This weather is totally unreal!

Only a few days ago I was griping that the Polar Vortex had us, here in Wisconsin, tightly in it's grip and for the last 3 days, I've had the front door open to let in the sunny warmth.  It's been nearly 40 degrees for these 3 days with brilliant sunshine.  You can see Clem likes it a lot.

Don't disturb me, Mom, when I'm taking my sun bath. Sheesh!

He'll stay there until the sun goes around the corner and it gets a little chilly over there. but for now, he's loving it!

I'm later than usual in posting this today. This morning, I made a resolution to not get on the computer until I've gotten ready for the day and have at least begun my daily chores. I find that I spend waaaay too much time on Wastebook, as one person calls it, and otherwise fooling around on the computer when there's a lot of other stuff that needs to get done.  Today, I kept the resolution and have my daily chore done, which took quite a bit of time since it was thoroughly cleaning the kitchen, and I have my shopping list ready to go as soon as I'm done here. I was planning on doing a soup in the slow cooker but I see that it's too late for that so I'll just make it up on the stove top when it's nearer to dinner time.

Yesterday, I did spend some time in the sewing room, finishing one of the needle cases.

The pins are in there since I've yet to stitch down the binding.  Tonight, for sure!

You can see that the pocket extends across both sides of the case--I'd thought it was only on one side-- so I can keep extra "stuff" in there--whatever.  I embroidered a fancy capital E on one of the felted wool pages--that's so I'll keep my embroidery needles together on that page and the other page can be for general purpose needles.  If I was a hand quilter, I would have embroidered a capital Q on one page, but I'm not. I have yet to take up needle turn applique but I want to and when I do, I may have to embroider a capital A on one page.  Whatever, there's plenty of room in this needle case for all kinds of needles.

I also played around with scraps and made up some little ornaments following directions I got here--

These are the two I made.  They're pretty tiny--3.5" finished--and I'm not used to working with such tiny pieces--I was afraid to breathe for fear of blowing them off my work table! I like how they turned out and I'm challenging myself to make 3 more to give to my kids and grandkids when I see them next week.

When Don and I were  newly married and getting ready for our first Christmas, we realized that we had no ornaments and no money to buy ornaments!  What to do!  Well, resourceful people that we are, we begged ornaments and lights off grandma and mom at Thanksgiving time and had enough to decorate that first tree.  We don't have any of grandma's anymore, but I still have 2 or 3 that my mom gave us.  Two of them I remember being on the tree when I was a little girl in the 1950's.  Hmmmm, maybe I should contact Antiques Roadshow!  

But I digress.  I resolved that should we have children we would give then an ornament every year so when they left home and put up their first tree, they'd have a lifetime of memories with which to decorate it. So, we did that, faithfully each year, and now I try to make an ornament for each of the grandchildren and sometimes for the adult kids as well, so they'll have their own personal collection when it's time to set up their own homes.  

Well, I'd better get off to the grocery store while there's still time. I'm getting the supplies for making some cookies tomorrow and also the items I'll need for Christmas Eve supper and Christmas morning breakfast for the three of us.  Sorry, Clem, you're not included in the feasting.  You'll get your usual dry food since that's what you like best in the world anyway.  :)