so much fun to putter around in there. I had the windows open and my audiobook on my phone and it felt like I was camping again, albiet in a big storage lot!

These are the mittens that I finished last week. I’m actually ahead by 2 weeks on my schedule of making them.

I started a birth announcement cross-stitch for our granddaughter who is due next month. I had started a different design but then I found out the design of the nursery is a jungle theme, so I ordered a new kit and started over again!  It’s almost solid cross-stitch so it will be very time consuming. I think this is all I will be working on for a while! Of course I couldn’t find my roller bars that I use on larger Crosstitch pieces. I think they were also lost in the move. I haven’t seen them since we unpacked everything. I had to run out to Hobby Lobby this morning to buy this quilting hoop. I was trying to do it without a hoop and you can see all of the wrinkles from holding the material.

While I was out that far away from home I picked up Lizzie. She will spend tonight and Friday night with us. Miss Piper is staying at her other grandparents house tonight. There is no school and they asked before I did. lol I need to be more on the ball and get my reservation in earlier! Just kidding. I love her other Grandma and Papa too. They are wonderful people. These two girls are so happy right now. They haven’t stopped playing in the four hours we’ve been home.💜

I told you last week that I would post some pictures of our visit at the zoo. We went a week ago last Saturday and had a wonderful time with Miss Piper. 

Here we are together in front of the Penguins. It was a beautiful day that day in the upper 50s.

Our next stop was the aquarium where we spent a lot of time. These jellyfish were my favorites. I’m sure most of you can tell why. Purple!

The sea turtle was one of Piper‘s favorites and she took this photo when he swam in front of us.

There were a lot of sharks in the same tank….

along with a bunch of stingrays.



And more jellyfish!

One of our last stops was the butterfly pavilion. This was my first visit to this building and it’s absolutely magical. You have to go through an airlock system to get in or out of the display. All different types of butterflies flit and fly around you. They even land on your clothes. That’s why you have to go through the airlock in order to leave the display. They check your clothes to make sure there’s no butterflies hiding. I’m sorry this was the best picture I could get as they flew all around us.

It’s been a difficult week here. We found out that Dennis’s aunt has pancreatic cancer which is what his sister Karen died from last year. Mom is not taking it well and is very depressed. Her blood sugar is completely out of control, but I know she’s eating well because I buy all of her groceries. I’m taking her back to the doctors on Monday and I have a sneaking suspicion they may put her on insulin instead of the oral medicine she’s been taking. It is hard seeing your parents get older. We’re all worried about her living by herself in that big house with all of the stairs.

Take care of my friends. I know that God is watching out for us and loves us all more than we can imagine. That is what gets me through every day. I’ll talk to you again soon.

Blessings and love, 

Betsy