Off the Clock

Folded edges in front, zigzagged behind  Along with the pandemic 2020 has had devestating effects on our family.  My mother-in-law was hospitalized early this year and my father-in-law passed away shortly afterward.  Now my mother-in-law is in a long term care home.  Most of her personal support has been done by my sister-in-law who is doing her personal shopping among many other things.  Being in long term care means all her possessions (including clothing) needs to be labeled.  This is where I come in. I made a first batch on fabric stretched across the hoop of my embroidery machine.  I then folded all four sides under and topstitched.  They were fussy, time consuming, not very professional and the stabilizer made them stiff which would not be comfortable against the skin. The second batch I made with twill tape.  I was able to stretch them across the hoop without using any stabilizer.  This was much better.  The problem with twill tape is it quickly unravels, so again I folded the c

 A few good things happened this weekend.  First, I've been waiting all summer for my yard-leveling guy to come and finish my yard.  Every week it's been "I'll be there next week".  Well he finally showed up yesterday, and today there is a bulldozer and a tractor-pulled rototiller busy working away.  That makes me a happy girl.  I've been worried that if it didn't happen soon my septic system would freeze - not good!  Also I have bulbs to go in the ground.  I planted my daffodils around my clump of trees (on the left in the above pic) a few weeks ago but still need to bury 40 crocus bulbs. Also today I got outside and dug up my summer flowers to put in the compost pile and put away the planters.  I also closed up the back porch.  I put the hosta planters up against the walls hoping that will help them to survive the winter, and all the cushions went down the basement.   Finally, we agreed that my poor apricot tree (on the right in the top pic) that I tried

 One of the design features I really wanted in a house was a cold cellar.  Of course when I first had this idea I still drank and thought it would be a great place to store home made wine.  Well those days have been behind me for quite a few years, but when I designed my new house last year I included a cold cellar anyway.  According to my builder it will take probably five years before the cement has dried out enough to not cause a moisture problem.  I have a fan running on a timer to keep the air moving.  I initially had it running 24/7 but that was really bringing in all the warm summer air and the room was staying at about 72F.  This was ok for my shelves of canned food, but not so much for fresh produce.  I reduced the timer to four hours at midnight, and along with the colder weather it is currently staying at about 60F and has been for about a week now.  So for the record, when I come back looking for this information,  the cellar starts cooling down by the end of September. The