Brown and Ivory afghan

My boss bought this afghan for her daughter through our yearly United Way drive. We have an auction to raise money. I donated my time and my boss donated the yarn and the cash.

It is made with double thread so it is really heavy and very warm. Just what you need on cold Texas night. It works up pretty fast, it took me about 3 weeks to make. I didn't work on it every day so it could have been finished in about a week.

the diet

Okay, so it's been a little over a week since my last post about dieting. I lost a pound! Yeah! It has not been easy but at least I am going down the right path.

I have added some extra steps to my daily routine. They say to walk 10000 steps a day, I don't know who "they" are but I would rather sit on my butt watching TV than walk on my treadmill watching TV. Anyway I walked on the dreadful thing twice this week. Another thing I am doing to add steps is at least 5 times a day I walk around the loop at my work. I work in a laboratory and we have a set of labs that have hallways all the way around them, that's my loop. 250 steps per loop.

10000 steps a day is like 5 miles. Yuck no way I get 5 miles in a day.

Enough whining! Time to make a loop.

Next post will be about crafting I promise!

Dieting

I know this isn't a diet blog but I have not posted anything in months and today I thought I would start putting down in words what I think about dieting.
In a word it "sucks". But I have to start thinking of it as not  ugh a diet but as a new way of thinking about food.
Wish me luck on that comment.
I started watching what I was putting into my pie hole the week after Christmas and it was not pretty. Chocolate, cookies, chocolate, cake, chocolate... the list goes on. So I got rid of the cookies, tossed out the cake and cut the chocolate back to two small bite size pieces a day (baby steps). Actually I will never stop eating chocolate, moderation is the key, so they tell me.
I am not going to do any of the traditional or non traditional diets like Weight Watchers or Quick Weight Loss both of which I have tried and been successful at. I just didn't keep it off.
I started writing down everything I eat and am drinking at least 32oz of water.
I have lost a pound and a half in 3 days. My goal is to lose 15 to 20 pounds.
More later on the ups and downs of trying to lose weight after the age of fifty.

Lap Afghan

This is my latest lap afghan I made to give to the seniors in my area.

I can't remember where I saw one made similar to this one, there wasn't a pattern I think I just saw a picture and thought it looked cool.

I need to find a better way to photograph my afghans. They look so blah just laying on my bed.

So Ann, if you have any good ideas I would love to hear them.

Closet redo

It's been a while since I posted anything just because I'm lazy about posting, not because I've been sitting around doing nothing.( My inner child is going ya huh!)

This long Labor Day weekend was anything but labor free. I know you're supposed to take time off to relax and recharge, but we don't seem to follow any of the hard fast rules of life so why start now?

Any who this is what we did.

This is after we removed everything and knocked down the wall. Forgot to take a before pic. Duh!

When we remodeled the laundry room we decided this little area would be better if accessed from the closet. (meaning it was easier than trying to make what we had look good.)

Removed 2x4's on floor and walls then put up sheetrock on back wall where 2x4's used to be and now it looks like it was done this way on purpose. HA!

Then we painted everything and put the floor down.

Put old shelves back in, not freshly painted, because I didn't want to wait a week before setting anything on them. Besides you won't be able to see them when I am done anyway.

Are you ready for this?

This is what was in that 5' x 5' closet minus the bed.

Yes there is a bed in there and a coffee table and a chair and a night stand.

See! There is the bed.






So here it is all filled up.

Ta Da!

And that's how you relax at the Miskell residence!


Have a wonderful labor day, no matter how you spend it.

Laundry remodel

We finished remodeling the laundry room this last week.

It was ugly.

          Now it is not.

I have been living with this for about 6 years. The floor had that peel and stick tile and while it is great for some purposes, it doesn't always do well on older pier and beam homes. Many cracked, many did not stick and very many stuck too well.

                       My DH is going to build me a screen to hide the water heater.

  This has been the pantry since I was a little girl. Then after we remodeled the kitchen it became the storage    area for small appliances and extra stuff. And the place where my dogs spend the night.

We closed in that area and bought a new cabinet to put my small appliances in the top and all the dog stuff in the bottom.
We are going to reclaim that space in the closet on the other side of that wall.

This is what I am most proud of, my beautiful floor. It looks just like the kitchen and dining room, and someday the living room.( I can't wait!).

Kitchen accessories

My cousin Tammie got married today and of course I waited to the last minute to get her something so I made these kitchen accessories.

I have several of these cup towels you hang on the stove handle and I love them.

I saw some Texas shaped potholders at a gift store the other day and thought I can do that and so I made these

About a year ago I had seen an apron made from blue jeans and have been wanting to make one so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to try it out. The picture is not that good, but you get the idea.

Then I found this cute country basket at Hobby Lobby and cute bandana print tissue paper and lined the basket with it.

.
I got the idea for the  pom pom tissue flowers from  http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/ .
 She has a good tutorial for making them if you want to pop over to her blog.
http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/tissue-paper-pom-poms