WIPocalypse 2013 Results

Yes, I totally failed on the WIPocalypse for this year! I had a major stitching gap that lasted more than 6 months due to Disney planning and have just now started up again.

So lets first visit my 2013 goals:

I wanted to finish A Walk Through The Highlands, which I did, so SUCCESS. I started here:


And finished here:


A Summer Ball didn't even get close to finished, but I did complete the first two pages. I started here:


Finished page 2:


And I'm now here at the start of page 3 of 6:


35th Anniversary Celebration barely got touched (I really hate working with this navy material). I started here:


And only made it here:


None of my "Plan To Start" projects got touched other than the secret project (which got finished):


The rest stay in the stash for next year:
Sleepy Hollow Mural:


Angel In Lilac:


Tanglewood:


Or Abigail Patecleaver:


I did start a new project not on the "Plan To Start" list - The Princess And The Pea. It was a mid-year purchase and I couldn't wait to get started on it. I'm now here on the second row:


So, all in all, not a complete failure, but nowhere near any goals. I'm going to be much more realistic for next year and limit the projects a bit more. I'm not entirely sure I'm gonna participate in the WIPocalypse for 2014. I'm not a big fan of posting things on specific dates and since they've added a question of the month as well, that might be too much interaction for me. I'm leaning toward just making my own goals and trying to stick to them. We'll see.

Froggin nightmare!

As much progress as I've made on The Princess and the Pea over the past week, I had a major incident that caused four (yes, I said FOUR) hours of frogging! I have a bruise on my thumb to prove it (thread goes in much easier than it comes out). There have been numerous times where I've picked up the wrong thread, but I have never actually forgotten to change a color with a symbol before, but that is exactly what I did on Saturday.

Here is my before the weekend progress:


I really should have taken a picture of all the thread I had to frog out, but you can still see the remnants of the carnage and here it is after the fun:


And I did manage to still get to here by the end of last night:


It really doesn't look like much on the picture, but it is 28ct Monaco, so you can only imagine the huge area it covered...probably approximately a third of a chart page. Oh well, all done and fixed now. That's the really good thing about HAED's...they move along extraordinarily quickly!

Life is good

You know, I could whine about a lot of things...I'm poor, I'm alone, I'm still fat (although working on it), I'm not happy with my job, etc, etc...but I have the most wonderful pups in the world and that makes everything else ok!

My little old man Zachary (who is more like a loner cat than a dog) doesn't like to be touched or played with, but he stares at me constantly and you can feel the palpable jealousy when Bam comes anywhere near me. Then there is my baby Bam, who in public seems like the sweetest, most docile creature in the world, but when he is in the privacy of his own home, has demonic-like qualities that only a mother could love.

It's really hard to get both to show their true nature, but here ya go...Bam sticking out his tongue only moments before he pounces on Zach and Zach just staring in that creepy, stalkerish sort of way that only (again) a mother could love:


Merry Christmas to all my blog friends from Keebs, Zachary, and Baby Bammers!

December IHSW Results

This is the first International and Hermit Stitch Weekend I've done since the spring, but I did manage a pretty good chunk of work.

I didn't work much on A Summer Ball...I had made it through page 2 before the weekend started:


And was here:


But only made it this far (I really HATE working on this project...HAED's have spoiled me for life):


I spent the majority of the weekend working on The Princess And The Pea (I really forgot how much I miss working on this!). I ended here back in April:


Got here on Saturday night:


And here on Sunday night:


That B5200 is a MAJOR pain to work with and you can't even tell from the pictures that it's any different than regular white! Oh well, at least there wasn't a lot of it!

My major conundrum now is how to handle the "Stitching My First Heaven & Earth Design & Friends" Blog post...the last time I posted Princess was "Week 4-April 3". If I continue counting in weeks, should I start it "Week 5-December 23" or "Week 41-December 23"? I definitely have not worked on it for 46 weeks, and that is a bit confusing...maybe I should just switch to posting as row progress instead of week? I'm just not sure...maybe I'll just hang off posting there until I decide.

Hope everyone else had a good weekend!

Diet and Disney Woes

The day after I got back from Disney was diet doctor day and I had gained 16 lbs, but most (according to the nurse) could be attributed to water weight (since she couldn't get blood out of me, not an easy feat on a normal day, but darn impossible when I'm retaining fluids).

Today was my first real return to the clinic and, although I have lost 12 lbs from last Tuesday, I'm still in the gain category, so my ticker has gone down. It happens. As much as I was glad vacation was over food-wise (I was really sick of eating), getting back on track this week has been really hard! The day after last week's visit threw me into a Sonic run and got me hooked back on popcorn chicken. I've had them a couple of times this past week. Then, we had our work Christmas party Saturday night, which means food and booze consumption (and there was no way I was gonna sit in a room with people I work with without food and enough booze to forget where I am, but not enough to lose the food-which for me tends to me a lot...I lost count after a really horrible white sangria and 10 glasses of Reisling).

Oh well, I'm not really sure how well I will do this week either. Christmas food is being delivered to work by clients now and even the crappy chocolate we get from a certain clinic (Am knows who I mean) got Keiley-raided more than once (does it count if I didn't enjoy it or if I only ate the dark chocolate?). It is, however, extremely safe to say that the potluck Friday will definitely be avoided...if these people can't take care of their work environments and equipment that doesn't belong to them, can you only imagine what their houses look like? Yuck! I sure as hell am not going to eat after them!! I am not a potluck participant other than people who bring store-bought goodies and I know them and their houses personally...very short list! Besides, the smells coming from the breakroom are atrocious all day long! It's enough to keep away the mice and cockroaches!

Post-Disney Depression is in full swing though and pictures have not been touched. I'm using the excuse that I haven't got my sisters SD card yet, but it's a pretty lame excuse. Maybe I'll start on them first of January! I can still manage to turn them out in approximately 2 months if I work constantly on them!

Stitching

The "secret" project is completed and it's been gifted to its recipient, so I guess it's OK to show it:


I've also made a bit of progress on A Summer Ball -
From here:


To here:


I'm filling in the white bits now, and it's pretty slow going. I also had a pretty nasty fall on the ice and it has caused a lot of difficulty with stitching. I hate ice! I much prefer snow, but we don't get a lot of that around here, we just get ice. Oh well, as long as I'm making a little bit of stitching progress, it's still progress!

Another Disney trip bites the dust...

Well, I'm back...again! This trip was much better overall, although it did have lots of "moments". Am and I had an amazing time...when we were alone. I've decided that traveling with our Mother is hell on earth and don't even get me started on Am's godmother...that woman has satanic qualities and if I never see her again for the rest of my life, it will be way too soon!!

The whole MagicBand experience was much better this time and I did eventually start to enjoy using it (might as well, it's going to be Disney-norm soon enough). I kept my annual pass separate from the band and I think that helped as well.

My little monsters didn’t take too kindly to being boarded either and now they both have colds. Poor Bammers had a panic attack when they were bringing him out to me and everyone in the waiting room was freaking out! He does sound like he’s dying when he does that. Once he realized it was me holding him, he calmed down and literally hugged me! It was the sweetest thing ever! Zachary just looked at me like, “yeah, I’ve dealt with that all week long…it’s your turn now!”.

I’ve got over 7000 pictures to go through this time, so I’ll be busy for a while. Plus, I need to prove to myself (and others) that I can actually get the pictures done and the DVD created in less than a year’s time! It’s just really hard to look at Disney pictures when you get back…post-Disney depression and all. I’ll start posting some when I can, but here’s a bit of a teaser of what I have glanced through (just keep in mind they are pre-edit):

I managed to somehow gain 16 lbs on this trip (although they tell me it’s probably mostly all water weight…hope so and I'm not going to change my ticker until next week and I'm sure of the gain total). Despite being 30 lbs lighter this trip versus October, my feet were much worse off than ever. I’m still not sure what the deal is there. Needless to say, the weight gain definitely puts a damper on the sexy red dress I planned to buy for our work Christmas Party. There is no way I can get the extra weight off by Saturday night. Maybe it’s time to invest in some powerful spanx!! Oh well, I'll never wear the dress again, so if it is a bigger size, that's fine. I just have to keep thinking that next year's dress will be a skinny one...a little black Gucci dress maybe? Naw, not with my arms, but a girl can dream, right?