Jeremiah's Mom

Seahorse Update

2012-01-30T13:52:00.002-05:00

I have 3 days worth of stitching in on the Tribal Seahorse. He has a bottom half complete at least. The color I'm using is called Grape Leaf from GAST. This one is really moving quickly.

I didn't get a lot of stitching time this weekend either. Friday we went down to visit with my Grandma Faust (my mom's mom). It was a very nice visit. I love hearing about her life growing up. She's 88 so she's seen so many amazing things in her life.

Saturday we headed down to my dad and step mom's to visit. We always laugh too hard while down there. My grandparents (Dad's mom and dad) are cleaning out the house of my great grandparents who have passed away. What a job! We went over to visit for a little bit. It was like a family reunion. Everyone seeing if they want anything. I got a few things to cherish but Jeremiah got the best gift. They had 3 power wheelchairs. I asked my Grandpa and Grandma about buying one for Jeremiah cause there are times when it would be nice to have. The family decided to GIVE it to him. What a gift. They can be very expensive. It's like brand new. Cute little red Jazzy. So Jeremiah jumped on and drove it out to the van. He can't wait to get to ride it around. It was way too cold to play with it much this weekend. When we go to Shipshewana (an outdoor flea market) his normal wheelchair doesn't work because of the loose gravel. This chair will just fly across. Plus give Jeremiah the ability to have independence and control himself. Like I said What a gift.

On the way home we stopped at Redbox and got Real Steel. It was a fantastic movie! Great message to it and of course with Hugh Jackman it was fun to watch for me haha. Jeremiah and Fred of course want to build a robot now haha. So anyway no stitching on Saturday but it was a very nice day anyway.

Sunday I did get a lot of stitching time. Fred had a meeting with a radio buddy and I held down the couch and watched movies haha. Oh I had to laugh cause I was seeing what was on TV and noticed a movie called Rubber. It was about a tire that killed people. I love scary movies so I giggled and just had to setup the DVR. We watched it Sunday and I about died laughing. It was the stupidest funniest show I've ever watched. Fred just rolled his eyes at me and called me a dork haha. Then Sunday night it was a WWE pay per view. So we had a nice evening of screaming at the TV. I hope everyone has a great week ahead of them.

Finish to Report

2012-01-26T15:00:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to report my 4th finish. I worked really really hard to finish him yesterday and even though there was several times I thought I would have to wait till today I did it. I loved this little kit and would DEFINITELY do more. It's a Mill Hill bell pull kit. Everything you need in one place. He turned out too cute!

In ESC we are doing an ornament SAL and this one was picked out for my January. Plus he was on my WIPocalypse list so I happily marked him off. Now I get to play in my stash to pick which one I want to do for Feb.

The best part about finishing is I get to work on something else. I think the Tribal Seahorse is ready to be started. Of course I want to start something that I got the fabric for last weekend but the Seahorse was in my basket already so he wants to come out and play. I keep laughing cause I remember Amber saying while we were shopping "But remember all the stuff on that list you wanted to complete." Yeah I know. It's just so much fun to have so many options!

Making a Snowman

2012-01-25T12:47:00.001-05:00

After the restarting it has gone pretty quickly. I'm already in that dreaming of a happy dance phase haha.

I think my favorite part of having so many wonderful pieces in my To Do pile is dreaming of which one I'm going to play with next. Ever since I bought all that beautiful fabric I just can't wait to start all the new pieces. I'm doing good with finishing this before I do though. Gotta have those finishes right? I think most of the stitchers I've met would be happy with a million starts instead haha.

Well I'm off to get more x's in. Hope everyone is having a great week.

TUSAL and 2nd Part of Weekend

2012-01-23T10:15:00.001-05:00

Today is the first TUSAL. I thought I would explain how I do my Snip-Its (for my non stitcher friends the snip-its are those left over bits of floss when you cut the thread) a little bit. By my stitching table I keep this adorable little jar. My friend Kathy from Ohio made this little ceramic jar for me. I love frogs so she put them on there for me. When I have a snip-it (Yes I saw the escaped one after I took the picture haha) I throw it in here.

Then this morning for the TUSAL I put my threads into their new home my 2012 TUSAL Jar. The picture didn't show very well with them inside so here is my 2012 Snip-its so far. I had quite a bit extra since I had to frog so much of the snowman. Oh well haha.

I told you Saturday I went to my favorite store House of Stitches. Here is my wonderful stash haul from there. I got 10 pieces of fabric I needed. Plus 4 seasonal designs from Cricket Collection. When I see all these beautiful fabrics I can't wait to put x's on them.

The last picture I have to show you is a gift from my bestest friend. Amber has stitched before but not like us obsessed stitchers. I think I've rubbed off on her a little bit cause she started stitching again after a long break. Anyway she did me this beautiful dolphin and even decorated the frame. I will cherish this forever! Thank you Amber!!!!

Not a Successful IHSW

2012-01-22T20:56:00.001-05:00

I was all excited Friday to start my new start for IHSW. Fred had a meeting after work so I knew I would have a lot of stitching time. I got a nice start. Got this much done and realized I had counted wrong. It all needed to be shifted one stitch to the right. So I unstitched it all and moved it over. I ended up having time to restitch what I had ripped out with just the few red stitches added. I can't complain I guess I just have to remember every stitch is one stitch closer to a finish. Just not a very good contribution to IHSW this time around.

We also ended up getting a beautiful snow storm. Only problem is we needed to be on the road early Saturday. We ended up with like 5 inches of snow but the roads were fine by the time we hit the road. We headed up north west to visit with our favorite friends. In our hobby geocaching we have met some great people. This past few years we have really grown very close. We try to get together at least once a month. This time we went up to Chesterton, Indiana. We all met at a hotel for the night. 5 of us met there before lunch and then went over to Laporte to the World's Best Cross Stitch Store House of Stitches. Seriously I've been to several stores and this one is my favorite by far! The 3 guys left and went caching. Amber and I got to shopping. I had a list of projects that I wanted to buy fabric for. I hit the mother load. I got some gorgeous pieces. I'll post a photo tomorrow. The guys found 8 caches while us girls were shopping. Then we met several others for dinner. We had a very nice dinner and then headed back to the hotel for more visiting. We had 7 people stay the night. We stayed up way too late and had way too much fun. I laughed so hard my side hurts still. We ended up going to bed at like 3am our time haha. Woke up this morning had a quick breakfast and hit the road home. The worst part about having these great friends is we live almost 3 hours apart. It's worth it for sure though cause they are the best you could ever ask for. I'll have more tomorrow.

IHSW

2012-01-20T10:30:00.002-05:00

I did it! I stuck with it all week long. I did get quite a bit done. I'm happy with my progress. Now it's all put away for the IHSW. Kinda funny I'm mostly a hermit this time of year and tomorrow is the one time I'm going out this month haha. Oh well. I will still steal some stitching time today and Sunday.

Here is my new start for the weekend. I love this little kit. I have it all ready and as soon as I get caught up on my computer stuff I'm off to stitch. I'll update Sunday.

Hope all the other IHSWers have a great weekend and get a lot of X's in.

Chairs of Death

2012-01-18T14:33:00.000-05:00

How can I have a finished Teresa Wentzler and a HAED on my wall and yet I can't finish a SIMPLE kit. This is totally killing me. I don't know why. Maybe it's the going from 2 threads to 4 to half stitches to full stitches to blah blah. I swear it takes longer than doing the worst confetti stitching on any HAED. But I compared pictures from Sunday and I AM making progress. Just SLOW progress. So I have 2 more days to work on this and I can treat myself to a new start. I can do it I can do it.

My mom is going through some health issues. She doesn't really like to share those kind of details. So I will just say if you can spare thoughts/prayers could you send them her way. Her name is Jodie and she's like my twin. We do everything together pretty much. I hate seeing her not healthy. I can't imagine losing her. She is going to try to take better care of herself and I really hope she can get her health turned around. It's a wake up call to have so many doctors tell you that you should be in a hospital. Having no health insurance really SUCKS. I have a dear friend that needs her gall bladder out and has for several years and no insurance for her means it's still in there causing problems. Heck though I have insurance....supposedly good insurance and I still owe $2,000 for getting my gall bladder taken out. That's RIDICULOUS! Just another thing that needs changed in this world full of crazy stuff.

Weekend Full of Stitching

2012-01-16T15:16:00.003-05:00

Over the weekend I started the next biscornu for the Christmas Tree. I finished the top panel Saturday. The spaces were a little small for beads but I worked them in a few places at least.

Rather than do another panel right after I picked up the Christmas on the Beach piece. The last picture of it is here. I haven't worked on it yet this year. I have to laugh the last entry I was hoping to finish it....Nope. I swear this pattern is going to kill me. I don't know why it rubs me the wrong way but I swear it's going to take me FOREVER to finish it. I have made a lot of progress at least. Sometimes I feel like it's flying and then I just hit a brick wall. I told myself I have to work on it till Friday.

This weekend is a IHSW. You can follow that link to find out more information. Basically you stitch on the 3rd weekend of the month and then post about it. I think I'm going to start a new snowman kit I have Friday. It will be a treat for working on the chairs all week. Saturday we are heading up north to have fun with friends so my stitching time will be cut a little short. It will be worth it though.

Today I got some chores done. I really needed to sweep you could tell by all the wild dust bunnies running around the house. With 2 dogs and a cat I swept up enough hair to make a farm full of animals. The worst part as soon as you shut off the sweeper the dogs take off running and I already need to sweep again haha. Oh well. Such is life.

Lobster is Finished

2012-01-13T18:47:00.004-05:00

I have a big finish to report. The Tribal Lobster is done. This is a pattern from White Willow Stitching. It's done on ivory 28 count evenweave. I used a Gentle Arts thread called Geranium. I stitched it over 2 using 2 threads. I went through 3 and a half skeins of the thread! I was so worried about running out cause I only had 4. It was a fun stitch.

Felt so good to go to my goals page and mark something off! Now I have 3 finishes for the year but this one is bigger than the other two put together haha. I think I'm going to work on the next biscornu for the biscornu Christmas tree. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend.

Home Schooling Starts Again

2012-01-11T10:49:00.001-05:00

For the new lookers of my blog I've been busy this week doing another important thing in my life. Home schooling my son. He is in 8th grade this year and I've been home schooling him since 3rd grade. He has a physical disability called Cerebral Palsy. It affects the connection between his legs and his brain. Walking unassisted is something he can't do right now. This translated to the school system treating him mentally handicapped cause if you are disabled you are stupid right? Not only did I have to deal with the overall school system but as everyone has heard bullying is a SEVERE issue. My son is a very very happy kid. He just loves life. It was being sucked out of him. He would cry so hard on Sunday night cause he knew the next day was a school day. That's so hard to watch as a mother. His love of life was dying right in front of my eyes.

I found out more information about home schooling and realized maybe it would work for us. It's perfect. We love to travel. So we were always pulling him out of school for vacations. We love being involved in his education. When he was in public school we could ask him what did you learn today?....Um....Well we went to recess....we ate lunch....nothing. Now we can all talk about his lessons in our everyday life conversations. It's perfect for us. I know there a WHOLE bunch of people out there that abuse it and do nothing. They just say they are doing it and then sat on the couch the whole day doing nothing. We buy a full curriculum that could be used in a school system. It's expensive but worth every penny.

Anyway we took a Christmas break and this Monday we started back up. Monday we had English and Math. Yesterday we had Math and Social Studies. The curriculum breaks down what you have to do each week and as long as we get that done we are doing fantastic!!!

After school I've also been getting lots of stitching in. I'm working on the Tribal Lobster. I wasn't really into it the first day I worked on it and then suddenly my needles took off flying. I made A LOT of progress. I will wait to take a pic in a few days and it will hopefully be finished! I'll leave ya with this cute picture I found....

WIPocalypse January Update

2012-01-09T14:36:00.001-05:00

Today is the first WIPocalypse Update. We are to update on the full moons. If you haven't joined check it out here. I love the idea of stitching with hundreds of people around the world. The fun part is trying to decide how you are going to do your updates. I laid in bed last night running through ideas of how I wanted to do it. So here goes....

You can go to my Goals page at the top to see the full list of my goals for 2012. I'm going to highlight the ones I've actually worked on so far.

Make Progress on QS Severeielle I've worked on this piece 14 days total so far. I have a total of 5,880 stitches in now. I hit the dragon's wing and I LOVE the colors popping out. I have two more columns to finish till the first page is finished. I just want to keep working on it to see more of that dragon pop out of course.

Quirky Quistmas Tree freebie from Wyrdbyrd's Nest I finished the bottom two of the design. I just posted a photo in the last entry. Here is a link to it.

House SAL in ESC (Karen's Designs One Each Month) I finished the January one. They get released the beginning of each month. So now I will wait until February for the next one.

Tribal Lobster by White Willow Stitching I got the tail of the lobster done. Here is the link to that last update on this piece.

So that's what I have worked on so far this year. I'm having a lot of fun working on whatever calls my name each day. I'm definitely not getting bored. I LOVE having so many different pieces to work on. The next WIPocalypse is February 7th. Wonder what I will work on before now and then.

Wohoo Another Finish

2012-01-07T15:43:00.004-05:00

Another finish to report. This is the bottom biscornu for the Biscornu Christmas tree. This means the bottom 2 are finished and I have 6 more to go.

Below is the picture of them stacked up. I'm so glad I saw this freebie. It's just too cute!

We got all our Christmas decorations put up in the attic finally. No plans this weekend other than that. Now time to see what is screaming Stitch Me the loudest. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Finish to Report

2012-01-06T10:54:00.001-05:00

I'm finished house building haha. I really enjoyed this quick little stitch. I've already seen a peek at Feb it's really cute too. But here is my January house. I'm proud to say I have a finish already in 2012!

After I finished I started on my #8 Biscornu bottom panel for the Biscornu Christmas Tree. So hopefully the finished biscornu will be in a picture soon.

The NaBloPoMo for the day is Do you wish the start of the year was in a different season? Which one? No I'm so glad it's in winter. The rest of the seasons are busy busy. So my fresh new start is during the relaxing season of winter. I'm excited about the upcoming fun of the year but it's always nice to relax too.

No Finish Yet...

2012-01-05T15:39:00.000-05:00

I didn't quite finish my house building last night. Then today we did our grocery stock up at Walmart trip. But it's Thursday which means.....the best night of TV. Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice! So lots of stitching time tonite. Actually if I get off the computer I might be able to get it finished before making dinner haha. Okay that's pushing it.

The NaBloPoMo for today. What is the hardest part about a beginning? Trying not to think of the bad stuff that could happen. Like when thinking about the new year I don't want to think of the bad stuff that could happen. Just because it could doesn't mean it will. We had some deaths in the family last year. This year of course there could be more. There is always worry about what might come but we gotta try to think positive. Life is what we make of it and damnit I'm having a good 2012!

I'll leave you with this funny cartoon...

Building a House

2012-01-04T19:45:00.003-05:00

No not a real house silly. I'm stitching a house. In my favorite yahoo group ESC (Every Stitch Counts) we are stitching a house a month. Karen the lovely lady who did my 12 Days of Christmas exchange has designed these lovely homes to stitch. This is January's. She has allowed us to make some changes so I tweaked the colors and a few little things. I started it this morning and am already close to being finished. Maybe tonite still have to see.

So today I finally stopped being mostly lazy haha. I unloaded the dish washer. Finally did some laundry. Of course there is at least 5 million loads left to do haha. I did some other odd and end chores that seems like they always multiply. When you turn around thinking you're done there are always more that needs done. Good enough to feel good about myself though. That's the best I can do.The tree is still up haha. Hopefully tomorrow it will go away finally. We keep joking about just leaving it up till next year.

Almost forgot today's NaBloPoMo Are you superstitious about beginnings? Anything you do to start out on the right foot? I guess I'm not. I make sure to plan some things to look forward to but other than that I don't really do anything special. I heard a lot of people eat cabbage to start the year out right. I'm glad I don't do that cause I don't like cabbage haha. Does it count that I fed some to my guinea pigs? LOL

Cleaning Up Grandma's

2012-01-03T16:06:00.000-05:00

Today we headed down to Grandma Faust's to help her put her Christmas stuff away. We got beautiful snow last night so it was weird taking it all down. Seems like it's still Christmas time. Now tomorrow we gotta get ours put away. Like I've told you we've been really lazy so it's still all up and pretty looking.

The NaBloPoMo for today....What is your favorite start-of-the-year tradition? All the planning and looking forward to everything you want the year to be. I love glancing at the calendar and filling in the things I know we'll be doing. It's the excitement for what the year might bring.

Nothing real exciting today so I found these cute pictures to share.

Another Great Day

2012-01-02T20:03:00.000-05:00

Wow the 2nd of January already. Guess this year is going to go by fast just like all the other ones. The NaBloPoMo for today is What did you do on New Years? I already answered. LOL I must be physic. We watched movies and was totally lazy. I did get a lot of x's in though.

I got about 1,500 stitches into my HAED Dragon Lady. I really enjoy working on this piece. I can't wait to get to something other than this corner haha. The one big problem with being more involved in the stitching blog community is I see a million more pieces out there I wish I was stitching haha. I swear I'm going insane from having too many options.

Today we watched the Rose Bowl Parade. I always love seeing what they come up with for the floats. Today was no disappointment. If you watched it my favorite was the surfing dogs of course. We spoiled ourselves with Olive Garden take out for dinner. It was delicious as always. Fred and I watched some stuff off the DVR. All the new shows will be starting up soon so have to get it as empty as possible. We only have like 26 shows left. Not that long ago it was like 60! I can't imagine life without my DVR. Isn't that funny once we have technology we can't imagine what it was like before we had it? Tomorrow I gotta stop being lazy and get busy.

Starting the New Year Right

2012-01-01T21:15:00.001-05:00

So far 2012 has been great haha. Jeremiah played Xbox Live with friends until 1am that crazy kid haha. One of my geocaching friends has these two great boys. Jeremiah LOVES getting together with them. Unfortunately we don't get to see one another near enough. Anyway they have Xbox live too so Jeremiah and them played the new year in. We counted down for ours and then since they are on Central time we counted down to their new year. Poor kid was exhausted then when he shut it off. It was cute. He had so much fun though. Fred and I watched a love of movies. I also got a lot of stitching done.

This is the top panel for the bottom biscornu in the Biscornu Christmas Tree. It went pretty quickly. The only discouraging part is when you finish you have to do the whole thing again for the bottom panel. I was trying to get it finished for 2011 but didn't make it. I finished it at about 1am of course.

This morning rather than start on the bottom I took a break and I'm working on the Dragon Lady. She wanted to come out and play in the new year. We finished all our new movies yesterday so Fred ran down to Redbox and we got 3 more scary movies to watch. I think we've watched at least 10 movies in the past two days haha. Now the boys are watching Star Wars that Fred got on Blu Ray for Christmas. So I figured I would get my computer time in.

I also picked out my jar for the Totally Useless Stitch A Long -- TUSAL. You keep track of your left over threads (also called Snip-its) and fill up your jar. Every new moon you post a picture of your jar. I think I will leave my threads in there each month and see how much thread I have in 2012 total. I love this jar and it will look cute with threads in it.

I didn't make it out to the sale at my LNS (local needlework shop) today. We have had high winds all day. Of course when you're someone that hates to go outside anyway nasty weather makes you have the perfect excuse to not leave. I have more than enough to keep me busy until I can get the fabric to kit up even more pieces I want to be working on haha.

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T12:22:00.000-05:00

Wow I can't believe 2011 is over. Fred and me were talking last night about how when we were growing up we never thought we would make it to 2000 and now it's going to be 2012! Now we just have to hope it's not like the movie haha. I want to wish everyone reading this a very Happy Healthy Upcoming Year. I hope it's everything we all want it to be. See ya in 2012!!!!!

NaBloPoMo Day 30

2011-12-30T19:41:00.001-05:00

Friday, December 30, 2011
What are your resolutions this year?

Like almost everyone else of course I would love to lose weight. In all reality I just don't have the will power. My real resolutions are to stitch more, be a better parent, be a better wife, be a better daughter, and make deeper life long friendships with my friends. I also want to be a more active blogger. I really enjoy writing down my thoughts even if no one reads them haha. I've really enjoyed getting more involved in the blogging community. I just basically want to have a happy healthy 2012!

Today I worked on my WIPocalypse list. If you haven't heard about this yet Where have you been hiding? LOL Every stitching blog I look at someone is talking about it. I love the idea and can't wait to watch everyone's progress. Follow the link to find out more information. Anyway here is my list so far....

Make Progress on QS Severeielle
Make Progress on Treasure Dragon
Don't Start Another HAED LOL
Finish Christmas on the Beach
at least 6 Christmas Ornaments

Holiday Greetings Mill Hill Kit

at least 6 Halloween Ornaments
Before End of November Stitch Thankful Critters
Quirky Quistmas Tree freebie from Wyrdbyrd's Nest
House SAL in ESC (Karen's Designs One Each Month)
Happy Holidays by Ursula Michael
Tribal Sand Dollar by White Willow Stitching
Tribal Lobster by White Willow Stitching
Tribal Starfish by White Willow Stitching
Tribal Seahorse by White Willow Stitching
Tribal Crab by White Willow Stitching

Crazy I know and the worst part is there is a WHOLE bunch I didn't put on this list. When I was looking through my stash I started going crazy. I found something to stitch here....and there....oh and this piece....oh yeah this magazine had something.... STOP! So I decided to stop here and add more as I go. At this rate I need to stitch 48 hours a day 15 days a week at least to get it all anywhere close to done. I did finish the Lobster's tail today. I think I'm going to put it down now and work on the # 8 Biscornu from the Quirky Quistmas Tree. Now that I have the green material from Christmas.

NaBloPoMo Day 29

2011-12-29T20:01:00.000-05:00

I worked hard today to get my living room back to normal. Plus Fred put together one of my Christmas presents. This cool cabinet with the fabric drawers. When we got it all setup I realized my step mom's runner she embroidered would fit perfect. Also the drawer set on top we got in South Carolina at a very neat antique/art store. I already have some things stored away. I really want/need to get more organized and this type of stuff really really helps.

Thursday, December 29, 2011
What are you looking forward to in the new year?

Everything. I always try to be a positive person. Let's face it the world sucks and I have to do everything I can to look at it positive or I might as well just give up right? Anyway I look forward to everything. I know I will do the best I can everyday to make the best of the life I have been given. I look forward to camping! I look forward to making closer friendships with the close friends I've made this past year. I look forward to what I might cross stitch and where I might go in my life. I can't wait! Life is what we make of it and darn nit I'm making my 2012 a good year if I can do anything about it!

I joined the NaBloPoMo for January. I LOVE that this has helped me have a reason to blog every day. I decided though I'm going to just go with the flow and do it when I can. I'm not going to feel guilty if I miss a day. I also cut back on my facebook gaming. I swear I spent WAY too much time on those games. I have a lot better stuff to be doing than putting time and money into a GAME. I told Fred I feel so free now that I finally hide those feeds. Plus it's amazing I can see my friends statuses and stuff again without all the clutter. LOL Tomorrow I need to work on my WIPocalypse list.

Just found out Vickie is having a wonderful giveaway on her blog. Here is the link if you are interested.

NaBloPoMo Day 28

2011-12-28T21:06:00.003-05:00

This is my progress on the Tribal Lobster. The thread I'm using it from GAST (Gentle Art Sampler Threads) called Geranium. It's a beautiful variegated red. The picture of course doesn't do it justice. I don't think most stitching picture ever do the pieces justice in real life. I really have to change my WIPocalypse list for 2012. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get some organizing started. I have a Christmas chaos mess over half of my living room haha.

We've been watching a lot of movies. Since Jeremiah has been so ADDICTED to his new Xbox games I knew I could get away with watching some scary movies. He just doesn't like them near as much as me. I'm a horror movie FREAK. Yesterday two new good ones came out on DVD. Hostel 3 and Final Destination 5. We watched the first Hostel yesterday so I could remember why I liked the series so much haha. Today we watched the new Final Destination and it was so good even Jeremiah shut off his Xbox to watch. He does enjoy the Final Destination films. We giggled and yelled through the whole thing. If you haven't seen the series it's basically people cheat death by getting a vision it's coming. Then death comes for them in the order they should have died. They always die in HORRIBLE and yet very CREATIVE ways. If you like gory movies they are very worth it.

We did get out today and have a fantastic lunch with my best friend Amber and her kids. It was a wonderful time and I'm actually glad I went out haha. Now I hope to stay in until Sunday's sale at my stitching store. I need to organized enough to make a list of what I need. I know I need at least 6 patterns kitted up. That means 6 more to add to my 2012 list right there haha. I'm never going to get it all done I at least realize that. I just hope 2012 is a good year. Jeremiah keeps saying it doesn't matter cause you know it's supposed to be the end of the world. It's fun to joke about but I gotta say I really hope it's not true. I love my life right now. I can't wait to see what 2012 has in store for me.

NaBloPoMo Day 27

2011-12-27T20:23:00.003-05:00

This is a Tribal Lobster pattern I got for Christmas along with several other fun can't wait to stitch patterns. I decided to start this one today. This is the photo of what it will look like finished. I'm working on the tail right now.

I'm still going crazy. There is so much I want/need/would like to be doing. I told myself today I had to sit down and stitch. So I did. I have so many thoughts going around in my head though. I really ~~want~~ need to get more organized. Plus I have a living room full of Christmas goodies that need to be put away. Yet I've just not been in the mood to start. I did decide today I'm going to my LNS (local needlework store) on Sunday. They are having a big sale for New Years. I know I have at least 6 pieces I need fabric for. So might as well get it on sale price right? I'm such a hermit it's shocking I'm thinking of going out. Plus Amber asked me to meet her for lunch tomorrow. So I actually might go out TWO times this week!!! Isn't that amazing haha.

Well I guess I'll get back to doing everything in my head. Wouldn't want to stop running circles around in my brain. I think if it keeps going I'm going to count it as exercise at least.

NaBloPoMo Day 26

2011-12-26T17:42:00.000-05:00

Monday, December 26, 2011
What was your favorite gift you got this year?

This is the writing prompt for today and there is NO way I can answer it.

Wow what a time! It's kind of a blur but it was all fantastic. We had so much fun down at my Dad's and then the other family stops. We ended up trying to get home Christmas Eve at about 8pm. Our poor dogs were at home with their legs crossed. We made the last turn to come home and Fred's truck died. Right in the middle of the road of course as we were turning. So our already crazy day ended up with Fred walking the leftover distance home to get my van and pulling the truck back home. So we ended up at home about 9pm instead. We did find out it's just the battery or at least we hope so. I've never heard of it dying on the way driving.

We woke up to a room full of presents. Jeremiah said Poor Santa's back must have been hurting from all those presents haha. The worst part of being spoiled is answering the question So what did you get?

Jeremiah got 6 new Xbox 360 games, a ton of Lego Halo toys, and several board games. The family got him a lot of fun things. Lego Kits, Xbox points, clothes, new socks, and I can't remember what else. Fred got a new laptop, new HAM radio, new clothes, and lots of other stuff. My dad gave us both $ and we are having a blast spending it in our minds haha. I got lots of stitching stuff which is so cool. New curtains for my windows, Walking Dead series on DVD, and I'm sure a lot of other stuff I'm forgetting. Fred got me a massage!!! I got a 15 minute one for the first time at my local retreat. This one will be a full body 1 hour long one! I can't believe it. Anyway I know I'm forgetting stuff. Just basically we were SPOILED rotten.

The one big problem with being spoiled is knowing what to do first haha. I want to stitch everything and watch all the new DVDs. There is no time haha. Ohh I also got a puzzle and started and finished it yesterday. See told you I would forget. Anyway I will just stop trying haha. Fred has till Thursday off so it will be a weird fun filled week. Hope everyone had and keeps having a lovely holiday. I'm keeping my holiday spirit all week! That way I have time for everything haha.

NaBloPoMo Day 23

2011-12-23T11:05:00.001-05:00

Today I had to finish opening my 12 Days Exchange. Since we are leaving after hubby gets off work.

Day 10 I received some cool pencils and a too fun pen with cupcakes on it.

Day 11 is a yummy smelling candle and a beautiful piece of holiday cloth.

The last gift for Day 12 is this too cute Santa decoration and a neat bag that it came in. Thank you very much Karen. I really enjoyed everything.

I don't know if I will be able to blog tomorrow or not so I want to wish everyone a Happy Holidays!!!

NaBloPoMo Day 22

2011-12-22T19:46:00.000-05:00

Thursday, December 22, 2011What are your favourite holiday traditions?
Friday, December 23, 2011What will you be doing over the weekend?

Both of these questions mean about the same thing to me. So I'm going to answer both today and tomorrow just do my own thing.

Our traditions start tomorrow. Fred has to work but after he gets off work we will head down to my Dad and Step Mom's. We always wake up with my Dad on Christmas Eve. It's been that way since my parents got a divorce so we just kept it up. Tomorrow night we will watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We will laugh and be tortured over the gifts under the tree staring at us. Then we will finally go to sleep only to probably wake up early to start the fun. We will open gifts with my dad and step mom. For lunch we head off to my dad's parents. We will have way too much to eat and open more presents. Then for dinner we head off to my mom's mom. We eat yet more food and become even more miserable. Plus yet again open more presents.

When we have just had too much we head home. Before we bought a house with my mom we would go to her house and sleep to wake up with her Christmas morning. Owning a house together makes this a lot easier haha. We just come home. Somehow after Jeremiah and I go to bed all these amazing gifts show up. (Love this part.) When we wake up Christmas morning we come downstairs to an amazing sight. Jeremiah sorts out the gifts while mom and me make fried donuts with sugar coating. We hurriedly eat our breakfast and start opening presents. We are so spoiled. Then we spend the rest of the week giggling and having so much fun and feeling so loved.

Day Number 9 on the 12 Days of Christmas Exchange was some awesome fabric. There is a huge amount of Spider-man material and then some totally cool car material. Thank you Karen!!!

I also added another chart on my WIPocalypse List today. I saw this chart in a magazine at my Fall Hoosier Stitcher Retreat. It's from the Jan 2012 Cross Stitch & Needlework magazine. I received the pattern in the mail today. I think it will look perfect beside my Merry Christmas piece I finished in 2010. Just what I need something else SCREAMING stitch me haha. I definitely need to find more time to do everything I want to do in the New Year.

NaBloPoMo Day 21

2011-12-21T16:31:00.001-05:00

Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Pick 5 bloggers and say what you would give them if you could.

When I seen this one I thought this is going to be fun. Let's see...

Meari has a blog I've been following forever. I've been lucky enough to meet her once. She is very nice and lots of fun. Anyway I would give her an automated snow blower. She always jokes about how horrible it is to shovel the snow and I just figured she would appreciate a self working snow blower haha.

Berly is another person I've been lucky enough to meet in person. I would give her a building to make into an amazing school type building. She wants to work with special needs children and I know she would be great at it.

Beth is a lady I just met in October at PALs. We really enjoyed stealing each others packages so I guess I would give myself some nice cross stitching stuff and let her steal it haha.

Sue is the owner of my favorite yahoo group ESC. I would give her a trip to Indiana so she could meet me and several of the other ladies nearby. I know she would love to see Shipshewana and visit with us crazy midwesterners.

Last but definitely not least my best buddy Amber. This one would be fun to spoil. I want her to have a house big enough for her and her lovely children. I want it close to me so I can help her out with all the things I would love to help her out with. I want it to have a big backyard for her adorable dogs. I want a big tree in the backyard that grows money so she can have endless supply to get everything she needs in life. I would make sure she smiled every day and knew she was safe and never had to worry about money again.

Okay so these are wishes and not realistic. I sure as hell wish they were though! Plus there is so many other people that I would love to do stuff for on my google reader. I just wish I had the wishes to help you all.

My 8th day was in this adorable star box. I love boxes and tins so I really love this box. You can kind of make out the gorgeous beads all over the top. I also got cute Christmas socks and an adorable ornament that I could put a picture inside. I'm really being spoiled by my partner. Thank you Karen!!!

I finished the Biscornu today. They are a pain in the rear to get a good picture of that's for sure. You can see it's pretty large. I'm glad I added the beads to the top. I really like how it turned out.

It's getting closer and closer to Christmas. We can't wait!

NaBloPoMo Day 20

2011-12-20T19:12:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, December 20, 2011
What was the most important gift you ever received?

My son. There is a huge long story with this one of course. If you know me you probably know the story. If you don't and you want to know I will email ya rather than bore everyone. The short explanation is I didn't expect to have my son. He was the best surprise gift I could have ever asked for in my life. I'm so thankful for him every day.

Day Number 7 brought me red Aida. This is kinda funny since the biscornu I'm working on is on red Aida. I giggled when I opened it. I do love working on the red though so can see a lot of things being stitched on this piece.

Yesterday I started to feel yucky again. I already had the whole head cold a week ago. Evidently this was round 2. I felt horrible yesterday but today I feel not as bad. Poor Jeremiah been sniffing and sneezing all day. I told him we both have to be over it by Christmas. I helped mom get a bunch of stuff together for her to wrap. Other than that I was pretty worthless today. Tomorrow we are doing our grocery run. Hope that goes quickly. I'm half way finished with the bottom of the biscornu. I'm looking forward to putting it together and starting on the next one. I might pick up the Christmas on the Beach for a few days in the middle. We'll have to see what screams the loudest.

NaBloPoMo Day 19 and IHSW

2011-12-19T11:53:00.000-05:00

Monday, December 19, 2011
Do you give a gift when you buy it for someone or do you wait for a holiday/birthday?

I do both. Most the time it seems to be around the time of a holiday or birthday cause I have a reason to be thinking about giving a gift. But sometimes it just happens. I like it both ways. It's nice to do nice things just for no reason every now and then.

This weekend was my first IHSW - International Hermit Stitching Weekend. I decided to start of my Biscornu Christmas Tree. I started the 2nd from the bottom. On the left is the top part finished. I added white beads where I thought they would pop. I started on the bottom piece but don't have very much at all on it yet. Mom thought I was finished and I said no I have to do the back part and she realized after I finish I will have 16 panels. I really enjoyed it though so that's good haha.

We had a WWE Pay Per View last night. So that meant good stitching time haha. We screamed and yelled at the TV a lot like that helps or something haha. Jeremiah just loves watching WWE.

My Day 6 gift from the ESC 12 Days of Christmas exchange is YUMMY Warheads. I LOVE sour candy and already ripped the bag open haha. They are very yummy indeed.

I can't believe this Friday evening we start our Christmas tradition. I'm so excited about Christmas. Jeremiah really is too. He better be I wrapped some of his gifts yesterday and told him he is totally spoiled rotten!!!

NaBloPoMo Day 18 IHSW

2011-12-18T10:34:00.000-05:00

I started my IHSW yesterday at about 5pm finally. I started one of the biscornu from the Biscornu Christmas Tree. I started on the 2nd from the bottom cause the green Aida is a Christmas gift haha. I'm using 3818 green DMC on the red and then going to use a red on the green. We thought that would work good. Fred (hubby) always helps me pick out what looks best. It's so much fun to stitch once you can get the pattern figured out. I can't decide if I'm going to add beads to the pieces or not. My fear is how many beads it will use. I'll keep thinking about it. I'm going to work on this again today. We were all excited about watching a Blu Ray DVD yesterday we borrowed from my dad and my stupid DVD player won't work. So Fred is out getting a new one and then we can watch our movie while we are wrapping gifts. What a ordeal that's going to be. After that is stitching time though.

On the 5th Day of Christmas I got 2 adorable ribbons. Thank you Karen!!!

NaBloPoMo Day 17 IHSW

2011-12-17T16:13:00.000-05:00

I'm starting my first ever IHSW as soon as I finish this blog entry. Yesterday was a long day. Today started that way. Mom and I ran out and did our last shopping for gifts finally. I also had to run to my LNS and get my order of red Aida that came in just in time for the holidays. Next week will be holiday cooking, laundry, wrapping, and organizing what goes where. Then we can finally be ready for Christmas! I can't wait!!!

So what is IHSW basically it's a reason to stitch and a reason to blog about it. You can follow the link to find out more. I'm looking at it as a reason to unplug and go over to my couch and STITCH. Plus watch movies I've been wanting to watch. So I'm doing the few things I need to do on the computer and then spending the rest of the night unplugged. In this day of all the technology we all need days like this. First let me show you what I got for my Day 4 of the 12 Days of Christmas. I got some nail files and some Kleenex. It's almost too cute to use haha.

I begged and pleaded and I'm stealing a few pieces of my Christmas present early. Today I'm starting a biscornu that goes to this AWESOME freebie I found online. Here is the link to the pattern on the left. A lady posted this picture to a blog of freebies I watch. I thought it was just too cute and couldn't wait to do it. So I stole a few pieces of the red Aida we got today and I'm going to start on the bottom red biscornu. This project is on my WIPocalypse list for 2012. Might as well get started. Hope everyone has a stress free weekend.

NaBloPoMo Day 16

2011-12-16T21:41:00.000-05:00

Friday, December 16, 2011
What was the last handmade gift you gave?

With my love of cross stitching this one is easy to answer. I stitched an ornament for my mom to give away to her family at a family get together she attended. The party was the 10th. She said everyone loved it and kept looking it over and over trying to figure out how I made it haha.

My Day 3 of the Christmas 12 Days Exchange is a wonderful set of highlighters and a beautiful monthly planner. Thank you Karen!!!

Today was the Celebration of Life for my Great Grandmother. It was a small ceremony. I was glad to see everyone. Just a long day. This weekend is the IHSW but I will write more about it tomorrow. No stitching today.

Geraldine Louise Elshire

Date of Birth -- Oct 19, 1916 in Wabash, IN
Date of Death -- Dec 11, 2011 in Wabash, IN

What an amazing life!

NaBloPoMo Day 15

2011-12-15T13:41:00.002-05:00

Thursday, December 15, 2011
What was a gift that wasn't well-received?

I couldn't think of one but then I laughed out loud. Here's a fun story. My lovely hubby Fred and I have agreed to give one another 5 gifts for Christmas. This helps to know how many to get cause I would get him 100 and he would get me 1 haha. Anyway one year he was extra excited about my last gift. He even started video recording me when he handed me the box. I was thinking Oh no what's in this. When I opened it there was an Ott Light. I was shocked. Click the link. Yeah a $200 lamp! A lot of my stitching friends have lamps like these. He had paid attention and thought I could use one. The problem......I didn't want to own a $200 lamp. I have a $20 lamp from Lowe's that's just fine. So I smiled so sweetly and was like Oh Honey. After the video was shut off I almost cried trying to explain to him the idea was so sweet but there was no way I could accept this expensive lamp. Luckily my eyes are fine with the cheap lamp. I don't need the expensive one....yet. So he took it back and got his money back. We could buy 5 of the other cheap lamps first haha. The idea was so sweet though.

Day Number 2 is needles and a cute chart. I think the little bird would fit on my jar cover I got yesterday. I haven't decided if I will do that or not. We had several quail come to our yard one time so it would be really cute to do that cause this kinda looks like them.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day. It's the funeral and stuff for my Great Grandmother. It's really awkward cause my Aunt who we haven't spoke to in forever is going to be there. I just want it to go smoothly. Luckily Fred moved a day off work and is able to go. I'm glad I won't have to be there without him. He's so supportive. I'm blessed! I wish there were more out there like him cause I know several friends who deserve to be as lucky as I am. We went Christmas shopping last night and what could normally of been a hectic time was so much fun. I love him so much. Well I hope everyone has a relaxing weekend. I know it's the crazy busy time of the year for everyone but make sure to take moments to take care of yourself in there too. The holidays will come whether you panic or not.

NaBloPoMo Day 14

2011-12-14T10:47:00.004-05:00

Wednesday, December 14, 2011
What is your favorite gift you ever gave someone?

In college I was lucky enough to get together with my soul mate Fred. I was so happy to have someone worthwhile to spend life with. He meant and still does mean everything to me. When Christmas time came close I was on a race to find out what he really wanted. I listened and stalked haha. Our friends had DVD Burners that were pretty brand new technology then. I knew he used our friends all the time. So off I went only to find out then they were like $300. I worked hard to make the money I needed to to help pay for it. Christmas morning he opened it and was shocked. I was so happy to have done that. It was my favorite cause he really appreciated it so much. Funny that now like every computer comes with one haha. Oh well I got it when it was NEW haha.

*In the best singing voice possible* On the First Day of Christmas My Online friend gave to me.....*cough* Okay I better stop haha. Anyway today started the 12 Days of Christmas Exchange in ESC. Luckily Karen marked my presents with the days to open them so no worries there just grab it and open. She sent this totally cool jar topper. The white part on the top I can cross stitch something on. Of course I collect jars so this is PERFECT. I went to my cabinet and grabbed a jar already for it to go on. I love it! I've never seen these before.

Can't wait to see what's next.

NaBloPoMo Day 13

2011-12-13T17:25:00.002-05:00

Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Which do you enjoy more: receiving or giving?

Honestly I LOVE giving. I love trying to get something that the other person really deeply wants. I love making someone smile. I love showing people I care. But to be even more honest Who doesn't love receiving haha. Of course I do. I especially love it when you can just tell the person really put thought into it. I mean it can be totally free and mean just as much as a million dollar gift depending on the meaning behind it.

Now I finally took time to do at least 2 of the things I wanted to do. This picture is of a drawing I won. I met this lovely lady named Beth at the PALs retreat this past year. She had a giveaway on her blog and I entered just for the fun of it. I couldn't believe I won. This is what I received. I love the tin and it's FULL of delicious cookies inside. Thank you very much Beth!

In my favorite yahoo group ESC (Every Stitch Counts) we are having an exchange called 12 Days of Christmas. We send a package with 12 packages to start opening 1 a day starting on the 14th. This is my exchange from Karen. I can't wait to start opening my beautiful gifts.

This weekend is IHSW - International Hermit Stitch Weekend. This will be my first one joining in. I signed up for 2012 but seen this one and really hope to join in. Basically it means to grab your stitching and stitch knowing that people all over the world are stitching with you. I have a lot of stuff to do this weekend but hope to find time to stitch along. If you want to join in follow the link and sign up. I'm number 26.

NaBloPoMo Day 12

2011-12-12T19:57:00.003-05:00

I have a million things I want to blog about and no energy to do it. So I'm going to leave today with this really boring post.

I received 2 awesome packages in the mail today. (No Pics Yet)

I had an awesome weekend away. (No Pics Yet)

I have a million things to be doing and no time to do any of it.

So I'll be back tomorrow to try again.

NaBloPoMo Day 10 and 11

2011-12-11T19:55:00.001-05:00

Wow what a weekend. Fred (hubby) and I got up yesterday and hit the road. We had just under 2 hour drive ahead of us. The only bad this is our high temp yesterday was like 20 degrees so it was COLD. We stopped at one town called Colon in Michigan. We loved the name. So we grabbed a geocache real quick. It was a nice cemetery and a very quick find. Then we got to Vicksburg, MI. Lunch was at a nice little place. There was about 30-40 people there. We had a nice meal. Then we took a quick drive to our friend's house. They had a old cache they were trading out for a new one. The old one was a HUGE ammo can in their yard. The replaced it with an outhouse and called it the Crappy Cache haha. It looks so neat.

We ran out and grabbed 4 more caches nearby. A close friend hit 6,000 cache finds. Since it was freezing we headed back to relax for the night. We had way too much fun. We all needed medicine this morning to survive haha. I think we must be getting old cause we were all pretty miserable haha. We have all decided we aren't friends we are family. We did the whole Love you Man crying last night to really prove it. I'll try to get some pictures to share later. I'm still hurting too bad to do much haha. We headed home today about noon. It was a quiet drive cause I slept the whole way home haha. Good thing hubby didn't mind driving a sleeping passenger haha.

Little bit of bad news tonite. My Great Grandmother passed away. She was 96 years old and lived a great long life. I'm glad she's not in pain any longer and her and my Great Grandfather can finally be together again. The one part that really bothers me is now I only have 1 Grandpa and 2 Grandma's left. I will appreciate them every day I possibly can. Hope everyone has a nice week and gets all the Pre-Christmas craziness taken care of.

NaBloPoMo Day 9

2011-12-09T18:59:00.001-05:00

Friday, December 9, 2011
What gift do you regret breaking?

This is a weird question. It assumes you've broke a gift. I've thought really hard and I don't know of a gift I've broken. Now I've lost gifts. I have received a million things that I no longer have. Leave it to the chaos of moving and you lose a lot of stuff. Plus there is there is the I'll never use that again so I'll give it away type of gifts. I think we've all received those gifts. I even had a beautiful hand painted mirror that shattered cause the wood it was mounted on shifted and broke it into a million pieces. So I guess those are answers to the question asked.

I hope no one is offended by this picture but I laughed so hard when I found it. Tomorrow I get to head up north and get together with my crazy friends. Since I have some new followers I'll explain. Fred (my hubby) and I do this hobby called Geocaching. We love it. But mostly we love the people we have met because of it. We love to get together and act like a bunch of crazy kids. Jeremiah will stay here at home with my mom and we will party like we are all in our early 20s haha. Last year we started getting together more regularly at a friends house and playing games. We would have a sleep over and just enjoy time together. We haven't been together since we all camped in my backyard in October so I really can't wait to see everyone. I love my friends and can't wait to give them all big hugs. This picture is just sooooo us. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

NaBloPoMo Day 8

2011-12-08T18:36:00.001-05:00

Thursday, December 8, 2011
What was your favorite thing you received below the age of 10?

This is so hard to think back that long ago. It wasn't at Christmas time but I got a swing set when I was younger than 10. I remember thinking it was the world's most awesome gift of course. I loved playing outdoors and knew I would play on it for hours and hours. We moved into a trailer park when I was in first grade. The park got hit by a tornado and I remember begging and pleading that we take my swing set with us when we were leaving. I was so worried it would be torn apart. I lined my stuffed animals up and told them to protect the house and my swing set.

The tornado went up and down and literally hit a row of trailer missed a row hit another row etc. It totally missed our house and my swing set. It was even sitting up still. A house a few rows away got it's roof totally taken off and flipped over by the tornado. Of course I think my stuffed animals helped Don't you?

It's 14 Days 22 Hours till we leave for my Dad's to start our Christmas Craziness. I looked at the calendar today and thought WOW there is SO MUCH to do before then. I still have the last minute shopping to do and then I have to WRAP everything. One nice thing about being spoiled is there is so much to unwrap Christmas morning BUT....that means the job of wrapping takes FOREVER. Hope we can all get everything done we need to get done. How behind are you?

NaBloPoMo Day 7

2011-12-07T15:25:00.001-05:00

Wednesday, December 7, 2011
What was the strangest thing that ever made your gift wish list?

Well if you know one thing about me at all you know I love having fun. I always joke about being immature and never growing up. This question made me think of a funny story.

I was growing up (age number wise) and went to Christmas on my Dad's side. My Grandma Elshire always got us kind of matching gifts. Like all us kids would get a Furby (Wow remember those?). Then the adults might get like bath towels or something an adult would enjoy. One year when I was probably like 15ish. I got the "adult" gift at Christmas instead of the kid one. I literally cried. I remember crying to my mom when I got home and asking why she would do that. Why would I get the adult gift. Why would she do that to me. My mom called Grandma and they talked. Of course my grandma just simply thought I would want to be treated like an adult. Nope not me. I never wanted to grow up.

To this day I'm 32 years old and I still get some toys for Christmas. It's just the kid in me. I love being young at heart and want to enjoy what life has to offer for as long as I can. I might be older but I've never grown up.

NaBloPoMo Day 6 and a Finish

2011-12-06T14:59:00.001-05:00

Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Do you like to try to guess your gifts ahead of time?

No. I love the magic of gift giving. I don't want to spoil it. This is how bad it is....for Christmas we don't put presents under the tree. My sweet hubby puts them out after Jeremiah and me go upstairs to bed Christmas Eve. When we walk downstairs Christmas morning there they are. I love the shock! I love the magic we make it. I know some of my gifts I'm getting and I literally do everything I can to forget about them. We all joke the whole month about we know what the others are getting. Then we make up something stupid like I tell Jeremiah all the time he's getting a barbie dream house or something like that. He will say I'm getting a mud puddle. It's fun and we love it.

Yesterday I had a finish. This is a freebie I found online here. It stitched up so quick. I started it Sunday. I just loved how quick it looked to stitch up. I finished it using this online tutorial as a pinkeep. Now I'm working on my Dragon Lady again. She started screaming at me to stitch her.

NaBloPoMo Day 5

2011-12-05T09:59:00.001-05:00

Monday, December 5, 2011 What was the first gift you ever made another person?

Wow what a hard question. I love these though cause it makes your brain explode with things to think about. With my love of cross stitching I've done a lot of gifts for my loved ones. I immediately went to where I put all my cross stitching photos. Let's see what some of them are I've stitched.

These are 5 projects I've done for others. This little dragon I stitched for a friend Sue. We made a quilt of patterns that you represented each of us. Of course with my love of dragons I just had to stitch this one.

This is a pillow I did for my mom. She loves lighthouses and all things nautical so I just had to do this one for her.

Another piece I did for my mom. This one has a lot of beads in it. I just love working with beads.

This one was stitched into a quilt for Petra. I knew she liked cats and I thought this one was purfect for her haha.

Yet another for my mom. Loved the saying. I've stitched a lot of things for my friends and family. These are just a quick 5 I picked out. I love cross stitching and I love giving so it makes since to stitch gifts for people I love. Hope everyone has a great week ahead.

NaBloPoMo Day 4

2011-12-04T14:40:00.001-05:00

Today we finally got the Christmas tree up. It's always a crazy and yet very fun process. We turn on the Christmas carols and everyone helps out. Izzy always eats the flakes that fall off the tree and gets sick but it's her part of the fun I guess haha. First we went with just a pile of lights and a craft tree. What do you think? My idea is it was a lot easier to put up and take down. It probably would have been kind of boring after awhile. Jeremiah giggled. Then I told Jeremiah to come here and we decorated him.

He said he would probably get sick of standing there. I told him if he was a Christmas tree he would get out of doing school. He very excitedly said Yeah. I told him he was in trouble for being so excited about it. (He's home schooled if you don't know so you can get the joke)

Then we finally caved in and put up the actual tree. This is my Grandma and Grandpa Faust's tree. They had it up for more than 20 years she thinks. My Grandpa was throwing it away the day of the auction when they moved and mom saved it out of the trash. I love putting it up cause it's such a family heirloom. We have such an eclectic mix of ornaments. It's just so us. Now it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

By the way in case you were curious the party went fine last night. The food was SOOO good. I'm just so glad we didn't have to pay for it. It's a very expensive restaurant here in Fort Wayne. We had delicious appetizers, yummy salad bad, unbelievable Filet Steak, and Fred got a CRAZY delicious dessert. I couldn't eat anymore so I decided to pass on the dessert. We had a nice time. I'm glad it's over but so glad we went.

NaBloPoMo Day 3

2011-12-03T15:07:00.001-05:00

The weekends of the NaBloPoMo are open for free writing. So here goes.

Yesterday we had fun shopping. Jeremiah came down with my lovely head cold though poor guy so he didn't have much fun at all. We went to Hobby Lobby first and I bought things for an exchange in ESC (my favorite yahoo group). We found some other things for presents and what not and then got out of there. They have really seemed to raise their prices on everything. Even on sale some of it is just crazy. Then we headed down to my stitching store Stitch N Frame. My mother got me some amazing Christmas gifts which are horrible cause now I have to wait till Christmas haha. Isn't that just mean of her? I also picked up the Pirate Dragon. The frame is perfect.

I told the owner that the stitching is only as nice as the frame around it and this just made my piece gorgeous. They said the people who saw it thought it was a painting. That made me feel really good.

I got the rest of the gifts for my friend. We are having this exchange called 12 Days of Christmas. You send gifts for the person to open one each day until Christmas Day starting Dec 14th. On the left is the package of goodies I sent today to Angie. I can't wait till she gets them and I really really hope she loves everything I picked out for her. I always worry the person will hate everything but I would enjoy these things so I really hope she does too.

This morning the boys slept in (hubby and son). I got up early and got my email all read, played my frontierville game, and started a movie. My mom went out Christmas shopping with Betty. She called at 10am and I realized the boys were still in bed. I went upstairs to ask them if they were planning on getting up at all today haha. Jeremiah still has his head cold but doesn't seem as bad maybe as yesterday. After they finally got downstairs we got the guinea pigs out to play. They had such a blast. They were running and jumping. It was so much fun to watch.

Tonite Fred's company is having his party. Don't worry Amber I won't make better friends than my geocaching buddies. You guys are too much fun. If you are reading this and you have spare thoughts/prayers please send them towards my friend Amber. She applied for a job she is really hoping to get any spare thoughts/prayers her way has gotta help. Thanks!

NaBloPoMo Day 2

2011-12-02T09:56:00.001-05:00

December 2, 2011
What was the most disappointing gift you received as a child?

When I was 10 my parents got a divorce. Needless to say the years following we pretty difficult. My mom did the best she could with what little we had. There were a few years we needed help from the government and lived in this apartment complex that was like today's Section 8 housing. Anyway really long story a little shorter it was a known thing that this row of housing was "poor". So a company came out Christmas morning and left boxes in front of the doors for the kids. It was this generic box with bags marked "girl toy". As a kid I was so excited to see this box and thought that Santa had so much to give me he sat a box outside even. When I opened the bags it was the typical girl toys. Baby Dolls. FuFu dresses. Makeup. I cried. I thought Santa hated me. I was so not the type of girl to want those things and I thought Santa knew better.

My friend Amber (Hi Amber!) changed her bad memory into a good memory. I should do that too. We survived those times and now have a beautiful home. I'm thankful I didn't "need" those toys cause my parents made sure even in the worst of times I had everything I could ever have needed. Living in those years I had NO idea why we were there. I was convinced all the kids around me had it bad but I sure didn't know why I was there. I remember telling mom stories about the other kids and being so shocked why so many of them had it bad and yet I was a happy kid. I think that living through that period of my life made me appreciate each little thing I have now.

Stitching - I worked on the Christmas on the Beach all week. It's starting to drag so I'm going to put it down for the weekend and work on Dragon Lady. I can't wait to make more progress. This picture to the right is where I'm at right now. I have 1,600 stitches in. 4 Days progress. So we'll see what I can get done this weekend. Saturday night Fred's (hubby) company is having a dinner. I always get terrified of going to those and always end up having fun so I'm just going to try to be excited about going. I just don't know the people very well. It's at a really really nice restaurant. Mom is angry cause she LOVES this place haha.

Well I'm off to start my day. Today is supposed to have a trip to Hobby Lobby and my stitch store. So we'll see what I can post about tomorrow. Have a great day and a great weekend!

NaBloPoMo

2011-12-01T10:03:00.001-05:00

It took me a long time but I finally figured out what this NaBloPoMo even means haha. It's National Blog Posting Month. I think I'm going to try it for a little bit and see how annoying I get haha. Today started the December one so let's go...

December 1, 2011
What was the first tangible gift you remember receiving?

Wow hard one to start off with. I was very spoiled as a child. Being an only child helps that along of course. When I look through pictures of being little I always laugh at all the toys in the background all over the floor.
I was a tomboy (LOL Sorry I love how I used the word was.....I still am). So I got the stuffed animals rather than the barbie dolls. I LOVED My Little Ponies. I did get a few Cabbage Patch dolls though. So to the question what was the first. I don't remember. I just remember getting so much. I keep thinking of the "first" and 18 things pop into my head. When you're spoiled it's hard to narrow your mind down to one. I'm thankful for each thought that pops up for me though.

I'm getting more progress on Christmas on the Beach. Maybe I'll be able to mark it off my 2012 Goal List as finished in 2011. Here's hoping. We are going shopping tomorrow. I need to go to Hobby Lobby and Stitch N Frame. My Pirate Dragon is finished being framed. My mom wants to get me some Christmas presents. I also am participating in an exchange in ESC (Yahoo Group) called the 12 Days of Christmas. We are sending presents to countdown the last 12 Days to Christmas. I have 9 more to get. I hope everyone has a great day.

Finally Getting Into It

2011-11-29T11:28:00.001-05:00

So I decided to get over it and pull out the Christmas on the Beach yesterday. I was going to try to see if I could get into it again. I finally made progress and my needle just took off and said Okay Okay I'm going. It's a struggle cause there is just so many other things I want to be working on. Mom really loves this design and I just gotta get it finished. I'm still getting over this stupid cold so yesterday Jeremiah and Mom went down to visit Grandma Faust and I stayed home. Which means I was alone. Now if you know me you know that NEVER happens. So I was kinda shocked. I caught up on my email and then sat down to watch some TV. I got a ton of stitching done. It was actually very nice and enjoyed my day even with my cold.

As you can see I really did get a lot done. It really moved for me finally when I reached that top corner. Then I could easily pick where I wanted to stitch next. It throws me off cause there is a lot of half stitches and a lot of different thread amounts. One place I use 4 strands one place 2 one place back to 4. Oh well it's finally moving along.

This morning I sat down to do my morning check of Google Reader and seen this gorgeous stack of Biscornu's that make a Christmas Tree. Great another thing I want to be stitching on. But I know I don't have the red and green aida on hand. So I'm going to add it to my WIPocalypse goal list. Speaking of that I had noticed several people talking about 2012 SALs already. So I started checking them out. I found 3 that I joined in for next year. I can't wait to start. If you go to the tab at the top that says Goals and SALs it has links to go to them. I can't wait to start!

Happy Thanksgiving?

2011-11-26T14:37:00.001-05:00

I always like starting positive. So yesterday I had a finish. This is JBW Turkey. I had finished the Squirrel and found out a friend of mine had the Turkey pattern. So we traded with each other. I used Weeks Dye Works thread called Sweet Potato. Figured that was appropriate for Thanksgiving time don't you? The picture turned out a little dark.

We had 12 here at our home for Thanksgiving. We had a lovely time. Unfortunately there was family not here but that's a whole lot of drama that I'm not talking about today. Grandma (My mom's mom) had a nice day and that's all that matters. We didn't have turkey we had ham so Jeremiah said we should call it Hamkey day instead haha. I started to get a sore throat the night before. Now it's a full blown head cold. Accompanied by one of those coughs that hurt your whole body. Fun Fun.

Guinea Pig Update....I noticed Fuzzy didn't look well at all Thanksgiving day. We gave him his shot and he just didn't seem okay. I told Jeremiah to get prepared. Thanksgiving night I glanced in the cage and he was going downhill quickly. He passed away in the evening. Jeremiah and I had a good cry about him. We buried him in the backyard. Poor little guy just couldn't make it any longer. We are glad he's not in pain any longer. So even though I was sick and it was Black Friday we knew we would head out and find another guinea pig for Fillmore to have a cage mate. So we headed out. Our first stop had good sales on supplies so we bought a cart full of goodies. Their guinea pigs were all girls though. So we headed to Petco and hit the mother load haha. Mom and me couldn't decided between these two. So I jokingly told to the girl to put it in the box and mom wouldn't find out. Yep you guessed it we have 3 guinea pigs now.

This is the 2 new ones. Gonzo on the right. Porkchop on the left.

This is our one we already had named Fillmore. He replaced Wuzzy after we found out he was aggressive. That happened about a week ago. So hopefully our guinea pig drama is OVER for awhile! We are pretty sure Fuzzy was sick since we got him cause he was never really active. When we brought the two new ones home they started whistling. The most adorable part was Fillmore got so excited and ran around looking for the other pigs he heard. When we put them together it was love at first sight and then ran and played and are still having so much fun together. I'm so glad they all get along and they love their pen and all their goodies. We are very happy critter owners now. I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving and is enjoying the weekend with as much relaxing as possible. I'm coughing and hurting but at least relaxing.

2 Days Progress

2011-11-23T16:00:00.000-05:00

Here is my start of Severeielle which I have renamed Dragon Lady. I just can't for the life of me remember how to spell the real name haha. I got 600 stitches in each day I worked on it. So this is 1,200 stitches. I'm impressed with how quickly it's moving. There is a lot of big chunks of color so it's not like more other confetti filled HAEDs I've worked on. I just LOVE each stitch I make. I'm going to take a break and work on JBW Turkey now. It will be a quick stitch then I can go back to the lovely Dragon Lady. I just can't wait to see what pops out of the purple blob next. The darkness at the bottom is the start of the doorway. On the first page I should get to the little dragon's wing.

Guinea Pig update....He's still not doing great. We've went to the vet 3 times. They are giving him an antibiotic shot. The doc said either they make it or they don't so it's a good sign he's alive. They gave us an extra shot for tomorrow since they won't be open. Then we go back Friday. I just want the little guy to get better. I feel so sorry for him. One thing positive from this is I've fallen in love with the vet's place. They haven't charged me at all yesterday or today. It's amazing. Our other vet would gladly have charged us a few hundred dollars by now. This one said they just want to get him better for us. The med one day was $27. The vet fee for the visit is supposed to be $29. So far they have only charged us $27 total! We've been there 3 times and got 3 injections and another for tomorrow. I'm really really impressed with their care and concern even though he's "just a guinea pig". Jeremiah is really hoping he's going to get better but still prepared for the worst.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I know I complained about it in the last message. I'm just irritated with how mean and cruel some people can be. I'm so thankful for what I have in my life. I just wish people would take a second to understand No matter how bad things are they could always be worse. Take one second to stop and smile to stranger beside you. We all know life is hard but why not try to at least make our corner better. I'm smiling and just trying so hard to make it. Tomorrow after the chaos of lunch it will all settle down. Then I can relax and just love my family. I hope each one reading this can have a fantastic day full of love. We all deserve it!

Bad Day

2011-11-21T20:17:00.000-05:00

Well first let's start this on a positive note. I had a finish a few days ago. This is a Mill Hill ornament. My mom wanted to take it to a party for her family on Dec 10th. I was worried I wouldn't get it finished in time. I started it right away and finished it a day later haha. She laughed at me for being stressed. Yeah well at least now I don't have to worry. Then I started the Christmas Chairs on the beach kit I got with mom and I hate each stitch. I don't know why. It's a Dimension's kit and it has half stitches and 2 threads here 4 threads here...maybe that's why. Or...I knew I was itching to start my new kitted up HAED. So I giggled and asked the family if I could start it even though I said I would wait. Remember when I said I would rotate between one and the other each month. Yeah that lasted what a few weeks. Not even. Anyway the Dragon Girl was screaming from the computer desk to stitch on her. Yesterday I couldn't control her any longer and she jumped over onto my Q-Snaps and started herself....Okay well not really haha. Most the time you start in this dark dark corner.....this design has BEAUTIFUL shades of PURPLE in the corner!! I'm in LOVE! Plus it's not a lot of confetti stitching so I got 600! stitches in last night alone!!! Helped a lot there was a WWE PPV so that meant a lot of stitching time haha.

Now onto the bad part.....I woke up this morning and realized it was Turkey Week. Thanksgiving always goes wrong. I don't know why. 3 years ago my grandfather was in the hospital and never came out. We host my mom's family here and that means cleaning and making the house presentable. I hate cleaning. So we always have a lot to do in a little amount of time. Yesterday I noticed one of my guinea pigs (of course my favorite Shh though don't tell the other one) was breathing heavily. This morning I noticed he was really doing worse. So I called a vet and got an appointment. Found out he has pneumonia and more than likely won't make it. Grr. Jeremiah is having a hard time cause we really love this little guy. They did give him an injection and if he lives tomorrow they will give him another one. So hopefully we got it in time and he'll bonce back. Just one of those things that leads to me hating this holiday. I just want to get to Christmas please. I just need to breath deeply and relax....I'm trying.

Stash Shopping and a Finish

2011-11-17T18:45:00.001-05:00

Today we went shopping. We hit JoAnns and Stitch N Frame my LNS (local needlework shop). I got threads and fabric to finish kitting up another HAED project. The two specialty threads are called Sweet Potato from Weeks Dye Works. I'm going to stitch up JBW Turkey with it. My mom picks out the 4 patterns. 2 Mill Hill kits. One she needs to take to a party on Dec 10th so I better get busy haha. The penguin is for me. I love penguins. The upper right design is a Dimensions kit that she has seen a few times and just loves. The Stone & Thread pattern she loves the button. I also got two cute buttons. One is going on my JBW Squirrel pattern I just finished. The other is a cornucopia I'm going to add it to the JBW Turkey design somewhere. I just think they add so much to a piece. The paw print fabric I'm going to use on the TLC Tender Loving Canine piece I finished in a prior blog entry. So as you can see I had a great stash day. I also have my Pirate Dragon in for framing. I can't wait to be able to hang him up.

Last night I also had a finish. A friend of mine Michelle was stitching this up at our Hoosier Stitcher Retreat. When she finished I greedily stole the pattern haha. He was just too cute not to stitch up. I just happened to have the perfect thread. It's Carrie's Creation thread called Autumn Leaves and I love how it turned out. The acorn button is going to go in the space under his hands before I finish finish it. I'm thinking this would make a cute cube finish. We'll have to see what happens. Right now he was just the perfect quick finish I needed to get back into the stitching mood after my retreat.

My mom also got some punch needle kits. I'm excited for her to enjoy them. She also got this cute needlepoint kit while on vacation. I guess my love of needle crafts is rubbing off some haha. My step mom has been doing embroidery for a bit. It's so much fun to enjoy our hobbies with each other. Well I guess I better get stitching. Gotta finish that ornament in time for the party.

New Critters

2011-11-09T16:36:00.000-05:00

Before my vacation to South Carolina my frogs past away. I loved those stupid things haha. So my family said when things settled down I could get something new to replace them. I've been doing research since. I had a lot of different critters while growing up and my mind kept going back to how much I loved guinea pigs. So today we hit the stores and these are our new family members. Jeremiah and me came up with the names Fuzzy and Wuzzy. Fuzzy is the one on the left side. Wuzzy is on the right. They have been so much fun already in just the few hours we have had them. Jeremiah loves their little whistle when they are happy. If you pet their behinds they start whistling so sweet. Jeremiah just giggles the whole time. I can't wait to see what fun we have to come from these little guys.

Hoosier Retreat

2011-11-07T20:30:00.000-05:00

So I obviously am so busy I forgot to post I made it home from the PALs trip. We got home just fine Saturday after just missing the snow storm that hit the east coast. The town we stayed in Thursday night had a warning for Friday. We made it to Ohio Friday night and then home Saturday about noon. Fred and Izzy were very very happy to see us. I spent the weekend sitting on the couch loving on my dog and watching TV shows on the DVR. I was so far behind. Then came Thursday which meant I was off again. This time I went about an hour from home to my local stitching retreat. Here is where we stayed at...

This is Barbee Christian Church Camp in Leesburg, IN. The best part is it was an old Al Capone hideout. We did have one really freaky thing happy. We were tea dying fabric and a face showed up on the fabric. We found a picture of Al Capone and it totally looked the same! It was really really creepy. It was a little small but it did just fine for the little group we had this time. I was planning on trying so hard to finish my HAED Pirate Dragon and guess what...

It's done. Only took me 7 years of course in that time I put it down a lot. This past year I've worked really hard on it though and I'm so excited to have a HAED finished!!! What a great feeling. Of course I already have another one in the process and 1 I want to start soon. I've decided I will have a large one and a quick stitch going. I think I will do a month rotation on each one. I'll have to see what happens. That way I make progress on each one. It was so neat to finish this piece with all my local stitching friends. They whooped and yelled for me and one lady even videoed it so I could relive the moment over and over. Then I started a new piece that I found in a magazine and finished it Sunday. Here is the pic of it...

I just had to do this one of course haha. If you know me at all you know I love my doggies!!! Well I'm going to try to keep up more. Now my life should be settling down. At least I really really hope it does.

Starting Home

2011-10-27T14:58:00.000-04:00

Today we started the trip home. Mom had a really hard time saying Good Bye to the ocean. Yesterday we went out on a boat to see dolphins. It was fantastic! We got right up close and personal with them.I took some video and will add it to my facebook when I finally get home. We made it to Wytheville, VA. We are planning on being home Saturday.

PALs Retreat

2011-10-23T12:40:00.000-04:00

Well so much for keeping updated. We've just been doing too much stuff. We've went to the Aquarium, Pirate Show, shelling, shopping, and who knows what else. I also survived my first PALs retreat. I was so nervous Wednesday. Mom was picking on me. I finally got up the courage to go over. Kathy from Ohio showed up and I've met her two times in the past so I felt like at least I knew someone. Thursday felt totally different though. I loved talking to each person and everyone was so much fun. Sue, Laura, and Teresa from ESC were there as well. I was so glad to meet them finally. It felt like we were just old friends right away. There was 60ish people that attended. The retreat was totally worth it and I would definitely suggest if you haven't been to check it out. It was worth every cent! I received so many wonderful things. I will try to take pictures when we get home. Just too much going on here. Yes we are still in Myrtle Beach. It's such a fun area we are staying some extra days. We are going to leave here probably Thursday. We have a few more things we really want to check out.

Anyway the picture above is my progress on the Pirate Dragon. I stitched over 1,700 stitches during the retreat. As you can see there is only that square left to finish! I can't believe the end is really in sight. The ladies said I have to bring it back next year framed. They all want to see it finished just like I do haha.

Day 1 of Myrtle Beach Trip

2011-10-14T16:05:00.000-04:00

Here we are on the road again. We hit the road at 7am. We headed through Ohio which by the way is a huge state. We made it to....

Tomorrow we will have another 7 hour drive to get to Myrtle Beach. The drive was really uneventful. We did have a few rain drops. Also my stupid stomach acted up the whole day. So mad getting my gall bladder out didn't fix my issues. Oh well such is life. We stopped at Shoney's for lunch. It was quick. Then we stopped at a place we've stopped at before while on this route...

The building is called the Tamarack. It's very HIGH priced stuff. I found some cross stitching for sale for $750!!! It wasn't anything special either. I couldn't believe it. So we didn't buy anything just stared haha. I showed Jeremiah something and told him it was 299 and he thought I meant 2.99. When I explained it he was shocked. We ate dinner here. I had a delicious tuna sandwich. We came out and started the hotel hunt. Just around the corner was a Holiday Inn so we pulled in. No rooms. Next...a Country Inn and Suites. We have liked them before so we tried it out. We got the last room. Now we are relaxing. Jeremiah has his DS and is playing his new game. I'm talking to Fred on yahoo messenger and talking to myself haha.

Camping is Over

2011-10-11T15:18:00.000-04:00

Wow what a fantastic couple of weekends I've had. So first was going north and camping. We headed up to Dunes State Park in Northern Indiana. We decided to not take Jeremiah because the forecast sounded cold and damp. It ended up a little chilly and it did rain a few times on and off but overall we had a blast. The only bad thing that happened was really really funny. We were sitting by the fire with a bunch of friends and we noticed a raccoon trying to get into our trash. We put the trash can away to keep it from getting into trouble. Then we were all sitting there and heard the cooler open and close. We flipped on our flashlights to find a coon running up the nearby tree with a bad of our meatballs we had planned to cook haha. Here is the picture of the thief.

It very happily sat up in the tree and ate the whole bag. Ornery little critter. We seen several more Saturday at the picnic. I can't believe how tame these little creatures were. Several friends and us had a great time bonding and enjoyed a lot of laughs.

The following weekend we had camping at Missinewa Campground. Unfortunately it was very cold and VERY windy. We still had a very nice time. Jeremiah had a blast. He got a TON of candy during the trick or treating hours. He dressed up like a zombie pirate. I will get a picture loaded when I finally get them off the camera haha. It was a lovely weekend with family.

The following weekend we had friends come here to our house. We ended up having 18 people and 8 tents in our yard. My Grandpa and Grandma even surprised me with a pop up visit. I was really shocked. Here is a picture of our tent city...

The HUGE tent is ours. Jeremiah had 4 other boys in the house. Oh my goodness 5 boys can really have a lot of fun. One time I came to take a peek and you couldn't see the carpet they had so many toys out haha. The only other issue was the HEAT which was really hard to believe cause the weekend before camping was so cold. We SWEAT this time. I simply can't believe how close I have got to these friends. I don't even think the word friends works any more. They are family. We got everything put away on Sunday and I had to rearrange the house to have living space again haha. I was ready to crash.

Here we are a few days later and I'm still tired. I still keep having thoughts about how amazing my friends are and how lucky I am. I thank my stars for each one of them and just smile when I think of them. We have grown so close it seems this past year. Now I have a few days to relax and pack again. This time we are hitting the road to head to South Carolina. Mom, Betty, Jeremiah and I are going on vacation. Poor Fred has to stay home and work. He is also the hired dog sitter/house sitter. I will miss him but luckily we have spent a lot of wonderful time together lately. So the next time you will hear from me is the vacation posts.

Exchanges Received

2011-09-20T10:20:00.000-04:00

The top picture is a beautiful pillow I received from Kim. I love it very much. She felt bad cause it took awhile to get to me but I don't mind at all cause now I get to enjoy this wonderful pillow. The bottom picture is my purple goodies I received from Pam. I love everything in the box! If you know me I love FUZZY socks so it was too cool to get new purple even fuzzy socks. Also I love the frog kit and can't wait to stitch it up. I love joining in these exchanges with ESC my FAVORITE yahoo group.

Where is time going??

2011-09-19T12:48:00.000-04:00

Wow. I'm not saying Sorry....Okay I'm sorry for not updating. We started school and then my busy season started. I blinked and missed a WHOLE lot of weeks. I might find time in November! School is going fantastic! Jeremiah is working hard. 8th grade is going smoothly. If you follow me on facebook you can follow a lot more about me of course. I made a promise to Jeremiah this year that we would do a craft once a week. So far I've followed through. 3 weeks down and 3 crafts down. We did a painted sun catcher, a beaded ship sun catcher, an awesome flag project out of sticks. Today we just did our 4th week one which is a mosaic dragon picture.

Camping season has started. We went to the Geocaching Fall Picnic. Jeremiah had a BLAST! I'm so lucky to have the friends I have in my life. What I can't imagine is life without geocaching. It's brought so many fantastic people into my life. This coming weekend we have another camping adventure. Following that is camping with my dad. Then we are having friends over to our house for a camping in the yard adventure. Then I'm leaving for Myrtle Beach. I'm attending the PALs retreat for my first time. Plus we extended the time there and made it our family vacation. Fred doesn't get to come but he understands. No extra vacation time to do everything. I swear I wish he had a few months worth of vacation time then it might work haha. When I get back from that vacation I have a few days till I leave for my local stitching retreat. See why I said I'm busy? In the middle days I have a house to take care of and a son to home school. LOL

Here is what we did this weekend

We took down several trees that just weren't healthy anymore. 3 pine trees, 3 large trees, several dead branches, and who knows what else. We have a ton of wood for our party now haha. It was A LOT of work! Jeremiah loved it cause he was in charge of the mower and taking loads to the brush pile. My arms hurt so bad from throwing and picking up limbs.

Sunday Fred went to a radio fox hunt. I'm so glad he loves his hobby. He had a great time. I forced myself to stay off the computer and watch old TV shows on the DVR. By the way I have no idea how I survived without a DVR in the past!! OHHH I also forgot to tell you our TV broke!! So we looked into fixing it and found out it was just $30 more to fix another TV we had. This one is HD and OMG How did I live with the old TV??? So now I got to watch my HD shows in ACTUAL HD. It's a HUGE difference. So I sat down and caught up on a bunch of stuff cause the new tv season is starting soon and you know I'm a TV ADDICT!! So anyway this translates into a lot of stitching time too. Here is the progress on my HAED Pirate Dragon.

I finished page 7!!! I only have 8 which is really a half page and then 9 which is a little page!! The end is so near. I can't believe it! Of course it will take me forever to do the rest of the little bit left haha. I'm dying to have a HAED finished though! I have another one in WIP stage that I would love to finish but it's a Yeah Right Katie in 50 years kind of project. Plus I broke down and bought another one that I will never finish!!! LOL I'm totally insane!

Update and 3 finishes

2011-08-25T07:55:00.000-04:00

Wow I swear I have such good intentions about updating this blog and just totally let it go. Oh well here I am now. So the tooth came out against it's wishes. The doc started by giving me 5!!!! freaking shots in the jaw. Then he started twisting and twisting and the tooth fought back. So needless to say my jaw hurt for several days. The worst part is I cried worse than a 2 year old. I think I was just fed up with everything plus it HURT. But Jeremiah told me it was okay cause we all deserve to cry sometimes. I think today I'm finally pain free!!

Last weekend on Saturday we had a geocaching lunch. It was the 6 year anniversary of a bunch of us becoming friends. I'm so thankful I've met each one of them and can't wait to spend more fun times with them. We grabbed 28 caches and just talked and had a blast. Plus we walked more than 2 miles so my legs hurt haha on top of everything lately. This one was an okay pain cause it means we had fun. This Saturday we are getting together again. This time we are going up north to visit them and probably do a lot more walking haha.

So during this time I've had 3 stitching finishes. I am going to the PALs Retreat in October. I wanted to join in the exchanges. They are having a Fall/Halloween Exchange, Stitched Exchange, and an Ornament Exchange. So I stitched up one thing for each exchange. They are finished and now I don't have to hurry to get them done during these next few busy months. Here are the pics...

The pictures show the back and front of the designs. I've also been getting the school room ready. We are starting Tuesday after Labor Day. Got all the books out and organized. This year looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. The history book is setup like newspapers. You get one for each week. They are setup like a real newspaper from the time you are studying each week. I can't wait to start cause my brain is going to explode with ideas haha. Jeremiah is even excited which is great! I just CAN'T believe it's 8th grade!!! Well I would say I'll update soon but who knows haha. Hope everyone is enjoying life. It's too short not to!

A lot going on.

2011-08-15T13:57:00.001-04:00

This about sums it up haha. Wow what a ride the last few weeks have been. Let's see if I can explain it all.

In April I went to the ER (of course $700 for that!). The doc didn't really know what was going on but blamed it on a bladder infection. Called my doctor to follow up. Had to wait till July to go see her. We did a bunch of tests and what not. Had a few tests come back with what could be bad news so more tests. Found out no cancer but no real answers either. Just what I didn't have. During this time I had two more "attacks" like the night I went to the ER. August starts I have another bad "attack" so mom takes me the ER. (Can't wait for that bill included a CT Scan) This time don't really find answers but hint at getting my gall bladder looked at. Call doctor and she rushes an Ultrasound. Yep find out my gall bladder needs out and quickly. Schedule surgery. Surgery over. Healing starts.

Eating a snack that I finally feel up to eating and SHATTER a back tooth. Great! I HATE dentists. Wake up next morning to jaw pain. Call Dentist Schedule Appointment. Go in to the dentist to find out I have a MAJOR infection in my jaw and gums. Tooth will come out but not till we get infection under control.

So now the waiting continues to get the tooth out. I get it pulled Wednesday. I just can't believe everything that hit all at once. Of course the back to school bills are at the same time. Oh well I keep looking at the positives....At least they found something to explain the pain. I can pay the minimums which so far aren't killing me. I'm so lucky to have my family. I've been so taken care of and loved and the messages from my friends just make me smile. How can I be sad with friends like what I have? So I'm taking one day at a time and I will make it through this. It could always be a hell of a lot worse!!!

Stitching Update

2011-07-18T11:57:00.000-04:00

2 finishes and a WIP. I really should update this blog more often. I always wait and then have a TON to talk about haha.

First off I was looking at blogs and happened upon this freebie. It really screamed Stitch Me for whatever reason so I kitted it up and away I went. I had this red aida on hand and Fred helped me pick out a DMC that popped. We decided on DMC 3053. I really love how it turned out. I've made several types of biscornu but this cube was really fun. I enjoyed the effect of the lines. I found a cute little button and topped it off. I didn't get to enjoy it for long my mom stole it and put it on her shelf haha. This is a picture of the top and bottom.

One time I was shopping at my favorite LNS House of Stitches I found this too cute kit from Pine Mountain. I have a friend that I hoped would LOVE it so I grabbed it. I will wait to explain more until after my friend gets it but here is a picture....I really love how it turned out.

Last week I was out shopping and found another cute kit with one of my mom's favorite saying on it. So I just had to grab it. I replaced the Aida in the kit to a piece of evenweave I had on hand. Here is what it will look like finished and my WIP as of today....

Mom loves beads so I changed the inside border to an assortment of different colored beads. I think it adds a lot to it. Well that's my update. Next week on Wednesday we leave for our GeoBash camping weekend. It's a crazy party and we can't wait!!! Hope everyone is doing great!!!

Smokies Piece

2011-07-05T12:08:00.000-04:00

I bought this piece while we were on our 10th Anniversary Trip to Gatlinburg, TN. I really love how it turned out.I changed it up a little. They had the little bear button down under the mountain part but I thought you could see it easier over in the words. Then I added when we were there. I'm going to take it to my LNS and have it framed cause it's special and I won't do it justice myself haha.

Update

2011-06-23T14:52:00.001-04:00

Again with the busy busy. The camping weekend at Friendship was fantastic. It rained off and on the whole time but it was such a great time. I'm so lucky to have the family I have. We had fun even in the pouring rain. The memories we made will last forever.

Yesterday I finally had time to finish my June ornament. It's another Mill Hill kit. I decided not to cut it out anymore cause of how unstable it becomes. This can be a little magnet. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it but it's finished! So far I've kept up with doing the ornaments every month. I'm really enjoying this alot. Well who knows when I'll update again. Just so busy busy busy!!!

A lot going on.

2011-06-13T11:14:00.000-04:00

Wow a lot has been going on. Fred and me went on a trip for our 10th anniversary. We wanted to just escape somewhere. I found this perfect chalet in Gatlinburg, TN called Escape to a View. We had the most perfect time. I'm so lucky to have Fred in my life. He's my soul mate and I'm so much more in love with him today. If you are friends with me on facebook I have a bunch of photo's on there.

This past weekend we headed up to Hamilton they were having a city wide garage sale. Last year there was like 75 sales. This year there was only 40 so that was disappointing but we had a nice time. On the way up we seen along the road they had a monster truck show setup. So on the way back we stopped to see about it. It had started so we ran home to get Jeremiah and Fred. We had a blast. It was so funny cause we sure wasn't planning on the show. Here are some pictures from it.

Jeremiah was able to ride in one in the top picture. The bottom picture is hilarious. The tires are so huge that they can float. So they went out onto the lake and floated. It was so neat. There was 6 and the people running the show said that broke a record for them. One of the trucks had 8 HUGE tires on it. We really enjoyed the show.

Yesterday we did a ton of outdoor work. We uncovered our pool. When we started we noticed that the cover was full of tadpoles. So I grabbed a few to bring inside. Hopefully we'll get to watch them change. We put down a bunch of mulch, cut down some dead limbs, mowed, trimmed, etc etc haha. Jeremiah drove the mower to the pull the wagon for the first time by himself. Most the time he wants to sit on someone's lap but he did it all on his own.

This coming weekend we get to go camping again. Some of my family and us are going down to Friendship Indiana. They have a HUGE flea market thing down there. We are really looking forward to it. I was younger than Jeremiah last time I went. Well at least I stole some time to update. I'm sure I missed a bunch of things that have been going on.

Update

2011-05-24T11:10:00.001-04:00

At the Spring Retreat this year the hostess gave this design to us. I finally got around to stitching it. This is the front and back of the piece. I used Weeks threads Purple Haze and Mulberry that I received in my exchange at the retreat. I used DMC 550 to outline and stitch the pillow together. Funny thing happened with the date on the back. I got all finished and showed it to hubby. We both laughed cause I had put 2012 on it. We were watching the movie and I guess it stuck in my head. So I unstitched it and got the right date in finally. Hubby said I was rushing to get a finish in for next year. By the way this pillow is very little. It measures 5 inches long and 1 1/2 inches tall. I love this finish and it's just a perfect way to display this little finish.

I also have a quick fob to share that I received in ESC bday card exchange. Mylene did a GORGEOUS job on this fob and I will definitely cherish it. The requirement was to send a card and two floss. Yet I receive this adorable FOB. Thank you very much Mylene.

May Ornament

2011-05-19T16:49:00.001-04:00

Today I decided to start my May Ornament. I found this design I had printed out. It says Seba Designs Diamond Ornament. I can't find it online anymore though. My Grandmother loves blue so I used some light blue aida I found at a garage sale. Used DMC 820 and 3078. I used this online tutorial for how to make the ornament. I really enjoyed the finishing and will definitely use this technique more in the future.

Bday Camping Weekend

2011-05-16T11:24:00.000-04:00

This weekend was our first camping trip of the year. Just happened to fall on my birthday which is fantastic. What a way to celebrate than with family and friends. It's our Indiana Spring Picnic with geocaching friends that we attended. This year it was at Prophetstown State Park in Battle Ground, Indiana. It's a beautiful park. My step mom, dad, Gma and Gpa joined us. The picture is from the picnic Saturday. Just a few of us there haha. The weather was supposed to be horrible the whole weekend. Thursday we broke a record for heat here at home. A friend got to the campground and posted it was 91!!! I really couldn't imagine sitting up the tent in that heat. Luckily by the time we got there it started raining real lightly so it cooled things down quickly. It rained most the night but we stayed dry in our new nice tent. Everyone else got there Friday and we really lucked out cause severe storms were north and south of us. We didn't get any rain until Saturday night at dark. Then it light rained the rest of the time. But I'll take it cause the rest of the time was gorgeous. Jeremiah had so much fun playing with his friends. I feel so lucky to have the friends I have. Plus the family. What a great reminder of how blessed I am. Now I just have to recover haha. It's so funny needing a vacation from a vacation.

One side thought unfortunately my Grandma Faust is having health issues again. She had pain and called my mom to come down on Friday. She was taken to the ER and they found out her gallbladder needs taken out. She had several gall stones in her bile tract too. They took those out yesterday so her pain has eased a lot. Her 88th bday is today and she is in the hospital getting surgery. So if you can spare any prayers or good wishes we would appreciate it. I hope she can bounce back and be back to normal as soon as possible.

Pirate Dragon Update

2011-04-25T16:40:00.000-04:00

Well it's not the best photo but it's an update. I did some research on more information about this piece. I started it in October 2007! Can't believe it's been that long. I now have 29,615 stitches in. Only 18,300 left to do. So I'm over half done. Guess that's 62% complete. Of course I didn't work on this nonstop from then to now. It's been an off and on piece. I still love working on it just as much today as the day I started it.

Jeremiah had his birthday party over the weekend. It went very nice. My dad and step mom got a party at their local bowling alley. Jeremiah had so much fun bowling. He got a nice telescope and a lot of $. Of course he is already planning on blowing it haha. We are giving him his presents tomorrow on his actual birthday. His cake was so neat. We told Jeni (my step mom's sister in law) we would love a WWE Wrestling cake. She did an absolutely gorgeous job. We were so impressed. Actually it was really really hard to cut into it and eat some. Here is a picture of his cake.

After we got home Fred and I took the dogs to a local park. I found out my dog needs to lose weight. So I've been working her really hard. On May 5th she goes back to the vet and she has to have lost some weight. Cross your fingers for her please. They had a blast running at the park and I'm sure it was really great on Fred and I to get the exercise too but we won't mention that part haha.

Then Sunday was Easter. So we headed down to Grandma Faust's for dinner. We had a very nice meal. Jeremiah got some more $ to add to his fire in his pocket haha. Then we headed home. What a busy fun filled weekend.

Now we are getting rain rain and some more rain. Told Jeremiah maybe we should start building a boat just in case haha. I hope this reaches everyone doing good. Thanks for stopping by.

April Ornament

2011-04-18T12:18:00.000-04:00

Friday I started my April Ornament. Picked this cute design out of the Just Cross Stitch 2010 Ornament Issue. This is my first time trying this Frayed Pillow finish. I pulled it off. It's crooked but who cares haha. Didn't add a hanger cause I knew I would just sit him in a basket or lean him up on something.

My baby boy is turning 13 on the 26th. We are having a bday party for him this Saturday. He is looking forward to it. Instead of the arcade we always get we are renting a bowling alley. So I hope he enjoys it. The big kids were just getting too big for the ball pit. I'll make sure to get a lot of pictures. I just CAN'T believe he is going to be 13. He said it's his goal to prove everyone wrong though. He is going to be a nice teenager. I told him I really hope so haha.

Spring Retreat

2011-04-11T12:16:00.000-04:00

My local group Hoosier Stitchers had the Spring Retreat this past weekend. It was at Camp Rivervale which is south of Bloomington. It's a church camp. We had such a fantastic time. I got there Thursday. I worked on a WIP I had been working on. Here is a picture of it.

I don't have much more to do. The last part says Enter in case you didn't figure that out. Friday I pulled out my HAED Pirate Dragon. With the Treasure Dragon screaming Stitch Me I haven't worked on the Pirate Dragon in I don't know how long. Here is where it started...

Friday I got 400 stitches in. Here is the picture as of Saturday morning...

Saturday I got 400 stitches in as well. It was my goal for the day. Here is my progress...

Sunday I woke up and knew I only had a few hours. I thought about packing up and then realized if I worked really hard and got 200 stitches in I would have done 1,000 stitches total which just seemed fantastic. So I sat down and really worked hard.....

So I got a total of 1,000 stitches! I was so happy with myself. Too bad I can't make that much progress every weekend. I would actually finish this soon haha. I think I'll try a monthly thing which my HAEDs. I will try to work on Pirate Dragon this month and then Treasure Dragon next month. Maybe that will help me get progress on both. I'll also work on some little things in there too. I need to start on my April ornament some time soon. But right now the Pirate Dragon is screaming at me haha. I feel so motivated after spending the weekend with my lovely Hoosier Stitchers. I really got to know so many new ladies this time. I appreciate it so much. Each one of us is so different and yet cross stitching brings us together. I'm very thankful to be part of the group. Now I just have to wait till the Fall Retreat....Is it time yet?

Weekend Update

2011-04-04T08:05:00.000-04:00

I just can't believe it is April already. I swear time just never slows down for even a second. My grandmother's procedure went perfect. She was back home in less than 24 hours. I'm so happy cause I had this weird feeling and I was so glad it was over. She said her foot already feels warmer than it has in months so evidently it really opened up her circulation.

Saturday we headed off to hit a sale in a town nearby. Mom has been there last year and got a ton of stuff for her business. When we got there no one was there. We found out it's next weekend. Nothing like getting a head start right? LOL So it ended up being a relaxing day. I spent too much time on Facebook as always haha. I love Frontierville but it's so addictive. Sunday Mom, Jeremiah, and me headed off to Decatur. They have a flea market the first Sunday of every month. We joked about it probably being moved to the 2nd with our luck but it was there. We got 6 bags worth of stuff for mom's business. So we said It's official the start of the 2011 buying season haha. Then we headed down to visit Grandma. She is doing great. Tired but hey at 87 you get the right to be tired I think! Last night we had a wrestling pay per view. It was the big one Wrestlemania. It was mixed...Good endings and horrible endings. Jeremiah said it was worth being excited over though haha.

This week will probably go quickly. Today is laundry and getting food ready for my weekend retreat. I'm going to get it in the freezer today then I can work on other stuff this week. I HAVE to go get new glasses. These are killing my eyes and by night I'm getting head aches and my eyes really are sore. So hopefully Tuesday or Wednesday I can get them. Thursday I head to my retreat. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends and relaxing the weekend away in my PJ pants.

Real Spring Exchange

2011-03-28T15:32:00.000-04:00

So after stealing the last pillow I stitched I needed to pick out another one for my partner. I got to looking at her wish list and it said she liked amish type patterns. When I seen this pattern I thought of country and of Spring. So I hope my partner likes it. It was a fun quick stitch. I started it Friday and finished it up yesterday. The back has my name and date on it. The pattern was from a Leisure Arts Leaflet Bathroom Collections (#410 if you need to know).

We had a nice weekend. Saturday morning we had a geocaching breakfast to go to. There were probably 40 of us there. It was a very nice turn out and a lovely meal. After that Fred went to a radio event and Mom, Jeremiah and me got our hair cut. Jeremiah said the lady scratched him and when we got home I noticed a mark on his neck. I was very angry but I'm too darn nice to complain. Plus my hair was not near as short as I had asked for. Mom gave me the receipt and told me to go back and complain. I laughed and said We both know when I got there I would smile and say I came in to say Thanks. LOL I need to get meaner haha. After that we had a nice relaxing weekend. We watched a bunch of movies. Fred and I finally watched The Last Exorcism. It was really really weird. We hated the ending. We watched several Sci Fi channel movies cause it was Horror films and they are my FAVORITE. So I got a lot of resting and stitching done. This week my Grandma Faust is going in my a procedure on her leg. Please keep her in your thoughts. She is very special and I always worry about something happening to her.

Spring Exchange?

2011-03-25T12:48:00.001-04:00

So I joined in a Spring Exchange with ESC. I found this cute little freebie at Kreinik's website. She just looked perfect for the Spring theme. I decided to really modify the pattern though. I didn't have any of the required Kreinik on hand. I switched it around also so not to have as many color changes. Plus I added the beads. I just thought they gave it more pop. I started stitching it and was really happy with how it was looking. Last night I finished it and was so excited at how perfect the little pillow came out too. Then I realized I was in LOVE. I told Fred and Jeremiah I had fallen for it and just couldn't mail it away. Jeremiah said Keep it then. So today I picked out another design to stitch for my partner. How horrible is that? This poor little bird just didn't want to fly away that's for sure haha.

Jeremiah giggled and said I better not do that with the next one too. Plus actually I like the design I picked for Kim better. Maybe this little bird jumped out at me for me and not for the exchange haha. Now I get to start the new pillow. I just keep laughing at myself. What a dork.

March Ornament

2011-03-21T14:33:00.001-04:00

Finished my March ornament finally. This one Fred picked out. Why am I not surprised he picked Naughty? It was a Mill Hill kit. I really enjoy stitching these but they do seem to take some time. I'm just happy cause this means I have finished all the months so far so I'm keeping up with our group challenge. Plus this one is a finished finish so that is extra great. We get put into a monthly give away for finishing and then a year give away if we finish all the ornaments. So far I'm doing great.

Treasure Dragon Update

2011-02-28T12:18:00.000-05:00

I finished another column on the Treasure Dragon last night. So I figured an update was needed. This is 5,880 stitches in. Here is the picture of what it will look like finished again. This isn't a very good picture. Sometimes it's really hard to capture the right picture. I still LOVE working on this one. After vacation and finishing the Feb ornament I couldn't wait to get back to it. Now I get to start the last column on this page. Then I'll have a finished page. Hopefully the next picture comes out better.

Over the weekend we had a lot of fun. We have been into WWE wrestling for over a year now. They finally came back to Fort Wayne and we got tickets for us for Christmas. Anyway the show was Saturday night and it was a total blast. We were 6 rows back and we couldn't believe how close we were to our favorite superstars. We just kept saying Wow! Jeremiah said he's had a lot of Christmas presents in his young life but this was his favorite. Fred even caught a shirt that was thrown. Jeremiah said it was all sweaty so we should wash it first haha. We all just keep saying we can't believe we were actually there. It was amazing to be in the same room as them and most of them looked even cuter in person haha.

Home Sweet Home

2011-02-25T10:12:00.000-05:00

Wow! I was going to blog everyday on vacation. To keep up with what we did. Then.....we got so busy and was having way too much fun. I missed a few days and then realized it was a lost cause. To sum up vacation We had a blast! The ocean was gorgeous the weather was perfect. Mostly we ate and ate and ate. Jeremiah probably gained 20 pounds haha. We was able to go on a dolphin trip to see dolphins. Of course I was so caught up in their beauty I didn't get a picture. We also went to a car show that was neat. Jeremiah enjoyed it very much. The drive home was perfect. No weather that caused problems for us. We heard the day before at home was bad weather but we picked the perfect day to come home. Then last night we got another snow storm. So we really picked a good day. Plus they are getting tornadoes and stuff down in Alabama.

I didn't find much time at all to stitch on vacation. I think I put in about 10 stitches. But last night I finished my Feb ornament. Just in the nick of time right? Here is the picture...

Mom picked this one out. It was a nice quick finish after I actually had time and good lighting to stitch. I'm so glad to be home and looking forward to tomorrow. We have been watching WWE wrestling with my son for a little over a year. They are coming to Fort Wayne to have a show and we are going. Jeremiah can't wait!

3rd Night in Orange Beach

2011-02-13T20:44:00.001-05:00

This morning Jeremiah and I slept it. It felt great. Mom and Betty headed down to the beach and Jeremiah and I stayed upstairs. Jeremiah took a nice long bath and we ate breakfast in the condo. When mom and Betty got back we all got dressed and hit the road. Lambert's Cafe is down here and it is an experience everyone should have. I know they have a few other restaurants too. We headed there for lunch. They throw these HUGE rolls across the room to you. It's too funny. Mom caught one from a bit away. Jeremiah was laughing so hard. The food is unbelievable. We walked over to the gift shop cause Fred wanted a new coffee cup. Jeremiah picked one out and the lady at the counter said the manager called and told her she would cover whatever Jeremiah wanted. I said Huh? She said it's free. I was like Um Okay. Jeremiah said Thanks I got my daddy a new cup. It was sweet. Not only great food but GREAT people. Then we came back to the condo for a quick stop before heading back out. We went down to Florida (which sounds so far away but it was only like 15 mins). We walked out to a different beach. Jeremiah built a sand castle and had a blast playing. Mom and I found several shells. We came back to the condo for a rest. We brought a lot of games so Jeremiah and I played Skip-bo. I love that game. I was trying to make it so Jeremiah would win and I accidentally won haha. He had fun though. Then mom was being all cocky about beating me.....I whopped her TWICE. haha. Then we went across the road to Bubba's. They were having a band and Jeremiah really enjoyed that a lot. The whole place was full of old folks and they were dancing and acting like kids. It was fun to watch. The food unfortunately wasn't good but we are lucky we have had so much good food already. Now we are back resting. It's a week from today that we start the trip home and I'm already getting home sick. I really really miss my sweet husband and of course my little dog.

2nd night in Alabama

2011-02-12T19:30:00.001-05:00

We slept very good. The sound of the ocean was right outside our bedroom window. What a lovely sound. I figured all night dolphins were probably jumping way up out of the water and I just couldn't see them haha. This morning we hit the road for a day full of fun. We went down to the Best Western hotel. They have a wonderful breakfast restaurant called Pancake House. It was really great. Except for communication issues. I ordered vanilla milk for Jeremiah (you know not chocolate) she brought a Starbucks weird something or other. I said something and she said Ohhh white milk? I laughed and told Jeremiah cause chocolate milk would be that brown milk haha. Then we went to two flea markets. One was so scary only mom and me got out. It was too funny. Then we went to another one. It had alot of stuff but nothing that screamed buy me. We came back to town to do some shopping. They have this neat store with a huge shark you walk through to shop. Last time we were down here we got a bunch of hermit crabs. This time we resisted the urge haha. They are a lot of work to keep alive. Jeremiah found some sand toys. I found some new croc shoes that are tye dye color. I thought they were a great deal so I grabbed a pair and found out they were buy one get one free. Then we walked over to another store and finally found some shirts. If you aren't under XL I guess they don't think you need clothes haha. I got Fred 3, Me 3, j 3, mom got 3 and betty got one. We had to leave Jeremiah for payment but they are worth it haha. We hit Sea and Suds for lunch. It's right on one the water and has delicious sandwiches. We seen some workers working on the beaches. I asked the waitress about it and she said they are still seeing some tar balls and the workers check every couple of days. She asked where we were from and we talked for a bit. On the way out this little old couple asked me where we were from exactly. I said Fort Wayne and they said them too. So we had a nice chat. We stopped at a local grocery store to get a few things. Then Jeremiah couldn't wait to break in his new sand toys. So we came back and headed down to the sand. Jeremiah built a bunch of stuff. Mom and I found several nice shells. The weather is getting warmer every day. We came back up and headed out to dinner at Hazel's. By then I was done so we headed back to the condo. Wow what a busy day! This is only day 2 here too. Wow!

We are Here

2011-02-11T21:57:00.001-05:00

If you say Ocean to my mom she really goes fast haha. We called our condo last night and asked if we could get in a day early. They said No Problem. So we hit the road at about 9am. We had no problems today. One neat thing about coming south is the different wild life. Along the side of Indiana roads you see deer, raccoon, and that kind of stuff. Today we seen a few dead deer but then an armadillo!! What a cute little creature. We ate at Lulu's for lunch. She is Jimmy Buffet's sister. It was a very nice restaurant. Then we thought it might be best to wash the van real quick. Our blueish van was a nice shade of grey and white haha. All the snow and dirt we hit between here and home. We got the keys to our condo and found our way here. We are staying at a unit called Shorewater. Last time we stayed at Bluewater. This unit is a little smaller but will work just fine. All the matters is the ocean is outside haha. We ran out to the deck of course. Right off the beach into the water were about 20 dolphins playing. They were saying Hi Katie Welcome back. I LOVE dolphins. It was so neat to see them already. We unloaded everything. I found out instead of the paid internet they said I would have it is free wifi which is always nice. We went out to dinner and went to one of my fav restaurants down here called Live Bait. They have DELICIOUS crab legs. I ate way too much of course haha. Jeremiah ate like a pig too. Vacation is good on his appetite. Now we are back relaxing from the trip here. Mom did fantastic driving! We only had the issue in Nashville really. No other problems. Now the fun can really start. We already found two shells. The weather is getting warmer every day according to the forecast so we are really ready for a nice time.

Trip to Alabama Night #2

2011-02-10T19:22:00.001-05:00

We hit the road about 9am this morning. We were really worried about the roads cause we seen on the weather that there was a lot of snow south of us. We were doing great until Nashville. It's amazing to us that they just don't know how to take care of the roads. They had large street signs saying how icy the roads were and to be careful. Then the sun came out and it actually got warm. Fred said it was -11 at home today. So when it was 34 it felt pretty good. I even went into lunch with no jacket. The lady in there said Is it warming up outside? I said For Us Yes Definitely! Today's eating out sucked. We had Pizza Hut for lunch and then Wendy's for dinner. Not exactly what we wanted haha. We really got farther than we thought today. We were all glad to stop. Tomorrow we are going to head to Orange Beach. The ocean will finally be in our sights.

Trip to Alabama Night #1

2011-02-09T20:02:00.001-05:00

We hit the road at about 8am this morning. How sad is it that I cried when I was leaving the dog? So sad! I just love her a little bit haha. We had no issues until right before we stopped for the night. We made it around Indy with no problems. We stopped for the mandatory must be on vacation lunch at Crackle Barrel haha. Even made it around Louisville. It just started to sprinkle snow when we were thinking of stopping. We found out it was a good thing we stopped when we did. South of here they are getting quite a bit of snow. Just an inch here. We are in Elizabethtown Kentucky. We found a Comfort Suites. Since the four of us share a room it is really nice cause it has the living area with a couch and what not.

Beside our hotel is a Texas Roadhouse. We have one at home and knew we liked their food. So we hung out for a little bit and went to eat dinner. We got there at the perfect time. No wait. The food was great. The waiter was funny and Jeremiah accused me of flirting. I said there is a big difference between flirting and having fun being idiots haha. When we came out the van had a nice cover of snow and we did notice it was slick. Luckily it was just a parking lot away from our hotel. Now we are in for the night. Hope we don't have too much trouble tomorrow with that snow south of us. We will go as far as we can.

Snow Day

2011-02-03T12:33:00.000-05:00

Like most everyone else we got hit by a snow storm. Our weather guy said 8.7 inches. It's gorgeous. I took just a few pictures. I know a lot of people have a lot more but I'm in love. Yesterday hubby even got a snow day from work. They issued a level one warning which in our county means you can get a ticket for being on the road. So we all stayed inside and played Wii together.

Now the weather can get better cause next Wednesday we leave for Alabama. I don't want to get stuck somewhere between here and there haha. I'm looking forward to the 60's instead of today's 17. Tonite we are supposed to have wind chills over -20. Hope everyone is staying safe and warm.

Treasure Dragon Update

2011-01-24T09:51:00.000-05:00

Here is my new update of Treasure Dragon. I got ALOT added even if it doesn't look like it. I have 4,320 stitches in now.You can look back here to see what it will look like finished. According to my last count I've done 1,919 more stitches. Wow! I'm still up in the tip top corner. I just love watching it grow larger and larger.

I also have to say I'm so glad I blog. I don't care if others like it or not I love it haha. We were talking as a family and were trying to remember this restaurant we went to while on vacation. I looked back through my blog and found where it was. I love that. It's so much fun to look back and see what you said and what you have done. I of course love it if you enjoy reading what's on my crazy mind. That's an extra bonus I guess haha. It's a funny world we live in that we can care about strangers we have met online isn't it?

Treasure Dragon Update

2011-01-10T09:48:00.000-05:00

Finally here I am with a HAED Treasure Dragon update. Here is what it will look like finished.

Below is my progress as of this morning. This is 2,401 stitches in. I am trying a new parking method and it is really working well for me. It's hard to explain but rather than go row by row and park I go in blocks of hundreds and park. It really helps cut down the time spent switching threads. I just love each stitch that goes in. I love how it looks already and it's only a dark corner of the picture.

First Finish

2011-01-05T11:12:00.000-05:00

I have my first stitching finish this year. In ESC we are doing an Ornament a month. I put several out for Jeremiah to pick which one to stitch. He picks skunks haha. It's from a booklet called Christmas Ornaments by Leisure Arts. There are so many nice ornaments in this booklet. Jeremiah said I did a great job cause I was only supposed to have it finished by the end of the month. Now I can get back to working on my HAED Treasure Dragon. I'll try to remember to post and update on that piece soon.

Starting a New Year

2011-01-03T06:10:00.000-05:00

Here it is. The start to another year. I remember when I was young and we thought about the year 2000. We were sure we would never make it cause we would be so "old". Now here we are in 2011!! Jeremiah keeps saying Remember Mom the world is ending next year. Remind me not to let him watch movies anymore haha.

So 2010 was an okay year. No real complaints I guess. For some reason though I'm really excited about starting fresh and new with this year. We have a lot of little trips and what not planned. I always love that. Having something to look forward to makes life exciting in my opinion. On the 15th we are going to Dunes. This year we are taking Jeremiah and making it a family thing. I want to do that more this year. We always do a lot of family stuff but I want to do more. I sound like a little kid don't I? I want more! LOL

As far as resolutions I hate to make them cause I don't want to sound like a broken record. Everyone says Lose Weight. Is there ever anyone that says This year I want to gain weight and be really unhealthy? Of course I would love to lose weight. Of course I would love to be more healthy. I'm going to do the best I can and that's all I can do. I already have the motto of being better today than I was yesterday. I'm going to stick to it. I'm going to keep at what makes me happy.

Stitching wise in ESC we are doing an ornament a month. I let Jeremiah pick it out this morning. I have a book of ornaments. He picked out a cute one with skunks and a tree. There is a set kinda like Noah Ark with a bunch of animals that are two in each ornament. Of course he picks the skunks first haha. I also hope to make a lot of progress on my HAEDs. Heaven and Earth Designs for those who don't know. I started a new one after Christmas. My dear hubby got me one I had wanted for a long time.

I just realized I didn't even say anything about Christmas. For crying out loud and it's already a long update. If you want to go ahead and stop reading I don't blame you haha. Christmas was wonderful. I was spoiled. Jeremiah was spoiled. It was just great. I got an Ipod Touch and have fallen in love with it. Jeremiah got several games and legos and toys and everything else from the stores haha. He was so happy with everything. His big surprise was we are going to see WWE Live. We have been watching them for over a year now and was so happy to see them coming to town so we could take Jeremiah. He can't wait. It's Feb 26th. I don't know what more to say. It was a great Christmas and I love my family dearly. Well I guess I'll finally shut up. Maybe I'll do better at updating this year.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-20T06:29:00.000-05:00

I just want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! We are really looking forward to it here. Fred and I finished our shopping on Saturday and finished our part of the wrapping on Sunday. Wow we are all so spoiled and very very lucky. I can't wait to see Jeremiah's face when he opens his stuff. He is saying a lot how he knows how lucky he is and I'm very glad.

I'm sure I won't be on for awhile cause first I have several wonderful family gatherings to attend. Then I will be having fun playing with our new things. I have one Christmas wish for everyone reading. I wish that your 2011 is everything you want/need it to be. Love you all. Thanks for reading my blog!

Merry Christmas Finish

2010-12-09T11:46:00.000-05:00

I did it. It's finished! Last night I told hubby he had to stay up just a half hour later so I could have someone to celebrate with. I'm so happy to have this one finished. It was a blast to stitch on and I really enjoyed each stitch. If you are interested in the pattern you can purchase it here. It can be mailed or even downloaded from this site. It was a joy to work on.

Now I'm going to work on some Christmas ornaments.

Merry Christmas WIP

2010-12-01T08:52:00.000-05:00

Here it is December. Wow! Where did 2010 go? It was a good year. I'm already looking forward to 2011 though. Lots of fun stuff already planned. We want to take more family camping trips. Fred and I have our 10th anniversary and we are going to Gatlinburg to celebrate. Mom mentioned going to see the ocean in Feb again. Looks pretty exciting just mentioning those few things. Never know what else will come along.

Above is my Merry Christmas update. Sometimes I think the piece is really flying. Last night it really seemed to fly. I'm really enjoying stitching it a lot. The color changes are even kinda fun haha. The backstitching really makes the piece POP. I backstitched the H last night and was just sitting there saying Wow. Hubby even said it sure makes a huge difference the before and after. Jeremiah keeps a count of how many letters I have left to do. He thinks I'll have it done before Christmas. The worst part is there is a million other pieces screaming stitch me. I have some ornaments and what not. In my favorite yahoo group we are doing an ornament SAL next year so I'm really looking forward to that too. Well I better go get stitching. The piece isn't going to finish itself. Hope everyone has a great December!

Merry Christmas WIP

2010-11-22T16:42:00.000-05:00

This is my WIP picture of the Merry Christmas piece I'm working on. The designer is Barbara Baatz. I'm using the sparkly Aida which is fun to work on. I think this one is silver cause I just don't like working on white haha.

When I got the M and E finished I told my family I was going to frame it that way cause that's what everything is really about....Me. Jeremiah said I had to keep going haha. So as you can tell I listened haha. I don't do that very often.

Snowman Ornament

2010-11-19T16:58:00.000-05:00

I found a freebie at the following site. I didn't have the form to stitch on but knew perforated paper would have the same effect. This was a fun little stitch. I finished it on the back with red sticky felt. Also included a beaded hanger with the beads used in the design. There were several other freebies from the site but this one really caught my eye and just screamed stitch me.

Now I can pick up the Merry Christmas piece again. You can see the finished piece at the follow link. Annette and Janet
(her sister) just finished this piece. It's just so beautiful in person so I had to stitch it too. I have the M finished. Let's see what this weekend brings as far as stitching time. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

On the Road with Friends

2010-11-15T08:23:00.000-05:00

Friday I had a fantastic visit with my Grandma Faust. Saturday Fred volunteered to help out at the local Ham Radio Festival. He worked from 6 till noon. Poor guy got up at 4am. When he got home him and me headed north. Our friends had a get together at their house about 2 hours away. There was 12 of us total and we had way too much fun!! We play this Jenga game and laugh the night away. It's so neat to have such wonderful friends to laugh with and share great memories. We are the same group that does the geocaching and camping together. I love each one of them and appreciate so much having them in my life. Sunday it was hard to say Good Bye which is so silly cause I know in January we will be seeing them again.

Today I'm trying to catch up and recover from the fun. My right side hurts really bad. It could be from laughing too hard haha. The Thanksgiving Holidays are coming quick. We are having mom's side here. Next week we will start the cleaning and organizing. Yet again with the busy busy of course.

Happy Dance

2010-11-09T09:46:00.000-05:00

It's finished. I started this at the stitching retreat I attended in October. Let me tell you about the design in case you are interested. This is Glendon Place's design called Words of Wisdom about Friends. The saying is too true isn't it? The grapes are 3 different shades of beads. The green leaves are done in just variegated DMC so it was a very inexpensive piece to stitch. I'm so happy to have it finished.

Saturday we did some deep cleaning in our Morton garage. It looks so much better and Fred has a work space to do some things for mom's business. Sunday Mom and I hit the stores and started our Christmas shopping. It wasn't near as bad as I thought it would be as far as busy so that's a good thing. We are almost finished now. Just a few more bits and things here and there to get. It's going to be a great Christmas and now I'm already getting excited.

This week is going to be busy as usual. This weekend we are going to a friend's house to hang out. Fred and I are really looking forward to it. We haven't seen our Northern Indiana friends in awhile so it's time to get together. Knowing me I'll forget to update before then so see ya when I do remember.

Welcome to November

2010-11-01T11:34:00.000-04:00

Well it's November already. I can't believe it. Where does time go? I've still been crazy chaotically busy. Jeremiah took a 3 week break from home school even. We had trips and trips and more trips. I went to Hoosier Stitchers fall retreat. It was fantastic. We stayed at a very nice cabin in South Bend area. It was huge! Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of people show up but we had a lovely time anyway. I got a lot of stitching done which is always nice of course. I'm trying to finish the piece by Thanksgiving and I just don't think I'm going to make it. Also I had a BLAST shopping and buying new pieces. Now they are screaming STITCH ME and making me crazy haha.

We ended up pricing 518 items from Covered Bridge for mom's business. That takes so much time. She sure has some awesome stuff though that's for sure. Fred is talking about helping out some making some wooden bird feeders and things like that.

Life is going great. Just wish it would settle a little and it will. I hope to update more in November but who knows if I will find time or not.

On the Road at Autumn Camping

2010-10-06T12:31:00.000-04:00

This time of year I swear I have no idea which way is up or down any more. I'm so busy but I really love it.

We had a family camping weekend last weekend. The Mississinewa Reservoir has a weekend called Autumn Camping weekend. Actually it got so busy they now have two. My dad's side always gets several spots and we all camp together. I think this year we had 9 spots. Jeremiah gets to trick or treat and just LOVES going every year.

This is my dad's tent setup. We just shared a tent this weekend. Good thing he had this canopy up cause it rained quite a bit on Saturday morning. Jeremiah sets up a play area we called it the Boy Cave in an enclosed snow mobile trailer. So he stayed warm and dry the whole weekend.

Jeremiah decided to dress up like John Cena this year. He is his favorite WWE wrestler. He got recognized by several people and loved it of course haha.

Evidently he had fun as soon as we got in the truck to come home this is what he did. LOL He was passed out. Even though it was cold and rainy we all had a blast. Now Friday we are leaving for yet another get away. The Covered Bridge festival is going on. So off we go to that. See busy busy busy.

On the Road at Dunes

2010-09-29T09:48:00.000-04:00

Finally stealing time to post my On the Road post. This past weekend we had a geocaching camping trip. We went to Dune's State park in northern Indiana. If you have the chance you should definitely go there. It's a gorgeous park. Fred took a half day on Friday and we headed up. It's a little over 2 hours away for us. We got there and got all setup. Camping is always fun but camping with a bunch of friends makes it that much better of course. Friday night there was a get together at a fire pit by the nature center. It was pitch black but we somehow managed to visit each other. Kinda funny to judge who is there by voices and not faces haha.

Saturday was a day long event. Started with a page of coordinates for a photo challenge. You were given the place and a hint. When you got to the place you had to take a photo that you thought was for that hint. It's so much fun to do. The places it brought us are fantastic. One place was a too cute bbq place. The hint was Oink Oink. Of course we all took pictures with some decorative pigs around the outside. Then we ate lunch. What I love best about this hobby is the places it brings you. Without this challenge we would have never went to this place to eat. After the 10 stops we headed back to turn in our pictures. They made a slide show of everyone's pictures. It's so much fun to watch what people do for their pictures. We had done this type of challenge once before and I have to say it's my absolute favorite by far. We had dinner together a pitch in type of thing. The food was delicious and we were miserable afterward haha. We all hung out at a fire till way too late.

Sunday we had something called a CITO. It stands for Cache in Trash out. The idea is to help out a local area. One of the park managers helped us come up with 2 ways to help out the park. First we cleaned up this area where they catch and tag owls. It was so interesting to learn about how they tag them and also felt great to pay back. After we made quick work of that job we helped fix and rebuild a fence that had been broken into. Hopefully it will keep people out for awhile at least.

Overall it was a great weekend. I have some pictures to share.

First picture is of our tent. You can tell by our friends tent beside it just how big our tent is. I love it!

We always take photos like this. Our friends call it the Fred/Katie pose. Fred's long arms make it possible. Then we can take our photo without having someone hold the camera. It's funny some of the photos though. He always make me look extra short which I am compared to him haha. Anyway this one we are sitting on a bench so it looks better.

This one is two friends of ours. We had to get a picture with this propeller. Gotta love my hubby.

Again with my dork of a husband. He about gave me a heart attack walking out there. But at least I captured this hilarious photo along with a few others.

Since we didn't take our puppy I spent a lot of time loving on a friend's puppy. I love this dog and have tried to dognap her every time I see her. Her name is Dakota and her personality is adorable.

On the Road with Katie

2010-09-20T10:23:00.000-04:00

Yet another busy weekend. Let's see.... Friday we headed off to Middlebury, Indiana for a little festival they have. Mom has fellow Shipshewana vendors that setup. I bought some treats for my dogs, a little box trunk decoration, and a bag for a dear friend. Jeremiah had a nice time. Here is some pics of him.

He was so afraid the cannon would go off. I explained it was thoroughly cleaned and emptied before being set out for display haha. The bottom picture is a neat creation. We joked about finally bees we didn't need to worry about. The top two bees were rotating like helicopter blades. The paper was an explanation on bee hives and the history behind them. Very interesting. We left here and stopped at a store in Shipshewana. Mom wanted some noodles. Jeremiah and I got candy of course haha.

Saturday we hit the road pretty early. Fred had a local radio club thing. They ran the communications for a walk-a-thon. Mom, Betty, Jeremiah and I went on our own way haha. We made a quick stop at a garage sale down the road. Spent $30 and got a ton of stuff for mom. Then we went to Grandma Faust's. It's always nice to visit her. On the way home we made a side trip. I had heard there was a Traveling Vietnam Wall in a nearby town. Jeremiah and I had just talked about it in school a few weeks ago. I thought how perfect to be able to see a version of what we learned about. It was very moving and I was so glad we had the experience. It was an honor to see in person. When we got home Fred had been home and was already working on closing our pool for the year.

Sunday we had a few things to do out in the garage. We have to get it ready for mom's left over stuff since we will be closing her booth in the next few weeks for the winter. We made quick work of it and all headed out for lunch. We had the craving for a blooming onion. Texas Roadhouse was just what we needed. After that we were all miserable haha. We came home to watch TV and rest. WWE had a wrestling pay per view last night. So we hunkered down together and yelled at the TV haha. I love watching that together.

I did get a bit of stitching in. I'll have an update on that tomorrow hopefully.

Fall Picnic

2010-09-13T11:03:00.000-04:00

The Indiana Fall Picnic was this past weekend. It was at Boondocks Farms in Knightstown, IN. Fred took a half day on Friday so he was off work at noon instead of 5pm. That made a huge difference. We got to the park at 3pm and started the process of setting up. It didn't take long and the relaxing could start. We ran into town to find something to eat. We were going to settle with Subway but seen a cute little diner type of place. It was called RJ's. It was a lounge and family dining. Fred, Jeremiah and me had the place to ourselves besides a few in the bar. The food was delicious. Unfortunately at this park we couldn't have fires at our campsite so we set around a circle in the dark. They had a night geocache so several went to that. I hate the dark so I stayed at the tent and watched Jeremiah and a few friends. Also got to chat with a friend we joked about baby sitting each other. When Fred got back he laughed and said Why ya guys in the dark. He setup a lantern on our table. So we all set around the lantern and laughed.

Saturday morning we woke up to dark skies and rain heading our way. The best part of our group of friends is one guy has his vehicle setup for it has wireless internet we can tap into. So we sat in the tent during the rain and playing on the internet. Here are two pictures of us in our HUGE tent during the rain storm.

I think you can tell by our tent how large it is. We love it. The rain didn't stop our fun at all. It rained about an hour and then we headed up to the pavilion for the day's events. We setup a little tent for Jeremiah to put toys in. Here is a picture of him with some friends. One time we glanced over to see 6 kids in his tent. He was having so much fun.

Beside the tent you can see his 4-Wheeler. He basically uses this as an electric wheelchair. The kids were all playing tag in the field behind his tent and he was able to run right along with them. It made my heart feel good to see him able to play like the other kids. It rained one more time while we were all eating lunch. But it ended quickly and the sun came back out.

Last week my step mom's mom passed away. She was in a lot of pain and she had cancer all over her body. So it was a blessing cause we all know she isn't in pain any longer. The funeral was Sunday so we hurriedly packed the truck. We got it all in there but it was a close fit since we were hurrying and of course did it all wrong. We rushed to my dad's house for showers and a change of clothes. We got there with 10 mins to spare. The funeral was very nice. We also went to a dinner hosted by her church. After that we made our way home. I think it was 7pm when we finally got home. Other than the sad ending it was an amazing weekend.

Weekend Update

2010-08-31T10:34:00.000-04:00

Finally got time to do my weekend update. Hey it's only Tuesday that's not too bad. Friday Fred got sick. That lovely head cold that's been going around. So he got home and we crashed onto our couches and watched TV. Our poor DVR had like 85 things on it. I found the best way to get through them is to delete ones you don't want to watch haha. So Memphis Beat went Bye Bye. Just don't have time to watch everything we want to watch. We weren't getting into the characters as much on that one. Yesterday we ended up getting it down to 50something. So we did a lot of nothing.

Saturday we did venture out for lunch. Our local geocaching "club" had a Meet N Eat. Which basically means we get together to eat lunch. Jeremiah had a great time playing with a friends kids. Us adults told stories and laughed for a few hours. Sunday we ventured out for lunch again to a birthday party. The friends kids that Jeremiah was playing with Saturday. Jacob turned 6. There were like 8 kids mostly 6 or under. Jeremiah was overwhelmed cause they were all screaming and running. After awhile he settled in and really had a lovely time. He did Thank us on the way home for not having more kids haha.

So we got a lot of TV watched and caught up. I also got to do a lot of stitching. Here is my progress. So close to a finish already. This one is Born To Be Wild. I'm really enjoying stitching this one.