Late spring cleaning

I wasn't really in the mood to go anywhere today so I decided to stay in ad do some late spring cleaning. I'm embarassed to say that it took me a good portion of the day to go through my stitching stuff..LOL! I can't beleive how much stuff I have! It's never ending too. I still think (know) that I need more. It's an addiction I tell ya. I guess I should've said it's a terrible addiction but it's not. It's a wonderful addiction! Don't ask Mike though, he wouldn't agree..lol! Every time he's around and I need to order threads for something, he's amazed that I don't already have them. Little does he know just how many there are out there for me to collect :). Personally, I think he should be counting his lucky stars that I don't care to stitch with silk. Most of those puppies run between $4-$6 per skein. For the most part I stitch with DMC which is $.30 cents a skein here however, I've been finding myself more interested in stitching with Sampler threads and Weeks Dye Works lately. I can't get those here, I have to order them. They're $2 per skein which is a lot better than the $4-$6 per skein of silk but can still add up quickly if you need to buy several for a particular chart. For a while I belonged to a thread of the month club. I'd pay $10 a month and they'd send me 5-7 skeins and this is how I've built up this nice little collection I have. There are SO many colors though, I'm far from completing the collection. This being the reason I'm always having to order. I don't really have to order..I could convert and just use the DMC. The overdyed threads are just so darn pretty! Overdyed threads are to me like balloons or candy are to children...LOL :). I'm feeling a little better today but am still incredibly blue over yesterday's events.

I've seen better days

Today has definately not turned out like I had hoped it would. Mike's off today so I thought we'd all hang out together and cook out for dinner. Today is definately an "off" day. The morning went ok and then my mom called around 11-ish to ask me if I'd go with her to take her oldest dog to the vet. He's been really sick and lethargic for the past couple of days. When she picked me up and I saw him I knew he wasn't doing well at all. She seemed to think they could give him some medicine to make him better but I knew that probably wasn't gonna happen. He's a 14 year old Chiuahua named Boots. I bought him right after DH and I got married. We were renting a house and our landlords went way up on the rent after our lease was up so we had to move. We had a hard time finding a place that we could afford that would allow pets so I gave him to my mom and dad. Anyway, we get to the vet and they so some blood work on him. They told us that he was having kidney failure and his pancreas wasn't working properly. He was definately miserable, I could see that by looking at him. She ended up having him put to sleep. I feel completely horrible for her. She lost her 14 year old Pomeranian just a few months ago. She was just so devastated she couldn't stay in the room so she went outside and I stayed with him until he was gone :(. Definately not a fun thing to do. I am however glad that Mike was off today and could stay home with the kids so I could go with her. She does have her other 2 little Pomeranians at home so hopefully they will help her to feel better soon. One is only 6 months old, so hopefully he'll keep her busy. Poor Joshua, I feel so bad for him! Cassie is sad that Boots is gone but oh my goodness! Joshua is just devastated! I'm not really sure how to make him feel better. I've tried but I don't think it's working.

Now I have a little rant. I'm so annoyed! You know the piece I've been mentioning that I'm feverishly stitching on? Well, it's a gift for a friend. I had to order all of the threads for the piece as they all caled for sampler threads. Now I have quite a collection of sampler threads, it just so happens I didn't have any of the colors I needed for this piece (as usual!). Before I ordered them I double checked to make sure that it said there was only 1 skein needed of each color. I stayed up really late last night stitching on this and was really excited because I just *knew* I was going to finish it today. I got up early this morning to work on it and as I was stitching away I noticed my skein of Old Brick was getting really low. I thought for sure I'd have enough since the book didn't say 2 skeins were needed. Nope! I ran out of that darn color so now have to order another one. The entire piece is finished except for one section that needs that color. I'm very careful with not wasting thread so there's now way I could've stretched that out. There's a pretty large section that still needs to be stitched. There's no way 1 skein would have been enough. 2 skeins are definately needed for that piece and I really wish they would've made a note of that in the book. I don't have a needlework shop here so have to order it. It'll probably be another week before I get it. The closest shop is in Arlington but I won't order it from her. She won't let me order if my purchase is less than $10. So much for finishing it today.....I don't think it would have bothered me so much if I wasn't already having such a crummy day.

My new stitching buddy

It looks like I have a new stitching buddy! I taught Cassie to cross stitch the end of last summer. She did ok with it but had trouble with using the needle threader and beginning and ending her threads. After school started she was always too busy doing school things to bother having a go at stitching again. She asked about stitching again recently so before school let out I kitted up several small & easy designs for her. I put them all in a plastic box along with her own pair of scissors and a needlecase with needles. I gave it to her this morning and she was really excited. So excited in fact that she picked one of the little kits out and started stitching away on it. She got a little frustrated with threading the needle at first but she got the hang of it pretty quick. She does really well with starting and finishing her thread this time around too. The piece she's working on now is the little fish from The Trilogy's Seaology chart. I think she wants to stitch the crab as soon as she finishes this one. She's so cute....she wants me to sit at the kitchen table when I stitch so she can stitch besdie me :). I spent a nice amount of the day stitching as well. It was a good day for that since it was stormy. I'm still working on that same piece I mentioned earlier. We did venture out to the mall for a bit and went out to dinner with my parents for my mom's birthday. Happy birthday, mom! I've been working on my Chicago plans and think I have a pretty good itenerary planned out. I'm really looking forward to that trip! I'm still really afraid of getting on that plane though......

Finally a day to rest....

We're having a lazy day today and I'm really enjoying it! I've spent quite a bit of time stitching. I'm working on a piece for a friend. I love the design and the designer but it seems to be coming along slowly and I have no idea why. I'm seeing a lot of progress today. If I could get 2 or 3 good days of stitching in I could get it done. It may be that it seems like it's taking a while because I've been so busy lately and haven't had a lot of stitching time. It just seems like I started it a while ago and it should be done. My mom's birthday is tomorrow so I made her a birthday cake today. It's a coconut supreme cake. Isn't it pretty? I was going to take it to her tomorrow but got the urge to today and I'm so glad I did. When I gave it to her she told me she had just gone out and bought the goodies to make herself a coconut cake. Did I get that cake choice right or what?! I'm glad I didn't wait till tomorrow because she would've had 2! I also picked up a bouquet of miniature roses for her on the way to her house. Tomorrow we'll be going out to dinner with them for her b-day. I'm thinking I might have to stop back by her house for a piece of that cake :). I just ordered our Rangers tickets for the 4th of July game. We're really excited about that! We went last year and had the best time. They have a really amazing fireworks show after the game. They don't even have a fireworks show here so we must venture off to find the festivities.

School's out!!!

And I am ssssssssssoooooooooooo happy about that! No more waking up at 6:15 for me for the next 3 months!! I'm catching up on my sleep! There has been a serious lack of that lately. My first order of business...I'm not doing a darn thing that's productive until next Tuesday except for making sure everyone's fed, bathed, and the dishes are done. I take that back...I need to bake my mother's birthday cake tomorrow and we're going out to dinner for the occasion as well. Other than that I fully intend on spending a great deal of time stitching the next 3 days. I've not had a chance to pop in the past few days so let's see if I can catch up shall we? First, Cassie's awards ceremony at school was Wednesday morning. She received second place in school wide writing, received a certificate for being on the all A honor roll, and received another award for getting all A's in conduct. Yesterday was field day so we were up at the school for a good part of the day. It started storming early so they had to move the festivities inside. Joshua's teacher about drove me nuts....she's one of those people who you can only stand to be with for very small amounts of time. She's very spacey too. For example, we could be having a very serious conversation with her. Something to the effect of, "Joshua's really not doing well in reading". She'd say..... "Joshua's really not doing well in reading so...Oh my gosh I love your earrings, where did you get those?" It drives me nuts! About the middle of the school year she was talking to a parent when I walked in and in the middle of their conversation she walked away to ask me where I got my lipstick, what brand it was, and what the name of the color was. It's just insane...lol.

Before we went up to field day, I was able to snag a couple of pics of my new friends. Aren't they cute?! I've noticed them in the neighborhood a lot lately. When I got back from taking the kids to school, they were laying under our tree in the front yard. I decided to feed them and they were very appreciative.









Our kids have an addiction and need help I think. I wonder if there's a support group for kids who are addicted to Webkinz? Most of what they have they received as gifts or saved their money for them. Yes, we make our kids work for their allowance. We don't just hand out money. This way they're more careful about what they spend their money on and they can appreciate that they earned the money for what they're buying. IMO, spoiled kids who don't have to work for anything and are just handed everything don't end up to be very good people. Anyway, we have bought a couple for them just because. In fact we did that just today...lol! I'd like to think of them as a "you did really great in school this year and we're really proud of you" gift. As of today, we've added a spotted frog named Mr. Speckles to the collection and a Clydesdale Horse named Petunia. Now, how happy do they look? The sad thing is, I really like them too. I don't know if it's the kids that want to collect them or if it's really me. Maybe I'm the one with the problem..lol! The people who created these things are probably rolling around in their money as we speak.


I just got word that a stitching friend of mine received the gift I stitched for her for her birthday so now I can post a pic. One of her favorite colors is gree so I stitched a needlebook for her using a variegated thread from DMC in shades of green on a light green fabric. I hope you had a really great birthday, Juli!







Well, I'm off to see about dinner and then have a shower so I can do nothing the rest of the night. I've been so busy lately that I'm really looking forward to just doing whatever :)

There's a monster in our tree....

We have a really big tree in our backyard. A couple of days ago I noticed a bunch of leaves and little branches with leaves on the ground underneath it. I was telling Mike that it looked like an animal was up there. I just assumed one of the neighbor's cats was up there trying to get a bird. I see him on our roof often. I looked out the window earlier and there were a lot more leaves and branches on the ground than there were yesterday. Mike went out to gander around and came back in shortly to tell me he wanted to show me something. He pointed to the top of this really big tree and I have to tell ya, I was stunned to say the least. Up in that tree is the BIGGEST nest I've ever seen. I've never even seen pictures of one that big. The thing is just huge. I'm not kidding when I say one of our dogs (or 2!) would fit in that nest. It's not just made of twigs like most nests I've seen, this bird (monster!) tore up a section of the tree and used all of the leaves and branches to make it. It's a gigantic green nest. Curiosity is killing me...I wanna know what's up there. Whatever it is, it's big!! I took the binoculars out and looked (stared!) at it for a good half hour but I just couldn't see anything. I'm not leaving Dollie outside for long periods of time because I'm afraid whoever is up there is capable of swooping down and eating her...lol. I hope whoever's up there makes an appearance really soon because I'm terribly curious. I have noticed that all of the smaller birds are staying away from that tree..lol.

I had a nice breakfast with a friend this morning. She's moving on Friday. I'm really sad about that :(. Afterwards I had to do some shopping. My mother's birthday is on Sunday. Instead of buying something for her I think I'm gonna take her shopping. I did that last year and she had a really good time. I picked up a few little kits for the stitching box I'm putting together for Cassie for the Summer. I'm gonna kit up some other things this evening to put in there. I got her a pair of inexpensive embroidery scissors so she'll leave mine alone. Mine aren't very inexpensive you see, and don't have any business being in the hands of a 9.5 year old...lol. I've decided today that I might try to take up quilting. I'm still pondering the thought so don't get too excited :). I must scamper off and pick up the kiddos from school......

Hanging around.....

I'm just hanging out at home today since I have company. Mike took Joshua to the clinic yesterday because he hasn't been feeling well lately. They said he has an upper respiratory infection. He still wasn't feeling all that great when he woke up so he stayed home today. I finished up a gift for Cassie's teacher yesterday. I think it turned out so cute!! Whatcha think?

It's a little piece by Lizzie Kate and I finished it in to a flat fold. I LOVE flatfolds! I made the cording and when I saw this ribbon that looked like a ruler/measuring tape I thought it would be perfect for the piece. When Cassie saw it she said "Mama, I could have stitched that." I wish I would have thought of that! How great would that have been if she would have stitched it herself for her teacher? I'll have to remember that for the next time. That reminds me.....I'm planning to make Cassie a stitching box for the Summer and need to get her goodies together so she'll have plenty to stitch. I nearly forgot about that. Anyway, Cassie loves this piece is really excited to be giving it to her teacher :).

I didn't make one for Joshua's teacher. Really, I don't stitch too many gifts for people other than my stitching friends. Sadly, most people don't appreciate it. I love stitching gifts but have no desire to do so for someone who won't appreciate it. For the most part I think I can tell when someone would appreciate it and wouldn't. I know Cassie's teacher will love this but I think Joshua's teacher wouldn't appreciate it so much. I could be wrong but I don't think so. I stitch a lot of Christmas ornaments every year but am really apprehensive as to who I give them to. A friend once told me that she stitched an ornament for someone's tree and when she gave it to them the person informed her that it didn't match her Christmas tree decor. How sad is that?! If anyone said anything like that to me if I handed them a stitched gift (or any other gift for that matter!) I might be inclined to smack them..LOL! I can't post pictures of a lot of the things I've been stitching on here because they're gifts and the recipients gander around here :). I'm spending the day getting things done around here. I've got a fairly busy week. Besides all of my usual things, Cassie has an awards assembly at school (Her teacher told me she's getting an award for writing but she doesn't know so shhhhhhh...lol), she also has an ortho appt. this week, field day is Thursday (Mike's going with me to help, yay!), Joshua has a ball game this week...gosh what else...I'll have to look at my calendar. I hope everyone has a great week!