So...........

here I sit, looking through the window. It's getting very dark outside and we're under tornado watch until 10PM. The mayor sent city employees home at 2:30 PM so we can all watch the storm coming. It's 80 degrees outside but is supposed to be a little cooler tomorrow. Michael came by to pick up the football tickets for this Saturday's game:  Alabama (yea) vs. Tennessee. He'll be leaving tomorrow after work for the trip to Tuscaloosa.

Since there's not a lot to do right now-I avoid housework-and I'm taking a bread from stitching, here's a look at the last few day's activities.

This is a piece that I did years ago-the 80's, I think-and I decided to frame it for the kitchen. Amazing how one's taste changes over the years.....

Now for a look at some progress. Houmas House is moving along. It's an easy stitch (not a short one!) and is really nice. The shading is so subtle. And really looks like the house itself. I'm using the threads called for: DMC and Weeks overdyes.

A Summer Ball is lookin' good. I am changing some of the dress colors and am planning to watch P&P later to see what other colors men wore for dress suits back in those days. The pattern calls for black and white but that's BORING!!! We'll see.

And here's a belated birthday present I've given myself. Diane at my LNS gives a 25% discount during a birthday month. I've really been wanting to do this for a long time: it's the mate to the Quaker Christmas  that's already finished and hanging. I did it in shades of green with touches of red and gold. This one will be in shades of blue with a mahogany brown for the lettering. It's kitted up but I have no idea when I'll start it.

And last but not least: here's the answer to the $64,000 question. The Totally Useless SAL is just what the name implies. Stitchers collect a lot of trash. Little bits and pieces of thread (called "orts"), broken needles, thread labels, etc.  Those belonging to the SAL save them in special jars, or whatever. Once a month, at the New Moon, we report our savings. This past month was a busy one for me. Sometimes I don't do a lot of stitching and there's not a lot of little treasures. Every month I move the stuff into little glass Christmas ornaments which I place in the bowl up side down. I have a very LARGE glass jar and at the end of the year I'm going to move all those little balls to the jar. The only scary thing is to see how many scraps there are. And the colors are really nice when combined all together.

   I really am still alive!  It's been an interesting couple of weeks.  We all fully recovered from the rainy trip home to the ballgame. Since then we've won two more. And have moved to #2 in the polls. I'm really not sure we deserve it, but none of the others teams are that good, either. I'm glad Tebow survived the LSU game on Saturday with LSU. In a  mother's opinion, he should not have been playing. Only two weeks out from a major concussion. And tossing his cookies all over the sideline!

I turned another year older on October 3rd. It was a good day. Bama won it's game and we all had lemon/chocolate doberge cake from Baum's. A taste of heaven on earth. I was a big 63. Believe me, at this stage of the game birthdays are a good thing.

In my last post I showed you a picture of my newest chart. I couldn't just kit it up without taking a few stitches. Which started me on a jag. Even though it looks complicated, it isn't. Very ordered. Easy to read chart. Below are a couple of pictures of the real Houmas House. It's just a few miles from here, so I'm going to make the trip down in just a few weeks. This weekend is a festival there, but every one in the area will be there, so I'll make the trip when it's quiet and I can really enjoy things.  

                                            

                                                           

There is a website for Houmas House and I think it's really worth a look. Check out the brochure link for some really great  pictures.

http://www.houmashouse.com/

This is my progress so far. It's probably going to become a little tedious when I get to the sky and the lawn. May have to do a little gridding!

This is my latest read. Just finished it. Really very good. Caroline Bingley gets her comeuppance and it wasn't without tragedy. I thought her style of writing was on a little bit higher level than some of the other P&P knockoffs. It begins just after the wedding. I still see some of Darcy's temper. I enjoyed re-connecting with old friends and, of course, meeting new ones. I would suspect there will be another in the series.

That's about all for today. I have a couple of framing projects to show plus some more WIP's to report. But right now my stitching is calling. To say nothing of Criminal Minds!