Cross stitch houses

This is a house that I cross stitched for the Stitcher's Challenge at Quilts for Seniors.
There are 6 themes and each stitcher will stitch one square in each theme before the end of June.
If desired, the stitcher may stitch 2 squares for one of the themes and omit another one.

I chose to do 2 house squares and will not do one of the other themes. Both the house charts are from a kit that we used in 1994 for our family ornaments. I had a hard time deciding which 2 houses to stitch.




This is the other square. I know a lot of the older men have been volunteer firemen in their youth (or at least a lot of them that I know) and thought they would like a firehouse.

Freezer Meals

My sister came to visit last weekend and we made 50 freezer meals (25 for each of us) with the help of DD19 and DD17. We spent a lot of time chopping and dicing fresh vegetables before assembling the meals. I couldn't resist taking a picture of all the veggies before we got started.

We worked from about 8 am until 4 pm with a short break for lunch. When we got done we were more than happy to go out to O'Charley's for supper.

On Sunday morning I made a fritatta for breakfast and a spicy vegetable soup for lunch using the extra vegetables. Mostly we had onions, red and green peppers and mushrooms left over from the meals. A lot of the recipes called for diced vegetables by the cup and it is hard to judge how many cups you can get from a pepper or onion. I added some canned tomatoes (one can with chilies), frozen corn and green beans to the soup. We also used only part of a bag of frozen hash brown for the freezer meals so I used some of those in the soup. It was good - but it sure opened up the sinuses.

Menu Monday -- on Wednesday??

Things have been pretty hectic here - not sure why - and I haven't been doing very well with planning meals. I have the main entree planned out in Weight Watchers - but haven't been keeping to that so far this week. Have to get back to it if I want to lose the last 5 pounds!

Monday -
Shrimp Scampi
Rice
Creamed Spinach

Tuesday -
Crock pot Chicken pot pie (mix)
Salad

Wednesday -
leftovers

Thursday -
Two Bean Chili (freezer meal)
Corn muffins

Friday -
Cornmeal battered fish and chips
salad

Saturday-
Slow Cooker Chicken Thighs with Chile and Corn
Tortilla

Sunday -
Potato and Canadian Bacon Slow Cooker Chowder
Fresh Veggies
Crackers

25 pounds! Woo-hoo!!!

This morning was weigh-in (in the privacy of my own bathroom) and I have officially lost 25 pounds. That means only 5 more to reach my goal. After staying stable for the last 4-5 weeks, I lost 3 pounds last week. Of course, I did not expect to lose any weight over the holidays and I was just happy to maintain. It has been hard to get back to the menus after the holiday eating but it was worth it to hit this milestone.

I thought Sunday was going to be a real challenge for the WW food plan. We had planned to go out to eat to celebrate our annual wage adjustments at work and the end of the first semester of school for the girls. When we got out of church DD19 was not feeling well and by the time we stopped at the house she really did not feel like going out to eat, so we made do here at home. So instead of a restaurant meal I had leftovers.


Menu Monday

Monday - Cashew Chicken/Rice
Mandarin oranges

Tuesday - No planned supper as we girls are going to a baby shower. There will be lots of snacks and I am taking pretzels and Spicy Sweet Mustard which is very low in points.

Wednesday- Philly Steak Pizza
Salad

Thursday - Crockpot Vegetable Soup
French Bread

Friday - Crock Pot Chicken
Green beans

Saturday - Dinner out - this is our 'rain' date for our celebration dinner

Sunday - Spicy Thai Beef-Noodle Soup
Salad

My sister will be here over the weekend so she will get to go out with us to celebrate. We will be working all day on the Freezer Meals and it will be good to go out to eat that evening and be able to relax. Since she is doing Weight Watchers also, we can hold each other accountable.

Cross stitch squares

These are 2 more quilt squares that I stitched. I did these on Saturday. They stitch up quickly and once I start one I want to see it finished. They remind me of pencil sketches, so it makes me feel like an artist. (Jill, I know you are doing the skater also but duplicates are okay since these will be donated to Love Quilts for emergency needs.

These are for a stitch-along at Cross Stitching for Charity (CSFC). This is an online Yahoo group that I moderate. We encourage each other as we stitch for various charities that make quilts or pillows for people who are sick. These will probably go to Love Quilts.

The CSFC group has several stitch-alongs going at a time. For this one the participants are all stitching these sports figures that are done with a single color of floss. We are using many different colors so they will be a rainbow of designs when we are done. Someone donated a big stash of floss to the group because she no longer did cross stitching so I sent everyone who signed up to stitch a square a skein of floss.

These are quick stitches but they are challenging because you have to keep the back of the square really neat or the colored thread will peak through the little holes in the cloth. So I decided to scan the backs of my squares too. I know some stitchers who scan the back of all their projects to 'show off' how neatly it was done. With quality stitching, the back should look like a mirror image of the front. How do you think I did on these?

Recipes Blog

I have decided to do a second blog with my recipes. That way if you aren't interested in the recipe you don't have to check it out. I will put a link on my menus for those items that are in my recipe blog. This way I have my recipes available too :-)

The first recipe is Slush

Heart Puzzle

This is a puzzle I framed for DD17. She found the puzzle at my parents' house several years ago and wanted it because she loves hearts. The puzzle was a gift to my mom years ago (she passed away in 1995). DD17 put the puzzle together and asked about hanging it in her room which I said we could do. So the puzzle laid on top of a hutch we have in the family room for about 2 years before I did something about it.

I bought some Hodge Podge and the white frame at Michael's this morning. The frame was 50% off so it was a good deal. The puzzle fit in the frame perfectly so we did not even use the Hodge Podge. That way if/when DD17 gets tired of the framed puzzle we can take it apart and use it as a puzzle again.

It really is a fun puzzle. The hearts appear to be ceramic (probably plastic) and each one has a unique design. It is fun to just look over it and each time you notice something different about one of the hearts. It is 18 x 24 inches and look really nice on her wall.

Of course, while I was in Michael's I had to use the 40% off coupon that expired today. Since the frame was already on sale I could not use it for that The Hodge Podge was only $5 so that wouldn't be much of a saving. So I picked up a punch that I had my eye on. It is a row of slots about every 1/2 inch and will be perfect for weaving ribbon along the edge of a card or scrapbook page. I think it will be cute to use with the scallop punch. I can't wait to do some card making and scrapbooking - maybe next weekend while my sister is here.