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I'm back from my folks'. Dad is doing better but still coughing. So far he's seen five doctors, all of whom focus on the lung damage from smoking (which he quit 42 years ago) but I would swear he has that virus I had - twice - starting MLK weekend and lasting almost six weeks (well, I got it twice in a row so maybe that's why it lasted so long.) Anyway, Dad seemed encouraged when I described my symptoms, which matched his, and told him it just took forever to get over the cough but I eventually did. He seemed interested in my depression issues, too, as this has really thrown him for a loop. He managed some good naps while I was there (sans coughing) so here's hoping he's on the mend.

Chiloe reminded me to take pictures of our craft weekend. Unfortunately, I got the reminder when I got back and did not take my camera with me. On Saturday I did no scrapbooking, having taken three plastic tote boxes full of stuff that needed sorting and organizing from the attic clean-out. Got that 95% done. Today I frogged the fairy face to do it over, but the light is so bad at Mom's that I just brought her home to finish. Instead I worked on my "Spring" quilt and almost finished the first hollyhock sash. I'll take a picture when I finish that one. In the meantime, here are some misc photos that were on the camera.

Don't want Chiloe to go to long without a picture to look at.

I tried to take a photo of the fairy. The color is a little closer to the final thing but still not there. The camera is making the pink too pink. Still, the fabric is almost exactly this color, so I'm getting closer.

"How I Spent My Spring Break"

We don't have a "real" attic, just a crawl space between the ceiling and the roof . Over the master bedroom and smaller bedroom there is enough room to store the flotsam of our marriage. Two things have prompted me to attempt to get that space cleaned out and sealed up. 1) We hope to be moving out in the next couple of years (or three) and 2) DS2 is moving back home - into this room where the access stairway is - next month. I suspect he will be there until we move out, so I want this attic project done before he moves in.

In addition to getting the attic space cleared out, DS2 wants to do some "sprucing up" in "his" room before he moves in. We also need to have an electrician in to repair the outlets in both bedrooms. So, the pressure is on me to finish this project. I have managed to move down about 25 years of the 30 years that is up there. I figure two more trips up (handing stuff down to DH) will finish up the clearing out. Some vacuuming and insulation replacement shouldn't take too long, then a wallboard installer to replace the sheetrock and we'll be good to go. This picture is of some of the stuff that has come down. Of course, then it all needs to be opened and decisions made whether to keep or pitch. Keepers need to be re-packed for storage and later move.

Most of the stuff is pretty easy to decide what to do with, but there is always the flotsam. Definitely not trash (well, there are two shrunken heads in this batch that are headed that way) but also don't "fit" any of the collections as they are packed up. This stack includes a silk scarf map of North Africa ca. 1955 and two beautiful Moroccan leather portfolios. Do we use them or frame them? Under the folios you can see the border of an old photo of a band. DH thinks this may have been the band for the Moody Tabernacle when his grandfather preached there but he isn't sure and doesn't know anyone in the picture. At best it's a piece of his family history; at worst one of my musician sons would love this framed for their home.

These six pieces of broken China (the lid is not even of the same pattern) were in a box labeled "Callan China." My grandmother was Lola Callan. Her father was a descendent of one of the first frontiersmen to hunt, then settle in, western Pennsylvania. A leader in town politics, her father had traveled to Johnstown, PA, for a short visit where he contracted typhoid fever and died, leaving his wife with four small children and a fifth on the way. His family 'allowed' his widow and their children to run one of the family businesses, the Callan House Hotel, to support themselves. The children had to quit school (Grandmother was in third grade). Some years later, Grandmother had married Granddaddy and they had two children of their own. During the Depression they lost their home and had to move onto Granddaddy's parent's farm with most of his brothers and sisters and their families. Grandmother had an especially hard time as the "outsider" in this group. By the time I knew her, Grandmother was determined to fill her house with NEW things, not those old reminders of hard times, so I was quite surprised to find this box among her effects after she died. I have no idea which Callan family these belonged to. Her father's or his mother's or ??? Still, I've wrapped them carefully in bubble wrap, added to the box a copy of the family genealogy and dutifully packed them in Grandmother's memory.

There's not a whole lot positive to say about this experience. I'm finding it surprisingly depressing counting up all the wonderful times in my life that are over and done and gone and thrown into the garbage (literally and, in some cases, metaphorically as well). It was particularly tough to trash the baby clothes that I had saved in hopes that my sons might use them for my grandchildren. You know all those stains that you THOUGHT you got out before you packed up this stuff? Just give it 25 years and watch those stains magically reappear and gross you out.

However, I can revel in how delightful it has been to pack (and pack and pack) the car for trips to the self-storage unit. Our orange trees are in bloom and the fragrance is heavenly!

I'll close with this shot from my last trip to Disneyland Resort (I was working an event at California Adventure). This is one of the new signs over the security post on the way into the park. Chiloe knows me well enough to understand why I HAD to have this picture. I'm hoping to get back to the park in a couple of weeks so that I can let that inner child have free reign once again.

The Mushy Stuff

I'm getting ready to leave for Mom's for the weekend, but wanted to check in on my blogroll first.

I know that some of you stop by and read my blog (I see you in the sidebar) and I want you all to know how much I enjoy visiting yours!

I don't have any friends who do what we do - no quilters, no stitchers, no papercutters , very few scrapbookers and not a cowman/musician/furniture artist within a hundred miles. It means a lot to me to be able to stop by and see what you're doing.

I know it takes time and energy to blog. Your efforts are appreciated!

Memories

I'll be 57 in June (how did that happen?) and experience plenty of senior moments. Most recently I found that I could not pull up any memory of junior high drill team, although I was pretty sure I was in one. I was really starting to doubt my sanity, so I was glad to find my old junior high drill team uniform as part of the great attic emptying. In fact, I found all my old uniforms from drill team, color guard and college songleader. I put them all in one box, then wrote out a history of each uniform to put in the box so that when I die, someone would know what they were. I ended it by advising the finder to just throw the things out or let kids play with them. As soon as I had the box finished I thought to myself, "Why burden someone with this?" So I'm going to pitch it all now. Except maybe for the frontiersman costume. DS1 might be able to use that in his 5th grade class sometime.

Anyway, I always appreciate it when someone triggers a memory for me.

Jace's last post is about being attacked by animals. I'm happy to say that this is an adventure I have not had (yet), but his story of the cat in the dip net did engage a memory from one of our visits to the Kansas farm. It was the year we went at Thanksgiving time when I was eight. My aunt, uncle and cousins were living in my "favorite" farmhouse. I don't know why I have such good memories of that house. You still mostly used the outhouse (although they were excited that they had running water into the kitchen and a toilet in the lean-to attached to the side of the house. I actually preferred the outhouse for some reason. It just seemed weird to go potty in a closet). I remember lots of corn in a big wagon (must have been going for feed 'cause it was hard like popcorn). I remember ornate metal vents through the floor into the downstairs so you could see and hear the people down there. Now I figure those vents were so that some of the heat from downstairs would go into the upstairs bedrooms but at eight I never figured out what they were for; I just thought they were pretty and wished we had them in our house at home (a one-story). I also remember Uncle being upset about the beaver that had built a dam and lodge in his stream, but I don't know if that was this trip or a subsequent trip. I remember being colder than I'd ever been (SoCA girl) when it got all the way down to 32 degrees.

None of which has anything to do with Jace's cat in the dip net. That year Aunt had chickens and would go collect eggs every day. She would let me try to get eggs, but I was afraid of the hens (who would peck at your hands for this insult). On our way out of the chicken coop one day I saw an interesting tool leaning against the wall and I asked what it was. Aunt explained that it was for catching chickens. Naturally, later I had to go try to catch a chicken with it. Mind, it was a nasty thing . Much later I figured out that it must have been to catch a chicken that you intended to kill right away and thus put the poor thing out of its misery after you had poked it with holes with this catcher thing. I did not manage to catch a chicken (thank goodness) but sure managed to rile up the chickens trying. Again, years later I figured Aunt probably didn't get many eggs from them thanks to my scaring them that way.

Kim mentioned her "seven-foot ball of belly button lint" today which sparked another memory. When DH and I were first married, he and my mother somehow ended up in a conversation about belly button lint. No, I don't remember how and don't think I want to. Anyway, DH ended up telling her how, in college, he and his roommates had a basket in the middle of their dining table where they would stash said lint. I was pretty grossed out, but they had a good time speculating what the growing Chinese manufacturing industry could do with that lint. A couple of months later I was cleaning out the lint basket in the apartment laundry facility and was struck by how clean and fluffy it was (must have been those new towels and sheets we newlyweds had been gifted with) and took a handful up to show DH. I don't remember which of us had this particular attack of the orneries , but somehow that handful of lint got put into an envelope with a note that DH had finally collected enough belly-button lint to send to China, but he thought he should send it to her first to see if she had any ideas of what to do with it.

HaHa. Good joke.

Mom never mentioned receiving the package, but several weeks later DH received a package back. It was a little patchwork pincushion (pillow shaped) complete with the needle holder. With it Mom had put a note that this was a prototype and did DH think he could keep the lint coming so that those Chinese craftspeople could fill the thousands of orders?

I keep hoping I run across that pincushion. I know I didn't throw it out but haven't seen it in years.

Lisa's blog asks, "How do you spell procrastination?"

I spell it b-l-o-g-g-i-n-g. My spring break is almost over. I never got my drive up the coast (big surprise), did not finish the attic project and - if I finish one of the garden chores today - will have only finished two of the four garden projects I had hoped to do this week. Today is technically my last day of break since I will leave early tomorrow to go spend the weekend with my parents (Saturday is scrapbooking with Mom and Sis, Sunday is quilting with Mom.)

To finish the garden project I have to dig and install four of those retainer block things, lay some landscape cloth and put down three bags of mulch. Before I do this, however, I need to rake up what I did in phase one and lay the new, 48" landscape cloth that I bought yesterday because what I had put down in phase one didn't quite cover the ground. I sure don't want to be pulling grass around the edges of these pathways so will take the time now to rake it up and change out the cloth. I look forward to showing DS2 that I did something to stay on top of all the work he did last summer when he pulled all the grass out all over the yard. He said his favorite flowers are snapdragons (and this area is what he will see when he moves back home next month) so I bought a six-pack of snaps to plant in that planter.

I also need to get some major work done on the attic project. I probably won't go back up there again yet, but will pack and stow in the storage unit what I have decided to keep. My goal is to move stuff from the second bedroom to storage, then move my scrapbooking stuff out of the bigger room (where DS2 will move into next month) into the smaller room. Once the bigger room is cleared out, DS2 can come by on his time off and do the fixing up he wants to do. I realized I don't have to have all the stuff out of the attic for him to do the demo he wants to do (he wants to take off the old wallcoverings (paper and paneling) and ceiling popcorn. I can empty the attic while he's doing that dirty work. By the time he's done with the wall prep stuff, I'll be out of the attic and we can remove the stair unit and seal up the ceiling. Of course, now that he's moving home because he doesn't get enough hours to support himself out there, they are scheduling him for time and overtime and he doesn't have time to come fix up his room like he wants). Oh, well.

I'd better get to it.

TA-DA!

A little happy dance for Debi (actually, I finish so few pieces - even the small ones - that for me this is Busby Berkeley stuff).

This is Le Papillon by Nimue.

Chiloe did her a few months ago and when she posted the picture my greed kicked in and I HAD to have her. Chiloe changed out some colors but I stayed with the chart colors and I'm happy enough with her. She's showing a little dark here because I haven't figured out my scanner yet. Chiloe also did a better job than I (and at great effort )of capturing her pouty face. I've decided to leave her as is, at least for now.

Also, if you click on the picture it will take you to a squatty-body version. I don't understand what my scanner does but it compresses the picture and darkens it. When I scan a photo it usually comes out looking better than the original, but doesn't do so well with stitchery. I've stretched it in this post so that it looks more like my piece.

Now I get to decide what to do with her. I'd love to find a frame that looks like bark. Guess I'll just put her in the completed stuff box (after I show her to Mom and Sis on Saturday) until I find the right finish for her.

BAPS

Karin over at XStitchinProgress asked what large project I had. I'm a long way from starting it (no room to leave up such a large frame for an extended period of time) but look forward to it after we move.

It's called "Pumpkin Pines" based on a landscape by David Armstrong. I did a Google search for it to link but it doesn't seem to be available any more.


I always wonder about businesses that scan art for cross-stitch. I assume they're paying the appropriate royalties but you never really know. Go read Mary Kathryn's sidebar piece on copyright. She explains the issues much better than I could.

Can you tell...

That I am really bored with my blog?

Heading out for a couple of hours in the garden, then back in for a day of stitching. Will post progress later.

It's 7:37 AM

on a Monday morning and I am NOT at work!

WoooHooo!

I have kind of a too-many-things-to-do-in-too-little-time plan for the week. Saturday went OK, though, all things considered, so I am hopeful that I will end the week rested but satisfied that I got enough accomplished.

Yesterday my boys came home for a little while and then we headed to my sister's for my mother's birthday/Easter celebration. Everyone was very excited that my mom actually got to celebrate her birthday ON her birthday so that overshadowed the Easter part. And it rarely happens, but she was the only one being celebrated at this bash ("Wow," she said. "Does this mean all those presents are for me?")

Dad decided not to attend, which is quite alarming. At this point in his life (he's 82) he lives for these bashes when all of his children and grandchildren are together. but he caught The Crap finally and is really suffering. He had been having problems with his legs (fatigue) and his doctors finally figured out that they weren't getting enough oxygen. More tests showed that he has extensive lung damage from the cigarette smoking he did between the ages of 13 and 36 and, even though he quit over 42 years ago, the damage has never healed. So, his lungs will only "process" (not the right word, I know) 50% of the oxygen to his tissues that a normal 80-year-old should expect. As of yesterday one of his lungs was starting to collapse but the doctors didn't know what he had. They had given him "oxygen things" (Mom's words) and antibiotics and inhalers to try to knock the thing out. Still, the fact that he chose to stay home tells us he is feeling awful. Sis and I are supposed to go scrapbooking at the folks' next Saturday. I hope he takes an upward turn so he can at least enjoy that visit.

So, my plan for today is to work on the attic project until I have enough stuff to fill my car for a trip to the storage unit. After I drop the stuff off I will head to a garden center for mulch. When I get home I'll weed the walkways around the raised vegetable beds (not too bad thanks to DS2's efforts last summer) and spray Round-Up and pre-emergent, then put down landscape cloth and mulch between the beds and the back fence. I'm also going to put down the pink sweet pea seed I collected last summer. This variety self-sows every year and is just starting to germinate (everywhere but in the sweet pea bed) so I'm hoping the seed I collected will do the same. I had planned to plant a variety of colors last fall but didn't get to it. Same old, same old.

Once I've finished those two chores I should be about ready for a hot shower and an evening of stitching my fairy.

Or I'll be ready for a hot shower and a collapse, too tired and sore to do anything but stare at whatever DH is watching on the television (probably two college basketball teams). I don't know. I'm not a sports nut although I'm happy to let him be one. I'm all for guys hugging and showing emotion, but wouldn''t you think by the time you hit 20 and are six-and-a-half feet tall you would learn to control your crying after you lose a game?

Dang, Jace

Jace got me laughing again this morning, which would not be a problem except that DH is still asleep. His subject is roadkill.

Sounds like Missouri is like Utah, not big on clearing the roads of the stuff. Here in SoCA our roadkill is mostly ground squirrels, raccoons and - yes, Jace - opossum. In season, of course. The little stuff is greedily snatched by crows and, if it's fresh enough, hawks. The bigger stuff is scraped up by animal control pretty quickly.

In Utah the roadkill is much more exotic. To me, anyway. Lots of deer. I've seen as many porcupines along the road there as possum here.

Wonder which would win a race across a highway - possum or porcupine?

When I take my mom to see my aunt in Kansas I will, at some point, tuck them both into the car and head to Oklahoma City to see my uncle. It's almost like they drew the state line around the roadkill. "Aha! Here's where we start to see armadillos along the road! Spray paint the state line right here!"

I will not entertain you with a roadkill picture. I will let you pop over to Jace for that (no, really.) If you haven't visited Jace yet, you're in for a treat. Be sure to scroll down to his wife's quilted projects. This is a multi-talented (though delightfully warped) pair.

Hemp Linen

Has anyone tried cross-stitching on hemp linen?

OK, so where did that come from? I believe VERY strongly that the only way the US is going to recover economically is if we bring manufacturing (and - hello? - JOBS) back to the states. As demonstrated in the 1990's when the textile industry ran its "Look for the 'Made in the USA' Tag" commercials, this will only happen if we buy American. So I was intrigued when I sidebar hopped into Schoolhouse Quilt's site that some of their fabrics are milled in the United States.

I didn't know we still milled quilt fabric. Now I'm on a quest to have US links in my sidebar. If you know (or even suspect) of quilt fabrics that are milled in the United States, please let me know.

Which is what got me to the hemp linen question, although this hemp linen is milled in Romania, not the US. I'm just curious whether it's an embroidery-quality linen.

A couple of years ago I had a student (showing the typical American ignorance of hemp) argue that our colonists were growing (and therefore must have been using) recreational marijuana. I suspect that the Founding Fathers were as vice-ridden as Americans today, although I can't claim to know their recreational habits. I do know, however, that the industrial hemp that they grew for ship's rigging is quite different from the plant nicknamed "hemp" today. I did my homework so that I could come back the next day with some real information for my young genius. Even I was surprised to learn that while both plants have some levels of THC (the part that makes recreational marijuana - well - recreational), the levels in industrial hemp are very low and it also contains CBD which is believed to counteract the effect of the THC.

Shut him up.

Look what I found!

I'm going to have to ask my mom to be sure, but I think this might be an early piece of Debi Stitches. I have a memory of doing a stamped cross stitch kitten bib first, but this was in with my old dolls and I may have done this. I'll ask her tomorrow. She may have done it for my last doll, a large Betsy Wetsy. Mom would make full wardrobes for all my dolls and I still have a flannel nightgown (that matched our Christmas nightgowns that year) and gray corduroy coat for that doll. What makes me think I might have done this is that the fabric is shredding near the binding in a couple of places which would relegate it to child practice piece.

I'll just have to see what she has to say.