To be 10 again

Wouldn't that be fun? I can't tell you how happy I am that Cassie loves it up here so much. She seems to be so much happier here than she was in Texas. I know it's because she has a lot more opportunities here and she gets to do so much more. Her little corner of the world seems to be pretty bright here lately. Mine would be too I think if I were 10 1/2 and:

Just finished my very first knitting project. She took an enrichment class at school in February after school and learned to knit. She started a scarf in the classes but didn't finish it because she wanted hers to be longer than what it was when the class ended. She put it away for a long time and finally decided to last week to finish it. Here she is modeling her very first scarf! Thank goodness they provided her with websites that have video tutorials if they got stuck. I know nothing of knitting so would be no help. They do have a knitting shop here called Knitter's Cottage that offers workshops for knitters who get stuck on projects and I'm sure I'll be taking her in for those. She also wants to learn to make socks so I'm sure we'll be signing her up for a class as soon as she has a few more scarves under her belt. I told her once she finished this scarf that I'd buy her some new yarn. She held me to it too. As soon as this was done she was ready to go to the store where she picked up a nice bright pink yarn. Her first order of business.....one of her Webkinz needed a scarf. I bring you Cassandra the love puppy with her new scarf. Doesn't she just look divine? After that was finished she started on another pink scarf. I do believe she said that this one will be for me. I'll be anxiously awaiting it's completion!

Then there's the new Miley Cyrus CD that she just picked up with the money she had been saving. What's even better? With the purchase of the CD you get a free 60 day membership to mileyworld.com. I wasn't too terribly thrilled with the fact that I still had to give my CC #. I know it won't be billed but I also know how these things work. They just hope you'll miss canceling before that time so they can bill you for the next year. Little do they know I'm crossing off the days on my calendar so they're not getting me, no siree. Now if she wants to save her money and pay for it herself, that we can do.

On top of that her best friend's coming over for a sleepover tonight. Learning a new hobby, getting a new CD, joining a fan club of my favorite singer in the whole world, and having a sleepover with my BF sure sound like great fun to me! If she could manage to score tickets to see The Jonas Brothers in concert tomorrow night in Baltimore, I do believe her world would be perfect.

Hanging around

We spent so much time out and about when Mike's mom was here that I decided to spend most of the past week at home. We did venture out a couple of days. We spent one full day out shopping for things for school before everything got picked over. I can't believe school starts back in a month. It seems like they just got out. We've stayed pretty busy all Summer and it's going by way too fast for me. I wish I could slow it down a bit. I also can't believe how much was on their lists for this year. According to said list, Joshua needs 50 pencils and Cassie needs 40. I did not buy that many. I'll get more later if they need them but I'm having a hard time believing they'll use that many. They must anticipate them losing a lot of them or something.

I did get to spend some time stitching but can't show pics of anything I stitched. Some are gifts and then I had the pleasure of stitching a model for a local designer. I was really excited about that and am looking forward to stitching more for her in the future. I can't hardly wait until the chart comes out so I can point and say "Oh! Oh! I stitched that!" :). It wasn't a large piece but I was really happy to stitch it.

Yesterday we took the kids to a beachy area on the Rappahannock River that we recently discovered. We spent most of the afternoon swimming in the river. That's the same river that George Washington swam in when he was a boy. Don't believe me? Okie dokie, go here and read for yourself :). There were a lot of people swimming and tubing in the river which quickly made me decide that I need to get one of those tubes too. The water was pretty clear and the current where we were at wasn't bad at all. The water was flowing but it was pretty shallow where we were at. I wasn't however amused with the big signs that say "This river can kill" that were scattered about along with the number of people who have drowned since the 70's. I guess you can't underestimate the power of a flowing river. We had so much fun and I know we'll be spending a lot more time there this Summer since it's only a hop, skip, & a jump away. I wish we would've noticed that area a little sooner.

I don't have too much planned for the first of this week. We're leaving late Thursday for my family reunion so I'll be doing some things to get ready for that.

Ghosts of Fredericksburg

There's a Ghosts of Fredericksburg tour here on Friday & Saturday nights that I've been wanting to go to. If I would've thought of it before now then I would've asked Mike's mom to watch the kids so he and I could go. I don't know that I do or don't believe in ghosts. I guess I'm undecided. There sure are a lot of people around here that believe in them though. I've encountered several people downtown that own businesses in the historic part who like to tell me ghost stories and tell me about places there that are haunted. We spent some time downtown the other day. While there we stopped off to show Mike's mom the Confederate Cemetery. I don't usually make a habit of taking pictures of them but I'm really fascinated with this one and thought some of you might be too. It's very well kept up and I like reading or trying to read the tombstones and wonder about the people who are buried there.

I especially wonder about all of these guys here who died in the Civil War.

And this guy here who fought in the war of 1812.

If there really are ghosts in Fredericksburg, I would think there would be some lurking about in here. If only those trees could talk.

We had a really good week with my MIL. We did a lot of fun things and hate that she's leaving tomorrow. The week really flew by. I hate goodbyes and I really stink at them. It was nice having someone from home around. I really miss not having any family nearby. She's already making plans for her next visit. She's actually the only person at all from TX who expresses any interest at all in visiting. I'm really missing my mom today. I'll get to see her in a couple of weeks.

I did manage to finish stitching a little Christmas piece this week. It's the Christmas Motif Sampler from JBW Designs. I stitched it in Blue Spruce Weeks thread on a really light green piece of linen that was hiding away in the corner of my fabric box. I really like how it turned out. I think this one wants to be a pillow.

I also got word that my Christmas in July partner received the ornament that I stitched for her so I can post a pic of it now too. I sent to Kathy and stitched a piece from the Prairie Schooler's Cranberry Christmas chart for her. I really like that chart and this piece just looked like it needed to be on her tree.

So how many of you went and had a look at the panda cam? How addicting is that?! Or maybe it's just me LOL! I've been finding myself checking to see what they're doing just about every time I get online. I find them very fascinating and wouldn't mind being one of those people who stay up all night watching them. I'll be looking forward to seeing them in person again. Next time we'll go when we have an all day metro pass so we can just hop off the train and not have to worry about parking or paying to park.

We're off to D.C. again in the morning to take my MIL to the airport. While we're there I think we may check out a museum or two that we've not visited yet. I got to see the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington on Tuesday for the first time and that was really neat.

Panda Watching

We spent a nice part of the day at the National Zoo today. It doesn't cost anything to get in to the zoo, however the parking is quite pricey. It's not a flat rate. They charge you by the amount of time you were there. We were there for 3 hours and owed $15.00. Which is still not much considering there were 5 of us. I think it would have been easier for me to pay the $3.00 per person to get in than the $15.00 to park. Not that it matters, it just seems like every where we go we're forking out money for parking. $15 for the zoo, $15 for the beach...geez. We really liked this zoo although we were a little disappointed that some of the animals we wanted to see weren't out. We did get to see a lot though. One thing that we thought was super neat was the rain forest in the Amazonia exhibit. There were monkeys jumping around and we also saw a sloth hanging around. It was really neat because they were just right there with you (with lots of signs that said to stay 5 feet away from them). I thought the monkeys were pretty cute until I tried to take a picture of one and he threw a big leaf at me. Brat...lol. Another thing that I really liked was a big tank that had a bunch of stingrays and other kinds of fish in it. It didn't have a lid on it. The top came about to my waist. There were signs around that said not to put your hands in the water or lean over the top. I was minding my own business when one decided to make a big splash right in front of me. He darn near gave me a heart attack...lol. I think one of Cassie's favorite things was this blue crab. How neat is he? She loves crabs you see.

My favorite thing was the Giant Pandas! They're SO pretty! My main reason for going was to see Mei Xiang. She's so pretty! I didn't get any good pictures of her because she was sleeping behind glass in the Panda Habitat, but I did get some really cute pictures of her 3 year old baby boy named Tai Shan. That's who these 3 pictures are of.

I did manage to sneak one picture of Tian Tian, although it wasn't a very clear one. I took it inside the Panda Habitat behind the glass. He was tearing in to this bamboo and it was so much fun to watch that I had to post a pic.

I really loved the pandas and can't wait to find out if Mei Xiang is gonna have a baby this month. There's a Panda Cam online. If any of you care to watch them go here and scroll down until you see the Panda Cam. It's really neat!

I can't wait to find out what we'll be doing tomorrow! I'm spending the morning showing a friend how to make flat folds and then I think we're venturing out again when I get back. I hope you're all having a great Summer!

P.S. My wounds are feeling much better. I'm trying to talk Mike in to another beach trip because I got such a raw deal on the last one LOL!

Pardon the Limp

So we went to Virginia Beach yesterday and had a really great time, despite the fact that the ocean was not kind to me.

The lesson I learned from this outing:

Don't go to the beach when there's a hurricane somewhere out there.

From a weather site:

While Bertha is well far away from the Eastern Seaboard, it will produce increased waves and dangerous rip currents for the next few days from the Carolinas all the way north into New England and Nova Scotia. On Saturday, 40 swimmers had to be rescued at Wrightsville Beach alone due to the hazardous rip currents. Beach goers up and down the East Coast should be alert for the dangers and only swim in areas monitored by lifeguards.

I knew this before we went and had thought about changing the day that we went. Everyone would have been heartbroken however, so we went and I was going to make extra extra sure that I kept a very close eye on my offspring. And they were fine. We were there the whole day and they loved every second of it. The waves were large and would suck you in like nobody's business. I kept them right on the shore which was fine with them because they mostly like running from waves and digging for creatures. Mike's mom and I took turns going out in to the water so there would always be someone watching our stuff. We took a lot with us and there were SO many people there! I tell you, half of Virginia was at Virginia Beach yesterday. I wasn't in the water for more than 10 minutes when I was out for the day. The currants were very strong and there were some grown men out there with boogie boards. They had clearly never done it before and were practicing. The tide came in and was sucked back in to the ocean really quickly. One of the guys obviously didn't have ahold of his board very well because when the water was being sucked back in to the ocean his board was on it's way too until it was intercepted by my left ankle. The stinkin board cut it open. Shortly thereafter when I was preoccupied with how much pain I was in a nice big wave took me out. Knocked me down like I was a blade of grass which then resulted in me landing not so gracefully in to said ocean knee first on the same leg which ended up bloody and swollen as well. The currants were so strong I thought I was gonna be sucked out. The guy apologized and I know it was and accident but still. Hold on to your board, man! So I pretty much sat around the rest of the day. Don't feel sorry for me though, I know I've mentioned a million times that I'm perfectly happy just gazing in to the ocean so that's what I did. I actually thought something was broken for the longest time because I hurt so much, especially to walk. So other than my bloody ankle and knee being really swollen, & black and blue, I still had a good time. Mostly watching everyone else. I know you know how great that salt water made it feel! LOL! They hurt SO darn much today. I've mostly wanted to be left alone so I can lick my wounds in peace and quiet. This is one time when I wish we didn't have stairs. I took lots of pictures for ya while we were there, so here ya go.

Here's a picture of Mike about the time the lifeguards blew their whistle at him and told him to get his butt back up closer to the shore. Notice nobody else out there? Nut.

He's just asking for it.

Ever seen a jellyfish? We caught 3 with our net. They were everywhere! There's 2 in the net here. Kinda ugly really.

We were looking for crabs but no luck. The water in the ocean was pretty clear and Mike thought he saw one walking on the bottom by his feet.

Don't they just look like the happiest kiddies ever? I'm hoping we can go back again some time next month. Not on a Saturday though. Way to many people.

Beach Bound

Nobody could ruin my mood today. Not the dentist, orthodontist, or the grouch I did some finishing for. They helped make yesterday in to a really crappy one, but not today. I'm way to excited. I've got a margarita in one hand and a beach bag in the other. We're going to Virginia Beach on Saturday. I've been waiting for that since we moved here! We went once in the Spring but it was still very cold. We had gone to Busch Gardens that day and figured we'd might as well drive the extra 40 miles so we could see the ocean. LOVE LOVE LOVE the ocean! I've got the sand sifters, bought a net for exploring, have the buckets in tow, and went shopping today for lots of drinks and enough stuff for a mini picnic. I bought this super neat thing called the Neat Sheet the other day for our various outings. We sure could've used this last week when we went to Washington. Pretty neat huh? Really cool that it repells water and sand. I was looking for a picnic blanket when I came across it. I'm glad I did, it's much better! I bought the family sized one. It's even machine washable.

We're picking Mike's mom up at the airport in Washington tomorrow. She'll be visiting for over a week this time. Last time she only got to stay for 2 nights I think it was so everyone's really looking forward to her visit. I've got lots of things planned for the week. Starting it off with that day gazing at the ocean...bliss :). Except for the part where we have to go through that tunnel. That sucks. I *really* dislike tunnels. Not understanding why they didn't just keep this a bridge instead of making it a bridge/tunnel. This one is way more scary than going through the Lincoln Tunnel to get to NYC. This body of water is a bagillion times bigger. If I can refrain from having some sort of panic attack we'll be ok...I think. On the way to the airport I'm planning to stop off in Alexandria so I can pay In Stitches a visit. Love that shop and the ladies who work there. So nice. I'm planning to give her more of my business in the future.

I've done some stitching/ this week and finished up a couple of things. First I finished this piece in to a box for someone. I loved it but to my complete surprise when I delivered it to her, she acted like she was very disappointed with it. I didn't put a bow or anything on the top because she told me she wanted to take care of that part after I gave it back to her. Sod her. I think it turned out very well. It's a perfect box shape and you can't see any of my stitches.

I also finished stitching another little Christmas piece this week. It's called The House on Holly Hill and is from the Peppermint & Holly book from Blackbird Designs. It's a really great book and I'm looking forward to stitching some more Christmas pieces from it. This one will most likely be an ornament. It's destination is yet to be determined. I'll figure out what's going to who after Thanksgiving. I'm up on my game this year! There have been far too many years where I've wished I would've stitched more things to give away.

I'm off! The next time you here from me I should have tons of beach pictures to share :).

I've recovered

We did it. We went to D.C. on the 4th to see the fireworks. I wanted to post a couple of times, but I needed to recover lol. I felt like I was hungover all of Saturday but didn't drink anything lol. We had a really great time and have already planned on going back next year. We didn't leave here until 5 in the evening. I didn't have much desire to venture off and do anything exciting this visit. We were only going for the fireworks. To my surprise, 95 was pretty much a ghost town. No traffic at all. We drove in to the first metro stop and parked there and took the metro all the way in. Only because the news and the newspapers and everything else I stumbled upon urged everyone to take the metro and not drive in. That'll never happen again. I'll get to that later. First, the good stuff. We parked at the station and took the metro in. We got off in Rosslyn to get something to eat. For those who are ever in D.C. and can't find a place to eat, hop on the metro and get off at the Rosslyn stop. There's a Burger King and several other little places there. It's just on the other side of the Potomac River. Finding food in D.C. isn't the easiest thing to do unless you're willing to buy hot dogs from those not so clean looking vendors hanging about. After we ate we headed over to the city. The kids love riding the train and were thrilled that we told them we were riding on it. Until the end of the night. I forgot to mention that when we got to the station and Mike was standing in line to buy our fare cards that some really nice people who had finished using theirs for the day gave them to him. Wasn't that nice? What would have cost us almost $30.00 didn't cost anything. Such nice people. Obviously tourists. When we got off the metro we headed over towards the Monument. They were going to fire the fireworks off on the National Mall by the Reflecting Pool in between the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. My tentative plan was to be perched somewhere on a blanket on the lawn around the Washington Monument. Until we got there and I realized you had to go through a great deal of security to go in. which wasn't a problem except the lines were pretty long. We decided to cross the street instead and head for a lawn on the back side of the White House in between the Washington Monument and the White House. There weren't many trees there, it was pretty open. It ended up being a really great place to be because in the end there were seas and seas of people on the National Mall. Last I heard they said about half a million people came. I think they were all packed on the Mall. And in the metro at the end of the night. the kids loved where we were sitting. They were having a big to do at the White House on the lawn. Not too sure what happened to my invite..lol :). At one point you could see that the President came out on the balcony and waved. That thrilled the kids to no end. It was really dark out and had been stormy so my pictures didn't come out very well. I tried to use the night setting but when I did that they came out a little blurry. So here's where we sat-

In case you you're wondering why nobody was sitting right around us, it because we were throwing a football around. It scared everyone away LOL! The Washington Monument was right in front of us. This is where most of those 500,000 people were.

I really hate to post any firework pics because the few I did take didn't come out very well. They were a bagillion times better in person. They were magnificent! I've not ever seen anything like it. They were just huge and looked like they were right in front of us. My brother was watching it on PBS and said the Army was firing off artillery shells. I couldn't see that but that would explain what we were hearing. With the combo of that and the fireworks, it felt like the whole city was shaking. We could feel our insides rumble, it was very intense! My firework pictures here definitely don't do them justice. They're definitely worth going to.

Everything was perfect until we left. We weren't far from the metro station but when we got there, there was already a massive amount of people. We waited about an hour and a half just to get in the station. There was nearly a riot because a bunch of people decided to go around the line to get in front. I don't know what happened up there but there was a lot of screaming and a few minutes later I saw them head to the back of the line. There were adults pushing and stepping on the kids. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to knock them out. At the end I had to give Mike the rest of our stuff to carry so I could carry Joshua (our stuff weighed more than him I think lol). If I wouldn't have he would have been trampled. I had Cassie holding on to me and Mike holding on to her and I made my way through the station. It took us an hour to get from our house in to D.C. and 3 to get from D.C. back home. We never got stuck on 95, all of the waiting was to get on to the metro. We'll never ever do that again on the 4th. From now on we'll drive all the way in. I don't recommend anyone take the metro on the 4th if you have kids. If you don't have kids and don't mind being sandwiched up against half a million people for that long then great. As for me, I'd rather be stuck in my car in traffic. So everything was perfect until we got on the metro to come home so next year we'll know not to do that. I highly recommend everyone who has the opportunity to go to do so. I've already got a car load for next year :).

She has magic hands

I love love love my haird dresser here. Have I ever said that? I so look forward to my hair appointments. I've been 3 or 4 times since we moved here and to date she's spent no less than 2 hours on my hair. 30 minutes or so give or take a few just on shampooing, conditioning, and massaging my scalp. That's how I started off my day. 2 hours of bliss with my most favorite ever hairdresser. I hope she stays here forever. It amazes me how my hair is still long and I have tons of it yet every time she finishes it looks like an animal laying on the floor. There's not much cutting really. Mostly thinning and trimming up layers. I'm already looking forward to my next appt. If there should ever be a time we're rolling in mounds of money I hope to visit her more often. Much more often. That girl can give a scalp massage like nobody's business. For a while I forgot anything else existed. It was really nice.

I spent a huge part of the day out by myself. When I got home mike had a couple of packages waiting for me. It's been a little while since I got happy mail so I was thrilled to receive these. More so when I saw what was inside.

First was my Christmas in July package from Angela. She stitched a beautiful ornament for me from my favorite designer. Yep, The Prairie Schooler! I was really thrilled that she stitched this one for me because I don't think I would've stitched it for myself. As a matter of fact, surprisingly I don't have this chart. Isn't it fantastic? Thanks for the great ornie, Angela! Now just waiting a bit for my person to receive hers.

The next package was from Juli. I signed up for her PIF exchange last July and I received my PIF gift from her today. It's fantastic! I LOVE it! She stitched a wonderful sea themed design for me! Juli, you're right, I did miss the ocean a lot when we lived in TX. I'm thrilled that it's only 2 hours away from me now and am really looking forward to spending some time gazing at the ocean next Saturday. She made the design in to a really great pinkeep. I love the ribbon she used for it. It's yellow and says Summer Sun all around it.It's much prettier and brighter in person. It's perfect , Juli! Thank you!

That reminded me that I'm finished up with all of my PIF gifts and the last person has received hers so I can post a pic now. The last gift went to Gaby in Germany. I stitched the cardinals from the Prairie Schooler's Prairie Birds chart. I made it in to a pinkeep for her. The mail man had to pry this one from my hands. I love cardinals.

I picked some corn today. Just kidding. There are corn fields ALL over the place here. I just happened to go to the market to get a few things when they brought in a whole truckload of locally picked corn. I've never bought corn like this but there were so many people diving for it I thought I'd might as well give it a try. Plus who can pass up 12 ears for $1.99? Guess what we had for dinner? And guess what we're having tomorrow? And the next day? Yummy.

I still haven't decided for sure what we're doing for the 4th tomorrow. My eyes are pretty fixed on D.C. If only we could take a helicopter in instead of driving. I'll look forward to letting you know this weekend what we did end up doing. We were watching the news this evening and Cassie got wind of some famous people who interest her being there so I think I might have the votes to go. Yay me. The thing is, I don't want to do any museum hopping or anything. I just want to go for the fireworks, so I don't want to go until late. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. The good thing is I've pretty well memorized the map of the launch site and the best places to see them so I know where to be if we do decide to go. We're supposed to get thunderstorms so I'll make sure I have a plan B.

In my husbands quest to make a rec/game/entertainment area, he has just come home with himself some presents. One of which has a nice sized screen on it. I'm just happy they're hooking that blasted Wii up to it. Now I won't have to worry about my stuff getting broken upstairs. He's had his eyes on one of those LCD HDTV's for quite a while now. Yay for 4th of July sales....I think.

We went to Busch Gardens yesterday and just had the best time! To my surprise, it wasn't busy at all and we rarely had to wait in line. We rode tons of things, lots more than the other times we went. Some things twice. I thought they'd be jammed packed because it's Summer but they weren't. I think maybe everyone's waiting till tomorrow. Lucky us. I'll remember that next year. The only thing is, I made the mistake of drinking a vanilla milkshake on the drive over. That sucker wanted to come back up on every single thing I got on. At least I assume it was the shake. I've never felt like that on anything. I can spin around for hours and it won't phase me. Not yesterday. That won't happen again.

I hope all of my American friends have a great 4th of July! I've got my apple pie in one hand and my sparklers in the other. I love the 4th.

In case you wonder why this is one massive paragraph instead of several I can tell you. Blogger sucks and I've tried to edit this about 20 times and it won't let me. It looks great when I'm typing and then when I post it it looks totally different. I really should invest more time in to looking in to Wordpress. You here that Blogger? You stink.

It's all about having fun, people

I know it's been awhile but I've been taking full advantage of having my bambinos with me 24/7. Since they've been back we've been spending lots of time doing fun things. That's what my focus is on this Summer. Spending time having fun and doing what we want to do. They've only been back from my parents for a week and we've managed to squeeze in 2 trips to the movies, a fireworks show, a sleepover, a birthday party, swimsuit shopping (boo! hiss!) and lots of stitching. There's lots more fun coming up too. Tomorrow we're spending the day at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. I'm so glad we got those passes. I know I was pretty set on going to D.C. on the 4th but I'm not so sure now. I know if not this year, definitely next. Half of us want to go to D.C., the other half wants to go to Virginia Beach, and we've also been invited to a cookout. I really want to do all 3 but no can do. Being how's I've been trying to build relationships here I'm thinking we really should go to the cookout. I think we might have to draw straws on this one. You know, we never had this problem in Texas. There was never anything to do.


Mike's working 1/2 a day from home today and then is off the rest of the week. So I'm trying to get everything done. So why am I posting and not doing chores you ask? See previous paragraph. My priority this Summer is having fun. And yes my house is clean in case you're wondering...lol! I did a lot of stitching in some of my fun time last week. Here's what I've stitched in the past week excluding an ornament I finished for a Christmas in July exchange:




How pretty is this? It's going to be a Christmas ornament. It's called Tudor Rose Ornament from The Nostalgic Needle. My tentative plan was to start stitching Christmas ornaments now so when December gets here I'd have plenty to give away. I had fully intended on giving this away and had a few people in mind to give it to. Since finishing it I've changed my mind. I love this one way too much to give away LOL! Perhaps I'll stitch another one to reside with someone else :).




I've been meaning to stitch this one for a while. It's the French Country Reindeer from JBW Designs. I stitched him on 28 ct. Creme Brulee linen in Maple Syrup sampler threads. I'm giving a friend a lesson on how to make a flat fold on the 16th so I think I'll be taking him and making him in to one. And he's probably going to be for me to. How sad am I? LOL!




Here's another piece I stitched last week. It's JBW's French Country Pumpkin. I've had a large piece of this orangey linen that I stitched this on. I had been itching to stitch something on it. I figure it'll only work for a couple of things. Autumn or Halloween Designs. I think it turned out ok but I'd probably like it better if I stitched it on a neutral fabric. I still like it though :). It was nice to stitch on a fun colored fabric. Most of the time I stick with neutrals. I stitched it in Gingersnap sampler threads. And it's mine to LOL! Look, I've been stitching presents for a long time now and haven't squeezed much of anything in for me so last week it was time to stitch some things for myself. You'll be happy to know that I did resume my gift stitching last night. I'm planning to spend all of my stitching time in July stitching Halloween, Autumn, and Christmas pieces. Probably more Christmas than anything and most of them will be gifts. I'm determined to be prepared this year. I'll have more finishes to post soon.


I also started on a book last week. It's Gordon Ramsay's autobiography, Roasting in Hell's Kitchen. I've only gotten through the first chapter and half of the second so far but it's definitely keeping my interest. I'm a big fan of Hell's Kitchen and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.