First Friday of Spring

Hi, fellow bloggers!

Yesterday was DH's birthday so I asked him what he'd like to have for dinner...thinking it would be the typical grilled steak, baked potato, etc.  Instead he went through our collection of Cooking Light magazines and came up with 5 possibilities.  I ended up choosing Risotto Primavera.  Aside from deciding and finding which veggies I wanted to use and all the peeling and dicing, it was a pretty easy recipe.  I'm not a big goat cheese fan but used it anyway (it called for goat and Parm cheese) and it had just a hint of that flavor...I really liked it in this recipe.  The guys really liked this too so I'll be sure to make it again.

He prefers pies over cakes so I made him an apple pie.  Instead of rolling the crust, I make a crumb crust that you press into the pie plate...you use the same mixture to crumble over the top.  Yum!

When we visited a LNS last month while visiting DS at college, he picked out a design with TX wildflowers that he'd like me to stitch for him.  I kitted it up in time for his birthday but it might not be finished until next birthday.  lol!

I'm a little sad this am.  My walking buddy is moving far enough away that we can't do our daily weekday walks anymore.  Today's my first day without her and I just couldn't bring myself to do the walk.  Instead I'm reflecting over how blessed I've been to have enjoyed walking with her for so long.  In addition to "keeping me honest" we talked about many various topics during all those miles.  I'll get going again...with my ipod....Monday. 

On the stitching front, I recently won 2 drawings which arrived this week.  It felt like Christmas again!  The first is a Primitive Needle design called "Follow Me".  Every time I think of these designs, I'm reminded of Lisa Roswell's tragic death.  We certainly lost a talented designer.  Thanks, Mamacat!

The other prize blew me away!  It was a bloggoverary drawing from http://morethanjustcrossstitchin.blogspot.com/ .  All I can say is Wow!! And thank you, of course.

I've been diligently stitching a  cute model from Country Cottage Needleworks and am on the home stretch.  It's a good thing b/c another model arrived from Little House Needleworks.  The LHN looks to be another "winner" too.  :-)  I love that I stitch for them since I love their designs.

I also finished a little Santa from Redbird Designs called "Joy Y'all".  He's for a block exchane in one of my groups but I love him so much, I'll stitch another one for us.  I may stitch him for my kids too.  We'll see.

I see I failed miserably at keeping this post brief.  Thanks for reading and have a wonderful week.

Ahhhh! Spring Break

I love our life with all our kids' activities and doing a little traveling but once in a while it's nice to just hang out at home with nothing special to do.  Our 2 younger kids are both on spring break this week and it's been a "hang out" week.  I've gotten into a little reorganizing, cleaning but also enjoyed a having a little more time to stitch.

Our college DS mentioned that they may be doing an Italian food cook-off for his Italian class so he and DH experimented in the kitchen making struffoli.  (I'm sure I butchered the spelling.  Ha!)  I teased them about how nice it was for father to be passing along his cooking skills to his son.

Here's the tasty result:

I've made a lot of progress on a new CCN model but can't show it here.  However, I can show you a few wips.

First off:

Ride a Bike by LK.  DD is "into" bicycling lately sometimes going on group long distance rides on the weekends and sometimes biking to work so when I saw this one, I just had to stitch it up for her.  I'm waiting on a couple more overdyes and a button to arrive to get back to this one.

I'm working on this  Redbird Designs Santa for a Santa themed block exchange in one of my groups  I'm waiting on another overdyed floss to arrive before stitching his cowboy hat:

Finally, I saw this freebie (tantes zolder???) stitched up and made into one of those little pillows with Christmas fabric and lace, if I remember correctly.  As soon as I saw it finished up, I knew I had to stitch him:

I've been cooking more this week to "fatten up" our college DS.  We're doing our St. Pat's meal tonight since he's going back to his school apartment tomorrow.  I made sure to buy some "fixin's" for Reubens for Saturday.  I don't know what I like best, the St. Pat's meal or the Reubens the next day.  I just know I'll have to get back to our normal menus after all this food this past week!  (Or start running marathons.....every day!)

Just checking in

DS's band's last marching contest is this Sat. in San Antonio, TX.  Our last regular season football game is tonight but we have the possiblity of "making" playoffs so there might be at least another game.

After that, my life will be back to "normal" (my version, anyway) and I should be back to having my regular stitching time.  I DID manage to finish a small model for CCN and am working on some ornaments now whenever I have the time and energy.

Also, DS had his Eagle Board of Review and is now offically an Eagle Scout.  We haven't even decided on a date for his Court of Honor let alone start preparing for it.  I'm thinking maybe this spring....

Checking in

I'm stitching a model for CCN so I can't talk about what I'm stitching...except to say that I know you'll like it.

My foot is a lot better.  I reached a milestone in the past few days.  I can now tolerate wearing shoes on that foot and even went out yesterday to run errands wearing shoes.  Yes!!!!!  I still have a bit to go to be back to normal (well, my foot, anyway) but I'm pleased with my current progress.

Since I can't talk about stitching, I'll talk a little about reading.  I LOVE reading a good book.  I just finished one, The Devil in the White City  by Erik Larson.  It's about the Chicago World's Fair, the people and the development/building of it, it's "run", some of the developments introduced at this fair (like the Ferris Wheel), and also some side stories about other things going on about that same time including a serial killer.  The author has a great talent for telling the historical story and making it seem like a good novel.  (I was told there's a name for that writing style but the person telling me didn't remember what that name was.  If you know, I'd love for you to tell me.) 

I also read another of his books, Isaac's Storm  about the 1900 Galveston hurricane.  Unfortunately I read it shortly before moving to the Texas Gulf coast.  It scared the bejeebers out of me.  Larson has at least a couple other books out and I plan to look for them.

Someone in my SS class was talking about a book he's reading, Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer which I'm currently reading.   I remembered the title and author without looking it up.  This is significant because the book is about human memory....about the capacity of humans to remember things, how many of us forget things, about how memories are formed and retrieved, and about "mental athletes".  It could be a rather dry subject but the author makes it interesting...at least most of the time.

I love hearig about what others are reading...and recommendations for good books.

Soon both my stitching and reading will be taking a "back seat".  DS's band will be starting band camp the first week of Aug. and since I volunteer with them nearly every day.......  It's very rewarding though and they're a great group of kids  I also enjoy working with the other adults.  I'm just never ready for band to start yet.  lol!

It's been a while........

Same story...busy with band. The show is coming along nicely. I'm always amazed at what these kids can accomplish with all their and the directors' hard work.

I feel like this week has been a cheater week for my stitching. I had some almost finished wips that I finished up this week: sewed a button on Trilogy's Friendship, finished some leaves, tendrils, and lettering on a CEC piece from the Gentle Harvest leaflet, did some French knots and straight stitches on CCN's Season of Love Ornament, and finished the bat's ear and face, some spiders, and over one lettering on a piece from Hillside Samplings called "Come in for a Bite". For having so little stitching time, it sure feels good to have some finishes.

We have the weekend off (no football game) so I'm looking forward to getting some catching up done around home and also more quality stitching time. Everyone have a great weekend!

Finish!!

I've been stitching away trying to finish this one so I can start another.

Here's CCN's Liberty Lane with some color changes (with a little help from my friends who are more experienced at changing colors).

Next start is Bygone Stitches' One Nation.