What happened in Birmingham?

I thought I would share my adventures in the ice-disaster that was Birmingham on Tuesday, January 28th.

It started Monday morning. Hubby left for the airport at 4:20 for a flight to New Orleans. He called me later that day to say his appointments for Tuesday and Wednesday were cancelled due to weather, and I told him to rent a car and come back.

Hubby left New Orleans at 5:00 am on Tuesday and then drove through sleet, freezing rain, snow, and a blizzard in Tuscaloosa. He finally made it home, well almost. His rental car could not get up the snow and ice-covered hill in front of our drive way.

The hill hubby could not drive up

Meanwhile, I got up Tuesday morning, took care of the dogs, dropped the dogs off at day care and went to work. My thoughts: oh it will snow a little, but it won't be bad. One of the girls left work at 10:15 to pick her kid up from day care which was closing at 11. The rest of us watched the snow come down and thought UAB would close soon. They finally made the announcement at 11 that they would be closing at 12, but it was too late. The road conditions rapidly deteriorated

What the roads rapidly turned into: ice!

Initially, I decided to wait-let everyone else leave, and then I would head out. Around 2 pm, I started realizing I wasn't going to make it home. The roads had iced over very quickly and everyone was trying to get home. Cars slid. Trucks jack-knifed. People couldn't make it up hills. And boy, does Birmingham have a lot of hills. The end result: everyone was stuck.

2 pm. Gridlock of people trying to leave Birmingham

Fortunately, I have some friends that live within walking distance of UAB, and I made my way to their place along with two other friends. We spent the night with them, and watched in horror the number of people that were stranded in vehicles on the interstates. People abandoned their cars and walked miles to shelter in below freezing temperatures.

Abandoned cars that could not make it up the hill in front of our neighborhood

More abandoned cars in front of our neighborhood and lots of ice

Someone slid into our neighbor's yard

Wednesday morning we got up and watched the news. The roads were still bad! Not only was there ice, but abandoned cars were blocking traffic everywhere. Again, we realized we were not making it home safely. The ice did thaw towards the end of the day and it helped a little. We got up Thursday morning and saw that the roads were mostly clear. We walked back to our cars, and then I picked the dogs up from day care and finally made my way back home. I was amazed at the number of cars that still littered the roads!

Our dogs were happy to be home and enjoyed the snow today :)

I'll be happy if I don't see snow for a very long time!

A big thanks goes out to my friends for letting us stay with them!

Updates!

It has been a while since I last updated, but it has been a busy summer for us. We were looking for a house, made an offer, and then had it inspected. It was well worth the money for the house inspection. There was too much wrong with the house, so we walked away, and are back to looking at houses.

We also adopted a second dog from Helping Shepherds of Every Color Rescue. Her name is Ellie, and she is a 1-2 year old German Shepherd. She is very sweet. Unfortunately, Mandy, our first dog, is not interested in sharing our apartment. Mandy growls every time she see Ellie inside. However, they get along fine at day care and the dog park, so there is hope! We also DNA tested Mandy, and she came back half Belgian Malinois with a little lab and Cocker Spaniel thrown in (I don't see the spaniel in her at all). It was a fun little test to do, and I think the Belgian Malinois explains a lot about her personality-her high energy for example.

Ellie at the dog park, and Mandy in the background.

Mandy with dog slobber on her nose :)

Since my last blog update, I finished Little Miss Sunflower by Little House Needleworks. She turned out cute :)

I have been working on Evening Primrose by Nora Corbett. Her skirt is much easier to see this time. I have her wings, some backstitching, and beading left. I hope to finish her by next week.

I will probably start When Witches Go Riding by Prairie Schooler soon-I love Halloween patterns :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Thanksgiving trip and Melody finish

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We made the long drive up to Wisconsin with two dogs, hubby, and my parents. The dogs were very well behaved in the car, but I can't say the same of Mandy at my Grandma's. Mandy was not playing nice with my Aunt's dog :(

Mandy and Molly in the car.

My niece Olivia eating the cake ball I made for Thanksgiving.

 My youngest niece, Harper. She is such a smiley baby.

We came back from Wisconsin with 18 lbs of apples and lots of cheese. Wisconsin has a much better selection of apples than here in the South. My plan is to make lots of applesauce :)

I did not get a whole lot of cross-stitching done last week, but here is my last pixie finish: Melody.

Thanks for stopping by!

An Expensive Halloween Finish

Over the weekend I finished Knock Knock by Prairie Schooler. I stitched it on PTP Willow Cashel, and I changed out the called-for "orange" DMC  to 721, an actual brighter orange. In addition, I used Mill Hill beads (2033) on the sides instead of cross-stitches. In the pic, the beads are not sparkling as much as they do in person.

So, why was this so expensive? One word...Mandy.

Friday night before dinner, I was stitching along, and then threaded my needle and presumably set the needle and thread on the arm rest of my couch. After dinner, I go to use my threaded needle, and it is not there. Ok, so I lost it, generally not that big of a deal. Skip to Sunday night, I take Mandy out, and she is having trouble going to the bathroom. Hubby takes her out later in the evening, and the same thing happened, except this time, he noticed a brown thread hanging out of her butt. And then it hit me. Maybe she found my missing needle and thread :(

This morning we take her to the vet, and the vet does an x-ray. Sure enough, my needle is right there in her colon. The vet then puts Mandy under, and we get a call about two hours later. They got the needle out. Yay! I am so glad she did not have to go in for surgery. The vet was impressed that the needle got as far as it did without causing issues. We will be picking Mandy up later today, and we will get the final vet bill. I should probably stop buying stash for a bit to help pay for our monster-dog.

Lesson learned: Obviously I need to be more careful with my needles in the future!!

Have a great week :)

IHSW September

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

We spent our weekend relaxing after getting back from the Florida Keys, where we vacationed last week with our friends. It was a long drive there and back, but we had a great time! The weather was gorgeous, and we saw lots of beautiful fish and a very large sting ray while snorkeling.

Picnic Island: A small island that we walked to from the boat. The water was about 3 feet deep and so warm. I loved it!

Mandy in the car. She rarely moved from this spot (behind the front passenger seat) while driving. Silly dog :)

For IHSW, I worked on Lady Hera. I did not take a before picture, but some of this was progress I made before we left for vacation. I did a whole lot of yellow stitching, and the flowers were a nice break from all that yellow.

Thanks for stopping by!

Fall Stitching

I hope everyone had a good weekend!

Last week I worked on some fall stitching. I started working on The Apple Orchard by Country Cottage Needleworks. The pattern was too cute, and I had to start it :) I finished the red barn, and then put it down to work on Halloween Rules.

I felt a wee-bit bad for starting a new project, so I picked Halloween Rules back up and finished two more rules. Only two more to go! My plan is to finish them this week, and then start Lady Hera by Mirabilia (my originally planned new start).

Yesterday we took Mandy, or Mandy-monster as I like to call her, to the creek at the dog park. She loves playing fetch in the water :) And, it tires her out, an added bonus for us.

Have a great week!

Progress

Mandy: 3   Me: 0

Mandy, our puppy, was quite the little monster last week. First she chewed off the end of a computer cable. Then a few days later, she chewed off the corner of my Halloween Rules pattern. Thankfully, I had already finished the part of the pattern she destroyed. And then she chewed off the end of our iron cable, so we could no longer plug it in. On Sunday, we went to the store to pick a new iron because I had fabric I needed to cut. What a monster!

This week, I worked on Halloween Rules and left the pattern sitting on the couch, which Mandy then attacked. I finished up 4 more rules, and now I have four left. The spiders in the last rule look kind of creepy and life-like to me :)

I also worked a little bit more on Moyland Castle, and finished the triangle. The unstitched holes are flowers and will be filled in with beads.

Thanks for stopping by!

Japanese Garden Update

I hope everyone had a good weekend. Ours was pretty relaxing. We took Mandy to the dog park Saturday and Sunday so she could run around and play (and to tire her out). Just because I think she is a cute dog:  A picture of her and one of her many toys

Back to cross-stitch. I worked on Japanese Garden this past week and played Diablo 3. So, I didn't get that much done on Japanese Garden, just the bottom left-corner ornament. I think it is looking good so far!

This week I will be working on Hillside Travelers. Hopefully next week I will be posting a finish :)

Last week, we went to the botanical gardens. The roses and daylilies were in bloom, and they were gorgeous. So many different colors. Below are a few pics I took:

 Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed all the pictures :)

Japanese Garden

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I went shopping with my Mom yesterday and helped her spend a lot of money on new clothes and shoes for her upcoming cruise. I was good and did not buy anything : ) but that is also because I just per-ordered Diablo 3. Lol.

Here is my progress update on Japanese Garden. I finished the bottom fall tree and the bottom right corner ornament. It's coming along nicely.

This weekend I also made a bag to carry Mandy's (our puppy) stuff (toys and lots of treats!) in when we travel. We will be in Chicago this week for my sister-in-law's Law School graduation, so I finished the bag just in time. The bag is sitting on my just-vacuumed couch. Mandy is shedding quite a bit. Grr...now I am finding dog-hair on my cross-stitch projects. At least it is short and very fine hair.

 Have a great week!

Moyland Castle Part 1

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I did. I finished Moyland Castle Part 1 :)

It is amazing how the backstitching really brought the castle to life. The border should be gorgeous too. All the empty spaces are for beads. Lot of bling!

Last week I also finished-finished a garden piece that I stitched last year. I love to garden and thought this piece turned out pretty cute. It was from a Cross-Stitch and Needlework magazine-maybe May 2010??

Lastly, a picture of our cute puppy on her back. She sleeps like this quite often and looks absolutely silly.

Have a great week!

Easter finish

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We had beautiful weather for Easter. Sunny, and not too hot :)

I finished a quick little Easter stitch from Bunnies by Prairie Schooler. I loved the duck pulling the bunny :)

I also worked on Hillside Travelers last week and finished off the top half of the design. The bottom half should be fun with all the cute little animals :)

 Lastly, a picture of Mandy:

 When she looks like this (and she does a lot), I feel compelled to play with her! Have a great week!!

New Family Member!

We adopted a puppy from the Humane Society this weekend. Her name is Mandy, and she is a lab-shepherd mix. The Human Society was not entirely sure about her parentage though. She is about three months old and weighs 15 lbs. So far Mandy: 3, us: 2 for potty training. We will have to work on that. Other than that, she a a very playful dog, and no barking. Yay! This is going to be quite an adventure : )

My amaryllis is blooming so I thought I would share a picture. It has at least 10 blooms on it:

I had my private defense on March 15th, and my public defense is this Thursday (my last major hurdle). Then I have to finish corrections for my dissertation, turn it in, and then I am done (well I do have to organize my lab notebook-that will be pain). Anyway, what a relief. I will be back next week with several pictures of my cross-stitch. Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!