It’s been awhile since I blogged about anything……the day job has kept me hopping. Speaking of hopping, my friend Karin Ashdown is making the most awesome fwogs/frogs. Every time she shows me a new one, I just crack up. She told me that ‘frog’ stands for ‘Forever Rely on God’….what a beautiful sentiment. Here is one of her frogs. 
To see more of Karin’s work, check out her Flickr site here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kays_polymer_creations
Monday I had to go on a research trip to the U.P. This was one of those head-banging trips where no one wanted to cooperate. Eventually, I got a small break through yesterday morning. By 1 pm, I had done all that could be done and we headed home in the middle of a downpour. The rain continued all day. We were both tired and supper was sandwich and a bowl of soup.
This morning I got up, planning on making numerous phone calls……well, that idea was quickly squashed when I got an error message while windows was booting. Seems that some quirky thing happened and all my profiles were gone! I sat here looking at a screen I didn’t recognize! It had reverted back to XP setting and the majority of my icons/file folders were gone from my desktop! Nooooooooooooo…………..not this.
Thank god for my computer guru. He is the sweestest guy and even helps long distance :D. (That’s another story) Anyway, we ended having to do a system restore and so I’m hoping for the best when I shut down tonight.
Right now I’m sitting here looking at a table full of green maters. The sun was shining for a change and before the snow/cold hits on Friday, I had to harvest my tomatoes. I have green maters all over! A bench full in the entry way and now a tablefull here in my office. They are covered with newspapers to speed up the ripening process. I hated having to pick them, but didn’t have any choice.
Well, I don’t know where summer went, but its definitely gone! Last week we had temps of 75+, yesterday the wind switched to the north and I woke up to an outside temp of 48. Its now 46…..so, I started the first fire of the season. We use our stove insert in the fall and spring when the temps are too warm for the big outside furnace, yet are too cool inside to be comfortable with no heat.
This little stove will drive you right out of the house when it gets perking. I love it! I do miss the expanse of glass from the fireplace doors, but this is so much more efficient.
About a month ago, I lucked out and bought a box of linens from an elderly friend of mine. I knew the box had tablecloths and napkins, but didn’t know how many.
When I got the box home, I started taking them out one by one. They had a mildewy smell as she had stored them in her basement. I started hanging them on the clothsline as I took them out. When I finished, I had 2 large damask tablecloths and 6 bucilla linen ones! In addition I had 8 linen napkins and a ton of damask ones, those had 3 different designs.
Of the linen cloths, 4 of them were 72″x108″, 1 was 52″x52″ and the sixth was 52″x72″. They all had gorgeous pre-stamped designs on them. Two of the large ones were duplicates cutwork designs.
I fell in love with the designs on the cloths and ever since I’ve been madly hunting for tablecloth iron-on transfers only to discover that they aren’t made anymore! Wah! Yes, I can find transfers for pillowcases, towels, doilies, but as far as tablecloths…..nada. Oh, you can buy pre-stamped tablecloths, but the designs are simply not up to the ones from years ago.
This is one of the cloths with a huge oval design of roses.
Another stunning design that luckily for me, was started. Unfortunately, none of the paperwork, in other words, the charts were with the cloths so I’m having to rework charts……ugh.
This is the cutwork design, which I probably will wash out and do another design on the linen. I.E., my reason for the mad hunt for iron-on transfers for tablecloths.
I haven’t been here for awhile, its summer and always a busy time. Yesterday my hubby told me to look out my south office window. I did and this is what I saw.
This afternoon while making preparations for dinner tonight, I suddenly remembered that I had stored potatoes in the crawl space under my office for the winter.
As hubby was already downstairs, I asked him to check to see if I had left any down there as I knew I had used some during the winter. A few minutes later, he yelled from the foot of the stairs, I walked over and asked what was wrong.
He was standing there at the bottom of the stairs with his eyes popping. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He says, “Octopuses! The crawl space is full of octopuses (octopi?)”
“Huh?”
He then goes to get the potatoes and comes up the stairs with a box of potatoes and sprouts 3 ft long! Absolutely amazing!
Two Keystone cops decide to float a dock they had been given for their new pontoon boat from one bay in the lake to the other. The female cop wasn’t happy with the idea as it was a very windy day. The male cop pooh-poohed the wind.
The two go down to the lake where the boat is currently tied, and right from the beginning, things start to go wrong. A new battery installed the day before seems fine but the motor won’t start. After 30 minutes of frustration, finally the motor starts and they push off.
The minute they get 200 ft from shore, they hit the winds and waves. This isn’t good says the female cop. The winds are too high and coming from the wrong direction. They continue to motor to the other bay.
Now things start getting tricky as the lake was formed in the 1930’s when a dam was made across the Wolf River. This caused flooding of the swamp areas that ran to the west of the river. Anyone who flies over the area in a plane and looks out can see a multitude of logs submerged in the water from when the swamps were cut-off prior to the dam. Certain bays of the lake are better traversed by row boat than by motor boat!!!
Fighting the southerly winds, they finally make it to the dock. After securing the dock to the pontoon boat, they attempt to leave the shoreline where the winds have blown them. Suddenly, a horn sounds! Nooooooooo! Some kind of alarm is going off on the boat motor! Promptly shutting off the motor, the female cop looks over the side and discovers the prop is tangled with weeds.
After much grunting and groaning and borrowing the jacknife of the female cop, the male cop finally frees the prop on the motor.
At this point, rolling clouds and increasing winds have pushed the pontoon parallel with the shore. The motor can’t be lowered in the water due to shallow water, the wind is increasing, clouds are rolling and a difficult situation has become impossible.
The female cop suggests that they abandon ship, tie it up to the shore and walk home. The male cop wonders how the female cop is going to get on shore. The female cops indicates the dock which is now floating free but is bumped up against the pontoon boat. She takes the push pole, steps off the boat onto the dock and pushes the dock against the shore as near as she can get, then steps off onto the shore.
She ties off the dock to a tree with the rope originally intended to tow the dock. The male cop tosses a line from the pontoon boat to the female cop and then she pushes a corner of the dock out to the pontoon boat so the male cop can get to shore. The female cop walks away, leaving the male cop to stare at the pontoon boat and floating dock. A few minutes later, he follows.
I’ve been working at the historical museum the last few weeks, helping with getting it ready to open for the season.
Yesterday I was working in the kitchen and came up with an idea for a canning display. I have about 8# of Sculpey III clay which is basically useless so I decided to use some of it to make some veggies for the display.
Here’s my green beans.
The last few weeks have been hectic here, major spring house cleaning, exterminator in for ladybugs, spiders, and flies and then yesterday the septic let me know it wasn’t frozen but plugged.
In between hubby decided he wanted another pontoon boat so we spent 2 days boat shopping. We finally got it today but had to wait for the weather to clear before we could put it in the lake.
When we got it to the boat launch, we couldn’t get it started at first. The battery was low, we finally were able to coax it to start. I was the pilot and enjoyed the short trip upriver to the lake. However, the wind on the lake was high and I was fighting 1 to 1.5 foot waves. Trip across the lake was rather bumpy and rough, was very glad when I reached our landing site.
When we get a nice day and less wind, I’ll try to take some pics from the lake. For now, this is the rig on the trailer.
My husband and I had a bet going, I said that we would get at least one more major snowstorm before the season was over. He didn’t believe me. As I was born and raised in the Northwoods, I knew that it would happen.
After a over a month of no snow cover (and a frozen septic), we got yesterday morning to no power and 6″ of wet, heavy snow. This morning, there is at least another 3″. My husband measured late yesterday afternoon and there were 7.5″ on the ground, so now with what we got last night, we have a good 10″ or more and its still coming down.
