Stitching, goblins, and other stuff

I'm feeling much better now than I was a week ago. Thanks so much to those of you who emailed! Your thinking of me was very much appreciated. I've realized the past week that while things aren't going as we planned it could be much much worse. Some times things don't go as planned. When things don't go as planned and you have to cancel all of what you thought were going to be your plans for the next year, really the only thing to do is make new plans. So onward I'm plugging to make new plans. It took me about a week to shake whatever crud I had too. I had a fever on and off for about 3 days which wasn't helping either. I'm just now feeling like myself again.

Mike was given some gift cards as an award for some work he did on an audit recently. One of them was to a movie theatre so we took the kids to see Igor yesterday. They really liked it and there were some pretty funny parts, but for the most part I was kind of bored. I'm glad they had fun though. They had the previews up for High School Musical 3 which Cassie was thrilled about. It starts around the end of Oct. and Cassie's b-day is Nov. 12th so I'm thinking we might gather up a couple of her friends and go see it for her b-day. I think she's thinking on a slumber party too.

On our way out the door to see the movie I was greeted by a nice big box on my front porch. I was trying to hurry everyone along until I saw the box was addressed to me. When I noticed that I decided we had a few minutes to spare after all :). The box was from Laura, my friend in Richmond. I had no idea what it was or could be because I wasn't expecting anything from her. When I opened it up, I discovered it was my Halloween package from an exchange we're in, in our yahoo group. I distinctly remember being at In Stitches with her in Alexandria last month and asking her who her Halloween exchange partner was and she told me someone else so it never occurred to me. She did a good job of keeping that a secret :). Everyone else was fascinated with the box too and were eager to help me open in. When we did they all found something they wanted. Cassie and Joshua's eyes lit up when they saw cute little goodie bags filled with candy. Joshua quickly snapped up a pumpkin pez dispenser and Cassie snagged the witch. Mike noticed a can of yummy chocolate covered cashews and was eager to help me dig in to them last night. Laura also sent along some fun Halloween baking cups, Halloween sprinkles, and cute Halloween napkins. Cassie loves baking with me and is looking forward to helping me make Halloween cupcakes :). She also sent along a spool of orange ribbon and a spool of black. That was perfect timing because it just so happens that I needed some black ribbon to finish a little project. She also sent me a really great chart from Erica Michaels called Toil & Trouble. I LOVE this chart! It looks like such a fun stitch and I'll be looking forward to stitching it. The best thing was at the bottom of the box! She stitched a piece for me from Shepherd's Bush called Be a Witch and made it in to a beautiful pillow! Laura, I LOVE it! It's fantastic! The fabrics she picked for the finishing are perfect! I love that she put our names on the back of the pillow. Isn't it wonderful?!

I finished stitching a model a few days ago and took it back to HE on Friday. I can't wait to post a link to that chart once it's published. It was such a fun piece. I think it will be this week. In the meantime the chart for the first model I stitched was released a couple of weeks ago. It's called Boo to You. Here it is. I stitched the smaller pumpkin on the left. If you choose to buy the chart you will find my name on the inside. Yay me! I'm in print :).

If I'm being honest

This is what I feel like:

OMG, this was the worst week ever! I should be in bed and not on the computer but a person can only sleep or lay down for so long. There were a couple of good things things going on this week but more bad than good, unfortunately. We signed Joshua up for Cub Scouts and he's super excited about that. That was pretty much the highlight of the entire week. I was sick last Sunday and Monday and then Joshua was sick on Tuesday. Friday Mike and I got some very unpleasant news. I don't care to share it right now....just thinking about it gets me all sorts of upset which is probably why I'm sick again. I woke up not feeling well yesterday morning and by the afternoon I had a fever of 103. I was in and out of sleep from 5 yesterday afternoon until just after noon today when I managed to drag myself upstairs to my chair. I've been planted there most of the day until I managed to bring myself back down the stairs. You know, stairs are hard to get up and down when you're really sick!

Another good thing is I got an email from the director of the local stitching guild a week or two ago saying they had gotten some new members. I tried it right after we moved here but several of the women were flat unpleasant so after about the 4th month I didn't go back. I did go this past Tuesday though and had a really nice time. All the meanies stayed home and there were some very nice ladies there. I made friends pretty quick when I over heard one of them saying they paid someone $80 last year to finish 2 Christmas ornaments for her. I told them I'd show them how to do the finishing on ornaments at the November meeting and they were very excited about that. They're going on a field trip for the meeting in Oct. but I'm not sure if I'm going yet. They're going some place that I've not heard of about an hour from here.

I also got a phone call from the shop telling me that the new Just Cross Stitch Christmas ornament issue I had anxiously been waiting for came in. I was super excited about that! I really look forward to this magazine every year. I picked it up Tuesday night while they were having an open stitching session at the shop. I had not been to one and used picking up my magazine as a good excuse to scout the people out and see how they were. They were very very nice and I'll definitely be popping in to stitch with them. I sat with them for a while and flipped through the magazine while they stitched. Most of them looked over my shoulder while I was flipping through it. We all agreed that this issue is somewhat disappointing and doesn't compare to previous issues. There are a few pieces in there that look recycled from previous years and a few...well....a few that you just have to wonder what the heck they were thinking. There are a few that I really like and plan to stitch.

I'm in a birthday exchange in one of my groups. I sent to Nancy this year and her birthday was yesterday so I can post a pic now of what I stitched for her. I stitched 2 pieces from Blackbird Designs With Needle and Thread book. I finished one of the pieces in to a little stitching basket to put scissors and other little bits in, and I finished the other piece in to a matching pincushion just like in the book. I LOVE the pincushion.

I'm off....there's a bottle of gatorade and a box of nyquil calling my name. If only I didn't have to go back up those stairs.

Save the Forest

For a few weeks now I've noticed a lot of noise far back behind our house. Mostly in the mornings. At the crack of dawn really. I wondered what it ways but didn't give it too much thought. That is until I saw some trucks way back behind our part of the forest. Mike went back their to see what they were doing. Turns out they're cutting down a portion of the forest to build more houses. Why oh why are they doing that?! I love this forest and their are more than enough houses for sale around here without building more. I'll never understand that. Thankfully this part of the forest is mine so they won't be cutting it down. The forest did go really far back and the kids loved going on little hikes through it. Not now. It's been cut down considerably. Not a good time to build houses, IMO.



Joshua started flag football lessons today and so far really likes it. It was really hot here today though so he didn't look so good when they finished. It was only 90 but the heat index was 100. He seemed to be oblivious to it though. He was having too much fun. Someone forgot to tell a couple of the kids that we're not playing tackle football.





















I finished stitching that autumn piece I was telling you about today! This one took a lot longer than I thought it would! I really love it though and hope to go frame shopping next week. I'll probably have to order one but I think I'll do the framing myself. I think it turned out really great and am looking forward to getting it up on the wall. I've done so much stitching for others lately, it was really nice to squeeze in something for me. Perfect timing to because I was given another model to stitch yesterday. In all it's glory, here's my Prairie Schooler Autumn Leaves piece stitched on 32 ct. Lambswool linen.



I think I know what one of my next seasonal pieces for me will be. A while back on a blog I saw where some girls were stitching ornaments from the Prairie Schooler's Twelve Days of Christmas chart and they were attaching them to a grapevine wreath. I love the idea of it and have only seen 1 picture of one that was half finished. This book is out of print and has been for a while. Lucky for me I found it back in May at In Stitches when Laura and I went to Mt. Vernon for a needlework exhibition. I do believe I'm going to see about making one of those wreaths for myself. I just have some other commitments and gifts to take care of first. I'm feeling very productive lately :).



Can you believe how much gas has gone up because of Ike?! I was really hoping to head up to Arlington to see the Pentagon Memorial until I saw that gas went up about .50 cents a gallon. I'll wait till it goes back down a bit. I watched the dedication of it on TV on the 11th. Something about someone playing bagpipes just does me in. I wasn't too teary eyed until that guy started playing them. It was a really nice dedication.



I'm off....the oldest was falling asleep down here, but woke up long enough to muffle out that her throat hurts and she needs motrin *sigh*.

Waiting for Fall

Fall has always been one of my favorite times of the year. When we lived in Texas it was the idea of Fall because we didn't have much of one really. That's what I love about being up here. There are four seasons instead of two. The leaves turn slowly on the trees before they fall. In Texas what's not dead turns fast and the trees there aren't like the trees here. We got here mid Oct. last year and the leaves had just started to turn. I'm anxiously awaiting for the official start of fall. In the meantime, I decided to unpack my Halloween and Fall stitched pieces to have ready to display when the time comes. It was then that I realized that I need to add to my collection of seasonal stitched pieces. I have a few for Halloween but didn't realize that I only have one piece for Fall. That's just disappointing considering it's one of my favorite times of year. For some reason I was thinking I was going to unpack all kinds of Fall pretties to display. Humph. In my quest to change that and add to my collection of Fall designs to display, I tossed everything else aside to start a new Autumn piece. It's Autumn Leaves from the Prairie Schooler. I've loved this chart since I got it. I especially love the verse. It's the piece on the left I'm stitching. I promised myself I wouldn't stitch on anything else until it's finished. It should be done this week. I got a great deal stitched on Saturday when Hanna was blowing through. Hopefully I'll find a really great frame for it soon after it's done. The next time I post I should have a pic of the finished piece to share.

Back to what I do have to display for Halloween and Fall.....I took a couple of pictures for you of what I have. Let's start with Halloween. First, my mummy. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this mummy. I stitched him about 4 years ago and made him in to a stand up. I really look forward to displaying him every year. The next one is a treat bag that I got in an exchange. I have to admit, when I received this I didn't know how to display it. My clever friend Laura told me that she sticks a can of something in hers to display it. I did just that and it displays nicely. I hope no one goes looking for that can of chicken noodle soup :). I also got the little jack-o-lantern pillow in an exchange. He's a fun little thing. The last piece is a flat fold that I received from Jackie in a Halloween exchange last year. I love this piece! It's called Witchy Washy from Raise the Roof Designs. Ya gotta love her Madonna looking swirly bra hanging on the line there..lol.

On to Fall....This is it. I have 1 piece to display. Not for long though because my needles are flyin! It's a pillow I received in an exchange from Lynne, a stitching friend of mine. I love this piece! She did a great job stitching and finishing it.

I've decided that I need to spend some more time stitching for me. I love the exchanges and things I join but I really need to stitch some of these charts I have. I can't just keep collecting them. I'm starting to feel guilty that I keep adding and not stitching what I already have. I'm gonna try to keep my purchases to just buying fabric and threads for the charts I already have. Let's see how that goes, shall we? LOL :).

I'm excited to say that in my endeavor to stitch more for myself that I've joined the Me, Myself, and I Neighborhood Round Robin. I'm really excited about that! I don't know what kind of neighborhood I'll have yet, but I'm leaning towards either a Prairie Schooler RR or a Liberty/Patriotic neighborhood. We'll see. I have lots of ideas swimming around! I'll put my architect hat back on soon and see what I come up with. I love the idea of this because there are no time restraints or commitments like traditional round robins.

I've been buying more bananas than usual lately, secretly hoping that some of them will overripe before they can finish them off. I found the BEST recipe for banana bread on All Recipes. I've made it several times and it turns out perfect every time. The only thing I do different is I had some cinnamon to the batter and once I mix everything together I also had a bit of milk to make that batter a little thinner. It's really good, the best banana bread that I've ever made. You can find the recipe here if you'd like to give it a whirl. I just finished baking a loaf. The best part of baking banana bread is that it makes the house smell soooooooo good :).

I'm off to do some housework. I have a date with a friend tomorrow so I'm trying to get everything done today. We were supposed to have lunch last Thursday but she had a run in with some poison ivy :o.

Diving for $$

Our house guests went back home yesterday *sniff*. Every time my family leaves from visiting I just feel blah for the next day or so. We had a really great time while they were here, especially at the beach. I thought for sure that we'd be stuck in traffic for a while, but to my surprise we didn't get stuck once. It was a really nice drive. This was the first time they had gone to Virginia Beach and the first time my Grandmother had even been to Virginia. The beach was really busy and the waves were tolerable unlike the monsters we encountered in July when Bertha was swirling around in the Atlantic. Joshua spent a lot of his time digging in the sand and building things. Except for this one time when he was trying to bury himself. That hole needs to be a little bit bigger! LOL!





Cassie spent a lot of her time looking for crabs and other animals. If you really know her or have read her blog then you know that she loves crabs as pets. While in the water a man picked up a crab and threw it back out in to the ocean. I was taking lots of pictures and just happened to snap this one of her giving him a seriously dirty look. She was very upset that he threw it instead of gently placing it back in the water. I tell ya, this picture says a thousand words lol! That's my dad and brother in the background. They knew what
she was thinking before she even said it lol!


Here's Grandma.


As for me, I spent quite a bit of time looking for animals for Cassie. That hunt ended abruptly when I saw a $5 dollar bill coming in with the waves. Now I don't dive for much but I will dive for money! LOL!

One thing I did learn with having a house full of 8 people is that I need to get some more pillows and some beach towels. 8 people going to the beach= 8 towels. The same number of people taking a shower when we get home from the beach is another 8 towels. That's a lot of towels for 1 day!

I REALLY wanted to go parasailing this time but didn't get to so I'm DEFINITELY going to next summer :). I've wanted to do that for a really long time.