Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Brrrr…. We are having a major cold spell. Yesterday it got up to a whopping 18 degrees (farenheit) and today is not much better. Rob and I went out and about for a bit and went for a walk on the water icey lake in Anchor Bay. Rob wanted to take the car for a spin but I was only willing to walk on water – did not want to drive on it. Although I have to admit, I have done that. It wasn’t one of my brighter moments especially since the boys were very young and in the car with us. I can just hear my mother: “If everyone jumped off the mile high bridge would you just blindly follow?” Apparently, I would. The world needs Indians too you know; not just chiefs. After all, I did always enjoy a good game of follow the leader!

See the cars and the ice shanty's way out there? I might have ventured out there had it not been so bloody cold. I think with the wind chill it was something like 2 degrees. Brrrrr……

The only thing I can think of that might be fun about this kind of an outing, is sitting in the shanty with a fire and lots of alcohol to drink. You guess the guys out there are trying to escape? From what????? What could be so bad that you’d actually go out and sit in a wood shanty, on the ice, in absolutely frigid weather? Granted, most of the shanty’s are heated but still. Okay, I think most of the guys out there are drinking (a LOT), too. That MIGHT make it tolerable, for a little while. Then again, nah. Yeah, I did try ice fishing once. Never again. My feet froze, I didn’t catch anything and the spiked hot chocolate just wasn’t enough to keep me interested.

Just for fun - 'Yeah, I know this post isn't all that fun but let's pretend - just for fun, here's another shot Rob took of me looking back toward the dock (which got cut off) and the natural grass line of the lake:

And, just in case you think this might not really be a lake check out the Swim at your own Risk sign. This is the dock that's supposed to be in the picture above. sigh.....

We had lunch at a great little restaurant in town and I'd show you a pic of what I ate but I'm kind of embarrassed about it. Okay, I'll show you but I don't want to hear a thing about the dangers of fried food, of all those carbs or anything else! I warn you, this isn't pretty (it was delicious, though):

Mmmmmm.... look at all that deep fried goodness!

Yep, 3 giant pieces of beer battered catfish with mini potato pancakes (and yes, that's sour cream on one of them). YUM. Oh, and right before this little heart attack on a plate, I had a bowl of chicken and dumpling soup. Embarrassing.

Uh, yeah. I ate it all.

God help me.

While we were enjoying our meal, looking across the water at our Canadian neighbors, the U.S. Coast Guard ice cutter came by. The ice was impressive but the cutter, even more so. Check it out:

And here, is a shot, looking across the water, at our Canadian friends. See the Maple Leaf flag, or L’Unifole’ blowing proudly in the wind? Pretty, eh?

I do have some stitching to show you!

I am making decent (for me) progress on my Farm Sampler. The alphabet is almost done - two more lines of big, rice stitch letters, then the border on the right and finally, down to all the over one at the bottom. I am really enjoying this piece although I'm a bit sick of the black letters.

Ooops, a few berries still need to be filled in, I see.

I have Marianne (see previous post) all ready to go. Almost. I don't have scroll rods long enough so had to order some from Kay's Creations. I can't stitch with that much fabric without rods. I have converted the DMC colors to a combination of WDW, GAST and CC's and think the varigation in the threads will be pretty. I will be stitching her on Lakeside Linen's Navy Bean. The colors by themselves, look kind of funky but the overall effect is going to be awesome (I hope).

Here are the DMC called for colors and the substitutions I made. I think they match up pretty well and will give the piece a little more interest.

Called for DMC:

My conversions from what I had in my stash plus 3 of the DMC's for which I didn't have a suitable match. I'll find something next time I go to the NSLLNS.

I Can't wait to get started but now I have to wait for scroll rods and truth be told, I'd rather finish my Farm Sampler before getting started on this. I don't like too many projects going at once. I will, I'm sure, have to throw something small in just to get the satisfaction of a completion every now and again while working on this. A few of you eagle eyed gals noticed my size calculations had to be wrong in the previous post. You are correct! I took the measurements right off the paper and I guess they did measure this on 28 count fabric over one. I'll not be stitching it over one. Mine will be over two on 34 count fabric so it's going to be another big one when finished. Yeah!

Thanks so much for stopping by and for all of your sweet comments and emails. I love hearing from you and I read and appreciate each and every one. It's a good thing knowing that you're out there and reading.

I hope I haven't bored you too much with all the outdoor and food pics but like the header says, this isn't just a blog about stitching!

Peace,

Terri