Finished!

I managed to finish Katie's silver curtains, the Jack n Jill design for the afghan and mulching the front garden. Still haven't settled on a paint color for the bedroom, but whatever, I'll get to it when I get to it I guess.

Katie was pretty happy with her silver valance and I was happy I talked her into this in lieu of the silver walls she really wanted.

In other news, I won a prize on Susan' s blog for showing a pic of my "to-be" craft room. Look at all the awesome stuff she sent. Thank you Susan!! :)

WIPs

Seems just about everything is a WIP right now and nothing is done. I've been stitching for what seems like forever and a half on this Jack and Jill square for the mother goose baby afghan. I guess it is taking me so long because I'm not really enjoying this particular design and also work has been really, really tedious lately. Last thing I want to pick up when I get home is something that also feels tedious cause I don't really like it. Work is about driving me batty - they seem to think that I will somehow just know what to do and do it right the first time with no explanation or plan of attack. When I point out there is no way for me to know this stuff, they agree and apologize and act all understanding and then say something insane like, "So you'll be done tomorrow right?" It also doesn't help that the work is not at all technical writing, it is more like code writing and I find it extremely tedious. Instead of writing documentation, I'm fiddling with the code of the xml pages to make the content management system display the pages correctly. If you understood what I meant by that - you probably understand it as well as I do. I've tinkered a bit with this sort of stuff before, but it was never the whole crux of my job before and my handlers seem to think that experienced technical writer means I'll figure out what they want and just do it without them telling me. Anyway, if the economy didn't suck right now, I'd so be telling my resource manager to get me out of there - but with assignments so scarce, I gotta make the best of it.

Anyway, went off a bit of a work rant there, which I try not to do in my blog so back to my WIPs. Besides my stitching WIPs, I also have several other projects that seem to be in the middle. I guess if I had more than the attention span of a gnat, I'd have something done instead of a whole slew of things that are "in progress".

DH and I pulled all the bleeding heart from the bed around the garage because it was seriously overgrown and choking out all the other plants - we didn't quite get it all finished though - a little weeding and mulching left to do on the right side. See my lilies, before we cleared the bleeding heart, you couldn't even tell they were there

Then there are Katie's silver curtains - I bought fabric a few weeks ago and just this weekend got around to hemming all the edges and starting the pocket where the rod will go - there will be tapered sides to this when it is done. I got sick of it though this afternoon and put it aside. Hoping to get back to it sometime this next week - we'll see.

And then there is the master bedroom. I picked out and purchased curtains - got a steal in JC Penny's clearance bin on some lined silk panels for $20 each (reg. price $75). The valances were on sale too - but not quite as good a deal. We're having a hard time selecting a paint color for the room - I want a sort of steel blue but darkish. I think I've ruled out all three of the samples you see in the pic. The one on top is too "baby" blue, the one in the middle is too purply, and the one on the bottom is just too, well blue.

So anyway, there is what I've been up to and what I've accomplished - a whole lotta nothing!

My brother the soldier

Very early Thursday morning, my sister, my mom and I all traveled to Lawton/Ft. Sill Oklahoma to attend my brother's graduation ceremony from basic training. He graduated with the rest of his class and will continue his training for the field artillery in the US Army National Guard at Ft. Sill for the next 6-8weeks. After that he comes back home and will be a "weekend warrior" in the guard unless/until he is deployed somewhere.

I've always had respect and gratitude for what our armed forces do, but this experience was very moving to me. Seeing the dedication on my brother's face and on those of his classmates and watching him graduate made me so very proud to be his sister, but also so very proud to be an American. I know I'm not capturing in words what I mean to say - it wasn't just knowing that these guys are having to face the real possibility of being deployed and risking their lives - and it wasn't just having known this kid since he was born (he is 19, and was born while I was in high school - so he really is a "little" brother). And it wasn't even that he has struggled to find direction in his life as he's matured to adulthood or that I've never seen him feel so certain that this is what he wants to do, or so positive about doing it, or that I could tell he was feeling like he is making a difference. Those things were part of it, but somehow the whole was greater than the sum of the parts.... I'll just say I'm so proud of him, despite the fact that I feel that statement is incredibly inadequate.

Mira RR - My first Pixie!

Just finished stitching my first ever Pixie - well part of one anyway. This one is Lilac. I'm finding that the ones that have at least a hint of a face rather attractive. Previously I had sort of written off all the pixies because of the lack of a face (yes, yes, I know they are supposed to be coutures and all and that is the reason for no face - but somehow that doesn't make the lack of a face any better to me).

I get to stitch two more pixies for other ladies that have a pixie themed round robin, so that should give me more chance to experiment with them. This one, has an eyelash and she is looking away, so it doesn't seem unnatural for the face to not be there. Lucky for me there are several others like that, so I should be able to happily stitch Pixies for my other round robin stitchy friends that desire them. :) :)