My shoulder problems have been requiring me to go to physical therapy twice a week.  It’s in Decorah and that town is a half hour away.  It’s a pain going but in reality that’s about the closest place I around here here to go to get therapy in a schedule like mine.  I’ve been going to Team Rehab.  I went to one of the other places in the area and wasn’t really impressed.  Team Rehab has been AWESOME!!  I highly recommend them to anyone in the area who needs use these services.  They are friendly, nice and very professional.  Best of all…they have appointments that start at 5pm.  For me, that’s golden.

With childcare it’s so hard to get away.  Anytime I can’t be here I either have to coordinate with one of my kids to be my sub, or I have to close.  Parents hate when I have to close so, this 5pm appointment means the kids have to be picked up shortly before 4:30 and for all of the families that’s do-able.  It’s hardest on Kalissa if she has to work…but as I said, it’s do-able with the least conflicts.

Another great thing about Team Rehab, it’s located in the same strip mall as one of my thrift stores.  So now that I’m going to physical therapy every week I’m also getting to the thrift store every week.  That can be dangerous….

Thankfully the fabric is all cheap.  Here’s what I found.

These are all 1-2 yard pieces….  50 cents each.  Yes, the blue is a batik.  All of these fabrics are something I would definitely consider is shopping in town for fabric.  The bicycles…so cute!!

How could I resist tractor fabric?  I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it…something, someday, I’m sure.

Can you believe these two pieces?  Both are big enough for backing.  One is six years…the other five yards.  Yahoo.  $2 each.  That was a steal!! [Read more...]

Early this summer I was on a thrifting trip and saw these boxes.  I thought they were kind of cute and considered buying them thinking they would be great to use for wrapping a gift.  Then I opened them up and read the tag.  It said, “$3 Box and Thread”.  Box and thread?  I opened it up and took a look.

I opened one and saw tags that said “Weeks Dye Works”.  WHAT????  It was packed full of thread.  I opened the other box and saw tags that said “Gentle Arts”.  Oh my oh my.  I grabbed up both boxes and put them in my cart.  These were coming home with me for sure!

For those of you who don’t cross stitch or do needle work, this was the find of the century for any stitcher.  Threads like these are about $2.40 per skein.  When I started cross stitching again I had wanted to start using Weeks Dye Works thread but it was so expensive.  I decided to go with DMC instead.  I’m a cheapo and I didn’t want to spend that much money.

Before I looked at the boxes to really see how full they were I rummaged and roamed through the craft section to see if there was anything else cross stitch related that I would like….nothing.  Hmmm.  That surprised me.  Typically when a person cleans out their goodies, there are lots of related items put out on the shelf.  This time, just the thread.  That’s okay.  This was still the find of the century.

The boxes were not my favorite way of organizing the threads.  The threads were suppose to be bagged and then a hanger attached to the bag.  Then the hangers were suppose to hang on hooks inside the box.  The problem, when I bumped the box the hangers came free.  UGH.

I ended up deciding to eliminate the hangers and clip them in a big binder clip like I have done with my DMC floss.  When I tried to remove the hangers, the bags ripped and didn’t work so I bought bags and reorganized the whole lot.  I love doing that putzy stuff.

This is what I ended up with….. [Read more...]