The Secret
One day, one friend asked another,
"How is it that you are always so happy?
You have so much energy,
and you never seem to get down."
With her eyes smiling, she said,
"I know the Secret!"
"What secret is that?"
To which she replied,
"I'll tell you all about it,
but you have to promise to
share the Secret with others."
"The Secret is this:
I have learned there is little I can do
in my life that will make me truly happy.
I must depend on God to make
me happy and to meet my needs.
When a need arises in my life,
I have to trust God to supply
according to HIS riches.
I have learned most of the time
I don't need half of what I think I do.
Since I learned that 'Secret', I am happy."
We can't depend on people to make us happy.
Only GOD in His infinite wisdom can do that.
Trust HIM!
He has never let me down.
And now I pass the Secret on to you!

I decided I needed to buy myself a Christmas present this year.....and since I know what it is, no need to wrap it and wait for Christmas to play with it.
I have bought it several accessories, I did not want it to be lonely. I have about 7 cartridges for it so far, and some extra cutting mats, and blades.
Then of course I need paper so I have something to play with. The week between Christmas and New Year's I plan to play with my new toy.
I have played some already, as I made name tags for all the Christmas presents with it so far.

Wow where has the time gone...it seems like just yesterday I was getting ready for thanksgiving, and here it is less than a week till Christmas!
At least I think I am ready, have all the presents wrapped, all the decorations up, only have one more kind of cookie to bake, all the cards are out except 3, have to locate addresses..
Tomorrow, will do that last batch of cookies and clean the house for Christmas, write up the Christmas dinner menu, and see what I can make ahead.
If everything works out...I will have Wednesday and Thursday to just chill out and relax....will see how that works out.

I can not believe it is almost Thanksgiving already, where did the fall go? Pretty soon it will be Christmas.! Only about 5 weeks left. Now that is a scary thought.
I don't think I am ready quite yet....but I don't suppose that matters much, time will not wait for me to get ready.
Where did the year go, it seems like it was just spring and I was looking forward to all the things I would get done while it was nice and warm out, and here it is almost time to snow.

Found this little mini quilt while cleaning out my sewing room. It is about the size of a small place mat. The pinwheel squares are made with one inch strips of fabric. It was fun to make one of these...I don't think I will be making another one any too soon. I made this so long ago, I don't even remember when it was.
It is another one of those things, that will be finding a new home. I am cleaning and getting rid of all the things that either no longer fit in with my decor, or I am tired of looking at, or I will never use.
Sometimes all the things we keep get to be too suffocating and we have to downsize, or the things just take over our life.

Found some interesting "kitty" fabric on our last vacation, and just had to make myself a new purse out of it.
The purse is approximately 8x9 inches. I do not like large purses, only need enough room for my stuff. Never was one to stuff a purse.

Finally finished my fall tablecloth, It is just one layer of fabric, but that is all I need. A big centerpiece goes in the center so the only thing that really shows are the pumpkins on the corners and part of the leaves. I wanted it to look like the leaves just fell and landed there. So I did not add vines as that spoiled the effect.

My favorite season of the year is Autumn, I love to see the changing of the colors of the trees. Especially in the Northwoods where the green of the evergreens contrasts with the reds, yellows, oranges, and silvers of the trees.

Then to set it off even more, the color of the water in the foreground completes the picture.

Someday I want to see if I can do a pictorial quilt of the trees as they change into their fall splendor.

Summer flowers are pretty, but nothing compared to the splendor of fall on the water.

Everyone has scraps to use up, but while cleaning a while back I noticed that I had lots of orphan quilt blocks from things I had made, or blocks that I made just to see how they looked put together.
I just got a navy blue fabric for the background and made borders on all the blocks that were an odd size. When all the blocks were the same size I sewed them together, with the navy background they sort of look like they are floating. I had enough blocks to make 2 quilts... This one is almost twin sized.

End of Summer Work

Finally all the yard work I wanted to get done this summer is done. Now I can go back to getting some sewing done. But at least I got to spend a lot of time outside enjoying the weather...when it wasn't raining.

Decided that this had to be redone, so spent the day digging out all the plants and pulling up the old black paper along with a truck load of mulch.

Pulled all the plants out and put them into buckets over night while we worked on leveling the garden and putting down new paper. And then started replanting the shrubs.

Got up early Labor Day morning and started to shovel in all the pea gravel and added the windmills and the ladder. Still have to paint the top part of the windmill as it is really rusty. Plus added the bird house.

Long view of the yard including the outdoor burner, and the side garden, rose bush, and rusty shed...but that is next years project.

Close up view of the pea gravel, and the accents, got the lannon stone back in place.

The propellers on the windmills are back on, the tall one is painted red and black. Still need a bit more pea gravel I think. It is only 2 inches thick, I would like it about 4 inches.

Another view from a different angle,

Got all this free gravel from someone else who was redoing their yard. So cleared the mulch out of here as well and added the gravel. Found an old paving block left over from one project or another, and painted it up to look like a lady bug..seems to add some color to the bed.

The bed of winter onions have also found a new home. The did not like the last spot and we did not have a good crop this year. So we will see how they do here. Also had an extra Hosta, so that got planted along side the onion bed till next spring when I find a new spot for it. along with a plant with bluish silver leaves. I got it as a house plant, but have seen them growing outside also, so planted that and will see what comes up in the spring and then will find it a better location as well.

This poor rose bush, I almost lost it, in it's former location. No sunlight. Here it rewarded me with a couple blooms, and even worked it's way up the trellis. Hard to believe it was only here for 5 weeks, it really grew.

This one did not need a lot of work, just tore out all the mulch and put in stone instead. Looks so much neater. Some of the projects could be done in a day...when it was not raining.

This was another problem area we decided to work on this year. Nothing grew around this tree, the roots were too close to the surface...so just added a wooden "box" and more dirt and solved that problem.

Next year it will be all tulips and Daffy's I hope. Will be nice to sit outside and sew and see all the nice colors.

This is a view from the back of the rock garden. This is as far as I am going with the planting, till next spring. Will see what comes up in the spring. I don't want it so thick that you can't see the rocks.

Finally managed to get the dirt put into the rock garden and have started to put in the ground cover. I put a Hosta in each of the front corners, hoping that they will help to hold the dirt in the corners. Then added the purple phlox and another ground cover that blooms yellow.

This year I can finally say I am not behind!

THE LIST!
Every year it seems like there is more and more to do...The list just gets longers and longer..This year I decided if I ever do finish the list, there will always be another one in it's place. When my kids were small I never had a list....Martha Steward definitly did not live at my house, she would have had heart failure! No one got sick from a "lived in" house, my kids had fun, we were spontaneous.
If I got the urge to go somewhere a day, we went, if the kids, (when they were little), wanted Mommy to play in the sandbox with them I did!
Then they grew up and had their own families, and somewhere the list arrived... I had more time when they were babies..
.Well this year I decided if I died tomorrow the list would not matter, someone else would be finishing it.
So this year I BURNED THE LIST!!
I have had a fun summer. I decided I wanted to work on my gardens, so I did. Can actually recognize some of my neighbors. In years past I was in the house all summer working my way though that list!
Today I am going to sit and read a book for the afternoon....This is so much fun, I should have thought of it years ago.....

This big old...(have no idea how old) pine tree sits on the corner of the front of our property, by the side of our house. It has been there for as long as I can remember. It was here even before I lived here. Even while I was in college, I can remember this old tree on the corner. And it could stand a long time more.....Then the electric company knocked on our door and said they would be moving their wires and would have to do a (bit of trimming) to the top side of our tree, for their wires.....I said how big a trim...well they really could not say for sure... Well we took a good look at our tree and it was not looking all that good anymore, a big maple tree is pretty close to it and in another couple years, would be growing right into the pine tree, plus there were big areas towards the bottom where the branches had already died for lack of sunlight. So we had to make a decisions here.........................

We made the decision......The electric company is taking down the entire tree. By the time they would have trimmed it for the wires, there would have been a big gaping hole in the top side of the tree...it would have looked just terrible! Plus once they started cutting, we noticed that a lot of the interior of the tree was dying.....The other bonus....since this was the electric company's idea we did not have to pay to have the tree removed...

Yes, that used to be our big old pine tree, now it just looks like another telephone pole! As soon as the trunk is down, well when I get to it that is, the clean up will begin. We get to do that, all the electric company did was grind up the branches, they even left the tree wood itself, but we have a friend who wants that..so it will be gone in a day or two..

We just left the mess till late spring when we returned from vacation. By then the city had started tearing up the street and putting in a new intersection, complete with new higher curbs and gutters.
They wanted to "level" the hill for us, but I told them no, I had plans for it.
I think the neighbors are getting a bit impatient waiting to see what I am gong to do with this mess.....they watched me start the raking...so many pine needles, I know the dirt is under there somewhere......

Still raking up those pine needles, got 5 big buckets of needles and ? altogether! I had the electric company leave me an 18 inch high stump when they cut down the tree.
Have plans for that eventually. The neighbors are still guessing what we are up to. Their corners have all been sodded by the city, only ours still looks like this.........................

Got a lot done since I took that last picture, the landscape timbers have been set in....hubby's job....the black paper and the rocks have been set....my job....I wanted more rocks but this is all we could find, rocks are hard to come by, if I get more along the way, will just add them. Still have to seed the lawn around the rock garden, but I will get to that eventually...whenever it stops raining....

this is the front view from the street. Still have to add dirt and the plants. The dirt is in a big pile waiting to be mixed with peat moss and shoveled into the wheel barrow and then distributed over the rock garden...(my job). Then I will be planting flowering ground cover......some purple phlox and a yellow flowering ground cover that I can not remember the name of at the moment.
I am still deciding what to put on that stump....any ideas would be appreciated.
When I get the dirt in and the planting done will take another picture so you can see what it looks like done.

Came across and interesting little exercise for those of us who spend a lot of time sitting in front of either a sewing machine or a computer...goes like this....
Sit in your chair with your feet flat on the floor and your back supported by the chair. Put your hands above your head and grasp one hand with the other, now without leaving the chair reach for the ceiling, stretch as if you are going to touch it. Then with your arms still up let your hands separate and stretching up wiggle your fingers and open your hands as if you were trying to see how wide you can spread your fingers.
While your hands are up slowly turn your head first one way then the other very slowly as if you are trying to touch your chin to your shoulders. Lower your hands to your lap, lift your shoulders as if trying to touch them to your ears, roll them slowly back and down, then again forward and down. Then putting one hand at a time up curve it and stretch as if trying to touch the opposite shoulder with your fingers over your head. Do this once an hour and say goodbye to those back pains you get from too much sitting and not enough moving around...it doesn't hurt to get up and move around now and then either....

I can not take credit for the construction of this table topper, that I have decided to use as a wall hanging. It was done by a friend. I can take credit for the yo-yo's and the colored buttons in the center of the yo-yo's. The topper reminded me of a flower garden, so I added some flowers, hope to add a few more and some leaves when I have more time. Somewhere I read a quote, "Friends are the flowers in the garden of life"......

This was a plain black chiffon blouse with satin stripes of fabric about every 3/4 of an inch giving it a striped look. The rest of the outfit...the long skirt that went with it has long since vanished....this blouse has since been hiding out in my closet.
Decided it needed something so I got a piece of gold lame. Pinned solvy stabilizer on the top and bottom of the lame, took a marker and drew leaf shapes on the solvy and with gold thread, satin stitched the edges of the leaves and put in the veining. This was sewn on my sewing machine.
Then I removed the solvy and with more gold thread sewed the leaves to the blouse, both on the front and the back.
Now I want to make a pair of black crepe pants to go with it and I will have another winter outfit to wear...
Have to see what else is lurking in my closet that I have not worn for a while.....

What to do with all that fabric left over from other projects....we you can cut it into strips and a locker hook, and some rug backing and make yourself a nice rug. I personally like the scrappy look. This rug took me a year to finish...little bits here and there when I had some spare time.

Last week in between everything else, I did manage to get some sewing done. I did a few of these bags, all with an animal theme. They are quite large.
Now I only have a couple more projects to finish and I am going to work only on the Christmas Presents. I want to have them all done by the end of September...that is what I want to happen, we will see if that is what really happens.......Life always have a way of interfering with my plans.

While cleaning out my back hall, I came across a few paving blocks left over from a project. I decided that they would make really nice lady bugs, and every garden needs a lady bug. So I started painting.
I have 2 pens sitting under this one because it was not quite dry when I took the picture. This bug is now sitting at my son's house, I am still painting the one for my garden.
Maybe I will paint a few more, need to use up those blocks. That will eliminate one more thing that is just sitting around taking up space.

Thoughts along the way

Everyone has something to teach us, not only those who are
experts in their fields.
Every human being is a living encyclopedia of ideas, insights, facts,
experiences, and opinions.
If we are wise, we will keep our eyes and ears open and learn
from everyone around us.
We never know when that one bit of information
we learned will be just the thing we need.................

Just the thing to cool off on a hot summer day, and it has been hot this summer.

Thought maybe you would like to see what my work table in the sewing/craft room looked like when I finally found it under all the clutter
Now there is no saying how long it will stay this clean...probably till I start another project....and then it will be a mess again.
A creative mind does not waste time cleaning unless forced to by not being able to find the one thing I need.....

This is looking like it is going to be a hot humid summer with lots of rain! Bad thing is this is the year I have decided that the lawn and flower beds should really be re-done. So far even with the weather not wanting to co-operate, even so I have finished 3 flower beds, and we have gotten a portion of the lawn reseeded.
The next project was going to be the rock garden, but again it will be put off for a while...got a surprise free load of pea gravel...
I had no idea how many shovel fulls of pea gravel were in a yard and a half of pea gravel....well I do now, after shoveling it into the trucks! So the next project is to rake up all the mulch in the perennial garden and shovel the pea gravel out of the trucks and into a wheel barrow and over to the perennial garden.
That should take a bit of time, especially if it keeps raining...
Sew much for getting any sewing done for a while......

I have decided to follow the advice of my daughter-in-law and clean her way...it seems to work well for her. Her house is a lot less cluttered than mine. (she has NO clutter).
She has come up with the system of cleaning one room a day....makes sense now that I sit and think about it. Focusing on only one room means you can do a complete clean of that room...cleaning a little in each room, and nothing looks like you really cleaned anything.
So my new plan for the rest of the summer is to follow her rule. Of course she has 2 children to help her...I just have the cat, and he is not the least bit interested.......
So I will spend one hour a day on one specific room....the rest of the house will be a mess for that first week, but after a week I should have the main floor looking really nice....

My Yucca plant has outdone itself this year with blooms...Last year it had 2 stalks and this year it just went nuts.
Thought I would take a picture before we got another wind and rain storm and all the flowers fell off.

No sooner do I have my sewing room cleaned than I am working on a new project. Made this one last night...only took about 2 hours to complete, including cutting out the pieces. The fabric came from a dear friend who just recently moved to AZ. I told her I would make her "tablecloth" into something useful. She gave me the tablecloth before she left as she sold the table it was for. There was no room to take the table with her.
I used a schlep bag pattern I found on line..only changed the block size to 7 inches. she is a short person and the bigger bag would be too hard for her to handle.
The bag is reversible, with the inside seams finished off in a "rag" finish. I serged the top edge.

Out for an afternoon family swim...
After the past few days this looks like such a good idea...It has been so hot an humid, that everything just sticks to everything else...
Impossible to sew, fabric sticks to itself and me.....
Then to make matters worse, it is still raining....the mosquitoes have been hatching like mad....Ahhhhh yes, Summer has arrived! All winter everyone has waited for summer.....now all this heat makes you want to stick your head in the freezer!

Some days you have no choice but to clean before you can start another project.
I guess I kind of let my sewing/craft room get a bit out of hand. So I have spent the last 3 days working on straightening things up a bit...I honestly could not find a thing!

There is just no end to the uses for aluminum foil...and ofcurse the metal coat hanger holding up the foil.
All this effort for a TV that only gets one channel...........................................

alternative vacation

A couple days ago I was discussing how to have a low cost fun vacation with a friend. The biggest expense for most vacations is the Motel.
Here is how we got around that one year. About 4 months before the actual "vacation" we planned what we wanted to do on the vacation, places we wanted to see, checked the times things were open, what days the attractions were closed. Got maps to everything...Everyday was planned out. I wrote everything down... I also added a few alternative activities for those things that somehow don't seem to work out as planned.
Then I started the preparations. I told family and friends when we were going on the "vacation". But did not tell them where....
I found one friend, who was in contact with several of my family members, and could be trusted with the assignment I had for her. I gave her a rundown of the plans.
Then I cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. Set up timers on the lights....mowed the lawn...get the "vacation" clothes all together, made sure everything we would need was washed.
Took the phone off the hook, to make sure that it could not be heard ringing from outside the house.
Now for the actual vacation...
After everything was in place...we spent a very relaxing vacation at home!
No motel expense...we ate out almost everyday...visited those sites that we had always said someday we should go see, slept late, watched movies, DID NO WORK! that was part of the plan. We never heard the phone ring so we not tempted to answer it...My "trusted" friend was in charge of keeping track of family and friends, and if any emergency came up she would tell me...I had nothing to worry about.
We took no pictures....told everyone we forgot the camera, and just spent our vacation wandering around...which was true..we did wander around, but never too far that we did not sleep in our own bed every night. There was no schedule...if we wanted a nap in the afternoon, we took one, or if we wanted to watch a movie we did.. The one thing we were careful not to do was visit an attraction in the city we live in...Did not want to run into anyone... and we were lucky we never did.
Our fun vacation cost less than half of what it would have had we done the "normal" vacation thing and driven to a destination and spent the time staying in Motels.

Isn't he/she pretty? We saw the bird almost everyday, either sitting in the tree, or flying low over the water looking for fish...It is amazing how they can fly over the water and just swoop down and pick a fish right out of the water.
I often wondered why they are called "bald" eagles. They have all those nice white feathers on their heads. I heard somewhere that it takes 2 years after they are born to get those nice white feathers.
We always knew when he was in his/her tree, as there would be a line of boats sitting in the water while people took pictures.

It is again Spring, the warm breezes are floating through the house, the sun is beating in the windows highlighting all the dust! Time to get rid of the clutter before someone drops in.
Where does all this stuff come from....It seems like it was just Christmas and the house was all company clean...
What I really need to do is take a week off from everything else and just start from one end of the house and put everything back in it's place and pitch all the stuff that is no longer needed or was never needed in the first place. And just work my way to the other end of the house. I am thinking big rummage sale for all the still usable stuff that we are never going to use.
How does all this stuff accumulate? It is like it breeds while we sleep.

The weather the past few days has been hot, hot, hot! Hot I can take, it is windy I can not...my eyes are all red, itchy and watery...All that pollen flying everywhere. Plus it was so humid out yesterday that no matter what I touched it stuck to me....What would be nice is if the humidity dropped, the wind became calm, and everything just dropped all it's pollen over night when I was sleeping and then it just disappeared before I got up...
But that is not a reality...So tomorrow the best idea would be to just stay in the house with the air purifiers on and just look outside at the day.
BUT no such luck....I have to go to the bank, and then get a hair cut, and do a bit more running around....
Well I suppose it could be worse, we could get a foot of snow! At least I do not have to shovel anything. The pollen will be better soon, at least I hope it will..
Need to go find something to put on my sore eyes...........................................

My latest project, adult bibs. So handy really. I messed one up and so it has become mine. It is not this pretty color, but a light green. I have found out that most everything comes out of a terry towel in the wash... so color is really not all that important. Though I probably would not want to have one in white.

My former sewing assistant. Tygger - a Maine Coon/Red Tabby mix

When he held down those stray pattern pieces they never got away. His paws were 1-1/2 inches across. He was 30 pounds of love all wrapped up in a Maine Coon cat. A Maine Coon cat, is really a dog masquerading as a cat. He came when you whistled, and loved to play fetch... He also loved to swim, and a wonderful day for him was when I filled the bathtub full of water and put towels down on the floor and let him splash....

We have to redo our bathroom floor as the tile is coming up, because of water adventures. But there is no way I would have not let him enjoy himself, he loved it so much, and he also loved to sit on the other chair in my sewing room and critique my work.

After looking at Mother's Day cards in the stores, I decided I really did not like many of them. they either have an ok picture and a so so verse, or the whole thing is just not what I want to say. So this year I decided to make a fabric post card instead. I was going to make two, but you know how it is, I ran out of time. So in the end I did end up buying one too.

But this one, I decided should have a Spring theme, so it could fit more than just one day. I put little iron on crystals in the centers of the daisy's, though it does not show up all that well on the picture. Just seemed to make the card sparkle a bit more.

What I would like to do is find enough time to make my Christmas cards this year...not sure if that will happen or not.

A Day to Relax......................

Today when I got up, I decided I was not going to do any work, it was a nice day, and I was going to take a day off. Now if I had stayed home I would have found things that I could have been doing. Like I will take a day of relaxation, BUT, while I am relaxing I will throw a load of wash in the washer and it can wash while I am relaxing, and then I could soak a load of dishes while I am relaxing...And the first thing I know I am working and my day of relaxing is no more. So to end that problem I did not stay home. I did my relaxing outside in the warm sunny weather in a different location...one where my "work" that I know I should be doing could not call out to me.
I had a wonderful day. I kept reminding myself that I was intentionally not doing any work today..It would all be there tomorrow waiting for me, it would not run away and I could get to it then.
After I got home and had supper and watched a bit of television, I sat and caught up reading the 2 weeks of newspapers that I have not had time to read.....again not doing any real work.
Now tomorrow, well technically it is already tomorrow as it is a few minutes past midnight, I will get up and do all the work, that was there this morning...one day does not make any difference at all........
Except that I had a day to do nothing but relax and enjoy the day......

Things are looking up, I have actually finished a project on the day I said I would, and have finally taken my cutting table out of the dining room! It has been up and I have been cutting out stuff since early February.
Now to just be able to keep this going, and finish the rest of my projects by the deadline I have set for them...
I had to run an errand, and when I came back, I could not believe how big my dining room looked with that 30 x 60 inch table gone. Now I just have to put away the boxes of fabric, and finish sewing the projects I have cut out.
Then next on my list will be straightening the sewing/craft room.
Of course it will only get messy again as soon as I start another project, but I should be able to locate a few things that have gone missing since before Christmas.
I have bought so many seam ripper because I keep losing them. After the clean I should have over a dozen or so, maybe closer to 2 dozen, not to mention other tools that are probably buried in the piles.

I have managed to find the time to really get a lot done in the past week, I stayed off the computer more, and actually got something done.
If things keep up like this, I will reach my goal of having everything finished that I have on my list for the next couple weeks.
I just need to stay focused. And I need to make a list every night of the stuff I want to complete the next day.
I find that lists are so helpful. If frees up my mind to get a lot more done, as I know exactly what I have done and what I still need to do. Otherwise I get bogged down with something and other things just get forgotten. I tend to flit from one thing to another and never seem to complete a task. I once left a load of laundry in the dryer, till the next week.
With a list I know that I have put a load in the washer or dryer, and I can see that it needs to be removed.
The only time my list gets messed up is when someone else wants me to help them with their list... Then I have to learn to sometimes say no...
Saying no is not all that easy, especially if it is a good friend.

I realised something today, somewhere I have lost the great art of just sitting and relaxing...
I am always doing something, you know the minute you sit down, a task you should really be doing pops into your head, and you are no longer relaxing.
Oh you can continue to sit where you are, but relax............... no because now you are feeling guilty for just sitting there doing nothing.
Well today, I sat and watched TV for a whole hour....had no choice, a small project, not being done by me, was taking longer than it should have, and I had nothing to do but watch TV till it was finished.
It felt so good to just sit, with not a care in the world. I could not do anything if I had wanted to. I was in someone else's house.
Now I have to learn to just take time for just me....no guilt for just relaxing...all those things will still be there later, and if I don't get to them for a while it will not be the end of the world. If I do not finish them in my lifetime, they will be there for someone else to do....
I need to be a kid again and just relax and have fun.......

I have been getting something done, if not the cleaning. I am making dog toys.

I found a nice cookie cutter in the shape of a dog bone, and thought I really am not into dog bone shaped cookies. I don't think Mr. Kilmouski would be to impressed by them either. So I enlarged the cutter to make toys.

Come Christmas there are going to be some happy dogs around. I still have a few more to stuff. But that is a project for in front of the TV at night.

If I am not doing something, then I keep thinking there is something I should be doing, I could clean the dining room...but the more I think about it the less I really want to do it...It will get done as soon as someone says they are coming over! Then it is amazing how fast I can get this house whipped into shape...I just need to be motivated.

Today I decided that the house needed some attention, before I have to hire a fork lift to make a path through.
It is not that it needs to be actually cleaned, as in washing surfaces. It is more like I have to put things back where they belong. I remember when when I used to yell at my kids for this very thing.
But the problem with doing that is you never really finish a task, like I started in the dining room, and went to put something in the desk. The desk is a real mess so I stopped what I was doing in the dining room and cleaned out the desk.
Now when someone comes to visit, they are never going to see the inside of my now clean desk, they are going to see my messy dining room and wonder why it looks like it does.
While putting stuff in the pantry that had been vacationing on my kitchen counters, I resisted the urge to straighten the pantry....It was difficult...but I could spend a few hours there, taking everything out and neatly arranging it all back in...and again no one is going to see the inside of my pantry.
Our church has a rent a kid program, and I am so tempted....but then they would see the state my house is in, and that is what I am trying to avoid.
How can a house get so cluttered in such a short time...just leave one thing laying around and it is like it multiplies into a big mess.
Oh well there is only so much I can get done in a day....and my dining room is still a mess!

I have discovered that if you plan out a day...it will never go that way... Some how this morning I saw myself having about 5 hours of free time for the rest of the day.....but it just evaporated into thin air......Next week, I won't plan.....them I might actually have that free time just for me to be free to do what I want.

Today I managed to get a lot done actually....probably because I stayed off the computer all day.
Went to a quilt show in the morning...There were not as many vendors there as in the past, and no one was handing out "little gadgets" as they have other years. I guess the economy has put an end to that practice.
Spent the rest of the day going to rummage sales.....I have a list of stuff I need, and just look for those items. Did not find anything on my list today. The only thing I got was a book....can never pass up a book at a good price.
Tomorrow I plan to do absolutely nothing, except catch up on my reading, and maybe have an afternoon nap....
Have not had a day where I have done nothing in a long time.....so it is time to do just that....just a day to relax.

This is what it is supposed to look like outside....

Birds working on their nests and leaves on the trees, and warm weather...So what did I see this morning when I got up.....a frosting of white snow on everything. It did not last that long, the snow I mean, but the temperature never did get up to 40 degrees.

I think, spring was here a few days last week and now we are back into winter.

So since it was too chilly to want to go outside, I spent the day inside sewing. Got pretty much done considering I was on the computer a bit more than I had originally wanted to be.