One project finished

I'm so proud to announce this cross-stitch project is finished. I started it in 1999 and finished the stitching of it last year. I got it framed when we got our house so we could hang it as our first picture. Even though it's for Christmas, I've worked so hard on it that we're keeping it out this year until then, and then we'll put it away.




Here's a close up.



I really enjoyed working on this Santa because of the bright joyful and cozy Christmas colors. My only regret is starting it on Aida. I'm doing all my future projects on linen.

I LOVE school supplies!

Every fall I long to buy fresh new school supplies, especially in bright colors. This year John's work had a donate school supplies thing, so I got to go shopping! I had an absolute blast! I found these cool folders, and I love the colors.

Lots of roses

Today I picked roses from OUR rose bushes. There were lots to chose from. They even smell pretty nice.

Quilt

Here are the promised pictures.

The third picture shows the detail of one of the Hardanger squares. It is stitched with ivory thread and has a light beige behind it.

I have the middle part of the quilt quilted. All I have left to do is finish quilting, tie the threads on the back, and do the binding (which I'm scared to do - I don't quite understand the instructions I've read about it yet). Tomorrow I'm going with my Mom to her chemo treatment that lasts all day, so I'm taking the quilt to hand tie the threads on the back. It will help to get all those hidden as it looks like a mess right now!

I plan to have it all finished by the end of the month.

Finally! I get to share with you...

A year and a half ago I started a quilt with 5 Hardanger squares for my parents' 30th anniversary that was this week. I couldn't post any progress pictures because it was a secret! But tonight I presented an almost finished quilt to them, so I can now post about it. Yeah!

However, it will have to wait one more day because I'm very tired. Time for bed!

Lots of veggies

Today I picked 14 pounds of vegetables, 11 of which were tomatoes! I couldn't believe it! The other vegetables are cucumber, zucchini, some of our first corn, onions, and anaheim peppers. We're making a huge batch of salsa tomorrow. Weee!

Our fish

Here's a picture of our fish in our pond out front. We have two black goldfish, two red/orange goldfish, and three koi. I'd like to name them, but I'm having trouble picking names. I thought it'd be cool to name the four goldfish with G names, and the three koi with K names. From the personalities, the two darker koi are male, and the yellow one is female, at least that's what I think. The goldfish could be either sex; they don't have much personality to determine it; maybe they're really high-tech plastic android fish?

Can anyone give me some ideas for names?

Thirty years

Today is my parents' 30th year anniversary. Hooray for them!

My Brother-In-Law

Meet Tim, John's younger brother. This picture is a little older, but I wanted to post it because it was taken from the bridge over the river that's really close to our house. This was after we made the offer on the house, but before we got the keys. Tim came to town for a short visit and to see the house. Then we took a walk to the river.

This was also before his trip to Brasil where he met a special friend of the female persuasion. Take a look at his blog for some pictures of Edneia (pronounced Esh-ney-a; sorry, Tim, if I didn't get that quite right) and Brasil. He was very excited to talk about her, and we're very excited to hear about her. He also talked about looking at house prices down there. Sounds like I need to get my passport ready for a Brasil trip!

Less than two weeks left of school

This summer I'm taking an online accounting class at the community college. It's almost over! Yeah! John said he's looking forward to the class being finished because than I can start unpacking boxes. While I have gone through a few boxes, it is true I haven't made much progress because I've tried to focus on school. And it's paid off because so far I'm getting an A. Yeah!

Macy loves her sun spots!

Isn't she cute?

See how our corn has grown!

You can see how much our corn grew in first few weeks we were in our new house. It was so nice to have a garden started! We've already enjoyed several zucchini, cucumbers, and John made a yummy salsa from the cilantro, onions, tomatoes, and anaheim and jalapeno peppers, all from our garden!

Cuddling picture

Okay, okay, here are some pictures.

First, meet John and Macy. Macy is very picky about her cuddle time. When she decides to cuddle, you just can't say no.