April fool

Not funny.

Another Saturday working at Carole's and 70 mph winds sent us to pioneer days again.   Not only her house, but ours and thousands others.  Two layers of sweat clothes needed, no water (we have a well), oil lamps and battery candles. They closed the highway we use, the two roads that offer access to town, and we had a nice ride several times a day to find ice for the coolers.  We are back on now, others waiting until tomorrow.  If it wasn't for the state road needing reopened, we would certainly be in that group.  Workers from across the state were still here from the prior outage which helped tremendously.  I think neighboring Ohio towns, especially Hubbard, were affected just as bad if not worse. 

We tried a new "save the food" method and was surprised that it worked.  The perishables that did not fit in the cooler stayed in the fridge, and we used a 7# ice bag set in a metal roasting pan on the middle shelf.  Purpose was to catch the melting ice but it became essential in actually lowering the fridge temp.  We went from 50 degrees to 42 in two hours.  We also filled the veggie bins with loose ice and added condiment jars and whatever would fit.  It worked beautifully.  Half the ice in the coolers had melted and the fridge ice, hardly at all.  So glad we tried this!  There were no generators in stock here, they sold 38 in the first hour at Lowes.  I do plan to order one online.

This is Maud.  Redux.  I do not like that word.  Notice how she repeated the color pattern.  Two gold, two red, two pink, two blue, two green, two brown.  Maybe common in samplers and I never noticed.

This is how I stitched in the dark.  LED headlamp strapped onto my Dazor.  Better than my head!  Every slight movement moved the light and made me dizzy, much better on a stationary object.

Anyway, trying to stitch with natural light showed the 816 to be that shade of lipstick that has a cool tone.  So I removed along with the ghosted green and tried several others.  The chart calls for 221 and I returned to it, liked it, and decided to use two strands on the wiggly band even though this is 36 count.  That is the feature that drew me to Maud and I was not going to be happy until it mimicked the chubby look.  Eureka!  Perfect.  I have DMC here, no wool as Maud used, and I did not want to use 28 count.  Thought about 32 but it's hard to rummage through linen with a flashlight.  I changed the 524 green to the awful 3348, but on this linen in this piece .... perfect.  Who knew?  The 524 is KL in top line and 3348 is uv above the wiggle, just enough of a change to be noticed.  Two threads are only used on the wiggle, so far.  Much better in person.

We have quite warm temps and the day will be consumed with once again, sticks and limbs pick up and burn. Here's a peek at the larger shelf we installed after removing the dresser's mirror, and the file holders that are working great.  More items to add to the shelf but for now, these large heavy (and handy) oil lamps are in a safe place (the shelf has a lip).

Hope to catch up with all I missed for three days, still need an email program!

Hope you have light and warmth!  Be safe.

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