Five Things Thursday

1. Okay, so at happy hour last Friday night, our son-in-law, Nicky was telling us how house sales were going crazy during the pandemic. He's a closing attorney and has never been so busy. Then, I heard this on the news: Nashville only has enough houses on the market for a month. Now I don't know exactly what that means--I guess that if no other homes go up for sale, they will run out of homes to sell in a month. Yeah, that sounds about right. Normally, we have 5 months worth of homes. They talked about how the housing market here is on fire! They surmise that with people staying home and working from home, they are re-evaluating their living situation. Some want home offices. Others want to move further out where they have more yard. Some move from the city for that same reason. Yet, moves TO the city are strong too! I guess that's a really good sign that things are looking up financially. At least I hope so. We've been hit hard without the tourism income.

2. How true is this?

We usually get to use the pool most of September. Not this year. When we came home from the beach on September 12, it was all over. It's so hard to believe. We've had such a sudden dip in temperatures here--so unusual for us--that I actually had a fire on Saturday morning (in the fireplace I mean). It's going to get harder and harder to go out and walk at 5 a.m. when it's cold. I'll do it though. I'm in the habit now.

3. My niece, Ranya posted this photo on Facebook. 

This was her view from a "gig" over the weekend. She's a cellist in a quartet. The riverfront and sky looks so pretty. Ahhh, my hometown!

4. Saw this at Publix and thought I'd give it a try.

The first time I toasted it, buttered it and sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top. Sooo good.

Just look at all that seedy goodness! On Sunday, I asked Butch if he'd like pumpkin bread toasted with peanut butter on top. He said that there wasn't one thing about that --that sounded good. He doesn't usually like seedy bread. I liked it with the peanut butter too. I think it would be good with chicken salad or grilled cheese. I'll have to try it. I can't eat a whole loaf, so half will go in the freezer.

5. So glad to have this finished! The girls tend to give me things they don't want to finish because a. they don't like the stitch, b. it's too hard, c. they've lost interest. Well news flash! Any stitch they don't like I probably don't like either!! 

What was left was the entire chick. Anyway, I plowed through it. Not really, she gave it to me about 2 months ago. I was putting it off myself! I just set a goal to have it finished last weekend. If you can't tell, I'm very goal oriented. I do better with assignments and deadlines. 

Notice the little wing on the right? It's a wired piece that's woven. I HATE doing those. This one was no exception. When I finished it, it looked awful! I asked Butch what he thought. He said that Steph would never notice. So then, I asked myself, "If I were doing this for myself what would I do?" (OMGosh! I guess I've just invented WWBD--What Would Barb Do?). Reluctantly, I had to do it over. But before doing that I tried t salvage it. First I tried cutting the wire in the back and tried to remove it. I had anchored it so well, that there was no getting it off. Then I cut it close to the canvas and planned to move it and glue it. Butch reminded me that when I took it for finishing, it might come off. He was right. There would be no fixing it then. I just had to bite the bullet and do the right thing. 

I spent the whole afternoon doing it wrong and the whole evening fixing it. That's how it goes with stitching. Believe it or not, if you do the wrong stitch, or don't like the stitch you've done, it's harder and more time consuming taking it out than putting it in! And not any fun!

Anyway, it's done! I have too many projects going at once. That's not me. I'm sort of wigging out about it. I do one thing at a time. But--and this is the excuse. I signed up for a monthly project called "It Takes a Village." Each month you get a different storefront to do. It takes about a week to do each one. That left me with 3 weeks for something else. I'm working on another Christmas piece that will be a pillow for someone. I'm not finished with that. Then, we started that gingerbread house that was supposed to be a workshop for the girls and I. 

So this is how it stands: Steph's chick done--check. I'm caught up on the assignments I made for the gingerbread house--check. I just started the new storefront for the village (the bridal shoppe) so should have that finished this week--almost check. Then I'll be able to get back to that pillow that is no longer going to be finished by Christmas--no where near check! Oh well.