One advantage of being sick

Oh yes, I caught something - not from my office as nobody there has been sick in ages, but on the train (the dangers of an 1-1/2 long train ride). Fortunately, I was too sick to go to work but not sick enough to require constant bed rest, although I did get quite a bit of napping done, so during my non-napping phases I was able to make quite a bit of progress on Egyptian Garden

Lots of eyelets and Rhodes stitches left, but might, just might be able to finish them this weekend. I'm taking Friday off, so that I have a 4-day Memorial Day weekend, so there is a fair chance that I will finish the stitching on this soon.

I also received some stash in the mail:

It's the fabric, fibers and first part of the Birds of a Feather mystery by With Thy Needle & Thread. Oh and it all came in the mesh bag you see there. Not sure when I'm going to start this one, but hopefully soon.

It was a good thing I got that picture of the roses when I did - the promised rain came - buckets and buckets and buckets - it wasn't a nice gentle rain, it was torrential rain with wind and thunderstorms - multiple times every day! There are now rose petals all over the ground and driveway. The good thing is the bushes are covered with buds, so there will be flowers in the near future.

Thanks everyone for the well wishes for DDad - he's doing well - no hospital stays this week (knock on wood) and the doctors are very happy with the results from his most recent blood tests. Fingers crossed that things stay on an even keel.

Lisa, I've never stitched with q snaps so I can't give any advice on beading as you go. I lay a strip of quilt batting at the top of my piece, so that it rolls up along with the fabric and that seems to provide enough cushion for the Delicas - I save the cubes, bicones, etc for last - but I don't know if the same strategy would work for q snaps.

Siobhan, I see the evidence of slugs here (slime trails) but I don't see the actual beasts themselves very often. I tend to pick plant varieties that are very good at fending for themselves so I don't have to spend a lot of time pretending that I don't see slugs, bugs, etc. 8-)