Thursday Stitching Progress…

Beacon House:

I finished the stag, backstitched the first bunny, added his (her?) companion, continued the border outline and filled in with some snow. It seems this snow is about all we’ll be seeing this “winter” here in SE Massa –two-shits. (as the Prez likes to say it). I also did a bit more on my February ornament:

I need to get cracking on this one or I’ll be behind all year long.

AHhhh...

that's more like it! Everything seems to be working, I got my Federal return filed. The State costs $20 so I'm hard mailing it. My hard drive doesn't sound like it wants to explode, programs are opening & closing as quickly as they should. Computer magic (a.k.a. "the Off" button) works every time!

Stitching Fun…

Here’s tonight’s progress on Beacon House:

Have I mentioned how much I hate Windows? It has taken over 5 minutes to post everything you see above this point!
Anyway, here’s my February ornament:

Ewe & Ewe & I  Friends Christmas Sampler (again). I stitched this last year and gave it to my barn owner this past Christmas. It’s a really sweet design and I wanted it for myself.
I have to go before I throw my chair through the monitor. More updates have come thru and I seemed to have slowed to a crawl……….arrrgggg!

Please Bear With Me…

I bought my Turbo Tax software and went to install it on Sunday. I got a prompt that said it would not install TurboTax because I did not have Windows XP Service Pack 3 installed. So I mumbled to myself  “Yeah and there’s a reason for that!” and turned the computer off (after browsing aimlessly thru Pinterest for another 15 minutes, thank you Jane, very much!
On Monday I remembered the portable hard drive Em gave me for Xmas 2 years ago, and decided to back up my files. This involved installing the backup software, which took about half an hour and then trying to set the back up parameters i wanted. I pressed “Back up” and there’s no status bar of any kind. I could hear my hard drive chugging away, and the tiny light on the portable was blinking away, but no indication of any kind that anything was working properly. So I let it go over night, and in the morning it showed a message that  the program became non-responsive and that the backup wasn’t complete, but a file was on the drive and it was 20 GB less empty. After I got home, i tried to restore a file, to no avail. Again with the piss-poor instructions. So I un-installed the software, and re-installed it, deleted the  I had backed up, and pressed “Back up”. This time it said “…initializing backup” then gave a percentage of completion.  But again it took so long, I let it go over night again, but in the morning it had the same error message, but a big chunk of GB was used again.
When I got home from work I tried again to restore one of the backed up files again with no success. So I took a deep breath tonight, crossed my fingers and installed Service Pack 3, and since I’m typing this post, everything seems to be working. Except the portable hard drive. I will try installing TurboTax tomorrow, after turning off & re-starting my computer again.
I’ve also been trying to stave off a head cold over the weekend. Yesterday an earache started- every 3-5 minutes it felt like a pencil was being jabbed into my ear. I dug out my bit-warmer rice pack and heated it and held it on my ear for about 2 hours. It was much better this morning.
And that is all.

Better Late Than Never…

my January ornament:

From JBW, on 28 ct. even weave of some kind, with my choices for floss. I’ll put a bead at the tree top.

I put the CoHRH square 10 on the back burner for now; the over one was making the stitching experience not enjoyable.

23 more days to find, kit up & stitch February’s ornament!

Saturday Stitching….

I think I’ve figured out why I haven’t felt like stitching lately: I’ve been reading. I don’t know why, but if I’m on  reading jag, I don’t stitch. I want to stitch, but it’s so much easier to pull out a book.

Anyway, this morning doing barn chores, the other lady, Michelle, asked if I’d do a little sewing project for her. Her husband is a police officer, and the Velcro on his rip-off tie needed refreshing. It never occurred to me, but evidently, perpetrators may grab the officer’s tie in an effort to thwart arrest, and potentially cause harm by choking the officer. So the ties have a Velcro closure at the back of the neck so they’ll rip off easily.

So because I had to dig my machine out, I also grabbed some more fabric to make Ort Bag #2:

You’ll recognize the floral fabric from Emily’s Christmas apron. The pale blue was something I had in my stash. This one came out more like Deb’s- the weight and floppiness was just right. I just need to work on the curves at the tips. I should also invest in some “invisible” thread.

Chicken wants me back on the couch: