Floss Porn

Ha!  Got your attention, didn't I??

Yesterday I received a package (in a plain brown wrapper) from Danielle because I won a giveaway on her blog.  She was giving away some threads and Wowee!  She sent such a generous package of threads in a gorgeous variety of colors. 

So I opened it up.  Slowly.  And my breath quickened.  And my heart pounded.  My hands tingled.  And then the threads spilled out and I gasped.  Yes, yes, yes!  And then I reached for a cigarette.  (Just kidding about that part...I don't really smoke.  The rest is true, though.)  But oh-baby do I have plans for these!  Thanks Danielle!

Bee Mine

Hiya gang!

It's hard for me to believe that I've gone 11 days without posting.  I was doing pretty well there in November and December, but January has been another story.

I've been busy, but not stitching very much and that's probably why I've been so quiet.  The rest of my life this month has been pretty blah.  I've worked more than usual and if you want to know from boring, just ask me about work.   I'll fill you in on how to finely craft a 1099-Misc, and on the delicate creation of W-2's. And I'll tell you about the joy of nice even rows of numbers that all add up correctly. 

Yeah.  It's that much fun.

BUT, extra work can also be a good thing, because I decided to reward myself for a really productive work week by going to a Stitch Night at The French Knot.  I'm glad that I went, too.  It's a nice little shop and it was a friendly group of stitchers.  I took Lo How a Rose with me, but we were a little crowded and it was hard to manage the scroll frames. Still, I made a little progress and please forgive the stray threads and flash photography, but if I wait for a nice, sunny day AND a day that all of my working threads are tucked away neatly, you may never see this project again.:

I didn't buy much there. I like the shop, but I'm not crazy about most of the designs that she carries. Laura does have a nice selection of fabrics, though. And threads.  So I'll buy those things from her.

Another nice thing? She has loads of freebies in the shop. One is a cute little spring design by Waxing Moon and she matched some really pretty blue fabric with it, so of course I bought the fabric. The other is this older LK freebie. I stitched and finished this over the weekend and I'll mail it to Miss College. She doesn't eat much candy, so maybe she'll take the money and buy some nice fruit. Or oatmeal. Since she lives on both of those things.

It's charted for DMC or GAST, but I decided to use my Old Willow Stitchery threads, instead.  And You may remember that I've done this kind of finish before, last Christmas when I needed a something for a $10 exchange gift for our Ladies' Auxiliary.  It's really just a pinkeep with a pocket and a hanger.

So, now what kind of cutesy thing can I send to College Boy? He's not a big LK fan...Maybe I'll tack $10 to a recipe for Fuzzy Navel Slush, which is his favorite drink now that he's over 21.   Yes.  He's weird.

In reading news, I've finished The Red Scarf and it was very enjoyable.  The sex scene?  Nothing remarkable?  Listen, my mom let me read some pretty racy stuff when I was in high school and that 70's fiction was not for those easily shocked.  Was there even a YA category in the 70's? 

I'm listening to The Help and I have to say that I'm 5 hours in and I'd never know it.  The narration is beautifully done and the minutes fly by when you're listening.

And I'm halfway through The Curse of the Spellmans, which is wonderful and lighthearted and a joy to read. 

Can you tell that both kids are back to college now???

OH....MY....GOSH!  I'm sitting here, looking at those photos and I can see a big, big mistake in my stitching. 

Look at the top right side of the heart. 

Good grief, I didn't stitch a whole dark pink section at the top!  What an ultra-maroon! (for you Bugs Bunny fans out there). I can't believe I did that.  Oh well.  She'll love it anyway.  And now you all know that I'm not perfect.  Sigh.

My Exciting Saturday

If you have a weak heart, maybe you should skip this post.

Today I will:

1. Work till noon
2. Watch the WVU basketball game and fold laundry till 3PM
3. Try to stitch a little during the game
4. Punish the treadmill
5. Make dinner
6. Fiddle around till I go to bed.

Try to contain your excitement for me.

Books

I finished Olive Kitteridge last night.  Wonderful, just wonderful.

I'm really picking up speed and enjoying The Red Scarf, too.  I emailed my book club friend because she was the one who chose it as our book for February, and I told her how much I was liking it.  She sent an email back to me, saying that she enjoyed it very much, too, but had been hesitant to suggest it to our club because there was a sex scene described near the end of the book.

Wait.....does that mean that this book will get EVEN BETTER??  Dang.  Now I want to skip ahead to the end.  But I'll stop myself.

Looks like my stitching hiatus will last a bit longer.

Sometimes I complain about snow too much

Because it can be unspeakably beautiful.  Here are some pictures that Colleen took Sunday morning as the sun was just peeking out after 10 or more days of snow and darkness.  This is part of my backyard

And my front yard

Close up of the Adirondack chairs. If you were sitting in them...the snow would be up to your neck.


These next two are the bridge that you see in my blog header.




Then Dave took these pictures, also on Sunday morning. Just a few miles from here, there's a resort called the Summit Inn and it sits right on Route 40, at the top of Summit Mountain. It's a very old, dating back to 1907. The top of Summit Mountain is very beautiful, but subject to extremes of cold, wind, fog and ice through the winter and early spring.   So even though the sun was out at my house, the top of the mountain was still in the clouds and still getting snow.   And with that kind of weather, the Summit Inn closes from November until April (sometimes even May). And it reminds me exactly of the hotel in The Shining. 
Peaceful looking, isn't it?

What I've been doing these days

I'll tell you - it hasn't been stitching. 

I've had lots of work to do.  And not to be a crybaby, but I still have lots of work to do.  It's just that time of year and there's no use whining over it.

I've been reading more.  With both kids at home, I totally lost control of the TV.  But maybe that's a good thing because I've read two books that I really enjoyed and I've started a third book.  Over the holidays I read Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe by Sandra Gulland.  It's the second book in her three-book series about Josephine Bonaparte.  I liked it, although not as much as her first book,  The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.  Her third book is waiting on my bed table, The Last Great Dance on Earth, and I'm sure I'll like that, too.  Although we know that it won't end well.

I'm very close to finishing Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout.  Something about this book really sucked me in.  Maybe it was because it started with a short story about Olive's pharmacist husband and I felt attached to a character right away.  Maybe because sometimes I feel like Olive myself, who is a combination of awful and wonderful all at the same time. Whatever it is, I finish one short story in the book and I can't wait to start the next one. (but you should know this - the jacket blurbs say that it's funny.  So far I haven't found anything funny at all, and unless it's going to get funny in the last 50 pages, the book is rather sad.  Very not-funny.  Just FYI)


And my third book is The Red Scarf, by Kate Furnivall.  It's our book club selection for February.  So far I'm liking it.

Good Lord, it's snowing again!  At least I've had the college kids home through all of the snow we've had since the New Year and they've kept my driveway shoveled and passable.  So they're good for something besides endless TV watching.

The weirdness of snow

I woke up to this on Wednesday and it's still hanging there from my porch roof. Does anyone have an explanation for this snow curtain?? I can't understand why it doesn't just fall off.

Then yesterday, in between the snow showers, we were hit with a couple episodes of freezing drizzle. And now you know about my poor deck-keeping skills.
If I don't see some sun soon, I'm going to shrivel up and die.

A bright, shiny new decade!

So my friends, here we are at the start of a new decade.  I love this feeling.  The whole clean slate thing.  Of course, it would help if I could clear out all of the clutter of the last decade.  I'm working on that...starting with getting these college kids back to school (and back to those rooms and apartments that I'm paying for) and making them take all of their clutter back, too.  And after I've taken down the trees and all of the other Christmas hoo-haw, things will return to being boring around here.  Normally, blissfully boring.

But back to the New Year theme:  I don't "do" resolutions very well, but this year I'd like to be more organized in my work-work and housework, because what I really want is more time to play.  So I hope that being more organized will let me get more work done in less time.  And stitching is so much more relaxing when you can actually let your mind rest and not wander to all of the things sitting on your desk, you know?

I went to Philadelphia over the long weekend of New Years.  It was a nice trip, but it was exhausting, too.  I missed being home for New Years Day, which is usually a rest day for me.  But my good friend's 50th birthday bash was on January 2nd, and what a party!  I'm glad that I could go.  Came home on Sunday and with all that running around I'm sorry to say that I haven't picked up a needle in over a week.

Lucky for me though, I have friends who stitch, including the ever-wonderful Barbara.  She sent me this perfect ornament.  Honestly? I'm so happy with this and now I think every stitcher should have one of these on their tree!  She also sent me that cool ceramic mug and I've already enjoyed many cups of tea in it.  Thanks again Barb!

And one more thing

I've shamelessly stolen this idea from Yoyo's blog. Happy New Year Friends!

Oh...and I forgot to tell you this

I want to end this year with a smile, so I'll tell you this story.

Having your MIL staying with you for a week can be ummm... Interesting. So on Sunday I was folding wash on the couch in the living room. Usually I fold in my bedroom, but the Steeler game was on and so I didn't give it a thought. Well, I was folding a load of dark wash and folding and folding and not thinking anything about it, and we were talking and watching the game, when I came to one of my exercise bras:

And I started to fold it.

Evidently, the MIL was closely watching what I was folding, because she says..."So Lee, is David wearing thongs now?" Cool as a freakin' cucumber.

I coulda died. Dave has a nice build, but....c'mon.

It was a MIL moment to remember.

2009 Finishes

Here's a slideshow of my 2009 Finishes. Some of these were stitched a while ago but only just finish-finished this year, so I thought they deserved a spot on the slideshow.

I have to say...I was surprised by the number of things I had completed.

Happy New Year to all of you!

I want to be 70 and have a neat party, too!

I had a wonderful time last night.  George's daughters put on a wonderful birthday party for him and I think that George enjoyed himself to no end.  He didn't open my Canoeing Santa gift, (invitation said "No Gifts", but do I care?  NO.), but I'm sure he'll get a kick out of it.

Here's something very neat.  His daughters' husbands actually home-brewed two special beers for him - a light ale and a scotch ale - and created really professional labels for the bottles that were personalized for George.  They had pictures of George and lots of funny and sweet sentiments on the labels.  I've never heard of anything like that.  Pretty cool, right?  And the beer was really good!

I have some busy-work to get through this morning, then I hope to get my needle back into Lo How a Rose again.  I haven't picked that up in a couple of weeks and I'd love to get the stitching finished soon.  In a perfect world, that would mean before the New Year.  In reality....that means before Easter!

Good News and Many Thanks and a Bit of Stitching

First of all, thanks so very much to all of you for your prayers and your words of support while I worried and worried about my MIL last week.  Every time I read one of your comments, I could literally feel the comfort that you offered.  I completely mean that.  It was a physical relief.

Have you ever had a moment or a feeling that you're receiving grace?  That's what you all gave me.  That moment when you just breathe and let the comfort wash over you and then you know that you can move forward and everything will be ok no matter what.  So you may not think that the words that you type have that big of an impact, but I mean to tell you that they do.  So thanks to each and every one of you. 

And someone - I don't know who - sent me a Secret Santa gift (a gift cert. to eHandcrafts) the day before Christmas.  Girls...I was shocked.  I had been busting my butt for a couple of days with caring for my MIL and feeling like the entire family Christmas thing was falling on my shoulders and dealing with Dave's extra work hours.  Oh, and the impending ice storm was just the frosting on the cake.  I was hardly sleeping and had been in constant motion since Sunday. 

WELL, when I sat down at the computer before supper on Christmas Eve and looked at my email, I couldn't believe it.  I almost wept. I mean, I read your blogs, too and I know that we all have our problems and worries lately.  Kids (young and old), aging parents, PITA jobs or even joblessness...So I know that whoever sent this probably has worries of their own.  But they put aside their troubles and thought of me and did something so kind just at a time when I needed it the most. 

So I don't know who did this, but thank you from the bottom of my heart.

And as for my MIL...

We brought my MIL home from the hospital last Tuesday and I'm happy to tell you that her confusion seemed to disappear after a very, very short time. She slept well and completely each night, got some strength back, and little by little took steps to take care of herself each day. Then yesterday she told us that she was ready to go home and Dave and I felt pretty comfortable with that.

So today we packed her things and went to get some groceries and I took her home. We'll be checking in on her each day for the rest of the week and if she's having trouble, we'll bring her back here.

It's been a stressful week, especially with a holiday in the middle of it and with Dave having to work extra because of another pharmacist's vacation, but we made it through and I'll tell you what....I'm almost glad that this happened. It's been a wake-up call for us. Aging parents are something that we don't like to think about and so we just, well, we just don't think about it and that means that we don't always plan for it very well. Dave and I both see that we absolutely must plan for her care and we also see that we shouldn't expect help from any other family members. (His brother and sister-in-law did not lift a finger. Selfish? Let me tell you.)

I feel like I could sleep for a week now. Except my neighbor has just turned 70 and there's no way I'd want to miss his party tonight.  George is super. In fact, at 70, his "age-ness is finally catching up to his coolness." But I want to go especially because I want to give him this!

George builds custom made wooden canoes and they are works of art. I hope he likes my attempts at coolness....

Here is another quickie PS finish.  This year's Christmas freebie.  I had so little time to stitch this week, and I used the simplest of finishes because I really wanted to get this onto my little cross stitch ornie tree. 

Actually, a quick nap may be just the thing.  After all, I have to keep up with George tonight!

Houseguest

Well, it looks like my MIL will be coming here for the time being, starting tomorrow.  So tonight will be spent getting Colleen's room ready for MIL and moving Colleen into the home office/sewing room, which incidentally looks like a paper and fabric clutter bomb has exploded in it. 

Then we'll re-evaluate this situation at the start of the new year, because Dave and I both agree that  this shouldn't be permanent.  And even though I think it's not permanent, why-oh-why do I feel myself panicking already?

Maybe it's because since the summer, I've enjoyed my "alone time" so much.  That whole empty-nest thing was pretty short lived and over the past few months I've been very happy to have time to myself devoted to my stitching and reading.  Everybody else in my family had their self-indulgences and I finally had mine again, too.  I'm panicking because I want to hold on to that and I don't know if it's possible.

Selfish?  Probably.  But I'm trying to be up front about it. 

OK, I'm tired of talking and writing about this.  I'm moving on and my next posts will be about things that are more fun and interesting!

No stitching today.

No stitching to write about today.

My MIL has been in the hospital since last Saturday and is having health problem after problem.  It's not made any better by the short days and her tendency to "sundown" once it gets dark.  We're worried that this is has fundamentally changed her living situation.  She's lived alone up till now, but Doc says that she shouldn't live alone anymore, and that could mean some big changes around here.  I try not to worry, but after I met with her doctor this morning, it's hard to think of anything else. 


But what does the   Baz Luhrmann Sunscreen Song song say?

"Know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum."

So we'll just wait and see what happens as we travel down this road again.  

It's killin' me

I can't stand it.  It's like when you were little and someone started to tickle you and it was funny at first and then it became torture and you laughed and screamed STOP IT at the same time.

You bloggers.  It's all your fault.  For the past several months, you have been turning out some stunning work and I get obsessed over it and start making lists of all of the things I want to have.  And you shop owners, too?  You have just as much culpability as the bloggers, because now about eleventy thousand of you are having these big sales.    But do you know how much stitchy shopping I've done this year??  Good Lord.  I may only have a few WIP's, but I have enough things kitted up to last me through the next few years.  Maybe decades.

Please stop.  It hurts.

Another Christmas Surprise

And here's another Christmas surprise.  A while back, Anna was writing about some quilts from her mother that were in varying stages of being finished.  We traded a couple of emails back and forth and I couldn't believe it when she offered me this red, white and green Irish chain quilt.

It's about 90% quilted already, and her mother has worked the tiniest, most even quilting stitches.  I'm so excited to get this into my lap this winter and finish it up!  Well...actually, I think I'm going to have to practice my quilting stitch for a bit before I take a needle to this.  I'm a little rusty and I fear that my quilting stitches will be really BIG and clumsy looking at first, especially if you compare them to Mom Stitch Bitch's stitches.  We can't have that.

Yes, there is a Santa Claus

Except that her name is Sandy! (no blog, but posts over at the LHN Ornament SAL) Look what arrived in Monday's mail. It's as if I wrote a letter to Santa Claus (except that in real life I'd probably get coal in my stocking this year).

Needless to say, I'm dropping ALL of my other WIP's and starting this. When something this nice happens...when someone reads your blog where you moan about out-of-print things that you're wanting and then is this generous....well, you just get out your needle and floss and you get to it!

I may have another Christmas surprise to tell you about tomorrow, too!

Last day in NYC

Saturday was our last day in New York.  We did the Uptown tour loop and that started in Times Square and took us around Central Park, into Harlem, along Riverside Park and past several Museums. The photo are  the Hudson River, the Apollo Theater and the Guggenheim Museum.

We were leaving just as it got dark, and snapped one last photo of Macy's before we got back on the train to pick up our car in Jersey City and head back home.

There are a few things that I think I'll always remember about this trip.  (I'm not going to talk about the cold.  BTDT and it was December, after all) First of all, I've never seen so many people in my life.  I was a little overwhelmed on Thursday night, but those crowds were nothing compared to the Saturday crowd.  There were places in Macy's where we were literally shoulder-to-shoulder and back-to-front with people.  It was only slightly less crowded out on the sidewalks.  So I'm glad that our weekend started on Thursday and we had a bit of a chance to acclimate.  If we had started our trip on Saturday, I would have been a basket case.  (I found myself wondering how many people have meltdowns in those situations?)

Even among such crowds, there were people that stood out.  We saw shouting arguments on sidewalks spring up from nowhere and neither person was going to give an inch.   We were kind of a captive audience during one, standing and waiting for the light to change while these two men went at it behind us.  It was so uncomfortable for us that it was comical.  On the other hand, every single person who we asked to help us could not have been more kind and helpful.  I hate to pick on Macy's, but it's a good example because it was bedlam.  Yet even in that crush, the sales clerks and security people were all (seriously...all) cheerful and ready to help us.  And we encountered that attitude everywhere we went.

We enjoyed our bus tours, but seriously underestimated the time that we needed for each tour.  The whole hop-on-hop-off idea sounds appealing, but only if you want to do a quick stop and walk around a particular area then get on the next bus.  I thought we could get three tour loops in during two days, but there was no way that we had time for that.  So we only had two tours (besides the Thurs night Holiday Lights tour) - Uptown and Downtown.  We couldn't fit in the Brooklyn tour.  Regardless, I'm glad that we did the tours.  We were completely unfamiliar with NYC and these tours gave us a decent look at the highlights of the city.  So now we have ideas about what we'd like to see and do when we plan our next trip and we'll be comfortable enough to get around on our own. 

Yup...I said next trip.  We'll be back.  More likely it'll be in better weather, like in the spring or fall, but we'll certainly go back.

Other highlights:
1.  Entire stores with nothing but trims and ribbons.  Incredible.
2.  New York Cheesecake....to die for
3.  Seeing groups of Santa Claus's walking down the street to catch a bus. 
4.  Talking about family finances with a street vendor.  I know.  I have to learn to stop talking to everyone.
5.   The young woman who ran onto the train, stopping in front of me, face to face, just three inches from my nose and then whipping out her phone to send text messages completely oblivious to my uncontrollable laughing.
6.  Seeing the sunset just behind the Statue of Liberty.  Stunning.

I did the tiniest amount of stitching in the car on Thursday.  Here's Sew Red (I had only stitched the "b" before the trip).  It was a good car project.  Easy to see and no color changes!

We officially lost our minds for three days

Touring New York City in frigid weather with windchills that made it feel like the temperature was down in the teens and during the height of the Christmas rush is most certainly insane. And what do certifiably crazy people do while they're doing certifiably crazy things? They take pictures.

Here we are on Crazy Bus #1 - the Holiday Lights tour of NYC. The wind was blowing a gale but we wanted good pictures so we sat on the top floor of the bus, NOT under the plastic cover. So we could get good pictures.  Because the choice between great pictures and frostbite is a no brainer when you're a NYC tourist.

Here are a few:

 Times Square

Lincoln Center

Macy's

 The four other hale and hearty souls sitting up top and outside hung in there with us, too.
 

 Day Two was just as cold - maybe even colder.  But this time we knew to sit under the plastic dome on the bus.  Cold, but sheltered from the wind.  And we got off the bus and walked a good bit, too.

Here we are near City Hall and those are real working gas lamps.

We "hopped on and off" the Downtown tour bus all day, finishing the night with a trip to Rockefeller Center, then we walked all the way back to Macy's to pick up a Jim Shore Santa (at a fabulous price, by the way) Then a late supper near 33rd and Broadway and back to the hotel.

I'll have Day 3 pictures tomorrow and I'll tell you about the crush of humanity in NYC on a Saturday, just two weeks before Christmas....