Stitching Grandma

Stitching Update - Week Ended 1/8/2012

2012-01-08T19:50:00.000-08:00

I did finish the Precious Moments, You're One in a Million project for Q4OC (Quilts for Older Children and Adults. This is from PM64 - Love, Family and Friends. It's stitched on 14-count white Aida with DMC floss as charted except that I left off the words.

I'm currently working on the Pretty Fence Snow Globe from Vee and Co for WOCS (World of Charity Stitching). I would have been a lot farther, but I had to frog the entire yellow flower and it's leaves. Fortunately, I hadn't started backstitching it yet.

Look What My Daughter Gave Me

2012-01-07T21:48:00.000-08:00

Janice cross stitches and enjoys other crafts as well. We've made many trips to Michaels, Jo Ann's, Needlepoints Ltd and Hobby Lobby together.

For my birthday, she put together this stitching basket. There's a booklet, some 14-count white Aida (which she knows I use a lot of), some DMC floss, a bookmark blank, a towel (that she wants me to stitch for her), some needles, a ball of cotton yarn for knitting dishcloths and a Michaels gift card (which is already in my wallet). I think she did a great job, don't you?

Happy Birthday to Me

2012-01-06T21:37:00.000-08:00

Today is my 62nd birthday. Janice, Kyleigh and I celebrated on Tuesday by going to Chili's since they weren't going to be available today. I love their Ribeye and loaded baked potatoes. Kyleigh told them it was my birthday so they sang and gave me a free chocolate shake.

David and I planned on going to Famous Dave's tonight since we had a $25 gift certificate. On our way we called Janice and she and Kyleigh were able to join us after all.

I'm participating in two birthday floss exchanges where you send/receive and card and two skeins of floss. One of the ladies from the Shared_Crosses Yahoo Group stitched this card.

Since I love cupcakes and pink is one of my favorite colors, I love this card. I had commented on her post about it, but never thought it would be coming to me. Thank you, Lynette and also to all of the ladies who sent cards and floss.

Some pictures and the loss of a friend

2012-01-05T21:19:00.000-08:00

Janice sent me some pictures this evening:

Kyleigh received a princess dress up box from Santa so this is what she wore to take out the trash on Sunday.

Kyleigh has also discovered how to get in the freezer to get her own popsicles. She can even get out the stool and open it up herself. Note the child lock on the refrigerator--it doesn't do any good either.

This picture was taken at Downtown Disney the day after Christmas. Kyleigh received an unstuffed Build-A-Bear for Christmas, so we took it to get it stuffed and buy an outfit.

We also lost a friend today. My daughter's ex-husband's grandmother died this morning of natural causes. She's been sick for a while so it wasn't unexpected, but it's still hard on the family. When my daughter was married and before they moved from California to Indiana, we spent all of our holidays at her home and she was more of a grandmother to Janice than her "real" grandparents since she rarely saw them. We were privileged to spend Thanksgiving 2010 at their home in Indiana on the way home from my father's funeral. My prayers go out to her husband, daughters and grandchildren.

Stitching Update - Week Ending 1/1/2012

2012-01-01T21:56:00.000-08:00

I didn't have a lot of time to stitch this past week since we had Kyleigh with us during the day, but I did manage a finish and a start.

The finish is my third letter for the Jungle Animals Alphabet SAL at Q4OC (Quilts for Older Children and Adults). I stitched K and M last week; this week I stitched the N.

I really enjoy stitching these little alphabet squares, partly because they're so quick and cute.

The start is Precious Moments You're One in a Million, also for Q4OC. This was for the 2011 Stitchers Challenge so I'm a little behind. It will be going to Love Quilts Brazil once it's finished.

I had hoped it would be my final finish for 2011, but instead it will be my first finish for 2012.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T07:43:00.000-08:00

We hadn't planned on doing anything for New Year's Eve, but Janice heard about a family friendly event at the Great Park in Irvine (a former Marine Corps Air Station). They were going to raise and drop a hot air balloon at 9:00 p.m. and there were activities, music and food so the four of us decided to check it out.

It was extremely crowded and there were lines for all the activities and food, but we did manage to eat dinner, look at the old cars and planes, call David's dad to wish him a happy birthday, send cards to those in the military and police force and find a good place to sit and view the balloon while watching the bands play on stage. Kyleigh also made a new friend who shared his light up ball, party hats and glow necklaces.

Unfortunately, it got very cold and foggy and the balloon started to disappear so we left about 8:00 in search of hot chocolate. We ended up at a McDonalds on the way home (love Janice's iPhone 4S). I didn't realize that McDonalds made such good hot chocolate!

Today will be church and stitching and hopefully catching up on some DVR'd shows on the Food Network and maybe some laundry.

PHD Stitching for 2012

2011-12-30T21:00:00.000-08:00

Today was our last day with Kyleigh. We didn't do much today besides watching TV, painting, cutting and taping and taking a long nap. Janice picked her up about 4:00 and the three of us went shopping since Kyleigh was running out of pants--she's really hard on clothes. We went to the Outlets at the Block and got her several pairs of leggings, some long sleeve shirts, a skirt and shirt combo, a nightgown and a dress. We also got her some new earrings.

I spent some time going through my PHD (Potential Happy Dances, also know as WIPS/UFOs) projects so that I could "plan" my stitching for 2012. Here is what I came up with (in alphabetical order):

12 Days of Christmas - Margaret Sherry

Angelic Ornaments - Dimensions Kit (There are eight angels altogether)

Ballerina Kitten - Dimensions (No Count) Kit

Butterfly Whimsy - Dimensions Kit

Christmas at the Beach - Gold Collection Mini

Crabapples, Lemon & Berries - Borderline Towels booklet

Christmas Cutie - Cross Stitch Card Shop #81 (Cover Kit)

Denim Darlings Bib - For the Love of Cross Stitch - March, 1998

Let Freedom Ring - Sunset Kit

Majestic Eagle - Sunset Kit

Tinkerbell - Disney/Thomas Kinkade Kit

Tropical Paradise - Mill Hill Kit

I have approximately 75-80 PHDs, but these are the ones I'd like to complete this coming year. Several of them don't have a lot of stitching left so should be completed quickly. I plan to either work on them on the weekends or do an every other week rotation similar to what I've been doing the past few months.

I also have the HAED, Seaside Victorian that I'd like to continue stitching, but probably won't finish and my current WIP, One in a Million (Precious Moments) if it's not completed by tomorrow night and at this point it doesn't look like it will be.

In addition, I have several charity commitments and would like to do a bunch of small Christmas ornaments. I also have a couple more projects that will be added to the list, once some of these are completed.

Too Much Help

2011-12-29T21:50:00.000-08:00

Kyleigh again arrived bright and early in her nightgown, but today was a different kind of day. It started with grandpa having to move the car on the lawn just in time for the street sweeper to go by. While it was there, he decided to wash it since it was very muddy from our trip north last week.

Kyleigh was grandpa's willing helper, but she managed to get wet when they were rinsing the car so we took a bike ride around the block hoping she'd dry off. (She rode, I walked) The shirt dried, the jeans didn't. Grandpa went to move the car back to the street since the sprinklers were ready to come on and Kyleigh ran out to watch him and came back even wetter, so I let her go out and play in them before I changed her.

If you haven't guessed already, it was about 78 degrees out today--not exactly normal weather for the end of December.

After lunch we decided to deliver Christmas presents to the friend that provides our seats at the Angels' games, but first I had to wrap them. This time the help was provided by our two cats, Pumpkin and Soxie.

They totally ripped the paper on this side of the box, but with some creative compensation, I got it done and we got the presents delivered safely.

Once we got back, grandpa decided to do some cleanup in the backyard. He mowed the largest section of lawn and then he weeded the border between the patio and the grass. We used to plant impatiens there, but haven't for several years. Again, he had a willing helper.

Janice calls Kyleigh "a tomboy in princess clothing". She always wants to wear a dress, but she's not afraid to get dirty. Janice was a tomboy too, but never wanted to wear a dress.

Another Kyleigh Day

2011-12-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

Kyleigh arrived bright and early this morning in her nightgown and slippers. After getting dressed, eating breakfast, watching some cartoons on TV, playing with her new Tangled game on her MobiGo and watching grandpa change the flourescent lightbulbs in the kitchen, we went to the Michaels in Buena Park to do a free make-it/take-it which involved gluing pieces of tissue paper to a palm tree or a dinosaur. Here's Kyleigh's completed project:

Our next stop was McDonalds for lunch and then on to Barnes & Noble where we tried to resolve a problem with a Nook purchase and got a book for Kyleigh. Resolving the problem took almost 1/2 hour and she was a good waiter so the book was a reward. Then it was home for a nap.

Kyleigh enjoys playing Doodle Bear on the Fisher Price website. This involves stamping various colored stamps on one of three bears and then printing or washing the bear and starting over. We have several bears lying around our house now, all pink with pink stamps.

A Kyleigh Day

2011-12-27T19:57:00.000-08:00

Janice had to go back to work today so Kyleigh had a sleepover last night and spent the day with us. We were really lucky that she slept until 7:45 this morning. We had a real lazy morning and it took us til almost 10:30 to get showers and breakfast. I received a Belgian waffle maker for Christmas so David made us waffles and scrambled eggs with ham for breakfast.

We spent the rest of the morning putting boxes in bags, playing Doodle Bear on the Fisher Price website, watching Strawberry Shortcake and generally annoying the cats. We did manage a two hour nap and then had a late lunch (peanut butter and jelly with cheese sandwich, of course).

David went to mail packages (Q4OC, Binky SD, a welcome baby present for my nephew's new daughter and the return of an eBay purchase) and birthday card and floss to Australia. And Kyleigh and I walked to the store to get milk, bread, raspberries, broccoli, hamburger, cat food and Tinkerbell gummies for her mommy. On the way home, she decided she needed her picture taken.

This is our next door neighbors front yard and Kyleigh has been fascinated by these statues. I took the first picture and she came and looked at the camera (on my phone) and decided I needed to take the second one. BTW, that's my Mickey she's holding.

She went home with mommy after dinner, but she'll be back about 7:00 tomorrow morning. Now I'm off to stitch. I'm working on a Precious Moments design for Q4OC.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T06:14:00.000-08:00

MS 12 Days of Christmas

2011-12-25T05:44:00.000-08:00

I have this posted as individual finishes on my other blog http://cathy-mystitchingjournal.blogspot.com/ but a friend asked to see the whole piece so I'm posting that here. The fabric is 25-count potato Lugana which isn't showing well in the photo and I'm using the called for Anchor floss. This is on my to be finished list for 2012.

Weekly Update - 10/2/2011

2011-10-03T07:30:00.000-07:00

This was my week to work on Seaside Victorian and I've now completed the top half of page 1 as well as part of the bottom half. I like that it's actually starting to look like something.

Now I'm back to charity stitching, this time for Binky SD. So far, this attempt at a rotation seems to be working!

My talented daughter has been busy

2011-10-02T21:40:00.000-07:00

We gave Janice a sewing machine for her birthday--actually we gave her money and she used part of it to buy a sewing machine. She didn't have Kyleigh this weekend, so she spent part of it sewing. First she made the Tinkerbell pillow for Kyleigh to use for naps at preschool.

Next, she made a prototype of a green snack bag that she'll sell at the boutique next month. The previous one she made was squared off and had velcro across the top, but I felt the velcro might make too much noise when opening or closing so she came up with this idea instead.

Her final project was the tutu and wings that will become part of Kyleigh's butterfly costume for Halloween. The wings still need to be painted pink and purple.

Weekly Update - 9/25/2011

2011-09-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

This was my week to stitch something other than Seaside Victorian, so I chose to stitch two butterflies for WOCS since the target date is 10/1/2011.

For this project, we were asked to use a butterfly pattern designed for WOCS and choose three shades of one color to stitch it in. There will be 36 butterflies in total. We were also asked to send a fabric for the border along with it. I scanned the squares with the fabric I chose for each.

For my first butterfly, I chose to use DMC 3607, 718 and 915.

For the second, I chose 964, 959 and 3812.

Seaside Victorian Update

2011-09-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

Stitches, that is. Seaside Victorian has been set aside for now, but I managed to add about 1700 stitches this week. (The colors in last week's photo were more accurate.) You'll probably notice that the first two columns are one row too long. I'm not sure how that happened, but I'm going to leave it for now. It's close emough to the colors in the next row that I'm planning to skip that row to get back on track.

Because I'm enjoying this so much, but have other obligations that need attention, I've decided to try a rotation. I'm stitching on Seaside Victorian every other week and in the other weeks will be stitching on various squares for WOCS, Binky SD and Q4OC. plus an exchange project for Shared_Crosses and a finishing up a project I started a couple of weeks ago. Lots of stitching in my future.

Pumpkin and Soxie

2011-09-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

In April, we brought home two kittens that we got from a friend of a friend of Janice's. Janice took their brother who Kyleigh named Bobby (after Bob the Builder) Ours were immediately named Pumpkin and Soxie, mostly because of their coloring. We were told at the time that they were six weeks old and both males, but we later discovered they weren't quite that old and that Soxie was a female. Of course that didn't make a difference to us. The top picture was taken the day we brought them home.

I took the bottom picture this morning. They are six months old now and still spend a lot of time together. They're not allowed on tables and counters, but they love to curl up on top of things. Right now, one just got removed from the table in my home office and the other is curled up on the shredder.

My Current Project

2011-09-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

One of the ladies in my Yahoo Group, Shared_Crosses is stitching a HAED called Seaside Victorian by Dennis Lewan and I fell in love with it almost immediately. She started in the bottom left and I started in the top right so we're working in opposite directions. Below is the picture of what it's supposed to look like. I'm seriously considering removing the ship, but I have a long way to go before I make that decision.

Below is my start. I've only been stitching on it for a week and this is approximately 3/4 of 1/4 of the first page. I'm using a light blue 25-count Lugana, one over one and I'm really enjoying it. I'm planning to continue with it through the weekend, then I need to work on some other projects.

I do have another HAED in process. I started Faery Tales several months ago, but haven't quite completed the first page. I'm stitching it on 18-count Aida, one over one and I don't really like the coverage so I'm thinking I might restart it using 25-count Lugana. I've surprised myself in that the 25-count is easier than I thought it would be.

Kyleigh spent the weekend

2011-09-11T21:37:00.000-07:00

Janice was at a women's retreat with our church this weekend, so Kyleigh got to spend the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa. This is the first time she's ever spent the whole weekend.

Friday night we went to see the Angels play the Yankees. It was a long game and we left before the fireworks, but got to see the fireworks from Disneyland on the way to the car.

I was closing the back door after letting the cats in and managed to close my right thumb in the door. The nail is now a beautiful blue/purple and I'm going to lose the nail. It was painful the first few days, but isn't too bad today.

Saturday we woke up to thunder and rain showers so we had a very lazy type day. David had promised to make pancakes, but first he fixed the knob on our bedroom door. It's been sticking and hard to turn and I've been afraid of being either locked in or locked out, but I think he really did it because he asked Kyleigh to open the door and she couldn't get the knob to turn. Late in the afternoon we went out and played in the backyard and Kyleigh found Janice's old wagon and filled it up and pulled it around the yard. She also spent time lugging our cats around.

Side Note: Have you ever realized after the fact that you should have taken a picture of something but missed the opportunity. I did that a lot this weekend.

Sunday was church. During the service a sheriff in uniform sang the song "Where were you when the world stopped turning?" I'd never heard it before, but it's a beautiful song and there was also a slide show of 9/11 images to accompany it. Here is a link to the lyrics if you're interested. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/alanjackson/wherewereyouwhentheworldstoppedturning.html

I took this picture of Kyleigh all dressed and ready to go and sent it to her mom.

We met Janice at Olive Garden for dinner since it's within walking distance of her condo (I had her car), David had a gift card and they had the neverending pasta bowl special. Kyleigh wasn't happy about it, but she did go home with mommy. And I have the next two days off work to recouperate.

Angels Game Fun

2011-09-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

Janice, Kyleigh, Bob (the holder of the season tickets) and I normally go to all the Friday night Angels games. Janice wasn't able to make it tonight so Bob and I took Kyleigh to see the Angels play the Yankees by ourselves. The pre-game ceremonies included a walk around the field by active military and their families. There was also the flag ceremony where they unfurl a large flag on the field and a flyover by seven jets. I didn't get any pictures because I was holding Kyleigh.

Bob normally keeps score, but not when Kyleigh's around. Then he spends his time either entertaining or being entertained by her. The picture above was taken at tonight's game. He's responsible for the sweatshirt being on backwards. BTW, Kyleigh doesn't spend much time watching the game

The pictures below were taken at last Friday night's game. Bob purchased that monkey (purple is her favorite color) and later said it was the best $20 he ever spent. They played "There's a monkey on your head", Hide the monkey", The monkey is mean", etc.

;

Kyleigh's School Picture

2011-05-03T19:27:00.001-07:00

Janice had a dentist appointment this afternoon so David and I picked Kyleigh up at preschool. There was a note on the door saying pictures were in. Isn't she just the cutest thing!

Janice got to our house before we did so she fixed dinner: spaghetti and salad, yum!

Birthday Club and an Easter Dress

2011-03-26T21:38:00.000-07:00

Kyleigh spent Friday night with us so we started the morning by meeting Janice for breakfast. Then we ran errands: Party City, WalMart, Penneys and Toys R Us. We went to Toys R Us so that Kyleigh could get her birthday crown and Geoffrey balloon. They also announced her birthday over the loudspeaker so that everybody that wanted to could wish her happy birthday. She had several people come up to her and very shyly said thank you to each one. One of her favorite parts of going to Toys R Us or Babies R Us is to ride the vehicles at the front of the store, but she's only allowed to if she behaves while we're in the store. She did this time so she got her ride. That's a sticker on her arm (another thing she's "into"). Easter dresses were on sale at Penneys and Janice and I had picked out a few last week, but decided to let Kyleigh choose. This Penneys had a dressing room in the children's department so after she'd chosen three dresses, we let her try them on. Below is the dress she chose. I took the picture off Penneys website, but the background of the dress is white white.

Riding the Bike

2011-03-25T21:24:00.000-07:00

Kyleigh has been fascinated by this bike ever since she was a year old and could climb on and sit on the cross piece. Every time she comes over, she tries to ride it and now she can, although she still can't sit on the seat and reach the pedals.

That's most of my stash in the background, although there are two more cabinets that aren't visible.

Tinkerbell Dress, Part 2

2011-03-22T20:03:00.000-07:00

We picked up Kyleigh at preschool and met Mommy for dinner at Norm's restaurant. Kyleigh saw the dress when she got into the car and insisted on taking it into the restaurant so that she could try it on. We made her wait until after she'd finished eating, but here it is on the real life model. The picture's a little blurry, because I took it with my cell phone and she might have moved a little. She does like the dress and it fits so now I can use up some more material in my stash and make another one.

I also took this picture at the restaurant while we were waiting for dinner.

Tinkerbell Dress

2011-03-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, Janice and I were at JoAnn's and I spotted an inexpensive pattern that I thought would make a cute dress for Kyleigh. We almost purchased princess material, but then saw this Tinkerbell fabric. Since Tinkerbell is one of her favorites right now, we bought this one instead.

I cut it out yesterday while Janice was using my sewing machine and stitched it up today in between power outages (we had five varying from 5 seconds to a couple of minutes within a couple of hours). I modified the dress slightly--the bow was supposed to tie in the front and there was supposed to be a border of ribbon across the top with buttons above. Instead, I left off the buttons and the top border and stitched the ribbon down on both the front and back and the bow ties in the back.

I took the picture to show Janice since we were meeting her for dinner at Pancho's. This is one of our favorite restaurants and they were doing a fundraiser for the school's basketball team. We met at 4:00 and the restaurant was extremely busy and there was only one waitress, but we got very good service, from I think, the manager. He brought us several bowls of chips and salsa and refilled our drinks before they were empty and was reasonably attentive. The kind of service you'd normally expect, but rarely get when they're that busy.

As far as stitching goes, I haven't done that much. Below is two weeks worth of stitching on Cat Lessons for People from Lizzie Kate. I did a lot of frogging on this one, but there are two mistakes that won't be frogged because I don't think anyone will notice them.

I changed most of the colors, because I'm not into browns/khakis. It's being stitched on 25-count Wedgewood Lugana.

My Daughter is so talented

2011-03-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

Kyleigh's birthday party is next Sunday and she's having a Tinkerbell party at a local park. Janice wanted a couple of games for the kids so she bought a ring toss game, but decided to make a bean bag toss game. Here is the (almost) finished product:

She painted it last week, but came over today to reinforce it and make the bean bags which are pink and purple.

Kyleigh's reaction when she first saw it was "That's cool, but that blue flower, it should be pink."

February Stitching Plans

2011-02-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

For February, I'm planning to stitch the following:

UFO
I (heart) Cats

Binky, South Dakota
Feathered Friends - Owl
Penguin Alphabet - Letter T
Newborn Cuties - Clown
Newborn Cuties - Rocking Horse
Newborn Cuties - Duckie

Q4OC
Kylee B - Butterfly

LQUSA
Cars - Doc Hudson

Christmas Ornament
Festive Fairy

Oak Haven SAL
January
February

These are my plans, but as always they're not set in stone. The items for Binky SD and the Christmas ornament are very small and should only take 1-2 days each. I think I can finish all of these, but I doubt I'll have time to start a new ongoing project although I have several I'd love to start.

January Stitching Update

2011-02-01T21:09:00.000-08:00

I didn't do too bad. I stitched every day but one and completed all the required stitching. It was the fun stuff that didn't get done. I just didn't realize that it would take almost two weeks to stitch the teacup.

For Q4OC
Alphabet Kitties - Letter V - Completed 1/7

For Binky, South Dakota
Spring Chicks - Chick 7 - Completed 1/8
January Teacup - Completed 1/19
Teddy Bear Alphabet - Letter A - Completed 1/21
Teddy Bear Alphabet - Letter U - Completed 1/22

UFO Finish
I (heart) Cats - started 1/30

Start and Finish
Christmas Smiley Ornament - completed 1/24
6 Geese-a-laying - completed 1/30

Start
Cat Rules for People - not started

I'll continue stitching on I (heart) Cats for the next week or so and Cat Rules for People will be added to my February planned stitching.

Look what I got

2011-01-24T21:25:00.000-08:00

When we got Kyleigh's picture taken with Santa last month, they gave us a coupon for Shutterfly. This is what Janice got with that coupon. She also had a couple of reprints made of Kyleigh trying to eat Mickey's nose and her and Kyleigh at the baseball game.

I don't normally use a mouse pad, but I'm making an exception and this now graces my desk at work.

And I'm participating in a birthday floss exchange on the Shared Crosses Yahoo Group. Since my birthday is in January, this is what I got. It was really fun to open all the cards and see what colors each person chose. You were only supposed to send two skeins, but some people sent three or four (and only two were duplicates). I also received a gift certificate to an online shop because one of the ladies felt guilty for not sending her floss on time.

January Stitching Plans

2011-01-01T06:41:00.000-08:00

Today is the beginning of a brand new year and I'm looking forward to seeing what it brings. I don't do resolutions, but I have a lot of things planned for this year and I hope to accomplish at least some of them.

On the stitching front, I'm unofficially participating in the Flippin Crazy Challenge where you commit to finishing 15 WIPs/UFOs. I currently have 73 from which to choose, but so far I'm only committing to three specific ones. I'd also like to complete a bunch of Christmas Ornaments this year as well as start several new projects including more stitching for charity. I also plan to stitch mostly from my stash.

One of the ladies in our Shared_Crosses yahoo group plans her stitching for a whole year in advance down to what she's planning to stitch on what day. Me, I can't get that detailed, but I do have a plan for January. I'm planning to stitch the following in the order listed:

For Q4OC
Alphabet Kitties - Letter V

For Binky, South Dakota
Spring Chicks - Chick 7
January Teacup
Teddy Bear Alphabet - Letter A
Teddy Bear Alphabet - Letter U

UFO Finish
I (heart) Cats

Start and Finish
Christmas Smiley Ornament
6 Geese-a-laying

Start
Cat Rules for People

Most of these are small, so even though it seems like a lot, I think it's doable.

In closing, I'd like to wish everyone reading this a healthy happy and prosperous New Year!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T07:34:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Kyleigh is spending the weekend with her dad so we're not planning to celebrate until tomorrow afternoon when she gets home.

What ya lookin at?

2010-12-06T16:04:00.001-08:00

Janice and Kyleigh went to the San Diego Zoo on Saturday since they had some free passes that needed to be used. I'm not sure whether Kyleigh was asking the goat the question in the title or whether Janice was asking Kyleigh, but I thought it was a cute picture.

3 French Hens

2010-11-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

As I said yesterday, I hoped to be able to finish this piece tonight and I accomplished that goal. I didn't get a chance to start 4 Calling Birds tonight, but I plan to start that one tomorrow.

This is the third of Margaret Sherry's 12 Days of Christmas which I'm stitching on 25 count potato Lugana with Anchor floss.

Happy Halloween

2010-10-31T21:54:00.000-07:00

Janice carved this pumpkin and it sits by her front porch to welcome trick or treaters. She does a different one each year and this year chose Cinderella because that's what Kyleigh chose as her costume.

Kyleigh didn't go trick or treating with her dad after all, but she did get home in time to go trick or treating with a friend who was also dressed as Cinderella. Janice posted a picture of her filled pumpkin on Facebook. That's a lot of loot for a two year old, but I think some of it came from Treats in the Streets on Thursday.

We only had ten trick or treaters this evening so my office is going to be the beneficiary of LOTS of candy.

It should keep the receptionist's candy dish supplied for quite some time.

I did do some stitching today and this is my progress on Margaret Sherry's 3 French Hens. I hope to be able to finish him tomorrow night.

They're still having problems with the new servers so they put them back to the way they were before and are still having problems. Hopefully our software supplier will be able to resolve the problem in the morning before the users try to sign on. Of course this means we'll have to try again later this week.

Look what Janice made

2010-10-30T21:29:00.000-07:00

Janice has been preparing items to sell at a boutique our church is having next weekend and she came over today to use my sewing machine to finish up her pillow. After finishing this, she and her dad built a stand to display the ornaments she's made.

This is the pin I started last night. It's a very old Mill Hill kit from the Holiday Pins Collection VIII and is called Tiny Tree. Once I finished this, I pulled out my Margaret Sherry 12 Days of Christmas--I'm in the middle of 3 French Hens.

And my bears have a home. I contacted Mary at Krafters Korner Charity Quilts and she responded right away that she would be very happy to receive them so they'll be going out in the mail sometime next week.

In the neverending saga of the moving servers, we tried again this afternoon but are still having problems so will probably be going back to the old ones tomorrow.

All Done

2010-10-29T22:05:00.000-07:00

I finished the last teddy bear this evening. I'd had a rough day so I came home and stitched while watching a couple of prerecorded TV shows. Now I just have to find a group that "needs" them. I do have a couple of possibilities and I'll be sending the owner a message in a few minutes.

Since I didn't feel like hasseling with my stand, I pulled out an old Mill Hill Christmas pin to work on next.

We had our Halloween potluck at work today and of course, I ate way too much. In addition, we had several computer problems which led to a stressful day. We're going to try to move the servers again tomorrow afternoon and I'm really hoping it goes better this time.

Kyleigh had her flu shot this morning although in her case it wasn't a shot but some mist in the nose. Since she didn't have the H1N1 vaccine last year, she has to go back in a few weeks for a booster.

She missed the fire truck visit at her preschool, but made it back in time for the orange/black party during snack (these are the colors they're studying this month. Kyleigh took black olives and Janice warned the teachers to keep an eye on her because she'd eat all the olives and nothing else if they let her.

Busy Evening

2010-10-28T22:21:00.000-07:00

Janice picked me up at 4:00 this afternoon and we took Kyleigh trick or treating at Treats in the Streets at the circle in old town Orange along with thousands of other people. We got a bit of a late start and I forgot my handicap permit so we had to park about 1/2 a mile away and it was a lot more crowded than either of us expected. But, our pretty little Cinderella managed to get quite a few treats in her pumpkin.

I think her father is planning to take her to another special event on Saturday and is returning her in her costume on Sunday so that Janice can take her trick or treating with a friend who will also be dressed as Cinderella.

We had planned to get something to eat there, but since it was so crowded and David didn't go with us, we stopped at Carl's Jr on the way home.

David forgot to pick up my prescriptions this afternoon so I had to go out and get them after dinner. He also "forgot" to get gas so I had to do that too.

I also had to log in to my work computer and do some testing since we were trying to switch servers on our production account. It wasn't a constant process so along with watching recorded shows and stitching another bear, I had to keep checking emails, etc in my home office. Unfortunately, we had to put everything back on the old servers so we'll have to go through this again, either tomorrow night or Saturday.

Another One Done

2010-10-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

I finished another teddy bear from the Cross Stitch Favorites - Teddy Bears magazine. This is one of my favorites. He's done on antique white Aida.

This is the eleventh of twelve bears and I started the twelth one last night, but unfortunately the frog came to visit and I need to rip out all but the first nine stitches. Hopefully I'll get a chance to do that tonight.

While Janice was sick last week, I took Kyleigh grocery shopping with me at a local Vons market. This Vons has cars attached to some of the carts and as soon as she spotted one, Kyleigh said "I ride in car". She said that again when Janice turned into the parking lot tonight. Apparently some of the cars have TVs and some don't. Tonight, Janice found one that had a TV and Kyleigh got to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while Janice did her shopping. She said she only had to deal with Kyleigh once--when a little hand exited the car in the middle of the candy aisle.

Monday Evening

2010-10-25T21:09:00.000-07:00

Tonight was Kyleigh's last swimming lesson for a few months. Since we still only have one functional car, David picked me up at work and we went to pick up Kyleigh and then met Janice at the swim school. David decided to go inside and watch the lesson for the first time.

Kyleigh has learned to kick across a 10' space, jump in, float on her back and climb out of the pool. She's had a lot of fun with Miss Sarah, but it's time for a break. Tonight they had a talking witch with a platter of candy. Kyleigh really wanted a piece of candy but was afraid of touching the witch.

After swimming lessons we went out to dinner at Polly's Pies. We discovered that Monday is Kids Night with crafts, games, toys, etc. so Kyleigh made a crown, a mask and a ghost (with help) and played with a cash register while waiting for her dinner to be ready. She also shared a piece of chocolate cream pie with me, but only ate the cream with the rice (sprinkles) on it.

We didn't get home until almost 8:00, but I did manage to finish another project. This is the tenth of twelve in a series of teddy bears that I'm stitching. He's from the Cross Stitch Favorites - Teddy Bears magazine and is
done on Antique White Aida.

My Friday

2010-08-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

Janice sent me this picture this morning (taken with her cell phone) of Kyleigh when she went to get her up this morning. Kyleigh is sitting inside her pillowcase because she was "cold".

Fellowship Crossings, a Yahoo group I belong to had a Summer Outings exchange to celebrate summer moving into autumn. Even though the exchange didn't need to be mailed until the end of the month, there was a suspicious looking package in the mail this afternoon. My partner was Terry and this is what she sent: a tiny, beautifully made biscornu, some Glitter Autumn Leaves and Nature's Thumbprint buttons, some tiny note cards with fall leaves printed on them, the kit Autumn Leaves from San-Man Originals and Lizzie Kate's Acorn Scissor Case.

I'm a very happy camper today.

In other news:

We lost power for about 1/2 hour around midnight last night. It was so quiet it woke me up. I hate it when we lose power in the middle of the night since I wake to a blinking clock and have no idea what time it is. I never sleep well after that because I'm afraid I'll oversleep.

I finished the preliminary steps on a big project at work: balancing the balance forward entries for our general ledger. It took me almost a week, but now it's on the Controller's desk to determine if everything is posted to the right place.

I received a call from my cardiologist's office regarding the blood/urine tests I took yesterday. My magnesium is still a little low so he wants me to double the dosage of the supplement and his office will let me know when they want me to retake the test. I checked the results online this morning so I expected the call. I also expected a call from my primary care physician regarding the diabetes panel since my Hba1c was kind of high. They did call, but they called the house and I didn't get home in time to return the call.

My Thursday

2010-08-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

I got to use the car today so I took advantage of that fact to get the blood/urine tests done that should have been done a month ago. Everything went very smooth and I was only 20 minutes late for work.

The reason I had the car today is that I had an appointment for a haircut scheduled for right after work. After getting my haircut, I went to Dollar Tree to pick up a bag for a baby gift and also found some Disney princess wrapping paper that I couldn't pass up. I can't justify spending $4 - $5 to wrap a present. Then it was a trip to Ralphs and a stop at Del Taco and home so I made good use of the car today.

I'm currently stitching In the Clouds, a one-color angel chart for the Angel Anniversary SAL to celebrate the 4th anniversary of Quilts for Older Children and Adults. When finished, it will go to Love Quilts Brazil. The picture was taken a couple of days ago; I've now completed the second angel although I didn't do any stitching tonight.

The chart is an online freebie and the group provided the floss. Each stitcher is using a different color DMC variations. This is 4230.

Taste Test and a Bike Ride

2010-07-28T07:14:00.001-07:00

The university where I work has a Food Science program that is taste testing peaches and blueberries this summer using faculty, staff and students. Since today's location was the building next door, a coworker and I walked over to find out what it was all about.

We tasted four different peaches (with bites of cracker in between to clear the palate) and filled out survey forms for each rating appearance, taste, texture and juiciness.

Janice has been teaching Kyleigh her full name so when someone asks her name, she responds with Kyleigh Mansfield instead of just Kyleigh. Tonight, Janice asked Kyleigh "What's my name?" and Kyleigh responded with "Mama Mansfield". Too cute!

After dinner they decided to go for a bike ride and this photo just happened to pop up on my phone.

She received the bike and helmut for her second birthday, but she's still growing into the pedals. According to Janice, she can now keep her feet on the pedals if you push or pull her, but she has trouble operating them herself. She also loves trying to ride my stationary bike, but it's way to big for her.

Several of the ladies in the yahoo group, Fellowship Crossings are stitching the HAED design, Faery Tales. The chart for this is 40 pages, but since I love the design, I decided to join in. I'm stitching it on 18-count white Aida with one strand of floss. Here's my first progress pic. There's not much to see yet and I still need to do catch up with the other ladies, but I'm really enjoying it for now. (I'm sorry it's so blurry.)

I Cracked the Code and a new Preschool

2010-07-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

I'm stitching the Dimensions kit, A Year of Events and the floss numbers don't correspond to DMC or Anchor. Or do they? A random sampling is 6096, 6955, 12290, 13046, 18511 and so forth. As I was stitching, I noticed that if you lopped off the first couple of digits you were left with an Anchor number that actually corresponded with the right color--18403 = 403 = black; 11001 = 001 = white.

On Saturday, I ran out of 6955 which doesn't correspond to any Anchor color, but does correspond to DMC 955 which I was able to pull out of my stash. Last night, I discovered that they had shorted me 18511. This one almost had me stumped since it's not an Anchor of DMC equivalent. So, I found an online conversion for JP Coates to DMC and yep, 8511 = DMC 168 = a light gray that worked perfectly.

Kyleigh's preschool is closing on September 30th and she'll start at the preschool attached to our church on Monday, August 30th. However, beginning today she's attending a "new to her" preschool. It's the same staff and kids, but in a new temporary location.

Janice called this evening to tell us that Kyleigh had figured out how to unlock the deadbolt on the front door. Fortunately, she has a child lock doorknob protector so she can't get out of the house. But tonight she had her backpack on, her lunchbox in her hand, unlocked the door and told mommy she was going to preschool--guess she enjoyed it today!

Happy 4th of July

2010-07-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

Our day started with church where the theme was God and Country. We had a flag ceremony, said the Pledge of Allegiance, and sang several patriotic songs (The Star Spangled Banner, Battle Hym of the Republic, My Country Tis of Thee, America the Beautiful and God Bless America.)

Later Janice and I and her friend, DW, went to the Angels vs. Royals game. There was another flag ceremony and during the singing of the national anthem, a flag was unfurled on the field

and a large plane (I forget what it was) flew over as the "rockets red glare" fireworks went off.

The Angels won (11-0) and the game was followed by a fantastic fireworks show. And when we got home there were several families shooting off fireworks in the streets surrounding our house even though fireworks are illegal there.

Since Kyleigh wasn't with us, I took my stitching. I'd started this little guy in mid June and had stitched everything from his shirt down. I stitched his face, arms and the cupcakes this evening. It just worked out that he was wearing red, white and blue.

He is the first of twelve squares that I plan to stitch from the DMC Favorites - Teddy Bears magazine. If I manage to finish them all, they'll go to KKCQ for a quilt. If not, I'll send them to WOCS to be made into cards.

Eeyore is finished

2010-06-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

Janice and Kyleigh met David and I for breakfast and then I went with them to swimming lessons. Kyleigh has stopped fussing and is doing a much better job of swimming and floating on her back.

Since it's Chad's weekend, he and his mom picked Kyleigh up at the pool after the lesson and Janice went to get a massage. I came home and ordered HAED's Faery Tales and then went to my LNS to get some material. I decided to go with 18-count aida since they don't carry 20-count anything.

Then I met Janice at Barnes and Noble and we went to Carters and Toys R Us to get a birthday gift for her nephew and to Jo Ann's where she got a simple cross stitch wedding sampler for some friends and I bought some material for pajamas for Kyleigh and some patterns. I also bought a Dreams Collection kit called Snow White Discovers the Cottage. It combines two of my favorite things - Disney and Thomas Kinkade designs. I plan to start it after I finish the kitten card I'm currently stitching. We fit lunch in also. We went to a new to us Chinese restaurant called Chin Chin Cafe.

Once I got home (around 4:30) I took out Eeyore and managed to finish him up tonight. He is the free kit from the World of Cross Stitching #165. He came with a mount, but Kyleigh decided it needed some loving and bent it out of shape so I'm sending it to WOCS to be made into a card. The background fabric is actually white, but the other colors are pretty true.

Crazy Hair Day

2010-06-11T20:43:00.001-07:00

This summer Kyleigh's preschool is having special theme days. Tuesday was Pajama Day and today was Crazy Hair Day. Janice wasn't sure what to do with her hair, but she finally came up with the idea of making a bunch of pony tails. There were seven when she went to school, but only five when she got home. The one on top of her head is her bangs. Isn't she cute?

Before and After

2010-04-08T21:58:00.000-07:00

Kyleigh and Janice came by for dinner last night and I was able to get a couple of pictures of Kyleigh. The first one shows what she looked like after a hard day at preschool. This is the "before" picture.

We decided to give her a bath before going out to dinner so below is the "after" picture. You can see the scrapes from Wednesday's encounter with the swing below her left eye and on her upper lip.

I also finished the Lickle Ted free cover kit from the World of Cross Stitching #163 last night. I decided to do my own thing with the back stitching on this one, but I think it looks okay. I did copy the location and direction of the stitches, but didn't always use the 1/2 length stitches called for on the chart.

Injury Report

2010-04-07T22:42:00.000-07:00

I had two appointments today. The first was with my primary care physician and was just a followup after the surgery. It went very quickly since everything is going well, but I do need to get some blood tests done in the next week or two.

The second appointment was for my first out patient physical therapy visit. I have the same physical therapist that I had last time. She was pleased with my progress today. My extension is at -5 (should be 0, but was -15 on Friday) and the bending was 100 (was 80 on Friday), both after she stretched me. I did ride the bike as a warm up, but I can't do the full cycle of the pedals this time. My next appointment is on Friday and I'll be going twice a week for the next few weeks. I also got the okay to start taking short walks (five to ten minutes) around the neighborhood using the walker and to switch to the cane when walking around the house.

The injury report mentioned in the title was attached to her signout page when Janice picked up Kyleigh this afternoon. Kyleigh has been running back and forth in front of the swings the past couple of days and was ignoring the teachers when they told her not to, so naturally, she was hit by a swing today and now has a scrape on her face, a red, puffy cheek and she bit her tongue. (How's that for a run-on sentence!) The good news is that it happened just before lunch and she's stayed away from the area around the swings ever since, so it looks like she learned her lesson.

The only stitching I did today was to take out most of the backstitching I did last night on Tatty Teddy. The backstitching is the kind that doesn't begin/end at a corner of a stitch but may be only 1/2 stitch long. I decided that I didn't like the effect, so I'll modify it to use mostly full length stitches.

A Couple of Firsts

2010-04-05T21:24:00.000-07:00

Today was Kyleigh's first day of preschool and here she is all ready to go!

While Janice signed her in, she took off to explore which made it very easy for Janice to leave her. We called to check on her once and they said she was doing fine, but they'd had to close all the doors to the classroom she's in, because she kept wandering into the other classrooms (we'd expected this). She was outside on the playground when Janice picked her up and didn't want to leave. When asked if she'd had fun, she said "Yeeaahh!"

Tonight was also the first Angels game of the season and Janice, Kyleigh, Chad, Bob and a friend of Chad's went. This is the first home opener that I've missed in several years, but I did watch it on TV and it was a really good game.

Because she's now two, Kyleigh gets her own seat this year. Janice said that everyone thought she was really cute and were amazed at how much she's grown and changed over the winter. The outfit was a birthday present from some friends. She and Janice left early because Janice wasn't feeling very well. On the way home, Kyleigh told Janice that it was nigh nigh time and said "I tired". Of course she was; she'd had a very busy day!

On the stitching front, I kitted up three projects that I hoped to finish this week: another bookmark, a free cover kit of Tatty Teddy and a charity square (Happy Hairstyles #24). I started the bookmark (twice) and didn't like the color I chose either time and also it didn't seem to flow for me, so I trashed what I'd done (twice) and started the Tatty Teddy instead.

Finally!

2010-04-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

I started Angel of Joy back on February 9th, but had to put it down for a while to meet a deadline on another group. Then I got bored with it and decided to stitch the bookmarks. But, feeling guilty that it was taking so long, I finally did some concentrated stitching and put the final stitches into it tonight.

This is another calendar page from the 2008 Cross Stitch Calendar, this time from July 21st and the chart was provided by Bonnie of WOCS. It will go into a quilt for a resident of the Century Care Center in Florida.

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T21:57:00.000-07:00

He is risen! He is risen, indeed!

David borrowed the wheelchair again and I met Janice, Kyleigh and Angela at the church for the Easter service. The Easter service is held outdoors in the parking lot and as we sing the first song a decorated cross rises from behind the stage. Kyleigh was quite impressed and kept saying "look, grandma; look, nonni". As per usual though, she didn't want to sit still so she and Angela did some wandering and discovered that the nursery was open, so Kyleigh was quite happy to stay there for the rest of the service.

After the service, we went to the Easter egg hunt on the preschool playground. Kyleigh immediately let go of Angela's hand, ducked under the caution tape and headed for... No, not the eggs scattered on the ground. She ignored them and headed straight for the playground equipment. She did get her share of eggs though at the appropriate time and also spent some time playing on the playground. We were going to visit the petting zoo also, but Janice wasn't sure she could handle the wheelchair on the uneven ground and grass so we went home instead. Kyleigh rode on my lap the whole way while she investigated the contents of the eggs, but somehow lost a shoe while crossing the street.

Easter dinner was at Janice's, but Angela did all the cooking (except the eggs and the dessert). All of the family in the area attended and I think everyone had a great time. There was playdough, bouncy balls, bubbles, and coloring eggs to keep the "kids" busy as well as a lunch of ham, deviled eggs, broccoli casserole, asparagus, salad and rolls, as well as angel food cake with strawberries and blueberries for desert.

There was also an earthquake. It was originally gauged at 6.9 in Mexicali, but was later upgraded to 7.2. It was a long roller and you could see the TV and pictures swaying.

I have some pictures, but David needs to fix my uploading program so I'll try to add them later.

Another bookmark

2010-04-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

Today was a very lazy day, but I did manage to finish another blackwork bookmark. This time I chose to do #7 in DMC 4200. Again, this is a free chart from Dunmani Designs. There's one more bookmark in this series that I'd like to do also.

A Couple of "Lasts"

2010-04-02T21:52:00.000-07:00

Today started with a late breakfast at Joe's Burger, a little "hole in the wall" place that serves decent food at decent prices. Then we went to the bank and the grocery store where I babysat the car while David did the shopping.

This afternoon was the last visit by the home physical therapist; I start outpatient physical therapy on Wednesday. We've finally managed to get the pain under control and this knee is much stronger at this point than the right knee was, but I don't have the flexibility/range of motion that the right knee had.

Today was also Kyleigh's last day with Sandy; she starts preschool on Monday.

Since baseball season has started and David's been working nights, Janice and Kyleigh have been coming over to babysit grandma and get dinner. Tonight we went to Lucille's Rib Shack and then came back to the house to play for awhile. Kyleigh is learning to "sew" using sewing cards. She's very good at feeding the lace through the hole, but when you tell her to pull, she pulls the wrong direction. She also really enjoys the new Nick Jr TV show, Team Ummi Zummi so I've taped a few shows for her to watch while she's here. She's really good at the Ummi Shake.

I'm getting bored with Angel of Joy so I've been finding other things to stitch instead. Tonight it was another bookmark, but I'm going to really try and get it finished over the weekend.

An Oops and a Finish

2010-04-01T21:49:00.000-07:00

First, the oops! Thursday is street sweeping day and all vehicles have to be off the street when the street sweeper comes by. We have two vehicles parked on the street 24/7, but we live on a corner so when he hears the sweeper, David drives the van around the block and parks it back in its same spot, then moves the motorhome around the corner until after the sweeper has done its thing on the other street.

Today, he moved the van and then went to move the motorhome and all of a sudden I hear our neighbor yelling "David, David, you forgot to disconnect the electric cord". Yep, he'd driven around the corner with the cord still plugged into the RV. Fortunately, the only damage was to the cord itself.

We also had several power outages today. I was here at the house for the first two, but for the third I was at the Denny's just around the corner. Each one lasted less than five minutes and I don't know what caused them or how widespread they were.

Now for the finish, which I actually finished last night. One of the ladies in one of the groups I belong to is posting a freebie every Friday. The first one she posted was a blackwork bookmark from Dunmani Designs. Instead of black on white, I used a DMC Variations (4030). I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet though.

Two Years Ago Today

2010-03-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

On March 31, 2008, my department moved from their office on the third floor of an historic building with no elevator to a one story building off campus. Most of the employees sat around in the new building waiting for the movers to arrive with their stuff.

After checking in at the new building, I took Janice to the obstetrician who said "I don't know how, but this baby is going to be born today". We went straight to the hospital, the decision was made and a c-section was scheduled for that evening. That was the start of my major love affair with this little bundle of energy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KYLEIGH!

Humpty Dumpty

2010-02-03T21:50:00.000-08:00

I went back to the hospital today to have the monitor removed. Wearing it wasn't too bad. I was concerned about sleeping with it since I wore it like a purse on my side, but I was able to move it so that it hung down the center of my front. I'm glad it's over though.

I finished Humpty Dumpty tonight. This is another square for the mismatched alphabets SAL at Q4OC. It's from the Nursery Rhyme ABCs in The World of Cross Stitching #160.

Again, it was charted for Anchor floss so I used the it with two exceptions: I substituted 758 (DMC) for 969 since I really didn't like the way the 969 looked and 950 for a color I didn't have (I don't remember the number but it was in either the 4xxx or 8xxx range.

Little Princess

2010-02-02T21:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I went to the hospital to have the electrocardiogram and today I went back to be fitted with a holter monitor to monitor my heart activity for 24 hours. I'm also supposed to write down whenever I felt any palpitations, medications taken, etc. The monitor isn't visible except as a bulge through my clothes. It's attached to a strap that you wear like a purse so it's fairly comfortable.

We decided to go to dinner at Norm's tonight. They no longer have the specials that we've enjoyed in the past, but they have a new one: soup, salad, New York steak, shrimp and chicken strips, and a hot fudge brownie for $9.99. I brought home part of my steak and baked potato and David brought home the chicken strips so we'll have a couple of more meals available.

I finished stitching "Little Princess" for Q4OC tonight. It's for a little girl named Kaelyn that has cancer and likes princesses. I changed the hair color from 742 to 434 since Kaelyn's a brunette. It's from Cross Stitch Crazy #121, part of their Crazy Kids section and meant to be finished as a door hanger.

January Stitching Recap

2010-01-31T21:28:00.000-08:00

I completed eight projects during the month of January and also stitched on one of my WIPs. Seven of the eight projects were for charity, five for Q4OC, one for WOCS and one for SFAC. Four of the ones for Q4OC were for the mismatched alphabet SAL.

I also relegated Quaker Cat project to UFO status, at least temporarily. It was taking way too much time for a charity project and is also a boring stitch. The group I was stitching it for is changing their focus from quilts to totes so not finishing it won't create a hardship for them.

For February, I'd like to complete at least seven projects for my charity groups. Four of these are letters that won't take too much time and one is a square for Q4OC that's almost finished. That leaves two others, one for WOCS and one for Binky, SD. I'm trying to concentrate my obligation stitching in the first half of the month and leave the last half of the month for personal stitching. This worked well in January, so we'll see if I can keep it up.

Bangs Cut

2010-01-30T21:20:00.000-08:00

Kyleigh got her bangs cut this morning, but she didn't behave quite as well as she did for her first haircut. She cried and wouldn't sit in the chair so they had her sit on my lap instead. Since that didn't stop the crying they gave her a lollypop which did the trick. The stylist did a good job since Kyleigh wasn't really in the mood to sit still.

After the hair cut, we went to Michaels where I picked up a jar for my orts (the bits and pieces of floss that are left from a project), some white aida and a few colors of floss I needed. Kyleigh spotted a chart with three colorful frogs, said "frog" and reached for the chart. I decided to not buy it this time, though since I still have a Pooh chart that we bought in December to stitch for her.

After that we went to check out a toddler playground that Janice had located. There were two playgrounds side by side and for some reason Kyleigh liked the big kids playground better. She really likes going down the slide, feet first, but on her tummy.

Doctor's Visit

2010-01-29T21:06:00.000-08:00

I finally had my internal medicine appointment to clear me for my second knee replacement surgery in February. It was originally scheduled for Tuesday the 26th, but they called me an hour before that appointment to reschedule since the office had lost power.

Fortunately, they rescheduled it for Garden Grove rather than Irvine since that's a lot closer and I'm more familiar with the area. Unfortunately, the doctor didn't like what he saw on the EKG so he wouldn't clear me for the surgery. He referred me to the cardiology department for an echocardiogram and a holter test. Hopefully, I can get them done next week and they won't show any problems.

David decided to drive me to work this morning and pick me up at lunch time to go to Shakey's buffet and then to the doctor. I was at the doctor's office a lot longer than expected since he also requested bloodwork. I got back to work about 3:00 and David picked me up again at 5:00 and we went over to Janice's to play with Kyleigh.

Kyleigh really loves her grandpa and was very excited to see him. She kept giving both of us hugs. We played for awhile and then walked over to In 'n Out and Chick Filet to get dinner. In 'n Out gives the little kids sheets of stickers to play with while they're waiting. BTW, I have a very polite granddaughter. She almost always says "thank you" even without prompting and it's usually accompanied by a smile.

Back to Obligation Stitching

2010-01-28T21:59:00.000-08:00

My "break" is over and I'm doing "obligation stitching" again. This is the term I apply to commitments I've made to the various Yahoo groups that stitch for charity, usually with deadlines.

I've signed up for five more letters for the mismatched alphabet SAL at Q4OC and finished the first one tonight. This is the letter G from the Nursery Rhyme ABC's in the World of Cross Stitching #160. This is the first one of these letters that called for Anchor floss, which I used since I have the whole set.

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

2010-01-27T21:37:00.000-08:00

This is block 1 of Margaret Sherry's 12 Days of Christmas which was in the UK Cross Stitcher Magazine a couple of years ago. I'm stitching this on 25-count potato Lugana (2 over 2) with Anchor floss. This is the second block I've stitched; I stitched 2 Turtle Doves last month. My goal is to stitch one block a month and so far I'm right on target.

My computer is back in operation, but David hasn't worked on the camera uploading program so I've had to take all my pictures with my cell phone which isn't providing the best quality.

A Year of Events

2010-01-24T21:27:00.000-08:00

Since I'd finished all of my "obligation stitching" this month, I decided to work on a personal project, A Year of Events which is a Dimensions kit that I fell in love with the first time I saw it back in September. This is what it looked like when I picked it up on January 16th.

And this is what it looked like when I put it away again tonight.

There are a couple of unintentional customizations in the butterfly and the sun--I used the wrong color floss for backstitching the body and antenae on the butterfly and the sun is off center (but so are several other blocks that I stitched according to the chart).

Kyleigh Visits

2010-01-23T22:45:00.000-08:00

Janice wanted to attend a craft show at the convention center today so she asked me to watch Kyleigh this morning. David and I met Janice and Kyleigh for breakfast at IHOP. Then Janice dropped David off at home and Kyleigh and I went to the Village.

We walked through several stores, bought Kyleigh a shirt with a kitten dressed up as a princess on the front (grandma got a couple of new shirts also), sampled some See's Candy, watched the puppies and kittens in the pet shop, played on the playground, rode the fire engine (well, Kyleigh did, anyway) and bought some lemonade to quench our thirst and some fruit for lunch.

We got home and had lunch and I put Kyleigh down for a nap, but before she could fall asleep, mommy showed up and rescued her. She went home for a couple of hours and then came back for a sleepover. Unfortunately, I think she was expecting mommy to rescue her again so she didn't fall asleep until 9:45. Hopefully, she'll sleep all night.

In the process of trying to get her to bed, I let her sit beside me in my stitching chair to quiet down. She did the pull the thread through the fabric and off the needle thing for a couple of stitches, but mostly just sat and watched. I stitch using Q-Snaps on a floor stand and what I thought was cute is that when I put the needle through the fabric, she had to look under the Q-Snaps to see where it went.

I do it!

2010-01-16T21:41:00.000-08:00

I finished this breast cancer square for Stitching for a Cure first thing this morning so that I could get it in the mail today. Donna sent me the floss, the chart and the fabric. It was done on 28-count Lugana and required a lot of unstitching and restitching, but now it's done.

We met Janice and Kyleigh for breakfast and then Janice, Kyleigh and I took off the post office, the bank, Babies R Us and Toys R Us. After mailing some packages, getting money and making the necessary purchases at Babies R Us, we went over to Toys R Us to look for dishes to go with the kitchen that Kyleigh received from Santa Claus.

We didn't find what we were looking for, but Kyleigh did get a Dora microphone. She first heard someone else playing with one and started dancing to the music and pointing in the direction of the noise. Once she got one in her hands it was all over. She played with it constantly responding to Dora's questions and singing along.

Our next stop was Penneys because I needed to return a shirt I'd bought the week before (I don't do long sleeves). When I tried to take the Dora microphone from her, she started to cry so I turned it off and gave it back to her. She proceeded to stop crying and inspect it to see why it had stopped talking--and turned it back on. Then I did take it away because I didn't want her to play with it in the store.

When we were done with our shopping, Janice noticed that one of her tires was flat, so we called David to help her change it. When it came time to tighten the lugnuts, Kyleigh watched for a second, then bent down and put her hands on the wrench and said "I do it!". We took Kyleigh in our car while Janice went to get the tire fixed. On the way, David decided to meet her at the tire place in case she needed help.

While the tire was being changed we went to US Toy Company to look for dishes and we did find something that would work. Plus Kyleigh got a bottle for her baby doll. (This kid's not spoiled, is she?)

This evening I started stitching on my Year of Events design again. I finished January and started February.

This 'n that

2010-01-13T21:33:00.000-08:00

I had a doctor's appointment this morning for a recheck on my blood pressure since he'd changed my medication last month. It was better than it's been for some time. He also went over the results of the tests I'd had in December. Some of the results could have been better and some were good. They'll retest in March.

Janice and Chad have a new car. Chad bought himself a black 2010 Toyota Corolla Sport. Now they both have Toyota Corolla Sports, but Janice's is four years old (and gray) and she said there have been some changes that make Chad's car roomier inside.

David now has Windows reinstalled and is working on the printer. The good news is that it looks like all my files and pictures are still intact. He's says it will be another couple of days before I can have the computer back, though.

I am stitching, but I'm not making a lot of progress. I'm stitching a sampler style block for a cancer quilt using 28-count Lugana. Even using my light and magnifier, I'm having to do quite a bit of frogging, so it feels like I'm taking two steps forward and one step back every session.

Fun with Kyleigh

2010-01-12T21:34:00.000-08:00

I had a dentist appointment this afternoon to fill all the little cracks and crevices the dentist discovered at my cleaning in December. He numbed 3/4 of my mouth, but I think he only did three fillings and I was out of there in less than 45 minutes.

When I got home this evening David said that Chad had called and wanted me to call him as soon as I got home. He wanted me to come babysit Kyleigh for a couple of hours so that he and Janice could go car shopping. I agreed and stopped to pick up food at McDonalds for the two of us on the way.

We had a good time eating together, watching Olivia, getting ready for bed, playing with toys, looking at books, etc.

She has a wooden puzzle of emergency vehicles. These have 1/4" thick wood pieces in the shapes of the vehicles and with the picture of the vehicle on the front. Kyleigh picked up the fire engine and moved it vertically across the floor (like you would a car with actual wheels) and said "vroom, vroom". It amazed me that she made the connection between a two dimensional vehicle and a three dimensional one.

Her communication skills are also improving every day. Tonight while eating, she asked for a bite of my hamburger by saying "bite" and pointing (instead of just pointing). When I asked if that's what she wanted, she said "yes". So of course I had to give her a bite.

BTW, they didn't get a car, because the dealership didn't have the model they wanted in black.

Computer Update: David is still working on it. It looks like he needs to reinstall Windows, Office, etc. I just hope I didn't lose all my files and pictures. Most of them are backed up, but . . .

Computer Problems

2010-01-11T21:22:00.000-08:00

I got home from work tonight to discover that I had a computer virus. David was surfing the web this afternoon and thinks he clicked on something he shouldn't have. So I stitched instead of doing my usual computering.

I finished "Chickens" from the UK Cross Stitcher for Q4OC. This is for a gentleman named Rodney who has multiple health issues.

The design in the magazine was shown with only two of the chickens and made into a cone, but the chart was shown with all four chickens so that's the way I stitched it. I added the border, because the design came out a little smaller than I expected.

(The picture was taken with my BlackBerry since I wasn't able to get on my computer to scan and crop it--I'm posting from my work PC. I'll replace it when I can access my home computer again.)

Playing Mommy

2010-01-10T21:27:00.000-08:00

Janice called me this afternoon to tell me what Kyleigh was doing. She'd been playing in her room and came out to the livingroom to find mommy eating ice cream. She had a bite then ran back to her room and came back saying "baby sleep". Janice thinks she'd gone to put the baby to bed so she could eat the ice cream.

While we were on the phone, the baby took several naps (about 20 seconds each), watched TV and needed to eat dinner. In the picture below, Kyleigh is feeding her soup.

Busy Saturday

2010-01-09T19:31:00.001-08:00

This morning Janice and I both had errands to run and since Chad had taken her car to Tulare for an archery competition, we decided to do them together.

Our first stop was breakfast. We went to IHOP since there was one in the shopping center we needed to go to. Kyleigh spent most of the breakfast saying "More chocolate" meaning that she wanted another spoonful of our hot chocolates--she'd alternate between the two of us.

After breakfast, we went to Payless Kids because Janice wanted to get her another pair of shoes, this time ones that weren't tennis shoes, but weren't really dressy either. She found some Mary Jane type canvas shoes that were sparkly silver with pink bows. Since they went well with the outfit she was wearing, she wore them out of the store.

Since Anna's Linens (Janice's next stop) wasn't open yet we went to Big Lots instead. I'd given Kyleigh the dollar we got in change at IHOP and I only had to add another 63 cents so she could buy a toy that had shapes which connected to each other with S shapes--she ended up wearing the shapes as bracelets more than playing with connecting them.

While we were at Big Lots! we found this tiara. It says "Irish Princess". Since Chad is part Irish (and loves everything Irish) we thought it was appropriate. We didn't buy it, but Janice might go back later and get it. She did a really good job of holding onto that dollar and didn't fuss when it was time to pay for the toy either.

We did go to Anna's Linens, but Janice didn't find what she was looking for. She had a $25 gift card so she'll go back later without Kyleigh to look for something else.

Next, I ordered my new glasses. Bob (my baseball buddy) has a friend that's an optometrist who accepts my insurance and is located not far from work and home so I went to his office and picked out a pair of titanium frames since I'm allergic to the metal in other frames. I can pick them up in about two weeks.

Our final stop was Main Place Mall where Janice had her hair cut in the JC Penneys styling salon and I bought some jeans and blue slacks since the ones I'd been wearing were beginning to look kind of ragged and rough. I actually ended up buying a smaller size than I was wearing, too. We also had lunch at the food court before heading home for naps.

This last picture was taken the day after Christmas when Janice's sister in law's family was visiting from Oregon. This is Kyleigh and her cousin Teddy. In the picture, Kyleigh is almost 21 months and Teddy is almost six months old.

A surprise picture and a finish

2010-01-08T21:16:00.000-08:00

I didn't post yesterday because there wasn't really anything to say. Work was busy and I was busy after work doing financial stuff at home. I did stitch a little, but didn't finish anything.

Today, I drove to Costa Mesa to have lunch with some friends I used to work with. We meet at a favorite Chinese restaurant near their office a couple of times a year and I always order the same thing--Crispy Shrimp. Since we all use the same financial software, most of our conversations revolve around that so it can be counted as work related justifying the extra hour it takes for the drive.

This afternoon I found this picture on my phone when I checked for messages. I managed to email it to myself so I thought I'd share it. I love her expression. I understand the picture was taken before more spaghetti landed in her hair.

The finish is the third and final letter that I'm currently signed up for at Q4OC. During this round, we're only allowed to sign up for three at a time. Since there are more letters available, I'll probably sign up for three more once these are received. They are so cute and colorful and I love that they stitch up really quickly.

This time I stitched the letter M from the Balloons & Kites ABC from The World of Cross Stitching #139. The only change I made was to stitch the "sky" in 1/2 cross stitch instead of full cross stitch. I was originally concerned about the color choices, but now I think they worked out rather well!

Happy Birthday to Me

2010-01-06T21:19:00.000-08:00

Today is my 60th birthday! 60 sounds a lot older than 59, but I sure don't feel that old.

This morning I had to drive to the University of LaVerne for a meeting. This is the first time I've driven there without getting lost or making a major wrong turn. It was good to see some of the people that I usually only see at these meetings or at conferences and we had a good session.

I had another meeting scheduled for this afternoon, but it was cancelled. Unfortunately another one was scheduled at the last minute. And I'm still dealing with issues with the new process we implemented on Monday. That and the help requests are keeping me busy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

We went out to dinner with Chad, Janice and Kyleigh this evening. Kyleigh came decorated with hearts and brought me a card that she'd colored and decorated at the babysitter's today. Janice folded a couple pieces of paper and wrote "Happy Birthday Grandma" on one sheet. The sheets came to me held together like a book with curly ribbon and decorated with a heart, a happy face and scribblesthat were labeled lamb, dog, cat and horse, along with stickers and some tiny stick on hearts like the ones Kyleigh was wearing. Kyleigh also gave me a couple of really good hugs without prompting and has taken to pulling me down to her level (she's in a highchair) and whispering "secrets" to me.

We went to Norm's because both David and I like their current specials: steak and shrimp with soup, salad, and desert or a New York steak with soup, salad and desert for $9.99. Plus Wednesday is seniors day so we got 20% off the entire bill.

I did get about 1 1/2 hours of stitching in when we got home. I'm working on another letter for the Mismatched ABC SAL; this time it's the letter M.

Eye Exam

2010-01-05T21:55:00.000-08:00

I went to the Kaiser optometrist this morning before going into work. They did several tests, but it was all pretty good news. There are only minor corrections (they're increasing the strength in the middle section of my trifocals) needed in my prescription and although I've been diagnosed with Occular Hypertension (high pressure in the eye), there is no sign of glaucoma at this point. I just need to do yearly visits to have a couple of tests done to keep on top of it. I do need to get new glasses, but I have to go somewhere that takes my vision insurance.

And believe it or not, I have another finish. These little letters are really quick to stitch, taking 2-3 hours each depending on the amount of detail. This is the letter J for Q4OC Mismatched Alphabet Part 2 SAL. This time I used a chart from The World of Cross Stitching ##140 - Strawberry ABC. I love the color of the ice cream!

Another Finish

2010-01-04T21:10:00.000-08:00

It was back to work today for the first time since the December 23rd and it was kind of a rough day.My internet worked fine, but my email and financial system didn't want to stay connected. We also implemented a new process today and like all new processes, no matter how well you plan and test, there's always something you'll miss. Plus I had almost two weeks worth of email to read and respond to. So, it was almost 3:00 before I got to the point where I could start crossing things off my to do list.

A bright spot in the day, though was that Janice called. She and Kyleigh were going to take the trash out and she was in short sleeves and Kyleigh was in long sleeves. Janice opened the front door and decided she needed a sweater, so she told Kyleigh she was going to get her sweater and that she'd be right back and went to get her sweater out of the bedroom. When she got back to the livingroom, Kyleigh had gotten her own sweater and was trying to put it on, too.

I forgot to mention that I received the confirmation letter for my second knee replacement. The date is February 25, 2010, less than two months from now.

Today's finish is fairly small and worked up fairly quickly. It's the letter F for the Mismatched ABC's Part 2 SAL for Q4OC from The World of Cross Stitching #143 (Cookie ABC).

My First Finish of 2010

2010-01-03T19:34:00.000-08:00

Janice called at 8:00 this morning, again and said that she wasn't going to church this morning since Kyleigh still wasn't 100%. Chad is also feeling better, but not 100% either. Janice called again later in the day to say that the babysitter's entire family was sick so she's going to stay home from work tomorrow, too.

I went to church anyway. They had a guest trumpeter who played accompaniment for the hymns. I really enjoyed it.

My first finish of 2010 is Angel of Hope for WOCS. The chart was a page from the Cross Stitch Pattern a Day Calendar which was sent to me by one of the members.

Current WIPs

2010-01-03T15:08:00.001-08:00

It's been suggested/requested that I post my current WIPs in a Yahoo Group Album and since I was going to take pictures of them anyway, I decided to post them here, too. The fabric colors aren't the best, but you get the idea.

The first (I Love Cats) and most active is a long time UFO that became a WIP in October, 2009.

This is Spencer-Cat that I'm stitching for Benevolent Piecemakers.

Tropical Paradise is a Mill Hill Kit that I started this past summer.

Margaret Sherry's 12 Days of Christmas was started in December.

A Year of Events was started in October.

My last WIP will be finished later this afternoon and I don't have a picture of it as of 1/1/10 so I'm not including it here.

I also have a large number of UFOs, but I'm not including them either since I don't have any plans to work on them until the first UFO is completed.

I'm ready for bed, grandma

2010-01-02T21:25:00.000-08:00

Janice called at 8:00 this morning to tell us that Kyleigh was better, but that now Chad was sick. She said having a sick husband was definitely worse than having a sick baby.

I offered to cook breakfast again this morning, but David decided he wanted a burger and fries. I don't do burgers and fries at 9:00 in the morning so we went to one of our favorite "hole in the wall" restaurants where he had his cheeseburger and fries and I had bacon and eggs.

After breakfast, David dropped me off at the house and went to several garage sales. He came home with a bucket of Duplo blocks for Kyleigh, a label maker (better than the one I have) and two flash drives.

These pictures were taken on December 27, 2009 when Kyleigh spent the night with us Grandpa was trying to teach her that moving the mouse actually does something on the screen. He doesn't think she quite gets it yet, though.

Kyleigh wasn't eating dinner quite fast enough to please grandpa, plus she was more interested in the mashed potatoes and gravy than the meatloaf so he decided to help.

After her bath, I put Kyleigh in her pajamas and left my bedroom to take care of the wet towel. This is what I came back to. She was quite pleased with herself.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T20:22:00.000-08:00

We had a quiet evening last night. David went out and got pizza and we watched the final Survivor episodes that we'd tivo'd but never watched. At midnight, we watched the ball drop, listened to the Disneyland fireworks and received our annual midnight phone call from our friend Dunstan.

I did quite a bit of stitching and even had a finish. I've started a new blog (http://www.cathy-mystitchingjournal.blogspot.com)and posted that finish as well as the rest of my December finishes there.

Janice called about 11:00 to tell us that Kyleigh had started vomiting again. She had had a cold and cough and then started vomiting on Wednesday, but had seemed to be almost back to her normal self until this episode. We're really hoping this is just a stomach virus and not H1N1.

Update: Janice has called a couple of times today and Kyleigh is doing much better. They had to go get some apple juice in boxes because she was refusing the pedialyte and the pedialyte mixed with apple juice. When Janice tried to give her just apple juice in a sippy cup, she refused that, too since she didn't recognize it as anything different from what she'd been offered earlier.

I slept in this morning and then actually cooked breakfast which hasn't happened in quite some time. I even did the dishes! I taped the Rose Parade, but haven't watched it yet. I also did laundry and caught up on blog reading and email.

I have stitched today also. I'm working on a project called Angel of Hope for WOCS.

2009 in Review

2009-12-31T15:47:00.001-08:00

Looking back at 2009, it had it's good times and it's bad times, but all in all it wasn't a bad year. We all (David, Cathy, Janice and Chad) still have are jobs and aren't worried about their future.

In January, Janice, Kyleigh and I got to attend my nephew's wedding in Arcata, CA and visit with David's family.

In March, we celebrated Kyleigh's first birthday--we've watched her learn to walk, take swimming lessons, learn to communicate and use lots of words (some of which we can understand). We've had opportunities to spend time with her both with and without mommy and daddy and she even spent the night several times.

We celebrated Easter, 4th of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas with Chad's family, always with good food and great company.

In August, I had my right knee replaced and my recovery went better than anyone anticipated. I'm looking forward to having the left one replaced in February, 2010. I also started using insulin to control my diabetes.

In November/December I helped with the sign ups, collection and sorting of gifts for the Giving Tree at our church.

We moved into the 21st century and got wifi and new cell phones (which I'm still learning to use). I also got a Wii and Wii Fit Plus for Christmas.

We had to get rid of our cat because she had a bad habit of lashing out at people with her claws and got Kyleigh in the face.

David got a 1993 Chevy G20 van to replace the 1977 Chevy G20 van that's been sitting in our driveway for years waiting for him to repair it. He's had to do a lot of work on the new one and has been moving parts from one van to the other, but hopefully we'll be able to get rid of the old one soon.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of things that didn't get done. I didn't lose all the weight I wanted. My blood pressure and sugars still aren't in good control. The house still needs a lot of TLC and my office/craft room still looks like a bomb went off in it and I have a lot of "deskwork" that still needs to be completed.

I have done a lot of stitching this year, most of it for charity, but after joining the yahoo group, Fellowship Crossings, I've started to stitch several projects for me and have plans to do more. I also blogged more than the year before, but there were still long periods of time without an entry.

So the year was mostly good, but there are still areas where it could have been better. As it comes to a close, I'm looking forward to 2010. and really hope that at the end of next year, I can "brag" about all I've accomplished rather than lamenting about what I haven't.

2009 in Pictures

2009-12-31T15:44:00.000-08:00

March - Kyleigh celebrated her first birthday with a cupcake!

This ride on Pooh train is one of her favorite toys. It was given to us by a neighbor, but it was in really bad shape so grandpa spent several hours cleaning/repairing it.

April - Kyleigh participated in her first Easter Egg Hunt.

May - We celebrated Mother's Day by having brunch at Goofy's Kitchen.

July - We celebrated July 4th at Chad's grandparents house. Here Kyleigh is excited by Amber's dog's antics.

August - Kyleigh started swimming lessons. She loves the water, but hates to float on her back.

Janice and Kyleigh particpated in the Light the Night walk at Angels Stadium. I joined them for the pre-walk party.

October - Kyleigh was a very cute Tinkerbell for Halloween. Here she is showing daddy her costume.

November -We spent Thanksgiving at Chad's grandparents. Kyleigh is multitasking--drinking some milk and talking on the "phone" (in reality it's the remote control for the chair she's sitting in).

December - We exchanged presents on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas Day with Chad's family. This is the picture on the Christmas card Janice sent to friends and relatives.

First Hair Cut

2009-11-28T19:44:00.001-08:00

Kyleigh had her first haircut today and she did a lot better than we expected. She sat very still and didn't say a word. We took her to a kids' salon and the stylist was very patient and experienced at working with young children. Grandma had to stay very close, though.

She definitely didn't think it was a lot of fun, but the only time she fussed at all was when they used the hairdryer--she didn't like the noise.

This is the finished product. There's a tiny elastic band with a couple of flowers in her hair. Janice also received a certificate commemorating her first haircut and a lock of the hair.

After the haircut, we went to Sprouts and since I hadn't gotten a good picture of her at the salon, I took one of her in the basket at Sprouts. The string is attached to the pink balloon she received at the salon.

This afternoon I pulled the floss for Margaret Sherry's 12 Days of Christmas which I'm planning to start on Tuesday (December 1). I'm planning to do one square a month so that it will be completed by next Christmas.

Black Friday

2009-11-27T21:29:00.000-08:00

Today is Chad's 28th birthday. Happy Birthday, Chad!

Kyleigh decided it was time to get up about 5:00, but after some cuddling and some milk, she and I both went back to sleep. Unfortunately, the phone woke us at 6:05 when Janice called to say she was in line at Target and that she'd spent three hours at Toys R Us, but she did get the things she'd wanted. She also stopped at Kohls before going to Target. Janice is very organized and plans her shopping ahead of time. I've never done the Black Friday thing, but she seems to enjoy it.

Since it was going to be a couple of hours before she was done, Kyleigh and I decided to take a walk. Unfortunately, she didn't want to take the stroller and the route I take is probably a little less than 1/2 mile. She did very well, though it did take longer than usual since she had to investigate the leaves and anything else she found on the ground. There's a bus bench at the halfway point so we spent a few minutes there to rest up for the next part of the walk.

We met Janice and Chad at Mimi's for breakfast and then they took her home with them.

David was able to fix the little white button so I finished up Halloween this afternoon. This is the final block in the Boo Club series from Lizzie Kate. It's stitched on 28 count Natural Lite Jobelan. I had to stitch it separately from the other blocks since for some reason the 14 x 31" piece of fabric I bought only measured 14 x 27". I had some more of the same fabric, so I went ahead and stitched it anyway and I'll figure out how to combine the two later.

Here is the completed piece, minus the Halloween block. The color is more like the picture below than the one above.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T21:01:00.000-08:00

I met Janice and Kyleigh at church this morning. For some reason, they started the service 15 minutes late and by that time Kyleigh was very restless. Since the nursery wasn't staffed, Janice stayed there with Kyleigh who apparently continued to be very rambunctious. Unfortunately, this meant that she missed most of the service.

After church, David made mashed potatoes and carrot and raisin salad (I helped!) and then we went to Chad's grandparents house for dinner. We had a very good meal and we always enjoy each other's company. And, this time we had a very active little one to keep us entertained.

She rode a ride on toy and posed for the camera.

She helped "load" the dishwasher.

She took a break for some milk and a "phone call". The phone is the remote control for the chair. Not the most ladylike position, though.

She sat on the dog.

And, of course had to give her a hug.

And, figured out how to work the remote and raise the chair.

She also turned a couple of somersaults, which none of us had seen her do before, but Janice told me later that she'd helped her do one a couple of days before.

Kyleigh came home with David and I so that Janice could do some Black Friday shopping starting with Toys R Us at midnight.

After she went to bed, I stitched and managed to finish the border on Halloween. I wasn't able to completely finish it because one of the buttons only had one hole in it, but David should be able to fix it tomorrow.

Ornament Finish

2009-11-16T21:09:00.000-08:00

This is another NMI kit, but this one was stitched as intended. I've backed it with gold scrapbooking paper and it will soon be on it's way to my Fellowship Crossings AA (Anonymous Angel).

The main part of the gift is something I stitched a couple of years ago, but hadn't found a destination yet. I can't reveal the details as to why I chose this without giving too many hints as to who the recipient is, but although I kept looking through my stash for something to stitch I kept coming back to this. I hope she likes it.

Butterfly

2009-11-11T21:58:00.000-08:00

This is an NMI Stitch 'N Hang kit. I substituted 14-count Aida for the provided 18-count which made it the perfect size. This is the third design I've stitched for the 2nd Q4OC Stitcher's Challenge and the theme for this one is Butterflies/Insects.

I have three more left to stitch with the themes of Teacups/Teapots, Animals, and Transportation. I can stitch two in one theme instead of stitching one in each theme and I have a second butterfly that I might stitch if I can't quickly find one of the other themes. All of these are due 12/31/09.

Soccer Dog

2009-11-10T21:49:00.000-08:00

This is Margaret Sherry's Footballin' Dog from the Sports and Hobbies series in the UK Cross Stitcher magazine. This was from issue #218.

It was stitched for an eleven year old boy who will be receiving a quilt from the Benevolent Piecemakers.

Three More

2009-11-05T21:25:00.000-08:00

I finished three more cards for soldiers today. I didn't have very much left to do on the snowman, just a few rows at the bottom and some backstitching. All three of these were Quick-stitch Motifs from Enjoy Cross Stitch at Christmas #2. The only change I made (other than changing the color of the snowman's scarf) was to use 1/4 stitches instead of full stitches at the corners.

I will mail all four pieces off to Florida in the morning to be made into cards.

Piglet

2009-11-04T21:32:00.000-08:00

I had so little left to do on Piglet that I went ahead and finished him up this morning. This is the first square I've stitched for Binky South Dakota and I had so much fun stitching it that I signed up to do Pooh and Eeyore too.

Not the Cutest?

2009-11-03T21:54:00.000-08:00

Back in August we accidentally ended up at a baby expo and entered Kyleigh in the cutest baby contest. She didn't win, but for entering, she received this mock magazine cover.

I had my week planned out as far as stitching goes, but it got off track fairly quickly. One of the members of FC had initiated a project to stitch cards for soldiers fighting in Afghanistan in another group and several persons had backed out at the last minute. She asked for help from FC members and I decided to stitch a couple. Since they need to be done quickly, I'm stitching them instead of the other projects I had planned. I finished the first one this afternoon.

This is a Quick-stitch motif from Enjoy Cross Stitch at Christmas #2. I left off the back stitching on the tree and used 1/4 stitches on the balls. I also used a dark red floss for backstitching them instead of the dark gray called for.

More Pictures

2009-11-02T21:33:00.000-08:00

Janice and I went to look at preschools this morning. We saw two and both had their pluses and minuses. The first was along their commute, was a developmental program and the price wasn't much more than they're paying now. The downside was that it was in an older building and the playground needed updating.

The second location was in a newer building and seemed brighter and cleaner, but it was almost twice the price, was an academic program and I didn't like the way the teacher was yelling at the students and didn't really have control over them.

She also has a third option which we looked at early last month. This one was close to home and we really liked the looks of the classroom, but they can't take Kyleigh until September (or possibly in their summer program in June) and won't release their prices until January. Unfortunately, it will probably be more than they want to pay.

I suspect she'll end up at the first one we looked at yesterday, but they have several months to decide.

Janice sent me some more Halloween pictures this evening and I had a hard time choosing just one, so here are most of them.

I just love the smile on this one.

The full costume.

Ready to hand out candy:

Look what I got:

Trick or treating with the neighbors. That pumpkin was full of candy when they got home.

Janice is very artistic and creative and her pumpkins are always amazing. This year she took the easy way out and used a template.

TtGiD

2009-11-02T17:05:00.000-08:00

Janice drove to church this weekend since it's just a couple of blocks from the condo, but she said she knew why the doctor didn't want her driving. When David picked me up, Kyleigh climbed into the car like she usually does, but this time she sat in the front passenger seat and immediately tried to put the seat belt on.

Fellowship Crossings has started a SAL to help people get stitching done on one or more of their UFOs (Unfinished Objects). The last weekend of each month is a "Git 'er Done" weekend and this was the first one. For my project I chose a UFO from the mid 1990's called "I Love Cats".

Before:

After:

I finished the cat and heart on the far right, the gray cat with the pink bow, the rust colored cat in the C and did some more of the C, and started a second rust colored cat and a gold cat. I really hated to put it down, but I've got a lot of other things that need to be done also. I have decided to work on this next weekend instead of waiting until the end of November.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T21:42:00.000-07:00

Since Janice didn't feel like driving today, David and I picked her and Kyleigh up and took them out to breakfast. While David waited at the restaurant, Janice and I took Kyleigh to her swimming lesson. This was her last lesson until after the first of the year and she did absolutely perfect. She went right to the teacher and didn't fuss the entire time. She'd raise her arms and then "dive" into the water and "swim" to the other platform. When it came time to float on her back, she did it perfectly and counted down on her fingers while the teacher counted to ten. When she came back to us, the teacher said it was so nice not to have to "wrestle a wolverine" for a change.

After swimming lessons, we picked up David and went to Jo Ann's so that I could get some Christmas material to make some small pillows from some quilt squares donated to WOCS. We had to wait in line quite awhile to have the material cut, but Kyleigh did real good! Janice found a cross stitch picture called Let's Bounce with Pooh and his friends that Kyleigh really liked. I'm hoping to make it for Christmas, but I'm not sure whether it will be for this year or next year.

Janice called about 7:00 to tell us that Kyleigh had been trick or treating with a couple of neighbors (mommy and daddy went too) and came home with a plastic pumpkin so full of candy that she could hardly lift it. She hasn't learned to say "trick or treat" yet, but she did say "thank you". Janice carved a pumpkin using an Elmo template this year.

We only had 25 trick or treaters at our house. We normally have 140-150 so we have lots of candy left over.

Fun with Grandma

2009-10-30T21:32:00.000-07:00

Kyleigh slept until about 5:45 this morning which is better than I'd hoped for. Unfortunately, I don't sleep that well when she spends the night.

After breakfast out, we went to my office to show off her Halloween costume. In case you can't tell, she's Tinkerbell. This is the second year in a row that I've taken her there on Halloween. The other little girl in the picture is the daughter of a coworker. She turns two on Monday and came to go trick or treat with the children's center. She and Kyleigh will probably be classmates starting in April when Kyleigh also turns two.

I'm not sure who instigated the hug, but it was totally spontaneous on their part.

Once we got home, Kyleigh did a lot of playing, rearranging the house, etc. Here she is riding the vacuum which she's extremely afraid of when it's turned on.

She and grandpa also played with the big legos; grandpa would build a tower and Kyleigh would knock it down. It was also fun to put the legos back in the box. For some reason she got very clingy after her nap--I think she woke up too soon--and wouldn't let grandma put her down.

Janice said she missed her and wanted her to come home so we took her home about dinnertime. Since I was completely worn out, we went to dinner at Norm's where they have a $9.99 special (soup, salad, steak & shrimp, and dessert) which we really like.

Change of Plans

2009-10-29T21:11:00.000-07:00

I had planned to spend the day on the computer catching up on email, blog reading, bill paying, laundry, etc. but that didn't happen. Janice called about 10:00 and said she woke up really dizzy and nauseated and needed a ride to the doctor. The doctor said she had vertigo and to rest and not drive and he prescribed a medication to help ease the symptoms and would make her drowsy. After filling the prescription, we went back to the condo and I packed up Kyleigh and her laundry and brought her home with me so that Janice wouldn't have to worry about her.

At dinnertime David suggested going out to dinner to a nearby Mexican restaurant since he thought that would be easier than keeping track of her and cooking, too. Unfortunately we got a bit of a late start and by the end of the meal, Kyleigh was in meltdown mode since it was bedtime by then. She was introduced to chips and salsa (she loved dipping the chips in the salsa), lemon wedges (she made a face each time, but kept going back for more) and fish (which she really liked). The patriarch of the restaurant family came by and gave each of the kids in the restaurant--there were three--an early trick or treat (a Harry Potter coloring book with colored markers) which held Kyleigh's attention while waiting for dinner although most of the markers ended up on the floor.

Once we got home, we did her bath, read stories and drank milk, called mommy to say good night and went to bed in grandma's bed. Funny thing though, she'll wake up in her own bed in the morning.

Benevolent Piecemakers

2009-10-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

I drove home from Vista this morning in time for my physical therapy appointment. Unfortunately, when they did the measurements, I'd lost ground. Instead of straightening to 0.00, I was at 0.05 which isn't as good. This was the first time they couldn't get me all the way to 0.00. My surgery was two months ago today.

I recently started stitching for a new group called Benevolent Piecemakers. This is the first square I've stitched for them. It's called, appropriately "Home is where the cat is" and is from the World of Cross Stitching #116. Unfortunately, there are several unintentional customizations in this project, but I think it looks okay.

I've also started a second square; actually I started this one first, but it's slow going because it's pretty much all one color; it's coming along though. This is Quaker Cat and it was an online free chart.

Still in Vista

2009-10-26T21:12:00.000-07:00

We spent Sunday night at the museum and today we went to breakfast and then to Michaels to get some floss I needed. I also picked up a book of teddy bears. David knew of a museum (but not the address) attached to the Sherline Products plant, but we couldn't find it in the phone book so while I was at Michaels, he went on the internet and located it. When he called to get directions, it turned out that we were just down the road from them, so we went to the Joe Martin Museum of Craftsmanship.

We were the only ones there so we got a personalized tour from the docent and the museum director. The director also gave us a tour of the factory. This museum displays some models in progress as well as a lot of very detailed models of planes, trains, motors, etc. The factory makes the tools to make these models.

By the time we were finished, it was lunchtime so we drove around looking for a place to eat. We ended up at Philly Frank's Cheesesteaks and shared a really good cheesesteak sandwich. Then we just chilled out for the rest of the day.

AGSEM

2009-10-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the second weekend of the Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum's Fall Festival and since the Angels were in New York, we decided to go. The festival is kind of like a small country fair with exhibits, a craft fair and lots of tractors. David has adopted two rope braiding machines and our family maintains and exhibits them, making the rope into jumpropes and selling them to support the Weavers Building.

Friday:

David and I went down in the motorhome, leaving around 2:15 and arriving at 3:30. We were lucky enough to get the space next to some friends of ours who exhibit a restored tractor. We went to the Snack Shack for the free hot dog supper which provided large hot dogs, chips, drinks and homemade ice cream in various flavors. Afterwards, we went back to the RV and David digitized our antenna and upgraded our dish so that we'd be able to watch the ALCS on TV.

Saturday:

When I tried to turn on the generator to dry my hair, it wouldn't start. David did a little trouble shooting and decided to change the sparkplugs. So after breakfast, we went to AutoZone and got new sparkplugs which were installed immediately and we were good to go. Of course, the New York weather had other plans and the game was rained out.

Saturday night was the members potluck with lots of food, free rootbeer floats and a silent auction. I took a large bowl of carrot and raisin salad and came home with an empty bowl.

I used the cane for the last time today.

Sunday:

We were awakened early by my cellphone as Janice called to let me know they had just gotten off the freeway. They (she and Kyleigh) arrived while I was in the shower. We went to breakfast and helped David make up some jumpropes. (Kyleigh was very good at feeding the rope into the holes in the handles and throwing the completed rope packages into the storage box.) Then Janice, Kyleigh and I did some exploring. We went to the blacksmith's barn, the farmhouse and the gift shop where Kyleigh got a new toy. We also rode the hayride, a first for Kyleigh.

She had a lot of fun, sometimes sitting next to grandma and sometimes kneeling and looking out at the scenery. She waved at everyone she saw and said "hi!". Since she seemed to enjoy it so much, Janice took her through the parade.

The hayrides go at the beginning of the parade so they joined us for lunch afterwards. Afterwards, we played on the playground, rode the train, checked out the crafts, ran around the big grassy area and went back up to the Weavers Building to say "bye" to grandpa.

David and I have a favorite Chinese buffet in Vista that we decided to eat at tonight. As we were leaving we saw some friends who were getting ready to leave for a birthday celebration (Betty turned 85) and they invited us to join them--at a Chinese buffet. The one they had chosen was closed so we ended up at the one we were headed to in the first place!

Pumpkin Patch Visit

2009-10-18T21:56:00.000-07:00

I met Janice and Kyleigh at church this morning and we turned in the Box of Love Janice had picked up last week. I gave them a check for a second one (actually, the check will probably fund at least two and possibly three because of the bulk buying they're able to do.) Kyleigh turned in her library book and got two more, a board book that she picked out and a book for a little older child that Janice picked out. They read books together every night before bed. We also bought 2010 Entertainment books. It's the first time I've bought one in a long time, but I should almost recoup my cost by using the coupons for Ralph's Grocery which is where I normally shop.

Chad wasn't feeling well so he didn't go to church, but wanted to go to the pumpkin patch with us so we went to their condo to get him. I wanted a picture of the outfit Kyleigh was wearing, but she wasn't cooperating. She ran off and hid in the tent Janice had purchased yesterday so I faced the camera into the tent and took this picture. It's not the best, but I couldn't really see what I was doing.

The pumpkin patch had rides and a petting zoo as well as pumpkins. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the pumpkins themselves. Kyleigh dressed up for the occasion; the shirt has a ghost on it and says "Boo-ti-ful".

The rides and stuff were expensive so she didn't do any of those, but Janice did take her into the petting zoo. She wasn't too sure, but did manage to pet a goat before one of the piglets scared her. Then she wouldn't have anything to do with any of the animals.

Saturday

2009-10-17T21:22:00.000-07:00

Our first stop today was swimming lessons. David dropped me off and then took off to the tractor show in Vista. Janice's goal today was to get Kyleigh a dress for her annual portrait, some silver shoes to go with her Halloween costume, diapers and a hanging storage container for her stuffed animals.

She had a coupon for Carters and their dresses were on sale at 40% off so that was our first stop. She bought a dress (wouldn't have been my first choice), a sweater to go with it since it was sleeveless, a pair of pajamas with feet and a play outfit.

We then went to Babies R Us, where she got diapers, wipes, snacks and some canvas shoes (Kyleigh now knows "pink".) While there, Kyleigh got bored and turned around in the basket on her knees so she could see where we were going instead of where we'd been. She also spotted a Dora container for snacks.

The next stop was Ikea where Janice wanted to get the stuffed animal holder for her room. She also found an inexpensive tent and a couple of small stuffed animals. Because, Ikea is a very large store, we borrowed a wheelchair from the customer service desk and Kyleigh rode on my lap. We've done this a couple of times and she sits really still. We tried to get her off a couple of times to check out some chairs and tables, but she refused to get off my lap.

While we were there, we checked the Dream Homes (manufactured homes) in the parking lot. Janice liked what she saw and they are affordable so she's looking into purchasing a pre-owned one.

By this time it was time for lunch so we stopped at a Carls Jr. Kyleigh gets a hamburger happy meal and Janice usually breaks it up for her, but this time, she decided she needed to eat it like a big girl. In the first picture she's examining a pickle which eventually went into her mouth.

The toy was a soft ball with a monster face on it. I don't think this is how it was meant to be played with though.

Our final stop was a Payless Shoe Store to look for those silver shoes. Kyleigh was asleep when we got there so I carried her in, but she woke up as soon as she saw all the shoes. Janice did find the shoes she was looking for and Kyleigh found a backpack. She's really into Dora the Explorer and as soon as she spotted this, I knew I was going to get it for her. Even though she was wearing one, she kept going back to the shelf and wanting another one. At one point, she was wearing two! She's also wearing the shoes she got at Babies R Us earlier.

I managed to get it off her to get in the car, but Janice told me later that she wore it all around the house when she got home.

David got back from Vista about 5:30 and decided he wanted to go to a Chinese Buffet that he had an ad for. Unfortunately, he couldn't find the ad, but remembered approximately where it was, so we went looking for it. The one place we found was really crowded and was more of an Asian Buffet so we kept looking. 45 minutes later, we ended up at a Hong Kong Express and brought home takeout.

We then watched what was left of the Angels game. Turned out it took another two hours. They did play better than last night, but still lost. I knew one run wasn't enough of a lead for Fuentes. They better get their act together before they get home on Monday. I did get quite a bit of stitching done, so it wasn't a total loss.

Angels - 0; Yankees - 2

Kyleigh Came to Visit

2009-10-16T19:42:00.000-07:00

Janice dropped Kyleigh off at a restaurant at 7:40 and picked her up at our house at 4:40 so we had her all day. We ate breakfast and then since David had located the CPU chip he needed for my laptop on eBay and the company was local, we took off to find it. While he was in the store, Kyleigh and I took a walk around the strip center and when we got back to the car, she decided she was going to drive. She got in grandpa's seat and had me seatbelt her in and close the door. I got in the other side and she told me to close my door. Then she asked for my keys. She had a little trouble getting the key in the ignition, so I helped her. Her feet don't reach the pedals and we didn't start the car (although she tried to turn the key, but wasn't able to), so I wasn't worried about her taking us anywhere. (Kyleigh is only 18 months old and doesn't have a lot of language, but she's very good at communicating what she wants.)

When we got home, David installed the new CPU chip and an aquarium screen saver on my laptop. When he showed Kyleigh the aquarium, she immediately said "bubbo" pointing to the bubbles; Janice has no idea where she learned that.

We also learned that she's afraid of the vacuum cleaner because of the noise. We went to a different room to get away from it, but for some reason it decided to follow us. She did enjoy playing with the bifold doors on our closet though. She'd go into the closet and close the doors which turns out the light and then open one of the doors and laugh. I played a game with her by opening the doors myself and also went into the closet with her. We had great fun and it kept her busy for about 1/2 hour. (I'm amazed at her attention span sometimes.)

After lunch and a good nap, I had planned to take her to Michaels to replenish some of my floss and get her some stickers, but since it was 99 degrees outside, I decided to skip it. Instead, she was a very busy little girl, swiffering my hallway, and taking things from one place and moving them somewhere else. For some reason, her toys didn't hold her attention today.

She loves playing with the magnets on the refrigerator and when she couldn't reach these, she stood on the rug shampooer next to the refrigerator (I accidentally cut it off at the bottom of the picture.)
The maroon tub has a bunch of books that David picked up at a garage sale a few weeks ago. When she couldn't reach them, she climbed onto a box of Lego Quattro blocks (also from a garage sale).

When that wasn't high enough, she climbed onto the table itself.

I had also planned on taking my walk with her in the stroller, but since it was so hot, I decided to skip that too. David had bought me a "fancy" walker with a seat and basket just before my surgery thinking that I'd need a walker a lot longer than I did. At one point, I'd put Kyleigh on the walker facing me and rolled her around the house. Later, since she was getting antsy and it was almost time for Janice to show up, I sat her on the walker facing forward and took her for a walk between our two driveways (we're on a corner lot so there's one in front and one on the side.) Janice showed up while we were on the side of the house. Kyleigh waved to her, but didn't try to get off; she rode the walker back into it's storage place in the house.

After she left, we watched part of the Angels game, but it was a "baaaad" game so we watched some shows we'd recorded and just checked on it periodically. Hopefully, they'll do better tomorrow.

Angels - 0; Yankees - 1