MOM - We hate cats!

I didn't take a picture of the progress on my puzzle, but I'm working through the green forest! Are these pieces reflections, or are they the trees? Hmmm..... I started creating a section that wasn't attached to anything, since it was easier to work on. Then I discovered that my section was upside down and fit beautifully into the top part. 

I work on it for about an hour each evening. After that, it becomes too challenging for my brain, which is interesting, since there are other puzzles I could work on for hours. This one is slow and steady. My only deadline is to finish it before the end of the month, which I should be able to do. I want to log my puzzle into the Facebook post. 

But if you think that 1,000-piece puzzles are a challenge, how about this one? It's a 40,000+ piece puzzle by Ravensburger. I think there are two in existence. One is in the link above, and the second one can be spotted in this video that Brenda sent me last night. 

I would love to do one of those puzzles. In fairness to the puzzler, the pieces in these ones come in ten bags, one for each section. Did you see the price? That Mickey Mouse puzzle is $1,000!!!! I have several puzzles larger than 1000 pieces, and when I have established myself a bit more, I shall dig one out and tackle it! But to go for the 40,000+ one? Maybe when I'm a senior! LOL, I mean retired!

One thing I have learned about our girls is that neither of them likes cats. When Murphy spots a cat, she goes insane and barks like a feral dog! If only she could get her hands on the cat! 

To my surprise, Lexi had a similar reaction. The other day, when we were walking, she stopped, planted her feet, and started to bark. Our Husky does NOT bark. She may yip, but she doesn't bark. When I spotted the cat beside the car, I realized that no cat can ever come and live in our house. And no cat has probably ever passed through our backyard either! 

MOM - there's a hated cat!

Lexi and I spotted these beautiful roses on our walk yesterday. It's sometimes a challenge to get "perfect" flowers. But these were unblemished, and they are gorgeous. 

It's important to stop and smell the roses!

More roses

Lexi has no problem stopping to smell the roses because she loves walking through the vegetation! I must think of getting a rubbing post for her!! Not only does she have to smell the flowers, but she needs to smell each and every blade of grass! 

MOM - just doing my pee mail!

I'm slowly whittling down the weeds in the backyard. Slow and steady - I just shouldn't have left it that long, but the weeds are larger and very easy to manage! 

There was a rib fest at the mall this weekend, and we could hear the music from our house. We are far enough away, but the wind must have been blowing in the right direction. Because of that and a trading card show in the mall, it was super busy. 

A trading card event at the mall

I got what I needed and then got out. I tried the yarn I bought at Walmart, but wasn't happy with the quality, so I need to go to Micheal's to buy a better, tighter-woven yarn. As a result, that project has sat another day! 

But I managed to get one project almost finished. It just needs a bit of tidying up, and it will be done. Since it was a ready-made item (my $4 table runner from the thrift store), I also had to go out to find a can of spray starch! I know—I hate those nozzles, but I plan to use this thing up before the nozzle clogs! I have several things this morning that I need to starch the heck out of! I am not a fan of fussing, but let's say that a little bit of starch goes a long way to making this table runner look pretty smart!

And the good news is that I cut out my garment. That was after I shortened the front, back, button placket, and sleeves. It will likely be too large in the shoulders, but I'm not going to touch that because of the style of the yoke on this shirt. 

Cutting out the shirt

I started cutting the pieces using those Fiskars scissors, but my hands just didn't like it, so I got out my good shears, which made a huge difference. I needed something like that when I was cutting a lot of garments back in the day. 

What is surprising is, and for anyone who has made garments in the past, I'm sure it's the same for you. There's no need to look at the layout! No need to check if you need one or two pieces - it's simply instinctual - you need two sleeves, two fronts, the back is cut on the fold, etc. 

The only two sections not cut are the front and back yoke. I need to cut those out this morning, but since I'm going to do some embroidery on them, I'll cut them about 1 inch larger all the way around, do the embroidery, and then cut to the size I need. 

The second part of the cutting process

The embroidery is chosen, and I just need to place the designs in the virtual hoop in the software to get the exact placement, and hopefully the back yoke will all fit into one hoop. I'm pretty sure it will. Actually, come to think of it, I may mark the yoke on the fabric (with some margin for shrinkage) and leave it intact, which will make hooping easier. The same with the fronts. Yep -- I'll mark it before cutting. 

So it was a good day, but not quite as productive as I thought it would be. But I'm OK with that. I'll get done what I need to get done, and so far, I'm doing OK. I'm finding it a challenge to embroider and sew at the same time. After several days of that, my brain isn't happy. It is telling me to do one thing at a time. And I'm OK with that. But the place looks like a disaster, with parts of several projects scattered throughout the space. I hope to tidy up a bit during Monday Sewing this morning and as the embroidery on my shirt stitches out!

And on that note, I'm off to the gym to work out by myself! I miss those spin classes, but I refuse to go to the class. I just checked the app—there is NO 6 AM class. I'm guessing that was in protest of Joseph's students. No one went, so the class was canceled. That speaks volumes!!! But would that change the manager's mind? Absolutely not! It's a challenge for people to admit they are wrong! 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!