Giveaway!

Since I will be busy most of the week I thought I would go ahead and put up my giveaway post today.

After digging through my stash I found a design that would make a perfect giveaway! If you are interested in having your name included in the drawing, please leave a comment on this post along with your email address so that I can contact you if you happen to be the winner! The deadline to have your name included in the drawing will be early Saturday morning (Sept. 19) at 12 am EST. The lucky design chosen from my stash to be given away is ---------- Are you ready? ----------- Salina Dunwoody by Sheepish Designs!

I was able to get some stitching time in so far this weekend and pulled out My Home is Built in Glory to work on some more. I was also able to start on one of the Stacy Nash Halloween designs I had mentioned. I will post pictures sometime later this week.

Goals and Such

I can't believe it's September already! Harold and I have already celebrated an anniversary and his birthday this month! I have always felt that once the September calendar goes up, it seems like a flash and then the holidays are here!

This past week while DH was home with me, life had finally seemed to slow down a bit and I had time to think a bit more clearly. I thought about some of my goals. Not necessarily short term goals - just goals in general for the remainder of 2009 and probably on in the next year. Since I am a major list maker for any and everything, I pulled out my notepad and pen to start jotting them down. Here are a few of the things I have listed so far.

1. On the gardening front, I want to join the two existing islands to make one big island. This will not be done until after my surgery and I get the thumbs up from my doctor to do some heavy labor. (I will do this with some weed fabric and lots of bark chips) plus re- mulch some areas in the existing islands. I brought home some cuttings of plants from my Dad's yard and I am thrilled to announce that after unsure anticipation, several have new growth and will hopefully make it through the upcoming winter months! There are still several others that haven;t shown any signs of life yet but I still have hope for them. Dad's memorial stepping stone arrived yesterday and it looks beautiful in it's new setting. I, also, wanted to share a photo of my new birdbath for the garden that came from my Dad's yard. The smaller birds just love it!

2. Get busy with my stitching! I know I will find a good many new charts coming out from the show this month that I will want but I need to make myself get more serious about what I have on hand before going too ga-ga but it's just so very very hard! I have several WIPs that I really want to finish up but those new starts keep calling my name! I am hoping to have some stitching progress to show off very soon!

3. Frame up some of my finished pieces and start hanging my work! This is a must!

4. I really need to get my pictures in some kind of order! I would like to use some of my scrapbooking mini albums and do some theme albums such as one or two for Dad, one for our trips and so on.

5. Do at least one repair, make-over, clean out (such as a closet or dresser) or fix-up to the house per month. Some of the items on the house list are small and won't take long or much money. They just need to be started. After being in a house 20 years, a lot of things tend to fall apart all at once! So goes life as a homeowner.

6. Make a trip by the fabric store and pick up some more calicos, pull out several appropriate quilt patterns and get busy!

Like I said before, these are just a few of the things I listed! I certainly don't want to overwhelm myself. After all, there are 7 days in a week, 4 weeks in a month, 365 day or 52 weeks in a year. I have time.

What makes a house feel homey to you? For me it's quilts, cross stitch or needlework samplers, folkart collections, wooden bowls, stoneware mixing bowls, crocheted doilies, soft lamps lighting a room and anything old or distressed. I guess Harold and I fit in perfectly! LOL.

That's about all for today! Thank you stopping by to see me again! Until next time, may you have simple days and an uncluttered heart!

I'm Back

I really needed this past week. It was so nice to have Harold at home with me. We got a lot done. Oops - I mean he got a lot done and I watched since I am still pretty much on "light and easy" duty until my surgery.

While shopping one day, we ran across a new shipment of River Birch trees! Why was I so excited? Because this tree was the first item to be listed for my in progress Memory Garden! Naturally, I looked at DH with sad eyes and told him I could do without it if he thought it was too big to fit into the car. He rolled his eyes and said he would find a way to get it in the car somehow. And he did! It will definitely have a special home in my garden!

All the rails and columns on our front porch were in desperate need of being replaced. Usually we do that kind of work ourselves to save a few bucks but with all that has happened lately we decided to contract the work out and we are so thrilled with the results! We will paint it ourselves in a few weeks but we now have a porch that will probably out live us!

Harold stayed busy by repainting the hall bath. He made a major job of it all by replacing some of the hardware and fixtures but the bathroom certainly does look wonderful now! I bought a space saver for the hall bathroom about 15 years ago and we finally opened the sealed box and put it together then set it up in the bathroom! Even though I wasn't able to do a lot of physical stuff, I was able to tag along and pick out colors for paint, new bath rugs, shower curtains and such. Whew! Hard work!
There are still quite a few left chores left on our "to do to the house" list but we are getting a start! I would so so very happy if we could have all the inside stuff finished by the end of the year but that may be a little too hopeful.

I was able to spend some more time with my stitching. Not much but every little bit is another step closer to finishing! I also spent some time walking around the yard with my camera looking for some surprises. I haven't done this in quite awhile so it was an enjoyable experience with a familiar comfort attached to each step. I was thrilled to see that Autumn is just around the corner. The leaves are beginning to slowly turn and the mornings (as you can in the picture) have a definite briskness which makes me want to sit out back with my coffee and enjoy all that nature has to offer me.

We took several days to go up to see my step mother. She is like me and doing a little better each day. Since I will be unable to come back for awhile because of surgery and some other obligations, we went through a few of my Dad's things for me to bring on back home. They are mostly things I can remember being in our home since I was very little and I always admired them (even as a little girl) so it feels a little funny to have them in my home now. I'm sure that I will be going back after the surgery to help out some more.

We had a nice anniversary and went out to eat that evening. It was a very nice week and a large portion of the tension and anxiety that was such huge part of my life for quite a while finally washed away and I feel more at peace with the loss of my Dad. I know I will always miss him and there will still be hard days but for the most part, I do feel much better.

Until next time, may you have simple days and an uncluttered heart. Thank you for stopping by to visit with me and for all the support I have received during this time!