Friday

I had two more meetings today--it's a wonder I've gotten anything accomplished this week!

After work, we met Janice and Kyleigh for dinner. Kyleigh is now able to eat table food so after she finished her dinner (oatmeal and apples), we fed her bits of potato, bread and steak off our plates. She likes steak! She's also learned to blow kisses (with sound). It's really cute!

Tonight was the Let's Stitch SAT and I continued stitching on Kit Stuff for Next Week, the last of the Days of the Week Stitching Towels. I stitched for almost two hours and then decided it was bedtime, but I'll do the rest of the six hours tomorrow and hopefully have it finished.

Stitching: Kit Stuff for Next Week
Reading: The Quilter's Kitchen (finished); Thai Die

More Meetings

Today started with a drive to the University of La Verne for a user group meeting. This is the first time I've driven myself and what should have taken about 1/2 hour took almost twice as long since I managed to take the wrong freeway and then made a couple of wrong turns, but I arrived in plenty of time.

I detoured by the library on the way back and learned that the library's I usually visit on Saturday are now closed Saturdays and the main library is opening later due to budget cuts. I managed to find all the books I was looking for and rather quickly and then picked up some lunch on my way back to work.

I also received the letter telling me what my new monthly salary is this afternoon. It's not as much as I hoped for, but at least it's something and I do still have a job!

This evening was my Social Ministries Board Meeting. Because this meeting starts at 5:30, we do a potluck dinner. Tonight it was a macaroni and cheese casserole, fruit salad and apricot pie--delicious.

Fortunately, my afternoon meeting was cancelled!

I continued stitching my next square for the Q4OC Challenge. This one is for the Flowers and Gardening theme and is a wheelbarrow full of flowers.

Stitching: Wheelbarrow with flowers
Reading: The Quilter's Kitchen

Cats Finish

I had two meetings, a doctor's appointment and physical therapy (after work) so it made for a busy day, but I did manage to finish my cats square for the Q4OC challenge. To meet the challenge, we're supposed to stitch six squares from five of six different themes (cats, dogs, flowers and gardening, sports, in the mountains and houses/buildings) by June 30, 2009.

This is the August 27th chart from 365 Tiny Cross Stitch Designs by Kooler Design Studio.



Stitching: Playful Cats (Finished); Wheelbarrow with Flowers

Reading: Murder on K Street; The Quilter's Kitchen

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my birthday! I left work a couple of hours early and we took advantage of Disneyland's "Get in Free on Your Birthday" promotion. We have annual passes, so they gave me a gift card in the amount of a one day passport ($69) to buy myself a birthday present. I only spent about $15 though. I bought myself a snowglobe of Mickey and Friends playing around the mountain at California Adventure to replace a similar, but smaller one that David accidentally broke.

We spent the first couple of hours at California Adventure looking for a replacement snowglobe, learning to draw Pluto at Animation and riding Monsters Inc and Tower of Terror. This is my attempt. Unfortunately, David's wouldn't fit in the scanner.

We met Janice, Chad and Kyleigh for dinner at Rancho del Zocalo and then wandered through some more shops. Kyleigh was kind of tired and the park closed at 8:00 so we made an early night of it which gave me some time to continue stitching on my cats square for the Q4OC challenge. I've finished one cat and the scratching post and have about 1/2 a cat left.


Stitching: Playful Cats
Reading: Murder on K Street

Back to Work

I've been off since December 20th (I took two days vacation and then the university was closed from Christmas Eve through January 2nd) and I really didn't want to go back to work today. I was also a little concerned that I might oversleep, but I managed to wake up right on time (I don't use an alarm).

Of course, it was the typical Monday after a long holiday: the heater wasn't working so it was freezing in our building; voice mail wasn't working so I couldn't pick up my messages, an update done over the holidays overwrote a couple of customizations and quite a few people were encountering issues when trying to run reports that I'd written. But, by noon, everything but voice mail was back to normal.

I started knitting during my commute again. Since David does the driving, I like to have something to keep my hands busy. The commute is only 10 minutes long since we moved, so I haven't been knitting, but I figured I can get at least a couple rows a day done. I'm working on a blue/pink variegated preemie blanket which I'd like to have completed by the end of January if possible.

Kyleigh had her nine month checkup today and now weighs 20 pounds and measures 29 inches long. The doctor says she's right on target and doing really good. She now gets to eat meat and more table food including yogurt, cheese, etc.

I spent the evening packaging up the squares and cards I'd stitched for WOCS so that David can take them to the post office tomorrow. I also updated my stitching signups spreadsheet so that I know what I've committed to stitch and what pattern I've chosen.

We had leftover parmesan chicken for dinner which David turned into something reminiscent of Sizzler's Malibu Chicken while I made a salad. It was actually pretty good and it's probably the only meal we'll eat at home this week!


Stitching: Playful Cats
Reading: Murder on K Street

Pooh! is finished

This is the little Pooh! ornament I've been working on for the past ouple of days. He's a Disney Kit stitched on 18-count Aida. He does have a couple of unintentional customizations! He's the first of the "bucket projects" for this month's goals, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with him yet.
I also started the Cats theme square for the Q4OC Challenge. It's two cats playing with a ball of yarn on a scratching post.

I ended up babysitting Kyleigh this evening so her mom and dad could meet up with a coworker for a couple of hours. I went over to their place so that she could go to bed at her normal time, but I did get to feed her a bottle and play some first.



Stitching: Pooh! (finished); Playful Cats
Reading: Murder on K Street

Quiet Day

Since David had to be at the stadium all day and we only have one car, I stayed home and took it easy. I did a lot of catching up with blog posts, watching the Food Network and stitching.

I finished Buy More Stash and started Kit Stuff for Next Week, part of the Days of the Week Stitching Towels from a 2005 Cross Stitcher magazine for Let's Stitch. Instead of stitching them on individual towels, I'm doing them all on one piece of 16-count Aida, but I'm not sure of the color.

I also stitched quite a bit on Pooh! and hope to have another finish tomorrow!

Stitching: Buy More Stash; Kit Stuff for Next Week; Pooh!

Reading: Murder on K Street

Busy Friday

We left the house at 7:40 to pick up Kyleigh for the day and took her out to breakfast with us. I had a physical therapy appointment at 11:30 so David got to watch her for an hour--he decided she was tired so he put her down for a nap even though she'd had one earlier. When I got home, I fed her and us and we took off to do some shopping--David needed to replenish some vitamins, etc and he desparately needed some new pants.

He took off for the stadium at 5:00 to get ready for tomorrow's Supercross and Janice and I went to Target and then to dinner at Coco's. After watching Kyleigh crawl with a toy in her hand, I decided she needed something with wheels, so we bought her a couple of small Tonka cars (one car and one airplane) which she figured out what to do with right away and sent them careening across the table at dinner.

Today's pictures are of Kyleigh waiting patiently for Grandpa to finish on the computer so we could go shopping. The rain jacket was a Christmas present, and although it's the size she's now wearing, it's definitely a little big!

It fits much beeter with the hood off and the sleeves rolled up!

I didn't get much stitching done today, but I put a couple of rows in Pooh! and then stitched for an hour and a half on Buy More Stash for the Let's Stitch SAT

Stitching: Pooh! Buy More Stash

Reading: Murder on K Street

Happy New Year!

Today was a very quiet day. We stayed up until midnight last night and received our annual phone call from a friend. This morning we got up late and watched the rose parade, but that's about all we did!

I did stitch and managed to finish this little guy (Cheer Bear's Cheerful Day). I've now stitched all eight of these. They were meant to be ornaments using 18-count Aida, but instead I stitched them on 14-count Aida which made them big enough for quilt squares. I'll be donating the whole set to WOCS later this month.

January Goals: I don't usually set goals, but I have so much I want to stitch right now, that I figured I better. All of these charts, kits, etc. come from my stash as I'm hoping to do some stash reduction instead of stash enhancement this year.

Finish Days of the Week Stitching Towels (Friday & Saturday)

Stitch August & September 2006 Kats by Kelly minis

Stitch first motif on MMIRR

Stitch Dragonfly for Rachel (Q4OC) - due 6/1/09

Stitch Cats and Gardening theme squares for Q4OC challenge - due 6/1/09

Stitch at least one more card for WOCS ACH card challenge - due 3/31/09

Stitch at least five small kits from bucket

Start square for Bronwyn's Oriental quilt (Q4OC) - due 3/31/09

Finish knitting pink/blue varigated blanket

The Days of the Week Stitching Towels & Kats by Kelly minis are for the Let's Stitch Friday night SATs. The kits in the bucket are small NMI kits with frames that take just a few hours to stitch. I've picked out 16 that were loose that I'd like to stitch by the end of March.

Stitching: Cheer Bear - Cheerful Day (finished); Pooh

Reading: Fleece Navidad; Murder on K Street