What's on my Computer

I spent most of the day working on my website. It's amazing how slow I still am at working through some of the info to get things to work right. I'm pretty pleased with my results so far. I've just about got the main templates for the pages done, then it's just a matter of inputting copy for each page. I feel good about what has been accomplished at this point.

My image with this blog posting shows a picture of my Pfaff 4D Suite embroidery digitizing software on the screen. I haven't been playing with that program near enough this summer, but once the website's up and running I plan on adding some embroidery designs to see how the response is. I know this blog isn't being looked at my very many people yet. That should change over time as I get going more with all my plans.

Meanwhile, I have certainly been enjoying the summer. It's hard to believe we're already into August. My, time sure goes fast!

Eh? What'd you say?

It was another noisy day here with breaking up cement, but (yeah) it's done. Yeah! My husband has the steps completely demolished and the evidence is scattered all about. Tomorrow he'll concentrate on collecting and hauling away the remainder of the rubble.

He's still got his work cut out with building a new wood deck platform and steps. At this point we are taking the dogs in and out the front door. Now Ginger doesn't seems to want to readily jump that height since she sees the little ones going in and out the front door.

I decided to get away for awhile this afternoon and took all three dogs on about an hour long walk up and down and throughout the neighborhood. They seemed to love it. I really enjoyed the walk, and the mostly sunny day. It's still seems cool and breezy to me, so I was bundled up warm in a sweater. We all got tired out from the walk and the dogs laid down and slept afterward, even through the noise. I took a few pictures of the rubble, but will post them later this afternoon.

I've been up working of my studies for this week. Busy, busy, busy with school work. We have only three weeks left. Yeah! I can't wait to be finished this semester. I am looking forward to taking the summer off. I want to be able to review more in depth on the HTML coding and learn my Dreamweaver program more thoroughly before I start up again in the fall. But I know it will seem a lot less hectic than it does right now. Hopefully I'll have time to work on a business plan and get some other things taken care of - like finishing the sorting, organizing and purging I started some time ago. So many plans, I can't wait for more time to commit to them.

And of course once the new back steps are done Pat and I will likely celebrate with a nice week boating and fishing. I hope the weather cooperates and we get a really nice, warm sunny day at that time.

Introducing another household pet

We inherited this goldfish, Harold, from my youngest son, Josh when he came home for a visit during Spring Break. Since they closed the dorms at that time he couldn't leave the fish behind. Harold has since become our adopted fish. It's just a tiny little tank - what a lonesome life this fish has been called to live. But it has trained us well; when it keeps coming to the top corner of it's aquarium we know it's looking for food. Thus we oblige it a couple times a day. Pretty low maintenance with dropping in fish flakes and occasionally changing the water in the tank.


You'll never know how many times I tried taking this picture and just missing. I would have thought a little fish swimming round in circle would be a bit easier to capture on camera. I had lots of pictures of it just coming into view, just exiting from view, out of focus, glare from the tank, etc. I see a bit too much flash on the fish here, but this picture will have to do. It was the best of the bunch.

I ran across this stitch out when I was looking for something else the other day so thought I would share it. I made it using the PictureStitch module of my Husqvarna Viking Professional software program. PictureStitch works by turning an image into a stitched design. It can be done in a single color like is shown here in black, or with four colors of thread that are supposed to represent the four colors you see in printed images with cyan, magenta, yellow and black. I like the single color I chose for this rendition. The size is not more than 6", but they take a bit of time to stitch out. Obviously the four-color option takes longer than the single-color choice to stitch. It is a picture of me when I was a little girl. It is black thread stitched on an ecru muslin background. The project was for a software class I taught last year. I haven't made this sew-out into anything yet. It was going to become a page in a fabric book I was working on, but then thought maybe I'll make it into a totebag. Those seem to be so popular now with the decreased use of plastic shopping bags.

Well we've loaded up the truck and plan to head off to see the boys tomorrow. They're moving into an apartment together for the summer. So we packed up some of the last remaining "stuff" that belongs to our youngest son. He has decided not to come home to stay with us this summer. It looks like he's on his own from here on out. I've already started the re-arranging of that room to reclaim it for our turf. There still remains some lingering belongings from both the boys. They say they will come back to claim the last of their items sometime, but it is down to very little. I have already boxed most of that into plastic bins and tucked them away in a closet. It looks like we really are empty nesters now. Am I sad? Yes and no. It's a good feeling to see they are able to stand on their own. I remember that time of life as kind of fun when I did it, so I'm happy for them and know they will do well. Will we miss them? Yes, I think so. But I know we'll be okay with that. They are only a phone call away.

The Fam

They're mine, and I love 'em!

Today I decided to post a few pictures of "The Fam". My family consists of all guys! I'm the lone female voice in the group. I tell you sometimes as the kids were growing up they out voted me on a number of things. But I could always pull "the mom" card out of my hat if I really wanted to. You know, like "I'm the Mom," and "because I said so" type of thing. The was an especially good thing to be able to do on occassion.

Actually it wasn't so bad. I like all my guys, and they are pretty good guys afterall. So here they are as photographed by yours truly on a fishing adventure one cool windy day last year. My oldest son, Ben, is at the upper right; then, shown on the middle left, a couple years younger, is Josh; and the lower right picture is of my husband, Patrick. Aren't they a handsome bunch?


This day was fun. I don't recall that we caught very many fish. It was pretty cool and breezy. We had fun taking a spin around the lake.

Ben was able to come home this particular weekend to spend time with us. Josh was home for the summer. He and his Dad did their share of fishing last year.

Now that the boys are both living away from home I get to be the designated fishing buddy for my husband. We took the boat out two times so far this year.


One boating/fishing day was just a real short time of it out on the river. Staying close to home was a good idea that day. It was nice and warm (one of the first really warm days of the year), but there was still snow on the ground. It was pretty humorous to launch the boat out on the water, see people in tank tops and shorts fishing along the shore, and still drifts of snow along the bank. Only in North Dakota!

Hopefully it will be a great summer for fishing and boating.