My Stitchalong

I think that the fall weather agrees with me. The cool, crisp air. The fall breezes through the open windows. The start of FOOTBALL season!! It's pretty apparent that I love baseball, although I have to say that my beloved Yankees have been giving me fits for the last few days, but I digress. Back to the start of football season. Sunday was my day to sit on the couch, watch football, and stitch! It reminded me of the Sunday afternoons before MJ and I had kids! LOL!! I have been busy and I can say that this feeling of accomplishment that I have right now is so very satisfying! My needles have been smoking, be it my embroidery needle, or the needle on my sewing machine. So, if you ready to join me on this latest leg of my stitching journey, follow me through this picture heavy post! In the last week my sewing machine and I have become very close, although it has had its moments where I'm not really sure that it likes me very much. I managed to make two fall pillows, just in time ...

The weather here on Long Island is beautiful today!! Much better than yesterday, when all of the weathermen were doing their best to frighten us about the approaching Hurricane Earl. MJ and I spent part of Thursday night going around the yard picking up things that could become projectiles if the wind took them and putting them away, and making sure that things that could not be moved were close to the house so that we would not have to worry about them. You know what happened? NOTHING!! We got some rain, but that was about it! The eastern end of the island got a little bit more of the storm that we did, but no one got anything like what they were predicting. So, now that Earl is behind us, or rather, to the northwest of us, it's time to focus on the other things in life that are important like... BASEBALL!! MJ and I went to Yankee Stadium a few weeks ago with some friends, and it was a great day!! The Yankees won, which always makes it a good day. The new stadium has a Y...

At the moment they are really not all that bad. A few posts ago I was complaining about the oppressive heat and that my poor fingernails were sweating. Right now, it's cool and rainy. Hopefully at some point today I will get some stitching done. As I type there are workers in the basement putting that area of the house back together from when the cesspool backed up. Finally!! The longer I had to look at the carpeting all torn up the more upset I was getting about it, however it seems that I will be able to close that chapter of our exciting summer adventures and move on to the next thing that will inevitably come along. After all, something always does, doesn't it? The last two weeks my kitchen has been turned into a culinary school. M wants to learn how to cook, so it's been Cooking 101 in my house. So far we've made roasted chicken with noodles, gravy, and steamed broccoli, tacos, pot roast, and chicken and rice. He's been a good student so far. I keep t...

There! I said it. I am not afraid to admit it. I'll even shout it from the rafters so that everyone in blog land can here me: I'M NOT PERFECT!! They say that when the Amish make quilts they intentionally put a mistake somewhere in it to remind themselves that only God is perfect. Well, let me tell you something: I don't have to add them intentionally. They just seems to happen to me! I think they lay in wait for me and then jump into my stitching while I'm not looking. After I spent all that time ripping stitches out of the LOVE piece I re-stitched the section that had a mistake, only to discover that I made the SAME MISTAKE in almost the exact same place!! That's right! I'm off by one thread AGAIN!! This time, however, I had already stitched alot of the design around the letter L. So, it's staying like that, mistakes and all! The L section finally got finished and I can move onto the E. It's pretty, isn't it? I've been reading...

So, Wednesday night was my weekly stitch night with my friend, Christine. I stitched for two hours and got the whole L done on the Love piece that I'm working on. Ver proud of my accimplishments, I ate the yummy dessert that she made, packed myself up, and went home. Fast forward to Thursday night. The kids are upstairs and quiet (which can be rare). There is a good James Bond movie on television. MJ went to go see how his mom was doing since he had not seen her since we found out that Aunt Janet passed away. I had the house all to myself and lots of stitching time ahead of me, right? WRONG!! Apparently, while I was so confidently stitching away at Christine's house on Wednesday night I made a mistake and was off my one thread. So, everything that I spent two hours stitching on Wednesday has to be ripped out on Thursday. Ugh!! I thought stitching was supposed to be fun??!!!

Now that summer vacation is half way over it's time to start to think about the new school year - at least I think it is. My kids? Well, they would prefer not to have to think about it at all. For some kids a new school year mean a whole new look. For M, this new school year not only means a whole new school but a new set of eyes: M is now sporting glasses! Please excuse that mop top hair do. He is in need of a hair cut in a bad way. Personally, I think they make him look quite scholarly, and little grown up, too. At least now when he heads off the middle school he will be confident that he will be able to see the boards clearly. A few weeks ago I made an effort to clean out my stitching bags. Seems like whenever I wasn't sure what to do with something I wound up in one of my bags. They were a mess. It took me the better part of an hour to go through my two bags. What I finally wound up doing was putting the projects that I had already started in one bag, and the t...

Has it been hot enough for you? I don't know how it's been in the rest of the world, but here on the east coast we've been having a bit of a heat wave. How hot has it been, you ask? Well, this afternoon MJ was putting together Z's new bicycle and he needed my help at one point, so I went out to give him a hand. It was so hot I think my fingernails were sweating! Now that's hot. As if the heat were not bad enough, the humidity is enough to make my hair curl, and I have straight hair that even the curling iron won't curl! LOL!! I know. I know. It's the summer, and it's supposed to be hot. But seriously, it's been brutal lately. I am happy to be able to report that I seem to be climbing out of my stitching slump. Now I've been through slumps before. I think we all can honestly say that we have been thought them. This one was different for me. It lasted for a long time. Nearly two months, which for me is long. And it wasn't that ...

In my last post I told of the experience of being attacked by a Pitt bull. All in all, it's been a experience that I would prefer to forget. Today is the day that the dog in question is supposed to be shipped to his owner in Arizona. Did I mention that the dog's owner moved there three months ago and left his dog here in the care of this mother? I called the town to see if the dog would be put down, but apparently because the town has no other record of him biting anyone else (he has) and because he has not been labeled as a "dangerous animal", (which I think he is) there is nothing that they can or will do about it. I could start the proceedings to get the dog classified as dangerous, but by the time the proceedings were finished the dog would be long gone. So, the best that I can do is file a report with the town about the dog bite and hope that he never bites anyone after he gets to his owner in Arizona. As I said, when it rains, it pours. While the latest l...

Once again, I have let far too much time go by between postings. And once again, there has not been alot of stitching progress made, but it certainly has been an exciting few weeks. Shall I start with the news of the Pitt bull attack? I was walking over to my neighbor's house two weeks ago to bring her something and as I walked up her walkway her very large dog, which I found out later is a Pitt bull-boxer mixed breed and belongs to her son who moved to Arizona three months ago, starting jumping and barking. Not realizing that he was dangerous, I kept walking. Then the dog jumped on the door and it opened, and this very large dog jumped out at me, knocked me down, and bit my arm! Considering that it was Pitt bull I think that I'm lucky that was all he got. The last thing I remember was the door opening and the next thing I remember was sitting on the lawn looking at my arm and just screaming because I knew I was hurt. Thank goodness neither of the kids were with me! Fro...

Hello, faithful blog readers. Is anyone still with me out there in blog-land? I don't think I've ever gone this long between blog posts, but there really has not been any stitching to talk about. I did manage to finish page 7 of the HAED , but that was over two weeks ago and I have not picked up a needle since, except for the night my friend came over for stitch night, and even then I didn't get a whole lot done on the pumpkin and oak leaf design. Things here have been a little...difficult, I guess would be the correct word. Aside from that, it's the end of the school year here and there are lots of activities planned for M and the 5 th grade class over the next two weeks. I'm hoping to get myself back on track soon.

Happy Monday, everyone! Here on Long Island it's a beautiful start to the week, after a weekend of beautiful weather. Both of the boys has little league games that were a pleasure to go to. We've had some cool weather here and some of the games have been so cold to sit through, but not this past weekend. Saturday afternoon M and Z asked if they could get ice cream from the ice cream man. They had been good and were playing together really nicely (for a change!) so I told them yes they could, but they had to pay for it. They even said that they would buy ice cream for MJ and myself, which I thought was sweet. I never turn down ice cream! Anyway, all of a sudden the two of them are fighting with each other about who would pay for the ice cream, but not in the way that you would think. This was what I heard: M: I'll pay for the ice cream. Z: No! You paid last time! It's my turn to pay! M: No, Z! YOU paid last time. I'm paying! Honestly, I couldn't s...

Did everyone have a good Mother's Day? My day was pretty busy. First of all, this year Mother's Day was not just Mother's Day in my house. It was also MJ's and my 13th wedding anniversary. 13 years?? Where did the time go? I started out the day laying in bed, trying to get rid of the migraine that I woke up with. Can I tell you all that Maxxalt is a great medicine? After about half an hour I got up showered and felt much better, to my relief. My BIL, T, and his new wife had us, my in-laws, and her mom over to their place for a Mother's Day luncheon. It was very nice. After that we came home and my in-laws came here and we ordered dinner. That is something that we have been doing since the year Z was born and it always has worked out well, until this year. Because we ordered dinner later than we normally do it took forever for it to be ready when MJ and his dad went to go pick it up. It was around 7:30 pm before we finally sat down to eat. By then the n...

It's been a while. With two boys playing little league this spring there are days when I'm really not sure if I'm coming or going. Between practices and games it's been very busy here. Tonight both boys have games at the same time at fields on opposite ends of the school district. Thank God I have in-laws who like me, love my boys, and are more than willing to lend a hand when my choice is either figure out how to use a time turner like Hermione Granger got to use in one of the Harry Potter books, or split myself in half. Needless to say, my stitching time this spring has been cut, but I am making progress. Mickey and Minnie now both have shoes and a completed bench to sit on: Can you guess what, or more accurately who, the yellow blob on the bottom is supposed to be? Anyone? It's Mickey's best friend, Pluto! Actually, in the picture of the finished project Pluto is looking a little put out that Mickey is spending his time in the sun with Minnie rather ...

Last week was sit and stitch at the Lazy Daisy. I love sit and stitch night. It's my favorite night of the month. My friend, Sheri, was working on this beautiful Christmas table topper by Blackberry Lane Designs. Then I was told that they had the same design, but in a table runner. Much better for my house: While I was at the shop I bought 32 count fabric that I ran home and tea dyed the next day because I was very excited about it. Two days ago I went to buy floss that would go with this fabric that I dyed. After trying out lots of colors against the fabric color I found this floss with the greatest name I have ever heard. Ready for it? Swamp Water! That is the name of the floss. Swamp Water! It sounds vile, but really, it goes great with the fabric. Yesterday I pulled out the chart for the table runner and I began to look through it because I was getting startitis, when I noticed something. You know how when you look at a chart and it gives you the approximate finish...

Last week my goal was to get my leaflets organized. Thanks to everyone who gave me suggestions as to how you organize the leaflets that you have. I don't have a craft room where I have all of my stitching supplies. I have a closet. MJ and I renovated our house about 7 years ago and the room that was the master bedroom is now a family room/den type of room. There are two decent sized closets in that room and I took one over, added shelves, and moved my stash to it's new home. What I needed was something that would fit into the closet and keep everything together, and keep it neat and easy to access at the same time. If anyone who reads my blog also does scrap booking, you may be familiar with the solution that I came up with: I found these in the scrap book section of AC Moore. They are designed to hold 12 x 12 sheets of scrap book paper, but the more I looked at them the more I thought that they would serve my purpose, so I thought I would give it a try. The container...

I'm about two weeks into the three week course of antibiotics for the Lyme's Disease, and I guess I'm feeling a little better. Not quite so sleepy and definitely not so achy. Which, for my stitching at least, is a good thing. I haven't felt like stitching much lately. I had to put the HAED pandas away for awhile because it was just too much to work on and too hard to concentrate on right now. But my stitching bag contains several projects, much easier to work on than the HAED, that are all kitted up and ready to go. The new start is another Little House Needleworks design called "Embroidery Guild". I saw this at the LNS one day as I was walking out the door, having already spent the money that I had gone there to spend. I picked it up the next week because I had to have it. I started it yesterday, so I have not gotten very far with it, but like all Little House Needleworks projects that I have stitched, I am enjoying it. I should be getting some good...

It's been a while since I posted to my blog, but I have not had alot to work to show. I went to the doctor for a routine physical a few weeks ago. I had not been feeling great, but everything that I was feeling was not things that I had never dealt with before, so I didn't think anything of it. Turns out I have been diagnosed as having Lyme's Disease! So, I am now on a three week course of antibiotics, then when that is done I have to go back to the doctor for more blood work. I'm going to be a pin cushion by the time this is over. Since one of the symptoms of Lyme's Disease is extreme fatigue, I have not gotten alot of stitching done because I have been falling asleep on the couch as soon as I get the kids into bed. Or, on some nights, before they get into bed! LOL!! That's not good. Now that I have been on the medication for about a week and a half I am starting to feel bit better and I did manage to get some stitching done in the last few days: I was ...

Good Sunday morning to everyone!! I found what gets two kids (three, if you count my husband) up and moving on Sunday morning: Dunkin Donuts! I never saw three people so excited about a breakfast food in my life. Something to remember in the future, I think. This past Thursday was Sit and Stitch at the Lazy Daisy, my favorite night of the month! That date is always written into my calendar in ink and I try very hard to schedule everything else around Lazy Daisy night. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but this month I went and had quite a bit of fun. There were not as many people there as there sometimes is, but it was a fun night, nonetheless. I picked up my $15.00 gift certificate to the shop, and promptly spent it. I forgot to take pictures of the new stash, but I picked up Hooked On Ice Cream by Handblessings (the same designer that did the Hooked On Chocolate piece that I did) and a Christmas tree design that I don't remember the particulars of. I will tr...

I won a giveaway!! This is a rarity for me, so you can understand my excitement when I shout from the rooftops that I won something! Kathy ( http://kathystitchcomments.blogspot.com/ ) was doing a giveaway on her blog to celebrate the birthday of her puppy, Rory, and the prize was a gift certificate to your favorite ONS. I entered, thinking that so many people had already entered that there was no way I was going to win. Then the other day MJ was on the computer and he saw an e-mail titled "You Won Second Prize" and he says to me, "You don't know this sender, right?" He wanted to delete it thinking it was junk e-mail. I asked him to open it and when I started reading it I was stunned to see that I actually won something. A $15 gift certificate to Lazy Daisy! Now that was a great way to start the week, don't you think? Thank you, Kathy!! Sit and stich is next week and I'm sure I will find something to spend it on! I realize that two posts within ...

It has been a while since I posted to my blog, but this week I finally got back into the swing of things around here. The stress of the accident and thinking of what could have been, well, to be perfectly honest, it threw me for a loop much worse that I ever thought it would. The whole first week we were back from vacation I laid on the couch and basically did nothing. The stress of everything that happened must have finally caught up with me because I wound up at the doctor's office with another sinus infection. It was hard to stitch for a few days because I felt pretty yucky, but that has passed and this past week I got myself up and moving, and I actually have things to show for it. First thing is that we got a new car to replace the one that was totalled. I was sad to hear while I was on vacation that my 2002 Jeep, which I loved more that any car I ever owned, was no longer going to be part of my life. She was the best and I was sorry to hear that she had been totalled, b...

Did you know that if your little car (or in my case, a bog ol' Jeep) gets into an altercation with a VERY LARGE semi-truck that is flying down the highway you will most likely come out the loser of said altercation? And that the only thing worse than totaling your car is totaling your car while you are out of state? As you can see, it's been a trying week here in my world. We were in an accident with both of the kids in the car. Luckily, no one was hurt and we all walked away from the crash. That was how our vacation began. So, after we returned home from our trip we spent the weekend car shopping. There is a bright, shiny, new, blue Jeep in my future! Hopefully, after all of this excitement dies down and everything gets back to normal I will be able to get some stitching done and have something to show off. I did get a little bit of stitching done while I was away and Chocolate Box is almost done. Pictures will be coming soon.

I am incredibly lucky to have many generous people in my life. Yesterday I went out to get the mail from the mail box and sitting on my porch was a package from my cousin and his family. Unfortunately, they were unable to come down last weekend for my birthday party because one of the kids got sick (haven't we all had that happen to us at one point or another?), so my cousin's wife mailed my gift to me. Sarah is a very crafty person in her own right and she is an excellent quilter. I opened the package to find this: A box full of stitching stuff!! Two leaflets, two kits, a cool not pad, and a needle minder with my initial on it. She lives near a needlework shop and she told me that the man in the store helped her pick out the stuff for me. Honestly, it was one of the most thoughtful presents I think I have ever gotten! Now really, who wouldn't like getting something like that in the mail? This weekend Lazy Daisy is having a Superbowl Sale. I was supposed to ride ...