A Finish!

I finally finished my dishtowel.  It was a fun, easy stitch.  The stitchy part is 14 count Aida, and there were blocks of color, so it was a pretty easy stitch.  I love how it turned out.  I am going to have to include it in someone's Christmas gift package because it makes me hungry just looking at it. :)

So last weekend, we were at Trader Joe's.  The Monterey TJ's has their orchids just as you walk into the store.  I usually just give them a passing glance as I walk in at a high speed to do my grocery shopping.  I hate grocery shopping with a white hot passion, but I love me some Trader Joe's.  Go figure... Anyway, last week I went blazing by the orchids when something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.  I came to a fast stop because I espied - Miltonia!

Miltonia is also known as a "Pansy Orchid".  As you can see the blossoms deeply resemble a pansy.  They smell divine.  Around here, you just do not see them very often.  In fact, this one was the only one they had.  At $14.99, I knew it had to be mine.  I have limited space so I just do not keep a lot of plants in the house.  The orchids that I have are pretty special and/or have been given to me as a gift.  I am really happy that I found this one to keep the other orchids company.

This week I have been stitching on Cinnamon Stars by Plum Street Samplers.  Autumn is my favorite season (bring on the pumpkin!), and I love the colors of this piece.  It is a fun stitch, too.  I have a few other fall pieces, but this one really spoke to me.

I will probably get to stitch quite a bit over the next week as we will be cozy cottage-bound. This week is going to be ca-razy on the Monterey Peninsula.  It is what locals call "Car Week".  It is the week of several high end car shows, bringing 40,000 people onto our very small peninsula. (As a comparison, the city of Monterey only has 29,000  people.) Included this week, is the Concours d' Elegance and Concourso Italiano and the historic car races.  Today, I was driving and had two Ferrari's ahead of me and a Lamborghini in the next lane.  While they are quite beautiful, they are nerve wracking to drive around.  Anyway, there will be non-stop gridlock, so locals tend to buy our groceries during the week, and will hunker down through Sunday like there is storm or something.  We don't leave our homes unless we walk.  My commute, which is normally 30 minutes can take up to 1 1/2 hours to get home.  Patience and recorded books are the name of the game this week!

Well, back to my stitching!  Have a blessed week!

A Verrrrry Quiet Weekend

First and foremost, a big thank you for your prayers and good thoughts for Liesl's ultrasound this week.  The results were very good and positive. Thanks be to God.  The doctors are giving her a prescription to aid her digestion, but there was nothing scary.  We are so grateful to have the expertise and quality of veterinary care at the practice she goes to.

Liesl and I had a super quiet weekend around the cozy cottage.  My sweet baboo left on Thursday to go visit his grandbabies and he is due home today.  I had plans of taking Liesl to her favorite dog beach and celebrating her big 11th birthday, which was this weekend.  That did not pan out after all. Schnauzers have super sensitive skin, and unfortunately, she was really itchy and miserable from having her tummy shaved for the ultrasound this past week, so the vet had to prescribe a super duper strong antihistamine which made her just sleep all weekend.  So it was a very quiet weekend where I did not leave the house at all, which was actually a blessing.  

I spent the weekend tidying up the cozy cottage, stitching, and napping with Liesl.  (I even got to organize my fancy floss and inventoried it in Excel.)  I love to laugh so I put some stand up comedy on Netflix and cozied into the sofa with my stitching. I pulled out my dishtowel that I started months ago:

I have one more motif to put on it.  The designs are by Maria Diaz and I got the book on Amazon.   The towel is by Dohler and is available at 123stitch.  The towels are really nice quality and are reasonably priced.  

So I have to share my new treasure.  I love, love, love my KitchenAid stand mixer.  I have several attachments and have felt that KitchenAid really makes great products.  So a few weeks ago, I got an email from Target, saying that they were having a huge KitchenAid sale.  It is a rare thing for me to click on the advertisement emails that I receive, but thought I would just see what there was.  

Target had refurbished KitchenAid 9 cup food processors for $49.99 minus an additional promo code discount.  The new ones are usually $225 and up.  I had heard somewhere that a lot of refurbished items are items which were just returned without being used, but can not be sold as new.  Plus it had a one year warranty,  so I thought I would check it out.  In addition to sale and promo, another 5% off was available by using the Target red card and there was free shipping.  It still can't believe what a great deal it was.  The food processor is so beautiful and everything looks pristine, and there were no scratches or anything.  Everything was new and it came with several blades and choppers.  It works perfectly.  Holiday dinners are going to be so much easier.  I just love looking at it as I walk by it in the kitchen.  BTW, it is rather large!  I love that I got such a great deal!  My friend at work said that I need to make homemade potato chips!

I got a really late start on the garden this year, so things are just really starting to get exciting. The leaves on my summer squash are dinner plate size.  That squash in the photo is bigger than my fist.  Our hot season is starting.  June and July can be really cold here, and then late August, September and October are our warm summer weather months.  Sometimes, I am still harvesting tomatoes in November.

Being home really makes me happy and I feel like I am restored by being home.  I am happy to report that Liesl is feeling much better and is acting more like herself after her restful weekend.  We will have her big birthday celebration next weekend with her daddy.  This weekend, it was nice to have her all to myself, and to be in the home I love so much, doing the things I love to do.  

Hope you have a wonderful week in your home, too!