Weekend Workings….

It seems like the weather watch box had permanently burned itself onto our television screens here in Ohio.  It has been there for the past 4 to 5 days, and then finally this afternoon they were able to take it off.  I don’t get totally freaked about it, but I do like to sit and watch the weather guys and the current radar when something is ‘going down’ in my part of the state.  lol  Where I am, we escaped a lot of the nastier weather that has been blowing across the state, but we did manage to have 2 pretty good lightening storms on Friday (along with a tornado warning for the lowest part of the county) and woke this morning to the entire area being on tornado watch.  We never did get any kind of storm here today.  Just a little wind and rain.  Anyway, I’m glad that front is past us.  I love a good thunder storm, but I’m not favorable to it being    every    single     day.

So Saturday, since it would rain, then stop, then rain, then stop, then rain again,  I knew there was no chance that I was getting outside.  I decided it was a perfect day for sewing, so I picked through my patterns to find something that I hadn’t tried yet.  I had 2 bonnet patterns and some yardage, so I went to work.  The first one turned out fabulous!!!!  I LOVE it!

This one has a really long skirt on it (22 inches, maybe?)  and I was so proud of how it came out for the first time!  I was a little worried, because somewhere in one of the patterns the designer mentioned maybe making it out of muslin the first time because it’s not as expensive if you mess up.  Mess up?  Pssshhh….not a problem.  It worked up quite nicely, and believe it or not, the only thing I had to do over was putting the front ties on!  I couldn’t decide where to put them!  I definitely will be making this one over (and over and over lol) but I will probably make the skirts different lengths- not quite so long.  This one reminds me of someone’s ‘Sunday Best’ and not one they wore everyday.  It’s definitely life-sized- I’ve tried it on!  I almost got a picture of Calvin trying it on- but he figured out I was setting up my phone camera and he never got it on his head! lol 

I was feeling like such an expert by that time (ha! just kidding) that I decided to tackle the other pattern.  I have had these patterns for quite awhile now, and I have read and reread them over and over so much that I almost had them memorized.  They seemed like they were going to be pretty challenging, and I would read them step by step and ‘piece’ them together in my mind.  I got the second one almost done up to putting the skirt on…

I still have a few more lines to stitch on the brim, but I was up till almost midnight by this point, so I hung it on my machine and called it a night.  I love this blue print that I had, so I knew I would be using it for this one.  I had to work  today, and when I got home the gardens were dry enough to work in, so we all went out and got some annuals put in.  The boys were even helping….and it made it go quickly.

It was getting dark when I went out to take pictures, so it’s hard to see the annuals we put in along the front of this garden.

This is the back garden with the post (that is still birdhouseless…I know, it will be made some time this summer, lol)

We stopped for dinner and just put everything we were working with in the garden.

My rose bush is looking quite impressive this year!  I want MORE!

Not much else going on right now.  We have been discussing Timmy’s fate, and sadly, we are probably going to end up sending him to a friend’s farm.  He is just so lonely here, and I’m so afraid that will make him a sure target for some racoon or hawk.  I can’t bring myself to set him out on the pond alone, and I feel that there is safety in numbers, so he will do well in a pond with others of his kind.  He’s looking quite scraggly now because he’s growing  his feathers in!

Not such great pictures, but as I said, it was getting dark.  I have stopped bringing him inside and putting him in his tank.  Even that breaks my heart that I have to leave him out there alone…and with the storms lately…oh, I feel like such a bad mama just covering his cage and making him stay out there!  I had to realize that I can’t ‘baby’ him forever- there is no way I am having a duck in the house!  I have to allow him to adjust to living outside.  One good thing is that I have his cage right beside the front porch, and our outside cat eats and sleeps out there, so he’s not totally alone.  And finally the cat has decided that Timmy is not a ‘snack’ for him, and he no longer sits by the cage and stares Timmy down!  Over the past few weeks, Timmy has started to ‘shy away’ from us more and more.   My neighbor told me that since he is technically a ‘wild’ breed and not a domesticated breed, that he would never be really tame.  I didn’t believe her.  Now I do.  Even with all of the handling we did with him from day 3 of his life, he just seems to have the instinct that even though we feed him and take care of him, he is not supposed to be held by us.  He is fine with being nearby us in his cage (like while we were working out in the flower gardens), but he’s not fine with being picked up an carried anymore- he fights and kicks like mad!  So my baby is growing up fast, and by the time we go on vacation in a few weeks, he will probably be at his new home with new friends. 

This week looks to be busier yet with the older 2 boys starting summer weight lifting every day for football and they will leave from there to go to a Cleveland Browns Training Camp at another school in the area.  They will be gone from 3-8 every night this week.  That will make for 2 starving teens by the time they get home at night- I promised them I would send them snacks for in between :)  It’s been a challenge so far this summer to keep them from camping out in the kitchen all day.  It’s true what people say about teen boys having bottomless stomachs!  lol 

Well, I have to work in the morning so I’d better get off here and get things finished up before bed.  Not sure when I’ll be back around to post, but I hope to have a few more things finished up to list on my selling blog later this week.  I’ll have to see how it goes.  Till then, hope you have a great week!