Are delivery drivers really this DUMB !!

Hello Everyone; Hope this finds you all well. 

This is going to be a bit of a rant post, just to warn ya.

The hubs ordered new leaf springs and tires for the vacation home (aka: the 5th wheel) on either the 8th or 10th. He figured it would take a week or so for everything to come in. 

He ordered tires from Walmart and they were at the Billings, Montana store on the 14th, fast shipping, easy pick up at their store. One down one left to go.

We waited and waited for the leaf springs to show up, he sent an email to the place he ordered from. They answered and said they had been delivered and gave a tracking number.The hubs checked FedEx website and sure enough they said they had been delivered on the 14th of June seven days ago. 

Now FedEx has been delivering here long enough that they know where our house is, the number is at the end of the driveway and on the house clearly visible from the street. There is an abandoned mobile home that looks abandoned with boarded up windows and such that we use for storage just around the corner.  

So where do the idiots deliver the leaf springs to, yep, that's right to the trailer with no house number that is boarded up. They sat outside a the back steps that are broken down and covered in moss for seven days with it raining most days. The boxes were soaking wet and the springs were starting to get rust and the bolts and brackets were also. Hubs just say's he'll throw a coat of paint on them before putting them on the trailer.

FedEx has always been a bit lazy about delivering out here with not ringing doorbells or knocking, just drop and run, even if it needs a signature. This was just the epitome of lazy workers that could tell no one lived there, but they just didn't care. I know the hubs won't send them an email, because he told the person we ordered from about it and thinks he will say something to them, but I am most definitely not that nice and will get the information from the shipment and send them a no BS assessment of their sorry ass service. 

And if we have a choice of shipper I will go with UPS. I like UPS much better, they always knock or ring before they head back to their truck.

Rant completed, sorry/not sorry for being a crabby ass. 

I guess I should be, and I am, grateful that we live in a small town with next to no crime otherwise the boxes would have been gone.

Take Care Everyone & 

Have a Great Weekend

Hugs, Sandy

A Wandering Scissor Fob

Hey there everyone. 

Thought I'd share a scissor fob chart that you can stitch over the weekend.

"Not all who WANDER are lost" 

Uses DMC threads, but as always I encourage you to choose your favorite colors for fabric and thread.

It only measures 2-1/4" using 14/28 count.

You can find finishing tutorials for scissor fobs on YouTube or here Lynns scissor fob tutorial

I've never made a tutorial for one yet, but probably should at some point. 

Please Respect Copyright Laws.

Remember these are my own designs and I would love it if you would post a link to my blog if you stitch one of my designs.

If you do stitch one of my designs I would appreciate seeing your finished piece. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Have a great weekend Everyone

Hugs, Sandy

TUSAL Update for June

Hello Friends; Hope you are all doing well.

It's time again for the TUSAL (Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long) update for June.

I have quite a few ORT's this time around since I am working on one of my designs and am tweaking the colors and rearranging placement as I stitch.

 My CS program can only show me so much and the colors are never true for floss and fabric.  

13 June 2018 TUSAL

I almost filled the jar. 

The bottom part with the white and violet/blue is from our camping trip and the rest (browns and greens) is from my latest design which will be a bellpull with lots of pine trees and a Robert Frost poem.

Lot's of pickin' stitches this week.

I'll need to start compacting the threads down soon.

Well, that's all for today so until next time.......

Thank you for stopping by and leaving your thoughts behind.

Take Care & Happy Stitchin' All

Hugs, Sandy

Something for the 5th Wheel

 Hello Everyone: Hope all is well with you.

I made this last month for the shower in the vacation home. (aka: the 5th wheel)

A hanging shower caddy.

 

I looked at lot's of pictures to get an idea of what I wanted then found everything I needed in my sewing stash. The mesh for the back and pockets came from a windbreaker that had a broken zipper, the fabric I've had from when I worked at a Ben Franklin in the 90's. The straps have Velcro for easy removal.

It measures ruffly 12"W x 18-20"L.

That's it for today, thank you so very much for having a look around and leaving your thought's behind, I really do appreciate it.

Take Care Everyone

💕 Hugs, Sandy 💕

A Patriotic Gift for Independence Day

Hello Friends; I hope all is well with you. 

Were having storms roll through each evening with high winds, lightening, thunder, and rain. 

I hung some laundry out earlier and just said screw it and left it out for the rain to freshen instead of running out in it to bring it in.

I finally got ink for my printer so I'm able to print my charts again and since my printer is multi function I can also scan them so hopefully this will print off just fine. If not let me know and I can try and fiddle with it to get it the right size. It's set for ruffly 11" x 8" in landscape mode.

Forgot to add the color inspiration.

Should be an easy stitch with only three colors and whole cross stitches, but there is quite a bit of back stitch. I think it would look great in variegated or over dyed threads, so pick your favorite red, white, and blue and start stitchin'. This could be turned into a pin pillow, mini banner, or a bowl filler, you decide.

As always, I would love to see your finished work of any of my designs and if you post a picture to your blog, Facebook, etc. a link back to my blog would be much appreciated.

That's it for today, thank you so much for stopping by the cabin to see what I've been up to.

Until next time.......

Take Care & Happy Stitchin'

Hugs, Sandy

The Honey Locust are Blooming

Hello Everyone, hope all is well is with you and your staying safe.

My Honey Locust have finally started to bloom and permeate my yard with their amazing scent.

I so wish I could bottle that fragrance and add it to my blog post to share with you all.

Enlarge the pic to see all the beautifully fragrant blossoms.

We have five of these trees on our property and have contemplated cutting down the two oldest and biggest that reside at the back of our cabin just for the safety of our home, but so far they have shown no sign of disease or decay so they remain standing strong barely moving with the strong Montana winds we get from time to time.

We will be cutting down the Elms that are across part of the front half of our property thanks to the previous, previous owners who planted two 20-30 foot spans only leaving room for the driveways and the apple trees. That's what almost got the car last week and it's not the first giant limb that has come crashing down from the winds or snow load, so this year they go. Most definitely won't miss them.

We also have a Black Walnut that needs to go at some point before it takes out one of the sheds. Our squirrel population will definitely miss that one, but at least they have two others to rely on. The hubs wants to be picky about how that one is take out as the wood would be perfect for selling to gun stock makers.

 A new gift will be posted soon, I've been working on a few. 💝

That's it for today, so until next time.......

Take Care Everyone

💞 Hugs, Sandy 💞

Cottonwood Creek Campground

So after a couple of set backs, I'm finally posting about our 1st camping trip of 2018.

 This is VERY picture heavy!

What were the set back's, you ask. 

Well the first one was this monstrosity falling during a Thursday evening storm. 

Thankfully it only left surface scratches on the body and no dents, the largest part of the branch is out of camera range and about a 20 feet long and foot or more in width.

The second set back was just grocery shopping, nothing exciting there.

OK, so now on to the camping trip.

We left before noon on Thursday the 24th and headed south down to Lovell, Wyoming and then several miles outside of town to the Cottonwood Creek Campground.

 

Very quite and no traffic noise with only one road in and out. When set up in our spot we could see anyone coming up the road. I thought it would be mostly empty as it was only us and one other trailer when we got there, boy was I wrong. 

By that first evening we had four (4) other 5th wheels show up along with a cargo trailer that carried three (3) of the seven (7) ATV's they brought. They went wheelin' every day but only after noon so they weren't noisy neighbors.

On Friday 25th three (3) more trailers showed up and a camper parked 1/4 mile down the road but posted their horses in the corrals, that are there. So this little campground that only has seven designated camping spots, had a total of nine trailers/campers enjoying the Memorial Day weekend.

Sorry, didn't get a picture with the four paints.

There is even a watering area for horses down on the left side of where we were parked. 

We had a couple of quiet evening with nice cool breezes blowing through the windows on both Thursday and Friday.

Lots of beautiful views in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming.

This was the view from our dinning table.

And out of the kitchen window, made cooking and doing dishes nicer.

You can see the watering area for the horses in this shot.

You could barely make out the town of Lovell during the day.

But at night you could see all the lights in town.

The first nights graced us with beautiful sunsets.

We took a trip into town on Saturday the 26th to pick up a couple of water jugs to put in the tank on the trailer. Lesson of the day: check the water when you are on level ground before you leave the house. 

We found this while driving thru town.

C & R Liquor, a drive-thru liquor store. Never seen one before.

It's part of the Red Apple Supermarket in Lovell where we bought the water jugs. We also found a section of freeze dried foods from Agason Farms and came home with two #10 cans of potato dices @ $6.56 each and a #10 can of honey powder @ $15.39. They were less than what they sell for on line. We plan on stopping in again the next time were in Lovell.

We also took a drive up the Bighorn Pass. There was still snow on the mountain and berms 6 foot high or better in areas where they had plowed to open the road.

And as always the views were amazing.

This was the sign at the mid point of the Bighorn Pass.

Not gonna try and pull the trailer up or down this area anytime soon.

On Saturday night and Sunday a couple of big storms rolled in and brought rain and high winds blowing down the canyon behind us that shook the trailer all night. They eased up during the day but started all over again on Sunday night, it was quite scary and had the hubs going out to check the stabilizers to make sure we were staying in one place. They felt like 50-70 mile an hour gusts and we were glad we were facing down the canyon instead of crosswise, I would not have liked to feel the wind hitting us broad side.

It made for some beautiful storm pictures though.

Love the low laying clouds creeping through the canyon.

We left on Tuesday the 29th after it rained all day on Monday.

These are the tracks we left behind on a muddy section of the road.

This was some slippery stuff that had us in four wheel drive and fishtailing this way and that just to stay on the road. We lost a cover for one of the front outside lights when a big clump of mud hit it.

And then 20 minutes from home we had our first tire blowout and we broke a leaf spring some where between leaving and the tire.

Here's whats left of the tire.

And the broken leaf spring. The hubs tied it up with a bungee cord. 

Had an Angel of a woman stop to make sure we were ok when she saw the treads on the road and us checking the tire on the road side, then she drove off only to turn around and come back to tell us there was a much wider and safer turn out about a 1/2 mile up the road. She then drove to the turn out and waited for us to get there before she waved and drove away.

Had another truck stop to make sure we were ok and a truck driver pull his rig over to chat for a while.

We made it home in one piece, but have a few repairs to make so our camping season can continue.

Thank you so much for stopping by.
Hope you enjoyed the views of our camping trip as much as we did.

So until next post......

Take Care & Have a Great Day

Hugs, Sandy