Monday Stitching and Cabin Update

Last week I got 4 days of stitching into Ocean in a Bottle. Here it was before...

Here it is now...

I have 15 days into this one now.

Over the weekend we were back to work on our cabin. We went down Friday night so we could have some extra time. It ended up being only us and we had a fun time. It was raining really hard on our trip down and we kept saying Wohoo we don't have to setup our tent. This cabin is sure a wonderful thing! We got our beds setup and ready for the night and then we pulled out a table and some chairs, turned on the radio, and played Skip-bo for awhile...

Saturday we worked on more insulation and getting the front wall electricity finished up. One time it was just pouring down rain and the 5 of us had a dry spot sitting in our cabin continuing our work. Yet another benefit of our nice big cabin. We could all be inside out of the rain safe and sound with room to spare. Sunday off we went shopping. This time Uncle Marty and Dad came along. It was time to get our wall and ceiling panels. Fred and I had fallen in love with this one when we first seen it. We checked another store with even more options and yet that first panel was in our mind as the one we wanted. So we bought them all and got to work. Here is finished left wall...

LOVE it. It looks like a real log cabin now. Yet it's smooth to the touch. So happy with how it's turning out. It was time to call it quits for the day then. We had a lovely meal and had fun visiting with everyone. Then too fast it was time to head home. We have plans for the Memorial Day weekend so we will be back to work in June. Can't wait! We just get so excited with our progress and can't wait to see what we get done next. We are literally happy campers haha.

Have a great week! Lots of plans and things to do but hope to squeeze in some X's too.

May Gifted Gorgeousness

I'm a few days late but here is my May Gifted Gorgeousness check in. The idea for this fun blog SAL is to share things we are either stitching as a gift or things we have received as a gift. Stop over at Jo's blog to see who has joined in this month.

I looked back on what I've stitched on since April 15th and I'm going to have to use a shoehorn this month. The only thing I've stitched that fits this category is the Spring Bell Pull. The reason it fits is I won the money to pay for all 4 seasons from doing online surveys. 

Here is what Spring will look like...

The set I'm doing is from the Stoney Creek Magazine. I think they are releasing them as leaflets now too but I haven't checked to see if they are exactly the same or not. The fabric, threads, and buttons were gifts from my winnings. I really would like to finish this one off this year so I can get a start on another season. This was the least favorite of the 4 seasons I figured I better get it out of the way first. Here is where I am as of May 11th on the N block...

 Here is my last WIP picture of the whole piece before I made the progress on N...

By the way I've also been putting a few days this week into Ocean in a Bottle. I will have an update on that Monday. We are heading down to the cabin tomorrow for another weekend of progress. It's IHSW (International Hermit Stitch Weekend) too. Will you please put in some X's for me. Once we get the work done I will be able to get a stitching area setup but not yet. Have a great weekend everyone!

Monday Stitching Update

Hey last week I did get some stitching time in too. I pulled out Spring Bell Pull again. Here is where it was last time...

Now I have 5 days into the N block...

I hope everyone has a great week.

Cabin Update

We went back down to work on our cabin Saturday and Sunday. We got there just in time to watch this monster...

We had a lot of brush that needed to be cleared. It would have taken us so much time. Dad saw an advertisement for this guy to come and help do the clearing with this monster machine. He did an area dad wants to put a pond in. Then he cleared out an area behind our cabin we wanted cleared...

Above is the before and after photo if you can't tell. He took out at least 50 feet of brush. All that's left is the fence line and that's exactly what Dad wanted. Dad said it was easily a few months work done in 1 hour. So worth the rental charge. After watching that it was time to get back to work inside our cabin...

We needed to finish up the insulation. Jeremiah was supervising. For the night we put up our cots and a small camping bed for Jeremiah and stayed our first night in the cabin...

It's far from finished but already so much more nice then just our tent. We stayed up late giggling and talking telling stories about how exciting this whole process is. Sunday we helped with taking down an old barn and getting it cleaned up a bit. Then Fred, my Dad, my Uncle, and Jeremiah got back to work in the cabin...

The right wall, back wall, left wall is all finished with insulation plus the electric is ran for the left wall. The front wall is framed up and ready for insulation and electric now. So the front wall and the ceiling insulation is next. Then we can start the paneling. We are planning to go down Friday and stay both Friday and Saturday so we can get more done.

I do have to share my favorite photo for this weekend...

This is why I just can't stop smiling. Jeremiah is learning so much from all this. My dad is taking time in this photo to show Jeremiah step by step on how to hook up an outlet. Jeremiah can't stop talking about how cool it was. We can't wait for it to be done but the process has been so much fun. If you have Facebook and are interested I have posted more photos there too.

Monday Update (A Day Late)

Yesterday we went to visit a family member in the hospital. She has made the decision to end treatments and we wanted to say our goodbyes. She has always been a special person in Jeremiah's life and makes a point to see him when we are camping. She is my Dad's Aunt and we will miss her dearly. That damn cancer is claiming another wonderful person. Please send my family any spare thoughts/prayers.

Onto better news...Tuesday the 1st was my Mom's birthday. We had a very nice day together at the outdoor flea market she used to sell at. It opens on the first Tuesday of the month of May and just happened to be her birthday this year so we of course had to go up. The weather was beautiful. Never know with early May one year we had snow even. We had a fantastic time. Then in the afternoon my cabin got delivered which I shared more details in my post before this one. It was a long day but it was a great day. We got home late and slid into bed.

Wednesday I started the May Durene Jones Calendar piece. Friday I was able to get it finished up...

(Finish #15) May 4th, 2018
  May from Durene Jones Calendar
Freebie available on her FB Group
Stitched on 14ct Ecru Aida
Threads are suggested DMC
Started May 2nd. Took 3 Days.

I had to laugh when I noticed there are 13 flowers on this one. My birthday is May 13th. How perfect. Plus I'm a major dog lover. Meant to be! 

Saturday we worked on the cabin as I said in the post below. Sunday Fred had a radio event so I used that excuse to put my feet up and stitch the day away. I pulled out a Mill Hill kit that will be displayed in my cabin sometime soon hopefully...

This kit is called Cabin Fever. Perfect right? I had one day into it but just the little block in the middle with the marshmallows. Sunday I added the little cabin...

I hope everyone has a great week. We have a lot of plans but I hope to sneak in some stitching too of course. Hope you do too.

FYI I'm in the process of changing my email address so if you see a new address that's why. Changing to gmail instead of using my frontier one.

Our Cabin Update

Last Tuesday we hoped our cabin would be delivered right the 2nd time around. Fred was able to get out of work a few hours early. We headed down. We were close to arriving and my phone rang. I swear we all stopped breathing. It was the delivery man saying he was picking it up and on the way. *deep breath* Everyone was there...again and guess what this time it was the right size!!!

Look at the difference in the first one on the left and the correct one on the right. 8 feet really makes a large difference doesn't it? We sure think so. Here is the inside on the day it was delivered...

 

This is our 12x24 home away from home. The hole in the back wall is for the AC that is sitting on the floor. Now it's time for us to finish the inside the way we want. We went down Saturday and started on the work...

I was trying to help my dad with the trench for the underground electric to our cabin. I got fired. I was taking too long, not going straight, and not going deep enough. So Dad took back over. But...

I did fill in the trench and received an A for that work haha. I do try I really do. Jeremiah has had so much fun. We've been making sure he is included in all the work so he can learn about what it takes to make a home a home. We went shopping with my Dad and got 3 carts worth of goodies. Insulation, electrical outlets and all the things connected with making our cabin have power, and 2x4s for reinforcing the front and back wall. Jeremiah said we take for granted walking into a place and it has a plug that works. Boy I didn't realize everything it takes either. Here are some of our work pictures...

 

We are having a blast making it ours and boy we learning a lot. I'm so thankful my Dad and Uncle know how to teach us how to do this. They both worked building houses for many many years. We have a lot more work to do but we are really enjoying each moment. What memories we are making. We will be going back down this weekend and are planning on throwing in cots and staying for our first night. We can't wait!

April WIPocalypse

Yesterday was time for another WIPocalypse post. This fun blog SAL has one main goal... for us to finish our WIPs before the end of the world. Since we all keep adding to our lists I doubt this will ever happen. I know for me it's not possible by any means haha. I like using this SAL as an excuse to keep track of what I've worked on and how many days since the last post which was March 25th. So let's see what I've been up to...

Ocean in a Bottle -- 7 Days. I had just started this one for my last post. I had only 4 days into it. Here is what it looked like...

Here it is now...

Ocean of Wisdom -- 2 Days. I was able to get this one finished up after that 2 days. Here is the before and after...

To The Beach 2013 PALs Hands on Design Pillow -- 2 Days. I was able to finish this one off too. Here is the before and after...

 

Durene Jones April Calendar Piece -- 2 Days. I started and finished this one...

You Are Loved -- 2 Days. Went from here to here...

Myrtle Beach Postcard from Erica Michaels -- 3 Days. Started this one and got to here...

Got the back panel complete other than the postage stamp but it is done on a separate piece of silk gauze and attached to this panel.

14 days with no stitching. 

We are also given a question to answer...April 29 – Talk to us about your longest-running WIP or UFO. You know I honestly don't know. I don't really keep track in a way that's easy to answer that one. I know sometimes when I look through old blog posts I say Oh wow I never finished that one. Most the time it's not something I want to finish though. Luckily there are quite a few that I have finished. Like my two HAEDs. I did see a finished piece from 2007 that I need to finish finish so that's embarrassing enough to report. See ya on May 27.

Our Fun Weekend Away

Friday morning we hit the road for a mini vacation/weekend away. There is a geocaching event that goes on at Mackinac Island which is 5 and a half hours north of us. We normally are traveling and have been gone this time of year and miss the event. This year we didn't have plans so we said it was the perfect excuse to head up attend the event and spend the night on the island for our first time. When we go up this way we have always stayed on the main land and only went out to visit the island. So Friday night we stayed where we normally do then Saturday morning we took the ferry out to the island...

We had to really bundle up. It was COLD. If you look close there is ICE on Jeremiah's window. When the water would splash up on the window it would instantly freeze.

I'll use this picture to explain geocaching hopefully if you haven't heard of it. My smartphone has the app for geocaching on it. You pull up a map and pick the closest geocache and off you go. The name of this one was For the Birds. I gave my phone to Jeremiah and hoped he would be able to enjoy the find. Most the time they aren't very handicapped accessible. He was counting down the feet and pointing the direction the compass showed. When I spotted it I waited back and told Jeremiah have a look around. It was perfect for him. If you look close you can see the hole of the birdhouse is plugged. So that helps you tell right away it's not an official birdhouse. They put a tube with a screw lid in the hole. When you removed the lid there is a rolled up paper inside. You take the paper out and sign your team name. Ours is Treasure Hunting Family. Then you log the find and get a point for the find by your name. We ended up with only 7 this weekend because of how cold it was and we wanted to hang out with friends instead of freezing too bad haha.

This is Fred and me with our fancy hotel for the night. It's called the Grand Hotel. If you visit here in the season you have to pay $10 per person to even walk into the hotel. The rooms we heard are like $350 per person for the smallest room. There is also a very strict dress code after 6pm. So needless to say we have seen it from the outside but never visited it. They open this weekend for free to tour and only $190 for the night. So since it was our first time to stay on the island we decided to try it out. Look at our room...

There are 393 rooms in this hotel and each room is decorated different. We got to see several of the other rooms since it wasn't really open they just prop open all the doors so you can glance in. Wow! The room we stayed in was very basic compared to the others. The staff all was wearing tuxedos. Very fancy. Not somewhere we would stay again but something we can now say we did once at least.

We had a great time visiting with several friends who showed up for the event too. We had a very nice relaxing weekend and made it home safely yesterday about 5pm. It was a very nice weekend trip.

Now to start the new week. My Monday update won't be posted other than this one. I had NO stitching time at all last week. It was a very stressful week and I just didn't have the energy when I did sit down. Hopefully this week is better. Today has been run run run though of course. We are hopefully getting our correct cabin delivered tomorrow. So please send good thoughts that it's right. Plus it's my mom's birthday tomorrow. So we are going to Shipshewana Flea Market that opens for the season tomorrow. Maybe after that I will actually have a few days of nothing. We'll see. Hope you have a great week. Thanks for stopping by. I will be posting my WIPocalypse update here soon.

April Smalls SAL

It's the last Friday of the month which means it's time for a Smalls SAL check in. The idea of this fun SAL is to do a small piece each month so hopefully at the end of the year we have 12 things finished at least. This is my 3rd year. Each year I've picked out a year long monthly piece to work on. This year I have picked out a Durene Jones Calendar piece. Here is what the whole piece looks like...

So far I've kept up with my goal and finished each month. So here is April...

Here they all 4 are now...

I've really enjoyed how they turn out each month. Now to just keep up.

Just a Bad Day

Yesterday we were so excited. We woke up early. We hit the road. We needed to be to the campground at 10am for the delivery of our cabin. My Dad and Bev came. My Mom, Jeremiah, Fred was able to scramble and get the day off work, me. My Grandpa and Grandma. We would all be there to see my cabin get delivered. We were laughing and so excited for this new adventure for us. Here it came...

We said Ohh how pretty. We loved the colors we picked out. Let me show you a good picture of my Grandparent's cabin...

Their cabin is 10x16 inside with 4 foot added in covered porch space. We ordered ours from the same company. We got the same red roof but Ocean Blue of course for the sides haha. Also we are adding our own longer covered porch so our inside living space is 12x24. Since we really plan on using ours a lot and it will be so nice when mom comes down to stay with us. We all were happy with the color choices. Then my dad said....Sis it looks short...

I seriously thought he was joking with me. I thought Yeah because it's so much bigger than Grandpa's. Then he handed me a tape measure and said I'm serious go check. What? So we measured it. It was only 16 foot long. They mis-measured big time. Um. What in the world are we going to do. I checked my paper. The delivery guy checked his paper. Yep ordered a 24 foot long building. Calls were made and apologies started. We weren't getting our cabin today. What a wasted day off for Fred. Of all the things I could have thought would go wrong....I sure didn't think they would cut 8 foot off my cabin! We heard from the company yesterday they can't believe what happened. They are building a new one and started it immediately yesterday. They already have the floor complete and hopefully will have it ready next week sometime. We are hoping they can deliver it May the 5th because we doubt Fred can get another day off. We'll see.

On top of that I am very overwhelmed with everything I need to do by Friday morning so we can enjoy our weekend away. Plus my baby turns 20 tomorrow. I think the shock of that is really hurting my heart and getting me down. Later in the day yesterday our garage door broke. Repair guy coming today to fix it. Also we found out a family member that has been dealing with some major health issues got a lot of bad news yesterday. So it sure seemed like one thing after another was just going way wrong. I found this picture today...

So I need to breath and pick myself back up. I have laundry and packing to do today. Other than that I'm going to bury my sorrows into my stitching. I need those X's to carry my stress away and most the time it works. Thanks for listening to me whine.