7 to go....

 I added a few more chip blocks Sunday.  10 of the needed 17 are done.

Hmmm. That light yellow print really shows as a light in the photo.  Not going to change it, but won't cut more of that for the color piles.

Going to be a crazy week.

Monday, both kids late. Band and academic club. Guitar for Aidan. 

Tuesday,  academic meet aidan.

Wednesday Emily fall concert.

Thursday, homecoming football game makeup followed by dance until midnight. 

Friday- off school but.... Emily all day band practice, Aidan dr. Appt.

Saturday, Emily competition on west coast. Aidan engineering day at school 10-4.

I know pork roast tonight with mashed potato and a veggie. Wednesday I'll do the butternut squash with bacon and brussel sprouts for me and Aidan. I took a little ham out of the freezer, so maybe a ham and cheese quiche tuesday?

Weekend update

 I have been making progress on the second border of the cat and mice quilt. The triangles of cheese are tempting the mice and I'm nearly done 2 sides. It was nice quilting last night to a Lightning hockey game. I splurged this year and got Fubu which states it carries the local hockey games on Bally sports. I'm trying it out for a weekly trial to see. There are games Tuesday and Thursday so we will see.

I was able to get 7 of the potato chip blocks sewn up today before the bobbin ran out. I took that as a sign to be done for the day. This is the amount of parts left, so more will need to get cut out and prepped for more blocks - especially the lights. 

The 8th block was in progress. I select 2 colored ones for the middle, then 6 for the lights. Two sets of 2 colors and two sets of 3 colors to finish off the block. I try to get a little of each color in each block. This one has dark blue and orange in the middle. The sets of 2 - purple and green; red and yellow. The sets of 3 - teal, red, green and medium blue, brown and pink. I have 10 blocks to go before the quilt will hopefully be happy with a 7x6 setting of the 12 inch blocks. (72x84). I fear it might be unhappy with that size as well and want to be bigger. Stubborn quilt.

Linking up with the RSC on Saturday and Slow Sunday Stitching.

Greg and I headed over to see his Dad in rehab today. I guess Greg did not call Tuesday like I thought, and Tom was unaware of why we did not stop in Thursday. He knew kids were out of school (from the staff) but did not put that together with the Hurricane and why we didn't go over until today. His house was fine, and the power was back on. We put the storm shutters up and verified the AC was functioning and reset his clocks from the power loss. We will find out on Wednesday about his release date, but he appears to be strong enough to be going home very soon. There were lots of limbs and branches piled up on the side of the road for pick up and lots of gas stations without gas. I was very happy to have a full tank of gas in my car and the truck. One gas jug went to the lawn mower and if the stations near us are without gas, the other one will go in the kids car to get to school on Monday. 

Lets hope that is the end of storms for us this year.ca

My MIL got her power back on last night and did a happy dance. The clean up crew was also able to finish up her yard in a few hours late afternoon, so she is one very happy lady. I'll bet she is tossing the fridge and freezer but all in all is in good shape.

Friday ....

I think I took this photo a couple of days ago. He lifted his head while I grabbed my camera but put it back for the photo.

When I say we didn't get damage, this is what the back yard looked like before Aidan picked it up yesterday. Just leaves and small branches. We were very lucky. He has a nice stack of limbs and leaves in the fire pit.

We need to order a new tarp for shade for the girls. It got a little shredded from Helene. They were happy for some nibble seeds in this photo.

Emily was able to go to horses today instead of tomorrow. This is what I saw when I got home with her. The boy was doing the lawn.

I started on the triangle of cheese border last night. I feel much better after a good nights sleep. 

My MIL is still without power. Gas is still sparce, but the crew she hired had it looking great again in a few hours.  Traffic is terrible heading south, everyone heading back to their homes. Other than Greg taking Emily to horses across town today and me picking her up, we have stayed off the roads. She got to have barn time and helped groom the horses, give them some love and hung out with Kyra who she rides with. They also did their lesson today, since Lori needed to head to Winter Springs to help her Mom. She is mid-80's and just got her power back on, but the sewage is backing up in her house. Yuck. We warned her the Turnpike is closed southbound where things washed out... turns out that is the exit she gets off from but it will be a nightmare with detours! The girls had barn time from a little after 9AM until 2:30. They got all the animals brushed, fed and back out to the pastures. Loved up on the sheep that were hanging out there through the hurricane and the donkeys. I'm sure the 2 barn cats got attention as well. 

The kids complained (Aidan specifically) about my meals this week. Seems they were not happy. Monday was roasted veggie and italian sausage with penne pasta (zucchini, peppers, mushrooms and onion) with garlic bread. Tuesday, I warmed up a frozen bag of brisket and some baked potato. Wednesday I think they were on their own. Last night I made taco meat and fixings for a salad, with a taco salad for Emily (bottom layer is creamcheese/sour cream mixture, then strained salsa, onion, tomato, lettuce, mozzarella, black olives) eaten with chips. Friday is order pizza night. They will like that at least.

All good here.

 We have power and there appears to be no damage at my house. The dog had a long night. It rained all day and night - we got more than 6 inches of rain. I have not checked the gauge since about 4:30 when I was out with the dog. We finally got him to go out but had to go with him during the windy and pouring rain parts. We did have one accident in the front room. Poor guy. A little stressed from the storm.

We were very fortunate but lots of the state has had damage and it still having strong winds over on the east coast.

There are lots of people without power. We are very fortunate to have it.

It sounds like trees and power lines are down in our county so we will stay put until things are cleared. Waiting to hear on how my MIL is and will wait to check on Tom's house until Fri/Sat.

I did get the first white border on the cat and mouse quilted! Time to move onto the triangle cheese border.

Monday update

 Looks like Mother Nature sure is in a terrible mood! Milton is a Cat 5 with 180 MPH sustained winds. It should weaken tomorrow before making landfall as a 3. We will see. I hope it wobbles away from Tampa, but either way the coast is going to have some crazy storm surge. 

We are very far inland, so no worries about storm surge for me. We will get some winds and rain, but we are as prepped as we can be. I will make a few loaves of bread tomorrow as all the stores were out today when I went in the afternoon. 

The gas stations are all out as well. Hopefully a few trucks arrive overnight to refill. The highways headed north are 4 lanes of slowly moving traffic. They opened the left shoulder as a lane as well to move traffic. Millions of people need to evacuate from the coast - Tampa area. There are no available hotels.

Our county changed from having 3 shelters open starting tomorrow to 10 shelters open due to all the evacuations. The shelters are the schools. The kids have school tomorrow and they say it takes 2 hours to set up the shelters. They open at 5 or 6 PM tomorrow. 

Aidan had Academic club after school, and we texted him to pick up dinner on his way home before heading to his guitar lesson. We were picking up Emily at school after Marching Band practice ended at 6 and then heading to Lady Lake to button up my FIL's house. Greg and Emily put down the hurricane shutters and I cleared out his fridge/freezer into a cooler in case he loses power. Got everything put away and secured. They also helped the neighbor put their hurricane shutters down as well. They were quite rusted as they had not been used in a while. We stopped at Carvers for dinner and got Emily home around 9PM. She had about an hour of homework to do. 

The dog has had play time and lots of snuggles. He is not happy when everyone leaves him... which is a good thing I work from home! 

Laundry is done. Dishes will be all done tomorrow night and I'll refill up water containers with water for drinking and the tub with water as well. We do have the full pool as well. We have a well, so no power means no water.  We did grab a generator from my FIL, so we have that for the fridge and freezer if needed. 

That's the Monday evening update.

Slow Sunday

 Well, day 3 of migraine. The meds did not help this time, but the Advil did for the win! 

I had hubby take Emily to her Gold Planning Session so I could sleep. The Advil kicked in and I was able to pick her up. She was kind enough to plan my meals for the week so I didn't have to on the way home. I hear she is making fried rice tonight for dinner.

I stopped at the UPS Store to get a form notarized for Aidan's out of state trip next month. Juniors in the AICE program can do a trip on The Civil Rights Movement. They go to Montgomery, Birmingham and Atlanta with lots of stops at key spots in the Civil Rights Movement with hands on learning. They have their 4 for their room at the hotels picked out and coordinated. It is a 5 day trip next month.

We just got a call from the Marion County schools. They are closing school Wednesday and Thursday this week, with all after school activities cancelled on Tuesday due to the incoming storm Milton. Depending on damage will determine if they have school on Friday or not. They are opening shelters in 3 of the schools to allow a place for people to go in mobile homes or who live in non secure areas with projected hurricane winds. We live in a poured concrete house, so pretty secure with no trees close to the house. We are all set still from the last storm, just need to take down the cover over the carport on Tuesday and remove my fall wreath from the front door. 

I moved onto the borders for the hand quilting and have 1.5 sides to do in white before I move onto the triangle of cheese (for the mice) and the butterfly's (for the cats) in the outer two borders. Linking up with the Slow Sunday Stitchers.

Let me hold this down for you Mom. Now take my photo!

Since Emily needs to have a Journey completed before she can submit her Gold Award Project for approval, I also printed off the Think Like a Programmer meeting plans and notes in case we lose power/internet. I'll work with her on it when I am done work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday is my day off. I might hand off to her Dad, who just finished his BS in Computer Science last month. She is good in math and science so this one should come easy to her. I am a computer programmer so it should be an easy one for me to guide her through. I hear her Gold will be concerning Bees and why they are important. It should be a fun one for her to research and educate people about. She is expanding on her report she did on this going into High School last year. I'm sure you will be hearing more of this as she dig in to it after marching band season ends.

RSC - prep work

This was the dog last night. It's a tough life having a fight with Lambie. Lots of shaking and destuffing happened.

I left the 'crime scene' in place for Emily to see when she got home at midnight. I did manage to restuff Lambie and stitch him up. Turns out, once stitched it is not as fun since the dog can't unstuff him at will! 

I was to ride with Emily today, but the headache I had Thursday came back last night. It is a cross between a migraine (no issue with light or sound), a headache and spinning head when I bend or lean down. I did walk the dog this morning. I was going to bring Emily to horses, but hubby got up and when I mentioned a migraine, he offered to take her. I let him and took a nap.

I did get the Accuquilt out and the 2.5 inch die. I had not used that one yet. I pressed some fabric and got some 2.5 inch strips cut from scraps and fabric on the shelves. I then sat in my chair and sub cut into 2.5x4.5 parts. For each potato chip block, I need 6 lights and 12 colors. I tried to get a good variety. I'll cut more but this is a starting point. Linking up with the RSC.

It appears Florida is set to get another hurricane mid week. Milton has formed. This could be very bad for Tampa, which was hit from Helene last week. We will be watching the weather here in Florida and will see what happens. I have a feeling the kids will be off school one or two days this week. It is homecoming week, so that will be messing things up pretty well.  We are so glad that my FIL's tree is all taken down and won't cause any damage with this next storm.