Merry Christmas

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.