Before and After............

Before...............

 

After.........
split pea and ham soup...recipe tomorrow in my recipe tab

Before............. 

 After...........

Before...........from Kuwait...hmmm....who could that be?

After!   My wonderful, so thoughful virtual friend Tammy of T's Daily Treasures sent this to me....I can't remember the last time I received a Valentine's card and included, her darling crocheted little heart. Thank you Tammy!  You're Tammy  "the" treasure!  Yes, it takes a long time to come from Kuwait!

Before........a pile of fabric scraps

After.......nicely pressed and folded.......

Before.........

After!  Yes, Maggie arrived today....but the REAL "after" may take awhile.........

Guess what I'll be doing this weekend?  And how about you?  What are your big plans for this weekend?

I hope you are all doing well and relaxing!

Spring in so many ways...........

 A little Spring on the kitchen table.............

 

Unearthing one of the few remainders of my childhood...........

 Divide and conquer..........cleaning and organizing my sewing/dining room...

which of course spills into other rooms........

Oh!  I have so much STUFF but I did end up with a full garbage when I was done too so that made me feel like I made some progress!

I know this is blurry but I had to share this with you....these are photos in a clothing catalog I got in the mail today.    Those are REAL women...they look like people from a concentration camp!  I had never realized what a bad image these magazines give to young women.  No wonder they're anorexic!  It's terrible....the models in the picture look ill and their cheeks are sunken.  They must have rounded up all the anorexic women they could find for these pictures.  I was sick once when I was a young mother and I went down to 80 pounds and I looked terrible!  Since when did this become "attractive"?  I noticed the male models looked "normal".....what is wrong with young women today?  Is this what I marched for in the days of "women's lib"?  So sad! 

I finished my cross stitch and washed and ironed it and was going to sew it....this is what started the whole Spring cleaning thing......does that ever happen to you?  We'll see how long it is before I actually get it sewn up! LOL!

It was a productive day but now..........we're tired.......

 

 I hope you had a wonderful Thursday!

Tuesday Tips!

These tips I share are more about being frugal or scaling back if need be.  I've found it seems you either have time or money and few of us have both.  I grew up with the dictum "Use it up, make it do, throw it out or buy it new" and in that order.
Here are some tips I hope you can use.

Tip #1 - I've read many places that recommend putting your candles in the freezer to get out the last bits of wax when your candle is used up.  I find that putting mine in hot soapy dish water makes the left over wax much more pliable to remove safely and easily.

Tip #2 - I've found the most reasonable and nicely scented candles to be the ones at Wal-Mart here in the U.S.  They're about $5.00 for a big one, a nice variety of scents, burn clean and scent the room.  The bonus is they have lids and I can use the containers for other things after the candle is finished.

Tip #3 -  I bought this wick trimmer years ago and I don't know what I ever did without it.  One of the secrets of keeping your candles from  "smoking" is to always trim your wick before you light it.  Before I had my "wick trimmer" I used to grab a kleenix and grab the wick and turn  and the burnt part would come off leaving about 1/4 inch of wick remaining. 

I hope these tips are helpful to you in some way and I hope your Tuesday was a good one!

YOP Update and more.....

Don't let Spring fool you!  We've had the coldest weather yet and I can't believe these daffodils survived the ice storm we had!

Meanwhile, I stopped watching television while knitting and it's amazing what progress I'm making!  Who knew?  Almost done with my second sock of my second pair.  I only had 1 pair on my YOP list but I think I will always have a pair of socks on my needles from now on.  I must admit though, I think I know why people use the multi-colored and self-striping......because solid colors,  especially light ones, show every  little snag and stitch that's not perfect!  My next pair will be multi-colored/patterned for sure! LOL!

I had to throw in a bit of greenery although this "Holly" (I think it's holly?) looks like this year round.  I'm getting Spring Fever down here in Arkansas.

I need to make some cookies today too, oatmeal crisps from Pioneer Woman.  they are her husband's favorites and  mine too!  I love the fact that they're refrigerator so I make 2 rolls and freeze one for another time.  Meanwhile, I've added a few new colors to the Blackberry Salad blanket.  Now this project is great for watching t.v.!  Another reason to have multiple projects going at once! LOL!

I think I only had 1 or 2 potholders on my list too but these are great for in between projects when you just have to have something to work on but you're too tired to start putting another project together.  Again, I think I will always have these going and/or washcloths for a quick, "grabable" project which also travels well as they're small.  See the Burpee seed catalog there under the crochet book?  I can't help it!  I have so many projects going and now it's time to garden too!  Oh my!  I love all my projects....what's a gal to do?

 If you read my last blog posting, I also have bunnies coming to sew.  Well, just one actually but you know what they say about bunnies.  I know there will be way more than one bunny in my future!  

I also finished my cross stitch and washed it to dissolve the waste canvas and it is hanging to dry before I sew it up into a little purse.

I've been doing a little Spring Cleaning.  Cleaning my house is a little like going on an archaeological dig....you never know what you might "unearth"! LOL! In this case it was my first knitting project which never got finished! It was a Lion Brand kit for a scarf.

Another project that's not on my YOP list.  I think I'll unravel and save it for another day as I don't think it would match my knitting.  I'm hoping I'm a better knitter now.

 By next week I am sure to have several of the above projects wrapped up and onto a few new ones that ARE on my YOP list!  Wishing you a wonderful day and week ahead!