My Stitchalong

For those of you who are not aware of it, I have to admit something. I am a chocoholic. There. I said it. See, I can admit that I have an addiction. I love chocolate in all forms. Chocolate milk, chocolate cookies, chocolate cake, brownies, candy, dark chocolate , milk chocolate. You name it, I like to eat it. The only thing I really don't like is white chocolate, which technically isn't chocolate at all, so it really has no place in this conversation. Last night I was taking a Reese's peanut butter egg out of the cabinet where I hide my stash of chocolate when who should come up the stair at that exact moment? MJ !! Now he knows where I keep my stash and I think I'm going to have to be watching my cabinet a bit closer to see if any of the good stuff mysteriously disappears on me. Hmmm . I think it's time for a new hiding space. As I said in my last post, I finished Chocolate Awareness and I finally got a picture of it. Now I have to decide if I want it...

Z's birthday was this past week and I gave him his Panda yesterday at his party. He was very excited about it and could not wait for his dad to hang it in his room this morning. He said that he had "the perfect spot picked out and everything." It's so cute being five! I finished "Chocolate Awareness" Friday night, but now I'm trying to figure out how I want to finish it. It's going to hang in the dining room near LHN's "Chocolate Shoppe", but I'm not really sure what I want to do with it. Frame it? A wall hanging? For me, this is the hardest part. It's a rainy Sunday here on Long Island, so I'm hoping that everyone cooperates and lets me get some stitching time in. I want to work on the Mickey and Minnie Mouse piece and I have to do one of the cupcake designs so that I can have it ready for the finishing class at the end of April. Those are small, so one of them should not take me long. I just have to decide...

I picked up two framed finished from the needlework shop last week. This is Z's panda: He went with me to the shop and picked out the frame. I'm not sure how well the color is coming through in the picture, but it's a shade of green that is one of Z's favorite colors. He was so excited. He doesn't know that I picked it up. His birthday is this week and I think I'm going to wrap it up and give it to him as part of his birthday presents. Aunt J's Daydreaming Angel is back also: I think she came out really pretty. I can't wait to send it to her for her birthday. Look what I made! It's a needle book : Yesterday the kids were at school and I was finished with my cleaning, so I was surfing the web looking for interesting blogs to read, and I came across this one: http://focusonfinishing.blogspot.com/ I had always wanted a needle book , but thought they were hard to make. The directions that she had on her blog made it seem really easy that ...

It seems that all of the blogs that I've read lately start with, "I've been sick, but I'm feeling better" and I have to say that I am no exception. M was home from school this past Monday and Tuesday with a really nasty cold and since I was taking care of him can you guess who caught it, too? I feel better now, but I've lost my voice, which the kids think is the funniest thing. Have you ever tried raising your voice to your children when you don't have a voice to raise? Z keeps asking me how long I'm going to have this "frog in my mouth", which I think is really cute. Out of the mouths of babes! Since I have been sick I have really not gotten much stitching done this week. I did manage to finish page 9 of my sampler and Chocolate Awareness is really close to being done. When I went to my LNS last week I picked up two framed pieces, Aunt J's angel, which looks great in the frame that I picked out, and Z's panda. Z's bir...

Doesn't everyone love a good cupcake? Well, they may taste really good, but if I eat too many of them my waist line will not be too happy with me. BIL's wedding is coming up in October and I'm trying to be good. I found the perfect solution! http://www.123stitch.com/cgi-perl/itemdetail.pl?item=TCW09 I saw this booklet on 123 and knew I had to have it. I bought it at my LNS last night. The designs in this book are really cute and the best part is that the owner of the LNS is having a finishing class at the shop at the end of April. I just have to stitch a top for my "cupcake" and bring it with me so that I can finish it off into the cupcake holder. I'm so excited! Once I get one finished I will post a picture of it. Someone on the 123 board posted one that she did and it came out really cute. Hopefully, mine will look as nice as hers did.

With two boys in the house, sometimes is hard to me to be able to get onto the computer. Recently, I decided that in order to alleviate my computer frustrations, I needed my very own laptop. I asked for one for my birthday, but MJ thought I was nuts, not to mention that fact that we really didn't have the money to throw away on a laptop when we just got a brand new computer at Christmas time. Sigh. Why do men (especially accountant men) have to be so darn practical? I guess my argument won out because guess what was delivered yesterday afternoon? My very own, shiny new, blue laptop!! I type this post from said laptop sitting at my dining room table. Ahh , I love it! The convenience of being able to use a computer from anywhere. No telling the kids that they have to get off because I need (want) to get online for something. And just like my secret stash of chocolate that is hidden away in the kitchen cabinet, this laptop has "No Kids Allowed" written all over ...

I finally got around to taking pictures of some of my works in progress. I am happy to report a finish: I finished "Not Tonight Dear..." not long after coming back from vacation. It's been washed and pressed and now I just have to take it to the framers and figure out where in the bedroom to hang it! I love this one!! This is the one called "Chocolate Awareness". It's a small project so it's working up quickly and it's the perfect project to take with me when Z has gymnastics. I've been primarily working on it there since it's small and easy to take with me. The colors in the floss really are chocolatey . I can't wait to see it when it's all finished. This is how far I've gotten on my personalized sampler. Last week I finished pages 7 and 8 and I just started page 9 the other day. I'm almost halfway done! I'm really happy with the progress that I've made on it. It's coming along really nicely.

We all know that old saying about March coming in like a lion and out like a lamb. Well, March is roaring here today. We're expecting almost a foot of snow! The kids have a snow day, I asked MJ to stay home from work, religious education has been cancelled. I'm going to have to cancel my doctor's appointment because I can't even get out the front door. The wind is blowing the snow all over the place and there a large drift on the porch. So, we're hunkering down here for a cold and snowy Monday. Great stitching weather!! While I don't have any pictures to show, I can tell you that I finished page 7 of my sampler last Thursday and am almost done with page 8. That leaves a little over twelve pages left to go. I had put it down for a while to work on some other things. It was too big to take on vacation with me (I like to travel with smaller things) but since I've come back I've been making some real progress on it. The Mickey Mouse project is com...