HO-LY S**T

That's what came out of my mouth when I walked into the house tonight. The asbestos people came today to work on the kitchen. I was totally NOT expecting this.

This is the view from outside our front door.

This is the view fom just inside the front door.

This is the view from the hallway looking toward the front door. Right by the light over there.

This is the door to the kitchen from the garage.

This is the kitchen window from outside on the patio. The circle is blowing out filtered air from the kitchen. Not sure what the square of red tape is.

Kirk kept beggin me all night to go into the "containment area". I wouldn't let him. Even though he found respirators. And boots. And white Tyvek suits in the garage. Silly boy, as if.

Obamicon Yourself!

This was pretty fun. Lots of clever samples in the gallery of this website.

This one's my favorite.

One down...

I finally completed one of my unfinished projects today.

This wallhanging was a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law that wasn't quite finished by the holiday. It took me a lot less time to finish it than I thought, which makes me wonder why it wan't done earlier.

It's a Pine Needles pattern from McKenna Ryan, but instead of using Batiks, I used the calicos I had on hand. I'm very pleased with it. I even embellished it a bit with beading on the flowers, and used some bone beads I had for the hanging strings between the birdhouses.

On a different note, I'm on a new mission to sew. I've got umpteen projects I've started, and now I'm ready to start checking them off my list.

Spooky...

This is what I saw as I was driving home from work.



Luckily, I had my camera in my purse and the battery wasn't dead.

So there I was, driving 75+ and searching for my camera in my purse to take these pictures. I know, totally unsafe, but I've got a blog to take care of here...



So this view of the EYE IN THE SKY kinda freaked me out. Especially since we've been going through so much here at the Johnson house lately.

After Christmas...

My wonderful husband got Christmas put away in a jiffy this year. Thank goodness, because with all the excitement, I was ready to get back to normal.

We have had this sewing cabinet in our living room for YEARS, and i knew there was an old Singer inside. I had mentioned this summer that I'd like to maybe open it up and display the machine, but had never actually SEEN the machine.

Well, here she is. ISN'T SHE BEAUTIFUL???

I thought maybe she'd be all dirty. I figured she'd be all rusty and inoperable. I didn't think she'd be THIS GREAT!!!

Now I'm on a mission to finish up some quilts to drape over the cabinet, or maybe in a basket underneath. I'm squeeling with delight!

During Christmas...

Christmas turned out to be really nice, despite all of the fans and dehumidifiers going non-stop.

Nohl was ready for Santa and his teacher even gave him reindeer food to put on the front step. He wrote Santa a nice note to let him know in case the reindeer missed it.

And THIS is what Santa brought for the thoughtful six year old. Nohl has already told me he wants to take guitar lessons, so we got him signed up to start next week. Can't wait to see how he likes it.

Before Christmas...

I was feeling kind of Bah Humbug this year about Christmas, so no cards went out, decorations were minimal, and gifts didnt' get wrapped until Christmas Eve. This is the other reason gifts got wrapped at the last minute.

I picked up Mom from the airport on Monday, and came home to a waterfall coming from our kitchen ceiling. Our ice maker tubing (that ran through the attic) froze and burst. I had to call the neighbor to come shut off my water (thanks John) because I couldn't believe that itty bitty pipe coming into the house could possibly be our main water. Kirk arrived shortly after and we got to work cleaning up the mess.

After Kirk spent 4 hours in the attic cleaning up the wet insulation and water (he's amazing) we called the insurance company the next day. They sent out the restoration company with these fans and gigantic de-humidifiers. The water made its way into the basement walls and part of the floor, but after a few days, everything dried out nicely.

This hole in the ceiling (that we stuffed with insulation to keep the cold out) happened when Kirk was in the attic. The drywall was so saturated that he accidently knocked a piece out trying to clean up.

The restoration company also had to come test the drywall for asbestos and just our luck, they found some in the sample from the kitchen.

We had a guy come last night to give us an estimate on the asbestos clean up, and he feels we need to replace THE WHOLE kitchen ceiling. Some of the drywall is still wet, which surprised us. That means that our kitchen will be out of commission for a day or two.

SO NOW..............we wait. Wait for the estimate to come back for asbestos removal. Wait for the insurance company to approve the estimate. Wait for the work to be done. Can you tell I'm tired of waiting???

While all of the excitement was going on with the fans and drying out process, we were busy working on last minute Christmas gifts for our nieces and nephew.
I needed to get these camera straps finished up. They turned out really nice and the girls LOVED them.
Kirk was busy finishing up these cross stitch designs for the kids, which I then sewed to some felt and made into ornaments. They loved these too, but weren't quite sure what to think of Uncle Kirk doing cross stitch. I think it's great.