Odds & Ends...

It's been really busy around our household this last month.  I've been teaching 2 classes a week with one finishing up just last Friday.  I attended another 3 day class to work on my Chanel style jacket with Claire Kennedy in OKC.  So much fun, but so tiring too!  I'll share new pictures of my progress on that jacket soon.

Along with teaching, fall cleanup around the yard has been my big priority.  The flower bed in the front which we kind of let go this year has had 2 long sessions of cleaning out.  My poor crepe myrtles suffered from the extreme cold we had last winter.  I pruned out lots of dead wood so we lost at least a couple years of growth.  I'm pretty unusual in that I let my crepe myrtles turn into trees here.  I just get rid of all the suckers that grow from the bottoms and keep them tree'd up.  Most everyone in OK whacks off the top of the poor things so they'll get more flowers.  But I've noticed that I get just as many flowers on my non-whacked trees.   What with ice storms, extreme cold and drought, our mature trees (we had 4 over 40 year olds) have all bit the dust.  We took out the last white mulberry a few weeks ago and now we're looking to replant.  Money, money, money.  Whew!  We're probably going to spend about $1000 on 2 trees.  Ackkkk!  But it will be worth it.  We're getting a northern red oak and a purple redbud.  That oak is the money tree.  Grin.  I wish.  But they'll have to use a bobcat to get into the backyard and probably dismantle part of our fencing too.  The rootball will weigh somewhere around 1800 pounds!!!!

Alan has been working on finishing up his new shop.  His plan is to complete putting up the insulation in the roof by the end of the week.  I'll have to get some new pictures of it to show you all.  I think the last time I put up a pic, it was still just a skeleton.  

I've been working on my McCall's 5984.  It's done!  Except to take pictures.   I really like it and I can tell I'll be wearing it a lot.  I'll take pictures tomorrow when the light is better (maybe even outside) and discuss what I did with it.


Later!