I'm Sew Excited!

Through a series of events over the last few weeks, I became the owner of my Grandmother's sewing machine! Meme has Alzheimer's and lives in the nursing home, but my uncle still lives in her house. He was wanting to get rid of the sewing machine at the same time I was looking for a machine! Win-win for both of us!

 Over the phone he told me it was a Singer, but when I went to pick it up Thursday I discovered it was a Kenmore. It was newer than I expected, but that's ok because I was wanted a machine that was capable of doing different stitches. It came with a nice cabinet and a stool as well.


It has 16 stitch functions! 15 more than my other machine!

 I've done a little research and found diagrams of how to thread the machine and was able to contact Kenmore and they told me the machine was manufactured in 1987. Kenmore promised to respond to any email inquiries within 24 hours and I will say they followed through with their promise, responding in less than 16 hours! I have found a few instruction manuals online, but haven't clicked the buy option yet.

I'm still not sure what this knob controls!

 Today we plugged her in and give her a test run. We discovered a washer needs replacing and can't wind a bobbin until we get the new part, but I had a bobbin already wound from my other Grandmother's machine. My sweet husband, who can fix anything, was right there helping me adjust and check it out. We tinkered a few minutes and oiled a few places and by golly, SHE SEWS! I bent and broke a few needles in the process of getting everything lined out, but fortunatly, Singer needles worked in a Kenmore machine and I was able to keep playing!

I am Sew excited to now have both of my grandmother's sewing machines! I never really remember Meme sewing like I do my Grandmama, but I know Meme was an excellent seamtress. I do know that she worked at a sewing factory when she moved to East Texas. I know that the machine hasn't been used in at least 15 to 20 years because of Meme's health issues and the machine appears to have been used very little.

This is a picture of Meme and Granddad sometime in the mid to late 80's. Granddad has been gone over 20 years and Meme's mind has been gone a long time. Alhzeimer's disease is such a sad thing. I went to see Meme last night and told her I got her machine and couldn't wait to try it out. I have no idea if she could understand me or not. Now I'm brainstorming on what I can make Meme with her machine....

Flying traffic cones

Today's word of advise:

Watch out for flying, jumping, crazy, orange, road construction cones.

They will jump up and attack you, busting your mirror.

Guess you now want to know how I discovered this, huh?

Yesterday morning I was just plain sleepy, didn't want to get up, had the blahs, could have kept sleeping for hours, or so I felt. I have no idea why. I even went to bed early the night before because I was give out. Maybe we will just blame it on 114 degree heat. Yeah, that's a good reason!

So, I was droopy as I was getting ready to go to work. Farmall Man even ask if I needed another Dr. Pepper to wake up some more. I said no, that I would be ok. He always walks me to the truck and hugs me goodbye. He usually tells me to "watch out for people, people are crazy out there", but yesterday morning it was "you better wake up and pay attention, don't be hitting anything."

I'm bebopping on my way to work, found a few good songs on the radio, had it cranked up loud, was meeting a car, when BAM. That cone jumped up and smacked me! There is a little ol' strip of road construction on the way to work - maybe a 1/2 mile long, and that crazy cone reach out and smacked my passenger side mirror. I can't repeat exactly what I said yesterday morning. It was something like SHOOT.

My mirror fell out. I turned around and went back and picked up the shattered piece. The main bracket was not broken off the truck, but will most likely have to be replaced because the plastic brackets that hold the actual mirror are broken. UGH.

I went on to work: sad, sleepy, upset, quite, grumpy, scared to tell Farmall Man. Afterall his last words were...wake up and pay attention. I checked on a new mirror at the parts store in town $83.00+. Ebay has new mirrors for $29 and up with free shipping. Gotta love ebay!

When I finally told my co-workers, one of them ask: "Did it fly up and hit you?" Yep, thats what it did! What she meant was did I run over a small cone and it flew up from under the vehicle or tire. No - it was a tall cone, but I'm sticking to the idea that it jumped out and hit me!

All day I fretted over my stupid incident, how was I going to tell FM? Well I got home, he walked up behind the truck as I was getting out of the truck and I showed him my shattered mirror. Thankfully he was not mad. I got more like "I told you, you were a crazy girl, to watch out for stuff." Then there was, "we can fix it, that's what we do, fix things."

So in closing - watch out for those crazy, jumping, flying cones that will reach out and smack ya!

My Yard...Now and Then

This summer has been sooo hot and dry.

My yard is feeling a major impact from the drought. It is all I can do to keep the flowers watered and there comes a point when I have to let the "survival of the fittest" idea take over. It's really quite depressing as I water every night to see how sad everything looks. I water all my pots every afternoon and try to soak the flowers beds on a rotating schedule. I am the only irrigation system we have - so no timer will kick in and take over my job. I am trying to save the perennials and plants that have special meaning. (like the plants passed on from family and friends)



July 31, 2011

  There are a few bright spots among the brown ones... and these flowers have yet to be irrigated by me (other than the zinnias). You gotta love that! The sunflowers, periwinkles, and yellow four o'clocks have all self seeded and have taken care of themselves with the heat.

To be honest, I have NO idea were the yellow 4:00 came from. I only have hot pink and the yellow ones came  up by the steps. Farmall Man complains about having to walk around them to climb the steps... I reminded him of all his stuff I walk around and they are still happily standing by the porch ;)



July 31, 2011

The trees shouldn't be looking like this till fall, but I have had a red bud to die and the dogwood tree is ailing.

July 31, 2011

Summers in Texas are always hot, but last year my yard was still providing some pretty pictures. 

This is what my yard would normally look like this time of year (and some couch potatoes soaking up the a/c).



Last summer  - July 2010


Sunflowers were blooming in all colors and sizes last year...

Since there aren't any pretty flower picture this summer, I must return to files from last year and hope for a better summer next year. Hopefully the strongest plants will survive and next summer will produce more pretty blooms. After all us gardeners are an optimistic group...when we plant a garden, we are believing in tomorrow. Unfortunately, we are under an Excessive Heat Advisory instead of just a Heat Advisory for this week. Looks like I'll be spending lots of time with the water hose this week and dreaming about cooler weather and rain showers!

My favorite pics from the last week of July 2010.