So many of y'all are probably having scary weather today (Friday evening). Even though a lot of the warnings didn't materialize, thank goodness, we've had tornado chances, some pretty high, every day this week except Thursday. I was never really afraid of the weather until the Joplin tornado in 2011 and now, I find myself really being a weather wimp and I try to do better because Cooper is a big weather chicken and I  he senses my fear.

I try to keep the TV off and depend on the weather radio to let Vince know when we need to get in the safe room so today I took a long nap. Woke up to find my timing was off and the storms were going to be later than they had said earlier. I do have a headache - not weather related probably. Vince asked if I wanted aspirin and I told him wine was probably better but I opted for the aspirin.

OK. Lots of places have it way worse than we do . . Illinois & Wisconsin according to Ryan Hall. I'll stop complaining. 

Today Vince had some errands to run so I went along for the ride. Really, I went along because he said we could get lunch at Texas Roadhouse! I took the measurements for 4th of July Rules.

I could finish that one in the next week or so. I found two pieces that might work for getting this one fully finished. Once the stitching is done, I'll figure out how I want to finish it and, of course, I'll share it all when it's finished and fully finished.

Racing to Beat the Storm

 Today was my day to go stitch with Debbie and it was the day I drive up to her place. We've had storms predicted for almost every day this week - not tomorrow. In fact, Vince had a doctor's appointment scheduled in Kansas City and convinced them to do it by telephone/video so we would have to risk driving through storms. Yesterday Vince and I were debating about whether I should drive an hour north to cross stitch today but this morning, we both looked at the weather and decided it was safe to go, so long as I got home by 5 p.m. Early in the afternoon Vince called to tell me the storms seemed to be moving faster and he thought I should come home earlier. He said definitely be on the road by 3:30. I looked out the window about 3, towards the west which is the way the storms were supposed to come in and it seemed to be getting dark. I asked Debbie if she thought it looked darker and we both agreed that we should probably go ahead and call it a day. We got packed up. I left, made a pit stop at Freddy's for a shake and got on the interstate. The sky seemed to be much lighter towards the south (the way I was headed) but when I got off the interstate, headed west, I thought . . at best, I'm going to get in some rain but hopefully no hail. I prayed that I would make it home safely. The memories of the Joplin tornado can get me really nervous on days like this.

I drove into the driveway, got out and walked around behind the car and it had started raining.

I thought . . that's weird. I JUST pulled into the garage and there's not a drop of water on my car. I started looking more closely and nope, not a drop.

After I came inside, talked with Vince for a minute, loved on the dogs, then looked at my phone and saw a note from a local news station "Gnarly Storm headed to Carl Junction/Asbury area. History of damaging hail and power lines down." I'm not in those towns but they're 5 - 7 miles northeast of me. I was cutting it pretty close and was very thankful that I made it safely. 

It seems like lots of places near us have way worse weather predictions than we do so I'm hoping and praying everyone stays safe and hopefully doesn't sustain damages tonight.

Index With Symbols Received

 Thanks to a VERY nice reader, I now have a copy of the key (symbols that go with each color).

I do believe I could have matched colors with what I've already stitched and compared those symbols to what I needed to use but that was making me quite nervous and stressed. I can't tell you how relieved I am to have this.

Thanks to all of you who offered assistance, even if it was just moral support.

Butter Croissant Sourdough

 Not sure how I came across this recipe for Butter Croissant Sourdough. Saturday I started the bread and baked it this morning.

My dough doesn't always come out of the banneton looking so good.

I pre-heated a Dutch Oven that was too small and had to pre-heat another one that was still almost too small so my boule got a little squished.

Vince and I both thought it was one of the best breads I've made in a long time.

Tomorrow we're having tuna salad sandwiches for lunch . . and I can't wait. I'm going to go ahead and get another loaf of this bread started tomorrow too.

The Next Five Day Project

At this point, I'm not guaranteeing that I will work on this project for five days because I do not have the key that tells me what symbols go with what colors. At least three years ago, Oscar shredded about 1/3 of the paper chart. I didn't worry so much about it because I had made a PDF and had it in Markup. I guess I was frustrated and put it aside with this much done on it. Or maybe (probably) a new chart caught my eye and I switched over to working on that one. You know how I am!

When I got it out this afternoon to work on it, I opened Markup XP and I had not copied the key. In the early days of using the app, I could not figure out how to get the key included in the project so I just left that part off and used the paper key (chart). Now, I have no idea why I struggled with that because it isn't hard and here I am without a key because I didn't take the time to figure out how to do it. Or, maybe because my dog was out of control and shredded my chart. Either way . . I'm frustrated!

I'm thinking with as much as I have done, I can look at the symbol I'm supposed to use, find somewhere else where I've stitched that symbol and match up the colors. If not, I'll probably put it aside, get over my frustration and order a new chart.

I've looked at the floss (Vikki Clayton Silks) and noticed there were only two colors I had not used yet but then I realized those are just second bobbins of colors I've already used so I think I can figure this out. As I figure out a color, I'm going to make myself a key. 

If I can figure out the colors, I'm going to work on this one for five days and IF I make decent progress because there is so much done already, I may stick with it and get it finished so I don't have to pick it up again and deal with the key issue.

 

Everything BUT Stitching

 I am not complaining - please don't think I am. Everything I do . . well, mostly everything I do is by choice. I don't HAVE to do most of this. But . . I must just be a very poor planner or maybe just wanting to do too many things.

This morning getting out of bed, I was thinking about what I planned to do today:  Fix breakfast, wash a load of clothes, heat up leftovers and spend the rest of the day cross stitching.

Here's how the day really went!

- Fixed breakfast

- Vince told me he needed more rye bread, Ezekiel bread and sunflower seed butter. Didn't need it all today - any time this week is fine.

- Checked email and saw that my order of raw milk and eggs was ready to be picked up. Could be picked up any time between today and Thursday. I told Vince I'd rather get it today because there are some things I want to get done tomorrow and Thursday and Wednesday is my stitching days.

- Ground grain and got the rye bread mixed up to rise. Baked it later this afternoon.

- The washer was done and as I was putting clothes in the dryer, I thought . . it's such a beautiful day. I should hang clothes on the line. Did that!

- Didn't have time to make the Ezekiel Bread but since I had all the jars of grains out, I measured them and got them in the bowl. I'll grind it all tomorrow and make that bread.

- Made two pints of sunflower butter for Vince. Got the blender cleaned and put away. I dislike cleaning the blender after making those nut butters.

- Left to go get milk and go by Aldi. Vince wanted to go by Walmart. Then we decided to go by Lowe's and check out the faucets there. I wouldn't mind getting a new kitchen sink. The one we have now is probably the one put in the house when it was built in 2003. I thought it was cast iron but Vince looked underneath it and said it's some kind of plastic. Not sure about that. It's white and everything stains it because the finish is pretty much gone. I want stainless but honestly, I just don't care. At this point I want a faucet that isn't leaking so I can put everything back under the sink.

Got the milk, 2 dozen eggs and 1 dozen duck eggs.

From there we stopped at Aldi. Thank goodness they had jalapenos and pistachio cream. Both seem to be quite difficult to find around here these days.

Oh, actually - Aldi was out of jalapeno peppers. Vince stopped at Walmart for something and found jalapeno peppers in there. The guy in the produce area told Vince they are having a very hard time getting them now. Crazy. I'm going to plant at last two jalapeno peppers in pots and try to keep them alive either in the greenhouse or in the heated garage downstairs. We use so many and I hate having to search for them in the grocery stores.

- Then we went to Lowe's. The man working in the kitchen sink, faucet area was VERY helpful. Vince was determined that our sink has one big hole and two small holes. The big hole he said was for the thing that controlled the water. The small holes were for the actual faucet and the sprayer. We actually have a brand new Moen faucet still in the box from Texas that we bought and didn't use when we re-did the kitchen there. It has the sprayer thing that is attached to the end of the faucet and that's what I've been wanting. Anyway -- the sink man confirmed what I thought that it would be VERY unusual to have a large hole and two smaller holes in the sink. Vince came home and looked at it again and they're all the same size so we're he is hopefully going to change the faucet some time very soon!! I'll just keep the sink I have and be happy.

- Came home, put everything away. Decided to pour the cream off the milk I got today and make butter. In the picture with the rye bread  you can see the butter and the buttermilk left over from making butter.

- It was time to clean up the mess, and it was a big one, get the clothes off the line, folded and put away. Now I'm tired . . and it's now 8 p.m. How many stitches can I get made? Probably not many!

Stitching on The Lord's Prayer

I'm very pleased with the progress I made on The Lord's Prayer. This is where I started when I picked this up again on March 29.

My plan is to work on a project for five days. Each week I stitch with a friend and we're stitching on patriotic projects so, while I document my progress on that project each week, I don't count that day as one of the days I work on my five day project.

This "five day" plan turned into a seven day plan because one day, I was working on organizing my linen and didn't make a single stitch. Saturday I was getting started on the food for our Easter meal and only got 116 stitches made. My plan was to start a new project on Sunday but I was tired after Chad, Nicole and Addie left so I took a quick nap, had a hard time getting motivated to stitch so I worked one more day on The Lord's Prayer. I thought I wouldn't get many stitches done but I did get 446 stitches made.

Like I said . . I'm really pleased with my progress on this one.  Sometimes the progress is easy to see and sometimes it's spread out over the entire project but I think the progress on this project is easy to see.

Lots of color was added and I'm really pleased! The entire top border is finished except for filling in the center of one flower.

Now it gets put away for a while. I'm not sure what I will pick up tomorrow. Right now I'm thinking I'll pick up This is the Day because I might could finish that one. No telling what I'll decide by the time I get back to stitching tomorrow.