Weekly Stitching

I got my New Stitchy Start Blog post done on time this month (for once) after spending the week working on Happy Haunts, so I had today free to start the next rotation, Sleepy Hollow Mural. I left off here back in January:

And managed to barely get started on the next page today:

I tried to focus today, but it was a rough week (so what else is new?). At least I just got started on this week's rotation, so Sleepy Hollow has a full week to go.

I finally managed to break my Heartland obsession after my ninth viewing of the first nine seasons (or at least I hope I have, and probably only temporarily...until season 10 comes out on DVD). I broke down Friday night and turned Netflix on and watched Bridget Jones' Baby (which I LOVED!) which put me in an Austen mood. I was too lazy to get up and pick a disc (it was 2 am), so I watched the best parts of North & South on Netflix with the intention of starting Saturday's viewing of the Austens. But, by the time I got up, I had a very clear path...Once Upon A Time. Considering it's just a few more episodes before the end of the season (and possibly the end of the series), I wanted to remember all the best moments of my favorite TV show.

Besides, since we've been having serious storms this past week, I needed a bit of serious fantasy to refocus my brain. My sister's house just barely missed getting hit by a tornado last week. It tore down their fence and damaged a lot of the other houses in their neighborhood, but they got really lucky. And Saturday, me and boys came pretty close to the same fate (although I think my trailer won't fare nearly as well as her brick and rock house). We also got massive flooding around town this weekend, so the drive to work probably won't be too fun tomorrow. The joys of living in the South during tornado season!

Weekly Stitching and other junk

I know my posts have been short lately, but life is doing that annoying "kicking me in the butt" thing again. It's been a combination of issues that are all unrelated, but even I can only take so many hits.

1. As per usual, work is always shifting my moods up and down. Between all the extra work and hours, I'm exhausted, but I can't sleep because I'm too worried about work.

2. Bam had his bi-annual vet appointment and it cost me a fortune (mainly due to the extra food I have to buy because of Bugs), but Bam also has to have his teeth cleaned which is expensive in itself. But it will have to wait until Bugs has his heartworm checkup in the next week so I can see how much that costs.

3. The crown I popped off in Dallas and couldn't get put back on until I got over my bronchitis is now an abscessed tooth (including the one behind it), so now I have to have dental surgery and have both removed (including a very expensive implant to replace at least one of them). So much for getting ahead of my credit cards and working towards building my house...vet bills and dental surgery equals no credit card payoffs.

4. Speaking of said house, when I showed the plans to my mother, she very blatantly made fun of it's "small" size as well as several other derogatory comments (she had no idea she was stepping on toes, that's just the way she is). Normally, my mother doesn't have the power to hurt me but, for some reason, it walked all over me this time. So, even though I can't afford to build a bigger house, I've been working non-stop in all my spare time to find a better/bigger alternative and I've been driving myself crazy.

5. Even after paying off my mortgage and two credit cards, my credit score managed to drop almost 30 points! How does that happen? It was supposed to go up, not down! Maybe it will take another three months to benefit, but all three credit ratings showed the payoffs and one even reported the drop was due to not having a mortgage! Oh well, with all these new expenses, I guess my two year goal for house building might have to be a three year plan anyway. Damn.

But, anyhoo, I did manage to get my stitching goals finished for the week. I left off on Alice on the B's here:

And, despite all the odds, I managed to finish the row today:

Now, I have three completed rows and the whole project is as big as Bugsy!

Finishing the third row and possibly finishing the fourth one is one of my yearly stitching goals, but for now, it's time to go back to Happy Haunts so that I've got progress to show on The New Stitchy Start Blog. After that, I'm not sure which project I'm going back to. In rotation order, it should be Sleepy Hollow, but May is my horrible work month because I'm covering for someone else and working even later. Because I just finished Snow on Alice and the B's, I'm kind of leaning toward my other Snow White project instead. I guess we'll see after this week.

And I know I'm really far behind on reading blogs and answering emails, but I'm going to try to make some time next week.

Weekly Stitching

Still working on Alice and the B's with no sign of easing up. I left off here last week:

I started on Snow this week:

She looks a bit "swampy" to me right now, but I've been questioning all the colors in this chart since the beginning. I'm still not ready to put it down yet...I feel like I need to finish the row before I move on. Besides, I can't just leave poor Snow in mid form.

Top 5 Tuesday's Catch Up (again)

Well, looks like I've gotten behind again, so this is going to be short, sweet, and to the point. Sorry about the lack of pictures, between long work hours and this nagging chest thing, I just didn't feel like it last night.

Starting with last week's list - Top 5 Things That Make Me Laugh

I'm not a laugher by nature...the high level of sarcasm in my genes makes it almost impossible to hit my funny bone, but there are a few exceptions:

1) My Sister. She knows me too well and she knows which buttons to push.

2) My Pups. There is no greater joy.

3) Disney World. Kid...Candy Store...no explanation needed.

4) Being told what to do, especially by authority figures...not a laughable thing, but I will often burst out uncontrollably. Probably more of a nervous tick.

5) South Park. Rude, crude, horribly un-PC, but the most honest humor there is on television, bar-none.


And this week's - Top 5 Things To Accompany Your Stitching

1) iPad. I use it for keeping time and for viewing the PDFs (although I still use paper as well). Can't imagine stitching without it now.

2) My new light. Thanks to a generous Valentines Day gift card from Amazon, I managed to snag a really good LED light to replace my old Hobby Lobby magnifying light which has sucked since day one.

3) Reading glasses. I'm old, I'm legally blind, I have a degenerative eye disease, and I prefer to stitch on 28ct, so I need a little help.

4) A good binge watching show...right now, I'm on my eighth viewing of Heartland and I can't stop watching it.

5) Again...pups. Granted, their presence usually is more annoying than helpful, but there is something comfortable about having puppies snuggling with you as you stitch.

And I'm caught up again! I'm really going to try hard to get it right next week.

Weekly Stitching

I was pretty darn sick for most of the week, so I didn't get any stitching done during the week, but I did OK this weekend. I left off here last week:

And came close to finishing Sleeping Beauty tonight:

You can't tell, but I used almost an entire spindle of Petite Treasure Braid on her arms! It slowed me down quite a bit, but I'm still really into this piece, so I'm going to continue at least one more week (maybe two). I'd really like to finish the row before I switch out, but if work doesn't get any better, that could take me a month or so. I guess it will depend on where the mood takes me.

Weekly Stitching

This was a horrible stitch week. I've been sick off and on since coming back from Dallas and it hit me hard last week...so hard that I actually called my GP (but he would't see me because I have't been in since 2013 and he wanted to leave early, although I'm not sure what one has to do with the other). I barely made any progress at all on Happy Haunts and, even though I started back on Alice and the B's Saturday, I barely made any movement on Alice's hair. I left off here last time:

and stopped here tonight before the storms hit us:

Guess it's now readily apparent I decided not to do the April A to Z. Between being sick and some unscheduled extra work days I wasn't expecting, last week really sucked and it pretty much sealed the coffin door shut. Oh well, maybe next year.

Hopefully this will be a better stitch week, but since I'm still sick, I'm just not sure. And now the rain is starting, so I guess I'd better shut it down for the night. Besides, I have a very skittish (and very heavy) puppy standing on top of me while I'm trying to type! Guess I'll do the Stitchy Start post tomorrow.