Ice, Ice, Baby

We got sleet during the night. Church was cancelled today due to icy roads. Most schools in the area are cancelled for tomorrow and Steve just found out his work is also closed tomorrow! Houston and surrounding areas just don't have the equipment to deal with ice on the roads. I'm grateful the trees didn't get any ice on them, so no broken branches and no broken power lines! I'm happy to have heat :) It isn't supposed to get above freezing today and tonight the low is 19 degrees. Tomorrow isn't much better. The high is 38 degrees and the low is 17 degrees. We're going to have a cold week!

Multigrain Sourdough Bread

I've been working on my recipe for a multigrain sourdough bread for Steve. I am finally happy with the taste and the rise of the loaf. Now I'll try adding more wheat flour and see if I can still get a good rise. Currently, it's just over half wheat and other whole grains. I'd like to increase that to 2/3 and see what happens.

Valentine's Mini Quilt

One of my goals this year is to design a new embroidery pattern every month and list it on Etsy for sale. Today I started a design for a small Valentine wall quilt. I'll be teaching it in my class the first week in February, so I need to get busy! This is my first draft. Now to start digitizing the design so it can be stitched on the embroidery machine.

Chicken Broth

I love buying rotisserie chickens from Costco or Sam's Club. After I take off the majority of the meat, I cook the bones with some vegetables and seasonings for broth. I realized today that it only takes a few minutes to strain the broth directly into canning jars and place them into the canner and process them instead of putting them in the fridge to can or freeze later. Not sure why that didn't click sooner! Yesterday and today I made two batches of broth and canned 6 quarts of broth.

Sweetheart Street Bench Pillow

I finished the top of the Kimberbell Valentine bench pillow. I am teaching the first half of it tomorrow and then we will finish it next week. I just need to add the lights and the pillow back. Lots of unfinished projects to do! My goal this year is to not leave any projects unfinished as well as finish some projects from previous years. 

Clean Report!!

I had a diagnostic mammogram today. They did a 3D mammogram along with an ultrasound. I've been having pain in my right breast lately. The doctor read the mammogram while they were doing the ultrasound and then compared the two. She came in and talked to me before I left and told me they didn't find anything and that I am cancer free. Great words to hear! And it was so wonderful to be told the results before I even left the office! I am so relieved that nothing is wrong. The pain is most likely due to the underwire in my bra, so now for some new bras. I feel very blessed today!

Enchanted Winter is Almost Done!

I finished the borders and added all of the embellishments to the Enchanted Winter quilt. There were lots of small seed beads and buttons that needed to be sewn on by hand, as well as lots of jewels that were adhered with a heat tool. All that's left to do is quilt and bind it! Hopefully I can get that done before the end of the month.

Chinese Food Truck

Recently, we've seen a very tiny Chinese food truck parked on the road between our house and Conroe. Today we stopped and ordered some food. The owner/cook wasn't Chinese though - he was Hispanic! Too funny! I ordered General Tso chicken and fried rice. The rice was ok but the chicken and vegetables were delicious. I'll try it again and get noodles instead of fried rice next time.

Embroidery Class

I usually teach an embroidery class every Thursday in my sewing studio. It's great to teach from my house instead of needing to take everything with me to the shop like I was doing before! I also make lunch for everyone since there isn't anywhere close by for them to grab something to eat. I enjoy it!

But this week we wanted to finish the winter quilt so we can move on to Valentine's projects, so we had class on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday! I was exhausted today!

This is Linda, Alisa, and Sandy. A couple of other people sometimes come, but these are my faithful few! :)

Ranger Slept in our Bedroom

Ranger has slept in our bedroom a few nights now. It started on New Year's Eve when we let her stay in our bedroom with us because of the noise of the fireworks. We put her bed next to my side of the bed. She has been doing great and loves sleeping with us instead of in her kennel in my sewing studio. I like that she is free to check out any noises she hears to keep us safe.

Machine Maintenance

I finally got motivated enough to do a deep cleaning on my smallest embroidery machine. I took an online course on how to service my machines since it is getting so expensive to take them in. They need to be serviced yearly and it costs about $125. That adds up when I have four machines to service! Since I'm getting ready to sell this machine, I needed to get it cleaned and ready to sell. All clean and ready to put back together!

O Little Town of Bethlehem

I have a nativity village that I haven't put out for a few years since I didn't have a safe place to display it. Now that the boys are getting older and I have a completed side counter in the kitchen, I set it up this Christmas. It was so nice to be able to enjoy it again!

Enchanted Winter Embroidery

I'm another step closer to finishing this quilted wall hanging. All of the blocks have been stitched out and I have the sections sewn together now. I'll be teaching the class next week.

Stitching, Stitching, and More Stitching

I've been working on getting the blocks stitched for the next class I'm teaching. It's a winter design by Kimberbell called Enchanted Winter. I'm getting close to having them all finished and ready to put together! This machine is my largest embroidery machine. I have 4 embroidery/sewing combination machines (I need a few back ups, right?) I am getting my smallest machine ready to sell though.

Ranger Had a Checkup

Ranger turned a year old in November! And no, we didn't get another dog. Steve changed her name from Akima to Ranger. He's always wanted a dog named Ranger, and even though she is a girl and Ranger sounds like a boy's name to me, she is now Ranger. Texas Ranger, Night Ranger, Space Ranger, just Ranger - that's what she is called now.

We have an awesome vet, Dr. Stone, that does house calls and she came out this morning to see Ranger. Ranger had her shots, bloodwork, and an exam and she's doing great. She now weighs about 85 lbs - quite a bit bigger than Sabre was. She is still such a puppy! She has a hard time settling down, but she is turning out to be a really good guard dog. She has a loud, deep bark and uses it whenever she thinks something isn't quite right. She's definitely my dog and sticks close to me, which I love.

Alaric Has a Cast

Alaric went to the orthopedic doctor yesterday and he had a cast put on. He'll have to wear it for 4 weeks. He choose black because then he could have everyone write on his cast with metallic colors and it would show up well. He says it is feeling better with the cast on. He's also going to switch to the bottom bunk while he has a cast and Barrett will switch to the top bunk.

Barrett Lost His Front Tooth

Barrett lost his second front tooth this past week. Alisa pulled it out for him because it was so loose. He said it only hurt a little bit :) He lost his first front tooth when he was only 1 1/2 years old and fell from his booster chair. But his first front tooth is finally starting to grow back in! Yay!

Christmas Time is Over

This year we cut down the largest Christmas tree we've ever had! It barely fit and had to pulled out away from the window a bit in order to not hit the ceiling. Good thing our ceiling is vaulted! Alisa put the lights on the tree for us and she did a perfect job on them :)

Steve put lights up on the edge of the house this year as well. I love Christmas lights! Thank you Steve! But he has a few too many strands hooked together and they keep blowing the fuse. As I was taking photos of the house tonight, the fuse blew again! I guess Christmas time is officially over.

My Cozy Blanket

After dinner tonight, my stomach wasn't feeling very well so I climbed into bed with my electric blanket. I love it! It's a lap blanket and it has the controls on the corner of the blanket instead of on a cord so it's very easy to adjust when it's on my lap or when it's on my bed. I use it all winter long! :)

Alaric's First Broken Bone

Alaric got a slackline from Braxton and Alisa for Christmas. It's a strip of webbing that is fixed above the ground but not stretched tight (Google definition.) There is a second line stretched above it to hold onto as you learn to balance.

Alaric has been practicing on it and has gotten up to taking 6 or 7 steps now. But yesterday when he lost his balance after those 6 steps and jumped off, he fell and landed on his left wrist. He was up during the night in pain, so this morning Braxton has a video chat with our personal PA, Dallin :) Dallin said he needed an x-ray so Alisa took him to have it x-rayed. His wrist has a buckle fracture and is in a brace until they see an orthopedic doctor.

Alaric gave a nice frown for the photo, but he is actually doing just fine. His biggest complaint is that the brace itches.

Alaric Makes Me Smile

This morning I asked Alaric if he wanted to take a walk with me and take some photos. We gave him one of our very old digital cameras a couple of weeks ago, so he came over with his camera. He was still wearing his pajamas with a t-shirt over them. We walked around the property and found some great things to take photos of. But then he wanted me to take photos of him :) His pajamas are the ones we gave the boys for Christmas and they are one piece with a reindeer hood. Glad they are getting used! He is such a fun boy and makes me happy! I love that they live next to us! It really is the best!!

Happy New Year!

It's that time again - time to set goals and achieve them! I spent the morning setting goals for the year and I want to do SO many things!! I've pulled out my camera and want to use it daily for documenting our family life and to become a better photographer. By the time I grabbed my camera it was already getting dark, so I thought a new moon would be a good photo for the new year (even though it isn't a full moon quite yet.)