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All of the cross stitch on my blog is copyrighted, and the designer is listed next to the pic. Please do not ask me to share charts, as I will not do so under any circumstances. All pics of my work and text, unless otherwise stated, are copyrighted by me and cannot be used in any other written or pictorial form without my written consent. Thank you.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Lots of progress, and a few other things

Okay, now I'm peeved.  Stupid Chrome just ate my very long blog entry and now I have to start over.  Pfft.  Stupid thing.  (Don't get me wrong, I love technology, but right now, I'm irked at it.  I have no idea what happened to the six long paragraphs I just wrote.  Grrrr...)  Okay, now that I have that out of my system, let my get on to the point of this blog entry (again).  (Okay, so maybe it wasn't ALL out of my system.  Grrrrr......)  Okay, now I'm done.  Promise.
     I picked more lilacs today. 
 They smell soooo good.  The bush is in back, and it's right on the property line between my building and the building next door.  I love the way they smell.  Delicious (but except I don't really want to eat them, but I can't think of a better word.  Luscious maybe???).  I cut several stems for me, and a couple of stems for my mom too.  (We had to walk right past them to get to her car, so I took the scissors with me.  Whoo hoo!!)  So my house smells fabulous now.  And I love the color of purple they are.  They're sitting on my computer desk (you can see my modem in the background).  Yes Dear had a good sniff of them too.  I don't think she likes them as much as I do.  She's ambivalent about them, lol.  She sniffed, then walked away.  NBD, she says, lol.  
     I have progress to show you.  The bad news is I only have one, pitiful piccy to show you.  The good news is that it's not pitiful.  I made a HUGE amount of progress on Country Bloomers.  
It's coming along like a house afire.  I think it's because it's so easy, and I'm used to working on things that are much more difficult.  As you can see, I'm working on my third pair of bloomers.  It's going so fast.  (I just got back in from outside.  YD wanted to go out, and it's a balmy seventy seven degrees outside, so I obliged her.  It's too dark to see though, so we had to come back in.  Gorgeous weather, and it should hopefully last through till mid May.  That's when it usually starts to get hot.)  I just put in about fifty more stitches, so this isn't quite current, lol.  I'm not taking another piccy though, so you'll have to live with it, lol.  Again, Chris, thanks so much for the chart.  I love it!!  (I should do an easy project every now and then, so I don't feel so slow, lol.  But I probably won't.  We'll see.)
     I'm getting very excited about Sunday.  Sunday is April first, whoo hoo!!  I know, you don't all know what that means.  For me, it means four new starts, and yes, I've been waiting on them!!  In one of my groups, (2muchXS, and really, the name is a misnomer.  How can you have too much XS???), we are doing a start something new challenge for April first.  It came about because Colleen had just moved, and couldn't do the January first challenge.  (You don't have a limited amount of time to complete it, you don't have to finish by the end of the year, you just have to start something.  Or several somethings, in my case.)  So I'm starting four projects.  Noah's Submarine (Stoney Creek) is also called Noah's Sub and I'm doing it as a SAL with Julie M. and Rosa W.  Julie's decided she can't take the time to start it now cause she has jewelry special orders (whoo hoo), so she's gonna start it this summer.  Rosa and I will start it on the phone with each other (probably) and I'll do a few rows and then move on while she gets ahead of me (not too far, I hope).  I'm also starting Time To Go (Witch Stitch'n'Bits) as a SAL with Vicky L.  (Yes, as a matter of fact, I AM always up for a SAL.)  It's for my gamer friend Freak.  I tell him I love him, in game, and everyone sort of freezes.  Gamers generally don't get to know each other too well.  So they're all used to it now, but the first time, it was all dead silent, you could hear a pin drop, OMG.  Too funny, lol.  I generally tell the people I love, I love you.  If I don't, then they won't know.  So if the first block is all the same color, I'm gonna do it up and then move on to the next.  (I think it IS all the same color, but I'm not sure.)  Last, I'm gonna start Beach Romance (Janlynn) for my brother and sister in law.  It's their wedding sampler, and HIGHLY appropriate.  They got married on the beach in Florida.  I've been promised a piccy, but I don't have it yet.  When I do get it, I'll scan it in so y'all can see it.  Those are the three I'm starting on Sunday day.  On Saturday night, at midnight, I'll be starting my mom's ornie, Let It Snow (Casey Buonaugario Designs).  She doesn't know it's for her, lol.  I want to start something right away, but I wanted to wait on the big things.  So I'm gonna do the ornie first.
     With my SAL for ornies and all things Christmas this year, I'm gonna do ornies for the whole family.  I sent my mom some piccys of ornies that I could do this year for my sister and her hubby, and I'm waiting to hear back from her.  For my brother and his wife, I'm doing two ornies.  Amy has a cat, hissing and all poofed up.  The wording says, "What part of HISS don't you understand?"  It totally reminds me of Reese.  For David, I have a boxer ornie.  They both came from the book 99 Loveable Cross Stitch Pets.  (Or those words in some other order.  I can't decide what goes where, lol.)  I like the idea of making something for everyone.  My sister will probably put hers on the tree if it's among her ornies, so I'm safe.  And I KNOW David and Amy are putting up a tree this year.  So it's all good.  I'm gonna have mom make them into ornies for me, since I can't sew worth crap.  (Yes, she'll be making up her own ornie, and she doesn't even know it, he he he.  She'll be so surprised.  I told her that since I had made her a couple of ornies a couple of years ago, I was making them for the rest of the family now.  She's clueless (and she's not suspicious of anyone, least of all me), so I'll enjoy her opening her package.)
     She and I had a good day today.  We went to this little deli (well, not so little actually, it's two big rooms) and got lunch.  Normally, I wouldn't go to a deli for lunch, but...  It's Lent.  I'm Catholic.  Sometimes I forget to not eat meat on Friday, but I try really hard to remember.  So she suggested we go in and pick up fish sandwiches.  The first year we did it, dad was still alive.  She picked up three sandwiches, and brought them out to his house.  (The deli is in Mack, about five minutes from my dad's place.)  They were delicious, and huge!!!!  Each sandwich is eight dollars (I know, pricey) and big enough to fill you up.  It's about nine inches long by four inches wide at the widest point.  It's not a rectangle though, it's a filet.  So the ends are about an inch or so.  It comes with lettuce, tomato, red onion (yuck), and pickle on it.  It also comes with a side of their homemade dill tartar sauce.  Delicious.  She and I both picked out sides too.  She had black bean and corn salsa and pasta salad.  I got desert, lol.  Banana pudding and chocolate mousse.  Oh, it was so good.  With little shavings of chocolate in the mousse.  It was wonderful.  We took the sandwiches back to her house first, so she could eat and put away the groceries she bought.  Then I showed her (again, and made her practice) how to log on to the bank's website so she can check her balance.  She's a technophobe, so that was hard to do.  Then we came back here and she helped me out by cutting my fabby for my new starts.  (I don't do straight lines.  I can't cut one, draw one, sew one...  I have no artistic talent at all.  I can't even draw good stick people!!!)  Then she had to go home and work.  
     So Yes Dear and I went out on the balcony and she sat and people watched (my neighbors from two houses down were out) while I stitched for a bit and read for a bit.  Got some more done, as I already stated, and it was nice to soak up the Vitamin D.  It helps with the depression.  I was out for a little bit yesterday too.  Now it's raining, which is good.  We can use it.  But we're supposed to get bad storms, so...  Hopefully no one will be injured and there won't be any property damage.  I used to be scared of storms, but I gave my ex hell for not facing his fears.  So I didn't want to be hypocritical.  I went out for five minutes the first time, then fifteen, then half an hour and so on.  I don't enjoy them now, but I'm not scared of them either.  I hope you're all having a sterling day and evening, and getting lots of time to stitch and/or relax.
     And thanks to every one who comments on my posts, on either Multiply or Blogspot.  I love to know that you're all out there and interested.  It just makes my day!!  And welcome to those who are new to my blog.  It's nice to have you here!

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Lots of Progress and Another Award

     I'm still behind on my emails, and not because I can't catch up either.  I've been stitching like mad for some reason.  I've got almost two full pairs of bloomers done.  (I forgot I needed to add one stitch to the first pair, so they're not completely finished either.)  The other pair needs a patch, and then a couple of other little things, and they're done.  (There is a "hole", but it's not another patch that goes in that space.  It's the ribbon from her hat.  I haven't decided if I'm gonna work on her or not.  I think I'm gonna go ahead and work on the ground underneath next.  Depends on how I feel when I get there, lol.)  And I finished another ornie.  This one went much faster than the first since I was able to use my Q-snap.  And of COURSE I have piccys.
     Okay, the ornie first.  I think it's lovely.  It just seems so peaceful with the candle flame. 

 It was a really quick stitch, compared to the first one.  The first one took me months, this one took me three weeks.  (Well, four total, but one week I didn't work on it, so I'm not counting that week.)  I totally love the colors in this one too.  Red and black are such a good color combination, and it just is so pretty, I think.  I'm really pleased with how this came out.  Unfortunately, now I'm back to working in hand.  I've not decided which ornie I'm gonna do next, but I'm thinking I might do one for Rosa on the last of the opalescent.  I don't know which one I'm doing yet as she hasn't picked one yet.  I need to send her the piccys pages of the mag.  She thought she had it, but she doesn't.  So I'll send her the piccys pages and let her choose which ornie she wants me to stitch her.  I probably won't start it by next week, so I'll open up the evenweave I got and start on that for now.  (Yay!!  I'm NOT looking forward to working in hand again.)  
     And now for my progress on Country Bloomers.

  It's coming along well.  I'm really enjoying this one.  Lots of long lines and simple patterns make it easy to count the stitches out.  I've gotten a LOT done on this, for me, and I'm so grateful to Chris for the chart.  It's been a total joy to work on so far.  The colors are much pretttier in person than they are on the chart piccy.  It just doesn't do it justice.  You can see parts of the hearts that hang on the line in between the bloomers too.  The little heart, there isn't much there for yet.  The bigger heart is almost all there.  I just have a few stitches to put in on that, and then the patch on the top right of them, and finish up the bands on the legs and that pair of bloomers is finished.  And you can see where I accidentally skipped a stitch on the first bloomers too.  On the right leg, right below the band of red, there is supposed to be a blue stitch.  I need to put that in, and then I'll be all set.  Whoo hoo, go me!!!!  I've been putting in a ton of stitches lately, and I love it.  Except now I'm more behind on emails.  (Well, sort of.  I put my four busy groups on no mail, so I'm behind, but not as behind as I could be.  I'm hoping to get caught up soon, and STAY that way!!)
     And I have a prayer request.  Could you all say a quick prayer for Rosa and her fiance?  They're having a rough time of it, and can use all the help they can get.  TIA, I know you will.  Cause you're all AWESOME!!!  Thanks again to those ladies who left a comment on my Jesus finish.  (Or any of my posts, actually.)  I really appreciate the comments!  And as soon as I get caught up on my emails, I'll be back to leaving comments on your blogs too!!
     And I almost forgot, I got ANOTHER blogger award, this time from Vickie.  Thanks so very much Vickie.  I love having followers, and I love getting comments, and just knowing that there are people out there that care.  It's an awesome feeling!!  (And since I had a really rough time deciding on my five blogs the first time, I'm going to do it again, cause I can easily pick out five more blogs you should be aware of!!)  Okay, five blogs I follow with less than two hundred followers.  Here we go, folks!!
1.)  Ylva at Ylva's Crafty Corner ~  Ylva is a friend of Vicki's and I know her from Vicki's group.  She's a lovely lady, and a huge animal lover, like me.  She does a lot more crafts than me too, lol.  I just stitch, where she does lots of things!!
2.)  Andrea of Drea Dear ~  Andrea just started a new blog for finishes.  You can add your name and a recent finish, and it will be highlighted in a Friday post.  I think it's a great idea, and I think this is a great way to spread the word!!
3.)  Alicia of The Crafty Princess ~ Alicia has great taste, and I love her blog's artwork too.  Her header piccy is gorgeous, and I badly want to stitch it!!!  (I must have found ten other blogs I'm gonna advertise looking for this one, cause I really wanted her on my list.  It's an awesome blog.)
4.)  Mary of Frazzled Needle ~ Mary runs one of my fave stitchy groups, The Stitcherhood on Yahoo.  She's a wonderful lady, and I love her to death.  She doesn't blog often though.  (She keeps saying she will though.  He he he, nothing like motivation, right, Mary???)
5.)  Megan of Stitchings of an Army Wife ~ I'm including Megan because she's a nice lady and has made so many sacrifices with her hubby serving overseas.  Also, she has good taste in charts.
(Note:  I know I'm only supposed to pick five blogs, but I can't stop here.  I'm a rebel, and I'm gonna add a few more good reads to the list!!!)
6.)  Deborah of Deborah, Max, and Mizprecious Dee Dee ~ I've known Deborah for years, and no matter how bad things get for her, she's always got a good attitude.  She's a lovely woman, and she can use all the support she can get!!!
7.)  Kaye of Kitten Stitching ~ Kaye is a lovely lady.  She blogs about what's going on, and she leaves lots of comments on other's blogs.  She's one of the nicest bloggers I know.
8.)  Sarah Beth of Sarah Beth's Cross Stitch Blog ~ Sarah Beth is a lovely lady.  She always reminds me of the Rascal Flatt's song, Skin though.  Every time I read her blog, I end up singing it.  (Not that I mind, it's a great song!!!)  She's going through a tough time because her baby is at the vet's for treatment.  She also can use all the support she can get!!
9.)  Rahenna at Crafty Rahenna ~ She's a sweetie, and doing the same challange as me (WIPacolypse).  I like her taste too.
10.)  Joyce of Joyce's Love of Life ~ Joyce amazes me with the amount she get's done every week.  She blogs and I look at the ten projects she's worked on and I think, "I would never make ANY progress if I had that much on the go each week," even though I have a lot of projects in my rotation.  She's amazing!!
That's all of them (for now ;D).  There are only four rules to this award (the Liebster Award):
1.)  Post a link on your blog back to the person who awarded it to you.
2.)  Post five up and coming blogs (less than two hundred followers) that you follow and would like to share.
3.)  Post a comment on their blogs that you've given them an award.
4.)  Post five facts about yourself that people may not have known.
I don't think I mentioned it last time, but the award (which means beloved or darling one) is to help the up and comers get more followers.  I think it's a great idea!!  I hope you all enjoy your awards!  And here are my five facts, again.
1.)  I'm adopted.  I sort of feel sorry for my adopted family though.  I was a terrible child to parent.  I had a severe case of ADHD, and then the bipolar when I grew up.  There were some extremely difficult periods, especially for my brother and sister, who had to claim me as a relative.  Now, I'm in pretty good shape.  I don't interact with my sister much, but I do dog sit for my brother on a regular basis.  And I helped take care of my dad when he was sick.  So I feel like I'm able to contribute something now.
2.)  I LOVE taco baked potato.  Almost every time I cook, that's what I cook.  (Unless I'm eating cheap.  Sometimes, I spend more than I can afford on books, charts, or movies, and I have to buy things that are cheap to eat for a week or two.  It's worth it though!!!)  I bake a large potato, mash it with butter top with taco meat (Ortega, but you can use what you like) and cheese, and nuke it for a minute till the cheese melts.  Delicious!!!  (Yes, I AM obsessive, lol.)
3.)  I'm a RABID football fan.  I remember learning about the game at my father's knee, literally.  I sat on the floor next to him and watched (and asked lots of questions, till he told me to shut up, lol).  He and my grandpa were Bengals fans, so they watched on Sundays often.  I have a lot of teams that I follow.  They are (in no particular order after the Bengals and Steelers):  The Bengals, The Steelers, The Cowboys, The Saints, The Packers, The Bears, The Colts, The Giants, The Jets, and The Eagles.  I try to follow them all season.  ATM, I'm not pleased with the Colts (they got rid of Peyton Manning), the Saints (obvious, as the scandal is nationwide), and the Eagles (they made Michael Vick their starting QB, and I don't think he should be allowed back in the NFL after what he did).  I generally watch all three games on Sunday (although I don't have cable to get ESPN (Monday Night Football) or NFL network (Thursday Night Football).  And since I follow so many teams, I usually can find games that I like.
4.)  I drink like a fish.  I go through two to three sixty four ounce containers of Crystal Light Peach tea a day, every day.  It's not that I'm thirsty as much as it is I need something to do with my hands while I'm reading emails or whatever.  I drink the Crystal Light because it's sugar free and ninety eight percent caffeine free.  And it's delicious.
5.)  When I was little, my grandparent's on my mom's side used to have a house (we called it The Cottage, but it was a three bedroom house) on Locust Creek.  Locust is near Augusta, KY.  It's upriver of the Meldale Dam, so the water if fairly clean there.  We had a speedboat and a pontoon boat to play with.  We swam, tubed, and skied on the river from the time we were tots.  I probably went in for my first swim at about age eight months.  I skied for the first time at age six, and slalomed for the first time at age eight.  (Slalom is when you ski on one ski.  We were never taught to drop one either.  If we couldn't learn to get up on one, we didn't ski slalom.)  As a matter of fact, I actually have a piccy of myself slaloming at about age twelve.  It's not the best pic, but it's decent.  My hair was REALLY short, lol.  Easier for a tomboy to deal with, right?!?  Anyways, here it is:  
Me skiing at about age twelve or so.  Jeez, I'm so skinny in this piccy!!!!
Ignore the very intent look on my face.  If you didn't concentrate, you usually ended up falling in spectacular style, lol.  (We used to judge falls on a one to ten scale with ten being the most spectacular, lol.)
Hope you're all having a good night, and thanks again for the award Vickie.  Now I'm off to leave lots of comments, lol.  YD says good night too!!!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

An award for me, whoo hoo!!!

     I got a blogger award, and I'm so happy about it.  Thanks to Kim, of Sense and Stitchability for passing on the Liebster Award to me.  I'm so happy she thought I was worthy, whoo hoo!!  It's a German word and means darling, sweetheart, or beloved person.  It's a blog award for people with less than two hundred followers, and I'm getting close to that mark.  Looks like I'll be doing another giveaway soon.  Anyways, there are rules (Of course) that I have to follow.  First, I have to link back to the person who awarded me, which I've done.  Then, I have to pick five blogs that I follow for the award.  So here they are:
1.)  Anne of Doll's Musings ~ Anne is the one who gave me my first bit of opalescent fabby.  She's a wonderful lady, and her blog is a neat one.
2.)  Doris of Blog~Doris C ~  Doris is a lovely lady.  Her blog is always interesting, and I love some of her projects.
3.)  Heli of Heli's Stitchery ~ Heli is wonderful, and her projects are gorgeous.  She's a sweetheart too.
4.)  Cheryl of HAED and Other Cross Stitch ~ Cheryl is an AMAZING stitcher, and her projects are gorgeous.  (It helps that we have similar tastes, lol.)  Her Lights of Home has made me want to but it and start it so many times...
5.)  Sierra of Patchwork's Stitches ~ My hometown girl is Sierra.  We haven't managed to meet up yet, but hopefully someday.  I love her WIPs and her recent finish (well, maybe not so recent, I can't remember) of Garden Party was darling.  She has Japanese Garden in progress, and watching her stitch it is the reason it's on my wishlist, lol.
And now I have to go to their blogs and leave a comment that I awarded them the Liebster Award.  No hardship there, lol.  And then, the last rule is that I have to say five facts about myself that not everyone knows.  So here goes (I hate this part, as I never know what to say, lol):
1.)  I have horrible taste in movies from most people's standpoint.  I love horror, thrillers, and (I cringe to admit it) anything with a big animal in it.  Big snake, big sabertooth tiger, big moster animal, whatever.  I love them.  Used to have Python and Boa and still have Komodo.  I totally can't get enough.
2.)  (This one is pretty obvious.)  I love animals.  Almost all of them.  I'm not fond of bees, wasps, flies, and common cockroaches (although this hissing ones are REALLY cool), but pretty much everything else I like.  We couldn't have pets at my one apartment, so we got an aquarium and a couple of garter snakes.  They kids in the neighborhood used to love to watch them eat worms.  Go figure...
3.)  I'm a compulsive shopper.  Mostly charts, books, and movies.  I buy something every month without fail.  Luckily, I can afford to buy a little bit here and there, and that's enough to satisfy me.  I should be saving, but I can't seem to make myself do it.  Grrrr...  
4.)  I'm a gamer.  I play an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) called Two Moons or Dekaron.  (It used to be Two Moons, and then they changed it to Dekaron which means Two Moons in another language.  I don't know what language, but probably an Asian one since that's where most of the Game Masters come from.)  I also have a Nintendo and play the Resident Evil games (I have all of them but the most recent two) and a few other survival Horror games.
5.)  I love to play in the dirt.  I generally used to plant three plots in the yard (a veggie garden in back, a flower garden in back, and a flower garden in front) as well as lots of pots on my porch.  When I moved, I lost the three plots and some porch space.  Now I have six pots and two longer planters on the balcony that I plant.  I did Morning Glories, Petunias, and Celosia last year.  The Celosia is a feathery sort of flower, very pretty.  I'm looking for something different this year though.  Maybe some Lobeilia.  They're really pretty too.  The Morning Glories and Petunias are standard for me.  I change out the small pots every year though.  Whatever happens to catch my fancy goes in them!
     And now, I"m off to go make people happy by leaving comments!!  Hope you all are having a great day!

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

IHSW (late) and dogsitting

     I'm a little bit late with my IHSW post, but at least I remembered it.  Whoo hoo for me.  Doubly so, cause I also got a lot done.  Yay me.  I took a progress piccy of Frost Moon before I put it away.  I think it looks gorgeous.  I've never seen so many different shades of blue and gray all in one place before.  I had to rearrange my living room though.  And I'll tell you why and show you a piccy...
     I was talking to Julie M on Monday night (not yesterday, a week ago yesterday), and working on Frost Moon.  I had finished up the first color, and was working on the grays.  I had two dark grays, and I couldn't tell the darned things apart.  So I was whining about it.  And Julie said how it was too bad I don't have an Ott lamp.  (Epiphaniacle moment here.  I DO have an Ott light.  I just haven't needed it.)  So I moved the table over, so I could move the chair over, so I could move the table that used to be next to the couch into the spot next to the chair for the Ott light.  And of course, with the Ott light, I could tell the colors apart.  Makes it a lot easier, ya know?  Here's the after shot.  
It's a nice little nest for me.  Yes Dear likes it too, because now I'm not always putting things on her perch, lol.  She's jealous of that area, and if I put my chart on there (I tend to pull the page I'm working on my HAEDs and put the rest of the chart on the lowest perch) she knocks it off.  I haven't determined yet if she does it on purpose or not.  She's silly though.  She will actually sit on the arm of my chair and cry till I move it so she can get up there.  Then she sits there with a superior look, like, "Hah, I'm here now, and you can't put all your stuff here," lol.  Bad little thing!!  Anyways, I like having the Ott lamp near, and it helps me immensely, so it's all good.
     And here is my (gorgeous) progress on Frost Moon.  
My goal was to get it all gridded and do the first two rows of ten by tens, and I met it.  Whoo hoo!!!  (I love it when I meet a goal, and I haven't in a while.  So I'm doubly excited.)
     I got a lot of it done at the EGA meeting on Monday last.  I probably put in two hundred and fifty stitches or so during that two hours.  And the first three ten by tens in the first column and the first two ten by tens in the second column were all the same color.  So that made it really easy at first.  Of course, the stars are confetti city, but they look good.  I can't wait to get this one back out again.  (Of course, I always feel that way, sooooo...  Nothing new, lol.)  
     And my last rotation piece is in play now.  I'm working on Country Bloomers.  It has a story behind it, and a couple of ornery friends.  Kay, one of my UK buddies, wanted to show me her new knickers.  (Knickers is the Brit word for panties, in case you didn't know.)  I was like, "Um, no thanks.  Don't want to see your underwear."  So then, when we'd webcam, she'd pull her panties up above her pants and show me them.  Once, she even had Claire (her daughter) pull up her skirt and show me hers!!!!  Of course, this somehow spilled over onto my Multiply site.  Kay and I were going back and forth over it.  And my friend Chris, from Indiana, got wind of it.  So she sent me a card with women in old fashioned swimsuits, and this chart.   The finished product looks like this:  
Each pair of Bloomers has the day above it and what happens on that day.  Right now, I'm working on Wednesday Go To Market.  I've been wanting to start the project for as long as I can remember having it, but I was trying so hard to not start anything...  Anyways, when I decided to do a rotation, I added it in because, well, because I could, lol.  It's such an easy stitch.  After Frost Moon, I had some trouble with it at first, lol.  I kept thinking I was working my xs over three threads instead of two.  They looked HUGE!!!!  (Frost Moon is over one on twenty eight count, and Country Bloomers is over two on twenty eight count.  It makes an absolutely huge difference, lol.)  It's been pretty easy though.  Not large blocks of color, but the pattern makes a grid.  
I had to look at the chart a lot to put in the center stitches (the center stitches are the stitches where the grid intersects.  They are slightly darker than the grid lines), but now that I'm putting the grid lines down between them, I only have to check every once in a while.  My goal on this was originally to get the first pair of bloomers done.  I should have them done today.  So I'm thinking I'll change my goal to getting two pairs done.  I got so much done at David's house dogsitting that I needed to make my goal more challenging.
     And speaking of dogsitting, the dog scared the ever loving crap out of me on Friday night.  It was a combination of things, but he had a seizure after his walk.  He has a heart problem.  And he gets these sort of dizzy spells when it acts up.  So we go out for a walk and it's like seventy degrees.  (He doesn't do well in heat, and neither do I, but I figured seventy would be okay.  Boy was I wrong!!)  We didn't go far.  We basically went halfway around the block.  (I know, that sounds strange.  But my brother's street is in the center of the block.  Imagine a square.  Halfway down the left side is a line that goes halfway to the other side, then curves to the south.  He's right on the curve, and so his house is backed up by another house.  We went up his street, up the northwest side of the square, across the top, and halfway down the east side.  Then we cut through the neighbor's yard (I did ask them if they cared.  They didn't, lol) and came through the backyard of David's house.  We went inside, and I took his harness off.  I put the leash on the table, and he started to wobble drunkenly towards the stairs.  I grabbed him, and carried him away from the staircase (sixty pounds of drunken dog, ugh!!!) so he didn't compound the problem by falling down them.  He was fine after about thirty seconds.  So I called David to let him know, and he said he had found a couple of Vin's heart pills on the plate that morning.  So he didn't have two of them at some point, and we figured that combined with the heat and exertion, caused the seizure.  Poor dog.  He shook it off like a trooper though.  He was fine for the rest of the weekend.  I did let him out in the side yard the next day (cause he just lays around out there), and he enjoyed that.  And I played with him for a bit, then distracted him with a greenie and then a bone.  He was happy after that.  So he had a restful weekend, and I cancelled any more walks except in the dead of winter, when it's cold.  He handles those fine.  And it's good for both of us to walk, so that helps.  
     Finally, the plumber has been and gone.  He came in to fix the bathtub today.  It was so messed up.  It leaked (constantly streaming) and that was as much as would come out.  I could turn it up to full, and nothing more would come out.  It was awful.  So I had to take potsfull of water to put in it to keep it from being too hot, and hang a bucket from the spigot to keep the water from cooling off to fast.  I hate that darned bucket now, lol.  I kept having to empty it and empty it and the water got cooler faster cause it was cold even through the bucket...  Ugh!!  But it's fixed now.  I have to let it dry till tomorrow morning, then I can use it.  Yay!!
     That's all the news from my neck of the woods today.  Back to stitching now.  I only have a few stitches to do to finish up my first pair of bloomers!  Hope you're all having a good day!!

Friday, March 16, 2012

I'm a bad blogger

     I'm a bad blogger lately.  I haven't posted since the first!  I'm sorry, and I have no excuse except I've been depressed.  I'm behind on emails again too, ugh.  I just had a very bad few days.  I ended up in the ER to get some help before I was looking at a psyche admission.  It's not been my best week, and I'm hoping things get much better!!!!
     I'm dogsitting this weekend, starting today and going through Monday.  It's supposed to be rainy, but warm, so I'm sure we'll get out for a walk or two.  I'm sure he'll be thrilled to see me.  He loves me to death, and I return his feelings.  He's been very good with the cats lately, so we'll see how that goes with them while I'm there.  David and Amy left a few minutes after eleven, so I have some time before I have to be there.
     The plumber came yesterday to look at my bathtub.  I was thrilled at first.  (Well, sort of.  They woke me up at about eleven, and I hadn't gotten to sleep until six, so...  But I was thrilled and tired, lol.)  Then he actually started to take apart the apparatus.  And there's a special tool that you use to take the faucet apart.  My landlord (Chris) didn't know that, and so he tried with pliers.  He did nothing but strip the mechanism.  So the whole kit and caboodle needs to be replaced.  And because of that, they have to replace the tiles and everything else.  To make it even worse, he's gonna be here to do it on Tuesday at nine thirty AM.  I hate to be up that early in the morning.  Hate it.  Oh, well.  Nothing I can do about it.
     I need to go to Hobby Lobby today too.  Jesus is clean and dry, and I also need some flossies.  I'm almost to the point where I can't stitch because I need floss.  Two or three colors I need were missing when we went floss shopping, so I need to pick them up.  And I need to pick up a few flossies from Noah's Sub too.  They weren't there, and so I need to get them too.
     And last, but certainly not least, I have piccys.  I got a bit done on my ornie this week, but very little last week.  

So it's not progressed a whole lot.  I'm liking the way it looks though.  I love the black against the opalescent fabby.  It looks great!!!  I'm not sure how well the sparkle will show up in the piccy though.  Sometimes, it's awesome, and other times not so much.
     And this rotation period has been Frost Moon.  It took me forever to get the darned thing gridded, in part because the fabby is so big.  I'll need to grid it again soon too.  I gridded enough lines for what my goal was, and the rest I left.  So as soon as I finish up the first two rows of ten by tens, I need to put in some more grid lines.  

(I hate to grid as it's so tedious.  UGH!!!)  The first three blocks (ten by tens) were the same color, so that helped, and I got a lot done at the meeting Monday night, so that's a good thing.  (And I'll tell you all about it in a second.)  I'm working with a lot of 939, which was also the first color I used in Lust.  (It's also the color of the cabin in my first ornie, and if I can remember things like that, WHY can't I remember when I have appointments?!?)  Argh!!  Okay, the meeting...
     I went in for an EGA meeting this week.  I'm not sure, but I think that's what set off the problem behavior.  I get stressed when I"m around a group of people cause I have some social anxiety.  It generally results in either silence or talking too much.  I did fine while I was there, but when I came home, I got stressed.  It was awful.  My stomach was acting up, and I felt like I was gonna vomit.  I was constantly drinking and constantly peeing.  I was jumping at each little sound as everything was amplified.  I was overtired, and couldn't sleep.  I was either sweating and hot, or chilled and cold.  (I think that was due to the overtired though.  I can't seem to control my body temp when I'm overtired for some reason.)  After being up for thirty six hours, I asked mom to take me in to the ER.  The psyche consult was amenable to my suggestions (brought on by previous treatment).  He had the nurse give me a shot of two milligrams of Ativan (it's a tranquilizer, and slowed down my brain enough that I could fall asleep) and sent me home.  The nurse was all about warning me it was gonna burn, and I was like not yet.  It doesn't burn till a few seconds after the needle is withdrawn.  THEN it burns like heck.  She was laughing at me.  Luckily, the burn doesn't last long.  I washed the band aid off last night in the tub (forgot it was there, lol).  But the meeting, duh...
     There was a fairly small group of ladies, which helped a lot.  Several of them were doing a project together.  It was a hardanger project, but it was an edging, and I have nothing to edge.  Also, I need another project like I need a hole in my head.  So I didn't do it.  About half of the two hour meeting was dedicated to the teaching of how to do what she was teaching them to do.  The rest was general conversation.  One of the ladies (Linda) had recently broken her hand in a car accident.  She couldn't stitch, so she was just conversing and watching everyone else.  They were all very nice.  I took a few things for show and tell.  I took Horizons, Tree of Stitches, Cattitude, and a bookmark of a sailboat that I did and framed for dad.  Plus I had Frost Moon with me.  Eyes got very large when I pulled the chart out, lol.  (Ninety nine pages of chart, plus piccy and floss lists.  It's very big, lol.)  So I'm debating if I should go to the next one.  I enjoyed the meeting, and I'm not sure that's what set me off.  On the other hand, I really don't want to risk another episode...  Oh, well, we'll see what happens.
     I also got mail this week.  I was so excited, and then not, lol.  I got my order from Lauren of Sassy's Fabbys.  I don't like one of the colors.  It's supposed to be a green and it turned out sort of yellowish brown.  That one I think I'm gonna return.  The rest of them are FABULOUS!!!  Gorgeous colors.  I love them.  You can drool over them all too, lol.
     Okay, first up is a bad piccy of the first Swamp Moss.  It's green, like it's supposed to be. 
     Next up is a piccy of the second Swamp Moss.  It's sort of yellowish.  (Later, I have a pic of the two together, so you can see them both.)  This is the one I'm probably gonna send back and get redone.  I may send both back, so she can match the second one to the first one.  Hopefully, anyways...

     This is Fairy Wishes, and it's my favorite of the five.  I love the deep purple color.  It's not dark, but it's really purple.  Lovely!!!
     This is Wild Berries, and it's actually a different fabby.  Very pretty still, and soft as can be.  It's a Cashel linen, unlike the others which are evenweaves.  I don't mind working on linen at all, so it's all good.
     And last but not least, we have Ice Caps.  I love the way this came out.  It's for Celtic Winter, and I think it's gonna be gorgeous.  
     And here is the piccy of the two Swamp Moss's together.  You can really see the difference in this piccy.  This one is more true to the colors than the above piccys.  You can really see the green more in this pic too.  They look like totally different colors!!  So I'll email Sassy, and see what she says.



     Lastly, I'll leave you with a couple of pics of Yes Dear that I took today.  She was just being so cute, I HAD to take her piccy.  Twice, lol.  Hope you're all having a great day!!  


Thursday, March 1, 2012

Whoo hoooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

     I'm sure you can all tell from the title what I did today.  I know you all know, but I'm gonna tell you anyways.  I FINISHED JESUS!!!!!  The horrible thing is done!!!  I'm so doing a big, fat, happy dance.  "I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it!"  OMG, I can't believe he's finally done.  I sat down to work on him today, and he was practically finished.  Well, okay, not really.  But he was close.  I had ten stitches on his face to do, and then I had about sixty to eighty half stitches to do.  With lots of counting, lol.  I had to start the one side of the half stitches twenty eight stitches away from his hair.  I was scared I'd put it in the wrong place, but I nailed it first try.  I checked it against the lower right corner and the upper left corner to make sure it lined up correctly.  I was so happy!!  So now I have all rotation except for my ornie SAL (which I didn't work on this week for some odd reason.  I think it's cause I started a new character on Two Moons, and was really busy playing).  I'm gonna work on the ornie some tomorrow since I didn't on Wed.  Then I'll post the pics.  But here is Jesus is all his glory.