New residents for the backyard

Alright - Mother Nature! We've had enough! I turned the heat off yesterday morning, but I had to turn it back on later in the day. It never got above 10 degrees Celsius, and it's just cold with the wind. I see the temperature will go up later today, and the sun will come out, which will help. With all the rain, clouds, and wind, those low temps are cold! 

While it was a day for errands in the car, I also managed to start the appliqué. I got the stars done for both blocks. 

Progress on the appliqué blocks

And the fish are done on one block. Now that the machine is set up for appliqué, it shouldn't take too long to finish these two blocks. I know - setting up the sewing machine for appliqué is so easy - change the stitch plate and the foot and select a different stitch. I mean -- we are not talking rocket science here! I must try to get this done today so I can move on! 

More appliqué on those blocks

The day did not start off well, as I had a few minutes before the planned departure for the errands, so I thought I'd dig out the stove's serial number and model and call the support team. OH, great -- I carefully opened the door to see if the serial number was along the edge (that was the first spot I was told to look after a Google search). Sadly, the serial number wasn't there, and the shattered glass took that moment to start collapsing. 

I had no choice but to clean it out, or it would have all fallen into the oven, which I didn't want to clean up. So I got out a spatula to help scoop up the glass. I got almost all the glass scooped up, but broke the spatula in the process. I think I may have to buy a new one, as we only had two. I need to check on that. 

Scooping the shattered glass from the oven door

You can see how dirty the glass was. and how clean the shattered glass became during the cleaning process! 

At least the shattered glass got clean!

I stopped at the pond place to ask questions about our skimmer, which gets clogged so easily, but there isn't much we can do, other than try putting a screen on the front of the skimmer or adding a floating skimmer. Or just plan to clean the existing filter more regularly than we do. If we glue the screening to the existing skimmer, the pond level will have to be lowered, and we will need special glue. I think I'll just schedule cleaning the filter more frequently. It will have to become a job - feed the dogs, clean the filter! 

But I decided to restock the pond with fish. And that was an eye-opener. 

Shopping for fish to restock the pond

When I first bought fish for the pond, twenty-three years ago, I paid 49 cents per fish. Granted, they were small, but still. This time? The smallest fish were $10 a piece! They are approximately 3-4 inches long. Lesson learned: make sure the aerator is working properly in the fall. That was a costly mistake, and so I ended up with seven new fish. The koi and larger fish were even more money, and these smaller fish have room to grow! I did buy a new aerator as well!

Miss Murphy had to investigate what was happening in her pond. 

MOM - Are these my friends?

And then the fish were released. 

The fish, after being released

I think they were in shock. Where's the big blue tub? We have plants? Wow!!!! They swam around and around following each other as they explored their new domain. When I checked on them later, I could only spot part of one, as they had settled amongst the plant debris at the bottom, where they would be safe and warm. 

Hopefully, when the sun comes out later today, we will spot them. 

I had some things to drop off and pick up, and one of the stops was the puzzle warehouse. I know --- do not ask! I had spotted some puzzles a while back, and they were out of stock. They have a system that lets you receive an email when the puzzle is back in stock. How "sneaky" is that? Well, three came in, so I decided to go and have a look. 

The puzzle warehouse

This warehouse is just insane -- it's floor-to-ceiling puzzles, and they carry a wide number of companies, including the latest one I found that publishes puzzles in Ontario! The variety of pictures just blows me away every time I go there. I will NOT go there in the future. Well, for a couple of months! 

Last night, I decided it was time to put away the New York puzzle that I finished last week and start a new one. I'm loving the flexibility of time to do this. And yes -- I feel like I've fallen down another rabbit hole. BUT - when a puzzle is done, it leaves the house. There are a few I'm keeping for certain reasons, but currently, there are only two on the keep shelf. Both will be put together one more time and then given away. 

This one I chose is crazy. It's a 1000-piece puzzle, but the pieces are quite large. I had to use five of the design boards to lay out all the pieces. I managed to get this much completed last night. The border is not together, and I seem to be missing pieces. I suspect the puzzle is much wider than it appears below because neither the top nor the bottom border is complete. By missing pieces, I mean, I just haven't found them yet!

Progress on the new puzzle

The picture is a bunch of brightly colored birds, butterflies, and flowers. 

We had a look at the huge puzzles - the ones that cost $999 and consist of over 40,000 pieces! Can you imagine? Those mostly consist of 10 smaller pictures connected, so, technically, you could do each one by itself. The one I spotted that was different was celebrating Mickey Mouse's 90th anniversary.

I think it's cheating a bit to call this a single puzzle when, in fact, it's ten separate ones put together. It's 22 feet by 6 feet. Where the heck would you lay that out? And in those ones, each puzzle comes in its own bag. Thank goodness for that. 

The largest I have here is 4000 pieces. I think I have two of them that I've carried from the farm back when I left many, many years ago. I think this winter would be a great time to dig one of them out. Hmmm --- those extra tables? I don't think they will be for sale after all! 

And I managed to get one more of the community project quilt done! When things go well, it doesn't take too much time, but everything had been prepped the day before. 

Community project quilt 3 of 11 done!

There is another quilt loaded on the machine for today. It's a gift, so we won't be posting the picture for a while. I'll have to help as the quilt is almost as large as the backing, which is Minky or plush. So that will take some time today, but at least it won't be my job to babysit it. Once I give some guidance, I hope to step back from that one. 

So progress is being made. There are always errands to be done, but today, there is zero reason to leave the house! I hope to start assembling that table and to finish the appliqué. Let's see what happens. I also need to figure out the stove issue and try to help Dad. He is having some pretty bad back pain, and we need to get him some relief from that. It's just so hard when we tell him over and over what he can do, and he refuses to do it. He also doesn't stay on top of his pain meds, so when they wear off, he's in agony. I told him, you need to get on a schedule, so the meds stay working. Yeah!

I finished an audiobook and an ebook yesterday. I have way too many on my shelf (now down to six), but that is way too much pressure to read those books before they are due. Many cannot be renewed. I have put several on suspend and will have to figure out how to unsuspend them at some point. When I get excited about a new book to read, I MUST remember to TAG the darn thing as "want to read" and not put it on hold, even though some of the books I have on hold have been on hold for over a year before I get them. I don't want to suspend or turn those ones away! It gets complicated, but having six books on the shelf at one time is way too much pressure! 

By the way, if you watched the Grainline Studio video linked in my post yesterday, my apologies. That was the link to the series' INTRODUCTION. Here is the link to the first video - Understanding your Sewing Practice. 

On that note, I'm off to start the day!

Have a super day!

Ciao!!!

get some appliqué finished. 

Life is NOT FAIR!!!!!

We have all had bad days. Come on - we may not admit it, but they are there. You know the kind of days - you wallow in self pity, think the world is against you, no time to get things done - your sewing or whatever.

But when I look at my life - so far I have NOTHING to complain about. Well I can complain to myself!

It seems that almost everywhere I turn around I hear of someone who is stricken somehow with cancer. Now this is NOT the toll of death that it used to be. I won't mention any names, but one lady recently underwent surgery for her THIRD bout of cancer. She has the most sunny disposition you could imagine. I love her to death and even though she is going through a lot of crap, she always manages to put a smile on my face!!!!  Someone else waiting for surgery for cancer has now been diagnosed with cancer in another spot - surgery postponed and into chemo. The list goes on and on.....   and listening to some of the stories from Marian who drives cancer patients to their appointments - well I am EXHAUSTED just listening to their stories - never mind having to live through what they do.

Personally I am so lucky in that my entire family seems to be pretty healthy. Knock on wood!!!!

And have you noticed that our pets seem to be falling prey to this same disease????  Just heard about little Zoey who was under two (I think). Sadly little Zoey did not make it. She was such a cute little dog. And Cowboy and others.

What the hell is going on??????????

All I can say is STOP WASTING your life. You MUST make each day count. DO NOT WAIT to do those things that you want to do. Take a trip, tell someone that you love them, write a book or whatever it is. Life is unfair and it may be your turn tomorrow!!!!

Anyway - enough of that. Let's dig through the pictures and see if we can find something a bit more cheery to talk about. Oh yes - my training this morning got pushed back so that is good - I can blog!!!!

I am UNABLE to show you what I am working on - yes - those darn round robins again!!!!!!   However here is some show n tell from the last week.......

Diane - what she made with the 5" dark charms that Monday Motivators exchanged . The top is NOT done yet. I LOVE THIS. The colours are gorgeous - a restricted palette was used. Monochromatic - brown, black, red, blue, green and purple.

Diane - what she made with SOME of the black/white strips that Monday Motivators exchanged. This is similar to the one that Mary made at the retreat a couple of weeks ago. Difference - Diane added red for some of the sashes. 

Margo - a very scrappy GORGEOUS quilt that she is making for herself - FOR ONCE!!!!

Lois - this quilt is the block of the month at the Mississauga Guild. I believe they had 48 people signed up and Lois is DONE. Quilted, bound and I bet there was a label on the back. This project was based on a book which was based on  "Little House on the Prairie"

Pat - same quilt. Notice how different they are, yet they are the same. Look at the flying geese on the right hand side of the quilt.

The pattern that was used. 

Judy's table cloth (not finished). Very cute - would also be nice as a wall hanging and then she could go wild with the embellishments. 

Mary and her project for last month. I think she is going to add additional borders to it. I believe we saw Linda's last month or the month before. 

Marian spent a LOT of time working on this ENORMOUS block. Oh let me rephrase - she spent an ENORMOUS amount of time working on this TEENY TINY block. She fussed, she measured, she double checked and then she cut. Then she recut. She was going to use a ruler, then she was going to use another ruler. I finally convinced her to just plunge in with a regular ruler and see how PERFECT that little block is. One down and 21 to go!!!!!

And in a moment of MADNESS - she asked me if I wanted the cut off pieces to make half square triangles. CUTE!!!!!

You know that all my fish died this past winter and I was lucky enough to find TWO people who had fish they want to get rid of. Judy brought me FOUR fish the other day. |As we were putting the fish in the pond - I had to run for the camera. Although it is hard to see - this reminded me of the final scenes of Finding Nemo!!!!   Yep - there we were with fish in a plastic bag in the water!!!!

Fish in their plastic bag in the water in their plastic bag.

Fish getting used to their new home.

 As we were emptying the fish into the pond - we think one of them is PREGNANT. She had a BIG belly that I don't think was bloating!!!!   Will have to keep an eye on her, although they have found the bottom of the pond with all the weeds and they are quite happy to hide down there. Not interested in coming up for feeding at this point. They are probably in SHOCK.

You know - I feel very calm and very relaxed now that I have got all this down on paper!!!!  Maybe that is my release - too much pent up in my head and my brain feels like it is on Everest!!!!

For those of you who are interested - check out this web site.

This is a fellow who is making a bid for the summit probably tomorrow (our time). He has a tracking device and if you click on the full screen of this web site and go to SATELLITE image - you can "see" his progress to the top. It is pretty neat. Also check out the TERRAIN image - you get a better idea of where the top of Everest is.

Alan's quest for summit of Mount Everest


I had my Vector cereal for breakfast - honestly - how can they think we are happy with just one box!!!!   Yet - those little boxes are laden with calories - mostly sugar I am sure.

Well time to get my butt in gear and see if I can get something done before I head out for my training.


Have a great day!!!!


Ciao!!!!!