I have a new Neice!

My little sister (well she's 26, but still little to me!), gave birth to her first child yesterday morning at 12:04am. She had a beautiful baby girl she and her husband have named Maryanne Ilene. She was 7lbs 15oz and I forgot to ask the length.

We went up there (they live about 2 1/2 hrs north of us) after we picked up Alex from school yesterday afternoon to meet the new cousin. I meant to bring my digital camera, but forgot so no pics. When we got there we found out the hospital had a policy that didn't allow kids under 12 onthe maternity ward. I didn't think any hospitals did that anymore. So Sean ended up watching the kids in the lounge while I went in and visited the baby and new parents. Sean came in a bit later and visited a bit while I took a turn watching the kids. The nurse did relent a bit and said that Alex could come in and take a peek as long as he washed his hands (which I would have made him do anyway), so at least he got to see the new baby. Maryanne is a real cutie but of course not as cute as my babies were.

I was able to finally get rid of most of Katie's clothes she's outgrown though - so that's a bonus. So many cute outfits I sorted through to give them, almost made me want another. I said ALMOST.

In other unrelated news, Katie has been doing really well with the potty training. Much better than I had even hoped she would this young! She still isn't telling me she has to go, but she will start trying to pull her pants down, or diaper off sometimes when she has to go. I think if she had more words she probably would be communicating it to me. I've been trying to get her to say "potty" so she can tell me when she has to go, but no such luck. I did get her to go poopy on the potty yesterday, so that was a big victory and she definitely knows what the potty is for and goes every time I put her on it. She is so cute about it too. She will sit there and then when she starts going she gets this little self-satisfied grin on her face. :)

As far as my stitching goes, I did get some more in on my Angel of Summer. I'm pleasantly surprised at how she is turning out. I am doing her on MGC Textiles linen which isn't an exact evenweave, so she'll be a little fatter than the designer intended. I really like the color though, the pinks are showing up really well on the blue linen. I just worked on the wings this time and got sort of bogged down in that so I'm going to move on in the rotation and try to get in a little bit more on EGW before my next RR piece comes. Here is a quick pic of my progress on Angel of Summer so far.

I Got Tagged

by Autumn

7 Things I Want To Do Before I Die:

Travel
Become a Grandma (not yet though!)
Get published - in a mag or maybe write a book
See both my children happy in their adult lives
Learn to quilt
Be thin again
Get closer to both my sisters and my dad

7 Things I can do:

Cross Stitch
Hardanger
Cheer up Alex when he is upset
Touch my toes! (new acheivement after a bit of weight loss)
Learn quickly
Analyze a situation quickly and accurately
Think for myself! :)

7 Things I cannot do:

knit
Crochet
Listen to screeching child for more than an hour (DH is called on to step in)
Have a lot of patience (I'm working on it though)
Climb on the roof of our house to clean the gutters
The splits - tried and tried in high school, but my body just doesn't flex that way
Belong to a gym and keep up with it

7 Things that attract me to another person:

Similiar sense of humor to mine
Stability
Tall
Fun Laugh
Being laid back
Compliments my strengths with his own
Willingness to learn

7 Celebrity crushes:

Bruce Willis
Keifer Sutherland
Kevin Bacon
Rob Lowe (more when I was a teenager)
Yeah, okay, Brad Pitt
Mel Gibson
Tom Selleck (Mostly in his Magnum days when I was little, and mostly cause my mom liked him so much too)

7 Things I say the most:

"Is that wise? or otherwise?"
"Wash your hands, Alex"
"Do you have to potty, Katie?"
"What I meandersay" (I picked up this little annoying saying from DH, who made it up.)
"Let's go for a walk"
"Is it 8 o'clock yet?" (Bedtime for the kiddos)
"Katie, NO!" (Usually as she is about to get into something)

Tag you're IT:

http://jillejones.blogspot.com/
http://bunnyhead5000.blogspot.com/
http://moviemuse.blogspot.com/

Adventures in Potty Training

Katie will be just 16 months on the 28th of Sept. so I wasn't really thinking about starting potty training yet until she started bringing me diapers to change her. This just started this last week, so I decided to try out the potty chair and see what happened. Nothing to lose right?

She didn't have any trouble sitting on the little potty chair I took out of storage from when Alex was potty training. However once we took off the shorts and diaper to actually try to use it for its intended purpose, she got all nervous. I didn't want to push so I just let her up as soon as she started whinging. Before I could put her diaper back on her she peed all over the linoleum. Ah well, at least it was easy to clean up and no harm done. I left the potty chair in the bathroom and thought maybe I'll try now and then and she can work up to getting used to it.

I had the idea this morning to try it first thing when we woke up since most people do use the bathroom first thing in the morning. It worked! She didn't seem nervous at all either - go figure. She just sat down and peed right away! Sean and I gave her lots of praise and clapped for her and showed her her pee and she looked so happy. She has gone twice more since this morning, but both times were at my suggestion. I'm pretty sure she isn't ready to tell me when she has to go yet. But hey, its progress, and I'll take it. :) I'm going to try to keep up with it and have her sit on the potty each time I change her as long as she doesn't protest. Maybe, just maybe, things will start to sink in and she'll start asking to go. At the very least I save a few diapers getting her to go in the chair a few times a day. Hopefully it'll make it an easier transition once she is old enough to read her bodies signals. I figure if using the potty is something she already does by then, that is one less thing to learn.

Anyway, I'm pleasantly surprised at her early progress. :)

Just Nan RR

Just finished working on the Just Nan RR that belongs to Autumn. It is really turning out nice. This pic doesn't really do it justice, but the fabric is soft greens and pinks and really compliments the designs chosen so far. Most of Just Nan's patterns this size have pinks and greens too, so I can't really see this turning out anything but beautiful. I'm so sad to be done and have to move onto something else - but alas I do have plenty of other things to stitch.

I stitched the two designs on the right - I only made one small modification to the pattern in the right corner. The chart called for some bead I had no idea how to get which was supposed to be a rose color. I had a darker color petite bead in my stash that matched the darker pink shade already used in the design and went with that instead. I think it came out pretty well. I reallly liked the Spring Peepers design too, which pops in real life a whole lot better than it seems in this scan. The greens and pinks with the little gold frogs is really pretty.

I'll start another square on Katie's blanket tonight and hopefully that'll only take a day or two to do. I'm going to do TW's Playful Kittens on it, so it might take a bit longer as her designs tend to be a bit more intricate even the little ones. After that I'll do some time on Angel of Summer if my next RR hasn't arrived yet.

Round Robins

I'm currently involved in 3 Round Robins. I never thought I'd get into them much, but once I did one I found myself wanting to do all kinds of them. My house RR is actually getting close to the end - only 2 more rounds to go. The pic is my latest happy dance for that RR.

For the next few days I'll be working on my open-themed RR. The theme of this one is Just Nan - and the owner is having us all use those smallish square type patterns she publishs. It is coming out really beautifully so far and I love the fabric. I've been droolling at the prospect of stitching on it since it came in the mail. I'll probably have that happy dance here in a few days cause I plan to just work on that til it is done.

After I finish the Just Nan RR I should be getting a any designer band sampler RR in the mail. No idea what I'm going to be stitching on that yet as I'll have to go by what is already stitched on the piece. I'm sure it'll be fun though - I think I enjoy picking out things for other people's pieces more than I even like getting my own done. :)

After all the RRs are done I'll be doing a few days on Katie's blanket, then a few on Angel of Summer, and then back to EGW. Boy I want that bear done! Hopefully I can finish it in the next few turns through the rotation. I really want it to be done before January cause I have a 4th RR starting then. A Mirabilia RR that I'm really excited about. Sign-ups are still open for it, so I'm hoping we get a few more people, but if not I think we have a good group already. At least the house RR should be almost done by then.

Dumb Bird!

There is a very stupid bird in our garage that is driving me crazy. It obviously doesn't want to be in the garage because it is flying around an chirping incessantly. I tried to chase it out with the broom but the darn thing keeps flying either into the back of the garage, or up between the open garage door and the ceiling. It can't figure out that it needs to fly a little lower to get out of the open garage door. I noticed this bird yesterday and this morning it is still there. I put some crunched up crackers on the floor of the garage near the opening in the hopes it will try to eat them and see the opening once it gets down there - but this is one dumb bird!

EGW

Well, I can sort of see the end of the tunnel on this project, but it is starting to annoy me nonetheless. I've decided I need to rip out the backstitching on the swans. Although the directions say to use 415 - I think 414 will be much better. See how the backstitch is just faded out on this - so knowing there is frogging ahead of me I think I'll put this away for a few days and stitch on my "Yellow Knackered Fairy" piece for the Dinky Dyes competition. I have some RR pieces coming in the mail soon too - so between those two things I should have enough of a break before I have to go back to it.

I just want it done!

Feeling Anxious

I think I've mentioned before that DH has been starting a new job. He was a social worker for 6 years and during that time managed to complete his schooling and hours to become liscensed as a professional therapist. So since I've been staying at home and the salary for a Social worker doesn't really lend itself to single income families, he decided to try to make a go of it as a therapist.

The first week of July he got this new job as a therapist with an agency in our area. The pay and hours sounded great - he can set his own schedule and he should be getting 40% of the fee, which is $150. We got out the calculater and figured out that he would really only need to work something like 20 billable hours a week in order to make what he was making at the old job - so he went for it.

Well... a number of things have come to light after he started working at the new job. Like most insurance companies pay about half of the actual fee - so he really gets about 40% of $75 in most cases - some cases less, some more. And the person who hired him led him to believe he could build a solid caseload very quickly, but it is taking a lot more time for that to happen than we expected. He has been there 2 months and is now billing about 10-15 hours a week. And he doesn't get paid until the insurance pays the agency which is supposed to take 90 days, but often takes longer. We have yet to see a paycheck. DH talked to the billing person at the agency last week and they said he would be getting a check for around $400 on Sept. 23. The next check won't come until about the same time in October. The October check should be bigger, but I'm not sure how much. You can guess that our mortgage is going to be a good chunck more than that.

Now we aren't in danger of losing our home or going without anything necessary, but it still makes me so anxious. What if it doesn't ever get better at this new job? DH tends to dig his heals in, and I certainly don't want to be the one responsible for making him give up his dream of being a therapist, but he has to have a job that will support this family.

The other question I keep rolling around in my head is whether I should go back to work. I've had mixed feelings about being a SAHM vs a working mom for a long time and this is making all the self-doubt creep in like mad. I really enjoy being home with Katie and having a chance to be there if Alex calls from school or needs me to play taxi driver for this or that. BUT I do miss the everyday interaction with other adults. Seems my blog and the needlework BBs I visit have become my biggest social outlet. It is really a vicious cycle because if Sean were making more money I could afford to get involved with moms groups and go to the Y and get out more. I might need to go back to work though to afford anything like that.

I've actually applied for two positions at a local publishing company. I applied there in March and had two interviews then, but they ended up hiring another candidate. So far they haven't even called this time. I'm confused because last time the HR person called me to tell me they selected someone else because she wanted to encourage me to apply again in the future, because I was definitely "in the running". Now they have two similiar positions open and they won't even call? I would really like to get hired there because I would be writing for crafting publications so I would be able to incorporate my crafting hobbies into my job. I also noticed a few other postions on our local job websites that I could apply for but I haven't. I guess I'm hoping I won't have to. Ultimately I don't want to go back to work unless it is for the perfect opportunity (like the publishing company). Problem is I'm starting to feel like staying home is just being selfish and I need to get out there and make some money so that DH can stay where he is at. He really likes the work at the new job - it just isn't bringing in the dough.

Well, I feel a little better getting all that off my chest. Maybe the publishing company will call on Monday.

Cottage Garden Fairy

I finished another rotation on Cottage Garden Fairy and she is coming along pretty quickly. Although a bit of the lightest green color fades a bit on the fabric I chose, the contrast is really nice for the rest of the design. I'm really happy with how it is coming out.

Not too much else going on around here. I mailed out a box of clothes and shoes to someone in LA today to help in the Katrina relief efforts. I also loaded up the car with some more clothes, shoes, diapers and other stuff I had to donate and took them to one of the local TV stations. They announced today that they are taking a few semis down to the affected areas with supplies and that we could drop off donations there. At least I feel like I did something. I just hope someone gets some use out of the things I sent.

Katrina

I've been watching all the coverage on TV and I feel so bad for all those people. I just cannot imagine what it would be like to live in those conditions and to lose everything so quickly. I dropped a few dollars in a jug at Walmart to donate to the victims, but it just seems like nothing. I keep looking around my house and seeing all the things I don't really need that I could donate to them. Stitching stash, clothes we've outgrown, Katie's bottles she no longer uses. I guess I could mail them to the Salvation Army in LA or MI or Alabama, but the postage would be crazy and I don't know if they really want boxes of stuff coming in the mail from all over the US. I plan to check with all the local charities here to see if they are getting together things to send and maybe I can donate through them. I know cash is what they need most, but unfortunately we are a bit cash poor right now. I have plenty of "things" to give - just not a lot of money. *sigh*

Frustration

I don't know what my problem is lately, but I seem to be frustrated with everything!

I'm frustrated with Katie because she won't take regular naps anymore. She will sometimes take about an hour nap if I stay in her room til she falls asleep, other days nothing will get her to nap. And she definitely still needs that nap cause she is sooo cranky on those days she doesn't nap. This is seriously cutting into my time to get things picked up, my stitching time, and my just general downtime. :(

I'm frustrated with Alex because he is getting to that age where he starts to question everything I tell him. He is just starting to realize mom maybe doesn't have all the answers and so he pushes me on everything it seems lately. In the grand scheme of things I guess this is a good thing as it shows he is learning to think for himself and he isn't really being sassy about it. I just find myself wanting to say "Cause I said so - and that is the only reason you need!" all the time. (For the record, I bite my tongue and explain why instead - but it is frustrating nonetheless.)

I'm frustrated with DH because his new job is not earning enough money fast enough, even though that really isn't his fault. He is a therapist and gets paid on a fee for service type basis and gets a cut of whatever the client's insurance pays. It takes F O R E V E R for the insurance company to pay the company and then for DH to see it in his paycheck. He's been working there 2 months now and still hasn't gotten his first paycheck. We are still doing okay... but I'm not sure we can do this for long.

I'm also frustrated with DH because he seems to never be home (trying to make more money) and when he is home he is catching up on paperwork for the clients he's already seen. I know none of it is his fault, but it is really difficult not to take out all the stress his extra work hours and the empty checkbook are causing me out on him.

I'm frustrated with English Garden Welcome, because the greens will not end and everytime I think I've finished a symbol, I find a stray one somewhere. I did do the swans yesterday and the blue half stitches for the water which was nice, but ended way too soon. Now I'm back to that sea of green. I may have to move on in the rotation soon because of the frustration is just too much. I'm almost to a point where I can backstitch some greenery on the bottom and I think if I do that I might at least get to feel like I accomplished something before I move on.

Lastly I'm frustrated with this darn cold me and Alex and Katie all have. We are all tired and big crabs! (Gee, ya couldn't tell after reading all this whining, huh?)

Dragon of Hope

For the past two days I've been stitching this little guy. :)

He was really a lot of fun. The design is "Dragon of Hope" by Jennifer Aikman-Smith of Dragon Dreams. The dragon is holding a globe in the pattern, but I stitched the whole ball in Kreinik 192 #8 braid to give it a crystal ball effect instead. I also changed the gold finger nails on the dragon to silver and backstitched with 3799 instead of 310.

This is one of the squares on the blanket I'm doing for my daughter. I'm going to finish it in the same style I did the Noah's Ark blanket for Wendy's baby. I'll back it with fleece and then put some sort of edging on it. 22 more squares to complete before I can finish it though!

Progress Pic

Well, it isn't much, but here is my progress on Alhambra Garden. It really is fun to stitch! :) I'm going to put it aside for awhile now cause I really want to finish English Garden Welcome. It has been a WIP since I first started a rotation back in 1999! I sort of put aside my rotation and just stitched what/when I wanted around the time I got pregnant with Katie - and I'm thinking I need to get back to a more regular rotation.

I also want to quickly finish a few pieces so I'm not sure how I'm going to get a little bit in on everything and finish what I want to with any kind of speed. For now I'm going to do another square on Katie's blanket, then I'm going to do another couple days on EGW. Then I'll probably do another square on the blanket and work on another of my WIPs. I think I'm going to do a three project type rotation. A square on the blanket, a few days on EGW, and a few days on another project of my choice. I'll keep doing this til EGW is finished and make another project a focus and put it in EGWs spot (next will probably be Cottage Garden Fairy). After I finish the blanket (probably at least a year) I'll have to think of something else - but for now I think that type rotation will work for me and allow me to actually make good progress on the blanket and have a few finishes while not completely neglecting all my WIPs.

Chatelaine

Chatelaine is my latest needlework obsession. I've been vaguely aware of Chatelaine's existence for some years now - but only as a designer who ran mystery designs. That means you have to buy the chart and start stitching without seeing the finished product. Didn't sound appealing to me, I guess.

I've now seen several of her finished pieces and I fell in love with the Mandala Gardens. These were mysteries at one point, but the charts (with finished pictures) are now available for sale all at once. If you want to see pictures of these beautiful designs you can see them at European Cross Stitch. After selling off several charts I knew I'd never get too - and throwing in the premiums I won at this year's fair - I finally saved enough money to purchase one of the kits. Because they use a lot of yummy silks and beads, the kits are pricey. I chose Alhambra Garden for two reasons - it was among the cheaper of the Mandala Gardens, and the colors looked like it would go well in my living room.

The kit arrived yesterday and like a good little silk stitcher - I rinsed my silks first to make sure they were colorfast. In the old days I might have risked it and just not washed the piece. BUT having a 15 month old sticky-fingered kid in the house who is sure to touch the piece at one point or another meant rinsing the silks so that the piece can be washed before framing. I'm so glad I decided to rinse cause two of the silks bled. The Spanish Moss bled a little bit and the Cranberry Gloriana Princess Perle Petite bled like no tomorrow. I rinsed and rinsed several times last night and a bunch more this morning before it finally stopped bleeding. All the silks have been dried now and put on bobbins in the little floss away bags the kit came with. The kits are very well put together - each of the beads has it's own little container, sort of like the watch maker containers I have for my Mill Hills. The metallics and silks each had their own floss away bag as I mentioned which will be nice for keeping that odd ort that is long enough to use some more. I don't usually use floss away bags - but I might have to start for my specialty threads - makes everything nice and neat and you don't have to toss that 8 inches of metallic you cut off the card/spool.

After all the oggling I did over the directions and the rinsing of the silks etc. I've only finished a tiny bit of the design so far - I'll post a progress pic sometime in the next week when I have more to show. I'm hoping I can finish this one rather quickly (well quickly for a large piece) since I want to enter it in next year's fair.

Crazy me is also considering joining one of those mystery groups. After perusing through all the Chatelaine designs I'm more confident that whatever it is I'll like it at least somewhat. Also I've really liked working round robin pieces because of the group feeling, and I think this will be similiar in that regard. I'm considering the Mystery Sampler II which is supposed to have peacocks and simplicity as the theme! Sounds good to me and in keeping with the samplers I usually like. The materials are also not that expensive (relatively speaking of course) but I will need to save again and maybe by January when the group starts I'll have the funds. Probably can convince DH to kick in the last $20 or something for Christmas too if necessary.

The Zoo!

A few weeks ago I was reminded by reading Patti's blog that I meant to take Alex and Katie to the zoo sometime this summer. Today I finally got around to it. It was really a perfect day for it too. The temp was 75 and overcast, but no rain. Just warm enough to wear shorts and normal summer attire, but not hot enough to make anyone uncomfortable or sunny enough to have to get too concerned about sunsceen. I was worried that Katie would poop out on me half way through and we'd have to leave early with a cranky kid, but she did really well and even took a short nap in the stroller as we went through the nocturnal building (which is of course dark).

Alex and I really had a good bonding time I think. Katie was sort of contained in her stroller and thus did not take away too much of the attention from the activity or from us talking about all the cool animals we were seeing. Alex loved looking at all the animals and even rode the glider swing that goes across the park on cables (not sure if I'm describing that right).

When she was awake Katie had a great time too - she loved looking at the large aquariums of fish and she also got to pet a goat which is apparently very exciting for a 15 month old.

I'm a little pooped from all that walking but it really was a perfect day and a nice capper for our summer. Alex goes back to school on Sept 1 - a week from today - so I'm glad we got it in before then.

My Box :)

About 10 days ago now I found a box at Goodwill that would work perfectly for stitching something for the top. Since then I've been obsessed with stitching and completing this box. It was a lot of fun! :)

First I needed to pick the right pattern to stitch. After considering a few other options, I remembered Just Nan's Common Ground. I have been wanting to start this pattern for awhile, but didn't really want to add another large piece into my already large pile of WIPs. The top inner band was perfect - and the best part of the design in my opinion. This would satisfy my wanting to do the pattern and make it a small, quick, design rather than a large time-intensive one.

I stitched it on a piece of ivory 40ct linen that had been languishing in my stash for years. I knew it would be perfect for something one day - today was the day. I had some left over silks in my stash from when I stitched Indigo Rose's "My Son" a few years back. Some of the colors were similiar enough to the ones used in the design to substitute so I did. :) The text and the border around the text are Au Ver Soie silks. And the satin stitched outer border is Slate Waterlilies which I just happened to have in my stash.

I finished the inside of the box with some blue tafetta I had left over from when I finished the inside of my scissorcase several years ago. Now they match! I think I'll keep the scissorcase in there and the box next to my stitching chair to hold odd bobbins, spools, and stuff I'm working with at the time. There is no tight clasp (I might find one for it later) so I'll have to keep it up though when Katie is about.

Funny the little things we get all excited about - huh? This little box was so much fun and I used all stuff I had on hand except for the box itself which was $.99 at Goodwill and the glass I put in the top which I had to have cut to fit the opening for $2.30. Pretty good entertainment for 10 days for $3.29.

10 years ago today

I think today is harder than my 30th birthday. I cannot believe I've been a mother for 10 years - and that my little guy is heading into 5th grade and the tween years! I'm so sad cause he is growing up so fast and soon he won't even want me around anymore - moms are so uncool ya know. He's always been the sweetest boy in the world and I guess I'm just afraid of losing that as he grows into a teenager.

I'm so proud of him though, he is such a good kid and has a heart of absolute gold. He is a wonderful big brother to Katie and loves to make her smile. He is always the peacemaker in the family and cannot stand to make anyone unhappy or sad. He's the kind of kid who'd give up any of his treats or possessions to someone else if he thought they needed it, or even just if it might make them smile. He loves space and math and playing Star Wars at recess with his friends. I told him no more of this birthday stuff - 10 is it - I'm putting my foot down - no more growing older! "Ya right mom (rolleyes) " was his response.

Whew!

I called the fair office again this morning and although I got forwarded to a bunch of different people, all of whom were a bit snippy (yeah, I probably deserved it for not picking stuff up on the day I was supposed to), I was finally told I could pick my stuff up this morning at 9am at the expo building - there would be some people still there cleaning up.

So I rushed over there and there were my pieces as pristine as I'd left them. Whew!

Forgetfulness

I've always been forgetful. I don't know why - I just am. Today was the day I was supposed to go over to the fair grounds and pick up the entries that had been on display because they won ribbons. I *totally* spaced and forgot to pick them up. I remembered yesterday and even this morning that I needed to do that this afternoon. This afternoon came and went and I just went about my day and totally forgot. By the time I remembered it was 7pm (time to pick up was between 11:30a and 5:30p). I called the office as soon as I remembered, but of course they were already closed for the day. I'm hoping and praying that I can call up tomorrow and they'll let me come down to the office and claim my items. They have Katie's Baptism dress and my Lady of the Flag, so I'm just sick wondering if I'm going to be able to get my items back. Why, oh why do I forget things so easy!

In other news, my sister's baby shower was yesterday. It was the first and only baby shower I'll probably ever throw, so I was real nervous about it. It seemed to go quite well though, and the Noah's Ark blanket I did for her got lots of ohhhs and ahhs so that was kind of nice. Maybe that is why I forgot the fair stuff. After stressing about that shower for the last few weeks I was just looking forward to relaxing today and totally spaced on picking up my items. *Sigh*

Pictures

We haven't been getting real professional pictures taken of Katie as we are low on funds these days - but I have been snapping away with the Digital camera. Here are a few recent ones of our little cutie.