My nest is empty

We took the kids to my parent's house on Saturday and then we came back on Monday. They were supposed to bring them back on the 23rd but Joshua had a meltdown on Sunday night and said he couldn't live without me for that long and if he did he wanted to come back home with me. We came to an agreement and I'm going back after them on Friday. Apparently he could live without me until Friday but not any longer.

On Sunday Mike and my brother went whitewater rafting again. I nearly missed them but we got down to the river just in time for us to see them and catch a couple of pics. They saw us too. They were feverishly waving until they had to start paddling like all get out because they were just fixing to head through some rapids when I took this pic. Mike's the second from the front on the left and my brother's right beside him. We also enjoyed some time rock hopping and splashing around in the water with my mom and dad. That water is clear, it just looks green in the pic. Thank goodness for water shoes!

That was SO much fun! I'm thinking of taking them back down there this weekend. I'm thinking I need to get life jackets first though. Here's a pic of my mom when she realizes that she has to hop back over all the rocks she already did in order to get back to the car LOL!

Yesterday morning I woke up and got the brilliant idea to paint Cassie's room. It's still not finished but there's not much left. The color I picked is called Lavish Lavender and it's SO pretty! She's gonna love it when she sees it. That took most of the day. I was out again most of today so haven't had a chance to work on it. I went to the movies with a friend to see Sex and the City. I know it's gotten some bad reviews but I liked it. That is if you like that sort of thing. After that I stopped by Homespun Elegance to pick something up that I forgot to get on Saturday. Sandra had her first "Saturday Gathering" last Saturday so I went before we went to my parent's house. I had a really great time! They were giving away lots of door prizes and had some goodies that were only available in the shop that I picked up. I can't post most of what I got because I bought them for gifts and the recipients read my blog :). I can tell you that I was thrilled to find the 1999 Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament issue tucked away in a basket for $3.00! Now if I can only find 1997 and 1998. Sandra collects antiques and had some of those for sale as well. I found this really neat little case in a drawer for $2.00. It looks really old. Someone had used it for a needle case, it had needles inside. Really old looking needles. I found a few little treasures like this in her shop.

I haven't done a whole lot of stitching lately but I did finally finish something for myself. This piece is called summer Song and is from Blackbird Designs Souvenirs of Summer book. I was feeling 4th of Julyish when I started it a few days ago. I'm thinking now I should get started on some Christmas ornaments because if I don't I'll be wondering the first of December where the time went.

I have a date!

I'm really excited because I have a friend date next week! I haven't really focused too much on making friends since we've been here. I figured I'd focus on that more after the kids got out of school. I have made a few though, I just haven't really invested much time on them or in my search for new gal pals. I got a call this morning and have a movie date with Juli on Wednesday. She was our realtor when we bought our house here. We've done a couple of things with her family but haven't done anything without them yet. I'm really looking forward to girl time, YAY!

I got an email from Leigh saying that she received the package that I sent her for our color exchange so I can post pics now. Her color was purple and I had a really great time picking things out for her. For her stitched piece I stitched JBW's French Country Flower Basket and made it in to a pretty pillow. I love how it turned out. The fabric I found to finish it matched it so perfectly I had to make it in to something larger where you could see the fabric well. I was originally going to make it in to a pinkeep but when I found this fabric I knew it had to be a pillow. I wouldn't have even thought to make a pillow until I received the one that Ming sent me. I've been so stuck in a flat fold zone I think I nearly forgot that there are other finishing options out there. Thanks, Ming! LOL! Besides cross stitching, Leigh also enjoys beading so I sent her the latest issue of a beading magazine, some purple beads, some purple and silver hearts, some purple gel pens, a walking map of Fredericksburg so she can see where I like to venture off to, some candy in purple packages, and my favorite thing.....a copy of the History of Famous American Flags in a purple envelope. I'm glad it was in a purple envelope because I thought it was very neat. I picked it up in a shop in downtown Fredericksburg.

I'm off to pack the kids up for their week with their grandparents.

School's Out!

Whew! I'm so happy about that! It was hard moving during the school year and then getting them started right after we moved. Hard for them because it was a whole new school with new people and hard for me because we're alone up here and I wanted to be with them. Joshua and I are really glad school's out. Cassie's not though. That's the same Cassie that cried for weeks when she started and begged me not to make her go. Now she's sad it's out because she loves it so much. You know what I've noticed here? The kids seem to be a lot happier here than the kids in TX. There were a lot of nasty mean little girls at her school back there and boys too. I haven't heard of a single one here. They seem like they really like school and they just seem to all get along.




I thought I'd introduce you to two of my new best friends. They come to see me nearly every day and usually hang out for hours at a time. They have their own stash of bread for when the come to visit. They've gotten to where if they see me come to the door they come running up to the porch quaking all the way. I've never seen ducks run until they came along. I love how they let me get so close to them. I didn't use a zoom at all to take this picture. I'm working my way up to getting them to let me pet them. The girl is a lot more trusting than the boy. I had a lot of ducks come visit last week. At one point I was feeding 6 of them. I've been spending a lot of time on the deck out back watching for bears in the forest. There have been some sightings of them around here and I've been hoping to get a glimpse of one.


Our 15th anniversary is in Dec. and we've been trying to figure out what we want to do for it. We were supposed to be going on a cruise this summer but when we planned that we didn't know we would have a big move coming up. That cost a bagillion dollars so we won't be cruising this Summer. We don't want to wait until next Summer to do something though. It looks like we're leaning towards spending a few days in Chicago right before Christmas. That way we can take the kids to my parent's house on Winter break and they can watch them for us. 5 hours away seemed like it was really far 6 months ago but really it's not so bad....they could be back in TX still. I've been super duper homesick the past couple of days. I miss the old place and the people in it. Maybe we'll cruise next Summer. We need more furniture first though. I'll tell you what I want to do.....I want to go here and do this. Taking a bath in chocolate and getting a cocoa massage is right up my alley and I wouldn't be opposed to a chocolate fondue wrap either :P!

I noticed these little notes at the bottom of that page:

* This spa service is not recommended for guests who are pregnant.

Ya think! If I was pregnant I'd eat it all! LOL!

And I love this one.....

*For your convenience, a 20% service charge will be added to your bill.

Ok, I must be missing something here....how is that convenient? LOL!



We're taking the kids to my parents house on Saturday so it'll probably be next week before I post again. We're leaving around lunch time because Sandra's having a gathering at Homespun Elegance that I really want to go to. I knew if I didn't go I'd wish I did. It seems like all of the stitching things I want to go to end up being on a day that we're going to my mom & dad's house and that's not all that often. From what I understand she's supposed to have a lot of really neat goodies so I'm looking forward to picking some things up. She's got the neatest little gift items in that shop.

Mike's dog....is so gross

I know I've been a little AWOL and I'm going to have to blame blogger for this one. I've wanted to post...really I have. And a time or two I've tried. Half the time it won't let me post, part of the time I can post but when I realize I've made some typos and go to edit, sometimes it erases my posts completely. Other times it decides it won't let me edit, it likes it the way it is. So if you see elementary mistakes in my posts, I try to fix them but it just doesn't want me to. That being the reason that I'm currently thinking of switching my blog over to Wordpress where I hear nothing but good things. Sure it doesn't have all the bells and whistles that blogger does but I need reliability, people!




Back to what I was saying. Mike's dog is so icky! She came in from outside a little while ago and dropped something that very clearly looks like an animal skeleton at my feet. How disgusting is that? I'm just glad it was all dried out. She's so gross. Of course it would be dried out in this heat. I thought I left that in TX! A heat wave decided to make it's way over and park itself on the East Coast. It doesn't bother me at all because I'm used to TX heat, I'm just a little surprised. I'm not sure what the temp is right now but the high today was supposed to be 99 and the heat index is 106. It doesn't feel that hot to me. The same temp in TX felt a lot worse. We had really bad storms last week. I think it was Wednesday afternoon/evening/night we were under a tornado warning for a long time. Mike and I stood outside and watched the rotation in the clouds which was really cool. We've seen way more severe weather here than in TX. I don't know if that's normal or just a freak thing. Based on what I've seen thus far, it looks like they get their fair share of tornadoes around here.



We took the kids to a beach Saturday. Well technically it was a beach. It wasn't my kind of beach but it was busy and they had fun. I like beaches on the ocean. This beach was on the Potomac River. The sand wasn't fine, it was rocky. They liked it...I didn't really. I'd much rather keep on driving to Virginia Beach. We only went to this one because it was so close. We tried to go to another beach but we didn't know it was private until we got there. I'm surprised they didn't physically chase us out. They had enough signs that sure made it clear they didn't want any outsiders around. Pity too. It looked really nice...and really empty. Snobs.



I really haven't done too much stitching lately because I've been busy doing some finishing. I FINALLY did the finishing on the piece I stitch for my partner for a color exchange. I'm glad I waited because I ran across the perfect fabric to finish it with just the other day. I don't think I could've found a more perfect fabric for it really. I'll show you a pic when she receives her package. I also finished a couple of really small pieces for a woman I met at the shop. She told me she stinks at finishing and loves the flat folds she saw I made for someone else so asked me to finish a couple for her. They're really small...about 4 inches square give or take a bit. I took them to her yesterday and she loved them. I thought they turned out really cute too. Pic came out a wee blurry...sorry about that. She asked me if I could come over this Summer and help her learn how to finish some things herself so I'll be looking forward to her call. Sometimes it's a lot easier when you have someone to show you how to do something. I tried to teach myself to crochet once and it didn't work out. I have been thinking of taking a knitting class. I might do that next week because......



I'll be alone. While Mike's at work anyway. If he goes in to the office. He works at home a lot you see. The kids will be away for a week visiting my parents. We're taking them on Saturday. He and I will come back home on Monday and then they'll bring them back either the 22nd or 23rd. *Sniff sniff* I think I'm the only ones who's not happy about this. I'm sure I'll find plenty to keep me busy. I might go on a day trip myself while Mike's at the office. If he goes to the office. Can you believe they let them work that much from home? He doesn't know it yet but if the weather's good on one of his days off he might be taking me to Busch Gardens so we can ride the BIG roller coasters. We can't do that when the kids are with us.




Cassie came home from school last week happy as a little piggy in slop. She got in to the gifted & talented program at school and is so excited because her best friend is in it too. She'll start next school year. She was disappointed that she missed out on dissecting sharks last week. Como? Why she wants to dissect sharks is way beyond me. Maybe she'll be a doctor. They have an awesome GT program here and I'm really excited that she'll get to be a part of it. Only 1/2 days this week and then at noon on Thursday they're out for the Summer. Finally.

Exchanges & Summer plans

I'm participating in a color exchange in one of my yahoo groups. Each person was supposed to choose a color and the person sending to them was to send goodies and a stitched piece in that color. This is the third time we've done this and it's always lots of fun. This time I chose brown and I've just received a wonderful package from my stitching friend, Ming in Canada. She sent me a pretty brown purse that'll definitely come in handy...I love purses and bags. She also sent a headband, a pretty glittery coin purse, 2 spools of ribbon,
2 skeins of Needle Necessities thread, 3 skeins of DMC color variations thread, some pins for finishing, 4 really great cuts of fabric for finishing (LOVE the Halloween fabric!), and for my stitched piece she stitched a wonderful piece from Blackbird Designs for me called Autumn Song and made it in to a really great pillow. Thanks so much for the great package, Ming! I love everything that you sent :). I'll be looking forward to posting pictures of what I'm sending my partner when she receives her package. Of course, I have to mail it first :).





Both Patti and Juli have received the PIF gifts that I sent to them so I can post pictures now. I stitched a freebie from the Prairie Schooler called Spring and made it in to a pretty pinkeep for Patti. I thought it turned out really well.





For Juli, I stitched the frog from the Prairie Schooler's Garden Beasties chart and made it in to an ornament. Isn't he cute?














I've been thinking about what we're going to be doing this summer and have come up with a tentative plan. The kids don't get out of school here until the 12th. This came as a bit of a shock to them since their friends in Texas got out last week. They have a lot more 3 day weekends here which extends the school year a tad. That works out really well for us if we want to go see my parents. As far as I can see all they're going to do for the next 8 days is play. It looks like there's a themed day every day until school's out. I was waiting for school to break for the Summer before we went back to Busch Gardens but I think I'm going to change that plan. Jack Hanna will be there this weekend putting on shows and I think we really need to go. Other than that, here's my plan:

Last week of June- The kids are going to my parents house to stay for a week or a little longer. I was going to have my parents pick them up here and then I was going to go back after them before the 4th of July. I think we might reverse that though because there seems to be some interest in spending the 4th of July with me. Why ya ask? Why do ya think?!

4th of July- I'm so spending the 4th of July in D.C.! Nuts I know but ya couldn't pick a better place to be.I plan on having my backside perched on the steps of the National Archives to watch them. And why the National Archives you ask? Well, just cause I love it there and I've heard they do a reading of the Declaration of Independence. If I survived Veteran's Day weekend in D.C. and the opening day of the Cherry Blossom Festival I think I can handle this one.

July 11th- Mike's mom's coming to visit for a while so we're picking her up at the airport in D.C.

July 12th- We're going to Virginia Beach. Cassie wants to take her crabs to the Mid-Atlantic Hermit Crab Challenge. I suspect I'll be staring at the ocean all day so if you need me, don't call. I'll be busy.

Beginning of August- I don't have a calendar right in front of me but my family is having a family reunion in West Virginia and if I don't go they'll kill me. It should be interesting. I would say I can't wait but I don't want to lie.

Those are the big things I know of. This of course excludes all the other times I talk Mike in to taking us back to Virginia Beach. I'm sure we'll make a few visits over the Summer to Busch Gardens since we have the passes. We still haven't made it to the National Zoo yet so hope to do that. I'm also hoping that one day this Summer Laura and I can spend the day out. There's a needlework exhibit on display until the end of August at the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum that I really want to see.

I'm a wee bit behind

I should've posted before now, I've just not been in a blogging mood. Just busy doing other things I guess. What's the best way to get out of that?? Just sit down and get to typing and hope that I get in the mood again. So here's a few things I've been doing since my last post.....

Last Friday we went to see my parents for the holiday weekend. Mike wanted to try a new way that he thought was faster. It may have been if we wouldn't have gotten stuck behind school buses for a half hour. That's the downside to driving through those little towns instead of getting on a bigger highway. You have those one laners and when ya get somebody slow in front of ya it can be a real pain. We ended up getting there about the same time as usual. He wanted to go the same way coming back and I protested but we did it anyway (only because we had a bet going and I was really hoping I'd win. That's why I didn't point it out when he took a wrong turn..LOL!) It turns out it is about 30 minutes quicker. You just have to hope you don't end up with someone in front of you that wants to go 10 miles under the speed limit. Anyway....

We had a really great time at my parents house. When we got there I hooked up my mom's Wii Fit for her. Did I mention I got one too? Yep! I stood in line outside of Best Buy last week when they were released. I tried 3 other places after I took the kids to school and they had already sold out. I knew Best Buy didn't open until 10 so if I had any hope of getting one I had to go wait. Got it and we love it! It's so much fun! I found some muscles I forgot I had. You wanna lose weight? Do some hula hooping. That'll do it. I highly recommend Wii Fit to anyone who has a Wii. I know it's expensive but it's worth it. We spent, or I guess I should say that I spent a lot of time on it that night. Mostly being laughed at by everyone else. It is loads of fun....even worth everyone laughing at you. On Saturday my mom and I drove up to Charleston. It's a little over an hour from where they live. It was a really pretty day and there were a couple of needlework shops I wanted to check out. Can you believe that there's only a total of 4 needlework shops in all of West Virginia? What is that?! There's definitely a lack of shopage up there. You want a review of the 2 that I did go to, you say? Ok....

The first shop we went to was a shop in South Charleston called Cranberry Needlecrafts. Honestly, we were in there for maybe 5 minutes. I wasn't impressed with the shop at all, nor was I impressed with the person who was working in the shops lack of desire to even acknowledge we were there. No worries here, we'll head on to the next shop. Hopefully they'll be semi friendly. The next shop we went to is called Village Sampler and is in a little town called St. Albans. It's a really nice shop and the owner was SO friendly. She had a lot of goodies. The shop was a lot bigger than it looked from the outside. I didn't buy much but I did find some treasures. You know why I wanted to make the journey to these shops? Because I've found in my experiences that it's the little out of the way shops, the ones in small towns that have of print Prairie Schooler charts. I made a good choice when my mom asked me what I wanted to do that day. I ended up finding 2 OOP charts and 2 others that I wanted to add to my collection. I got book # 42 Angels, #43 Father Christmas, # 62 Kris Kringle, and #78 Kitchen Table. We had a nice time browsing. I wish that shop was closer to me. She offers a lot of classes. The shops around here don't offer any. I wish they would.

So check this out. On the way to Charleston we saw a lot of bill boards for an Amish Farm, right? We were super excited because neither of us had ever been to one before but have always wanted to. Our plan was to go to the needlework shops and then go to this Amish Farm on the way back. I wrote down all of the info I'd seen on the billboards so we'd know which exit to take, ect. We follow the directions and end up at a stinkin store called Amish Farms. Can ya believe that? We got jipped. Those billboards were very misleading. Humph.

On Sunday Mike and my brother had reservations to go whitewater rafting in the lower New River. My parents had bought the trip for Mike for his birthday. It was an all day thing. At the end of their trip we all went down to the bottom to watch the rafts come through hoping we'd see them. I thought we did but it didn't end up being them. I really wanted to get some pictures of them. Turns out they have a photographer rafting along in a kayak taking pictures. They were pricey but so worth it. I never would've gotten pictures like this.

Mike's on the left, my brother's

on the right.

Love, love, love, these pictures. They had a really great time and had lots of stories to tell. I think they might be going again this summer. I want to take the kids on one of the family rafting trips that are calmer. They have one for ages 6 and up. That might have to wait until next summer though. I know they have this rule where if someone falls out you can't jump in after them, the guide will help them. I think it would take a pack of wild horses x 10 to hold me back if a kid fell in the water. I know I'd abandon ship.

Aren't these pictures fantastic? Love the one up there that looks like my brother and Mike are fixing to fall out LOL!

And for your viewing pleasure, here's a pic I took at the bottom of the New River. This is the river they were rafting on. That bridge is the New River Gorge Bridge. I had to cross the bridge and then drive around a mountain to get to the bottom. That's not even half of the bridge. It's really long. They have a bridge day in Oct. and they close down one side of the bridge. they have a big festival and you can even jump off of it if you want to. There's a better picture of the bridge and info about Bridge Day here. I think we might try to go.

Thanks Seth!

One thing that I've noticed since moving up here is that the the clinics/Dr.'s offices don't do their own billing they have someone else do it. Some third party that doesn't know what the heck they're talking about and don't seem to have much desire to do their job. They'd much rather me do it for them. This is the second time this has happened. It goes a little something like this:

1. I take kid to doctor

2. Receptionist asks if our insurance info is the same as last visit. Yep.

3. Get a bill from the third party billing company for said Dr.'s office saying I've provided incorrect insurance info and to please call them.

4. Call them and they tell me our insurance is bogus and won't pay claims.

5. I tell them they're wrong, go over info to make sure they have it right because I never had a problem in Texas.

6. They tell me they sent in the claims twice and won't do it again so I need to figure it out myself because they're not wasting anymore time.

Come again? This bill here says that I owe $380.00 before the insurance pays and I'm not paying a dime until you file it right because you're obviously doing something wrong. By this point I've put on my angry eyes. She told me they're not dealing with it anymore and I need to call my insurance company. After I got her name and extension I did just that. I spoke with a nice man named Seth who informed me (again! same story as last month) that they've not received any claims from them. I told him what she told me and then he got a brilliant idea that we'd call her back on a conference call. This amused me to no end because I caught her in a couple of lies which he was sure to point out. His first order of business was to go off on her because she was having me do her job. He also pointed out that she should have been calling him, not vice versa. She told me that they mailed the claims to the insurance twice. She told him they filed it electronically. He chewed on her a wee bit more for not calling or following up with them to make sure they received the claim. He then asked her a few other things and come to find out, they were filing the claims using a code that isn't even valid so that's why it wasn't going through. So once again, they were screwing up but expecting me to fix it. I was really annoyed that I had to spend a half hour dealing with it because someone else didn't want to do their job or couldn't do it properly. Thanks Seth, for putting miss priss in her place and helping me out with that! If he wouldn't have been on the line we still wouldn't have it fixed. How would I ever know that they were filing using codes that aren't valid??? I would have no way of ever knowing that, nor do I know any of the codes. They should have been calling my insurance and figuring out what the problem is, not me. They really should try listening to the customer for once. We do know what we're talking about once in a while. Dummies.

I mailed 3 of my PIF packages out on Friday and got an email from Rachel earlier saying that she received hers. I was really excited because I made a super cool thing for her and couldn't wait to post a pic. Rachel really likes cats and I wanted to stitch a kitty piece for her. I pulled out a chart I have from The Trilogy called Eekology and stitched the kitty for her. I made it in to an ornament using organza ribbon for the hanger. I bought a long length of the same ribbon and ran it through the loop on the hanger and wrapped it around the top of one of those crafting mason jars and tied a bow in the front. How cute is that?! I found this jar at A.C. Moore. I really like this one because it's smooth all around unlike those canning jars that have fruit and things on them. It was only $1.49. If you decide to mail one of these, I don't recommend you send it overseas and I do recommend you use a flat rate box. Jar is cheap, shipping is not LOL :). It just turned out so darn cute though. I plan to make more of these for Halloween and for Christmas. Celeste has one up at the shop with a skeleton head ornie on it filled with candy corn. Too cute. You could fill one for Christmas with peppermints or other Christmas candies. They'd make really cute teacher's gifts. Rachel told me that she's going to fill hers with candy and put it on her desk at work :). She has a ribbon eating cat at home so that would be the best place for it...lol. I also sent her a really late birthday gift. I actually contemplated not sending it for a while because I wasn't all that please with my finishing on it. I had this little round cookie Christmas cookie tin that I had been saving for a while because I knew I'd want to mount a stitched piece on it at some point. I've never finished a tin before so put it off. I stitched the kitty for her from the Prairie Schooler's Barnyard Christmas chart. It was the perfect size for the tin so I decided to give it a go. It didn't turn out as well as I wanted it too but I think it still came out ok.