Of Rainbows and Sheds

Dreary weather. We were rewarded with a huge rainbow though. I don't know what it is about up here, but there seems to be more rainbows than back home in California. Maybe because there is more rain here? I don't know, but I love rainbows, so I'm in a good place! I know that picture isn't the best, but I haven't figured out how to get more color into a grey day.

The wind came up pretty big today too. I'm not used to that here. Back in CA, we had high winds a lot. Of course, there, I was right on the coast. Here I'm inland about 75 miles. (Weird for me, I was raised at the oceans edge.) I'm still surrounded by water. There is a river about a half mile to the east of me and the Strait of Juan de Fuca is about two to three miles north of me. I'm good with that. as long as there is water to look at. Of course, I get gigantic puddles in my driveway whenever it rains all day, so there's that!

Yeah. The wind. It made my goats' shed go boom!

It's kind of hard to tell by the picture, but that is the inside of the shed looking at it from the bottom. Those whitish strips you see are the ribs on the inside ceiling. The door is at the top. When the wind has let up, we will go figure out how to make it right side up again and then figure out how to keep it that way. Geez! Farm life is never dull. Never.

Since I have lived here (January 26, 2014) I have been gaining weight like an idiot. At first, I was more active and could handle the amount of food I was eating. I have COPD, and that started getting worse and the doctor didn't get me on the best meds he could have, so I had to slow down quite a bit. That just made it worse and I got a little depressed, therefore, since chocolate makes most of us feel better, chocolate became my best friend. Then last winter things blew up a little here and my daughter who moved up here with me, left on horrible terms. (We have since started talking again...but...) I was alone here for my first Northwest winter. I just sat in a corner with the heater and TV on, and ate. Chocolate had invited all it's other feel good friends to my pity party.  All this is to say, I have finally come to my senses and joined WeightWatchers. So, warning, I am probably going to bore you with all the facts of my weight loss journey. I'm putting it here, so I can watch my self grow in health and shrink in size. I have to. It's not doing my breathing any good. My knees are screaming at me, my ankles are screaming at me...my sensible head is screaming at me. Wish me luck...please?

Oh yeah. One more item of my life's goings on this week. (of course, it's THIS week) My middle daughter has decided to start helping me straighten out my sewing room. I am in the middle of finishing up really late birthday presents, I got some Christmas presents done, I am going to make stockings for my oldest daughter and her room mates. Then there are the dish towels I may or may not get to. I don't like the towels I got. I may just relegate those to my own kitchen and find some better towels to offer up as gifts. We'll see. It's only 25 days til Christmas and these have to get shipped to California! Accckkk!

Never accuse me of being organized...please!

I have been busy...

I managed to get three small projects done yesterday and today. I could have gotten more done but I am slow to learn the right way to do stuff. Maybe I just like the challenge of picking stitches out and see how fast I can do that...I don't know. On all of these projects I had to get the seam ripper out. Oh well, they got done and I am pleased with them.

Two of the projects are pillow cases for my niece and one nephew. Tomorrow I will do the second nephew's pillow case. I watched Missouri Start Quilt Company's tutorial for making these cases and it's really a straight forward tutorial. I did French seams, so there are no raw edges anywhere. That way the kids can be kids with them and they will hold up. Here they are!

The lighting sucks. Sorry. The ballerina case is pale pink and the band is a brighter pink, the cuff is pale apricot. I love the colors in that one. We all know what colors John Deere stuff is. The tractors and other equipment are on a two tone brown plaid. My other nephew plays football so his is a blue, white and black football themed fabric with blue and white accents.

I didn't take a picture of the little sewing organizer. I did it with scraps of fabric I had hanging out. I made it pretty bright and fun.

Progress has not been made on my pallet barn. Now I am thinking I need some of the materials from that to cover my chicken coop better. It's a mud hole! Except one small area where the food is and every time I go out to feed them I take my life into my hands walking through the mud to give them all fresh water and food. I know for sure by next winter that will be changed. I can't do this anymore. Slowly but surely I am learning what does and doesn't work. (And then things will change, so all my changes will have to be changed...but that's life, right?)

The time change is killing me. I'm north enough that the sun goes down early in the day during the winter anyway, the time change means that at around 4:30 in the afternoon, I'm thinking it's getting close to bedtime! I don't think I will ever get used to it. During the summer months it's fun, the sun is still up and shining brightly at nine or ten at night. I like that!

I'm off to go cook dinner. Breaded pork chops tonight. I don't know what else though. I'll just have to see what strikes my fancy when I look in the fridge! Have a good evening.