Back to the real world

Today is the last day of my vacation. Boo hoo. We didn't have good weather for most of it and the rain subsided on Friday. It's hard to leave such a lovely place. Two of my three children were able to join us for the full week, the third came up for a few days. Our family stays with my sister and brother in law at her lake home for a week every summer and we get our fill of chatting and talking till the wee hours of the night. We play games with the family almost every night and we all take turns cooking. Little by little the kids left until we are left with one niece here and we will all leave today. It's the best vacation I can imagine - our two families together for a week!

On the cross stitch front, I have worked a bit more on my Christmas tree and might actually finish it today. If I don't - that's ok too. I have no way to post photos from here so it will have to wait. I will update you soon! I look forward to seeing what all of you have been working on!

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Not a moment too soon!

Hi, fellow stitchers - my stash came in handy yesterday. Without going into gory details about my colonoscopy prep yesterday, let's say I was glad to have something to keep me distracted.
PUBLIC HEALTH ANNOUNCEMENT to all you women over 50 -time for your baseline colonoscopy. No, I don't want you to do it just because I did, I want you to do it so I won't have to keep bugging you! My friend at work never had one, has colon cancer and has been on a campaign to get us all scheduled for a colonoscopy so we can avoid what she went through. When diagnosed early it has a high success rate for treating this cancer. So - that said - go to the phone and get started. You won't be sorry (once it's over!!). I'm thrilled that mine was A-OK!
I was all ready to come home from my appointment and start my vacation. I was going to call someone to go to lunch, then shop then relax on the front porch stitching. NOT! The nurse comes in and says "Don't DRIVE for 24 hours, don't go back to work today if you were planning to, don't exercise, or get this - make any major decisions on the day of the exam! Heck - what's left??? Ok, I didn't ask about stitching because I didn't want to give her any ideas of more prohibitions so I headed home to A) Clean up the house (so much for don't work) B) EAT!! the clear liquid diet for 24 hours was a bit limiting and C) cross stitch. I am happy to say I completed part of A, all of B and I'm on C.
Update - baby great niece has been named - Ella Grace. Can't wait to see her.
I'm making more of an effort to get better at posting photos. Still can't figure out how to get them where you want them!
Thanks for everyone who has been visiting my blog and leaving comments! I'll be visiting yours, too. Now, back to B or C!

Yipee - new stash!

It's my first day of vacation and what a great start!! I found a cross stitch/framing shop that I didn't know existed that is in a nearby suburb. As luck would have it, everything in the store is 25% off until the end of July. Heaven!

All this plus a new great niece born today on my oldest son's birthday! I am blessed.

Done!

I'm happy to say I finished Good Evening - I seemed to have done more ripping on these two patterns than I've ever done. Maybe working on them in the middle of the night was half the problem but I don't think so! Now I can move on to all the other stuff I have in mind!

Looking for a retired pattern

Does anyone have a copy of Lizzie Kate's "Get your big girl panties on and deal with it" pattern? I don't have a pattern to swap, but I'm happy to pay you for it! Or if you know anyone.... My blog isn't getting a lot of traffic as it is a month new so I'd appreciate any help finding this pattern. Thanks for stopping by!

Finishing

I haven't given much thought to finishing projects. I have typically framed my work, but after seeing all sorts of fun finishes on blogs, I've started doing a little research into different finishing techniques to try. My mind will be conjuring up all sorts of goodies.

My shift was promising to be a quiet one last night and just about the time I took out my cross stitch - I realized I didn't have a needle. Thankfully Sandy had one in her car and by the time she brought it back, I'd gotten a call that we were getting an admission! I know that's what I'm there to do - nursing work..... but getting a little down time to stitch is such a nice bonus! I will spend the weekend doing some chores around here and planning time for stitching.

I'm not usually good at spending money on myself, but this time I have set aside a little budget for framing! Now that I am working straight nights - "graveyard shift", I get a bonus and will be squirreling that away for my cross stitch! I'm really happy about this decision. Now it will take actually dragging my sorry body to a frame shop to start making some framing decisions!! I have to lie down and calm myself.... it's too much to even imagine! I need a framing buddy! I'll dream about it while I'm getting calm.....

Progress on "Good Evening"

I'm making slow progress on my "Good Evening" at work mostly but those pesky patients always seem to need me!! LOL! I'm trying to get better at posting photos. I can't wait to start something new. I have a sampler I'm itching to start but need to go to the next city over to get some nice fabric. I had trouble working on linen until I discovered the magnifying glass - I should be in business now!

I am looking to get my hands on the Lizzie Kate pattern- Get your big girl panties on and deal with it". It's retired. I'll check the local shop when I go. I don't have any patterns to trade right now but would be happy to purchase it from someone if you're looking to sell!

Now I need some help - what's the deal with the Lizzie Kate's flip it patterns? I don't understand why they are called this or what you're supposed to do with them that has to do with flipping. Please excuse my ignorance!! I'm newly back into the cross stitch world!!

PIF is closed!!

I now am joining Staci in having 4 recipients of my PIF - that just means more gifts are going to be shared around the world! In the next 365 days I will be sending surprises to the following:

Michele
Shel - Irishenchantment
Diane - Lady Bug and Bear
Katrina

Please send me your snail mail addresses and also tell me a little about yourselves. I can't wait to get to know you a little better!

Free patterns

Hi, All,
Just wondering - where do you find the best free patterns??

First half - good morning!

Here is the first half of my night stitching for my bedroom. It's from Bright -Good morning Good Evening. I'm not sure how I'll finish it yet.

Pay it forward continued....

I will be sending something along to:

Diane - Lady Bug and Bear
Katrina

Please email me with your snail mail and tell me a little bit about yourself! I will send you something in the next 365 days (and yes, I will have it finished- hasn't been my strong point as I love the stitching, not so much love for "finishing/framing"! But that's a story for another day!)
Diane - I promise it won't be 13 years!!!! LOL!

I still need to Pay it Forward to one other person so if you would like to take part in the PIF, leave a comment and you will also get something!!

If I have several free hours today, I'll try to post another photo of my stitching!

there was supposed to be a picture with my post!

Fourth of July

Babas 2 - Team Temple 0 Yes, we won at bocce! We had such a great day! My youngest son Evan came home with my niece Mary. It's great to have them home. I even got to do a bit of stitching! We saw amazing fireworks - some were new and just breath taking.

Pay it forward

Believe it or not, I will be receiving one of Staci's items through her pay it forward. I was lucky she chose 4 names instead of 3!!! Yipee!! I am VERY excited. I found out the news while I was at work and it just thrilled me. I now feel like I am an official part of the cross stitch bloggers!

It is my turn to Pay It Forward! (PIF) I will chose 3 names of people who comment on this post. In the next 365 days I will send them something I have stitched. If you would like to receive something from me, feel free to post. You must agree to PIF if your name is chosen. I will chose the names on Saturday July 5. Good luck!

It only took an hour!

Yup, it only took an hour - TO GET THIS PHOTO IN MY BLOG!!! I guess there's hope for me yet!

This is my niece Mary holding a cross stitch I gave her for Christmas. It's the only photo of my work I have at this point, but wanted to at least give everyone a chance to see that I really do cross stitch a bit better than I blog!

Thanks for all the welcoming comments, friends! It made me happy to see that someone other than my husband read my blog.....

I am working on a piece that is frustrating me. It's two pieces which can be sewn as a door hanging - one says Good morning and the other side says Good evening. It's by Brightneedle. I get to stitching the good morning piece which has the first half the alphabet. I finish the alphabet only to discover that the letter J is missing. It is just not in the alphabet! I rip out K, L and M and add my own rendition of a J. ARGH! I tackle the good evening piece, start working on the alphabet section and notice the V is missing (or U) - it's hard to tell in this variation! Back to the drawing board. I stitched in a V and will modify the pattern a bit to accommodate it. Who leaves out letters of the alphabet? Don't we need J&V anymore? Heck, if that's so, call me Ean from now on.

Most of my cross stitch work has been given away, but I'll try to scrounge up a few pieces to photograph. Hmm.... a few pieces..... a few hours to load into the blog.... Is this really the best way to spend my holiday weekend? I'll sleep on it... that should get my priorities straight!

I will probably have a slight preoccupation with sleep. I am a nurse on an inpatient adolescent psychiatric unit in our university hospital. I work 4 nights a week from 12 midnight to 8:30 a.m. I think I will end up with a serious lack of sleep because (as I've been warned), blogging is addicting (and photo uploading time consuming... ) and who needs sleep???

Hope you all have a lovely day!

I found it!

I had the font set to white accidentally and none of the words showed up on the screen. I'm in business now!

I don't know where my post went!!

I originally posted a long note and now it's invisible! If I scroll over the place where the writing should be, it can be read, but I can't make it appear!! Help!

First time for everything

I have no business having a blog. I don't know anyone who has a blog, nor do I know what I'm doing making my blog! I don't have a clue how to load pictures, nor do I know how anyone will ever find my site. I was browsing the Monthly challenge blog and there was an invitation on some link to make a blog for myself. Great! I proceeded to give the site all the information they were asking for: name, email address - so far so good! Then it asked me to name my blog. Brain freeze. I stopped making my blog. Heck - everyone has great names for their blogs! My brain which seemed to be functioning just fine until this point decided this was too big. I'd come back to this when I came up with a clever name. I shared my dilemma with my coworker Sandy. She immediately said "Name it Night Stitcher". Apparently Sandy's brain was still functioning at 3 in the morning. Days went by. I went to many cross stitchers' sites and marveled at how clever everyone seemed to be.

Tonight I had to have a blog. It was a selfish motivation at best. I was on Snippets and Stash and Staci offered to send a cross stitch project to the first three people who responded (or she would do a drawing if more than 3 responded). It was a PIF deal. How could I pay it forward if I didn't have any contacts? (I really only wanted a piece of this woman's brilliant handiwork!) I went back to the drawing board. I proceeded with "Night stitcher" only to hit another glitch. The URL. Right. URL. Once again, I was stuck and mildly irritated with myself (and the computer). I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't be the lucky recipient of Staci's handiwork and would be blogless and giftless. I googled "setting up a blog" and found an amusing piece called "150 steps to setting up a blog" - it was hilarious. I knew there was a kernel of truth in the humor and sat down with a cup of tea to decide if I could ever tackle this new and confusing world.

Obviously if you are reading this, you've figured out that I did finally get this up and running. I don't know what to do with it, I only know that it holds a promise of new friends, inspiration from fellow cross stitchers and hope that I will be able to put together a snazzy site where the computer fairy will magically download my photos, upload adorable clip art and grace me with knowledge about what I'm doing here!

I hope you will visit me again and see my feeble attempts at making this site presentable. Feel free to send along any suggestions you might have for me. I am now the proud owner of my own blog. Amen.