So long April

 But first, for my friend Becky.

Ha! 

I thought I'd write on Sunday.  Sunday was kind of a bust because the weather got me in a bit of a funk.  Rain. More rain. Chilly because of all the cool temps and moisture in the air. Monday I was wiped by the end of the day. 

Really, how much can I write about how the weather is annoying me? I wish I could be outside, doing things, taking pictures. 

Well, wait. I mildly take some of that back because I did do something garden-related this weekend. 

Picking acorns out of the garden. 

Yeah, you read that correctly. 

A few years ago we expanded the garden and now the big oak by the garden drops acorns directly in the garden. 

To comb through and pick out the acorns didn't take as long as I thought it would. 

Sunday I was sore all over.  After a slacker winter I definitely felt all that bending and stretching of muscles that aren't used to it, despite the exercises I've been doing. 

We wound up with a 5 gallon bucket that was more than half full of acorns.  The majority of them already sprouted.  

It was decided to take them to the back 20 and toss them in an open area. 

Monday was rain. I don't remember what exactly was going on with work, but by the end of the day I was wiped. 

Oh, the last week, or so, we have had a bird fly in to the garage at night and we see him in the morning when my husband gets ready to leave for the day. The one time he flew in to the house, circled and landed on a lamp, then flew back through the door. 

I've tried to get a photo of him a few times.  So far this is the best one. 

He's a lively little thing. No idea why he's decided our garage is a good place to roost for the night. He leaves as soon as it's light out. 

I can see now that this blog post is going to be a bit all over the place. 

Tuesday, on my lunch break, I decided to take a short walk in the back 20. I wound up at the other pond of the property. 

Once it really warms up and the grass starts growing, it will be harder to get back here.  

Yes, your eyes aren't deceiving you.  That is blue sky and sun!

It didn't last for very long, but while it was here, it was very much appreciated.  It was still windy. Which kept the temperature low. 

Later in the day ... 

Wednesday I was picking out fabric and flosses for some new cross stitch charts. 

I can't get the color to show true on this one. It's more vibrant than the picture shows. 

Yesterday I had my first flare up in a while. NOT fun. I've been taking it a bit easy since. 

I also started a new chart that was given to me by my friend Jess, of LumiStitch. 

This is what the chart looks like

It's so cute. When she asked if I'd like it, I didn't even hesitate to say "yes!" And immediately started pulling floss and choosing fabric as soon as I had the chart. 

My progress from Wednesday.

Once again I can't get the colors just right. Trust me, it looks fantastic.

Today I worked on it a bit more, but I'm holding off on showing progress until my next flosstube. 

Flosstube #43 - Having fun with the wheel (April 23, 2026)

 

Thank you for watching my video. I am so glad you stopped by! If you like what you see, please subscribe and click the notification bell to be notified of when I load new videos. 

Current WIP (Works in progress)

Project name: Crested Porcupine

Started: June 27, 2024

Finished:

Designer/Source: Purple Stitching on Etsy.

DMC: 167, 168, 169, 310, 317, 318, 413, 414, 415, 433, 437, 451, 452, 453, 524, 535, 611, 612, 640, 644, 645, 646, 647, 648, 762, 779, 840, 841, 842, 844, 927, 928, 934, 935, 939, 3021, 3023, 3031, 3032, 3041, 3072, 3371, 3756, 3787, 3799, 3828, 3863, 3864, 3866

Fabric: Half yard of 14 count Aida purchased from Forbidden Fiber Co. 

New Starts

Project name: USA 250

Started: April 12, 2026

Finished:

Designer: Wrought Iron Stitching

Chart purchased: Etsy, 2026

Fabric: 14 count Aida, brown hand-dyed by me

Floss used: 832, 824, 3866, 3777, 898

Project name: Western Meadowlark

Started: April 13, 2026

Designer: Lindy Stitches

Chart purchased: 2022 from Lindy Stitches

Fabric: 14 count aida, blue-green, hand-dyed by me

Floss used: Blank, 451, Threadworx garden rock, 307, 728,310,822,367,414,3713

FO (Finished Object)

Project name: Love a Furbaby

Started: March 26, 2026

Finished: March 28, 2026

Designer: Sambrie Stitches

Chart purchased: Sambrie Stitches gumroad, 2025

Fabric: 14 count Aida, stash

Floss used: 22, 729, 911,959

I also chatted about an *almost* FOed piece. "Wee Bee Patriotic" by Mrs_AZFamilyzoo.  I will share it on my next flosstube.

Project name: Wee Bee Patriotic

Started: April 11, 2026

Finished: April 12, 2026

Designer: Mrs_AZFamilyzoo

Purchased: AZFamilyzoo.com

Fabric: 14 Count Aida, hand-dyed by me, green with yellow

Floss used: Blanc, 321,310,797

Knitting

I discussed my vanilla sock and armande cardigan.

Other channels mentioned: 

Alison - https://www.youtube.com/@Mrs.AZfamilyzooStitchesAlison

Jodi - https://www.youtube.com/@Stitchyplum

Leann - https://www.youtube.com/@leann.stitches

Patty - https://www.youtube.com/@StitchingWithMyKitties-xe8qz

Kenzie - https://www.youtube.com/@mudpuppystitchery

Jessica - https://www.youtube.com/@LumiStitch

Bethany - https://www.youtube.com/@Bethany.BirdStitcher

Becca - https://www.youtube.com/@SamBrieStitches

First storm of the season

 Friday morning my coworker messaged me that there was a storm heading her way.  I can't recall how the rest of the message went. I checked my own weather app and saw we had something coming our way, too. 

"Oh," I thought. "Okay. Well, cool. Looks like we are supposed to get something, too."

I made the decision to keep the girls in the coop and not let them free range.  Have you ever tried to corral chickens in a storm? it's not fun and there's usually one lone hen that decides she's too freaked out to go in to the coop, and is convinced you are trying to steal her virtue, or murder her. Also, who wants to run out to the coop and close it up when it's raining? "Not I," said the crow. 

I sort of went about my business for the day until my son started messaging me. He was asking me how the weather was out there. He was in town. Then he told me it started hailing.  Then my darling son went silent for like an hour. I was having visions of his car being pummeled by hail, but that's neither here nor there. 

I checked the radar and was so surprised to see how gnarly the radar looked. 

Eeeks! I decided that could be something really bad. Rarely do I see purple and that deep pinkish maroon color on the radar.  So I went and closed up the greenhouse. 

This was the sky when I looked west. 

Granted, the photo doesn't do it justice. The temperature started dropping, too. 

Then I heard rumbling start up, way off in the distance.  So I went back to the house and waited for the storm to arrive. 

Wind, rain and not as much thunder as I thought there would be.  There was hail.  I heard it hitting the house, the front window and the garage door. I mildly worried about hail breaking the living room window.  That would be a terrible thing. 

Then the power went out. 

I wasn't really expecting the power to go out, but I wasn't surprised. Thank goodness for power back up. 

"Oh no! My quiche!" I thought to myself.  My oven shut off when the power went out. Between the quiche, and my hubby trying to work out in the garage, we decided to throw the backup power on. 

My quiche:

I think it actually overcooked a wee bit.  Crazy, right? 

After a few hours the power came back on. Yay!

And then, the rain stopped. I thought we were in a ... what do you call it, a trough? A calm time between the storm bands. 

No, it was officially over. 

The sun even came out.

I posted some video clips on my most recent garden video.

It sounds like we missed the brunt of the storm. There's a few towns to the east of us, right on the lake, that sustained damage. Downed trees and all that not-so-good stuff. 

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful.  The temperatures dropped. We are back to running the wood stove and my plants are back in the house. 

Sunday was sunny and there wasn't any wind.  All of us spent some time outside, doing some storm clean up. 

My son and I moved the fountain out of the greenhouse. It's so easy to walk in there now! 😆

Isn't that blue sky gorgeous? It's such a liar, though. It looks like it should be warm. It wasn't as warm as I think it should be.  Temps in the 40s F, I think. 

While I was over by the garden I decided to clear out the leaves around my table.  I have no idea how, but that side of the garden collects oak leaves like no one's business.

I was wearing my fancy new croc boots that I purchased a while back. Yes, I know that's not the "proper" rake for what I was doing, but I was working with what I had, instead of walking all over, looking for a proper rake. 

Looking good! 

I have some grand dreams for this little area.  Will I do it? I don't know.  Maybe.  Depends on how I feel, quite honestly. 

This must have been back on Wednesday.  The girls found the front door again. 

They hung out there for a good long while. I was surprised there was hardly any poop out there when they finally decided to leave. 

Guess what? I started a new cross stitch project. I reached 500 stitches on it and stopped. 

Western Meadowlark by Lindy Stitches. I dyed that fabric myself.  Even though I measured dye with my heart, it turned out exactly like I wanted it to. I'm starting to wonder what I'll do when the fabric *doesn't* turn out like I want it to. 

Today was publishing day.  It went pretty smoothly. Yay! I love when that happens. 

If you watched my most recent flosstube episode, you will know that I decided to jump on the wheel bandwagon. 

Spin the wheel and let it decide what you work on. That's how I started the Western Meadowlark. 

This evening I decided to add a couple things on the wheel.  One if the things was "Free space." I thought it might add some excitement to the whole Spin the Wheel fun. 

Guess what I spun when I spun for tonite? 

"Seriously?" I said out loud. I could decide to spin again, if I wanted. I decided not to. 

Instead I made 8-minute cheesecake, while watching my friend Leann's newest flosstube.

And then I decided it was a good time to sit down and write a blog post. After this? Who knows.  The world is my oyster this evening. 

Oh, and my son's car? It's fine. The hail that was in our area wasn't very large. Thankfully. 

Warmer days are here

 Once again, earlier in the day I started kind of doing a blog outline in my head. I was thinking I would go in a direction that is different then the one I'm going. That's all right though.  You'd never know unless I told you. Which I guess I just did. Ha! 

Remember in a previous post I said my son was sick around Easter? My husband got sick.  Then I got sick, but managed to shake it off?  Yeeeeahhhhh .... it came back and got me. 

I took a sick day yesterday and pretty much spent the day on the couch, after tossing supper in the slow cooker. 

The weather wasn't all that great, anyways, so I didn't feel too bad about laying about and taking naps. 

Today was the second day of the year that we had nice weather.  And by nice weather, I mean nice weather all day.  

Blue skies for days. Nary a cloud in the sky. 

I opened all the house windows and they are still open at the time of my writing. The sun was out all day, shining brightly down.  It was almost a bit too warm even.  I'm debating on whether to keep the windows open all the way to almost night time, or close things up in the next hour.  For the record, I'm writing a few hours earlier than I usually do when I post on the blog. 

I keep reminding myself that this type of weather will not last long before the heat of summer descends on us, so enjoy it while I can. 

Just a few patches of snow are left. I cannot wait until it's ALL gone. So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu. 

Can you believe April is half over? 

All this nice weather made it a bit hard to focus on work, but I was a good girl and stayed focused. 

On my lunch hour I bopped out to the greenhouse, with all the plants, and set them up out there. 

Wait til you see the temperature out there. 

And it most certainly felt like it. 

So I went out of the greenhouse to plant my tomato seeds. 

Thirty-two plants. Do I need more? I'm seriously pondering this one. Last year I planted SO many tomato plants and then it was such an awful garden year.  I still have a bit of time to start seeds. 

The girls enjoying some table scraps. 

This is the spot where my fountain goes. 

Just a bit of snow left. Then we can set the fountain up. 

Woot! Woot! 

Plants!

 Not that ones I bet you are thinking of as soon as you the the word "plants."

Where my son works they have an area were you can buy plants. I strongly suspect no one really takes care of them. That's the area where he got the tulips that he brought home the other day.

Yesterday he brought home a couple more pitiful-looking plants.  He asked if I'd be able to do anything for them. I said I'd try.  

One of the plants was a begonia.  I cheered a little at the thought of having a begonia. 

The other plant is something I don't know.  At first I wanted to say it was a gerbera daisy, but I don't think it is. 

Well, that one felt pretty dry, so I gave it a bit of water. 

Woweee!

This is what it looked like this morning. 

I wish there was a before photo so you could see how sad this plant looked when I got it last night.  The leaves were limp and the stem holding the flower was laying down.  Even the petals had no oomph to them. 

So what did my son do today?  He brought home four more plants. 

One more begona, two cyclamen, and I don't know what that purple flower one is.  I tucked the daisy-looking plant in so they'd all be on the same 1020 tray. 

Amazing. 

Oh, and here's the begonia from yesterday. Just so it doesn't feel left out. 

At this rate, I'm going to have to keep my shelf up year-round!

Here's a photo of my baby garden plants. 

I brought them out to the greenhouse yesterday, for a few hours.  My hubby commented that being out there seemed to agree with them. I forgot to bring them out there today. It was overcast yesterday.  Overcast today. 

Something that I haven't gotten used to yet is how long it stays light out.  This was at 7:30 p.m. 

I was out there, tucking the girls in, when I stopped and looked up at the sky and marveled about the longer days and the snow being almost gone. 

Speaking of the girls ... 

Tonite I brought my phone out to the coop so I could try snapping a few photos of them. 

This girl was so judgey. Like "What are you *doing*? Really?" She had no time for my shenanigans.  

"Get my good side," this one seemed to be saying. 

I tried to get a photo of a few of them snuggled together. 

However, I think the photo of the evening is this one. 

Sometimes I really marvel at the photos you can get with a smart phone. 

Bit by bit I'm learning a little bit about adjusting settings to take photos, and all that jazz.  I didn't do anything special to get this shot.  Just point and shoot. 

I worked on some cross stitch this evening. 

Project Name: USA 250

Designed By: Wrought Iron Stitching

I'll give the rest of the details in an official flosstube shownotes post. 

Discombobulation

 This whole week has been off for me. Our last publishing day was done earlier than usual and this past week I thought we were working towards a publishing Friday. Ufff, when I was wondering why the issue had such a far out date I was like "What's going on?" then "Oh yeah ...." 

So, yeah, it's been a weird week. 

I recorded a flosstube on my Wednesday lunch hour.  In it I shared my tale of woe about my Armande cardi. 

When I was scrolling through my camera roll I saw this photo. 

*sigh* and it was taking me back to when I knit my first Harvest Cardigan. 

Even though I saw this Armande in the sunlight and I'm well-aware of the color difference, and it doesn't bother me that much ... seeing the color difference in this photo did. Ugh, I just feel annoyed when I think about all the work I put in to this cardigan. 

Back on Monday Feffer was in a mood, so I decided to spend some quality time with him and cuddle for a bit. 

He can be still for only so long.

Then he saw me trying to take photos. 

"What you got there?"

This one came up on my Book of Faces memories from like eight years ago.  I'm *sooooooo* feeling this one. 

Fortunately, the snow is going away. Finally. I admit to not remembering much of the weather this past week.  So it must have been less than ideal. This weekend's weather was a bit off, shall we say.  Though it did end the weekend in a lovely way.  Temps in the 70s!  At the end of the day. That part wasn't so hot.  I would have loved the nice weather for most of the day. 

Things starting picking up this weekend, despite my hubby being ill. He did a wee bit of car maintenance on my vehicle, before admitting defeat (about being sick) and spend most of the weekend taking it easy. 

We made a quick trip to town Friday evening.  I joked to him about taking me out past my bed time. 

I took a few photos of the sights along the way. 

Yup, snow.  Though I was more focused on how beautiful the sky looked. 

The sunset, though. ... WOW! 

Saturday morning was cool and a bit sunny, before it turned cloudy and rained for the rest of the day and all through the night. 

See, beautiful day!

I did a couple homesteady-type chores before the rain. 

I had to get wood for the woodrack. We have now reached that time of year when a wagon full of wood lasts more than half a week.  Yay! Though we did tear through this load a bit, thanks to the rain and wanting to keep the house warm for my hubby. 

The girls certainly enjoyed the weather while it was good.  When it started raining they did go in to the coop for the rest of the day. 

Friday evening I started a new cross stitch chart. My friend Alison posted a new chart and I decided I had to get it and stitch it right away. Then I got hit with the tireds and had to go to bed.  Turns out I wasn't immune from whatever pestilence was in the household.  I managed to bounce back, somewhat. 

I picked the chart back up Saturday afternoon while I was watching CHiPs.  Yes, I was watching CHiPs.  You know why? Potato chip tv watching, plus I know things are going to wrap up by the end of the episode. A bit campy. A bit silly, but I don't have to worry about what I might see or hear. 

Anywho ... here was my progress. 

In this episode of CHiPs Ponch was being super serious and explaining to some motorbiker that if he hadn't stopped him, the motorbiker would have driven off a cliff and hurt people and likely killed himself. The motorbiker saw the error of his ways. 

This morning I woke up to rain.  Rain and mist and fog and all the things that would make you think you lived on a boggy moor, or something. 

We ran to town for the weekly grocery shopping. 

Once we returned home and I did the things that needed doing, I completed the chart I purchased from Alison, over at AZ Family Zoo. She also has a youtube channel. 

Wee Bee Patriotic

Can be purchased at: https://azfamilyzoo.com/shop/ols/products/wee-bee-patriotic-cross-stitch-chart-pdf-download

Started: April 10, 2026

Completed: April 12, 2026

Fabric: 14 count aida, dyed by me

DMC: 310, 725, blanc, 797, 321

Super fun and quick stitch.  I told Alison I'm going to need to get the entire series now.  

Oh, I want to mention that she runs a forever home sanctuary so all the proceeds go towards the care of the animals, which I pink, puffy, heart love, and it makes it super easy to decide to purchase the charts and support the animals. Plus, when she records her videos, we get to hear some of the birds that are in her care, and they are always so lovely to hear.  Especially Zazu, the canary. 

It was cloudy and overcast for the majority of today.  I think it was mid-morning when my hubby checked the forecast and saw we were supposed to hit a high of 70 degrees.  We were both like "What?! No. Way." 

You know what? It happened. 

The sun came out.  The temps warmed up. 

I went out and did outdoorsy things. But mostly I sat by the garden and soaked it all in. 

The hens loved it and I spotted them out in "the great wild" looking for tidbits and tasty bugs. Because I'm nice (hee hee) I took some video of them enjoying being wild wood chickens.