Design Wall Monday

"One of these in not like the other" Can you spot it? See end of post for answer.

I put the stitching in high gear Saturday and Sunday afternoon and took the last stitch in the piece about 9:30 last night. So hopefully I will be more careful in trimming the block down to the required 9 inch unfinished square this time around. Here Comes Santa will be officially finished to flimsy in a few minutes from now. Woohoo!

So far my tasks have basically been in the kitchen doing some prep work. Since it looks like we are in for some rain before long (storms are forecast), I may have to grill out for lunch instead of supper. I made some fresh salsa and avocado sauce for the fish tacos and then moved on to cranberry sauce and no bake pumpkin pie for tomorrow's turkey dinner. Normally I would have done the latter tomorrow morning but I have quilt group tomorrow.

This was also laundry day. DJ more or less mans the loading and unloading from the washer and dryer but I deal with my own stuff and he does his for hanging and folding. A store run was needed when the menu plan was switched out.

You see, the fan in the a/c-heating unit is kaput and has been kaput since Saturday afternoon. At least that is what we think is the matter---either than fan died or something that powers it did. We turned on the unit when it got up to about 84 in here by 3 p.m.---as hot as it was outside at the time. UGH! I didn't want to run it continually but rather to get us thru the next 4 hrs with some degree of comfort----read: after sundown, shut it off. Well, it ran when we first turned it on so we both walked away from the unit and setting the temp for cooling. Then it struck me---why did that shut off so quickly when it definitely hotter in here than were it was set? Thermostat read 96 at that point though it came down. Out came the owners manual for the thermostat to see if we were missing anything. It turns out the fan will not turn on either manually or automatically. UGH again! We would just have to tough it out through the weekend as no one is coming out even if you call.

I think the hottest it got in here was 86. We have been thankful that the humidity is not as high as it could be and we had some cloud cover at least till mid morning. Basically it was a matter of waiting till sundown and relying on some air movement from the ceiling fans and window box fans until then. We have a call in to the firm we use but they are supposed to call us back----that message was 3 hrs ago so who knows when they will be able to come out.

I told DJ I am NOT turning on the oven if I can avoid it till they have been out here to fix the problem since that will just make the house temps even higher. Stovetop or grill, it is. Forget the ground beef casserole I had planned on and go with another option. Now do you see why I needed to go on the store run?

And so it goes around here--------I hope to start piecing on the deadline giftie after lunch. My hands would probably thank me for that after the intense stitching sessions this weekend!

Oh, the answer? I forgot to do the outlining around his hat brim and his cheek line definition on the first one. No biggie but apparently I did not refer back to the picture when I worked on it.