The Halloween That Wasn't

 

I love Halloween but this is it for me this year. My box of decorations and costume pieces is still tucked in the downstairs closet where it will remain until next year. I don't have the energy to add one more thing to this mess I am living in.

As of noon yesterday the roads were still closed here from the flooding. The bay has receded some but there is still widespread flooding and the destruction is significant. Everything is covered in wet leaves and mud so we put any kitchen work on hold until it dries off because we have to hook up a lot of electric tools on the deck to cut the tiles. I bet you can guess what the inside of my house looks like if you noticed all those muddy paw prints I am standing in. I've given up on trying to keep anything clean.

The only good thing that happened this weekend is that some material arrived that I am going to use to make curtains for the kitchen window. It's from someone on ebay that was selling Ikea material. I am starting to get a wee bit excited again about my faux Swedish country kitchen. The little bit of tiling we've done is making all the difference. 

Well then......what I need right now is a bloody Mary and a fistful of mini Kit Kats. 

Here's wishing you all a Happy Halloween! 

Gale Warning

 

Usually when they give us dire weather predictions it turns out to a rather meh event. Not yesterday. We couldn't even get down to town yesterday. The road was closed. Schools were also closed. Good thing.

Behind that barricade it was a disaster. My sister texted me this. That was the boardwalk we are always walking Pup on. 

The normally calm bay was very, very angry. This is the parking lot and outdoor dining space at our local pizza place which was already under water at 11 am. 

The marina where we walk Pup was also under water. This is also just the parking lot-not the bay itself. You can normally drive up to that little building and walk on the decking around the boat slips on Fisherman's Creek. Not yesterday. We could have paddled over there. 

We went up to the top floor of the parking garage at the bay front hotel to get a good look and the wind and the rain were so fierce I thought it was going to blow us over. It was scary but kind of fun at the same time.  I was chilled to the bone.

The only thing left to do for the rest of the day back at home was to break into the new bottle of Honey Jack and the Halloween candy and.......

..knit the day away. There's always tomorrow for tiling. 

Falling

 

It's finally starting to happen. It's starting to look like fall.

It's still pretty warm and still pretty green but things are changing. 

My purple fall blooming things are all over the place. That's a sure sign. 

Another sign is the outdoor kitty huts are stuffed and electrified. It's still too warm to turn them on but we are ready when Mother Nature is. For the record, I would be much happier and sleep much easier if those two kitties would just come in the house but they won't. I've tried for eleven years and I give up.  

For those of you keeping track of the kitchen progress, we didn't get far again yesterday. It was a day of fussy cuts around outlets and lots of grumbling from The Mister who hates this sort of thing. 

Today they are calling for really bad weather so we may be taking the day off from kitchen work. They were piling up sandbags down at the beach when we took Pup for her walk yesterday.  In addition to the flooding we could also get 60 mile an hour winds. Gulp. All I know is those trees out back better darn sight stay where they belong. I've worked too hard on this kitchen for anything to ruin it now. 

Kitchen Update and a Whole Lot of Other Stuff

 

Guess what we did yesterday. I told The Mister I'm not getting my Covid booster until I have water in the kitchen again so we need to get that tiling and plumbing done asap. The last shot made me sick for about 10 days and I am NOT hauling water and running up and down stairs feeling as bad as I did last spring. 

It was much more involved than we thought. For starters, every single tile had glops of some unknown substance on them that had to be scraped off and then washed. That was no fun. 

Then we had to get used to using mastic instead of thinset. The Mister was nervous working with it because it dries fast and it's really messy around our new cabinets and counter tops. It was very slow going. 

He also hated those green spacers. They are not what he's used to but they are the only ones we could find that were 1/16th of an inch. This is as far as we got for the day. We always stop at 2 so we can get Pup out for a walk. Of course this means the kitchen is once again a disaster area. As soon as I get a little order we always start something else that makes yet another big mess. You'd think I'd be used to it by now-and I am but it's still up to me to put food on the table which is now once again covered in work tools and yucky stuff.

On a happier note, the blanket material for the Grand to Be arrived. 

Don't ask me how in all this mess but I finished quilting the memory quilt. Now I just have to find the time and the space to get the binding on.

And............I got caught up with my Inktober sketches. I've got Baby Groot for Sprout. Fuzzy is a caterpillar. Open is a book. Leak is the Harry Potter signage from the Leaky Cauldron. Extinct is the blue Macaw from Rio. Splatt is a dropped egg and Connect is a puzzle.Spark is a spark plug and it was perfect timing because The Mister took his truck in for repairs that day and we got a death sentence for the old thing. It looks like a new truck is in our future-just  not right now.

Wednesday WIPs

 

The only thing left in the knitting basket are these Pairfects I started for the weekend road trip. They are not Arne and Carlos Pairfects. They are just regular stripey Pairfects. They are for me. 

I managed to unload a bunch of the gift socks this weekend so now it's my turn for a new pair or two. Daughter's old kitty fell in love with the ill fated Woodsie pair so I guess they are hers now. 

I've got big plans for all this new Knit Picks Swish Worsted that just showed up. I am going to try and duplicate my Fright Club beanie in a thicker yarn to get a bigger hat. 

I've also got some new stuff for the quilting stash-some rulers and a new Kaffe Fassett jelly roll.

That makes four now in my collection. I have no idea what I am going to do with them but aren't they pretty just sitting on my shelf?

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

This is the only tiny needle that saw any action around here this week but I do have a stitchery story to share.

Son and DIL drove down from Michigan with the Baby Grand this weekend so I was finally able to hand this over to them. 

Since I was able to hand the birth record over I thought I might as well hand over the wedding sampler I had made for Daughter and SIL TEN YEARS AGO. They moved so often I never gave it to them and it has been propped up on my nightstand all these years. Now that they are settled into their new house I thought it was time to let this go as well. It left a big hole where it used to be so.........

....I guess I ought to finish the wedding sampler I made for The Mister and me so I can put it where the other one was. I have just a few more rows to go. I started it ELEVEN YEARS AGO. No one can ever accuse me of being in a hurry about anything.

And........I had some questions about Pup yesterday. Believe it or not, she is a 100% purebred Yorkie. I had her DNA tested through Embark because I didn't believe it. Turns out she is a Parti colored Yorkie which is a genetic glitch in the breed that produces the white coat.  

She doesn't look like one because her ears don't stand up like most Yorkies do anymore because she wouldn't let me keep them shaved when she was young. Now she's floppy eared but she will put them up if there is food involved.  

She may not look like a Yorkie but she sure acts like one and by that I mean she is a royal pain in the neck most of the time-as most terriers are. 

Ain't Life Grand

 

After a 10 month wait we finally got to meet the latest baby Grand.

It was a weekend of playing pass the baby. He's a good boy, such a good boy. He was in a strange house with lots of strange people and he smiled the whole time. 

I even got to babysit him while the adults went off to dinner. 

On Sunday morning more Grands showed up. I used to think of these guys as the baby Grands but they look so big now. I had such a good time with them all. Having all my kids and their kids in the same place-even for a short time was wonderful. 

Years ago my parents used to drag us all to a beach house when they could get all their Grands together and put up a tree and pretend it was Christmas. I used to think that was crazy. I don't anymore. 

Eight

 

I know you were expecting baby pictures today but I didn't want to drag my computer with me on our overnight stay to see the new baby Grand so that post will have to wait until tomorrow. How about some glamour shots of Pup in the meantime?

It's her eighth birthday today and I can't believe it's been eight years. I still think of her as a pup.

Our girl was officially a senior doggo on her last birthday and it's breaking my heart to see her run through her years with us so quickly. Where does the time go? 

Happy birthday Maggie! You may be an old girl now but you will always be Pup to me. 

On the Road Again

 

Look what showed up earlier than expected. It's my new laser level. 

How cool is that? Of course I still have to figure out how to actually use it but that's for another day.

Today we are going to take that long drive up to Daughter's again to meet the very latest Grand for the first time. Son and DIL drove down yesterday from Michigan with him and are here for a weekend visit. Since I finished the last of the Christmas gift socks I spent yesterday tearing up the house trying to decide what to cast on next.

I can't take that long drive without something to knit. I'm about ready to jump out of my skin from excitement as it is. I can't wait to meet the new little guy. It's been a long time coming. 

Friday Felines

 

The only thing we did in the kitchen yesterday was put the shelves in the corner cabinet. Not because I am at the putting in shelves stage but because we got tired of tripping over those particular shelves that were an awkward shape. We decided to give ourselves a break on the tile until Monday. I've got a laser level on the way and we decided just to wait for it. We've tiled without one before but since this tile will be the first thing anyone sees when they walk in the front door we thought we better take the professionals advice and get one. 

In the meantime I spent the day wrestling with this kitty fabric so I could use it for the backing when I sandwich the memory quilt.

Since the sewing room is piled full of all the doo dads from the dining and the living room I had to drag all my stuff out into the kitchen mess in order to have enough room to lay it out. There were a lot of bad words said. It's bad enough doing this sandwiching thing when you've got space and it's another thing when you are falling all over boxes and piles of flooring and tile. 

Then I had to find a space for the Juki and then clean and oil it.  I fought with getting the tension right for a very long time. I'm still not happy with it but I gave up. By then I was too tired to even start working on the actual quilt. That adventure's for another day.