Thursday, July 24, 2008

Ugh!

It's still wicked humid- yesterday we had a tornado warning, so I unplugged every orifice on the computer. It's pouring buckets right now, but no thunder or lightning, which makes lil' Chickie happy. Except for having omitted doing all "her business" when I came home from work when it wasn't raining so hard. I had to take her out at 1:35 this morning for tinkles becuase she was too frightened to go before bed last night. *SIGH*

Here's all I've stitched this week:

ROS 05

That's it- Rites of Spring. Now back to my regularly scheduled stickiness. Can this summer be any more humid??? We've had about 3 days of dry (less than 60% humidity) since mid-June. I'm quite done with el Nino or la Nina, thank you very much.

Sorry to all youse guys in Texas , with Dolly and all. Take care.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Icky Sticky

It's been way too hot to even turn on the computer, never mind sit on the couch and stitch.

Saturday morning I worked in glorious A/C; by the time I left & called Bob to say I was going to pick him up, he said traffic down thru Wareham was so backed , up I'd never get there. So I dissolved into the couch, almost literally for the rest of the day.

I picked him up Sunday morning after my ride, and we went out to lunch at the Stoneforge Tavern. I got steak tips, he got a rib eye. Both were yummy.

A wild thunderstorm blew thru Boston; 10 men on a soccer field got hit by one strike of lightning when they sought shelter under a tree. I believe 5 are still in critical condition. Emily told me she had to ditch a fare to get her horse & carriage into a parking garage to wait out the storm.  She's Ok though.

It finally got cool(er) tonight; I hope to actually pull out Rites of Spring.

TTFN

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Lots & Lots of Stuff!

Progress on Rites of Spring:

ROS 04

Progress on next Quaker Xmas Smalls:

quaker xmas 202

Jeanne & Joanne bought birthday cupcakes for Linda & I from a new place called "Cupcake Charlies" in Mashpee.

Here's the (almost) empty box with requests for a refill:

bday cc 1 

My two take-homes:

bday cc 2

Chocolate Overload in the rear; I already had 1/2 of one of these- it was SO delicious! And a Toffee Something in the front. I also had an Oreo Delight which had a cream filling that Hostess dreams of being able to create, and 1/2 of a CHocolate Mint Madness. If you go to the website & scroll down, you'll see the menu. I think the Toffee one is a special of the day.

Just fabulous! Thanks Joanne & Jeanne and Samantha!

Presents from Jane's stash:

Gaelic Blessing     Gaelic Blessing Kit 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary's Pin Pillow

Mary's Pin Pillow

 

 

 

 

 

 

A skein of Thread Gatherer's Silk ' N Colors "Turquoise Fields"  from Linda resting on top of the 40ct. cream linen for my E.Davis Sampler:

floss & fabric

And, last but not least:

And a Garden Grew 

I think I have now reached S.A.B.L.E. I have at least reached the point of having too many designs I want to start all at once.

Thanks ladies for all the fun birthday gifts- I love(d) them all!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Someday....

When I'm rich & famous, or most likely, old and retired, I'm going to design a sampler around my all-time favorite quote. It's from a novel called "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt. I read it about 15 years ago, and it was a so-so book. I remember almost forcing myself to finish it, because I couldn't believe that it could contain this sentence, yet the rest of the book just kind of suck. The quote resonated so much with me, because of my mind-set at the time: being unhappily married to a very difficult-to-please person, working a full time job with a young child in daycare/kindergarten.

I read this sentence to  my boss and to Barbara, my co-worker at the time,  whose likes & dislikes and sense of humor were so  mirrors of mine, I felt like an honorary member of her family. And they loved it too. I photocopied just the one sentence, and enlarged it and posted it on the wall at work and on my refrigerator, but forgot to note the author and the name of the book , which remained unremembered until about 6 years ago when Donna Tartt wrote her next novel and bells went off in my head and I gleefully made the correction to my poster.

And forever since, whenever we felt harried, disorganized, and distracted by the monotony of our lives, we just had to say "The Bunny Quote" to each other, and we knew EXACTLY how the other was feeling. And now, without further ado, is

The Bunny Quote:

"If he had his wits about him Bunny would surely keep his mouth shut; but now, with his subconscious mind knocked loose from its perch and flapping in the hollow corridors of his skull as erratically as a bat, there was no way to be sure of anything he may do."

from "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Another One Bites the Dust

Wasn't that a Queen song? ANyway, here it is Sunday night, I've no stitching to show, I still have my colored clothes to launder and I've lost my TV schedule for this week. I had a cup-  single freekin' CUP of instant coffee at about noon and I've been fighting waves of exhaustion all day. Like- "I don't care if the steak is about cooked, I NEED to take a nap-NOW" exhaustion. But I plodded thru the day, with no nap. I gave Ms.Axeu a bath this morning- yikes -she was a dirtball! She also has copious amounts of snot dripping from her nose. She's up-to-date on all her shots and no other horses have it, so I have to call the vet tomorrow. Em needs more contact lenses, so I made an eye doctor appointment for tomorrow. So that just about takes care of the 4-1/2 hours of free-lance work pay I earned yesterday.

I have to sign off now- I'm making way too many typos.

TTFN

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Places to Go & Things to Do:

Progress on Rites of Spring:

ROS 03 This is working up very quickly; I'm liking it a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

I started another Milady's Needle Xmas ornament:

quaker xmas 201

It's the little bit of purple below the first one I did. I'm using Thread Gatherers' silk "The Lavenders" which was left over from Creepy Kids.

 

 

I rode tonight- a nice one, after S&B. The Axe was good for me considering she hasn't been ridden in 2 days.

Speaking of  S&B, Jeanne brought a lemon blueberry pound cake which was scrumptious ( I have a piece for tomorrow!) and Nancy brought assorted pastries from Konditer Meister. Yummy!

Tom might have work for me for a few Saturdays; he says all of a sudden things are picking up. This is awesome seeing as I have to buy oil AND firewood this month.

Bob has been feeling crappy the past few days- dizzy, no appetite. I thought maybe dehydration as that has happened before to him. My next fear was precursor to heart attack which I did not want to dwell upon. He went to the doctor today and they found a spider bite behind his ear. They drained it and put him on antibiotics. He's already feeling better. He has SUCH a sensitive body chemistry. It's a relief it wasn't anything serious.

Off to wash dishes and to bed. There's a skunk outside my house making Chickie bark, which in turn is making it lay stink bombs.

Acck!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Oh Sweaty Days...

Here's progress on Rites Of Spring:

ROS 02

So far it's a lot of fun to work on. The double circle motif reminds me of a wedding sampler, though, so I might hold off on the text & turn it into a sampler for my friends D & J.  Mmmaybe not; mmmmaybe so. I actually bought a chart, floss AND fabric well over a year ago at Cranberry Cross stitch- Deb  helped me convert the floss to Crescent Colors (how's that for product placement!) for their wedding sampler - I should take that out to start sometime. I don't even remember the design, just that it had a pair of swans.

I had to stop at Michael's on the way home & get another scroll rod to hold this. I can't find for the life of me find my 18" scroll frame.

And of course, there hasn't been any 40% off coupons for a couple of weeks. I got a 24" set for $14.99 (full price), knowing that eventually I HAVE to start Cirque de Circles, Paradigm Lost, and Quaker Virtues. Plus the E Davis Sampler and WhistleJacket. All these charts are ginormous.  E Davis is going to be at least 20" wide fabric.  oh and "And a Garden Grew" - I have that on order.

Geez Louise- I need to retire.