I'm racking up......

you name it.....I have been racking up the hours in the yard clearing beds or transplanting lilies and hostas, prepping my vegetable garden.   I do so enjoy being outside.  Once it was 45 and sunny, the sweatshirt on and out the door I have been for the majority of the day.   From enjoying my morning coffee on the deck, to lunch on the picnic table to a cup of hot tea in the evening.   I told a friend on the phone the other day that I missed her call because I was out in the yard working.   Her response......"What! Aren't you done out there yet?"  Well, all I can say to help non-gardeners relate is the comment is the equivalent of someone saying don't you already have enough floss and patterns?   

I have racked up a string of Wordless Wednesdays with nary a post.

Because I am in the yard, I have done very little stitching.   I try to put in a few stitches when I stop for lunch but even after scrubbing I still have ground in dirt on my hands even though I wear gloves.  That said, I somehow managed two new starts.   As always, I have total justification for them.  The first one is "With this needle, I thee thread" from Hands on Design.  Justification - I met with my Tuesday night stitchers for the first time in about 11 months and I needed something small to take along and stitch.  Legit, right?  It wasn't until I was stitching on the fob in the lower right that I realized I stitched every shorter spool of thread wrong....and guess what, they are staying that way!

The second start is "L. Genders" from Brenda Gervais.   I start this after watching Lori Holt on Floss Tube.   Lori is stitching Red Rhapsody from Rosewood Manor.   What she does when she sits down in the evening to start stitching, she puts in one length of red thread and then moves on to her main piece for the rest of her stitching evening.   It is amazing how much she is getting accomplished on Red Rhapsody with only 10 minutes every day.  And besides we all need to do at least one red sampler in our lifetimes.

The problem with spending only ten minutes a day of stitching time I guess I am racking up more WIP's too.

And I have been racking up time with the grand babies too.   At least two days a week of either me going there or them coming to my house.  We have gone to parks and playgrounds, ran around the yard, done puzzles, dyed easter eggs, giggled and laughed.

So this is what Will did the other day.   He collected a bucketful of monkey balls from the yard and he put them in a semi-circle around the door to pop-pop's shed while pop-pop was inside the shed taking a nap.   What is this Will?    Without hesitation I was informed me it was a porcupine surrender to keep pop-pop trapped in the shed.    Oh to be inside the mind of a little one.

And sorry to say, I have been racking up the pounds too!   I heard this morning n CBS Sunday Morning that since the CoronaVirus started, the average person has gained 18 pounds.  I have managed to make it all the way to the one year mark and then BAM, I get on the scale I had gained 8 pounds!  And from where?   I don't understand how because the pounds came on at a time of increased activity and constant movement.  I guess it is a delayed reaction to the sluggo life of January when I just sat and stitched and watched movies and ate.  The scale is not lying ladies as is evidenced that my bras and unmentionables are getting tight. A sure sign indeed of gained weight.  I need to get back into the daily walking.   It is so easy to fall out of the habit and hard to get back in.

I have been racking up bursts of blog reading trying with total futility to catch up on everyone's blog posts.   One to share with anyone who does card making is Nikki (aka Anna) at StitchBitch.   Each day during the month of March she is introducing a new stamped card she has made.  Poor Nikki, I have been bombarding in one day with comments on each of the last 10 days posts. When she made the announcement last month I was so on board to be stamping right along with her.   I knew it would be a great way to increase my depleted card stash.......and then I just couldn't seem to find the time. (Mysteries of the universe - How did I find time to work?)   Once the yard is done and mulch down, it will be clear sailing and maybe I will get out the stamps, paper and ink pads.  It always takes me back to what a friend told me years ago.....we make work for ourselves because we want to maintain our houses, our yards, ourselves at a level above what is necessary.  I don't know.  I just seem to look around and see something that has to be done where others don't.  Oh well, I doubt I am changing at this stage of life.

Thanks for stopping by.   Hopefully I will have more stitching to share next time. Stay safe - my second dose of vaccine is Friday!  Keep on stitching.