Too much milk

This is so sad. A large dairy farm in our county is shutting down production by killing their cows. Our country is over importing milk apparently. What a rough business to be in.

http://www.the-daily-record.com/news/article/4652849

Framing frustrations

Do you know that when you hit enter in blogger, let's say after entering the post title, your post is published? I think I just did that.

I made it a goal of mine last year when I began to stitch again after a long hiatus, that I would actually "finish finish" my stitching. I think that was one reason I quit stitching. Because nothing ever made it to walls or the tree or where ever. I have been successful in getting a few ornaments sewn up and stuffed and I am quite happy with those, even though my progress has been limited and very slow. I finally decided that I would try to frame a few pieces and scrounged around for some pre-made frames. A few of those might work. I ordered 2 frames from pictureframes.com, refreshed my memory on framing needlework and set out to buy acid free foam core board. Can I find a single sheet of it in our town? Of course not. I think I will have to call a local framer and beg for one.

I had gone to Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago planning to order frames. The guy gave me a song and dance about how you couldn't order just the frame, they want to do the entire thing and said something about adhesive and other scary things. I walked away. I think I will try Michael's at some later point if I can find the time to drive out of town. I may have to go there anyway to get the foam board.

Anyone have any thoughts on the use of regular old foam board? Am I committing a sin if I use it?

Family and more family

We've just heard recently that my mother in law is in the beginning stages of renal failure. She apparently is dehydrated but has little interest in drinking more water. MIL is 90 years old. My poor husband has been working 7 days a week for the past few weeks and won't catch a break for another 2 weeks or so, but he is hoping to get back home (it's 750 miles away) asap. He is so lucky that his brother is nearby to keep the ball rolling on doctor appointments and everything else. MIL still has her house but has lived in a senior residential home for years.

It could prove to be a rough fall. Our calendar is packed with college visits for DD and crazy work and school schedules. DD is planning to work every day after school at the after school program at our ice arena. This will be her 3rd year doing this. I just hope she doesn't get burned out with her studies and pressure to get into college. I will be watching her back every second. Our son will be entering his 3rd year of college and will be concentrating on art. I desperately hope (does that make sense?) that he has a good year.

I was quite concerned about my own mom after seeing her last month. I don't get out to NJ very often anymore for various reasons, so when I do see her, I always see a big change. She is tiny and frail and barely eats. It's almost as if she is not eating on purpose. Someone talked her into getting very expensive dental implants and it just hasn't worked out for her. Therefore, no teeth. She barely goes out anymore but reads, reads and reads some more! No one seems to go to the library for her...I just can't figure that out. My sister is not a reader and I don't think she has a clue as to what to choose. I am hoping that mom will use the book delivery service the library has. She just needs to follow up on it and not just talk about it.

Thanks for listening everyone. I just felt like writing a bit today about what is going on in our family.

Why no websites?

Ever since the start of internet bulletin boards and newsgroups, I've thought that the internet and needlework were a perfect combination. What frustrates the heck out of me is the lack of internet presence by some needlework shops. There are 4 shops within a 45 minute radius from my house, and 2 of them have no website or blog and 1 of them has some decent information (but no email newsletter) and has a "blog" that has no feed so you can't subscribe. The other one doesn't even list the hours. It's like they started to design a website and then gave up.

5 years ago I was seriously thinking of opening a LNS in our town. 2 yarn shops, lots of quilting fabric places, but no needlework. When I found out how much it was going to cost me to open and maintain, I was scared away. The internet was going to be an important tool in this business, with access to Hoffman Distributing and other distributors readily available to customers. My idea was that even if I wouldn't be able to carry each and every fiber, fabric and chart, it would be easy to locate and order, at least the majority of merchandise.

If there are any shop owners out there that might happen upon this post, could you clue me in as to why you wouldn't want to have a website and newsletter? I just can't figure it out...

Just a test

I noticed that the fonts were all different sizes on my blog after my last post. I have deleted my old template for the time being. Just wanted to see how this font shows up. Don't know what I did! I know most people read blogs in their reader, but it is still fun to see how creative people can be with their blog layouts. Also, a link doesn't work though I'm sure I did it right! Frustration.

Man, my life is just one thrilling moment after another. I decide, if Lee can post to her blog today with her busy week, I should be able to also.

So...I take some photos of my latest stitching. They all upload to Photoshop yellow as the dickens. Reinstall camera software, look for drivers, still yellow. Somehow the yellow goes away but something is still wrong with the uploading from the camera or card. Then I go outside to take some garden photos, get a little depressed and anxious. Should be weeding and moving plants around but it really is too hot and muggy.

Look at paint color again on the trim we are painting. Yesterday I had decided color was OK, now having doubts again. Too gray maybe (supposed to be taupe). We already bought 3 gallons at $35/gallon so need to be sure. DH doesn't like it, he says it is gray but it matches the newer screen door and the new Anderson windows in the bathrooms.

Then try to upload to Blogger and it takes a frickin' 10 minutes to upload so I put a load of towels in to wash after shaking out a few poor spiders that decided to take up residence there. I don't like to kill spiders. I rescue spiders and bugs and release them to the outside. All those years of working with bugs has made me unafraid of them for the most part.

So, now that you know my life truly is boring, let me show you what I've been working on these days.

The colors are kind of wonky but charming and I wonder why it says "I'm going down the garden" instead of "going down to the garden." I would like to finish this up this week so I can mail the chart off to the next stitcher in the Lovelorn Sisterhood.

A few garden pics:

This is a 60' long perennial bed that I am going to reduce in size so we can expand the vegetable garden. I have really neglected it in the past few years and it is sorely in need of some TLC. Not much is blooming as you can see. We're going to put out what we want to save and start fresh. It's too hot to transplant now, so this will have to wait until early fall. The bed only looks curved because of the photo, it is about 8 feet wide and straight.

This is what asparagus looks like long after harvest. We have several rows which gives us plenty of good eating in the spring. The stuff in front is lettuce that has bolted.

Messy messy garden. Lots of tomatoes, zucchini and green beans (and weeds). The decrepit looking fence at the back really belongs to our neighbor though DH has replaced most of it once already.

Some "old" needlework and "baby" corn

I rescued these pillows from my mother's attic while we were there on a visit last week. I must have done these in the early 70's, when I worked at the LNS. Crewel embroidery and needlepoint were the hot items then. I didn't do too much of either and I don't remember that we sold any cross stitch at all! We may have had some stamped linens. I knitted a lot in the old days as well as crocheted a little.

I've been meaning to post some pictures of our garden (really DH's garden) but I haven't snapped any yet but I did want to show some of the summer delights that we are treated to every year. DH is a corn breeder and they always plant some plots of sweet corn for everyone to share. We had this cute baby corn the other night in some stir fry.

I am so spoiled! I love my corn very young and tender, no starchy big kernels for me! We'll start having corn almost every night very soon!