 Good Sunday morning people. If you hear rumbling in the background, my husband's leaving to go to the gym for one of the last times that it's going to be open for a while, at least two weeks. Anyway, it is 9.35 a.m. Sunday, November 15th, I think. It has been quite the morning. It's not even 10 o'clock yet. I'm like, that's the garage door. If you can hear that, I'm not sure until I play it back, but anyway, we're right above the garage. So we started off Sunday morning with me remembering that I forgot to close the vlog for last week, so I did that already this morning. You saw me in my messy hair bed bun. Then we were just checking on social media and watching YouTube videos with coffee and that sort of thing, and the internet did a hard down, and it was out for quite a while. Got a little concerned about my husband working from home tomorrow. We were figuring out which phone he can do a hotspot with. Turns out both of them. Casey had two for tomorrow for work. It's back up and running now, but you know, you know. Anyway, I'm going to make myself a lanyard this morning because we're going to take Puppy Dog out on a WALK later. I can't say the word because she'll get all like crazy. Anyway, I'm going to make myself a lanyard because I don't want to lose my keys again because yeah, that's a bad thing. Check on a few things on my desktop that I can't check on on the iPad easily downstairs, and I also need to start writing a couple of different documents, and one of which, because I need to get it off to the printer soon. I also need to continue working on the piece of fabric I'm making out of the hexagons, English paper piecing style, and I got a box of Crayola colored pencils in the mail that I want to try, and it's always something. Okay, after the incident yesterday, last week, if you're watching this vlog, with my keys, in case you missed that vlog, we were out walking in the rain and I lost my keys. We only had the one set of keys to get back in the house. Some very nice, kindly neighbors helped us look for them unsuccessfully, but I don't know if it was answered prayers from the universe or what. On the way back to the house, we decided to try one more spot and I found my keys. However, in an effort to not have a repeat of that situation, I'm making myself a lanyard to put my keys on before I go walking. Now, to be fair, after Grand Dog Lily knocking me over not long ago when we were out walking, on a warm day when I didn't have a coat on, I broke my fall with my face hitting the concrete just halfway. It was pretty nasty. I have a small bag that when it's too hot for a jacket, I will put on and my phone, my inhaler, my keys go in there. When it's cold and I have a coat on with lots of pockets, I don't see a need to also have that bag on necessarily. Obviously, after yesterday, I need a more secure way to have my keys on me. We'll have an alternative of the small bag or the lanyard. My rain jacket that I usually wear when we're walking most of the winter has a lot of pockets, but evidently not secure enough for the keys. I have a piece of fabric here that's about two and a half inches wide and it's about 34 inches long. I'm going to use to make myself a lanyard. So you'll need a strip of fabric and you'll need a hook. So I have these. I used to make and sell cell phone bags. So I have lots of these left over. You can get these at any fabric store. I think you can even find them at Michael's in the jewelry department. But use what you have. See if you have some kind of big clippy hook thing that you can use. Maybe off of an old handbag that's falling apart. Then hang on. Okay. So I took that hook I told you about and the piece of fabric. It was about two and a half inches wide and about 34 inches long. And I thought I filmed this and evidently I lost the clip. So anyway, I folded it in half and pressed it and then I folded the raw edges in and then I sewed down the length of the fabric strip. Then I took the two little small ends and put them through the hook and stitched them down a few times. It's not the prettiest thing on the planet. It doesn't need to be. I just need to not lose my keys again. So lanyard instead of buying one. I had the stuff. I made one. It cost me nothing. Now we won't lose the keys again, we hope, right? That's the idea anyways. All right. I'm gonna do a couple more things and I'll be back. Hey guys, we're going for a walk before lunch today. And this time, unlike yesterday, our keys are secure plus Fred has an extra pair or set because you know we really don't want to repeat it yesterday. That being said, I do have an empty ziploc bag in case I find stuff I want to pick up. All right, we'll be back. Morning everybody. It is Monday, November 16th, I think, 9 0 8 a.m. I think it's the 16th. I know it's Monday, but you know, then again, it's like Monday every day this year. My neighbor's having some construction work done because there's workmen in his house. Anyway, yeah, so I am obviously in the car and trying to figure out how much to say. So we found out someone close to us, not in distance but in relationship. This person lives in another state, but they're close to us. If you get my drift has been exposed to COVID-19 probably. We get confirmation sometime in the next 24 hours. This person is elderly and yeah, I also found out this person, bless our soul, has been giving away all the masks I've been sending, which is wonderful, but yeah, so I am sending some more masks to that person and also another friend who requested some. I'm now officially out of cotton masks. I have head tubes and head tubes. They're double layer and or one really thick layer and I have disposable masks plus Bob and I have our own stash of cloth masks, so don't worry about that. In fact, I've got one here in the car, but I need to make some more for spares in case somebody like what happened last night lets me know they need masks because I don't have any spares now. I'd have to wait a couple days and make some of them. So sometime this week I'm going to be adding mask making to my to-do list again and going through my fabric stash and pulling out fabrics and making them. Everybody it is Tuesday morning 8 58 a.m. Yeah, I'm in front of the computer. Hello, that's all I know. Anyway, we are going to set up for today's live broadcast which is supposed to start in about an hour and I've got to get the room and the computer and things set up and do something with the piles of like stuff that's on my desk and trash and yeah, so let's get to it shall we? Okay, I think we're ready or just about. I think we're going to do some dyed papers today and also work on this month's November 2020's Mission Inspiration by Mike Deacon. I think that's what we're going to do. So I've got all the stuff out ready to go and yeah just going to pittle until it's time. I'll be back. Cleaning today which is what I expected to be doing this afternoon but okay. So the first thing I did was I rearranged this a little bit so that it makes sense what's down there and I can get to it easily so that the top two basically are inspiration and reference books that I'm currently using frequently and or want to. The bottom two are basically patterns mostly sewing patterns but also some there's one binder that's there that one's crochet that one's embroidery there's a couple of big books on the end that are like vintage books I take papers out of to do for collage. I have a bunch of little small books most of them are from my grandmother's collection there that I use also for collage. She's also stuff like I'll find flowers and notes and things in some of them which is funny. See there you go. And I just find it yeah I find it endlessly interesting what I find in there and I use them in my work so that's nice that they're up here on the small bits bank. So I got that all cleaned up. I had a bunch of little tiny like souvenir things there were I always had to move them all to get stuff down there so I moved those around a bit and or I put some away for the moment and yeah I got a little pile of stuff there that I'm going to send for donation. I also have two mystery boxes that haven't sold yet and if they don't sell in the next week or so then I'll be decomposing decomposing no deconstructing them and pulling out what can be donated and maybe taking all the collage images and things that might be in there and putting them in an envelope and seeing if that'll sell better. I don't know something like that maybe I'll just throw stuff away. We'll see. I have a box of stuff in the garage a purge box that I will probably send some of it to donation again it depends if those two mystery boxes sell or not. What else did I do? I also oh I also found some rubber stamps I'm going to purge just a few like three or four sets because I wanted to move things around in the closet these are my stamps not only my boxes of my designs which are on the end but I have a collection of Tim Holtz stamps and my friend Mike Deacon stamps and different things I've collected over the years. I love blueprint stamps fun fact. Anyway I wanted to make room for the new box on the end art foamy's so we've got an art foamy's box now so yeah that'll make them really easy to get into and then I was dyeing some papers until they's live broadcast and with some of the natural dyes I've made that I was using on fabric I haven't used them on paper yet and I decided to take some of the ones that didn't really turn out super great and I pressed them I love that and they're going to be great like collage papers here's one that's really bright they're not dry yet look at that so I'm going to let them dry I'll put a picture here for you all of the dried ones I also did some printing with the art foamy's and my natural dyes like dye made out of blueberries and right so you know they're just like there we are they're just like collage papers they're not intended to be a focal point but they're intended to be something interesting for a background to something else and I really wanted to I love I enjoy making my own papers more than store-bought papers not that I don't have store-bought papers and I love them but you know I also had a couple that I thought didn't turn out so good so I sandwiched them between some of the other ones that were really really wet and I got can you even see that I don't know if you can see that but there yep there's a ghosted image of the the art foamy stamp on there here's another one this one's not quite dry yet so that'll be really cool anyway and now I have a stack of work basket magazines so my grandmother loved work basket magazines she never threw a copy away and somehow I inherited the pile or most of the pile some of the pile I don't know so I'm gonna sit and go through them I'm gonna pull out anything that's interesting I'm not sure why I'm hanging on to them except that they were hers and that's not too bright so good morning everybody it is Wednesday November November 19th maybe no 18th it's November 18th 903 a.m you know I want to say February March it's not it's November anyway I can say publicly now because people have been notified but we found out last night my mother-in-law who's 91 um we got confirmation that she was exposed to COVID-19 by a neighbor my daughter is also helping us out no mail yet um helping us out she's helping me out with some business stuff today she is getting ready to send out and scheduling business newsletters so if you're not on my newsletter list and you want to know upcoming news with the Etsy shop and product releases coupon codes you will get first access to not only the coupon codes but some things have limited inventory and right now because of COVID and things I may not be restocking very quickly so if you want first dibs on something and you want the coupon code for the holidays or something you need to sign up for the newsletter which is in my link tree list the links down below she's also going to be lending a hand with patreon and all of that for those that don't know my daughter is in marketing and advertising it's what she does so she's giving her mom a hand it's probably a good thing all right 11th 03 or so a and thursday november 19th it's kind of sunny ish well it's over it's partly cloudy it's a little brisk but it's not too bad and there's no rain more importantly at the moment maybe i'll get some steps in today we didn't last night because it was raining way too hard anyway morning people it's about 9 30 ish on friday november 20th and i am coffeeed up and showered and dressed and i'm done with the computer behind me i think today the focus is going to be finishing that little christmas bunny cross stitch because it's just driving me nuts and to do that i'm going to have to where are we unplug and move that magnifying light that's right there on the desk behind me to the center work table anybody who's done embroidery or cross stitch before knows you know there are two color combinations that even if you have young eyes are hard to see black and black and white and there's a lot of white on white on this rabbit so i need a brighter magnifying light because downstairs lights not just not cutting it and um if there's any mistakes in it right now it's going to just have to be that way i'm off to work around it because i ain't fixing it anyway that's going to be my focus today i'm kind of hoping to get it done today or at least mostly done so we'll see so anyway let's get it set up and let's get started shall we i'll be back so if you're watching this clip you saw the clip of me doing some stitching have we gotten as much progress this morning on it as i wanted new why exactly because you know who doesn't know how to count and i found some counting errors which i had to figure out workarounds around to make it work um anybody who's done cross stitch knows exactly what i mean and you're not in your head um anyway also my daughter's been texting me like a mad woman she's um for those that don't know she works in marketing and advertising she's helping her mom out um with the etsy shop um she's laid off right now so she said mom let me give you a hand and no i'm not paying her she's not working for me she's just freely giving me a hand but if you need somebody to do that she's available so anyway um let me know you can DM me or private message me um we are setting up some specials for black friday and um the holidays if you want the early bird notice on the coupon codes you need to be in the um email newsletter or patreon or youtube membership and the links for all of those are in the description below if you click on the link tree list of links it has the email newsletter and the um patreon link in it but i think those are also just like loose in the video description hunt around you'll find them um so yeah um the early bird people will get advance notice of um the coupon code supply on some things are limited i will be trying to make some more sticker flakes to increase the inventory on those between now and then and i have a couple new designs i'm going to try hard to get done before friday um yeah there's a lot of stuff to do anyway so i got interrupted doing all of that and then decided after correcting i think i think most of the counting mistakes on the cross stitch that it was time to break for lunch so i had some lunch i just watched a little bit of youtube which i've honestly been listening to youtube or something all morning in one ear while stitching um but we're going to go back upstairs we're going to keep going at it and see how far we can get today do i think we'll get it done today probably not but we'll see how far i can get you never know all right i'll be back you're going to not get this little bunny done today but i did make great progress there are definitely some county errors somewhere so i'm having to make adjustments as i go um that being said i do i did think of a reason to finish him so i haven't sent him to actually finish him in the next couple of days so i'm going to give my hands a break um so fun fact i was talking about this with barba clark not long ago um i don't often wear them on camera and haven't worn them a lot lately i haven't needed to i haven't done so much stitching for hours in a row i usually give my hands a break because i'm not young anymore and i have arthritis in both hands but most of my daytime job working career i've done something that um is very repetitive so i um at one time was a state and national license dispensing optician and i made your eyeglasses and um that requires of course a lot of manipulation right i also worked um a lot in retail and as a retail merchandiser i have um and of course writing on the typing on the computer and all of that and crafting um so i have some you know arthritis tensiony issues with my hands um also years of knitting and crochet don't help i also hurt my hands a number of times um how many of you have had the braces on your hands that have the metal in the palm so that you can't move your your hand or and or some of your fingers both hands um i've also had stitches in um both hands a couple of times so yeah so sometimes when i'm stitching and i probably will put these on later because i think i'm going to continue trying to get some more of this done later or these compression gloves fingerless compression gloves um these are the futuro brand um i these are the kind i prefer and i used to actually wear these not only when crafting but when working they really helped my hands a lot my last job was as a retail merchandiser and the movements i made were very repetitive and if i didn't wear these then my hands really were just for crap at the end of the day you can get these at any um store that has first aid supplies generally these are their fingerless compression gloves and um yeah these are always my favorite i've got a few of these laying around i used to have lots of them because i would take them off and wash them every night when i got off work because they got disgusting but anyway so i'm going to bring these downstairs i'm going to take a break though for a little bit i'm going to do some flexing of my hands and do a few exercises and go get the mail while i'm doing it and stuff like that and uh we'll be back to it tomorrow so i'll be back people we're out for a walk it's very brisk i don't know what temperature it is but it's kind of brisk it was 41 degrees 41 that's cold a little foggy 30 but he asks it's only 5 46 p.m yeah and it's dark outside and very foggy feels like it's the middle of the night yeah feels like it's like 10 o'clock at night but it's not the soul is out nope only us crazy people all right we'll be back morning people so it's like just after nine o'clock and do you hear that noise oh yeah there's a big wood chipper it looks like maybe there's a huge tree coming down in the neighborhood because there are tree people out there with a big wood chipper and they've got one of those big guide ropes like you want to make sure the tree goes a certain way and doesn't hit anybody ropes so i don't know what's going on i'm tempted to put my galoshes on even though i'm in my pajamas i am covered up so what's the difference let's go see it's probably cold outside hang on i guess my answer to that was yes they are taking down a tree wow it is 321 and we got our errands done we needed to do this morning which is a little nervous about because saturday people in covid you know the things i wasn't too bad um we but we didn't thankfully need too much so we oughta done i have a project coming up for december that i want to do and i did order some bits but i'm afraid they're not going to commit in time so i just bought a little bit more stuff at our local mom and pop stationery and scrap booking store um also wanted to give them some business which i haven't done since covid started so anyway i did that and i got the bunny done i'll put a picture here uh the christmas bunny is done and that's gonna be factored into the project for december i'm not going to ever make that chart again because it um just the finished project is cute but i had the hardest time getting it done just because i'm not really super into christmasy things i think i don't know there's something about the chart but i am gonna give the chart away and maybe one of you all wants it and you want to try it um so let me know first i only have one copy i'm not making photocopies so only one so first come first serve anyway i've watered all the house plants folded laundry i have to feed the sourdough starter so yeah i'm gonna do that now and then maybe we'll go for a walk before it gets dark out maybe i think he's paying pills for the first time ever we're sending out um holiday letters in our christmas cards we send out christmas cards every year we never put a letter in it a lot of people put sort of a christmas letter a holiday letter in their card you know sort of a summary of what their how their year's been bob and i never do that uh haven't in almost 40 years but this year we're going to put a letter so it's on the way from vista print and the postage for the christmas cards came today the reason i'm bringing this up is i ordered christmas cards on target because i wasn't seeing any that i liked and what i was seeing was really expensive and i didn't think i had any of my stash upstairs that i'd bought like on half off last year except then i went through some stuff these are the ones from target these are the ones i found upstairs oops so um i told the kids don't buy any cards because i have plenty we do send out about 100 to 125 cards every year so these will go but right now this is enough for probably two years for us we don't need that many um if the kids end up not taking any or not taking very many of them i can say that we don't need to buy any for next year i need to make myself a note because yeah so it's 11 24 p.m on saturday and i almost went to bed bed and forgot about y'all again and closing the vlog it's become a regular covid thing i don't know yeah anyway it's been another interesting week but we got a lot of stuff done today so i'm pretty happy with that we have a bird bath in the backyard that the moles in the neighborhood like to dig under and so it seems like once or twice a year we need to move the bird bath and strengthen the dirt under the bird bath and re-level and everything and so i did that today um bob fixed some electrical issues some lights in the kitchen so just you know you can't go anywhere so what are you gonna do fix the house right anyway i hope you guys had a good one i hope it was um that you stayed out of trouble and that you did um something you know creative or fun you know i know we can't really go anywhere but maybe you watched a movie you haven't seen in a long time um we watched the hunt for red october who who who remembers that when it was brand new yeah so that was it was a good you know i like sean connery so anyway um it's you know just i don't know it's weird it's a weird time of our lives anyway check out the video description for any relevant links um watch some interesting movies catch up on your youtube videos maybe that you haven't seen read a book i've got my book i'm free to call over here i i need to read because what am i waiting for right i finished my bunny cross stitch this week that i started five months ago what i've been hemming and hawing about finishing because i really wasn't enjoying the pattern um but the finished piece is cute and i have a project in mind for him and we're going to work be working on that next month so stay tuned for that uh support the free content how you can uh links are in my link trees list of links in the uh video description along with my instagram and facebook and all of that jazz and not um there's all kinds of information down there but don't just support my free content all of your favorite creators have a way to support the free content if they don't and you can't find it ask them um i know they could they would appreciate it we all would um when you're thinking about shopping for your Christmas gifts this year um check out your little etsy sellers and you're like again your content creators and your small mom and pop shops i know they all appreciate the extra business all right that's it for now stay safe stay healthy stay creative and go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it we'll see you next week bye guys