try this again---midweek post

After two days of rain, the sun is finally out though some dark clouds persist. Parts of the state did have flooding, flash flooding and tornado warnings yesterday so it could have been much worse. Some wind damage down along the I-20 corridor in the south end of the county, the paper said. Boy, is the wind whipping around out there today! I know it is nature’s way of drying things up but it is howling. I don’t remember it ever being this windy even when we had the effects of Hurricane Katrina this far north. If I were Skyler, I would be hiding under the bed or something by now.

The picture was taken through his cube as we were playing this morning. (ed note: I just plain cannot get this picture to load!! Grrrrrr and what's more I am giving up trying--maybe later then) Sometimes we put his warming mat up against it to make a longer tunnel and he shoots through there and back at about 90 miles an hour. Usually there is a mouse or too in the cube or near it. There is a pocket on the bottom of the cube, just under the sheepskin fleece that holds catnap but I believe he is one of those cats who has no effect from it. (Pippi and Tyson definitely were) His routine at the moment is to nap in the cube for several hours after supper till he migrates to either the recliner with DJ or hogs the love seat till DJ heads to bed.

I am still working on the machine applique on my FAB project—well not this minute, I’m obviously typing and on the computer. One last segment to complete and then I can get ready to quilt said project. I got quite a bit of the work done yesterday while I listened to "Dewey" on audiotape. Cute story about Dewey Readmore Books, the Spencer, IA library cat. I got up to the point where Dewey's health is failing at age 18-19 and it sounded so much like my Pippi's situation that I didn't think I could handle it and shut it off. I will finish listening to it at some point but yesterday was not a good day for that. Tears, machine stitching, not a good mix. Anyway, I’m afraid I won’t have anything "quilty" to show you till the reveal in early February on that score. The Belles meet in a week so that might be my only hope for quilt pictures since I am not sewing anything else. (Red work doesn’t count.)

I got lucky on my thread run on Monday. I had 2 definite shops that I was going to try---Hobby Lobby was one but it is a good 14 miles or so from my house at the Oxford Exchange. Maybe the Discount Fabrics place out on US 78 would have what I needed? Just about as far away but on the way to Hobby Lobby. One of my girlfriends said that they carried off brand stuff but I could look. The one and only quilt shop was just down the road from that discount store. I don’t know what they have in the way of thread but the shop used to be an heirloom sewing place—only been in there once since it opened. Another option was the thread box at our meeting place. All those locations were within a mile or so of each other and I would go if if had to. Another option in the back of my mind was to mail the two spools to my mom and ask her to make a Joann’s or Hancock’s run. (You are off the hook, Mom but thanks for offering!)

As I hit town, I thought I would stop by a store that sells mainly upholstery fabrics though some other stuff as well and gardening stuff just on the off chance that they had thread. I had only been in there once in the 11 years I have lived here. I honestly did not remember what they had in the way of sewing notions. I was able to match the rust colored thread exactly. A gold they had was a better choice that what I had. Woohoo!

I practiced some bread baking again this morning—Onion and Herb Focaccia from Prepared Pantry. I had initially thought that I might use it for our lunch sandwiches as the bread but it was not done in time. Mine did not look as pretty as theirs. Sorry, no picture as I cut into it before I thought about it. My plastic wrap stuck to it as it was rising. Maybe Press and Seal is not exactly what they meant by plastic wrap in the first place. My fingers did not leave the nice dimples that they had in the picture but looks were not everything. It was tasty! Nothing like warm bread from the oven. The instructions say that you could use this for a thicker pizza dough or even breadsticks so I might do that with the 2nd mix down the line. I put most of it in the freezer once it cooled. I would love to try their Orange Blossom rolls next but DJ said we should not get in the habit of having a sweet roll with coffee mid morning, even though he loved those cinnamon rolls I made recently. He is probably right but how else am I going to learn how to bake bread if I don’t keep practicing?? Maybe for our anniversary for a little treat.

No more cooking today as there is chili in the crockpot for tonight. Guess I should go do something productive---maybe a few stitches in Santa #2. Sunday I finished off the one in the last post that was almost done and started on the one with him holding the large star and heart. See picture HERE for what I am talking about.

Is anyone else having problems uploading pictures on Google today? I have been posting lately on Windows Live Writer without any problems but today it kept saying there was an internal feed error. Then I tried just copy/pasting my narrative and adding the pictures through Google. No dice after several attempts. Then I tried posting the pictures through Picassa "blog this". The pictures loaded finally but who knows if they will take the whole post. Guess I'll find out. Actually I had another picture of Skyler on the sewing table but I discovered that it showed too much in the background----Norma might see what I was working on. That won't do!

Hope that you have had a good day in whatever you chose to do--------