PIF!

I signed up for a PIF on Mylene's blog almost a year ago, so now it's my turn to offer it on my blog! I feel bad that it has taken me this long to do it. I saw a post on Meari's blog about a PIF and that reminded me. I wasn't sure how to explain it so I borrowed the directions from Meari. I hope it's ok Meari. :o) (My calender page this month says "Ask permission now, or beg forgivness later". I guess I may have to beg forgivness. :o)

*** This is how it works ***

If you would like to receive something stitched by me within the next 365 days, please comment on this post to say that you are interested.

I will take the first 3 people...or if there are more than 3, then I will do a drawing. In return, you must offer to do the same :) (Please only sign up if you are sure you will be able to do your part!)
I will be taking sign ups until Friday, November 21st.

What's a PIF? It stands for Pass It Forward or Pay It Forward, meaning pass forward a bit of kindness to make the world a better place.

The item I send could be anything. Just whatever I am in the mood to stitch and finish at the time. (I would post a pic of the needlecase I received from Mylene but my camera keeps telling me I need to reformat my memory card. Every time I turn my camera on. Even if I put a different card in. :op ) Remember, I will have 365 days to send it to you. I'm sure it will be way before that, probably after the first of the year. Be sure your comment has a link to your blog or your email addy so I can contact you for your mailiing address.

Let the PIFing begin!

Hugs, Elaine

Tagged, WIPs, PBS (not that one) and the Crazy Weather

6 Things About Me

I was tagged by Debra, Beth and Kathy to share six things about me.

The rules are as follows:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know your entry is up.

So, here are six random things about myself:

1. Jerry and I have been happily married for over 28 years despite the fact we only went on 2 dates.
2. My all-time favorite tv show that I can watch over and over is Little House on the Prairie.
3. My favorite author is Debbie Macomber and I plan to read every book she has ever written.
4. I don't eat meat.
5. I can't wait for ABC Family channel's '25 Days of Christmas' to start.
6. I have 4 (1-foot tall) piles of magazines to read on my coffee table because all my free time is spent stitching, on the computer or reading a book. (so embarassing!)

I'm not going to tag anyone because I know a lot of you have already been tagged. If you want to post it on your blog, consider yourself tagged by me. :o)

I have made some progress on Amber's wedding piece. The outside parts are done in 1 strand so it looks really delicate. It's a nice piece to work on because the colors are so peaceful.


I took a break from the wedding piece for a while and this week I have been stitching on Amy's kitchen piece. This is the 3rd of a 4 piece grouping. I think I've been working on this for a few years now. You can see the finished ones here annnnnnnd....I can't find a picture of the other one so I'll have to post it another time. :op Here's the one I'm working on

There's a possibility that Amber might read my blog and see her piece but chances are that Amy won't because she only reads it when I tell her to. :op What a kid, huh? Not even interested in what's going on in Mom's life. :o) If either of you girls do read this, be sure to comment and let me know how you like your stuff. :o)

PBS~PaperBackSwap is a website I found out about through Kim's blog. When you sign up, you register a minimum of 10 books that you want to get rid of. For those, you get to choose 2 books to be sent to you. They have thousands! You can register as many books as you want. When someone wants one of your books you get an email. There is a link to print out a wrapper. It is printed on 2 sheets of regular computer paper. Their name and address and yours are already printed on there. You can either have an account there for postage or, like me, just take it to the post office for mailing. It costs a little over $2 to mail a regular paperback. For each book you mail out to another person, you get to choose another one. Jerry has received 2 books and I have received 1 so far. His books were most of the first ones we added so he got the first choices. :o) If you join and want to add me as a buddy my nickname is MoreBooksToRead.


Today the weather wasn't too bad as far as temperatures. It got into the 40s. It was rainy though and has been for the last few days and will be for a few more. I just want to sleep. :op I need sun! Monday and Tuesday were crazy cold! When I took Emma to school those 2 mornings it was about 23 degrees! It might not be so bad if we went down gradually but going from 70s one week to 20s the next?? There was a wind and it hurt my face. I've been thinking about Little Louie. He is walking a few blocks to school now because his dad is doing crossing guard. He walks from the corner his dad is at to the school and back after school. I felt so bad that he had to walk in the rain and cold. :o(

Well, time to get to bed......maybe.....after I read some. I'm reading the 2nd story in Small Town Christmas by, who else, Debbie Macomber.



{{{{{Hugs to All}}}}}

A Little Bit of Everything

I have a bunch of different things to blog about today. First, the weather. On Monday (4 days ago) it was in the 70s. There was no school that day so Emma was here all day. We went outside to play and rake leaves and Emma asked if we could have a picnic for lunch. We said that sounded like a good idea since it would probably be our last chance this year. Josh didn't get to eat the last few bites of his hot dog because a wasp landed on it Lol!

Now, let's jump forward 4 days to today. It showed like crazy! It started off as rain but quickly changed into big flakes! Ugh....I'm not sure I'm ready for this. At least we didn't get a blizzard like South Dakota did though. We used to live there (that's where Amy was born) when Jerry was in the Air Force. Here's what it looked like out my front door today. Nothing stayed on the ground but we have a chance all weekend. :op Sunday's high is suposed to be 38 degrees F.


Yesterday I received my last SFE. It came from Mare and I love it! It's my first MailArt! I've seen these on people's blogs but never made or received one. Mare stitched the piece including my name and address and her return name and address. (I have the addresses covered in the pics for safety) She put it in a ziploc bag and the post office put the postage on that. The inside has 2 pockets and a scissor holder. How cool! Thanks Mare! Here are some pics of it:




I finished my November ornament for ILCS You can't see the white stitched on the roof and ground in the picture but it's there. Also, there are some snowflakes in the air. It's stitched on light blue fabric and looks much better 'in person'. Only 1 more month to go and I will have stitched an ornament every month for the ornament SAL. I can't believe we started this almost a year ago! Where does the time go? Now if I could just get them finished into ornaments by Christmas!


I've been seeing floss tags on everyone's blogs and finally decided I needed to make one. I looked for a chart that would work and found one I had saved from this site (I looked and don't see this one there anymore but there are some cute ones.) This one was part of a larger chart. It included the whole alphabet but I only used my initials for the back of the tag. The back I designed myself from other parts of the chart. I liked the way the corner is so there was room for the eyelet. I changed all the colors too. I used GAST Apricot Blush, Midnight, Raspberry Parfait, Brandy, Cornflower, Lavender Potpourri, Dried Thyme and DMC 3722 for sewing it together.


To sttach the nifty eyelet I used my Crop-a-dile. I saw this on Meari's blog a while back and debated if I wanted to get it or not. I finally decided to get one using a 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby. Jerry was with me when I bought it and I was saying how I would use it for my scrapbooking and card making too. I said the only drawback was that it only reaches about an inch in on whatever you are using it on. So no attaching eyelets etc on the middle of a scrapbook page. Jerry asked why I didn't just get the bigger one that reaches 6 inches in. I said it cost a lot more. He said since I had the coupon anyway, and I would probably regret not getting that one, just get the bigger one. (What a guy!) So now I'm the proud owner of the Crop-a-dile Big Bite. :o) It really does put holes in just about anything that will fit under the hole puncher! I love it.:o)

I also bought the case with the extra eyelets. I wasn't thinking at the time that the Crop-a-dile wouldn't fit in the case! Oh well, I have more room for storing eyelets now. :o)


Today Jerry and I did a little bit of Christmas shopping. We were looking for something for our 19 month old niece. I can't believe that almost every toy for toddlers needs batteries! I kept finding cute things and then I would notice that it lights up, talks, etc and needs batteries. What ever happened to toys that made the kids use their imaginations?? I don't like to give battery toys as gifts because batteries are expensive. I think kids now are only interested in a toy if it does something. Even most of the Fisher Price little people toys need batteries. The barn makes sounds, the bus honks it's horn and lights up, etc. A Sit 'n Spin plays music and lights up. Even a Mickey or Minnie Mouse 'doll' that has a buckle, tie, snap, button etc to teach those things talks! So it needs batteries! I was getting frusterated just looking at all the stuff. I don't want to give her a doll because she has 6 sisters and I'm pretty sure there are already a lot of dolls at their house! :o) So, the hunt continues.....

Well, I guess this is long enough. If you are still reading, thank you! Sometimes I don't get very many comments and wonder how many people actually read my blog. Then again, I read a lot of blogs and don't always comment. :op
Hopefully I am entertaining at least a few of you!

{{{{{Hugs}}}}} Elaine

Wordless Wednesday

Halloween, WIP, SFEs, Voting & Pork.....?

Well, so much for getting back to blog on Halloween night. :op Oh well, it only took me 2 extra days. Not counting our family kids we got a grand total of 20 kids for Trick or Treating. And 3 of those were young teens that just happened to ride by on their bikes and saw me sitting on the porch with the candy bowl. One of them glanced my way (it was still light out) and said "Oh yeah, trick or treating!". They stopped and started walking to me. I said "Where are your costumes?" They just laughed and I gave them a popcorn ball and some candy anyway. :o) I'm such a softie.
Amy & Louie brought Little Louie over after they went trick or treating around their house. Louie was a ghoul. With the makeup he really did look creepy. When I showed the pic to Jerry and Amber (at seperate times) they both just looked at it till I said "That's Louie". Jerry said "It is??" and Amber said "Wow! who did his makeup?" I think his dad did the makeup.

Emma came with her cousin Ethan. Emma was a hippie, Ethan was Spongebob and Max, Ethan's dog, was wearing a Packer jersey.


Halloween was absolutely perfect this year. This must be what it's like if you live down south. The temps during trick or treating were in the 50s-60s. I don't ever remember a time when I sat on the porch and actually had to swat mosquitos away on Halloween. Most people around here plan their kids costumes to fit a winter coat underneath or as part of the costume. Louie had 2 sweat shirts on and he was hot!

Since I decided not to try to finish Linda's Gourmet ABC for Christmas I have been working on a few other things. One of them is Amber's wedding piece. I made some noticable progress on it so I thought I would add a pic.


I received 2 more SFEs in the mail this week. One came from Mylene in the Netherlands. She stitched a cute owl piece and made it into a pinkeep. Very cute!

My other SFE came from Viv in the UK. She stitched a beautiful beaded snowman. It's hard to see the beads in the picture but it really is pretty.
Thanks so much ladies!
Vickie sent me replacement flowers for the ones that were broken on the SFE she sent me. I replaced them and it looks wonderful. Vickie was hurt because she thought I didn't like the SFE she sent me. I would like to say here that I didn't blame her at all for the item getting broken. I totally blame that on the post office. I think maybe the mailman broke it trying to cram it into the mailbox. He usually brings things like that into the breezeway but this one he stuffed in the mailbox. Vickie, thank you so much for sending the extra flowers. I have replaced them and took a new pic of the box. It really is pretty and I'm sorry that I made you feel bad. :o) I was disappointed that the box was broke, not in the box itself.


Yesterday I spent 4.5 hours working on something to add to the Nascar prize packages for ChattyStitchingExchangers Yahoo group. I usually run the season long Nascar game but this year I asked Glenda to take over for me for the season. I was getting kind of burnt out and needed a break. She accepted and has done a great job. I think I'll just let her keep it. :o) j/k Glenda. :o)


Last Wednesday Amy, Josh, Jerry and I went to vote. There was an article in our local paper from a state congresswoman encouraging early/absentee voting. You don't have to have a reason to vote early. Since we knew who we were voting for, we decided to take advantage of it. In 2004 Wisconsin was 3rd in the nation for voter turnout. The place we vote at isn't real big and the line will be outside most of the time. Not good if it's raining or really cold. When we voted I asked if many people have voted early. They said about 500 already! Our town only has about 5000 people and probably only half of them are eligible to vote (assuming half are kids, not registered, not citizens etc). So that means 20% of the town has already voted. We sealed our ballots in envelopes and they go into a safe until Tuesday. No matter who you are voting for, be sure to get out there and vote! If you vote and your candidate doesn't get in the white house, you can complain about things for the next 4 years. But if you don't vote, you have no right to complain about who's in there. Exercise your right as an American!

A few weeks ago our church held their Harvest Time Bazaar. Like usual we bought the $50 of raffle tickets that they ask each family to sell. We have never (in over 20 years) won one of the big raffle prizes. I always joked that with my luck, since I don't like meat, we would win the half of a pig. Well, guess what they drew Jerry's name for this year? Yep, half of a pig! I know I shouldn't complain but that $1000 cash would have been much more fun! :op Anyway, the person donating it also pays for the processing. They give away 2 halfs (obviously). Jerry called the processors and they took our phone # to call us when the ham was done smoking. We picked it all up on Monday. I took a pic of it all on the kitchen floor but didn't have my picture card in my camera. The pic is on the camera itself but I can't find my cord to hook the camera up to the computer. (I just put my card in the computer for my pics) So tonight I took a pic of what is in the freezer. This is after we gave a few things to Amy, Amber and Linda. Plus we cooked a ham steak. We got sausage, ham steaks, pork steaks, pork chops, bacon, bacon ends, ribs, 2 big hams (going to my in-laws for Christmas dinner), pork hocks & neck bones (gross! Louie took both of those for soup)and some other things I can't remember right now. So I'm looking up pork recipes online. If anyone has any good recipes, feel free to send them my way. :o) Here's what is left as of tonight:


Well, I think that's everything for now.
{{{{{Hugs}}}}} to everyone!