No more words! And TUSAL

Ah, a sigh of relief.  The words are all done.

It actually wasn't all that bad.  Most of the words were over two, not over one.  And they went quickly and took up a lot of space.  :D  But I'm glad to be here now.

Instead of here.

I do love the owls though.

It's also TUSAL time.

My ORT jar always looks the same, doesn't it?  Oh well.  I put my ORT jar with my bear from Lori Ann Corelis.

I will leave you with a picture of Mia playing with a Keurig cup.  The father type left a box of Keurig cups for his coffee maker on the bed.  Mia loves coffee and will do anything to get some. So of course she plunged into the box of K cups and grabbed one.  Such a cute baby.

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  And thank you for the sweet words about my FIL and the birthday wishes for the father type.  Both were greatly appreciated.  I hope everyone has a great week.

Happy belated.....

What a bad wife I am.

It took a good friend asking if I only did birthday posts for the kids to remind me that I had forgotten to post about a certain important someone's birthday.

Someone who has been going through such a hard time recently and yet been so cheerful and wonderful to everyone around him.

Someone who has always been there for me.

Someone who, poor thing, seems to have caught a cold on his birthday.

But who is still cheerful nevertheless.

Someone who shares my memories with me and marvels with me that our children are seniors and not tiny tots.

What can I say, father type?  I've been a forgetful wife.  But it doesn't mean you don't mean the world to me.

Happy belated birthday, my love.  You know I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

A hole in our hearts

My progress so far on Mary Allen.

I was very happy to get to something besides borders and words.  And the cute little owl.

My sweet, gentle, FIL passed away last week.

I still remember when I first met FIL and MIL, how they welcomed me into their lives.  Theirs was a special family.  They always respected others, they never fought.  Never.  They didn't raise their voices -- except to tell a funny story or to tell about their day when they got home.  FIL was always ready to help out in time of crisis or just to keep someone company.  He always thought of others before himself.  I can see so much of him in my sweet father type.  So much of MIL as well.  I could never express in words just how much my FIL will be missed.

The picture above was rescued from the flood waters in our basement.  It shows FIL at age 17.

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I hope everyone has a good week ahead.  Hug and kiss your loved ones.

My new start and cleaning up after Irene

I was inspired by Robert, Terri, and Siobhan to start this new project, the Mary Allen Sampler by Samplers Remembered.  This is what the piece looks like (or you can take a look at Robert's finish or at Terri's header picture).  (This picture courtesy of ABC Stitch Therapy.)

And here is where I am.

Mary Allen Sampler by Samplers Remembered

40ct RR Creme Brulee

NPI fibers

I copied Siobhan's choice of fabric.

I just hope I can make it through all those words and letters. Not my favorite thing.  lol!

We had some people come in to clean up the basement and spray antimicrobial stuff to prevent mold and bad things growing.  A 30 ft. dumpster was practically filled up by all the stuff that was damaged by the 5 or 6 inches of water we got from Irene.

I couldn't believe that two guys could bring up all that stuff from the basement, but they did.  The spraying happened afterwards, and then industrial fans were set up down there to help dry the basement out.  

The dumpster should be picked up today (we managed to throw some things into it from the garage too), and I'm calling the basement dry as of today and calling the people to pick up their fans too.  It's a good feeling to have that work done.

On Saturday, we helped the girl child move back to college.  This involved two cars for a change.  The girl child drove her new used car down to college with the father type riding shotgun.  She needs a car on campus this year since she will be working part time at the place where she worked for the summer. The boy type rode with me in the minivan packed with the majority of the girl child's stuff.  I do have to say things went pretty quickly unloading with 4 people -- and with the girl child having learned what to bring and what not to bother with.  After the unloading, we stopped in town for some sushi, teriyaki and tempura at the girl child's favorite sushi place -- soooo good!  Then it was goodbye and driving home.

I think this year marks a record -- for the least watched matches at the US Open for me.  The first week, we didn't have power until Thursday.  The second week, I was busy with the flood guys and various other things -- plus two days were rained out at the Open, on days when I could have watched.  Saturday, the boy child kept me informed of the scores at the Djokovic/Federer match while we were doing the college trip.  I'm actually grateful to the girl child for keeping me from watching that one.  Ouch.  I watched the tail end of the Nadal/Murray match when we got home.  I will miss large chunks of the men's final tonight as well since the boy child's orchestra starts tonight and I'm on driving duty.  Oh well.  

But I got to watch the women's final -- congrats to Sam Stosur!  Yay!  I was so happy for her!

Mia's life hasn't been much affected by all the chaos of Irene, Irene cleanup, packing for college, etc.  Here she is sleeping with her boy child during one of their final naps of the summer.

Now the boy child is back in school and Mia won't have a napping buddy.  Unless the boy child falls asleep during homework.  lol!

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  It's always good to visit with you.  Have a great week!

TUSAL and finish, Irene too

In the midst of all the post Irene mess, I have to show off my SDW finish.  Don't think I can get the whole thing in one pic, so you'll have to piece it together from the pics.

SDW Sampler by Scarlet Letter

AVAS fibers

40ct R&R linen

So there she is.  Sorry about the weird joints between pics.  I did manage to get that gold blackwork border finished at the top too.  I'm glad I did it -- it adds a little something.

I'm also late with my TUSAL report, so here it is.

It always looks the same, doesn't it?  Oh well.  I just keep squishing my fibers down.

We're still in the midst of cleaning up from Irene here.  The basement is drying out very slowly.  We did a massive amount of getting stuff up from the basement, both salvageable and non-savageable, this weekend.  We are waiting to see if we get more flooding from the rain storms for the next few days -- a frontal system first, and then the leftovers from TS Lee.  I'm praying that we stay dry down there, but am fearing the worst.  Hopefully if there's more flooding, it won't be as much as from Irene.  

Once the rain is done, we've hired some flood damage people to come with a dumpster to throw out all the water soaked things down there, dry the basement out, and treat the whole basement with anti-microbial treatment to prevent mold, etc.  This is scheduled for Thursday if all goes well.  So slowly but surely.  (Yes, it's an unfinished basement.)

The boy child starts his senior year of high school tomorrow.  Rather unbelievable to me.  And over next weekend, the girl child will be taken back to college too.  She's also a senior this year, which is also unbelievable.

Some of you asked how Mia did during the hurricane.  Truth to tell, she was just fine.  I think she might have been a bit scared once or twice, but overall, she was pretty relaxed and dandy.  lol!  

She was a bit clingy though, wanting to be close to us.  I'm wondering if this is a good sign (keep in mind Mia still hisses and bats at the girl child, which is why this is so bizarre).

Mia also cuddled with the boy child a lot.

Once again, I apologize for not answering your comments for a while, and not commenting on your blogs as much.  Hopefully I'll be back to normal soon.

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I hope everyone has a happy, safe, dry week.  (Except for those of you who need rain of course.)

That nasty Irene

Hi all.  Just wanted to stick my nose in to say thanks for all the emails and concern about us.  We made it through Irene.  But we lost power about 5:30pm on Sunday and didn't get it back till noon today.  Ugh.  And we had 5 1/4" of water in our basement -- more than any time before.  With no power.  Ugh.  (The water didn't start subsiding till late late Monday and wasn't gone till yesterday.)  The plumber is currently downstairs installing a new water heater.  Everything else down there seems to work, thank God.  There will have to be a major basement cleanup at some point, but not sure when that will happen.

I apologize ahead of time if I don't comment on anyone's blogs for a while or answer your comments to my blog.  I will do my best to start commenting again.   I will also do a TUSAL post soon and a stitching update.

We were lucky when it comes down to it.  We're safe and sound, the house is safe and sound, so we're all good!  But boy, I hope never to live through another hurricane.  lol!

Oh, and a funny thing.  The girl child had a vacation down in Myrtle Beach from last Wednesday to yesterday.  I was panicking about her going down there with the hurricane coming.  Well, of course she came through with hardly any bad weather at all in Myrtle Beach.  We were the ones with the hurricane.  Wouldn't you know it!

I will post again soon.