Sizzling Friday

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Today has been another hot day…once again we are under a heat advisory and have been for a couple of days and will be for a couple more.  I think we are all looking forward to some Fall temperatures and some rain…so hot and so dry!

I stuck to my Friday schedule and went to the grocery store.  I bought a couple of things for recipes and shopped some of the sales…such as they are these days! My main way of shopping is to shop sale items…especially in the meat department.  If I don't have immediate plans for the meat in a recipe, I freeze it for another day when I will plan a meal around what I have already purchased.  Today's sale wqs a pork loin…I plan to cube part of the roast for sweet and sour pork or a soup recipe that calls for cubed pork.  I think that this time I am going to cut the rest into pork chops…not going to use it as a roast at all this time.  Sometimes I use half for a recipe and the other half I roast. A week or so ago chicken thighs were on sale and I bought some…skinned and boned them and popped them in the freezer to use in a recipe that I like to use thigh meat. With the cost of everything these days, I’m trying to shop and cook smart!  I can't aways shop smart if I go in wanting to make a certain recipe and that week some of the ingredients are sky high in prices…just watching these days!  Doing it this way I find that I have a good varied diet of recipes that I enjoy cooking…when I let my freezer do the inspiring rather than the grocery store aisles!  

I bought a new pan to replace two of my cooking pans that had gotten old and probably shouldn't be used any more…those nonstick surfaces on pans just don’t hold up no matter how careful I have been with them…no dishwasher…no metal utensils, etc.  I am in the process of switching to stainless steel.  I have been very pleased with the ones I have gotten as replacements so far…hoping the new one I am pleased with…less in my cookware drawer by replacing two with one.  One of the ones I am replacing had a bit lower sides and the other a bit higher sides.  I hope that this one in the middle will do the job of both of them…time will tell! I am planning to make New England Clam Chowder sometime this weekend so will try this new pan out.  

After getting the groceries bought, brought in from the car, and put away.  I was pretty done in…this hot weather seems to wipe me out…or maybe it is my age…probably both!  But I was very ready to stitch and read this afternoon.  I finished the book and did a little more on the latest Christmas ornament. 

I’ve got my dishwasher running and that is it for this evening…more stitching and reading is in store for me this evening. I’m looking forward to tomorrow as once again it is time for my Cottey Bookclub tomorrow late morning. I’d probably better go find a summary of the book and read it prior to the meeting as I read tomorrow's selections some time back…probably need to refresh my memory!

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Thursday With Friends

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Today I met with some of the ladies in my Sunday School for lunch.  We had a nice time  visiting and eating.  It's always good to spend time with these friends!  

I swooped through the house today picking up and putting away things that I had put for my decorating efforts.  So the rooms look finished now.  That was one of the things that I wanted to get done today.  I have also read on the book that I am close to finished.  It is at that point in the story that I really want to find out what is going to happen.  I hope I will finish it before I sleep tonight.  I am also making good progress on the next Christmas ornament.

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Mid Week…Mid Month

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Tonight's photo shows the dining room table and I included a close-up of the cutwork, that my grandmother or her sister did (that I mentioned the other night in my blog). I thought that the cloth that had the fruit on the corners was a good one to use for Fall decorating.  I have a feeling that this may have been a dresser scarf rather than a table runner. It only has the design on two corners and the other side is just a finished edge.  But it works well for my purpose on the dining room table.

I have enjoyed looking around at my decorations today.  I am fairly pleased with the way they have turned out.  I never know how I will use the pumpkins, etc. that I have…I just start placing them and this time what is on the dining room table were the ones left…worked out well, I think!  

Today I did finish the Christmas ornament that I had hoped to finish last night before I went to sleep.  But I ended up being too tired to stitch so I got up this morning and finished it.  I have also read quite a bit today…sort of resting after my extra effort towards cleaning over the last days.  I did a little planning for a possible sewing project.  

I have just gotten home from Bible study and am ready to settle in for the evening.  I plan to start another Christmas ornament…this is one I have stitched before…perhaps memory of the pattern will come into play for this one.  I have plans to make this one a couple more times and would like to add another one on for my tree…but that will only happen after I get ones made for Christmas gifts first.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel for "to-be-stitched ornaments" for 2026!

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Busy Tuesday

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You are seeing the last of my decorating efforts.  I am finished…I think!  

Donna and I decided to play hooky from the library today.  We really are caught up for the moment in the library and since we both have a busy week ahead of us, we decided that we could skip the library.  I stayed home and worked on cleaning and decorating and stitching.  Besides finishing Fall decorating, I am hoping to finish another ornament today.  I am in a good place to say that I am pretty sure I can finish it before I sleep tonight.  I just have some outlining to do and quite a few little French knots.  On my breaks today I stitched for part of them and read for others.  Moving along in another book. I finished listening to a book over the weekend. That made my books-read list grow a bit, but I am definitely way behind on my yearly goal of reading a book a week.  But stitching takes away from reading time…reason that I listened to a book over the weekend.  My only problem with listening is dozing off and then having to go back and try to find the place I was just before dozing…I relistened to quite a bit of this last audio book! But in the end I did get the whole story and found out who did it!

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious! 

Monday Musings

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How about this bunch of bananas?!? I took this photo at the butterfly garden in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Probably not a photo expected from our Alaska/Canada visit!

Fall pumpkins continued to roll to various places in the house today.  I got the kitchen pretty much finished today.  I then moved on to the dining room table.  I usually keep a tablecloth on the dining room table as it tends to be a place where things get put down…purse, key, sometimes mail that needs to be tended to, etc.  This time it also had things on it that are needed to finish the front door…it still hasn't been painted…I’m hoping soon, once temperatures cool down just a bit.  I put those all in a plastic tub put them aside…at the moment on the floor in the dining room…just to keep them close to the front door where they will be used.  Anyway, I totally cleared off the dining room table and removed the cloth and pad.  Then polished the table.  It's all shiny and nice…now to NOT put things on it for a while!  I am now trying to decide which of the special hand embroidered cloths/doilies/runner, that my grandmother made, I will use to put the decorations on…round or rectangular…have to iron whichever I choose…a decision that I will make in the morning.  The embroidery that is on these is cut work!  Lovely work.  I say that my grandmother made them, but there is a possibility that her sister made them as they both did wonderful handwork and, I imagine that they gifted each other their work so it could belong to either of them…either way I treasure each and every piece that I have of theirs.  I really don't remember my grandmother, as she died when I was two.  But my Aunt Mabel, I got to see several times in my life.  She lived in Massachusetts and we lived in Arizona.  We would visit with the Massachusetts relatives when we visited my mother's sister in MA…so I saw her there and visited in her home.  Then she and Uncle Bill visited in Arizona and so got to visit them in my home so I definitely have more memories of them than my grandmother.  Since I love doing needlework, I really love having pieces they made.  And, I have a drawer or two full of various linens that they embroidered over the years.  I love using them!

At this point I just have to distribute pumpkins on the dining room table and then put a cornucopia filled with Fall leaves and wooden apples on the family room mantle…then my decorating efforts will be finished.  Surely I will be able to finish up tomorrow! 🤞

I am home from prayer meeting and hope to relax in my recliner, stitching on the latest Christmas ornament and watching a cooking show or a needlework YouTube (what we stitchers call FlossTube).

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious.

Sunday Favorite Alaskan Photo

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Saturday Doings

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I have zoomed around today…well…as fast as I zoom these days!  I just know that I did a lot of tasks today all related to cleaning and decorating. And, one task just lead to another.  I did accomplish quite a bit, but am not finished yet…but getting closer! My living room is finished except for clearing off the pumpkins on the table in the living room.  Those are the pumpkins that are waiting for me to pick for their place in my Fall decorations for this year.  I cleared off the dining room table getting ready to make a center piece.  Then I will finish in the kitchen and do the mantel in the family room.  I also have the buffet in the dining room decorated. I did a lot of furniture dusting and polishing.  And, moving aside furniture to vacuum under it.  Once I got started, I just wanted to keep on…but…at a point my back said it was time to stop.  On top of the decorating,  I did two loads of clothes

I will rest tonight and hopefully get to put a few stitches in a Christmas ornament…or give myself a treat and stitch on a sampler.  

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!