Mermaid Heaven

Time for some other mermaids tonight! I took a look at my May goals to see how I was doing, and noticed I had not yet picked Mermaid Heaven up this month. It was very easy to decide to work on these mermaids tonight. I did an awful lot of brown rock and brown hair tonight. But the good news is that this project is such a quick moving piece every time I pick it up. Once I get through the last huge chunk of MTM, this one will probably get finished quickly :-)

The nice, hot weather continues here (I adore hot weather - I was born on one of the hottest days of the year in 1963, so that may have led to my love of the heat). My office in Haverhill looks a tiny bit better - the landlord has put up some new ceiling tiles, but not the two that need to be cut (they are in the curved part of the ceiling where the window bays out). Many are very water stained. Ugh. No news yet on my new office, though. That is a bit of a slow process... in the meantime, I must forge on...

Stitched on today: Surprise project that cannot be posted here ;-), and
Mermaid Heaven

It's Garden Spot Sampler Time

It's Tuesday again... not too many more Tuesdays to go. I wonder how my SAL mate is doing. No word from her on this sampler for about two weeks now? Is she stitching? Did she skip ahead and finish? Is she OK? I need to email her and check... Anyhow... here is mine. (Ah, she is OK :-) I just saw in her blog that she planned to work on this tonight - very cool!!).

Really not a whole lot going on here, but it is New DVD Release Tuesday again, and this week we got a fun comedy, Date Movie :-)

Oh, I cannot forget this! I was RAK'd today by my pal, Karen today - she is so amazing. She just sent me a stunning fat quarter of Silkweaver's Summer Breeze belfast - she knew how much I want to stitch Bliss Fairy on this fabric - thank you, Karen, from the bottom of my heart!

And, another friend of mine is blogging now too! Here is another fun one to read, Home Sweet Stitching - Sue is doing such a gorgeous job on CHS' My Home Town - you must see it! Nice!!! **And, a late discovery! My friend Joyce is blogging now too! She is a super prolific stitcher - you may want to visit her at M&M's and Ice Water :-) New Hampshire is active now in the blogging world - LOL!

I was so thrilled this weekend to get my FOTM invoice from Silkweaver - they are back! Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!!! That time went quickly, but it's just so nice to have them back again :-) And, Sugar Maple Fabrics is back to taking retail orders! Yes, the world is a better place!!!!!!!!!

Stitched on today: Garden Spot Sampler

One more night with the mermaids...

It's almost time again for passwords for the two Chatelaine projects, as well as the last part of the Papillon Creations Mystery Sampler... so, I could not resist one last evening of working on the mermaids... it could be a while again before I can pick them up. Tomorrow is a dedicated SAL night, so that is out... The mermaids continued to get bigger tonight!

OK, off to bed... the four day weekend is over now... I did enjoy some time out in the garden today. I moved some daylilies that are being crowded out and overshadowed by rose bushes... each has a new open area home in other parts of the garden now :-)

Stitched on today: Mermaids of the Deep Blue

A Mermaids of the Deep Blue Update

At long last, I have an update on Mermaids of the Deep Blue. I am so happy to have found a chance to work on this one again. The ladies are really starting to grow now! I think I might stick with it again tomorrow!!

I've recently been hearing from various different stitchers who like to stitch "in hand" that, well... they are trying to convert me, and ultimately presenting their case as if my preference for using a Q-Snap is inferior or bad, or something like that... tongue clicking, head shaking... Heck, truth be told, I do sometimes stitch in hand (ie, Emerald Jeweled Garden and Winter Into Spring were both stitched in hand). But, my stitches are so incredibly neat and tidy when I use a Q-Snap. So, please don't try to convert me. This reminds me of my low carb diet - why do non-dieters want to sabotage the success of dieters? Anyhow, I don't take any of it personally and am happy to laugh about it all... but, give it up, I like my various methods - be it Q-Snap, scroll bar or in hand... thanks :-)

Stitched on today: Mermaids of the Deep Blue

Emerald Jeweled Garden is finished

I found out earlier today that my SAL mate for the LTD Jeweled Gardens finished hers sometime last week... so I figured, why wait now until Monday to finish mine? I loved working on this garden, and was thrilled to see there was a green light to go sit down and finish it while watching Curt Schilling get his 200th win (Red Sox). So, here it is.... pretty, isn't it? Now this chart will go off to KarenV, and she is sending me her Sapphire Jeweled Garden chart in exchange :-) I will send her plenty of the Colorwash Silk and Glissen Gloss filament for her to stitch this... she will only need to order the beads and crystals from Liz... I am looking forward to doing another one or two of these too... Ruby Jeweled Garden was recently released, so that is a "must stitch," as ruby is my birthstone. I was thinking that maybe I can get the supplies for this, and maybe the embellishments for Sapphire Jeweled Garden, when I go to CATS in September. Liz will be teaching there and, I believe, will also have a vendor booth at the show... I hope so!

After I finished EJG, I had planned to pick up one of my big projects, but I was so enjoying stitching up in the library by the open windows with the kitties that I did not feel like going downstairs to fetch a big project. Instead, I picked up Women of the Mayflower again. It was still out and seemed to be calling to me to pick it back up! I took a picture in the morning (Sunday) in the daylight to try to get the best possible picture of the linen and floss colors. This is the best I got - please excuse the shadow from my pot of morning glory seedlings in the upper right corner of the shot, though. This sampler is a blast to work on! I will have a hard time putting it down when I have to! I am so excited that Sue and her sister have just started this now, and with luck, maybe Barbara will join us soon too!

What a great night for stitching in this amazing weather. Mike went down to Massachusetts to hang out with a pal, with whom he likes to shoot pool, for the evening - it was wonderful having the house to myself and to get all of this done. My camera batteries were dead, though - so this will be a late posting LOL!

Stitched on today: Emerald Jeweled Garden and Women of the Mayflower

MTM Part 8 is finished.... and a new start too

I am breathing a sigh of relief tonight, as Part 8 of MTM is finally finished! This part seemed to have quite a lot of backstitching to it, as compared to the village sections of parts 6 and 7.... I made it through, though, with enough days left in the month to maybe get a chance to stitch on some neglected projects that I do miss a lot! Here is MTM in its full view now...

I had some time to fill earlier today while my Jeep was being serviced. I didn't feel like pulling MTM out yet (just setting that project up for stitching each day has been tiresome), so I started Women of the Mayflower. I am now doing this is a SAL with Sue. I decided that I did really want to use a 36 ct fabric for this sampler, so I put the Relic belfast aside. I dug around in my fabric drawers and found this 36 ct Silkweaver Solo, which is not scanned very accurately here. It is a nice antiquey looking sand color with a fair amount of mottling. I really loved starting this project. The floss colors are lighter and more muted than they appear on the cover of Fine Lines, but we all know that such variations are to be expected with hand dyed floss. I had to chuckle though - I happened to glance down at the chart and recognized what looked like the name "Standish" on it... that name was in my family for a while until a divorce took it out... so I thought, that looks like my cousin's former name... only to realize from the cover model that it is "Standish," while the chart reads "Standis" - there is simply a space where the "h" should go - easy enough to fix though. And, after posting the link for the chart yesterday, I was thrilled to hear that Barbara ordered up a copy too - maybe we can talk her into joining us :-)

Several of you have asked about the new office search. The office building that appeals to me is still a possibility, but no real news on that front yet. We are awaiting a call back from them as they are working on getting such things as a plumbing permit, or the like. Mike is dealing with this. So, no, it didn't fall through, there just isn't anything to say about it...

Stitched on today: Women of the Mayflower and Medieval Town Mandala (Part 8 finished!)

Perseverance

I did spend a lot of time today trying to decide between working on Houses of Hawk Run Hollow (Thursday SAL) or Medieval Town Mandala. HOHRH had great appeal, yet finishing MTM Part 8 soon had more appeal in the end. I am glad I did decide to persevere. I am down to the backstitching and more than half done with that now... maybe tomorrow, barring any emergencies, will bring a finish.

catandturtle, you asked who the designer is for Women of the Mayflower... it is Sarah Ullman, who is now, sadly, deceased. The chart is available in the Spring 2004 issue of Fine Lines magazine...which is still available here :-) I am still tossing around which fabric I am going to use for this sampler... I really, really want to use 36 ct, but my 36 ct Relic by PTP is not in yet.... sigh...

Finally... I am on break for the next four days! What a rough couple of weeks with the flood, the ruined office... time for a break!

Stitched on today: Medieval Town Mandala
***My thoughts and prayers go out tonight to "M" and her family. "M's" adult son passed away earlier this week in a diving accident on the day he returned from deployment in Iraq. This is a very sad day.

Slowly making more MTM progress

As I promised myself, MTM is back tonight. My two nights of SAL commitments have passed, and therefore it is MTM time again. I might skip HOHRH tomorrow and stick with this, but I am not sure. I finished the cross stitches by filling in the final black windows, then did quite a bit of backstitching and some specialty stitches... and the beat goes on....

Q. What is your favorite specialty stitch? Which one is your least favorite? Why?

A. I know we just had this question a few months ago. I was the one who had submitted it then... but OK, will answer again, but I think it is the same response. I love rhodes, jessicas, eyelets, norwich stitches.... such stitches with a fun counting rhythm to them. I very much dislike bullion knots. The reason is simple - I've never been able to get them to look right. I need a ton of practice. Betsy Stinner did a good teaching presentation on them in her class earlier this month at Celebrations, so I think if I follow her steps and practice for a bit, I can do them now...

I had to work at my office in Haverhill today for the first time since I took the photo in my blog... yuck! The furniture is dry but needs a cleaning. The landlord did not put new ceiling tiles in yet, so what you see up there is thoroughly disgusting. I refused to let any of my clients sit under that part today. And, the stench! I used Orange Pledge on my coffee table and end tables several times today just to make the room smell better. I had to drop a note to ask the landlord when he planned to finally resolve this. And the search for a new office goes on...

Stitched on today: A surprise while at work, which I just cannot share here (wink) and Medieval Town Mandala

This week is going so slowly....

Here is my weekly update on the Garden Spot Sampler SAL... I put a whole project picture in this week, as it is getting rather large and the motifs I did tonight were kind of all over the place :-) This one shows the real fabric color fairly well. I think I am going to get this framed up to give to my mother for her dining room. The more I look at it, the more it seems to match her colors and decor.
Yesterday I received an email from someone at the mental health clinic at which I work very part-time. It is in the same building as my private office. The email contained some amazing photos of the area during the flooding. Here is the local ice cream shop, fairly well submerged in the flooding. I thought I would show you the magnitude of what we went through last week. The area is drying out quite nicely now.

This is a short work week - I have Friday through Monday off for the Memorial Day holiday.... so the days are just dragging along as I am anxiously awaiting my freedom for four days!! Hope everyone is having a great week!

Oh, I will actually be (gulp) starting a SAL this weekend.... Women of the Mayflower with Sue... she will probably finish way ahead of me with my rotation being so huge right now, but this is just a "must stitch" for me and the SAL is a good opportunity to get off my butt and start it! I dug out some Picture This Plus hand dyed belfast in the color of Relic for this one :-) I have some on order in 36 ct, but the chart calls for the 32 ct and I don't want to delay the SAL :-)

And, it is New DVD Release Tuesday - none last week, but this week we got Cheaper By The Dozen 2

Stitched on today: Quaker Garden and Garden Spot Sampler

An Emerald Jeweled Garden Update

It is Monday, and Monday is LTD SAL night. I finished up the little pond at the top of Emerald Jeweled Garden. Now, that was a strange experience, sort of... The instructions are not very detailed, but I was to lay some straight stitches around the pool in triangular patterns (clearly charted out), and then to wrap six strands of DMC around those. What? How? So, I opted to go with the kind of wrapping used with spider web stitches. Looks more wonky on the scan than in real life. I am not sure if I am thrilled with it, but it is OK. I don't know if it is the stitch that is weird or just the directions! I know Karen also found these instructions to be weird when she did this stitch last week, so Liz Turner Diehl managed to make us both a bit confused :-) Anyhow... then I did a whole lot of backstitching tonight, and I just need to do the border and add beads and crystals now. With next Monday being a holiday here (Memorial Day), it is possible I can finish this next week.... unless we decide to go off and do something instead!

I was really amazed to hear from Annemarie today that she has already received Su's RR in Holland! Mike only posted it off to her on Friday! Good job, US Global Priority Mail! Now I won't have to worry about it!

Thanks for the concern about the bear. Mike fixed the PVC pipe that is the exhaust for the sump pump.... other than that, I am not sure what we will do. The animal, if it is a bear, is hungry, but other than that, we don't feel much danger from it at this point.

Stitched on today: Quaker Garden and Emerald Jeweled Garden

Thanks for the motivation!

I really want to thank those of you who left me comments or sent me emails to encourage me to work through the boredom of MTM! I really appreciate them. I am a true rotation stitcher, so having to stick with one big piece for so long in a string of days is not fun to me.... I know it works for others, but not so much for me. I am starving to work again on Little Wings, Convent's Herbal Garden, Christmas Spirit, 17th C. Irish Garden, Mermaids of the Deep Blue, Mermaid Heaven.... sigh, soon enough, I guess. In the meantime, I finished most of the cross stitching on Part 8 tonight. I do have a few more black windows to do, then some specialty stitches, and then the backstitching. But, for now, this is being put away until Wednesday :-)

We awoke this morning to realize that the bear (it simply must be a bear now!) visited us again last night. The birdfeeder was again down and severely bent (this is wrought iron and requires some serious strength to bend), and one of the food tubes was dragged into the woods. The PVC pipe that extends out of the side of our house from the sump pump was also destroyed. He/she must have thought this was also a food tube. Additionally, the butterfly house my FIL made for me was torn down, and the tulips were trampled by our gas tank. My guess is that the animal even suspected that the top of our gas tank was a food vessel. Quite amazing! I sent a message to my neighborhood's Yahoo group, and one neighbor has had their garbage torn apart and dragged into the woods.... likely by the same culprit! I am so glad my cats are not outdoor pets!

Stitched on today: Medieval Town Mandala

Another MTM Update

I really have to admit that I am quite bored with stitching MTM... I really had to push myself to find time to work on it tonight... I didn't get as much done as I had hoped that I would, as the boredom factor kept me nicely distracted... especially with the Red Sox game on, then the NASCAR All-Star Challenge...

I must apologize to anyone who's blog I have been missing lately... if that is the case with anyone... it seems that my BlogRoll is not showing a whole lot of new entries lately... I wonder if something is wrong with it??

Stitched on today: Medieval Town Mandala

Celebrating Erin's birthday, a disgusting office, Caitlin's prom, and, of course, stitching!

Since tonight was a night for going out to celebrate my niece Erin's 13th birthday (which was actually on Wednesday the 17th), I didn't really feel like picking up MTM when we got home... but I did find some time to finish the small roof and fill in several more windows on Houses of Hawk Run Hollow instead :-)

Q. Lately, it seems that many stitching bloggers have experienced a loss
of their stitching mojo. Have you ever lost your stitching mojo? If
so, how did you get it back and how long did it take?

A. In all honesty, I lost my interest in stitching for a good full year just about three or four years ago. I think I was totally distracted by getting my relatively new garden all set up and going, as we bought this house brand new five years ago... maybe my slump goes back to then, but I know it lasted about a year. I wish I could remember what got me back into the swing of things.... not too sure! I'm not very helpful, now am I?
This is the only picture from my Haverhill office that did not come out blurry today. I don't know what I am doing wrong with this camera, but I am going to re-read my manual this weekend! I wanted to get a picture of the ruined ceiling, but those photos are terrible.... but here you get the basic idea... this is the loveseat I sit on when I am in counseling with somebody.... oh, the stink of mold that is already growing in there! I see the landlord put a fan in the window yesterday.... too little, too late, I am afraid.
The rain just keeps flirting with us here in New England... here is the angry sky over my head as I was driving home this afternoon.... looks like all it needed was a sparkly dragon to come flying out of it, something along the lines of Teresa Wentzler's of Jenn Aikman-Smith's work would have been just about right!

Tonight we met up at Shorty's Mexican Roadhouse to celebrate my niece, Erin's, 13th birthday. Mom brought her camera and my brother just emailed me some pics! Cool, as I was lamenting having forgotten to bring my camera! From left to right outside the restaurant is Mike (my DH), Renee (my SIL), myself and Scott (my brother)...
Down at the "rowdy" end of the table (this is debatable - the adult end had its share of rowdiness tonight!!) was Erin and her four friends she was allowed to invite along (Erin is furthest to the right in the front row with the headband in her hair and the big Cheshire grin)... Somehow, I missed getting a good picture of my middle niece, Nicole, who was very much there... hmmm.... I better go through those pictures Scott sent me again!!
And, tonight, Caitlin, my 17 year old niece, was very noticebaly absent... because she was at her Junior Social (aka Prom) tonight with her relatively new boyfriend... whose name I cannot try to spell, he is Russian and has a nice ethnic name... the family seems to like this new boyfriend better than the horror show she was dating for the past several years! I barely recognize Caitlin all dolled up like this!! LOL

Stitched on today: Houses of Hawk Run Hollow

In the war zone now...

The mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts has declared a curfew in the evening now due to the damage caused by the flooding of the Merrimack and Spickett Rivers.... many of you know, my primary office is located in Lawrence. Lawrence is an old mill city that is now populated by a mix of caucasian and hispanic people, as well as others... all primarily low income. Violence broke out tonight less than fifteen minutes after curfew started with looting and gunfire. My office is smack in the middle of it all. What is the world coming to now??

I actually stuck to my rotation/SAL schedule tonight and thoroughly loved working on Houses of Hawk Run Hollow tonight! After filling in windows for a bit, I then started on the lower roof just a bit... so it doesn't look like much right now :-) I figure that if I can get enough done on MTM this weekend, I might also put some time in on HOHRH as well. I have missed so many Thursdays already due to MTM, so I am falling a bit behind.

Mike finally transferred the photos he took in Portland, Maine off of his camera and onto my computer, so I have chosen a few to share. This is the Portland Regency, the hotel where we stayed.... see the high curbs? That's what Mike hit with his rim and tire (which got fixed today!!). The hotel used to be an armory and was run by the National Guard. It is right on the seaport, and is very old. I just don't recall how old it is....

And... a photo of Mike's car now properly parked along the curb in front of the hotel! Jenna had asked what kind of car it is - it is a Chrysler 300 C SRT8.... big car, that's for sure! The valet was very kind to let Mike park the car right there for the night. That was a nice thing for him to do!

He also snuck a few photos of me stitching on Quaker Garden in the hotel room... and very intently watching the Red Sox put a severe beating on the Yankees on the TV there in front of me - LOL!! (Mike took all of these photos is high resolution, so I uploaded them in small size - they are all much easier to see if you click on them to enlarge them!!)

Time to go to bed now, for tomorrow I get to drive to work in heavy rain and see if my landlord has done anything at all to get my Haverhill office useable for tomorrow... anyone placing any bets?

Stitched on today: Quaker Garden and Houses of Hawk Run Hollow

After the rains come... time to find a new office!

It's back... Medieval Town Mandala, and I keep working on it little by little. I find myself frustrated if I try to rush with this one - which I truly was doing earlier in the month. Looks like it should get done in time, barring any crises. I haven't done much backstitching on this part, as I forgot to print out that page of the directions this month. I need to remember to run upstairs and turn on the printer... run back down and click the print button... run back up and get the copy LOL! You see, when we moved into our newly finished basement back in December, we found our massive copier to be far too heavy for us to carry down to the basement, so it resides nicely in a corner of one of the living rooms upstairs... hey, it is a good way to get exercise, yet I am still avoiding it! I think Mike and I should coordinate - get him to turn it on when he is upstairs one day, I click print, and when he comes back downstairs he can bring the instructions page down. Sound good? I think so!!

I have a rhubarb update for you today. Oh boy, do I have an update LOL! This flower plume is HUGE! I want to sincerely thank so many of you for finding and giving me tons and tons of information on rhubarb a week or so ago when I posted the alien-like picture of my plant! Well, it is not so alien-like now! We will move this plant this year to its own sunny spot in the garden, as I would like to use this area below the trellis for some pretty perennials now.

And, after all the rain came a new iris bloom - isn't this a pretty one? The PVC pipe you see next to it (actually, in front of it) is part of the sump pump we had installed a couple of years ago (after the iris had already been planted, or it would not be hiding behind PVC pipe). We are so glad to have had that sump pump this past week -LOL!

As for office news, here is the latest! Mike and I went down to Haverhill, MA to see my office today. It is in shambles. Very bad. To add insult to injury, my landlord is relatively worthless and painfully slow. We are now looking for a new office in that same area for me. We found a professional medical building on the street that has office space available. They will be calling Mike back tomorrow with more info for us. I hope that works out, it looks quite nice! I doubt my office will be ready to use on Friday, when I next have clients scheduled for there. I will have to try to work something out for those clients. And, I shall try to remember to bring my camera to show you how terrible the damage is. My computer is at the opposite end of the room - what a relief! My sofa, though, is soaked yet again!

Stitched on today: Medieval Town Mandala, and I stitched my name, town, state and country onto Su's Neighborhood RR and packed it up to send right off to Annemarie... to see it before it was packed, you can peek at it here (sorry, the RR blog was not set up to link directly to one entry, just to the entire blog...)

Garden Spot Sampler Update

Here is this week's installment of the Garden Spot Sampler SAL... I was wondering tonight how long Jo and I have been working on this sampler. So, I did a search of my blog tonight and found out we started way back on September 20, 2005. We have been stitching weekly on this huge sampler... so Jo, we really must be getting close now!

The rain finally began to abate today, but not without the major rivers, primarily the Merrimack River, totally overflowing its banks first.... Lawrence, MA is virtually shut down, so that made for a terribly unproductive day. Now, as a result, I am home tomorrow. I am due to be in Haverhill, but you may recall that that office took a huge hit mid-way through this rain event and my drop ceiling did not hold a huge leak well, and has crashed down on my sofa and probably my stereo there too... Argh. Now that it is drier outside, I hope my landlord can get this cleaned up. I might go down and check this out with Mike tomorrow. How frustrating...

Stitched on today: Garden Spot Sampler

Flooding

What a day - and tomorrow promises to be pretty much the same, as I see the schools are closed again... that doesn't bode well for clients coming in for treatment. But... now on to the stitching update first! Here is a whole bunch more on Emerald Jeweled Garden. I have quite a bit of backstitching to do on this part that I have now stitched, and then I get to do some kind of wrapped stitch between those green outlines near the top... should be interesting next Monday LOL!!

Day 4 of the deluge of rain continues.... here is some radar of the area directly from Channel 7, WHDH's website (out of Boston). No sign of it stopping any time soon! I would not wish this on anyone. My office building was empty today, although I did not find the roads in Lawrence, Massachusetts to be difficult at all. However... my landlord of my Haverhill, Massachusetts office called to let me know that my old leak in my ceiling is back with a vengeance. Part of my ceiling again caved in on top of my sofa and the office is soaking wet. He is dealing with it, but I have to wonder right now how bad it is! It might be time to get a new office in Haverhill - this one is killing my furniture! (you can actually see Lawrence written on the map here... that is where I worked today - I live about 35 miles north of that in New Hampshire...wet, wet, wet! It looks like it is going to stop, but there is much more to the south that is coming in....)

Yikes! New on the WHDH website is this picture of Haverhill, Massachusetts - right near my office that took the hard hit to the ceiling by the rain over the weekend - looks pretty flooded to me! My brother and his kids live there - poor things! I think it will take days and days to dry all of this out!

Stitched on today: Quaker Garden and Emerald Jeweled Garden

Su's Neighborhood RR (almost) finished

I am really quite glad that I put MTM aside and worked on Su's Neighborhood RR instead. With all of the heavy rain that we continued to get today, there was little else to do but work on it :-) Not even any baseball - the Red Sox had to postpone the last two games due to this heavy rain... So... I finished my block for her - almost! I need to check in with her to see how she wants the block signed. Her RR questionnaire states she wants signatures in the outer border, but as the first to stitch on hers I have no example to follow - I need to ask her if she wants full names, where we live, date... have to wait until she lets me know. Then, watch out Annemarie! I will have Mike post this off to you this week! I really love the colors in the block. I was disappointed, though, by the lack of contrast between the 3362 used for almost all of the green in the garden, and the wee bits of 3363 for the carrot leaves, beet leaves, greens of the cauliflowers and rind of the watermelon... they pop out more in the cover model on the leaflet than they do in real life... so sorry about that Su!

Q. When you stitch from a kit and use the supplied floss do you have leftovers? If so, how much and what do you do with them? If not, do you usually have just enough or do you have to dig into your stash to finish?

A. I am not at all sure if I have yet finished a kit... I don't stitch many of them. I have Bag Ladies as a UFO, but I think it is doing fine with floss... so, I think I pretty much have to pass on this question...However, now that I think of it, I have stitched several Shepherd's Bush kits and have had a lot of leftover silks each time...


Well, not much else to say - glad the sump pump is working here, as our basement remains dry... but there is quite a bit of flooding out there in my poor garden and along my walkway! No real break from this until Tuesday, when we will at least reach about 80F.... until then, get out the umbrellas, I guess!

Stitched on today: Su's Neighborhood RR (combo of Good Huswifes in Summer, in Summer Samplers, and of Birdhouse Sampler in Garden Samplers.... both by Prairie Schooler).

It is time to build an ark

A crooked scan, but here it is... what I got done on MTM today. I have really mixed feelings - should I keep forging ahead, or should I swap to something else tomorrow? Why am I racing to get it done right away, it is only the 13th of May. After all, I am a rotation stitcher at heart, and I realized today that I am not so happy doing MTM for several days at a time... I feel other projects are neglected... so maybe tomorrow I will work on the Neighborhood RR instead... I think I just talked myself into that...
This photo is posted here for Barbara. Viewing her photos in her blog today of her family's recent outing to the Keukenhof flower fields made me very reminiscent of the trip Mike and I took there in March, 2001. So.... I dug around in our old photo files on the computer and chose to share this one.. I was the heaviest I have ever, ever been in my life at that time, but in this pic, you really cannot see that.... so I chose it!!! This visit to the Keukenhof was a highlight of the trip. For it was on that trip that we learned our persian, PC, had taken quite ill at the vet and had to be put down due to kidney failure. It was a hard thing to go through while we were all the way across the Atlantic at the time... (Oh my gosh! I just noticed I had very long purple fingernails back then! Well, that was before I turned 40 - LOL!!)

As my entry title says, it is time to build an ark - seriously. We are on day what?... um four or five now of rain - today it is very heavy rain and we had to drive to Massachusetts to do Mother's Day with my husband's mother/birthday with his uncle... Now I hear the rain shall continue to Wednesday. We are in the zone of heaviest rain with flooding of the rivers. No river near me, so all is OK right now... there is a lake not too far away, I wonder how that is doing!

Kudos to Ryan Newman - two top ten finishes two weeks in a row now.... maybe he will finally break through with a win soon!

Stitched on today: Medieval Town Mandala

Therapy School

Well, first the good stuff...stitching, of course! I worked on MTM for a bit tonight after we got home from Maine :-)

Well, I had "therapy school" today - I attended the trauma conference... boring... I had no interest in the first part of the seminar, and that wiped me out... plus the brown ale I drank at Sebago Brewing Company during our lunch break also wore me out... some of the eating disorders info in the second part of the conference was quite good (the reason I enrolled in this seminar!), but really nobody in the room seemed to be focused at all.. add the caffeine crash... well, I am glad it is over and I have my CEU certificate now :-)

Boy, did it rain today - more in Maine than here, but in buckets!! The damaged tire made it home OK. Mike spent the morning making calls while I was in the conference - he has a new tire ordered, a new rim... and found out the auto insurance company will help him out without making a mark on his driving record. Yes! The rim for that car is soooooo expensive, as is the tire - it has some kind of racing car tires on it... which is probably why the tire survived that hit against the curb as well as it did!

I think Mike took some photos of our trip - not many due to the lousy weather - but he is too tired to download them tonight - I will keep an eye out for them and see if there are any to share!

Stitched on today: Medieval Town Mandala

A trip to Portland, Maine

I worked half a day today before we headed up to Portland, Maine for the trauma conference. I only had a few little stitches left to put in on Part 4 of the Papillon Creations Mystery Sampler, so I got those done during a morning break at the office. I love the Vikki Clayton silks so much for this sampler - they are so irridescent :-) Now, rumor has it, we will be stitching a verse in the center... just a rumor... but a friend who ordered the Vikki Clayton Premium floss was told to buy some in regular floss because there is some over one stitching to do next... sounds like a verse to us... we'll see....
I then worked on Quaker Garden while watching the Red Sox beat the Yankees tonight in our hotel room (well, they beat them at Yankee Stadium, actually... Mike and I were really the only ones in our hotel room!!). Anyhow... this one is also moving along quite nicely. I also found this one to be quite easy to stitch on in the car today - a pleasant surprise. (It only took us an hour and a half to drive from our house to the hotel, The Portland Regency). I figure I am about half done now... Then, off to bed pretty early... Friday is a work/"school" day for me!! We did have a nice dinner at DiMillo's Floating Restuarant tonight - this restaurant is aboard a ship docked at the pier in Portland. We had eaten there when I took a different conference in Portland about three years ago... we had no hesitations to go back there again tonight! Very nice!

But... before I finish for today, here are some spring blooms from my garden that I took pictures of over last weekend... had forgotten about them. Right now, we are in a cold, rainy spell, so it helps to post these now and try to at least feel like it is spring here! This one is a dwarf standard iris... I have decided not to let my OCD get in my way here to try to locate its name!

...And, another iris... may be a dwarf standard, may not be, may be an intermediate bearded iris... again, resisting the urge to pore through picture files on the computer to identify this one!!! It blooms every year, so all that is important is that it is here and makes us happy.... regardless of its name...

And, then, finally what I belive is a Rembrandt tulip, but no idea what color... no idea where I bought these bulbs... may even have been a school fundraiser for one of the children I see in therapy, or maybe from the local garden shop... or maybe also purchased on a trip into Boston... just don't have any gardening answers today LOL! For me, that is huge - resisting the temptation to go find the answers!

In a non-stitching (or gardening) related story... we arrived at the hotel and checked in before dinner time. Mike asked the desk clerk where to park the car, and she said they only had valet parking... or he could park on the street or go over to Public Parking. Well, just like at Fenway Park last weekend, we don't really want to give his new car to a valet. So, he grumbled and went outside to take the car to Public Parking. The valet intercepted him outside and graciously welcomed him to park in the parking circle in front of the hotel. I guess he recognized that Mike has a very nice car. What a saving grace this guy was! Well... to make the long story short... Mike gets in the car and backs up, then tries to line his wheels up to park along the curb... and crashes right into it! He messed up his pricey rim on his tire... and messed up the tire too! I guess it would have been better, after all, to just let the valet park the car!

Stitched on today: Papillon Creations Mystery Sampler and Quaker Garden

More MTM

Just another MTM update today... I finished all the stitching in the large center house, and now it just needs some specialty stitches and backstitches (sorry, I cut the top of the green copper roof off in my scanner tonight)... and then a bit of the rust colored barn on the end... and then it got late and time to quit...

I worked an awful lot on Papillon Creations Mystery Sampler earlier today. I figure I will bring it and Quaker Garden on the little road trip to Maine tomorrow for my trauma conference. Tomorrow should be Houses of Hawk Run Hollow night, but I don't feel like bringing a large 40 ct project with me... with no Ott-Lite! Nope, I don't see that happening!! LOL

Yesterday was New DVD Release Tuesday - there was confusion. I forgot to tell Mike what DVDs I wanted, so he guessed... and today he went out and got the two I actually really wanted... somehow I ended up with : Big Momma's House 2, Munich, Nanny McPhee (really wanted this one!), The New World and Rumor Has It... (also really wanted this one) - I think I have plenty of movies to watch for a while!

Stitched on today: Papillon Creations Mystery Sampler and Medieval Town Mandala

Yep, it's a rhubarb :-)

Hmmm... as for my strange plant that I posted yesterday, here is a link I found at Dave's Garden website, to which I am also a regular contributor, of a Himalayan Rhubarb - these blooms look just like mine (mine is more in a bud stage than this, but this is what they open up to each year). So, whether or not mine is actually Himalayan requires more research, but it does appear to be a rhubarb! I love all the replies you ladies sent me about this - thanks so much! I have never been "into" rhubarb, so I am out of my element with this plant :-) It appears we shall have to move it to a more open area as it can grow to 6-8'!!

Ho-hum, I guess... another Garden Spot Sampler update - just a small scan of the area I have been working on...
Mike took some photos of our house over the weekend, while it was sunny and warm out. Now we have a week of rain... Anyhow... here you see my little green babies are starting to peek up from under the mulch... and some new phlox and a rose bush sit on the walkway just waiting for me to find time to plant them :-)

Stitched on today: Papillon Creations Mystery Sampler (already broke into the back up skein of Indigo Ocean that I ordered last week!) and Garden Spot Sampler