May's TUSAL

At least I can keep up with this!!

It's hard to see, but all the new pieces are from Egyptian Garden. I realized that choosing a glass ornament was *not* a good choice for my ort holder, it looks nice BUT I can't fish through it for a piece long enough to do that one last stitch that I don't want to pull an entire new length of fiber for.  I'm usually pretty stingy with my threads, but sometimes pieces will get thrown in that are long enough for two or three more stitches and I have been known to "recycle" them. Please tell me I'm not the only one that does that!

And just because I can, here's one of my little tyrants furballs:



This is Trouble and yes she lives up to her name in her favorite spot. She's way too big for this but that doesn't seem to bother her.

Happy May Day!

No, we don't do anything special for May Day, but I remember as a girl making baskets from paper strips and picking dandelions from the yard and "sneaking" them to my mother - mostly by leaving them on the porch, ringing the bell and "hiding" where she couldn't see me - like she couldn't see my sister or me when we hid under the covers on their bed 8-)

I did another stash buy yesterday. I adore The Nutmeg Company's little houses and am totally blown away by this one scroll down to "It can be complex...", I have these four - scroll down to  "Sweet Gingerbread Houses" and this one from the "Weekend Cottages" collection, so after a quick peek/update of the finances, I ordered the other three.  If this order is anything like my previous ones, I should have them in about a week -yes, I get orders from the UK faster than I get them from the US store I order from and in the case of these, much cheaper even with the exchange.

I suppose I should post my April recap. My goal for April was to stitch and despite a slow down the end of the month, there was progress on one piece and one piece only - Egyptian Garden. Here are my before and after photos (April 2nd on the left and April 30th on the right):

That thread I thought I was going to run out of? I have this much left.

The black case is my Gingher snip, it's about 4" long.

My goals for May? I am going out on a limb with finish Egyptian Garden. I'd like to start stitching on the train home again, but I'm not going to make that a goal, more an "if it happens...", as I'll feel compelled and then it won't be relaxing, which is what I need on the way home. My non-stitching goal is to comment more on the blogs I read.

And completely unrelated to stitching, isn't this the cutest lunch tote?

It's from Igloo and is totally insulated and has a zipper top, the tag said it would hold a six-pack, I'm not sure of that but there's plenty of room for my breakfast, lunch and various snacks I take to work. I have been using a Vera Bradly lunch tote for the last few years, but I'm trying to eat more fruit and veggies and it's tough to get more than one apple into my VB bag along with my yogurt, oatmeal, etc., so when I saw this at the grocery store the other day, I grabbed it.

Long Time Gone

Okay, it's only been a bit more than two weeks, but that's a long time for me. Unfortunately, I don't have masses of photos of progress or finishes to show you (heck I haven't finished anything this year yet!), only this one that shows my lack of progress more than anything.

I did finish the sky and part of the two flanking columns, but that's not great progress for two weeks. What have I been doing with all my "free" time? Reading, lots and lots of reading. No, nothing that's enriching my life or expanding my knowledge, just reading for the fun of it. 

After getting some of the housework done and spending a bit of time on the porch reading, I will limit myself to one hour, I'm going to push myself to stitch. I know I can finish those flanking columns, close in and bead the pyramid unit, start a cat and box and probably start the last border this weekend. I am very concerned that I'm going to run out of one thread. I have two boxes left on either side of the pyramid to stitch and I'm not sure I have enough to do even one. I'm going to try doing the bottom leg in the substitute DMC with the top leg in the called for Gloriana and hope that people's eyes only register the top leg. If that doesn't work, I'll have to order another skein. Sooooo frustrating.

Long weekend update #3

While I should have been outside picking up branches and things that were blown from the trees during the windstorm a couple of weeks ago, I decided to stay inside - none of the stuff that's in the yard is going anywhere on its own - and stitch. As before, here is my before and after:

Hmmm, that "after" picture is really washed out. Oh well, professional photographer is DSon's job, not mine.

Not sure how much stitching I'll get in today as I'm going with the Hubs to a doctor's appointment, but whatever I do will be on the pyramid. Back to what passes for normal tomorrow.

Long weekend update #2

First, thanks to everyone for the kind comments and good wishes. DDad went home yesterday. They did send him home with oxygen and an appointment with a cardiologist, but so much better than what we were looking at earlier in the week. Not what he was planning for this week, but so glad he didn't decide to make the drive here. It's bad enough having things like this happen but I can't imagine how much worse it would feel if you were hundreds of miles away from home.

Again, not as much stitching as I'd hoped, after lunch with the in-laws they came to the house and helped us put in the new storm door (it was my birthday present - yes I really asked for it, if I don't ask for things like this for birthdays or Christmas - one year I asked for new handles for the kitchen cupboards - they'll never get purchased or installed). We hadn't seen them in a while so it was nice to spend some time with them.

My before and afters (these should be clickable):

 Finished off the palm border and also filled in some backstitching on a column that I missed earlier (you can't see that). The plan for today is to work on the pyramid. I only need to clean up the breakfast dishes, and throw a load of laundry into the washer and I'll have the day for stitching. I pulled spaghetti sauce out of the freezer, so dinner will be a snap and as I don't have to work tomorrow, I can stay up a little later than usual. Such great plans, hopefully they actually come to something!

Long weekend update #1

I managed to find lots of things other than stitching to do yesterday. The stitchy bug finally bit around 6:30 and I stitched until about 11:00. Here are my before and after photos:

I still haven't quite figured out what this border is, but the colors are pretty and it fills the space nicely. I still need to fill in those gaps you see, add some trunks, backstitching fill in, and some backstitching. Hoping to have a finish on this part today and then, onto the pyramid.

A couple of my bummers from yesterday's post have been lessened.  "They"'ve agreed on a budget, but it still has to be voted on. If it doesn't pass than we'll go through this all again on Thursday (they agreed on *another* continuing resolution). It will be interesting to see what was cut. The program I work in was scheduled to be zero funded in fiscal year 2012, so will see if they grabbed it early. Fortunately, I do have a few options if that happens.

And it seems some of DDad's heart problems may have been worsened by one or more of his medications. The doctors have been changing and adjusting dosages and his heart beat and rate seem to have settled down. He still has to see a cardiologist and a pace maker may still be in his future, but they're not talking about transferring him directly from the hospital and he may go home today. And his pneumonia is almost 100% gone.

Three bummers, I think I'm out!!

One non-bummer, I have already started my weekend and for the next 3-1/2 days - or maybe longer as I'm a federal employee and if there's not a budget passed in 11 hours and 47 minutes there's no money and I'm out of a job - I'm home with the housework almost done (just need to do the laundry) and nothing planned except lunch with DMIL and her husband (I call him DFIL but someone said that was limited to the Hubs' father, meh) tomorrow and stitching (I know you've heard that before).

So bummer #1, the job situation. Although I know what they mean when they say it, it's hard to hear yourself called "non-essential" when you work you a$$ off for 8 to 10 hours a day. We should be okay for several weeks as I set the tax refund aside just for this reason, but sure didn't want to use it for this.

Bummer #2, my parents were supposed to be here yesterday. Unfortunately, DDad ended up in the hospital with pneumonia on Tuesday. According to the doctor, they've got that pretty well cleared up BUT it stressed his body enough that it exasturbated a heart condition (unkown until now) so they're trying to get that under control. There's a possiblity he will be transferred down to UMich hospital for a pacemaker, but they're trying a few things before they do that. This is one of those situations when I hate that I live so far away.

And for bummer #3, the Hubs has been told that he's diabetic. It's really not much of a shock, but I am very irritated with him as he didn't tell me the results of his previous blood tests (or that he'd even had them) so I didn't know he was even "pre-diabetic", so I wasn't able to adjust recipes and food purchases to take that into account. Just grrrrr...

There are a few not bummer things though so maybe I"m not totally out just yet. Today is my birthday! Yep, the big 5-0!! I've officially reached middle-aged!  Hey, in my family, the women do tend to live into their late-80s to mid-90s so I've got a pretty good chance too. Not doing anything really special. I did order some stash (isn't that what any holiday is for?) I got Forget-Me-Nots in Stitches' Deep Peace and the fabric for it. I'll slowly collect the threads and other special things.

I also signed up for the Birds of Feather Mystery with Karen at Wasatch Needlecraft. I'll add it to the other mysteries that I've signed up for and never finished...

I do have some stitching to show, Egyptian Garden of course. I finally finished the ibis/papyrus section and backstitched the last set of columns. I'm hoping to get a LOT done this weekend, so here's the progress through this morning:

The count of remaining parts is:

1. Faraway palm border (started)
2. Pyramid
3. Two cats boxes
4. Outer border
5. Ibis and papyrus
6. Find all those little stitches that I missed.
7. Beading (crystals, cubes and bugles)

I'm debating starting a daily "here's where I am" posting just to see that there *is* progress. I have great plans for lots of things...