My New Annie

I ventured out myself this afternoon for a bit of me time. I was supposed to have it tomorrow and still may go out for a bit. This just ended up being one of those days where I needed to get out and about by myself for a wee bit. Plus, the places I wanted to go to, I'd much prefer to go to alone. Plus, I wanted to do some Valentine shopping anyway. My first stop was at this shop I like to go to called Dottie's Den. It's just the neatest place and I have the best time browsing around. They have TONS and TONS of fun primitive things, which is right up my alley. I could spend a small fortune in that place but skipped out today only spending about $10. I found the cutest little Annie doll to put in my little room and shortly after saw this cute little chair for her. How great is she?! I love her ponytails! They had the chairs hanging on a cupboard which was super cute so when I got her home, I hung her little chair on the wall above my sewing machine. I plan to get a large shelf of some sorts to put on the other wall so she may eventually relocate to the other side of the room. There's nothing else over there yet so she'd look odd all alone. For now, she's good.

A few weeks ago I signed back up with Netflix. We had a membership when we were in Texas but I cancelled it when we moved. Journey to the Center of the Earth was in the mailbox today so I'm off to pull out my needle in a bit so I can stitch while we watch it. Hopefully it's better than the other movies that we've been getting. Within the past couple of weeks we've watched Burn After Reading, Mirrors, and Swing Vote. Swing Vote was ok..not quite as good as I thought it would be. I like thrillers but I don't like horrors or gory movies. Mirrors was just disgusting and I had bad dreams for like 2 days after I watched it. The next time we get a movie that gives you the option of watching an unrated version, I'm not watching it at all. That wasn't my idea, btw. In fact, I protested...and I lost. Now, Burn After Reading was just a really dumb movie. Definately the worst movie I've ever seen George Clooney or Brad Pitt in. What a waste of time that was! The highlight of the movie was that in one scene when George Clooney was jogging, I could see where Mike works.

TGIF!

I love Fridays! I always have. Although, I have had one bugger of a headache all day. It feels like an elephant has been sitting on my head. I'm really hoping it eases up soon. The kids get their report cards today. They know if they do well that a fun night is in order. Usually a trip to Chuck E. Cheese. I'm sure this evening we'll be heading over to the house of the mouse. I just hope my head can take it.

We don't have any big plans for tomorrow but I sure do for Sunday! I'm either going to-

A. Drive up to In Stitches in Alexandria for their Superbowl sale. Or...

B. Go to the Superbowl sale at the needlework shop here and go browsing around at the antique shops too.

Just me....nobody else.

It's always nice to get something besides bills in the mail. I was happy to see that the mail lady had a package for me today. Inside was a chart that I ordered from The Sampler Girl a couple of weeks ago. I've decided that every time I finish a piece from the First Ladies Sampler Series, I'll order a new one that I don't have. The one that arrived today was the Dolley Madison Sampler. It's a really great piece. It won't take as long to stitch as it took me to stitch Abigail's Sampler For John. I've already gone through my threads and pulled out what I have, and have made a list of what I still need. I'll be shopping for the rest when I'm Superbowl stashing on Sunday :). I've got a birthday gift that I must finish before I can get started on her. I plan to work on it quite a bit this weekend.

Here's a newer pic of my little sewing/crafting room since I added a few things to one of the walls. I had to have the little Raggedy Ann doll. Isn't she cute?! I love little primitive dolls. I'll be adding more things to the room soon. There's an antique shop downtown that has a lot of old primitive looking wooden shelves. I'm thinking I may pop in soon and get one for one of the other walls in that room. There's a large wall that's still completely bare. I'd like to have some more stitched pieces to hang in there.

Snow Day, Round 1

We've been waiting for this all winter! We finally got a snow day! No school today and maybe not tomorrow. The kids and I spent a lot of time out playing after lunch. We started out with a snowball fight which ended in a snowball war when some neighbors and their kids decided to join us. We had SO much fun! I didn't get any pics of them because every time I tried I ended up with snow down my coat and my shirt. After that started, it was on like donkey kong...lol. You know, I can pack a pretty good snowball....tee hee...I should be finishing up with painting my kitchen today, but today I am not a painter. I'm a snowball packing, hot chocolate making, dog drying mama. My little black dog loves snow!

Mike's working from home today so as soon as he gets off we're headed out back with the sled for round 2. That's the only good thing about have a steep backyard. I'll launch a kid and he can catch them..lol. Enjoy the pics from round 1!

Searching Roots

I've been busy busy the last week or so. Not much stitching here, but doing many other things instead. I decided some more painting was in order so have been a wee busy with that. I painted the hallway last week and plan to paint the kitchen this week. Mike started and finished up our bedroom and another room downstairs that I plan to put another bed in for when we have guests. Now the entire downstairs is finished and after I pick up some more paint I'll finish up the upstairs.



He was off on Friday so he and I spent the day out. We usually do that when the kids are at school. We either go out to breakfast or lunch and pal around for a while. We had a little shopping to do and while we were out browsing, my beloved bought this beautiful jewelry armoire for me. Isn't it gorgeous?! It was his idea and at 75% off I couldn't refuse. I just love it and it's huge! There's tons of room in it! Not only is it holding all of my jewelry (and I have a lot!) it's also holding all of my scarves and gloves and there's still more room :). The best part is, it goes with our bedroom furniture perfectly.



While we were out I took the sampler I just finished to the framers. He does beautiful work and I can't wait to see it framed. It's supposed to be ready by Feb. 6th. I opted for the museum quality archival glass because I hope this sampler will last much much longer than I will. I do hope I last really really long though..LOL!




So besides painting I've been busy digging up my roots. I have a chart from Lavender & Lace called Mother's Tree that I've been wanting to stitch for a really long time. My friend, Laura got the chart for Christmas and has already started charting out the names and dates of the mothers for her tree. That got me to thinking that I should too and maybe we could work on it together. I have the names and birth dates for 5 generations but was hoping for at least 6 or 7. My mom loves genealogy and has been a member of ancestry.com for a while now. They have a 2 week free trial going on so Mike suggested that I sign up, get what I need, and then cancel at the end of the 2 week trial. I'll most likely do that but the thing is, it has intrigued me beyond belief and I don't want to cancel it. I will because I don't want to pay for it, but I don't wanna. I've made this ginormous family tree and want to see how many more branches I can add to it. I got sidetracked working on the info for my Mother's Tree when leaves kept popping up on my dad's side. To make a really really long story short, on my dad's side, I've gotten all the way back to 1690. In the process I've also found all kinds of documents for a lot of these people. Birth, marriage, & death info as well as all kinds of war draft cards, pension records, tons of stuff! Now here's a really exciting thing....on my dad's side, my 6th generation grandfather fought in the American Revolution and was a Flag Bearer for George Washington in the Continental Army. How neat is that?! That got me to thinking for a while that I might want to become a member of DAR. They have a free Patriot look up service so I submitted all of his info just to be sure. I got a quick reply back confirming everything I thought. I'm still thinking about applying. I know I will at some point, I just don't know if the right time is now. The application process is very long and involved. Pretty exciting stuff! I can't believe how many branches are on my family tree. At this point I'd be shocked if I wasn't related to most of you! LOL!

Super Saturday!

Very productive, we've been. The day's only 3/4 over and we've gotten a lot done and have had lots of fun doing it! Let's start here...

I'm SO very happy to report that I finished my sampler! Thrilled, really! I had a goal of finishing it by the 20th and got it done a few days early. I really love how it turned out. The colors are fantastic! They're much brighter in person than in the pic. I stitched it on 28 count Light Sand Cashel over 2 threads using the DMC, Weeks, and Sampler Threads that the chart called for. The chart is called Abigail's Sampler for John and is from The Sampler Girl's First Ladies Sampler Series. I love all of the charts in this series! Here are a few tidbits because I know my mom will read this and ask. The date in the tree trunk, 1764, is the year that John and Abigail Adams got married. As for the alphabet, the J and the U are missing. This is because those 2 letters were added to the English alphabet later than most of the others. Other letters were used in place of these. For example, for a long while the I was used in place of the J. I'm so happy it's finished and will be taking it to the framer next Wednesday. The kids have a 4 day weekend and I don't want to take them with me. I'm really excited that I'll get to enter it in that needlework exhibition in March :). That is if I'm here on the entry days.....

There's a pretty good chance that Mike will be going to Florida for a week next month. And an even better chance that I'll be catching a later flight and meeting him in Orlando...lol. If he goes, he's going alone so requested my company. Now who am I to disappoint?! LOL! I'm still thinking about it though. I'll need to look at the dates when he gets them and he's not 100% sure he's going yet.

Back to our day. I took Joshua shopping for a new pair of shoes a couple of weeks ago. After we got home I discovered something was wrong with them. We just got back around the shoe store we went to today so I could exchange them for something else. They were having a HUGE shoe sale. Look at the haul we came back with for $64! 1 pair for Joshua, 1 pair for me, 1 pair for Mike and 2 pair for Cassie. Is that a great shoe haul or what?! The pair of dress shoes for Mike alone were regular $50.00. Great shopping trip! After shoe shopping we went out to lunch and stopped off at a few places on the way back.

The schools are closed on Tuesday here. They said they're expecting severe traffic issues on all of our main roads with people trying to get in to Washington for the Inauguration. As for me, I'll be right here. I thought about taking Cassie to the Inaugural Concert tomorrow at the Lincoln Memorial but then I had a big fat reality check when I read they were expecting over 500,000 people. I had "leaving D.C. on the 4th of July" flashbacks. Not only that but it's SO cold here! The high yesterday was only 19. The sad thing is, that's a heat wave compared to some of the temps some of my other friends have had to deal with. We'll watch the concert on TV at home where it's nice and toasty. Unless I lose my mind and go ahead and go....which is always a possibility.

Making Something Out of Nothing

The Cub Scout Pinewood Derby is in a couple of weeks. All of the boys (dads!) are given a kit containing a 5 oz. block of wood and wheels to create their derby car. After a lot of planning, cutting, sanding, more cutting, more sanding, painting, and decorating, this is the masterpiece that my guys have created:

Is that fab or what?! The weigh-in and impound are on the 23rd and the 25th is race day. He's (they're) really excited! Their car is smokin if I do say so myself. Am I surprised? Not really :).

Watching them make this car reminded me of when I was about 10. My dad, brother, and I used to build model cars together. I used to love doing that and am thinking I should pick a couple of kits up so I can build some with the kids. It's such fun!

I've been feverishly stitching on a sampler that I want to enter in a needlework exhibition in March. I was going to wait until it was completly finished to post a pic, but I just have to post a progress pic! I really really love this sampler and the colors in it. I just have some of the border to finish, the rest of the house, and the rest of the tree. There's not too much left and I hope to have it finished this week so I can see about getting it framed next week. The alphabet was done in rice stitches which was such fun and a nice change from regular cross stitches. I'll be looking forward to posting another pic when it's finished. I'm really looking forward to going to that exhibition with Laura again this year. We had the best time last year :).

Cheesecake today, diet tomorrow

Boy, this past week was a really long one. One of those weeks that just drags on and on and on. We had the best time out with our friends on New Year's Eve! Sadly, I did not stay up and watched the ball drop in NYC. I stayed up late stitching and then Cassie & I hit the hay around 11. We tried to stay up but just couldn't do it. We DVR'd it and she watched it the next morning. We sprung out of bed early New Year's Day and headed for D.C. You know how I said New Year's Day was the best day to go? No tourists, we got right in last year, got a parking place right in front of the museums, got tickets to go right up in to the Washington Monument, ect. Well, I'm gonna have to go ahead and take that back...apparently, it's not the best day to go and we just got lucky last year because everyone and I mean EVERYONE was in D.C. at museums this year. We still had a lot of fun. We went back to the National Museum of American History. I wanted to see the Star Spangled Banner again but the line was WAY too long. We headed over to the First Ladies of the US exhibit instead. I really loved that exhibit! It amazes me to no end that someone has been able to keep up with gowns that belonged to Martha Washington, Dolly Madison, ect....It amazes me, I tell ya! Great fun.




Joshua managed to catch a horrible stomach thing last Saturday night so I didn't get to bed until 7:30 Sunday morning :o. Poor thing was hurling at least once an hour all night long. I didn't think it was ever going to end. He was sick all day Sunday, Monday, and then he went to school Tuesday but they called me about 30 minutes after I dropped him off. Personally, I think they read my note and decided quickly they didn't want what he had so sent him back home. It was fine with me. I like having them around.




I went down to Richmond to see my friend Laura today. It's the first time I've been to her house and we had the best time! She has tons of cross stitch pieces framed and hanging on her walls, a lot of them samplers. I had the best time roaming through her house looking at all of them. Such pretties!! It made me realize that I really need to spend this next year stitching things for my walls. Most of what I stitch, I give away. I'll still be stitching gifts this year but I'll be cutting back on the exchanges a tad. After I finished browsing through all of her goodies we went to the mall and had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. YUMMY! This is the third time I've been to a Cheesecake Factory, each time with a different friend. It's such a fun place to go with a friend. Pricey it is but so yummy and such fun. Next time I go down we're going to try some other places that she has that I don't for lunch. One of our stitching friends from Utah is going to Newport News for a conference in March. We're both going to meet her in Williamsburg when she's finished with her conference and we're SO excited!! we've already booked our hotel room and are planning lots of fun things for our trip. Williamsburg is only an hour and a half from me.





I've been a bad picture taker lately so I really don't have anything to share. I love Pandas though so will leave you with these super cute Panda pics I saw recently. They're so cute!