November goals reviewed

Hm, I didn't do too well on my goals. This month I've been playing computer games a lot and not stitching as much. It ebbs and flows.

HAED The Awakening--2 pages 1-1/2 pages done
Maggie the Messmaker--work on this UFO a bit Done
TrickORTreat--finish making it into a box, correct problems if I can Nope
Gray Cat--stitch it Nope
1 ornament to finish Nope
Exchanges--ornament, HAED RR, and Just Nan RR I finished two items for the Christmas exchange and mailed it off, finished the Just Nan RR, finished the stitching for the New Years exhange, and stitched and finished a piece for a friend. I haven't received my HAED RR yet.
No new starts! Done

I'm crocheting again!

After seeing posts on Fudgey's blog, I just couldn't resist getting a few patterns. One is a Cthulhu doll, shown here sans eyes. I ordered some polymer clay, the colored kind, so I'll make him some eyes as soon as that comes in. Matt wants some for his friends, so I have three others in the works. I may also crochet some little Santa caps for them.

Hm, maybe a certain Hastur might like one as well. :-)

I also have the hedgehog pattern I mentioned earlier. I ordered some eyelash yarn, noses, and eyes for them.

My ornament exchange was mailed out yesterday. I'll show pics of that after Leah receives it. I'm also waiting on an overdue HAED round robin. I'm starting to get worried....

Convalescing: I've been stitching a little on The Awakening, though it's hard to stitch with your feet up. Both feet are swelling right now for some reason, maybe because I'm not moving them much. I'm still working, but I think I may be getting sick. I had a slight fever last night and have had a headache since yesterday that Vicodin and ibuprofen aren't knocking out. I'm getting really tired of this. It seems I get sick at least once a month with something.

My Thanksgiving Day trip to the ER

Yep, another holiday fiasco. I was mopping the kitchen, my bare foot slipped, and my toes connected with the door frame. My middle toe on my left foot was sticking out to the side, so I knew it was broken. Matt was upstairs vacuuming, and when he finally heard me and came downstairs, he said we should just tape it. Then he saw it and agreed we should head to the hospital.

Four hours later, we're home, and he's started cooking the turkey. Marty (Matt's mom's husband) was waiting on us, and now he has to wait three hours to eat. We got some food from McDonald's because neither of us had eaten (I'd had an English muffin at least for breakfast). Oh, and I hadn't yet taken a shower. I'm sure I looked lovely. Not going to shower for a while either.

The x-ray showed the toe is broken near the base, and it will need to be wrapped for 6-8 weeks. They gave me a CD with the x-ray. No driving or going in to work. At least I work at home most of the time.

At the hospital, I had to have a large wheelchair, not the regular kind for normal people. Matt tried to wheel me into the waiting room, and he just couldn't get it angled right. Since I'm PMSing, I took that to mean I wouldn't fit, and I just lost it. The foot didn't hurt nearly as bad as the mortification. I just kept crying. The doctor of course thought it was the pain and got me some Vicodin, which of course made me very drowsy. I dozed in the chair, but at least I wasn't crying.

Matt's going to be doing all the cooking, and everything else, for a while. He has the satisfaction of being right--he always tells me to put some shoes on when I'm doing chores, and of course I never do. I hate shoes!

I was planning on driving in to Austin tomorrow to see Cherylann, but that's not going to happen now. Very disappointing. I'll still get to game with the guys Saturday, at least.

Angi's RR

I finished my section of Angi's round robin today. I'll try to be lucid--it's late the night before Thanksgiving.

I chose bands from Winter Romance. She included the materials, so the Christmas colors will tie the piece together. I had to frog my name line because I miscounted. Argh, of all the lines to have to rip out--the over-one band.

I bought a crochet pattern for a hedgehog. I saw it on Fudgey's blog. I'm thinking about making some for the charity auction at work. Now if I can find eyelash yarn...

Cable phone: We got it installed today. Of course, it's not right. They installed a jack in the office, and Matt comes home and says they didn't need to. The hole in the wall is also unnecessarily huge. That stresses me out a bit.

Happy Thanksgiving! I know not all my stitching friends are in the United States, but have a happy day anyway. :-)

Maggie the Messmaker update

As promised, here's a scan of my progress on Maggie the Messmaker. I already had the sewing machine and most of the tomato done. I filled in some kitty belly and started working my way down. I know I didn't spend much time stitching this week, but this piece is just crawling. I can see why it's in the UFO pile.

So now I'll switch back to working on The Awakening for another week. I'm a little tired of that one too. I'm sure I'll get excited about it again; I usually go in cycles.

I think I've decided on what to send for the Christmas ornament exchange. I'll send it out as soon as my exchange partner is ready.

I worked a little on the finishing of my New Years exchange piece. It's a little more...challenging than I expected. Pics eventually.

Someone sniped me on the eBay auction of Just Nan Christmas charts. Oh well, I had set my upper limit on them and wouldn't have gone higher. It's just annoying getting sniped. Now I can just stitch from what I have on hand and not wait for new charts to come in. I may work on the round robin tomorrow.

I'm supposed to be getting my HAED RR piece in the mail Tuesday. Yay!

Round robins and exchanges

I received Angi's Just Nan round robin in the mail the other day. It's made up of parts of band samplers with a Christmas theme. I have one winter band sampler, but I'll see if I win an auction for some more Christmas charts. It's a gorgeous piece, and I'm just dying to start working on it. Patience!

I really should not join exchanges. I tend to go nuts. I received my person's name for the Christmas ornament exchange on the Needle and Thread BB. I couldn't find much information on her, just a few designers she likes. So I do have a special little chart by one designer that I've stitched as an extra. That would make three stitched pieces, so I might keep the first little extra I did. Decisions, decisions.

And it gave me an idea for a gift for a friend. Argh!

So today I need to venture into the dreaded Wal-Mart to get a few supplies.

I've been stitching on Maggie the Messmaker, but the progress pic I'll take Sunday isn't going to show much. I've been gaming more than anything else. We're on a roll.

Christmas buying: I've been ordering stuff like mad, and most of them aren't presents. Recently I've gotten: a new cell phone (mine's dying), shirts and T-shirts for Matt (unfortunate accident with OxyClean), bathroom mats for the guest bath and downstairs half bath (shredded in the wash), a set of expensive Henckel Twin kitchen knives (ours were falling apart, literally), and Christmas presents for Matt. I'm still waiting for more presents and new torchieres for the living room (both died at the same time). Plus, we think we've settled on office chairs (mine is terrible, and the back is falling off Matt's), but they're going to be a lot more expensive than I thought. Everything seems to break all at once. Ugh. Oh yeah, the lamp died in my sewing room too!

My button

Success! My button came out just fine, and I stitched it on this morning. Can you tell what it is? ;-)

Michelle (artbuff) mailed out the next Just Nan round robin piece, so I'm anxiously awaiting that. It's a Christmas band sampler and looks so pretty already.

2007 calendar is in!

Yesterday I received my 2007 calendar from Selina Fenech. She's the artist that did the artwork for Beauty and the Beasts QS and Dragon Soul QS. It's absolutely gorgeous!

I've switched over to stitching Maggie the Messmaker, one of my three WIPs that are sort of UFOs. Dimension kits are just not fun to stitch; nothing's straightforward about it. I'll stitch on this through the weekend and then switch over to The Awakening again. I'll scan a progress pic on Sunday night.

I finally got my paint for the button I'm working on--nothing fancy. I sprayed it with polyurethane and am waiting for it to dry. We'll see how it comes out.

I also bought a plastic bin for my ribbons, cording, and decorating items. I'm getting quite a collection!

Awakening update

I finally finished another page of The Awakening. It seemed to take forever. I'm rather disheartened by her red, blotchy face at times. Some days it looks fine to me, and other days I'm sad about it. That's the problem with stitching pieces that no one has ever stitched before--you never know what you're going to get.

Anyway, I'm 51% done! Be sure to click on the pic for a better image.

Movies: We watched Cars tonight. It was pretty good. I'm glad I bought it. It's one of those movies I'll be able to watch over and over.

New Year's exchange piece finished

I put the final stitches on the piece for the New Year's exchange this morning before work. I still need to do the finishing and a little extra piece, but I'll do that a little later (if I can stand the wait). I think it came out very cute.

A note on making buttons out of Sculpey clay: the toaster oven is deceptive. Apparently the temperature is much higher than the temperature knob would have you believe. My poor unsuspecting buttons came out black in the toaster oven! I did a few more in the conventional oven, and they turned out just fine, nice and white. I need to go buy some paint because I did not have the right color in my paint kit. This button is turning out to be more expensive than just buying it outright!

So now I'm working on The Awakening again. I plan to work on it this weekend, but of course I have some things to get done, such as the final mowing before winter (86 degrees F here at the moment), etc.

Cats: Anubis has been on a diet and has been driving us nuts with his crying. He wasn't losing weight, so we lowered the amount he gets to the minimum. Still not losing weight. We bumped up the amount a little, and now he's lost a little bit. I think maybe his body went into starvation mode. I just wish he'd lose the weight so he'd stop driving us insane!

Fuzzy stuff is fun but annoying

I received my fuzzy stuff (Rainbow Gallery Wisper) for my Christmas ornament exchange and finished the stitching. I don't know how to fuzzy it up after stitching. Matt suggested a tooth brush, so I may give that a try. So, I'll have an ornament and a little extra piece for the exchange. I may be able to finish it up tomorrow.

I've also been working on the piece for the New Year's exchange. I went to Wal-Mart and got the fabric and little things I'll need. I still have some wording to stitch around the outside, and there's an extra piece I want to stitch too. I also have to make a button with clay. I think I can do that as opposed to ordering a novelty button. Should be interesting! This should keep me busy for a while.

And of course I can't share any pics because it's secret. Argh.

The Awakening has gotten some attention but not nearly enough. Seriously, once these pieces are done....

Matt looked at the bills today and totaled up everything we spent on credit cards thus far in the year. Scary! Apparently I just had a big month of stitching stuff in October. I averaged about $100 a month, which isn't too bad. I just need to be good for a while. So how much is "normal"? Do you know how much you spend? Are you afraid to look?

New Year's Exchange

I've done it now...I volunteered for an exchange on the Rotation Stitcher's board. I think I know what I want to stitch and how I want to finish it. I've even figured out how to spend a minimal amount of money. Matt happened to look at the credit card bill. Apparently I've been ordering lots of little things that added up to $300 or so. Ouch! I'll try to be good, really I will.... It's just so hard because I really am using all the things I order.

Speaking of...I'm waiting for some fuzzy stuff for the Christmas exchange. I also ordered a few patterns to make the package worthwhile, whatever Drawn Thread patterns Ginger's has off my wishlist. Ooo, a surprise! (Check out their website; they have some cool freebies for scissor fobs.)

I also received Snowflake QS from Fudgey for being the first person to finish Dragon Soul QS. She's such a sweetie.

Funeral: Last night was the memorial service for Matt's mom. It was held in a small Lutheran church (in a strip mall!). I never realized that Protestants didn't do the sign of the cross, but when the pastor made the sign, I automatically crossed myself. I was the only one! Can you spot the Catholic?

I got to meet Matt's cousins and such. They seem like a nice bunch. They invited us to their weekly Sunday lunches, and I think Matt's going to take them up on it, wonder of wonders. I do miss my family back in Louisiana, so this could be good. He mentioned that his family always helps out, such as painting, etc. That's what my family does, so that gives me warm fuzzies.

Finished my ornament exchange piece

This weekend I finished my ornament for the exchange on the Needle and Thread BB. Of course I can't post a pic because it's a secret. I really like the ornament, even though it's not perfectly centered (argh!). Matt even helped me center it, but it must have moved a bit. He's got the eye.

I also stitched on The Awakening, but I didn't get that much done. The guys came over Saturday, and we played City of Villains most of the day Saturday.

Tonight is the memorial for Matt's mom. He's aggravated that it's taking place two weeks after her death, because a family member already had plans. Excuse me? He even considered not going. I know it will be opening barely healed wounds. He needed this a week ago, not today.

November goals

A lot of people have been setting goals, so maybe I should too. Here's my list for November:

HAED The Awakening--2 pages
Maggie the Messmaker--work on this UFO a bit
TrickORTreat--finish making it into a box, correct problems if I can
Gray Cat--stitch it
1 ornament to finish
Exchanges--ornament, HAED RR, and Just Nan RR
No new starts!

This seems doable. I've gotten a lot of smalls out of the way, but there are a few there still nagging me. But I think the bigger pieces are more important, and I need to keep a few smalls to work on when the BAPs are getting to be too much.

I've started working on The Awakening again, but I haven't been stitching as rabidly as usual this week.

The pic is of my African violets. A few others are blooming, but this one looked the best. Two of my orchids have just started opening (and all need repotting--ugh!).

New TWs!

I've enjoyed reading people's posts about CSNF. What I'm really excited about is the two new Teresa Wentzler pieces! They were taught at the event, but they'll eventually get released as charts, maybe in three months or so (fingers crossed). Delphine74 posted a pic of the Dragon Needlecase, and Dani posted a pic of the Celestial Fob (the other side was done by Jennifer Aikman-Smith of Dragon Dreams). Love 'em!

Yesterday I drove in to work to help out with the deadline crunch (and go to the Halloween party!). I won some handmade cards in a silent auction for charity. The photo is a sampling of the huge pile I got. I also went to Hobby Lobby to get a few things, including some nubby yarn to make a throw for Matt. It says no dye lot, but two skeins are darker than the other two. I'll just alternate.

I also bought some toys for Hathor. She just loves the little balls with feathers attached. Of course she shreds them and I find feathers all over the house.

Diet: Today we restart the diet. We ate tons of junk last week, which is our usual reaction to grief. I probably gained back all the little weight I lost. I'm too chicken to get on the scale right now. We're going to Ohio in a few months for the interment of Matt's mom's ashes, so I'd like to lose some weight by then. I'll get to meet his dad for the first time, which ought to be fun.