Time flies. . .

when you are having fun! We had a great time at our little stitching slumber party last week. Of course the time slips by so fast - it seems like you just got there and it is time to leave. We stitched late Thursday night and most of the day on Friday - I didn't get home until 6:00 Friday evening! I haven't taken any pictures of my project yet. At this point, I may just wait until it is finished to photograph it. Of course that would mean that I would have to actually find time to stitch which has not happened the past couple of days.

I stitched up this little pillow for Sherry for Christmas. The chart is by Lizzie Kate and I put it in a pre-made pillow by Stitch-A-Gift. It has been finished for awhile but I didn't want to post it until I gave it to her since she occasionally visits here.
Saturday we were supposed to meet Buddy & Sherry for dinner and a movie, but they had to cancel at the last minute so instead of going to the movie, we made a couple of Christmas returns and then I went shopping with my gift cards. I had been saving two from last Christmas and I got a few more this year. I was saving them to get myself a new digital camera. Not that anything is wrong with the one I have, it is just too big and I find myself not taking it when I go anywhere because it is too much trouble so I was in the market for a small one I could drop in my purse and hopefully have with me to take pictures when I think 'gee, I wish I had my camera'! After spending over an hour looking at the options, I ended up with this one.


So far, I've charged the battery and loaded it and the memory chip. I'm still looking through the book trying to figure out exactly what it does. I'm afraid it might take awhile to figure it all out!
I got all the Christmas decor down yesterday - whew, what a job. By the time we took the tree down yesterday another whole section of lights had gone out and there were dozens of bulbs out. I decided that I couldn't be comfortable with those lights anymore so before we hauled it up to the attic we took all the lights off and I will have to either re-light it next year or get another tree. It took about 5 hours to get all those blasted lights off! Almost everything has been hauled back to the attic except for a dining room table full of misc. stuff that I need to find another box for. I still have to put all the everyday stuff back where it belongs. Before I get to that, I need to make a wally world trip. I should have done it yesterday, but I just couldn't make myself do it.
I hope everyone has a safe evening and a Happy New Year.

Stitching with friends

I am extremely lucky in that I have stitching buddies. 'Normal' people don't understand this passion/obsession for stitching and collecting stitching goodies but stitching buddies not only understand, but they help feed your addiction (either by gifting or just by making sure you don't pass up something you really 'need' when shopping in person or online) I'm heading out this morning to a 'stitching slumber party' with my three partners in crime. From past experience we will spend more time talking, laughing, going through each other's stash and eating than we will actually spend putting floss to fabric, but that really isn't the purpose - it is just a good excuse!

This week is really flying by. I usually take down all the holiday decor the day after Christmas (have been known to do it Christmas day!) but I didn't this year. I will get it down before I have to go back to work on the 2nd and that is good enough!

Have a great day!

Merry day after Christmas!

We had a nice day yesterday. It is nice that now, as adults, my children seem to enjoy each other's company. That is my niece, Kaitlyn, looking over their shoulder. Not sure where Shelby was at that moment.



I finally got them to all sit still long enough to take one picture - you can see Timothy isn't thrilled at the prospect. (Can't say as I blame him - he takes after his mother!) L-R, Timothy, Brian, Jason and his bride, Ashley. I never did get a family photo. Who knows when they will all be in the same room at the same time again. Everyone has such different schedules. Just one of the things I miss about the kids being 'kids'. Then I could not only tell them they were getting a picture made, but I could pick what they were going to wear and make sure their hair was combed!

Thanks for the Christmas greetings and for the compliments on my new banner pic. For some reason the old pic was showing up on my monitor with the right side cut off - I don't know if it was that way on other computers or not, but I just decided I would replace it with something new to give it a fresh look.

So, is everyone out shopping the after Christmas sales? Not me. First thing this morning we had about two and a half hours of intermittent power - between around 7-9:30am - right in the middle of my coffee and email! Threw my whole schedule off. (LOL - I have no schedule today!) I'll get out later to take hubby's uniforms to the cleaners, then if the parking lot isn't too bad, I might run in wally world and pick up the prints I sent off last night. Other than that, I have no reason to get out. It is cold and raining so that is just fine. Need to get some things done around here since I will be gone Thursday and Friday.

Merry Christmas!

The stockings are hung. . .

all over the house - because we have no chimney!

We have had these stockings for a long time. I stitched the names then my grandmother made them into stockings for me. We have had them since before Jason was born. He was due on Dec. 8 (b'day is Nov 18) and I wanted to have his stocking for Christmas - I didn't know with any of mine what I was having until they got here, but he was either going to be Jason or Jamie so I had the 'Ja' already stitched. Even though my grandmother came and stayed with me I still don't know how I managed to finish stitching it but I did and he had a stocking for his first Christmas. You can see Ashley's stocking is different but there was no way to match 20+ year old stockings so I bought that one for her last year (it has an 'A' on it) and I'm in the market for new stockings for all of us. (not that I would ever get rid of these - we will just have another stocking to fill and these 'just for pretty') I had this big plan to make all of us the Shepherds Bush stockings - I have one stitched so far! I think I've had the fabric and charts for, ummm, at least 6 or 7 years. I even have charms for them.

I think you can click on the pic and get a larger one to read the tags, but these are the doggie's stockings.


These granny square stockings were made by my great-grandmother when my oldest was a baby. I think they were probably among the last things she crocheted. I only have the three since I only had one child at the time she was making them. (one for me, one for hubby and one for Brian) Someday, I'll split them up and give one to each of the boys. For now, I have two in our bedroom and one in the living room.
Not sure if I will have time to post tomorrow (probably will since I get up way before the kidlets start moving around - its quiet and I like it!) but in case I don't, have a safe and wonderful Christmas.

Christmas stitching and migraines

Not something that sounds like they go together, eh? Well, they don't. I'll get to the migraine part in a minute.

I stitched and finished this ornament a while back and couldn't decide if I was going to give it as a gift or keep it for myself. I ended up giving all but one of the redwork ornaments as gifts (I kept the one that I thought didn't look good enough to give away!) and I kept this one for myself too. It is by Homespun Elegance and is in this years Ornament issue from Just Cross Stitch. I still may stitch it again and change the date for next year - we will see.
Now comes the migraine part. I did see the dr on Thursday - same song, I don't know what verse we are on. Last med didn't work, try a new one. So anyway - after I've been off the last one for a week I can start the new one, but yesterday I had a migraine that for lack of a better description was a bitch. At least I know what set it off. I got one of those fragrance lamps (as a gift, not that that matters as I had been thinking of buying one anyway) but since I know fragrances are one of the things I have to be careful around I didn't light it until I had time to go to the store and check out the fragrances (if you've never smelled them, you can't smell the bottle of oil because it is too concentrated you have to smell the testers they have at the store) so I tested the two samples that came with the lamp. I can usually tell with one quick sniff if it is something that I can't tolerate - one was out of the question the other was okay, but a 'summer' smell so I shopped around and got Creme Brulee. I can burn a CB candle all day and all it does is make me hungry but hubby lit that lamp and the minute that scent hit my nose I was done for. He immediately put it out and took it outside. He opened windows and turned on fans, I took Zomig and Midrin but it didn't help so 45 minutes later I used a Zomig nasal spray - this tells you something here, those things are nasty. I ended up just having to give in and take a nap. It finally went away enough late in the day that I could stitch a bit but I lost several good hours there. I hate that! I don't know if it was just because it was so strong or if it has something to do with the oils, but I won't be trying it again. I'll be sending that fragrance lamp home with DIL (I'm not re-gifting, just giving!) I did manage to finish this little Ho Ho Ho scissor case last night - I didn't have much left to stitch.

Isn't it cute? It is a Lizzie Kate kit. I've stitched on banding that was already sewn on before but I guess it was the angle this was sewn on - that little sucker was hard to stitch! I'm glad to have it finished before Christmas. I pulled the flosses for the fall one way before Thanksgiving and that kit is still hasn't been started.

good mail!

I never post twice in one day, but I have to show you what I got in the mail today. This is from my friend Sue. I 'met' Sue through the AOL cross stitch boards 4 years ago when we both joined a secret stitcher group. We would chat online almost every morning and she guessed about half-way through the year that I was her secret pal. We would be chatting and would both hit send and have said almost exactly the same thing. It is just really weird. We have never met IRL. Sue doesn't get a lot of time to stitch and hasn't finished very many pieces. She told me when we first met that she had finished a mystery sampler and that it was one of the first pieces she ever finished. Look what she sent me for Christmas. She made that mystery sampler into a pillow for me. I am just touched beyond words. Thank you, Sue, from the bottom of my heart.