TUSAL for December

This year went by super fast.  It had a lot of ups and downs,  but the ups were great and made up for the downs. 

For Christmas my DH let me get a Pressure Canner.  Food storage has become very important to me.  2 years ago we were so broke that all we could afford to eat was either potatoes or rice.  So I took up couponing and started stocking up for those lean times.  Also having to eat gluten free is totally expensive,  so now I will be able to make and can gluten free foods.  

I can't wait to see all the posts and wonderful gifts everyone got....

So here is a picture of my TUSAL for December,  I wonder who is going to win the big prize ??? 

I hope every has a great Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year !!!!

Linda

I Finally Finished Townsend's Warbler

Finally Finally,  I have another finish.  

Townsend Warbler.

This was a really hard project for me.  I am not used to all the colors.  But I think it was worth all the frogging I had to do on it.  I think this one is worth framing.... 

Don't forget,  If you would like a Christmas card,  Please email me at linda_breault@yahoo.com and I will get it out right away. 

Hope you all have a great stitching weekend !!!!

Linda

Would Anyone Like a Christmas Card Sent to them

I have a lot to post tonight.

1st.

This weekend,  I will be getting out my Christmas Cards and my List of who I need to send to.  If you would like,  I would love to send you a Christmas Card as well.   All you need to do is post that you would like me to send you a card and then you can email me you mailing name and address.  Please email me at linda_breault@yahoo.com 

2nd.

I am so excited to win Epic Stitching Give Away.  It arrived today and boy was my package full.

Thank You so Much Mel.  I can't wait to do the Fresh Egg Hen. 

3rd and Last

Meari asked if I could post my Turkey Tortilla Soup and my Pumpkin Bread recipes.

Turkey Tortilla Soup 

• 3 Cups of Shredded Turkey  (Really you can use any type of protein you want)
• 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 cup chunky salsa (optional)
• 8 ounces corn tortilla chips
• 1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese (optional)

1. In a large pot over medium heat, saute the chicken or turkey, sausage, ext.  (If your protein is not already cooked)  in the oil for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cumin and mix well. Then add the broth, corn, onion, chili powder, lemon juice and salsa. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes.
2. Break up some tortilla chips into individual bowls and pour soup over chips. Top with the Monterey Jack cheese and a little sour cream. 

This is such an easy recipe to make,  you can add anything you want or not want.  I add in a tablespoon of Pamela's Gluten Free Baking & Pancake Mix to thicken up the broth.

Pumpkin Bread

• 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1-1/3 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups Pamela's Baking Mix
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, and eggs. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves; stir into the pumpkin mixture until well blended. 
3. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. The top of the loaf should spring back when lightly pressed.

I get most of my recipes off of allrecipes.com and I then work on converting them to gluten free.  

Anyways,  I will let you all get back to reading other posts and your stitching.  Hope you all have a great rest of the week and weekend.

Linda

TUSAL for November

I have to say,  I never thought I would fill my jar up,  but it's getting there. 

DH and I went for a walk today down at the Granite Dells.  We took the trail down by the lake and man was it chilly and wonderful.  I love the water so much,  I always wanted to live on a house boat but believe it or not,  I am allergic to the sun.  LOL.  If I spend more then 20 mins in the sun,  I break out in a rash,  but going down to the lake is totally worth it. 

Thanksgiving was great.  In the morning we went over to visit a friend of ours and we made breakfast and hung out.  Then we got home to cook our turkey and all the fixings.  It was a really nice relaxed day.  Today,  I did some cleaning and my 2nd turkey is in the oven.  I made Turkey Tortilla Soup and Sweet Potato Bread. Maybe tomorrow  I can get some stitching in. 

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving !!! 

Linda

Happy Thanksgiving To All

I am amazed at how fast this year has past and we are about to celebrate another Thanksgiving.  And of course Hanukkah and Christmas are right around the corner. What a fun and busy time of year this is for all of us.  I remember last year how much fun it was reading everyone's blogs and I am excited to see what everyone has going on this holiday season. 

I have been busy baking and trying to make gluten free goodies.  Yesterday after a couple of try's I made a pumpkin bread and a sweet potato bread.  I had DH try them and he said he couldn't  tell the difference between real pumpkin bread and gluten free.   So I am pretty excited that I am starting to figure out how to cook gluten free and not miss out on all the good tasting food.

Meanwhile,  I have been putting in a little bit of time stitching.  I really want to finish this project but all the blue is starting to make me go a bit crazy.  I may need to take another break and work on another project.

I can't think of anything else to post about.  so I will just say......

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Stitching to Everyone !!!!

Linda

Does Anyone Else Love Pogo????

I know this is off topic for cross stitch. But I was wondering if anyone else plays pogo?

I was thinking if there are several people that do,  I could give away a  Mix and Match or maybe a 3 month Club Pogo Membership...

Let me now what you think

The Winners Are ?????

I am so excited to have my first Give Away.  I just pulled the two names and they are 

 

 

GRACIE at Needles Pins and Dragonflies

and 

Ruth B

Congrats to you both !!!!

Please email me with your mailing info and I will get your books sent out to you next week. 

Sick Day & Don't forget I have a Give Away going on

Today I am waiting paw and paw on both the boys.  Yesterday,  they both had their teeth cleaned.  Frasier had to have a tooth pulled,  it was cracked in half and very lose.  But other then that they both did great and are set for another year.


I don't normally take pictures when the cats are not feeling well,  but their little band aids were so cute,  I couldn't help myself

Now onto my Give Away.  I only have 3 people so far and I had really hoped to have gotten a few more.  I will chose a name on Friday so there is only 2 more days to sign up. 

Linda

My First Giveaway

Yesterday when I was posting,  I noticed it was my One Year Blogoversary.

 

I can't believe how fast it went by.   I am also surprised to see that I have 62 followers (Woot)

I am going to do 2 drawings.

 

 

 

This is for US only 

I ask that you be a follower -- old or new.

Please Post on your blog regarding my giveaway.

 

Please leave a comment on this post only. 

I will draw the two winners next Friday 11/11/11

Good Luck Everyone !!!

Tons of News

There is so much to post about,  I don't even know where to begin.  

First,  I should post my very very late TUSAL

I have been trying to stitch at least once a week and I have totally messed up.  I know I double check and triple check my work and somehow I have messed up.  I hope later on today,  I can get it all fixed because it is driving me nuts.  Part of me just wants to throw the entire project away but I could never do that. 

Meanwhile I have been helping out a wonderful group of people that I met at a pumpkin patch.  They are called Horses with Hearts and you can check out the site HERE

There were selling baked goods and ran out and I told them to call me if they needed any help.  Because I coupon a lot,  I had a ton of cake mixes and frosting mixes that I picked up for free.  Being Gluten free,  I will never use them for myself so this was perfect.

I got a call last week and made 100 cupcakes.  I didn't think that was going to be a lot of work but it sure was.  It was totally worth and a I even got DH to help me. 

 Then today,  I made some Gluten Free Peach Muffins which came out pretty darn good.  A friend of mine just found out her 16 year old daughter has Celiac Disease.  I can't imagine what it would be like to be a teenager and have to deal with all the food allergies.   So today,  I have been trying to write down some of my favorite gluten free recipes for them.  Hopefully she will enjoy the muffins which were really easy to make.

Well I am off to go do some couponing and get my grocery lists together so I can do my shopping tomorrow.

I love Busy Weekends

One of my favorite things to do, is to save money.....  I don't buy a lot of things if they are not on sale and I don't have a coupon.  About a year ago,  hubby and I were watching some news stories on the price of foods going up and that we as consumers should stock up as much as we can.  So I took that to heart and decided that we needed to do that.  I got hooked on coupons and stocking up my first trip to the store when I save 70% on my bill.  Not only do I have a ton of food storage here.  I help my Niece out every week and hubby and I send 4 boxes a month overseas to help out our men and women who are fighting to keep us safe. Without coupons and sales,  I would never be able to do this.   This weekend,  we deiced that we needed to get a shelving unit so we can rotate and keep better track of what we have and this is what the shelf looks like now.  I can't wait till we get another one.....    As you can tell,  we already need another one.

Yesterday,  I did sit down for a couple of hours to stitch.  I really love this horse silhouette but it sure is taking a long time to do.  But only one color does make it super easy to work on.

Candy Corn and A Special Gift From A Friend

Another Ornament Done.  My Niece Tristan loves Candy Corn so I had to make this for her.  

My Friend Arlene just out of the blue gave me this wonderful quilt.  What a wonderful surprise to get.   I don't even know how to thank her. 

TUSAL and Santa Ornament

I can't get over how the weeks fly by.  

Frasier's allergies are now totally under control and we are now able to open the windows and doors to let the fresh air in.  I love hearing the birds sing in the morning and watching the hummingbirds at the feeder.  

Frasier was trying to figure out if he should play with his pumpkin or watch the birds.  

 It's nap time for Niles and he loves to sleep under the blankets or in a tent that we make for him. 

Here is my TUSAL for the month.

 

I also got another ornament finished this week.  It was done on 14ct plastic canvas.  Someone asked last week if it was done on preforated paper.  I had never heard of that,  but found some on ebay.  I am excited to see how that works out.  I really have learned so much in the short time I have been blogging.  I hope the suggestions never stop. 

Till next week all....

Linda

My First Finished Ornament

Happy Monday E1

I am so excited to be home today and getting caught up on cleaning and laundry.

Harry has not been doing as good as I would like.  His dementia I believe has turned into alzheimer's now.  He seems to spend most of his time in another place and time.  It's so heart breaking to see him this way.  However where ever his mind is at he seems happy and content.  I am happy for him but not for me.  I miss being able to have those wonderful conversations with him.  Most days now,  he just lays in bed or sometimes we can carry him to the comfy lazyboy chair and put in a John Wayne movie for him.  He is no longer able to feed himself and one of the caretakers who we call Mama,  comes in and feeds him.  She is such a wonderful lady to watch and listen to.  She talks to him the entire time she is feeding him.  There are even times she can get him to talk a little.  

I did my very first Christmas ornament last week and I like how it came out.  We haven't had a tree in years but it might be fun to do a few more ornaments and put up a tree this year.  I am about to start another in a few mins.  I love how quick and easy they are.  With all that's been going on with Harry,  it's been hard to concentrate on big projects. So maybe ornaments are the thing for me right now. 

Penguin Noel Update

I am so excited to have the first Penguin all done.  I'm not enjoying this project as much as I thought I would, which is strange because it's really cute and I can't wait for it to be all finished and framed. 

Frasier is doing much better.  He is acting normal again and the drops for his allergies are starting to work for him.  Here is such a funny picture of him and Nile's trying to squeeze on to one of their beds.  This is really Frasier's bed and Nile's has decided to take it over in order to make Frasier jealous. 

I'm not sure how to link a video but I wanted to show this  for 9/11.  I lost 11 co-workers on that day.  One of them was one of my best friends named Rose.  I really miss her and think about her all the time.

IN MEMORY OF ALL WE LOST, THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11- STATISTICS: Times of impact: 8:46 a.m. and 9:02 a.m. Time the burning towers stood: 56 minutes and 102 minutes. Time they took to fall: 12 seconds. 2819 dead from 115 different nations. 343 Fireman/paramedics, 23 NYPD, 37 Port Authority officers.

TUSAL for Sept. and NOEL

Lots of Red and White on Top. 

Our little Frasier has been sick this last week.  He had a seizure which scared the you know what out of us.  I rushed him to the vets and of course they did all the tests and have no clue what caused it.  While they were doing all the tests, they didn't like how his heart sounded so they shaved his chest and did an echocardiogram which came out pretty good for him and his heart condition.  In fact nothing had changed from last year which is really wonderful for his age.  When we first found out about his heart condition we were told that we would be lucky to have Frasier for 2 years and it's been almost 10 now.  I have to give credit to the wonders of medicine.  

I am sure his fur will grow back fast.  But he is not to happy about it.  

It's been hard to find time to stitch but I did get a little bit done on my NOEL.  I feel like I have lost some interest in stitching but I think about it all the time.  I just don't have the energy to pick it up or make the time to sit and do it.  Hopefully next will will be different. 

Two More Finished !!!

Things have been quiet so far this week.  We are still dealing with a sick cat but Frasier seems to be getting better.  I never knew a cat could deal with allergies...  Because of Frasier's heart condition he is not able to go the regular route of most meds.  We have a wonderful Dr who found a homeopathic treatment which I think is starting to work.  Hopefully we will know for sure within a week or two at the most.

Doesn't he look sad?  Please don't look at hubby's feet !!.  LOL

Meanwhile I have gotten 2 more little projects finished.  I also started on a cute Christmas one with Penguins but I didn't get enough done to take a pic,  but maybe I will have enough done in the next few days to post.

 Bad Picture but I think you get the point.  I love the little charm and I really want to find more patterns that I can add charms to.

My Niece wants to sew this one onto a stocking.  I think that will come out cute and I am so happy that she can sew.

Take Care and Hope everyone gets in lots of stitching.

Linda

Story of Bernice

I have been following Bernice's Story for a week now.  I'm not sure if you all have heard about her on the national news or on facebook.  I thought I would share about her on here also.

The first time I read about her I was sick to my stomach and just couldn't stop thinking about her and all she has gone thru.  The second time I heard about her,  I was in tears for hours and I kept thinking about the abuse Frasier went thru and all of his pain while he was recovering.  I am in awe at her will to live and how she will still trust humans.  I am in awe that she wants to trust and love anyone again.

Here is an 8 min video on her story if you would like to see.  If you are like me,  bring a tissue but her message is more of love and the will to live.  BERNICE
 
If you are on facebook here is the animal hospital's page where you can get updates and leave messages .Animal Hospital of Oshkosh

Jerome Was Awesome....

Hubby and I had a great time.  I never knew there was so much history to Jerome.  The ghost hunt was a total blast.  We met 8 other people who joined the tour and they were all so nice.  Our tour guide was Shot Gun Sadie and she was a hoot.  After ever story she would give us a wicked laugh which drove me nuts at first but then it really was a crack up.

Roger and I had a EMF detector and we got several hits.  One was on this old green plush type chair and I stepped back and had Roger take a picture and this is what we got.

I'm not one to know the difference between orbs and dust,  but this showed up right where my emf detector went off.  So I found this very interesting.

Two of the other couples were staying at two of the hotels so we hung out with them for most of the night going back and forth.  The first hotel was the Conner Hotel and they had room 6 which is supposed to have the ghost of a dog and cat.  We did get some emf readings but nothing much.  The 2nd hotel was The Grand Hotel and I forget the room number but we stayed in the halls most of the time.   We had lots of emf readings and even heard some strange noises that we never figured out what caused them.

I still have to listen to the digital recorder and will get to that on Monday.

Most of the other pics we took were outside and I cant tell if all the orbs are dust or not. 

Here is a picture of the Birthday Boy

Anyways,  If anyone knows about orbs,  tell me what you think about the 1st picture,  I would love to hear opinions.

Cuddle Up Snowman and A Ghost Hunt

I finally finished Cuddle Up Snowman.  This will go in my "how do I finish them" pile.  My pile is getting really big but as soon as I get my Niece a sewing machine she will be able to make pillows with some of them. 

The pattern is by Stoney Creek sold at PatternsOnline.com 

Now for the BIG News .....

Today is Hubby's Birthday.  Roger just turned 49 -- Woot. 

He loves all those Ghost Hunting shows and is always talking about going out ghost hunting.  We have been to a few haunted places but tonight we go on a real ghost hunt.  We are heading off to Jerome AZ, about a 90 min drive from here.  We will not only be going to several building that are well known for being haunted but we will also be spending the night at one of the most haunted hotels in American.   Of course I am scared out of my wits already so I won't be doing any sleeping.  I plan on sitting in a corner with a big flash light,  in fact I will have 5 flashlights in case one goes out on me.  LOL  Wish me luck that I wont go screaming and running all the way home.  I sure hope Roger appreciates this.

2 Birthdays

Yesterday was my Niece's - Tristan and Grand Niece's - Mattie's Birthday.  Tristan turned 28 and Mattie turned 2 years old. 

Hubby and I drove down to Phoenix to spend the day with them.  We took both the girls to the Sea Life Aquarium which was wonderful.  Mattie was thrilled with all the fish and she had a blast playing with and petting the star fish.  

 After we walked thru the aquarium twice and played with everything twice, we headed off to The Rainforest Cafe for dinner. 

Oh My Goodness did Mattie have a blast looking at everything.  The elephants are her favorite and she had even learned how to act like one.  It was a crack up. Mattie also had her first taste of soda and she could not stop laughing at the bubbles.  Just way to cute.....

Meanwhile I got my 2nd snowman done and I just started on the final one today.  I really want to get it done this week but we shall see. 

I hope everyone's weeks slows done enough for you all to get some great stitching in !!!

TUSAL

I am really shocked at how full this has gotten. 

Fantastic Givaway from The Rusty Thimble

If you like folk art,  this is the giveaway for you....

The Rusty Thimble

So Rush on over there and sign up now !!!

Cuddle Up Snowman

I have just enough time for a quick post before I have to dash out the door for a Dr's appt.   I don't get why you have to go in just for tests results. 

Yesterday I finished my 1st of 3 snowman.  Looks like it takes a good 5 days of stitching to get one done. So hopefully it will be done in the next 2 weeks. 

Yesterday we had such a big thunderstorm,  it was so wonderful.  However poor Niles was not thrilled at all.  I made him a little place to hide and he went back and forth from my lap to the hiding place. 

Time to get ready and get out the door.  Have a Great Day and Thanks for Stopping by.

Linda