Saturday Stitching: An FO, a Small and the MSAL

I have one finished small project. I started it a week before my vacation started, while I was waiting for my car to be worked on. I finished it this past Thursday,

The above is what it’s supposed to look like. It’s a DMC Cross Stitch Starter Kit design. The kit came with 7 skeins of floss, each a different color, 2 pieces of 14 ct white Aida, a tapestry needle. a hoop and a book with 6 designs in it. The supplies were enough to make two of the designs.

Now me, I made some changes to the shoe. The pattern is simply named Shoe…

The original pattern was only stitched, nothing special on it. I added some bling to it. The red beads are upside down hearts. I didn’t like the hearts of the tongue of the shoe so, I left them off. I think my shoe looks more fun than the original.

I haven’t decided how I’m going to finish it completely yet. I’ll need something like a shadow box if I decide to frame it. I could give it away as is as well. I just made it because it was small, quick and fun.

What do you think?? Suggestions/comments welcome!

Then, there’s my other small which I shared with you all last month. It’s the Mill Hill beaded ornament I started.

This is what it looked like last time I talked about it. It’s being worked on 28 ct lavender even weave. I have never done so much frogging in my life!! It’s hard to see it unless I really focus, even with my magnifiers on.

I’ve discovered I don’t like working with beads this small. It’s time consuming, fiddly and annoying – to me. A friend of mine has graciously consented to take this project off my hands and finish it for herself.

I like working on even weave fabric, but I’m not a huge fan of beading something that small. I don’t see myself doing another one in the future though they are quite pretty.

I’m behind on the MSAL, but I’m working to catch up. I’ve done half of September’s design so far, and I’m trying to figure out what colors to use for October’s.

Pomegranates and pumpkins oh my! 🙂

I also wanted to show you two things I discovered on my visit to Fort Worth Texas on Thursday. We went to the Montgomery Street Antique Mall where we discovered a lovely little cafe called The Secret Garden Restaurant.

We both had the Secret Sampler and shared an order of Bread Pudding for desert.

Anyway, while in the antique store, I found these very interesting looking wall art pieces, and I took a picture of one of them:

I just noticed the price tag. OMG!!! I could make something like this for way less, even framed!

I bought a tapestry kit as well, but I don’t have a picture of it to show yet. Surprisingly, the kit is fully intact with plastic over the bottom of the box where the yarn it. It has gone into my To Do pile for next year.

That’s it for this week. I start work on Monday so, I’ll be back to having limited time for my projects. My main focus is going to be the MSAL, but I’ll also be working on some other small projects as I get the time. I haven’t forgotten the dollhouse either. I hope you like the progress I’ve made on it thus far. I’ll be writing about it soon.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!

Vacation 2022: Haunted Texas Roadtrip Day 2

Today, we headed down to Huntsville Texas which is about an hour and 20 minute drive from the house and then, we headed over to Bowden Road aka Demon’s Road. We got a late start so it was already dark when we got there.

The place has a serious creep factor, and that was before we got out of the car. It’s another dirt road like Bragg Road, but it’s said to have more activity than Bragg. Bragg has trees that cross over the road creating a canopy in places. We didn’t go down the road that far, but the trees didn’t come that close to the road.

I don’t have any photos of our time there. We got out of the car, got our cameras out, and I took some photos while my son started taping. We had no cell service so he couldn’t live stream just like on Bragg Road.

As soon as I started taping, my phone completely died. I mean, just dead. No battery warning or anything. My son was using a flashlight as well as his phone, and the flashlight died right after my phone did. He asked me if I saw something down the road, and I couldn’t see anything it was so dark. His phone died a second later, and he said he felt himself get shoved.

He said it wasn’t hard, more of a “get a move on” type shove. He’d walked several yards in front of the car, and I had stayed by the front of the car. As I turned to walk to the driver’s side, I heard something hit the hood of the car, like a slap. My son was too far away to have touched the car.

We got both got in the car as fast as we could, and the car didn’t want to start at first. I’d turned the car off, no headlights or anything so the battery wasn’t drained – shouldn’t have been.

Needless to say, we got out of there as fast we could. When we got home, there were no pictures or video on either phone though I’m sure the pictures I’d taken had been saved.

I have no explanation for what happened. I didn’t see anything on the photos I took, and Joe says he didn’t see anything when he was taping. I can’t say for sure the place is haunted, but it was creepy. It was also a bit unnerving. I didn’t stay long enough to be scared properly, but I’m sure it was the right thing to do.

We plan to go back again, and we hope to be able to record something when we do.

Tomorrow night, we’re planning to stay at the Excelsior Hotel in Jefferson Texas.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Vacation 2022 Countdown: 14 days to Haunted Texas Road Trip!

I am really looking forward to this trip! It’s going to be a lot of driving, but there will be plenty of stops on the way once we get to El Paso and start the journey there. It’s about 12 hours to El Paso if we follow the route on the map, but we’re not. We’re going straight to El Paso and then, we’ll follow the map. I plan to find the fastest route there. 🙂

My son. Joe, had originally planned to only live stream us checking out haunted sites but now, he has the bright idea of doing a kind of Subathon for his Twitch channel where he will livestream for so many minutes for each new subscriber he gets. His channel is:

https://www.twitch.tv/grimcommando95

He’s been streaming for two years now, and I’m so glad he’s stuck with it despite how slow it’s been to build up followers. It is an adult only stream as he curses, drinks(at times) and is just himself. He also streams games he plays with others and is always happy to play with someone new. He likes to try out new games too.

We’re going to be taking turns driving, and we’ll set up the phone as best we can to stream if/when it comes time to stream our actual traveling.

I’ll be posting pictures myself on a daily basis. I’m going to try to embed video as well, if I can figure out how. I’ll be focusing mainly on what we see at the haunted sites, if anything.

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See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Vacation 2022 Countdown: Texas Haunted Roadtrip

My son and I are taking most of my vacation this year together with Em, his lovely girlfriend, joining us for the last couple of days.

I like sharing my trips with people, makes it more fun that way, and Joe, my son, wanted something new for his stream on Twitch. We also both wanted to do a Texas Haunted Road Trip. It made sense to turn my vacation time into a road trip he’ll be streaming live, and I’ll take pictures and post some videos for you all to enjoy as well.

There are several different maps posted over the years pointing out haunted places in Texas to visit, We both agree to begin in El Paso since it’s the farthest point out from where we live. This is the map I’m looking at:

The Terrifying Texas Road Trip That May Just Haunt Your Dreams

We’re planning on heading along the lower portion of the map so we end up back in Lufkin in time to pick up Em before heading up to Dallas. We’ll be stopping at different places along the way. If you live anywhere along the route or within like 50 miles of it, and you know some places said to be haunted, let me know in the comments below. We’ll make time to hit them up and give you credit for sending us that way whatever happens. 🙂

I am excited to try this. I enjoy new places and driving so it’s a win win with me. Cherry on top is doing this with my son and his GF. My vacation starts on 3 October, a Monday and goes for an entire week – plenty of time for rest breaks during the day and ghost hunting at night!

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

YouTube Tuesdays: Jen’s Kreative Kreations

This week, I want to share the channel of a fantastically gifted visual artist named Jen. She does all kinds of wonderful creations from watercolor paintings to journals and so much more! As a fellow Texan, I am delighted to share her work with all of you, and I hope you like her as much as I do!

I am in love with this beautiful reminder of more innocent times when Pooh and his friends were a big part of my life and that of my youngest son. So many sweet memories tied up with these fellows. I always related best to Eeyore myself.

After you’ve watched this video, you should check out her other videos! She has a lot of eye candy to delight most members of your family and keep you on YT for hours, if not days!!!

If you like any of her work let her know by commenting on the video you like and subscribing to her channel. I know she’d appreciate the feedback!

In case you missed yesterday’s post, I am raffling off a throw/accent pillow to help offset the cost of Mimi’s vet bills. She’s still ill, but she’s recovering. She’s suffering from a bad bout of bronchitis from what the vet tells me. Raffle entries are 50 cents American, and the raffle will last two weeks, starting today. The donation button is on yesterday’s post towards the bottom:

https://wordpress.com/post/bkgriffinsnest.com/1480

Mimi and I greatly appreciate any help you can give us!

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Hybrid Energy Systems and the Weather

Just two weeks before the energy grid in Texas failed due to unprecedented freezing temperatures and other winter related damage including frozen water wells, I was researching hybrid energy systems for a freelancing client of mine. Texas has two small nuclear reactors pumping out about 3,200 megawatts each plus fossil fuel and renewable energy sources so, normally, the grid does its job quite well. No, most of it wasn’t winterized when it was built and serviced since being built. In a state where the snow belt ends just below the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, why would it be?

Personally, I think all these disparate energy producers need to be replaced by at least one hybrid system that uses all of these sources in a more efficient and safe manner. One of the nuclear reactors went offline automatically when its water source froze over, and it couldn’t get any more water. That’s not something that’s being talked about in the media here in Texas. Instead, people are playing politics and the blame game when there’s nothing to blame except the weather. Politically, that’s unacceptable and so, the bullshit continues.

Instead of playing around, Texas researchers need to access the research the United States’ Department of Energy has been working on regarding novel hybrid energy systems. They have three of their top research labs working on this, and they’ve been working on it since Summer of 2020! A paper co-written by the three labs was released in Joule earlier this year, and it outlines the work they’ve been doing.

In a nutshell, the labs are taking a holistic approach to energy generation with the goal of producing cheap, efficient energy that will be available to everyone while producing little to no emissions. Any emissions it does create will be captured and used to make by products needed by the Industry and Manufacturing sectors. They plan to develop a blueprint of a system using only the best parts of all current energy producing systems namely: nuclear, fossil and renewable, maximizing efficiency and output of the energy produced. This means all the related items such as transmission, storage and transportation(to name a few) of this energy will need to be developed to meet the needs of the new system once it’s created.

And it will be created. There is too high a demand for energy that is efficient, cheap and reliable. Winterizing the system will be done even where there has never been snow before because you just never know. Making the system’s housing hurricane/tornado proof wouldn’t hurt either. Best to be prepared.

So that’s my thought for today. Let me know what you think.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Tried Something New Today

It’s something you should do yourself – try something new at least once a week – if not more.

Today, I felt like drinking so I went to the local Wal-Mart(I live in a semi-dry county here in East Texas so no alcohol outside of bars unless I want to drive almost to the next town in the next county), and I bought a 6 pack of Blood and Honey.

Blood and Honey, produced by Revolver Brewing here in Texas is called, by their creator, an American Ale. It is described, on the bottle, as being “An unfiltered, deep-golden ale brewed with malted two-row barley and wheat. Finished with blood orange peel, Texas honey and a blend of spices.”

I can’t really tell you what the color is since I am drinking from a brown bottle, but I can tell you it tastes(to me) like malt liquor. I like ale, and I was fully expecting something which tasted a great deal better than what I got a mouth full of. I drank more thinking the initial taste wasn’t something to base a decision on. I have actually gotten to about half way, and I have decided, most definitively, I don’t like the taste of this “American ale”.

Now, you all know me and my reviews – don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself. If you drink, even on occasion, you could give this a try, or not. The decision should be yours on whether or not it’s good. For those of you who like it – huzzah! For those of you who don’t – I can understand. Just don’t take my word for it. 🙂

See you all on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver. Oh yes, and I was wrong about the car – it’s a 1967 Impala or a 1969 Firebird you should drive. Hell, I’ll take a DeLorean if you please! 🙂