I can't believe summer is coming to an end!

Granted, I have not had much of a summer between overtime and coordinating contractors and my own home improvement projects.....but as I sit and plan my email about our Annual Labor Day picnic I see the end is looming.

About a dozen years ago what started as my daughter and son-in-law for crabs and beer for the Labor Day Weekend has blossomed into their friends and their friends kids, and my daughter from Boston and her friends and my son and his family and his friends!  It will be a great weekend long of fun and family and good food and laughter but it is the signal that it is the end of summer.

As for work, the second round of interrogatories have arrived and work is ramping up again.   Thankfully fewer questions arrived this round albeit a nasty 12 day turnaround instead of 28 days.

That said, still again, not much stitching going on.    Here's my limited progress on Penny America as well as progress on A Little Quakereques from Blue Ribbon Designs.   I started this as one of those crazy January challenges as couple of years ago when you start a new project every day for the first 15 days.....yeh, right, it gave me 15 WIP's!   Sorry for the wrinkles on both......

Since finishing Grace Mason, I vowed to work on cleaning up a couple of WIP's before starting anything new.   Let's see how long I stick with that resolve before something temps me to stray yet again.

As for Mr. Wonderful, he arrived home last Sunday night after 8 weeks on the road.  Every year when he returns he vows he will never go again.   I get it, I did the modified tour two different years and it gets old living out of a suitcase, sleeping on a gym floor and showering in high school locker rooms with 50 of your closest friends!  This year, he is ready to go again next year.   Must have been a good tour!   His group, The Jersey Surf, finished as 22nd in the world out of over forty groups.   A couple of years ago, Drum Corp International ("DCI") realigned the divisions combining them.  That kind of put his group, equivalent to Division AAA Baseball in the big leagues so the group is happy to have finished in the middle of the pack.   DCI did honor Mr. W. as Volunteer of the Year.   In their presentation they totaled all the miles from last fourteen years and it was well over 100,000 volunteer miles driven!  He downplayed it but I think it is pretty cool.

No more falling down on the job.

And  I mean that both literally and figuratively.    I came bounding out of the shed early Saturday morning with my paint tray and roller in hand and hit the slippery  ramp and ka-boom.   Not to worry, I landed on a very padded area.  I think my ego got the worst of the injury.

Ready for a sit and chat.

The contractor finished my long list of nuisance jobs....hallelueyah.  I managed to complete the paint on the stairs and bookcase and paint two of the 6 new interior doors he installed.   I want the paint to set on the bookcase before I put my books back and I will be putting fewer back.   My daughter and I rearranged furniture and put up art work  on Sunday.  I ordered a new canvas print.   Really mixing it up and changing the look with art work and accessories.   It was time.....some of the pieces have been on my walls for more than 30 years.   Styles changes, tastes change.    I now know why painting is such a lengthy process for me.   It is not the actual painting which I enjoy......it is all the moving, patching, sanding and putting everything back that takes so long.  I am packing off quite a bit for storage in the shed that it may just burst at the seams.  I am an anti-hoarder but I hate getting rid of things that there is nothing wrong with.  

Fewer books and more decorator items in this bookcases future.

It is amazing how one thing leads to another.    Putting
fewer books back on the bookcase leads to where to put the extras, moves to Heather gave me two mini bookcases, causes me to move my fat quarters from where they are housed, and my collection of sewing baskets into the cabinet where the fat quarters were and the books in the Expedit that housed my sewing basket.  Phew!    I swear I just CREATE work for myself.  Maybe that is why it seems as though I never finish anything.  Crazy how it goes like that.  

This little spot is waiting for me to complete the refinishing of my round oak table.  
Hopefully it will be done after next weekend and ready to move back into place.

Need to get my son-in-law to rehang this lamp made by my dad. I'd better get
back to Home Depot for the new wiring I need.

My new Lazy-boy.   Perfect for early evening stitching.

Also, got to share my newest tool.   It is not a needlework tool but we need to share but any tool that makes our jobs easier.   I grabbed this hand held paint bucket on my latest trip to the hardware store.   It made painting trim and the bookcase so much easier.   There is even a magnet inside that holes your brush.   Cleans easily and a great place to 'park' your brush after you wash it while it dries.

A lot nicer that carrying the paint can!

 

I worked from sun up to sunset both Saturday on household projects so there is no stitching to share again. So much for that bag of office work I brought home.  A great week is ahead with a couple of dinners out with friends and hopefully a more than a few stitches will be made.   Work has slowed for a couple of weeks.   Taking a couple of well deserved vacation days at the end of the week.  Hope to get a hair appointment; catch up on reading; enjoy the yard/the pool; stitching!; or maybe just do nothing!