Hiya all!

I'm here in Border's taking a mom break while the boys are at tutoring!  So that actually gives me time to post on my blog, oh joy!
I'm doing much better than I was in the last post, nearly healed and I have more energy--yay!  I've been busy with the boys, working on their lessons, making cookies and bagels and just resting and enjoying the family.
A week ago we got some roosters--5 silkies.  They are fun but I think it'll be better for our ladies if we only have 1 so I'm going to be asking around for some good homes for the others.  If I can't find one, I'll use the other shed we have on our property and put them in there.  As usual, click on the pictures to get a larger view!

 

I took the littlest boy to get assessed for his autism and the developmental preschool program.  They feel he'll qualify, but it's going to take 3 weeks to find out!  I wish they could push it through quicker, I'd really like to get him going, the doctor told us the sooner he gets treatment, it is possible that he could come out of the autism.  We're hoping and praying! 

I've been getting seed catalogs in the mail like crazy, this weekend I'm finally going to pick all the seeds for this year.  I have tons of veggie seeds left over from last year, so I just need herbs and perennials for my English garden I am planning for the front of the house.  I'm sick of mowing the grass there, we have 6 acres to mow and it's an all day project (until we get a tractor so we can plow the fields and put in some grasses for livestock) so I am eliminating the front yard and making it an English garden.  I got a bunch of garden planning books out of the library so DH and I can sit down and plan things out---we'll have to start breaking ground in early April, late March if possible!  Last year we got the veggie garden put in and DH made me a beautiful herb spiral.  Here are some pics that my son got last fall:

Isn't my herb spiral awesome??!!  I have the most wonderful, talented husband!  I was going to make it myself but being sick prevented me from being able to do it so hubby took the job on and I am so proud and pleased with what he made!  I am a lucky woman!

I didn't get pictures of the garden in the summer, I don't know why---it was my pride and joy---and then the blight hit everything!  No cucumbers, few pumpkins, lots of zucchini, but nothing compared to what we would have had if the blight hadn't gotten the plants!  Not one potato, lots of tomatoes, but not nearly as many as we should have had---same for melons and squashes.  What started out so promising was literally destroyed.  If I hadn't been so sick I probably would have been able to save at least some of it.  This year we will be ready.  We will do preventative medicine to hopefully stop it in its tracks!  Here are some of the flowers from my front garden, these were taken in late fall so many were dead already:

 

Some of fall's bounty!

So, I haven't done much sewing since Christmas.  I did make these adorable Molly Monkey dolls for my nieces:

Aren't they the cutest??!!  If you like the pattern I got it from Larissa at mmmcrafts

I am still working on my Carolina Christmas quilt---got about 2 hours of piecing done yesterday which was a miracle considering it was in the middle of the afternoon and the boy was running all over the place!  I can't wait to see it finished!

That's it for me.  My Borders break is drawing to a close, I want to go peruse the craft section before I have to pick up the boys.  More pictures coming soon---I have remodling projects talk about, more crafty stuff and more kids stuff! 

New Year, new goals

Howdy folks!

I hope your January is going smoothly! I am so glad 2009 is over, it really was a bad year for me and I'm hoping and praying that 2010 is going to be much better!

To catch you up on what had been going on:

I had been sick most of the year, it took the doctors until August when I ended up hospitalized due to my asthma to find out that I was severely Anemic. I had to go through 8 IV iron treatments in September/October but afterwards I did start to feel a little better. Next they had to figure out WHY I was so anemic.

Turns out, I had tumors in my uterus---not only were they causing the anemia, they were also causing a lot of the pain and discomfort I had been going through at the time.

In the meantime, we lost our Border Collie, Annie, to cancer in October and 2 weeks later our old cat Flounder died of old age at the beginning of November. I see his pictures all over my blog and my computer, I still miss him horribly. He was my partner/companion. He was always there when I made the meals, always lying on the laundry when I was trying to fold it, always on my neatly washed and pressed fabrics when I was creating and taking over my quilts as soon as they were finished. He would come with me to the garden and sit and keep me company while I planted or weeded or harvested. He was always on the walkway or the porch waiting for me when I came home. My chores and hobbies and whatnot are so lonely without him--even though I am in a house full of people and animals. He was a good cat and I will miss him always!
We got through Thanksgiving ok and then it was time for more tests for me and we had to take Seamus to Akron Children's Hospital Neurological Center to be evaluated. Turns out that our little boy has Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD. The doctors feel that with proper therapies he can possibly lead a normal life, so we are taking him to get enrolled in a developmental preschool and he'll have to see a Speech, Occupational and Physical therapist to help him overcome his obstacles. I am hopeful and feel good about his possibilities---while at the same time I am scared for him. I will be optimistic, however!

After all my tests it was determined that the best course of action would be for me to have a hysterectomy. I was fine with that, I've had 6 children and no plans for anymore and personally, I was looking forward to no more visits from mother nature! She'd been pretty rough on me!
The surgery was scheduled for December 29th. I was also having bladder surgery because my uterus was so enlarged due to the tumors that it had caused some minor damage to my bladder.

The day of surgery I was feeling pretty good, ready to get this all over with and get back on the road to health! The doctors were feeling good about things, they warned me that this will be a MAJOR surgery and even though I am raring to be healthy, it's going to take 2 months to heal. That's ok with me, I'd been sick for a year, what's 2 months in the scheme of things????

When I woke up from my surgery my Urologist was there waiting for me---she was very upset and tried to explain what had happened but I was too groggy to understand. Later, in my room, my husband and my mother told me that there were complications, I had bled out and the surgery was more difficult that they expected. I found out that the OB had to take one of my ovaries as well because it started bleeding. Apparently, when I was bleeding out and my OB was trying to stop the bleeding, she nicked my bladder twice with sutures. She found one of them and then closed me up---but when my urologist went in to do her surgery, she found another suture in my bladder so she had to take it out---which resulted in a hole in my bladder. She sewed up the hole but she wasn't able to do her surgery, after being opened and closed 3 times, and with my bladder now injured, I wasn't going to be able to handle her surgery for at least 6 months while my body healed. I had to leave the hospital with a catheter, which I endured for 2 weeks but by then it was causing such pain and discomfort that she took it out.
I'm still healing, I'm 3 weeks out from surgery now and feeling a bit better---although I am having problems with my bladder still----it spasms and hurts---the doctor said that'll probably happen until she can get in to do her surgery. Fun.

So, I'm just concentrating on getting stronger and healthier. I don't know when I'll have the other surgery---I can't have it at the beginning of the summer, I have my garden to get in and since we depend on it for our food, it's not a little thing to be put off. After surgery I won't be able to lift anything heavier than 5 pounds (which I am dealing with right now, too) so summer is not a good time for me to have surgery. I can wait until fall, but with the kids being in school, I wouldn't have anyone to help me during the day with Seamus. I see the doctor at the end of April, hopefully we'll come up with something that'll work for everyone!

One thing that happened in 2009 that I was excited about, I got a bigger, better sewing room! LOL! I have to laugh because if you look through my blog, I've had 5 sewing rooms---each one better than the last. This one is a keeper---unless one of my older kids decides to move back home! I'm still organizing and fixing it up, so I'll have pictures when I'm done!

After all the pain and illness and sadness of 2009, I am still blessed! When I think of those poor people in Haiti what they are going through, I know I am incredibly fortunate and my little problems are just that---little problems. I wish you all a belated Happy New Year and blessings and good things!

My goals for 2010:

Finish all my quilt UFO's.
Make Christmas gifts for next Christmas---starting NOW!
Get all my WIP's finished or at least get quilt tops done!
Finish painting my dining room
Remodel my bathroom (simply--nothing grand or over the top like on HGTV!)
Finish my kitchen
Paint and fix up my bedroom
Paint and fix up my sewing room
Expand my garden
Lose weight
Exercise as soon as I am able and get a daily routine set up

I guess that's it for now---although I'll be happy if I get half of that list done!

Leslie:-)

I'm back!

It's been a long time, I know.

It seems I didn't keep my New Year's resolution. I did have a good reason, though.

My family and I were involved in a car accident in February. Someone from out of state did not understand the signs and tried to make a left hand turn where they shouldn't make one. Unfortunately, I happened to be driving through the intersection at that very moment and there was nothing I could do to avoid hitting him. The kids were fine, just bumped around a bit, a few bruises and a bloody lip. Seamus was fine---he was in his car seat and well protected. Hubby was fine as well. Unfortunately for me, I hit my head pretty hard and sustained some bad damage that resulted in major whip lash and a concussion that brought on excruciating migraines that didn't leave---for months. Needless to say, I could not handle being on the computer, the screen just brought on worse migraines that left me unable to manage anything. I couldn't watch TV, either. I couldn't do any sewing or knitting or needlework. The only thing I could do without pain is to read---believe it or not! So, that is what I did, I read book after book after book. I'd say in the last 6 months I've probably read 150 books. I saw a neurologist who specialized in migraines and he had me start taking fish oil and B6 vitamins along with doing yoga everyday---it really helped! Now, my migraines have dissipated, I only seem to get one if I am stressed or tired now. Thank goodness, between the pain from the whiplash and the migraines, I was miserable for months! But, the important thing is that I am better now!

I've been trying to catch up on things I've missed in the quilt world and craft world in general since I've been offline. While at the library, I found the Elm Creek Quilts books and I started to read those and fell in love with the story, the characters and the quilts. I joined the Sylvia's Bridal Sampler list and I am raring to start working on a sampler of my own! I've been reading a lot of blogs lately and I am inspired by so many, I can't wait to start creating again!

New Years resolutions

Happy New Year, friends!

I don't tend to make resolutions because I usually don't follow through with them BUT......

I do plan on posting here more often.

Our new year started out quietly. The boys played Guitar Hero and I painted. DH and I had moved our bedroom upstairs back in August/September. The baby was in our room as well---we had moved so I could have a bigger sewing room, the room I had previously was 9 X 9 and it wasn't even big enough for me to actually sew in. After we moved our bedroom upstairs, we had worked on fixing up our previous bedroom into my sewing room and the small room was made into Seamus's play room. I decided last weekend that Seamus needs his own room now (as do DH andI), so we decided to move BACK downstairs into our old room and move my sewing room upstairs. First, I had to paint the room----we haven't done any painting here since we bought the house and it needs it badly. The last owners had terrible taste in paint colors and I couldn't handle the thought of being creative in a room with mint green walls, LOL! I painted it a very light blue with a federal blue trim (pictures coming soon). DH painted the floor white and it now looks like a totally different room! We spent the weekend moving all my tons and tons of stuff upstairs and moving our bedroom back downstairs. We did end up throwing a mattress down on the livingroom floor and crashing there last night. It was nice, though, listening to the crackle of the wood in the woodstove. I'll be happy to sleep in my bed tonight, however!

The next room to paint will be my bedroom. I'm going to do a nice, soft yellow with crisp white trim. That'll be next weekend. After that its going to be either the kitchen or the living room next.

Sorry I have no pictures, my camera is broken and my cord is missing anyway. I'll have to borrow Jeremy's camera tomorrow after I get things cleaned up a bit here.

I hope you all had a great new year! One of my resolutions that I don't make is to get some of my UFO's quilted this year---to finally use my quilting frame and learn how to do some machine quilting. At least I have tons of room now in my sewing room, I can have a quilt on the Grace machine frame, and two quilts on my hand quilting frames. Now I just need 6 arms with extensions to quilt on all of them at once, hehehe!

Back to school tomorrow. The boys are so bummed! Jaret wished that Christmas vacation could to until June 4th and then the next day we could start summer vacation, LOL! It would be fun, although I'm pretty sure we wouldn't appreciate vacations as much as we do now!

My body is SO tired from moving heavy furnature all day. I'm ready for bed! I'll post again in a day or so with pictures, promise!

See ya soon!

Leslie:-)

What a great day for America!

I'm not going to go all political here, but I am really proud of America and really excited for the changes to come. Even if this president can't accomplish everything he'd like to--as long as he moves the direction of the country so those who come after can carry it through---that would be terrific!

Congrats President-elect Obama!

Ok, well I had some detours in the last month that kept me away from my blog and away from my crafting. I spent most of October sick as a dog, I ended up having my gall bladder removed and I had to have some repair work done on my stomach as well. I had a gastric bypass 6 years ago. Appparently, my surgeon had taken my old stomach, wrapped a surgical wire around it and somehow used it to connect it to my abdomen. That wire had come loose and was poking and scratching and prodding me inside---can you say excrutiating pain???? I had the surgery 2 weeks ago, I'm still feeling punky from having my gall bladder out, but the pain is going away and overall I am feeling much better.

One thing I was terribly upset about missing during my illness---the changing of the leaves. I did get to see them at the beginning of the change, on my way to and from the hospital, LOL! DH started a new job, so until he gets his van from his work, he's been taking my van to work and I've been without wheels---so no going to the park or taking drives through my country. I did get some nice pics of our yard, not the bright colors I would have liked to capture, but it's definitely fall! Click on the pics for full size.



My old man, Flounder, greeting me as I come up the walk.

I did make the kids Halloween costumes, pics to come soon. I ended up with 3 kids posing as Link from the Legend of Zelda---although they were all different versions of Link, LOL!

I have not gotten past the first part of my Tobacco Road mystery quilt, I haven't been able to work on that in over a month---but I do have nearly all of my four patches done, here are some pics of the squares and the fabrics I am using for it:



I never got a chance to show you my new sewing room. It isn't done, by any stretch of the imagination, but for now it's a place where I have room to move and work---and DH made me a huge, wonderful sewing table and a bunch of shelves to accommodate my needs and I just have to show them off! He is so good!!!



Above is the sewing table me made me. He loosely based it on the plans sold by Keepsake quilting and I have to say, it is the most wonderful work area I could ever imagine having! Lately, it's been used as a dump space for books, magazines and fabrics---that's going to end REAL SOON, LOL!

Here are all the different shelves he made for all my stuff. He is planning on making me a wall of shelves or cubes for fabric storage, right now most of it is in boxes and stored under my Grace frame.

He found this magazine rack at a job site in the garbage---we are all about recycling!



He made all the shelves with leftover wood he had, or pieces of furniture that was damaged or thrown out. He also made the thread rack, pretty cool, huh?

My Grace Sturdy lite that I have yet to use. SOON!!!!

I'll have pics of the actual room soon, my camera is on the brink of death so I've been using my son's when I remember to get it.

I am starting a new project (while leaving behind another UFO, shoot me!!!)

I am getting ready to make the Yo-Yo Advent Calendar from Sunshine's Creations. I am working on picking fabrics right now, I just may have enough from my stash to not have to buy any more :-( Too bad for me, LOL! I do have tons and tons of Christmas fabrics, though. This will be a good project to start thinning them out.

Onto Homesteading news---the garden wasn't a big or productive as we would have liked, but we got a lot out of it and it fed us through the rough financial times we've gone through this summer and fall. All is picked in the main garden, I still have lettuces up by the house and herbs. They all managed to withstand the hard frost we had a couple of weeks ago, so I can continue to look forward to fresh foods for a little while yet.



I learned a lot from my small garden this summer. I learned a lot about our land as well. I can't wait to plan my next garden, and get my seed catalogs and get my boxes of seed and plants in the mail! I will be ordering chicks in the spring, I can't wait for that AND we hope to look into getting ourselves a cow. Or, at the very least, a goat.

We had our first experiences of cold weather without the use of the furnace. We turned the gas off last spring, after seeing the huge gas bills for this house. So far, we got electric oil furnaces for the bedrooms--and they do a really good job of keeping it warm upstairs. We have a wood burning stove in the dining room. It has a blower on it and does a good job of warming up the dining room, living room, bathroom and my sewing room. We did get another woodstove from someone on Freecycle, this one a regular cast iron stove. We still have to get some of the chimney pipe for it---but we managed to get most of it from another person on Freecycle, thank goodness! It would have cost us nearly $2500 to buy all the chimney pipe new! I love Freecycle! We still have to get some kind of heater for the kitchen, it is behind the stove in the dining room and even though we have the fan on the stove and ceiling fans going, the warm air doesn't seem to go into the kitchen, much. I have found if the upstairs is warm, I can turn on the fan from the old furnace and it'll distribute air around the house. It'll be interesting to see how this all works out in the cold-cold months---but we did go as low as 24 degrees and we were warm enough! The thought of not having to get those $1000+ a month gas bills is enough to keep me warm, LOL!

Ok, I've chatted enough to make up for the missed weeks and months, LOL! I miss talking to my regulars that used to come to the blog, and meeting new people as well so please, take a moment or two to say hi, leave a message for me and I'll reciprocate as well!

God Bless the USA!!!!

Here are our 4 legged babies, and half of our human ones, LOL!


Annie, our 8 year old Border collie/Shepared

Flounder, our 14 year old patriarch

Ryo Ohki, our crazy tortoise shell 6 year old kitty
Usher, our 4 year old baby of Ryo-Ohki


Tama, our newest baby at just under a year and Raven, our 2 year old lab.


Silly boys.

New stuff happening

I'm in a major construction phase right now, hopefully I'll have things back to normal sometime this week. In the meantime, please excuse my dust and watch your step! Let me know what you think so far, please leave a comment!

Leslie:-)

What I've been up to........

It's been a while, I haven't had much time to post! Things have been busy around the homestead! I did finally finish the quilts for my nieces, want to see them???? Click on the pics to see the full size.

This is Ashley's quilt---or I should say, blankie. I didn't quilt it and the backing is a nice soft, fuzzy fabric, perfect for cuddling.


This is Savanahs' blankie. She has the soft green backing fabric. I tried to do strip blocks, I'm not sure I like how they turned out---I think it looks cute, but I don't like how the bottom colored fabric strips aren't in the middle with the white. I apparently didn't block them correctly or something. I will try this pattern again. I really liked making it, I like strip piecing and paper piecing a lot, I could do paper pieced quilts all the time!

So, now I am planning my other niece, Sam's quilt. She wants a nautical quilt so I bought this pattern from Ula Lenz called Summer at the Shore.

Ula has tons and tons of beautiful patterns, if you have never been to her site, be sure to check it out! Ula's Quiltpage

My next project for me is to make the Third Weekend in October quilt. I got the pattern and kit from Keepsake Quilting (I love that website!!!) I am also going to make the Yo Yo Advent Calendar from Sunshine Creations. BUT, before I get started on anything, I need to get my quilt room set up and get all my fabric out and in a place where I can see it and find it, LOL! My wonderful DH is going to make me a nice book/fabric shelf so I can get all my fabric out and set up---well, most of it anyway. I don't have too much fabric so he doesn't have to make it too big. My room is only 9 X 9 and my Grace Sturdy Lite takes up half of it. My sewing table is outside the room in the diningroom, so the rest of the room is basically for storage. Right now, it's being used as an all purpose dump room. My poor Sturdy Lite is covered with stuff that needs to go elsewhere!!!




So, right now my quilty priority is to straighten up my quilting room, get all the intruder stuff out of it and get my fabric out and visible so I can start planning my next quilts.

We had our huge Forth of July campout and it was a blast! Our camp ground was too muddy to actually camp in, but we at least were able to get the firepit dug and had some nice fires---the tents were placed out on the lawn since it was dry out there. Over all, it was a great weekend and we found out that we can stay home and watch the fireworks!! We had planned on going to the next township over to see the fireworks but we ended up eating late and everyone was tired so we decided to stay home. The kids were a little upset---but they started chasing fireflies and forgot all about it. All of a sudden, in the north sky appeared large fireworks. At first we thought it was just someone blowing off fireworks in their backyard but as they continued we realized that they were much too big for a private display and it turned out that it was an excellent 40 minute display put on by one of the area townships. How cool is that???





We have been having some rough periods. I found my 16 year old son passed out on the floor one morning. He had just had a seizure and we rushed him to the emergency room. They did some tests but they couldn't much for him and he had to be transferred 25 miles away to the nearest children's hospital. After 3 days in the hospital and countless tests, we found out that he has Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy. Since then, he's had 4 more seizures and frankly, they are quite scary and no matter how many times I see them, I don't think I'll ever get used to them. He has to make a lot of changes, which he isn't happy about---no driving for a year after the last seizure--so we had to cancel his driving lessons. He has to limit his video gaming and he can't play many of the games he loved to play before---which to me isn't a big deal, but to a kid I suppose it would be one. He can't go into the pool without an adult. He can't go to dances or concerts if there are flashing lights or strobes. He has to make sure to get a full nights' sleep, no more late nights. Lots of other stuff that in the grand scheme of things, don't seem too major---but to a teenager it stinks. He'll be fine once his medications are leveled off, but until them there is always a risk for more seizures, which means I can't leave him alone---which he hates. I just try to keep reminding him that it's only temporary and life will get back to normal---just a little differently.

Other than that, it's been a busy summer. The garden is coming along, slowly but surely. I've finally got zucchini's growing, tons of tomatoes and the potatoes look to be doing very well. The corn is stunted, but there are still some cobs growing. My soil needs more nitrogen---next spring I am going to make sure that before we plant anything we are fortifying the soil first. We couldn't do it this year, it was a miracle to get a break in the rainy weather to be able to till and then to be able to plant anything! Now, we haven't had rain in over 2 weeks, LOL! No happy medium this summer.
Lots of yummy lettuces, though!