ATC Cards Exchanged

Finally I get to show you some sewing I have done. I told you earlier this year that my Tuesday Night quilt group was going to exchange the Artist Trading Cards at our Christmas Party. Well last night was the night and I received some great ones! It was so fun to see what everyone did as your card was to portray you as a person and your style of quilting. The first picture is on the ones I did. As I work a lot in wool I did mine with a cotton background and wool appliqués. The second picture is of the ones I have received so far. Since we are quilters and mothers and wives and employees a few did not get there’s done. No problem as we will get together for a retreat next month and they can finish them up there. Looking at the picture clockwise the first one is a paper pieced Hummingbird that my friend Roseanna did. She is a master paper piecer and appliquer. She has been working on an appliquéd Hummingbird quilt so this card fits her perfectly. The next card is “The 2 of Paws”. My friend Marguerite is an animal lover and has the sweetest sheltie named Sparkle. An example of Marguerites love of animals is this; she was out walking and came across an injured owl. It had obviously been hit by a car. She walked home and brought back a towel and a box. She got him into the box and then drove him to a wildlife rehabilitation center. The owl spent quite a few months there and was recently released into the wild again. Marguerite was invited to be a part of this. She has a heart of gold! The next card is Mary’s and is a picture of her dog S.D.
I can’t quite explain how it is done but Mary is always willing to try new things so this fits her to a T. Next in line is Mel’s palm tree. Mel lives part time in Florida and is our queen of piping. Each little card has the tiniest piping all around it. Fabulous! And last but not least is Mary M.’s butterfly and flower. Mary is the master of the Grandmother’s flower garden, now we each get a little hexagon flower for ourselves. I love each and everyone and can’t wait to see the rest. This was a great way to share a part of ourselves with each other and with minimal work involved.

Tonight is Mariah’s cheerleading Christmas party in between basketball games. She and I have been busy and made 19 more notebooks with covers as gifts for the girls. It was fun and she is excited to pass them out. Our original plan was to tie dye fabric in her school colors but I am definitely not a master of tie dye and we now have 19 gold fat quarters with globs of green on them. I am sure we will figure something out to do with them.
I will try to get a picture of my trees and get it posted! I am trying to relax and enjoy this week leading up to Christmas!

Happy Halloween!

I live outside a small town of 800 people. I have always had this fascination with small town life. I think it began as a child when I watched the Walton’s. I loved that they knew there neighbors and seemed to not only help each other but also rely on each other. Since then I have always been drawn to television shows that depict small town life. I was a big Northern Exposure fan, and then I moved on to shows like Everwood and The Gilmore Girls who not only live in the fictional small town of Stars Hollow but have this great mother daughter relationship. After we were first married we lived outside another small town. It was everything I thought it would be. Our neighbors were this wonderful quirky group of people. One was a farm boy who married a business woman who was trying so hard to adapt to the farm life. Another was a college professor and his wife who was trying to live off the land and produced the most wonderful maple syrup. And my favorite was the family who lived down the road from us. They lived life to the fullest and didn’t have much but you would never know it. If they had to take a lamb to market and had no way to get it there she would stick it in the back seat of her car and drive it to market. Life was centered around the church. You didn’t have to be religious to go there. It was more like a meeting hall. Every month activities happened from here, there were progressive dinners and once an old fashioned fashion show after one neighbor found some old garments in her attic. Halloween was an especially fun time. Each child was to carve a pumpkin and bring it in on Halloween night. A little custard cup would appear and you could vote with change for your favorite. The kids would then go trick or treating for UNICEF in caravans of cars as everyone was rural, afterwards we would head back to the hall and donuts and cider were had by all and one of the pumpkins would be crowned king. I imagined I would live there forever, but of course times change and we needed a bigger house and found one 30 miles away. Now we live outside another small town. Not quite the same, but new traditions have abounded here. Halloween is still small town Halloween. Each year a large town party is held at the rotary building. All attend dressed in costume from children to adults. After judging of costumes is finished there are games of all kinds for the kids to win candy and pop. Of course candy bags are handed out at the door. It is fun evening for all and you can’t help but look around you and smile and think how lucky you are to be living a small town life. I am thinking these thoughts as I need to come up with this year’s costume. No rented costumes for us. We go with something we have created. I won the big money ($5) a few years back when I went as an astronaut. I wore a white chemical spraying outfit from the office and cut a 5 gallon water jug in half and wore on my head. My daughter wants me to go as a Go Go girl with her, I don’t think so. I guess I can say I am no Lorelei Gilmore! Who knows what I will come up with, whatever it is I know we are in for a night of small town fun.

Vegetable Soup

It was gloomy on Sunday so I decided to make soup and homemade bread. The bread is easy since I have a bread maker. Usually the soup of choice around my house is chili but I was really hungry for vegetable soup so I made it instead. Years ago a girl I worked with made the best vegetable soup. It wasn’t anything like my mothers in that she always made hers with stew meat. I have always made mine like my friend’s. It is simple and very good.

In a large pot cook 2 # of ground beef. Pour off fat. Add:
2 cans of V-8 juice
2 large bags of frozen mixed vegetables
1 small head of chopped cabbage
Any other vegetables you would like to add.
Cook until vegetables are done.

And in honor of fall I hung this maple leaf quilt I made back in the 90’s outside my back porch door to welcome those who visit!

Pumpkins!

I have this crazy addiction for pumpkins! I am so happy that it is pumpkin season again and that I am already seeing them for sale along the roadside. A few years ago I had the mother load of all pumpkin seasons. I work in ag with soybeans. A couple years back our corn group did a test field for some form of rootworm but instead of growing corn they grew pumpkins. Now I am talking acres and acres of pumpkins that were not going to be harvested. In early September they told our group that they were headed over there to mow them down. The pumpkins had been planted early and were at full maturity already. I couldn’t stand the thought of all those lovely pumpkins coming to an early death before they were fully appreciated. With that in mind I coerced one of my fellow employees to go over there with me. We took the big dually and filled it up with all those beautiful orange orbs. I was so excited. That evening I filled the back end of my station wagon up and headed home. I had the largest pile of pumpkins right in my front yard and I had no clue with what I was going to do with them. The next morning he and I headed back over for another fill up. We were generous with all the other employees and then hauled the remaining ones to my house. I was in pumpkin heaven. I had them everywhere, on the lawn, in the house with my large wooden dough bowls full. The best surprise came the following year. I had to dispose of all that orange after Thanksgiving so we hauled them all back to an area we call the burn pit. The following summer I had a large plot of volunteer pumpkins. I was able to enjoy 2 full years of pumpkins from that one research project! This year I hope to find some really nice blue and white gourds to add to my mix that I have already purchased and of course some bittersweet and yellow and green gourds, and nice big mums and well you get the picture!

Scrappy Star Quilt Done

It is nice to finally be able to show something I have accomplished in quilting! It seems like it has been forever since I actually finished a quilt. This is a wallhanging, I believe around 48 x 48 that is a Lynda Hall pattern. Last Christmas I decided this was going to be the year to use scraps. This quilt top used the smallest of scraps that I had and was a lot of fun. That is until I got to the part where you added the triangles. She had included both rotary cutting instructions which I used for the squares and templates which I used for the triangles so I could cut them from different fabrics. The two did not match up, not even close. I spent a frustrating afternoon figuring out the correct math, ripping out and re-cutting. But I persevered and finished the top! (Lynda now has a correction on her website!) My good friend and excellent longarmer Carol did the quilting for me.

We had a really gorgeous weekend and I had a hard time staying inside and sewing. I did get the binding on this quilt done and that was about it. We went to our local pumpkin farm and I bought 10 pumpkins to decorate with, my husband had brought home some big beautiful mums on Friday so my porch is looking especially nice right now. I enjoyed just sitting on my rocker on the porch and watching them harvest the corn across the road from us. To bad the weather has changed to rain today and the forecast shows cooler temps all week. It will truly be football weather for the game tonight.

Salsa

I am pretty sure I have written before about how I am soooo not a cook. I just have no enjoyment with it. Well this summer I have been making homemade salsa and it is so good I just knew I would have to share this simple and easy recipe with all of you. My whole family loves it and it takes about 15 minutes to make. I don’t have time for a garden in the summer so this year we planted a tomato plant right outside our entryway in a large urn my grandpa had made. I usually have it full of colorful blooms, instead we filled it with miracle grow soil and planted one small tomato plant in it. It took off and with no work at all I have had a nice crop of tomatoes.
For the salsa I take as many tomatoes as I have available and cut into wedges and place in a roasting pan, I add a sweet onion cut in to wedges also and sliced jalapenos right from the jar. Now if you have the real thing that would be even more wonderful. I roast them under the broiler until they are soft and then just food process them into the salsa and it is ready to eat. We like our salsa nice and hot so we add quite a few jalapenos. The onions add just enough sweetness to make it perfect.
For a different snack soften 2 packages of cream cheese in the microwave, mix with the salsa and have with chips or crackers. Enjoy!

My designing daughter

For the past year Riah has been designing her own garments. What this amounts to is her setting up my little fold out table that I take along to quilt retreats and taking clothing she already owns and changing it up. She does everything by hand, sitting at that little table. Most items get put in a drawer when she is finished, some have been worn to school, once. Her only sewing background is in making a couple of quilts. This consists of mom’s help cutting out and her sewing a straight seam. We purchased her a sewing machine a couple of summers ago and it is set up in my sewing room. I don’t do garments or much of any kind of sewing except for my quilts. I really don’t have the knowledge to help her, with that said I have decided to go ahead and jump in there and get her started. I thought some basic sewing would be a good idea to get her going. We decided to make some journal covers. I purchased Composition books at the drug store that had a regular binding, not a spiral binding. We made a basic book cover then sewed a ribbon on for closure. As you can see once we got started it was hard to quit. They were simple and a lot of fun. She thinks these will make great gifts for her friends. Next up we are going to do pillowcases for her bed. From there we are going to try a skirt. I purchased a basic wrap skirt pattern. No buttonholes, no zipper, no elastic. How can we go wrong? I certainly hope we can’t. I like seeing her enthusiasm for this. It is quite catching and has me excited for her. This could be a passing fad for her or maybe it will turn into something she enjoys for life, it doesn’t matter, as long as we are able to spend this time together. In the meantime, if it lasts a year then I am definitely signing her up for sewing classes at the local sewing center next summer!

My First ATC

Well this certainly has been a learning process! I now know what I do and don't want to do in making these. I need to move my flowers over next time around so they are not so close to the outer edge. The rick rack covered the leaves up somewhat. But I am not even certain I like the rick rack so will have to think on that one. I did like finishing the edges off with the buttonhole stitch. After I had the top piece done I fused it to a wool backing. The fusible gave it some stiffness. I had said these were to be in our style. Since I work a lot in wool I thought I would go that route. Making around 12 of these I am beginning to think it would be a lot easier to embellish a larger piece of fabric and then cut it into 12 pieces. But I know that is not the purpose of our small group doing this. I believe the purpose is so we each have a little bit of each other!

Blood Done Signed My Name

I have still been working along on my bible blocks. Mostly on my breaks at work. To tell you the truth I will be glad when I am done with these. They have been really time consuming and are not something I want to work on so I have to make myself work on them. But they are Mariah’s age 12 quilt and she is going on 14 soon so I need to keep at them! This is my latest one.

More on ATC's

Wow! Thanks for all the great ideas on the ATC’s. This is all new to me; but I am excited about giving it a try. Quilt Pixie you gave me some great ideas on getting these cards stabilized. Thanks! I also love the thought of stitching the edges down with embroidery thread or pearle cotton. That would work great with the wool. I hope to start on one this weekend and see how quickly the process goes. I think they will be somewhat time consuming since I will be doing them by hand. I will need around 10-12.
It is supposed to be hot here this weekend and for once we don’t have any baseball. We have been a family of kayakers for quite some time. The plan is to get out on the water this weekend for a nice slow paddle. This will be dependent upon the rains today. They are supposed to be heavy and could bring the water levels up. If that is the case we will have to travel a ways to paddle on a lake!

Artist Trading Cards

My Tuesday night group has decided to do an ATC swap for Christmas. For those that don’t know ATC stands for Artist Trading Cards. They are small quilts the size of playing cards. We will make one for each person and they are to reflect your style as a quiltmaker. The drawing above is my initial idea. I want to use fabric as the background and wool for appliqués as I work in wool a lot and believe this would be a good way to show my style on this small work. I have never worked in such a small scale before, so I am definitely intimidated by it. I usually work on large blocks with large appliqués. I have never done this before and have no ideas on how to finish them off. I can’t imagine binding something so small. Any ideas would be appreciated!

Quilt top is Done!

My quilt top is done! After our scare with our dog Bullvye this summer I felt the need to make record of him in our life. So I took the few doghouses I had made earlier this year using Tonya’s methods and it grew from there. This has been so much fun and my family even likes it! I usually work in dark colors so it is always a stretch for me to work with such bright fabrics. I have an additional dog house to put on the back that has our outdoor cat Annabelle in it. She always gives him a run around the property when he goes outside. In fact we think she actually enjoys the chase. On the label I will put a picture of Bullvye and his story so-far. You know that can’t be much, he definitely leads a dog’s life!

Christmas quilt

I have to admit that I am really having fun with Tonya’s free style letters. They are like potato chips. Once you get started you can’t stop. I have sat all other projects aside while I go with my ideas and these letters. Before I did the doghouses I did the Christmas quilt above. The stars are from Bonnie’s site http://www.quiltville.com. I loved how she had used the plaids. I have a huge stash of plaids and since our retreat theme this year (you can find out all the fun stuff planned via Linda’s blog http://www.tippeca-needle.blogspot.com) is “snowed in” using only your stash, I thought this would be a fun example. Once I finished the top I knew I needed to add some words to the border. “Love came down at Christmas, Stars and angels gave the sign”. Since I couldn’t stop at just one quilt I moved on to the doghouses. I am still going strong! Next quilt up is based on “Ham and Eggs – A day’s work for a chicken; A lifetime commitment for a pig”! I have a great chicken feed tea towel I bought in Paducah that I am also going to incorporate into this quilt. I can’t wait to get started!

Liberty Class with Ginger Sanchez

On Saturday I took a class with Ginger Sanchez. She is multi-talented. She offers classes in different mediums. My friend took a class from her on Friday; it was an all day Christmas workshop. She left with 6 candy canes done in fabric, 6 gingerbread men that were done in fabric and then put in a fabric stiffener that was mixed with cinnamon so that they smelled really good. After embellishing them they put them in the oven on low to dry. A snowman that was adorable and a wool Christmas tree finished the assortment. Saturday’s class was a wool penny rug on silk. It is so pretty with its purple plums. She did not have the sample finished. It will be finished off with tongues surrounding it. I am anxious to get busy working on it. A kit was supplied with the class and she had it all very organized. The teachers at the Gathering try to outdo one another with the way they package the kits. You don’t ever know how it will come. I have received them in pretty bags and painted paper boxes. That is part of the fun!
It was a great trip! I am already looking forward to next year.

Journaling with Blackbird Designs

I think my journaling class with Blackbird Designs has to rank up there with one of the best classes I have ever taken. I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting into. They were extremely organized. They had various stations set up, a cutting station with different types of scissors and rotary cutters, a glue station, a color copy machine area where you could copy or resize your pictures you had brought with you. An old typewriter was set up and a table that was full of scrapbook pages, ribbons, fabric, metal letters, stickers, cards of different styles, etc. Alma of Blackbird has journaled for years. She showed us many of her journals. She does them almost in altered book form. Adding things on top of each other and also adding her writing. We were to choose a theme and go with it. It should be something we could write about. Class projects, cooking, stitching, etc. I chose my daughter Mariah’s quilts. I have made her a quilt each year of her life and have written in a book each year things about her. I thought it would be fun to dedicate pages for each quilt, thoughts of that year and a picture of her. I got as far as my cover done. I think this will be really fun to play around with. I am including all kinds of pictures of pages and covers from Alma’s journals. I also took pictures of all the class participants journals, I can’t share them since I didn’t get permission but I am going to hang on to these just to get some ideas. Everyone seemed to go in a different direction. It was a very fun class and I left it really inspired. http://www.dashdist.com/blackbird.html
Tomorrow is all about my class with Ginger Sanchez.

More Liberty

My first class was with Ginger Schrader. I love Ginger and have taken classes with her before. I was disappointed to find out that she is retiring and will no longer be teaching the chalkware. Chalkware is made from gypsum or plaster of paris and formed in a mold. Ginger reproduces many of the old chalkware items and has made molds for her own reproductions. She is an expert at painting these and getting the right look. In this class we could choose to reproduce either a pear or a weathered finial. I chose the pear, although the finial was really neat. I like taking classes with Ginger because you always go home with a finished product! Ginger and her husband Ron also put on primitive fairs twice a year at their home and then many times a year at various locations. They put one on at the Gathering each year and the quality of vendors they select is top notch. The quilt book “Home Sweet Home’ by Blackbird Designs and published by Kansas City Star has a nice 3- 4 page spread on Ginger’s saltbox house and her Summer Primitive Fair.
Ginger is the one standing up helping 2 of the girls in the class. Tomorrow, Journaling with the Blackbird girls.

More on Liberty Trip

One of the fun things about the Gathering is that each day they have a make-it take-it project. They are always reasonably priced and fun to do. This year Suzette Krummel of White Pine Folk Art provided the kits. They were all packaged so cute with a pine cone attached. I can’t imagine the time she had invested in this. Each one was a wool item. She had scissor holders, needlecase, bookmark, etc. to name a few. The most expensive item was $7. What a deal for a kit to make a needlecase that also included the pattern and packaged so nicely. They would make great gifts for crafting friends! If you are interested give Suzette an email, whitepinefolkart@aol.com

A group of stores called the Corbin Mill Shops put the Gathering on. Included in this group is the Old Mill Stitchery, Corbin Mill Quilt Shop and American Whatever. I love American Whatever. It sells all kinds of folk art items and has a large variety of redware for sale. I love looking through all of it. Sandy Williams who owns is it is a rug hooker and one room is full of wool and linens with marked patterns. It is definitely a feast for the eyes! One of the classes at the Gathering was held by Sandy. I loved looking at all the different marked linens the girls had picked out to hook. One was being done in Autumn colors and was absolutely gorgeous. Tomorrow I will have pictures and story of my first day’s class!

Liberty Trip

Each day this week I will write about my trip to Liberty, Mo for the Liberty Gathering. I had a great time and was once again inspired by all I saw and did. We left a day early and spent the drive over (8 hours without stops) stopping at some of our favorite quilt shops. I love the Hen House in St. Louis, MO. It is really primitive and has always been one of my favorites. We also spent some time in St. Charles, MO shopping along the riverfront at all the little shops and visiting Patches Quilt Store. We arrived outside of Kansas City around 11pm. The next morning we were up early and headed out for another day of shopping. We had decided to not sign up for classes so we could do some antiquing and visit some of the area quilt and rug hooking shops that we usually miss. We made drove down to the Blue Springs area and visited with Julie Kiffen who owns http://www.Libertyquiltshop.com. She was set up in an area of the Wooly Woolens shop. Here are some pictures of her small area. Going through the door you were transported to Janice Johnson’s wool and rug hooking area. It is so awesome to see the wool lined up along the wall. Janice does gorgeous primitive rugs and we found her wool to be the least expensive of all the shops we visited. We then headed over to Rustic Yearnings another primitive quilt shop and Quilters Station which is a really large quilt shop. Quilters Station was also hosting a primitive gathering and they had some great teacher quilts hanging in a large gallery room. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures. We then headed back to Liberty for a salad supper and auction that we had signed up to attend. The auction had only 35 items but they were works of art that various primitive artists had donated. Hooked Rugs, quilts, penny rugs, chalkware, etc. It was a lot of fun! More tomorrow…

Liberty Gathering

I am trying to get prepared for my trip to Liberty, MO this week. A friend and I are headed over for the Liberty Gathering. They list it as a “primitive happening” of friendship, needlework, beadwork, quilting, rug hooking and knitting, folk art and antiques. We have been going for quite a few years and really enjoy it. I usually take quite a few classes. This year I am only taking 3. We decided to spend some time exploring the back roads of this area and doing some antiquing. One of my favorite stops is Black Sheep Wool, it is just outside Liberty. http://www.blacksheepwooldesigns.com/
It is a wool lover’s paradise! I took the pictures on previous trips to the shop. Just going to the shop inspires you to go home and get busy! We also hope to make a stop at the Wooly Woolens shop this time around.
I am excited about my classes! I am taking a class with the Blackbird Design ladies entitled “Let’s Journal”. You all know how much I love journaling! I have always wanted to take a class with Ginger Sanchez and I was able to get in this time around. We will be making a wool applique tablerunner on a black silk background. Doesn’t it sound wonderful! And last but definitely not least I am taking a class with Ginger Schrader. I have taken classes with her before and they have been great. This time we are doing primitive chalkware painting on either a weathered finial or an over sized pear.

I will get to visit one of my favorite quilt shops on the way over, Helen’s Hen House in St. Louis. It is a great primitive shop! We will also stop at two quilt shops in St. Charles and at Angie’s Nine Patch in Effingham, Il. I hope to have lots of pictures when I get back. See you next week!

Free Style Letters and Wonky Houses

I have been playing with free style letters and wonky houses this past week thanks to our Tonya. I was able to get all my letters done and put on the border of a quilt I just finished up. I will show it a little later down the road. I also finished 4 more wonky dog houses for a doggie quilt I am working on. These are so much fun and you don’t even have to think much while you are doing them. I love just being able to piece and not worry about any perfection happening. That is the primitive girl in me coming out! I have a plan for these, executing it is a different matter. My mind works in mysterious ways sometimes (okay most times!) and usually what I am picturing is a little bit harder to accomplish then I originally thought.
Bullyve is doing better but still not his normal happy self. He is still having problems getting up and down and he is still just doing a lot of lying around. We are headed back to the vet next week. Baseball has been consuming our lives as of late. I am headed this morning to Cincinnati for 4 days of tourney.

Riah graduated!

My daughter just graduated from 6th grade. (She is the one with the pink rosette on her brown shirt) In our area the kids are in grade school through the 6th grade and then go on to our middle school which is housed in the same building as our high school. Her class consisted of 18 students (small school) and they are all really close so it was a fun evening. She has 2 girlfriends that she is inseparable with. I will be anxious to see if they continue this close relationship through the coming years. We started out the evening by gifting her with 3 bracelets that I had found while I was in Paducah. She loves jewelry. She will also get a graduation quilt. Her quilt is based on her talent show performance and will make a nice memory for her.

Now, on to the talent show. In no way am I making fun of my daughter. I am not writing anything down that has not been spoken about in our home. She has been gifted with many talents but singing is not one of them. Now considering one of her goals in life is to be a professional singer this is not a good thing. To compound this problem she has a little problem in recognizing that she does not have natural vocal ability. So we were a little concerned last December when she came home and told us that she was singing solos in both the talent show and the church Christmas program. The church program was to be first. We couldn’t decide if we should sit in the front pews where we couldn’t see the faces of the church members when she belted her solo out (yes, we had heard her practicing and it wasn’t pretty!) or should we sit in the back where we could hide but would have to see there faces. It was decided for us when we arrived late and the back pew was the only one available. We sat in anticipation waiting for the big moment and much to our relief either there really was a microphone malfunction or the preacher after going through rehearsal the night before had decided to help her out, we could not hear her because the microphone was not turned on. One performance down one to go! She wanted to sing a Dixie Chicks song for the talent show. Since the talent show was the 3rd week of December I suggested that she sing Madonna’s Santa Baby. It really wasn’t a song you sing, more one that you talk in a silly voice. She went for it, whew! She practiced and practiced until she had it all memorized and she added some dancing and hand gestures that fit with the song. Guess what, she went up on stage and nailed it! The kids screamed and hollered when she was done, she had the longest ovation. I was so proud of my singing daughter! I know that I have to let this moment live on forever for her and a quilt is the way to do that. I made this quilt using Bonnie’s (http://www.quiltville.com) method of sewing a double seam for a bonus ½ square triangle and having no fabric waste. I made pinwheel blocks using all my leftover bonus squares from a previous quilt. I then surrounded it with lyrics from Santa Baby. Santa Baby Hurry Down My Chimney Tonight Riah Hahn Grade 6. It is still a work in progress, I will show it again when I get the letters all stitched down and the top quilted.

The New Table

This is an update to my table story. For those who didn’t read that story, my husband decided to upgrade our furniture. This meant the loss of a beloved table and other antiques. I now have all my new furniture. It is growing on me. I still miss my table and wish I had my table but this is working for us. I do love my new cabinet. It is worth the sacrifice. My husband has a new desk that he enjoys.
We also have an electric fireplace that I really like. We have had this for a few years. It originally wasn’t on the wall that I wanted it on. The wall that it should have gone on had the cold air return directly in front of it. Since I had sacrificed my table my husband went to the expense of having our duct work moved around and our cold air return moved to an adjacent room. I am really happy to have my fireplace on the bricked wall.

Update on Bullvye. He seems to be doing better this morning. He not only barked at the school bus he also checked the trash cans out. This is more to his normal routine. He pulled himself up this morning. It looked like he struggled but once he was up he moved around good. Thanks for all the nice comments. He means a lot to us!