This is one of my favorite pictures of Olivia, taken (a few years ago!) on a Fall trip to Tanner's Orchard. She loved all the pumpkins, and we ended up picking out a pumpkin to bring home. Grandchildren make every season more fun!

Remember this rug? This is the one that I finished in the off season - too late for Fall last year. Well, I put it up on a wall in my living room this afternoon, and it is the first Autumn item decorating my house so far this year. I was really in the mood to put up all the Fall stuff since the weather has been unusually cool this week, however, we ended up going over to our son's home and shared pizza with our grandchildren, so my decorations will wait until another day!

I still haven't started my new rug yet, so I'm going to draw it on the backing tonight and then start the hooking tomorrow. I will be watching only my grandson tomorrow, so I may have a little more time to get some hooking done. He still naps for an hour or two at a time, so maybe I can get something accomplished!!

Hope you have a great week!

Hodge-Podge!

Zeb, the beautiful cat, in the garden. This picture makes me smile, and I needed something to smile about tonight after watching the news! So many changes are being made in our government with so little regard for what those changes will mean to Americans. It makes me ill to think about how our lives may never be the same. Quite frankly, I am so sickened by politicians and their duplicity right now that I would like to chuck the whole lot of them out of office and start over with some REAL people who CARE about America and Americans. Every couple of hours there is some report put out about how President Obama and his leftist progressive "czars" are changing some other part of the government.

Two things reported today: In the health care bill, there is a section that MANDATES that the IRS must make everyone's financial records (tax records, etc.) available to the Health Care Commissioner (another czar??) so that the determination may be made as to whether you qualify for certain coverage. It doesn't matter if you want the coverage or not. They will determine if you "qualify." Great...our finances will be open to inspection by who knows whom in Obama's bloated health care department. We all know how secure the government systems are. Any 11 year old with a computer can hack in! I hope everyone is letting their representatives know how they feel about all this proposed outrageous intrusion into our lives.

Secondly, President Obama has decided to declare September 11 as a day of "service." Another way to erase history and to downplay what really happened on Sept. 11. I'm not complaining about having a day of service, but it should not be on this particular day. Americans should never forget what happened on that day and how fragile our freedoms and our way of life really are in today's world.

Guess what this is? This is an owl pellet! Evidently when an owl has a successful day of hunting his dinner, he eats the whole critter. Some things are not digested and he....well he......I can't think of a polite way to say this. HE THROWS UP! It looks like a hair ball that your cat would deposit on your carpet, but it contains information about the owl's lunch....

Bits and pieces of the "meal" are encased in the pellet. Here we find a few bone fragments, some fur, and a claw. I wonder what type of creature was eaten? A rabbit, possibly? The claw doesn't really bring to mind a rabbit, though. The claw is pretty sizable... I think hawks may toss their pellets in the same manner. Ick!

I collect alphabets and samplers, and this is one that hangs above the bed in our bedroom. The punched hanging was purchased from a local antiques store. I'm not sure what it would have been used for or exactly how old it is, but I liked the look. The design looks like a rising sun (or possibly setting!) and stars.

I have been drawing rug designs this week, and will be starting a new rug tomorrow. I hope to post pictures soon.

Have a great weekend!

Birdhouses and Hooked Cell Phone Case

This is the cell phone case I hooked months ago but never got around to posting. This one turned out much sleeker than the first one I hooked. It is definitely much slimmer and neater looking.

This is a birdhouse constructed of weathered barn wood and rusty corrugated tin. I purchased this from a local antiques shop about 5 years ago. It sits on a rustic bench made by my husband. The birdhouse looks every bit like an old rustic house with a porch. The kittens like to walk through the front door and sit inside the "great room" or lie on the floor of the porch. Some of them have been pretty large when they went inside, and I was afraid that they would get stuck! Somehow, they all managed to wriggle their way back out. I have a miniature set of metal garden tools, including a shovel, a rake, a wheelbarrow, and a bucket, and a miniature woven basket that I used to place on the little front porch for fun. It looked very realistic. Whenever we have garage sales, people are always interested in this birdhouse sitting in front of our home.

Here is another bird house which is attached to a charming old oak tree near the lake. I don't know if any birds live in this house, but it does have a great picturesque location! The view of the 15 acre lake from here is fantastic!

When our children were young, we used to swim in the lake and camp on its shores on warm moonlit summer nights. It brings back a lot of wonderful memories. I am a bit claustrophobic, so I used to sleep by the screened door on our tent. I remember one night lying in my sleeping bag looking out at a full moon reflected on the water. It was so peaceful and quiet (except for the frogs!)

The most recent use of the lake for me has been kayaking. We have two one-person kayaks which we paddle around the lake for fun. It is good exercise, too! My daughter and I have been known to race across the lake...she usually wins! OK...she ALWAYS wins!!

My cat rug has become an annoyance. No matter what colors I have tried, it is not looking like I wanted it to look. I may set it aside and move on to another rug for a while. Does anyone else have these problems? Maybe it will look different to me after a break.

What a Week!

This has been "one of those" weeks. I started babysitting my three grandchildren as my DIL went back to teaching school. I have been wiped out at night!! I've never been in charge of three children before, so this is new to me. Let's just say that three are a lot more challenging than two! :0) I've been coming home after 10 - 11 hours with the kids and then having to make dinner...ugh! There have been nights that I didn't even do my dishes, I was so tired...I think I need to up my vitamins!

Friday, my husband had an outpatient medical test at the hospital, so I spent pretty much all day sitting in the hospital with him. (All is well, BYW!!)

Wednesday night our computer crashed and we had to take it in to have it checked out. Of course, it was the "motherboard", so that meant a new computer in our future! We actually stopped at our local store to look at them on the way home from the hospital Friday night. We picked one out, which of course they did not have in stock, so we drove to another city nearby and purchased the computer that we wanted. We couldn't bring it home last night, though, because they were doing whatever they do to get a new computer ready for use.

This afternoon was our granddaughter, Allison's, 4th birthday party, so we were partying with a large group of family and friends (lots of kids!) all afternoon. After the party was over, we stopped at the computer place to pick up our computer, and spent the evening so far, getting everything all set up and working. This new computer came with "Vista" and I'm used to Microsoft XP, so now it is like starting all over with everything. I lost all my passwords, emails, and email addresses, etc. so now I'm trying to rebuild my files! :0( You had better believe there will be backups this time! The one bright spot in this was that we had recently backed up all the pictures that were stored on the computer, so we really didn't lose pictures.

This has been like a lost weekend to me, so hopefully, everything will work itself out and I will get comfortable with this new operating system and be able to get back to blogging more often. I felt cut off from the world with my computer down!

I have a lot of blog posts to catch up on, so I will close for now. My rug hooking has been very sporadic this past week, so please forgive my lack of pictures and rug hooking news! Have a great Sunday!!

Backyard Photos

I don't know if Praying Mantis are found all over the United States or not, but they are plentiful around here! They are so unusual looking and kind of comical. If you click to enlarge this picture, I think you will be able to see his cute heart shaped face. Two years ago we had a huge population of these on the side of our house. They would just walk up the siding and sit in the sun. If you move near them, they turn their heads and watch you.

I had a little trouble posting this tonight, and lost one of the pictures in cyberspace somewhere! This is a very large spider web that my daughter, Rachel, captured still decorated with early morning dew. It was really beautiful in the early sunlight. Fortunately, the resident and creator was not present for the photo-shoot! This web measured about 36" in diameter.

We snapped this picture of a resident of our garden pond. He was sunning himself on a lily pad. We had a bumper "crop" of frogs in the pond this year, but many of them have moved on. There are 3 larger lakes within visual distance of our home, so I'm sure that some of them relocated to larger living quarters!

We took Jess to the local vet this morning to have her stitches removed. She was a big hit at the vet's office. The employees all thought she was adorable and she, of course, had to "kiss" everyone and wriggle excitedly at all the attention. She weighs around 12 lbs. now and is doing great. Her baby teeth have been falling out, and she was gap-toothed for a while, but her new teeth are coming in quickly. Her biting and chewing capabilities were never hindered!! She now knows how to sit, shake, lie down, and roll over.

I will have to keep my rug hooking up off the floor from now on. Jess managed to "reverse hook" two strips of wool from my cat rug yesterday! Since I'm watching my grandchildren 4 days a week now, my time is limited, and I don't want to have to re-hook the entire rug. :0)

Hope you have a great Sunday!

First Free Pattern Finish!

Lauren, from Rugs and Pugs (please see my blog list in the sidebar), emailed me a picture of her finished Willow House which she completed in punch needle. (See July 5 post for free pattern) It turned out great and has already been given to a lucky college friend of Lauren's. Great job, Lauren! Thanks for the picture.

Jess had her surgery (spaying) Friday, and we picked her up Saturday morning. She also was micro chipped and given all the rest of her shots, so she is free from vet visits for a while! It was strangely quiet in our house Friday night, and even Saturday Jess was somewhat subdued and sleepy. But Sunday look out!!! She was baaaaack. It seems impossible, but I think she has even more energy now :0)

I've been working on staying up to date on my 10 Minute Rug Challenge, so I'm getting a little hooking finished. I've started babysitting my grandchildren already, so my time has been cut dramatically! Also my energy :0)

I still hope to have an update picture on the large cat rug soon. Sorry to be so slow... :0(

Hope you all have a great week!

I Survived!

I'm back from my 3 days of babysitting...a little frazzled, but otherwise none the worse for wear! There is nothing like being around preschoolers to remind you of how many decades have passed since you were a young mother, yourself!! I've also noticed how families have changed over the years. When my children were young, conversations could actually be had and one could really think about something for more than 2 or 3 minutes at a stretch! What has happened to attention spans?? I'm a talk radio fan, but about an hour of sitting with my left ear plastered to the radio and my hand over my right ear, I gave up!! I did, however, get to watch "Max & Ruby" (cartoons about brother and sister bunnies) several times and 3 "Baby Einstein" DVDs! At least the music on them was good (Mozart & Bach)!! At one point, I was carrying a crying baby, clearing up supper taco dishes, listening to a 5 & 3 yr. old sing a duet, and scrubbing spilled taco stuff off white carpet...all at the same time! Good practice for multi-tasking, I guess. My son and DIL arrived home with gifts from the beach for the girls and they were all so happy and excited and hugging...a good ending to my 3 days away from home! Next week, I start my 4 day weeks babysitting when Ashley goes back to teaching. Am I really ready for this?!?!

The above pillow is one that a hooked a couple of years ago. As I have said before, candy corn is a favorite fall motif, and this 6" x 8" pillow turned out great. The colors are much more muted than this picture depicts. For some reason, the orange looks very bright in the picture, but in person is much more primitive. I did do a tiny bit of hooking (or as Olivia and Allison referred to it as "sewing") while away, and I hope to have a progress picture within the next few days of the large cat rug that I began a few months ago. I've also started another project that I will share soon. The rug that I hooked from the small cat design that I posted a couple of weeks ago as a free pattern has been finished into another pillow, and has begun to grow on me. I have decided that I like it and still want to hook another version in different colors.

I hope you all are enjoying the same beautiful weather that we are having. This summer has been great! I think we have only had two days that were in the low 90s...HIGHLY unusual for central Illinois!! Hope you all are having a great week!