Ummmm....no excuses!

Well, last time I blogged I thought 4 months was a long time to go between posts.....now it's been 7 months!! I could think of all kinds of excuses but none are worth mentioning. I do know that I thought about it often. But everytime I thought about it I realized that to tell you about everything I wanted to tell you about, meant looking through several cds and camera SD cards for pictures. The longer I waited, the more overwhelming it seemed. Last week I finally went through 2 cds and 2 camera cards and found the pictures I want to share. To make things worse, when I looked at my post before the last one, I realized that in the last year, this is only my 3rd post. How sad is that! And it's not because people haven't been asking me to update! Quite a few of you have and it warms my heart to think that you guys care enough to actually miss my posts. It makes taking the time to blog worth it. :) So, if you're still interested in reading, grap a cuppa something you enjoy and get comfortable. You guys know I write l-o-n-g posts and this one should be a novel. :)

Back in April Amy & Louie rented a cabin for a weeks vacation. Jerry & I went up there one day to visit and enjoy the scenery. Jerry was thrilled of course cause it was on a lake. The cabin included a boat so Jerry & Little Louie went out in it for a couple of hours. When they came back Louie had the biggest smile on his face! He had caught his first fish with Grandpa! After that he couldn't wait to go fishing again.

I have been doing some stitching. It will be sprinkled throughout this post cause the pictures are on several cds or camera cards. Forgive me for that but I don't want to keep changing cards etc. Earlier this year I finally finished the 4th and last piece I have been working on for Amy's kitchen. She's been waiting about 5 years for this set! Now if I get them all in frames I can actually give them to her. :p Here's the 4th one:
I stitched a bookmark for my friend Deb in Cincinnati:
I also stitched a quilt square for someone on one of my Yahoo cross stitch groups. I feel really awful because I can't remember who it was for.:( If you read this, or someone reads it that also stitched one, please let me know. I would like the info to put with a pic of the piece.

For Mother's Day this year Jerry, Josh Amy & Louie came over to plant some bushes on the side of our house. We've tried planting flowers there several times but the rabbits always come and eat them. :p

On the last day of school Jerry (he's crossing guard for anyone that didn't already know)got the usual hugs and goodbyes from the kids. This year he also got a sweat shirt from one of the moms and big thank you card & hugs from some of the high school girls that come to his school to tutor. He felt pretty special. :)

This past summer I was thrilled when Emma decided she wanted to learn to cross stitch! I bought her a few small kits and she worked on them on the days she was here. She caught on really quick. I did help her know where to put her stitches but she did it all herself.

In June, for our 30th wedding anniversary we went to Cincinnati to visit our friends Deb & Mike. We haven't seen them in over 10 years! We've been friends since Jerry & Mike were in the air force. We met in 1983. We had so much fun out there!! Deb & I had decided ahead of time that we wanted to do something crazy when we got together. We decided to get matching tattoos! Something totally out of character for both of us. We each got 3 butterflies, mine are 2 pink & 1 blue for my 2 girls & 1 boy. Deb's are 2 blue & 1 pink for her 2 boys & 1 girl. We got them over our heart so we can keep our kids close to our heart. Now we're trying to think of something to do when they visit us. I can't wait for them to come here, hopefully in the spring. :)


We decided to buy a firepit for the backyard. We've had quite a few nice nights just sitting around the fire, roasting marshmallows, making smores & swatting mosquitos. :) Actually it is nice & peaceful. When we aren't using the firepit it's also a table.


We went to quite a few concerts this year. The first one was Chris Young at the Jefferson fair. I really like his cd and he put on a great show!

We went to several baseball games this summer too. The Snappers are a minor league team for the Minnesota Twins. They play about 20 miles from here in the town Jerry grew up in. Minor league games are always a lot of fun and cheap.:) The day we went there were several scouts for the major league teams watching and using speed guns on the pitchers.
We also went to a Milwaukee Brewer game. They were playing the Cincinnati Reds and unfortunately lost. :( But it was a lot of fun. When we bought the tickets we also got a tote bag and a free adult admission to the Milwaukee Zoo. We haven't used that yet but we have till Dec. 31st. Of course we don't want to go to the zoo in the snow so hopefully we'll have a chance to use them soon.


July was my 30th class reunion. We had another commitment so we didn't go. I reconnected with several classmates on Facebook and also joined a group page for my class. From the pictures it looks like they had a lot of fun and I'm really going to try to make the next one. I haven't been to one yet. :p After the reunion and probably about 2:00am, a few of the girls from my class went to the high school to paint 'The Rock'. The rock sits in front of the high school and it's tradition to paint it for different things that happen at the school, reunions, homecoming, sports teams going to state, etc. Of course the thing is that you are supposed to paint it without anyone seeing you do it. I think the girls accomplished their mission. :) I went the next day and took these pictures. Our class was called 'wombats'. I'm not sure why, if anyone knows, clue me in please!

For Father's Day we went to Amber & Nate's house for a cookout. It was really nice. :) Amber gave Jerry tickets to see the Oak Ridge Boys. The concert was in July and a really good show! It was in Rockford, IL., outside and the weather was perfect!

At the end of July we went to the Rock County Fair to see Jamey Johnson. He's a new guy. Jerry really likes him but he's a little too 'old country' for me. It was a pretty good show but he didn't interact much with the crowd. Just went from one song to the next with no talking in between. :p

On a sad note, on Aug 1st, we lost Jerry's mom. She was diagnosed in spring 2009 with pancreatic cancer. She had an operation at that time but never really fully recovered. From what we've learned, we were very lucky to have her for an extra year. She never let on how bad she really felt. We all knew but I think she thought she had us all fooled. Up until the last few hours she was still smiling and joking around. Jerry was with his dad the night she moved on to a better place. It's still hard to think about her without getting teary eyed but I feel better knowing she is no longer in pain. We miss you mom! {{{hugs}}} This picture was taken at my in-laws house on the 4th of July. Notice she's wearing a sweatshirt and it was almost 100 degrees that day. :(

In August we headed to the Wisconsin State Fair with Amy, Louie & Little Louie. I think the highlight of the entire day for Jerry was when we parked the car. The parking lot was full so they were parking people at the track for the Milwaukee Mile. We got to drive halfway aroound and actually park the car ON the racetrack! Jerry was thrilled. The only thing that could have been better would have been if they let him take a lap. :) One of the things the WI state fair is known for is their cream puffs. They're made with fresh whipped cream. None of that sugary filling! They're sooooooo good! There's always a huge line to get them. But the line moves very fast. While we were walking around the fair we came upon a booth that was giving away samples of milk. We were really thirsty so we went up there and they asked us to pose for a 'milk mustache' picture. We thought "sure, why not". We took a drink right before he took the picture. Some of our mustaches didn't show up as well as othere. :p Oh, and it wasn't milk, it was vanilla shake Yum! Sorry about the way we all look, it was almost the end of a hot day.

Also in August, Louie celebrated his 8th birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. He invited Emma and a few other friends. It was crazy but a lot of fun.


Back to stitching for a minute...I decided to join my first online stitch-a-long this year. I saw the design from Kustom Krafts and couldn't resist. They have already sent out 4 pages and I'm still on page 1. You'll find out what was taking all my stitching time further down. There is an awful lot of blue in this one but I love it! It might take a while but I will finish it. :)
I also did a magnet swap with Vicky This is the magnet I received from her: Vicky knows I love owls. :) I asked her what her favorite season was. It's Fall, same as mine. :) This is the magnet I stitched for her:

At the end of August I received a wonderful surprise in the mail! Over a year ago I entered a contest sponsored by Country Woman Magazine. I didn't win anything in the contest but they asked if they could hang on to my design for a possible future issue. I had just about given up and was considering asking for my entry back so I could try to sell the design somewhere else. Just a few days after thinking about this I received my piece back along with the issue it was published in! I was so excited to see it on the front page of the crafts section! :D It's stitched on a Huck Towel. I know a lot of you have been waiting for me to post this picture so here it is...Ta Da!

Jerry won tickets from the oldies station in Madison for the Walworth County Fair. The Beach Boys were playing there. Last year Jerry won tickets from the same radio station to see the Beach Boys at a different place. :) They must know how much he likes the beach Boys. :p This time they put on a longer show. I think it was because there was a huge crowd! We were pretty far away but I was still able to get some pretty good pictures. The biggest surprise of the night was when we realized that John Stamos was playing with them! We had heard that he does sometimes but he wasn't with them last year. It was an awesome show!

Every other year Monroe WI has a Cheese Days Festival. We say a lot that we are going to go but never make it there. This year we finally did. Monroe is where a lot of the cheese that's made in WI is made. It's also where Swiss Colony is. I'm sure you've all seen the yummy catalogs, especially around Christmas. Louie had his picture taken with the Swiss Colony Christmas mouse and we got a piece of chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick from Swiss Colony for .50 cents!! When walking around Monroe you find yourself looking up at all the buildings. They have some beautiful ones there. This is their court house.

We were lucky with concert tickets this summer! Jerry told me to listen to the local country station between 2 & 6 pm everyday for a week. When they played an Alan Jackson song if you were the 19th caller you won tickets to his Sept 24th concert in Rockford IL. I listened on Monday, the first day. I called when I heard the song. Busy...busy...busy...etc, then the phone rang and I was caller #16. I was going to give up cause I figured what were the chances I would get through again with only 3 callers left. Guess what? Yep, I was caller #19!!! Yea me! :D It was an awesome, awesome show! It's been a really long time since we could afford a regular concert ticket, not just a fair ticket.

The first weekend of October was extremely busy for us! On Saturday morning we did a 2 mile walk for the Rock County Humane Society. It was their Cause for the Paws walk/run. Their biggest fundraiser of the year. We met up with Amber & Nate and since we didn't have a dog they let Jerry walk with their dog, Maddie. :) That's Maddie at the bottom of the picture. We even got these t-shirts.

Saturday evening we went to our niece Emily's wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony and a fun reception. Emily made her wedding dress and also flower girl dresses for 4 of her little sisters. Louie always has a good time getting together with all his girl cousins but I think they were all running out of steam as the night went on. :) And for those of you that have asked about Mercy, here she is with Jerry. She just turned a year old (already??). At 6 months she was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy. I think it's from the lack of oxygen when she was born. She is making great progress and is the sweetest little baby I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. :) I mentioned before that there was something taking up a lot of my stitching time. I only had 2 months to stitch the piece I wanted to make for Emily & Verlin for their wedding. I finished it the week of the wedding and it took me and Jerry a few hours to get it straight in the frame. :) They were going to open their gifts after the honeymoon, when they got back to TX. I wanted to see them open this one so we met them at the church the day before the wedding. I think they loved it as much as I hoped they would! It was a lot of work and took many hours of stitching but it was all worth it. :)

On Sunday morning, of the same weekend, Louie made his First Communion. We had another surprise that day. Along with our usual priest, we had a visitor. Father McEnery was the priest when I was growing up, when Jerry and I got married and while our kids were growing up. He retired and moved to Madison about 13 or 14 years ago. He just happened to be visiting and attended the mass when Louie was receiving his First Communion. He gave Amy a hug and said he couldn't believe her son was already that old. After the mass he came to talk to us and gave us all hugs too. He took a picture with Louie. I was so surprised he remembered us because he knows so many people! It was wonderful.:)

We decided it was time to paint the house this year. We've been putting it off cause it was so hot this summer. We finally started last week. It's hard to find time when the weekends are so busy and Jerry only has a few hours between when he does crossing guard and goes to work. Amy & Louie have come over a few times to help. One of the most time consuming parts is the windows. We have wood frame windows and they all have storms & screens. So not only do the inside windows on the house have to be painted, the storms do too. Ugh...I'm ready to quit and the house is less than half done. You can see part of the back of the house here, almost done. The house is longer than this shows and we also have a breezeway and a 2.5 car garage. The house is aluminum siding but the breezeway & garage are wood so lots of scraping & priming. Oh, and this is always a fun thing to find!

Last but not least, here's my new toy. :) It's the Barnes & Nobel Nook. I've already read the book that's shown on it. I love it! So easy to read. I wasn't sure I would like not having a 'real' book in my hands. Cause I love everything about books, the feel, the smell, everything. And I still have plenty of real books on my shelves to read. But I think I'll get used to this real quick.

I just realized that I didn't include any pics of the monthly stitch-a-long I'm doing with my friend Lainey in Scotland. I'll have to find all the pics and post them next time. It won't be long, I promise. I know, you've heard THAT before!

Well, this post has taken me almost 4 hours! Now I'm scared that when I try to post it something will go wrong or it will tell me the post is too long or there are too many pictures or something. Keeping my fingers crossed!! If you've read to the bottom of this post, thank you!! I appreciate it. :)

Until next time {{{Hugs}}} Elaine