Not gone as long as I thought

Thank you everyone for all the good wishes for my surgery and a speedy recovery.  They seemed to have worked!  The surgery was scheduled for Tuesday the 23rd and went well.  It took longer than expected for my body to fully come out of the anesthesia so instead of going home on Thursday as planned, I went home Friday evening (and was very glad to be in my own bed).  I am resting and recuperating and just generally enjoying the lack of stress that comes from not being at work.  I am doing lots of reading and have started stitching again.

Just before I had my surgery, I signed up for the Mega-Mini Month Madness SAL hosted at Pull the Other Thread.  Pick a small or smalls, stitch and post about it each week in October - simple.  As I am home for the month of October it seemed like a bit of extra incentive to get myself going on my ornament/small stitching again.  I am hoping to finish a couple of pieces, but will be happy with just finishing this one:

This is Fondant Icing from The Nutmeg Company's Christmas Collection - Gingerbread Houses.  These are great kits that include everything you need to stitch and finish that cute little gingerbread house shown in the picture.  This is the last of the four Christmas themed ones I have in my stash but I do have four seasonal ones that I will eventually finish.

Here is my progress on the roof:

Also hosted at Pull the Other Thread is the YOTA SAL.  Pick some or all of your WIPs to work on and post your progress on the first Saturday of each month.  I like participating in SALs that encourage me to get through that list of WIPs there in the right sidebar.  Technically the posting day isn't until tomorrow, but as I have been combining posts lately, I figured I would keep continue with that, at least until I have myself back on some sort of schedule.

The only piece on my YOTA list that I stitched on this month was Chatelaine's Secret Victorian Garden.  I started this piece in 2007 when it was the big mystery project.  I kept up with it until July or August of that year and then I moved.  I pulled it out and put a few stitches in here and there, but nothing that amounted to a lot.  Then the Stitching Bandits Chatelaine Challenge started and I decided that it was time to give SVG some quality time.  Not a lot was done this month, but I did go from here:

To here:

This has another day in the rotation and then on to Elegant Doily for a week.