The start of the new year...

I updated my blog tonight with a wintry theme using photos from our digital photo albums. DD is in the middle, snow people that she and her friends built last winter on the left, and on the right is a scene out one of our windows looking over the frozen herb garden. The little picture in the sidebar was taken by my husband last year while skiing in New Hampshire, where he was born and raised.

Stitching update to follow tomorrow. I have been blessed with new stash and I am so excited! The New Year for me starts out at 5am tomorrow morning. Must work an 8 hour day! Wish I could stay home and stitch, but that will have to wait until Friday :(

Happy New Year everyone!

My finishing problems...

It never fails. I am all enthusiastic about making Christmas gifts and I never give myself enough time. On top of that, my finishing abilities stink! My stitching is fine, it's the final presentation that stumps me. That is why I have so many projects just sitting in a drawer, offering no proof whatsoever that I actually do stitch.

I finished this little ornament for a friend at work the night before I needed to give it to her. Notice the lumpy filling, the crooked side seams and the bumpy bottom where I sewed the opening? I sure do! Never the less, she loved it and said it was the perfect gift. Maybe I can make her another cancer piece for her that looks a little more presentable.

Kylie's Heart (freebie found here)
DMC on 22 ct Congress cloth

So...I think I will get out some old linen pieces and practice a few techniques before I have to use them on stitched pieces. I have been harvesting finishing ideas from all of your blogs but I am missing a lot of the details. Practice makes perfect, right? Wish me luck!

I have signed up for the 2009 Christmas Challenge, so I will be motivated to stitch, finish and perfect. Watch for my progress details.

I leave you with a picture of our cat Cheddar under the tree.

More favorite ornaments...

It is a truly wintry day here in Ohio. Cold, blustery, gray...

My husband just emailed me that he is ringing bells for the Salvation Army today at Big Lots and again on Wednesday at Walmart. I told him I would probably selfishly not stay with him but I'll try to bring him some hot drinks. He tries to do this every year and I have done it quite a few times also. Just not my year to do this but I'll put a small bundle of bills in the bucket.

This is my one day off before Christmas and then I need to be there at 6am the day after. We had pot luck on Saturday and I was amazed at the quantity of food. I decided against bringing my vegetarian chili and brought a pecan pie instead which was hardly touched. There were so many sweets!

Wishing for gift certificates for cross stitch stash...

Peace and Joy,

Barb

Some favorite ornaments...

In the last frantic few days before Christmas I start to lose perspective and all reason goes out the window. I have spent too much (there may be returns to make!) and I get that nervous feeling that I have forgotten something. I didn't get my mom's gift sent out to her and I feel badly about it. I decided to give her a digital photo frame, but began to have second thoughts about it while choosing the photos to upload to it. Is this something she would appreciate or would it be much better to make albums, something I think I will never get around to. I am hoping my siblings will add to the photo frame, but don't know if they will do it.

So I am holding off for a few days, and she'll have a nice late present if I do decide to give it to her. Money seems so impersonal, but I know she really can use it. I am 450 miles away, so there is little that I can do on a day to day basis except to talk on the phone at length, about current events, books that we have read and about life in general. It was difficult growing up our home. Lots of negative stuff with my father mostly. Things are better now, but I pretty much keep my distance from everyone. I don't have strong family connections like so many others do. No big family dinners or parties or reunions. It's just the 4 of us, and now our oldest is away at college and he has decided not to come home over break. That's OK...he is becoming more independent and has found a niche for himself that revolves around school, his friends and mountain biking.

My goal for the next week is to be a better person. No nagging or nit picking allowed!!! Sometimes I don't know how my family stands me :).

Peace and joy to everyone,

Barb.

Some stitching updates and other ramblings

I really haven't gotten the hang of blogging yet. It always takes me so long to post my photos! I have been using Adobe Photoshop Elements and it drains my computer of memory. I haven't learned the ins and outs of this program yet, so it is hard to play around with it when the program keeps freezing up on me. Time to install more memory? I think so...

Anybody out there use Photoshop Elements? Any suggestions?

I managed to stitch a few ornaments, all of which I showed off on Let's Stitch. May not seem like much, but it is a big deal for me to get these little projects done (well, almost done...need to sew them up). Since I haven't cross stitched for quite a few years, it feels great to have done this! Looking forward to larger projects after the holidays, including Me, Myself and I RR.

I started a new ornament this morning that I hope to finish up today, in between some more online shopping and household chores. I am so far behind this year!

My retail job has been draining this year. Many hours, mostly starting at 6 or 7am, dealing with customers or dealing with errors made by cashiers or managers. One of my managers, who I am quite fond of, broke down and cried yesterday. I think it was a good release for her ( I was the only one who was with her). We are short handed because they didn't hire as much seasonal help this year, so everyone is really pushed to the max. The day after Christmas I have to be there at 6am to start taking back the masses of merchandise that customers return. It is quite wild...we have piles of clothing to process and put back on the floor. Crazy!


Happy Holidays fellow stitchers!

Retail madness and another birthday

I updated my blog today to give it more of a Christmas feel. I had planned on stitching some tonight but I'm dragging right now, having had a late dinner and needing to get to bed at a reasonable hour. I could have been stitching instead of playing with the blog layout (!). I kind of forgot how to change things around on the blog and wasted time relearning. I will try to put in a few stitches on a Christmas ornament freebie I just started before nodding off.

I have been living retail "you know what" this past week. We opened at 4 am on Black Friday and the next day I had to be there at 5 am to balance the books from that very busy day. Then it's been early days for me since then with only 1 day off. I was going to go to an out of town LNS on my day off, but DH and DD had the cars, so I spent the day puttering around the house, which included some reorganization of my small stash.

I really need some stash therapy! I feel I deserve some now that I am actually finishing the stitching. Since I have been out of touch with the stitching world for some years now, I need to be able to see and touch the linens and fibers.

My husband and I are now the same age...for a few months anyway. I turned 56 (yikes!) last week! I don't feel old at all (except when I look in the mirror or do some deep knee bends). I use to torture myself when my birthday would come around because I would see that another year had gone by and I was still the same old person. I would look at all I had not accomplished instead of what I had accomplished and how blessed my life was. I am much more comfortable with myself now and at peace with doing the things I want to do or not do.