Seeing Red

Good morning, my friends. After writing yesterday's post, I proceeded to waste my morning hours messing with ChatGPT. This is the sort of thing that interests me not at all, but I was trying to create an AI image. It took me quite a while to understand the ins and outs of this. At one point I realized I was wasting my whole morning, and I decided to indulge in that luxury for a single morning. Since I needed to leave the house at 11:45 a.m., it didn't seem as if there was enough time to do anything productive.

Before moving into to time-wasting mode, I stitched Tiny Treasure #9. This one includes lazy daisies, French knots, satin stitch, straight stitch, running stitch, and stem stitch. (Seems like a lot of stitches for a tiny motif.)

I didn't get home from my appointment until after 2:00 p.m. Of course, I needed a nap by then. When I woke up, it seemed too late to start anything else. Stitching another Tiny Treasure was about all I was good for. This is Tiny Treasure #10. It was supposed to be done with a "leaf blanket stitch," but I couldn't make that work. I used a fishbone stitch instead. Also, stem stitch (for the stem) and backstitch for the words.

It was nearing dinner time by then. There was a new recipe to try out. We had this Cream of Turkey & Wild Rice Soup. It's a recipe from Eating Well, which was the publication that replaced Cooking Light. Mine would have been more accurately named "Cream of Chicken & Rice Soup." Instead of wild rice, I used this blend. It contains wild rice, but includes some other rice grains as well.

Also, I used a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store in place of the turkey. This was really good. It's a thick soup...more like a stew...and we liked it. There's enough left over for another meal. It has carrots, celery, shallot, mushrooms, and the "cream" part comes from low-fat sour cream. The recipe, as written, serves four with 378 calories per serving. Not bad. We each had a slice of Texas Toast on the side.

When I looked outside this morning, I noticed the tree at the far end of our field is completely red now. It's beginning to shed its leaves.

On the other side of the house...this beauty. Wow.

There's no color editing on this. It really is that red.

Looking across to where the dahlia pots are, I noticed the Firefighter dahlia is nearly opened all the way. It's looking like we'll get sunshine today, and so I'm hoping it'll finish its journey by this afternoon. When it's completely open, it should show some red in the center.

So that was my lazy day. Today will be more productive. I'm going to take a walk on the treadmill and do some laundry. Except for that, I'll spend the day sewing. I'm ready to get back to Grandpa's Bridges and start sewing the blocks together. Here's where I left it on Tuesday.

As an update, I'm pretty sure I got scammed by the website that sold the brown fabric I ordered on Tuesday. I've opened a dispute with Paypal, and now it's just a matter of waiting for some time to pass. I'll keep you updated as I know more. Fortunately, it isn't a lot of money, and I feel confident Paypal will refund it. I suppose I should count myself lucky this is the first time I've encountered a bogus merchant on the internet. I'll be more careful from here on.

There are two Tiny Treasures left to stitch for this go-round. I might finish those off today if they don't take too much time. When those are finished, I'll be ready to start stitching the second block for Home is Where my Flock Is.

And if today is to be more productive than yesterday, I'd better get started. Off I go.