Hi, again!

It's been a while since my last post.  Here's what I've been up to since the last one.

First, DH celebrated a milestone bday this past week.  Our kids thought it would be great for us all to celebrate together so our older two surprised him by flying into Houston last Friday afternoon.  (We'd been plotting for weeks.)  The other boys and I drove up and met them at DH's office where we "kidnapped" him and took him out to dinner at a Tuscan/Texan "fusion" restaurant called Stella Sola (Lone Star in Italian).  He was totally surprised!  The next night the kids cooked dinner at home including making homemade pitas which are really fun to watch baking b/c they puff up like a ball.  The kids alwyas have a good time when they get together...it makes this mom's heart feel good.

On the stitching front, I finished and mailed out another model to Nikki from Country Cottage Needleworks.  I can't say anything about it except that it's a really cute one and I love the color combo.  I'll let you know when it's been released so  you can see it.

For my personal stitching, I finished a little wip of a freebie from Val's Stuff.  I also worked a bit on LK's Harvest Blessings, Village Square Sampler, and America, Land That We Love.  The last one I'm stitching along with some friends and I've altered it a little from the original.

Thanks to seeing a stitching buddy's blog, I fell in love with another antique repro sampler and ordered it the same day I first saw it.  It's called Maryanne Wenn (sp?) and is available for download from the Needleprints blog.  You'll need a paypal acct. to order it, something I'd resisted for a while but since I had to order this one........

Spring has definitely sprung around here.  My walking buddy and I have enjoyed hearing the birds sing, the warm temps, and seeing the flowers.  The other day we saw an armadillo crossing the path in front of us. 

Speaking of flora and fauna, we live on a lake and often see ducks, geese, turtles, etc.  I had a close encounter with one of the geese last week who came up close to the house.  Never a dull moment!

Happy Friday

DS's coming home from college for the weekend so I've been busy baking cookies today. I also made some bread in the bread maching that I'll slice and freeze in small packets for him to take back to school.

I get to join some of my buddies for a stitching day tomorrow so I'm baking rosemary foccacia for that. Yum! The house smells good. Unfortunately, it's warm and humid so it was hot in the kitchen.

On the stitching front, I started (finally, I've had it in my stash for a long time) LK's Harvest Blessings. Maybe I'll even have it stitched and framed for next Thanksgiving. I also worked some more on my bap. Since I liked the BC Sow Kind Seeds so much, I thought I should start one for myself since I already have the threads pulled for the other one for the exchange.

I have a couple of finishes too...the church from the Town Square freebies (Trilogy) and LHN's Joy to the World ornament. Both were just about finished wips. It sure feels good to finish some!

Stitching, etc.

I finished a model and mailed out a model this week so I got to return to my personal stitching.

I finished LHN's Winter Band Sampler. Such a pretty design! I almost forgot...I also stitched a Sanman freebie called Love, Love, Love for a heart sal for a stitching group I'm in.

I worked a bit on my bap (Village Square Sampler by Samplers Remembered) and started a Celtic themed piece that I've been meaning to start since we lived in Dublin, OH. (We moved away from there almost 10 years ago.)

It's still unusually cold for our area and my walking buddy and I have enjoyed our invigorating am walks. Brrrrr!

TGIF

It's been a busy week but I have a slow day and an empty house today. That's nice every once in a while.

DS is on his way back to college. I'm thinking the respectful thing to do would to wait at least a day before converting it into my craft room....but I may take a few things up there today. ;-)

It's been unseasonable "cold" here this week. (I'm from the Midwest so this doesn't really qualify to be called cold but, oh well.) The am walks have been nice and I've enjoyed turning on my oven and making comfort food. Today it's already starting to warm up. Seize the moment, right?

I've been working on 3 things this week, a chocolate themed block for a block exchange (designer Casey B--can never spell her last name), my bap sampler, and LHN Winter Band Sampler. I'm "into" cardinals lately and this one just called to me. I may even finish and frame it before it's had time to properly "ripen".

Until next time..........

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, everyone!

I just have some cooking planned (not too much) and stitching for the first day of 2011.

Here's a picture of the sampler I've been working on...Samplers Remembered Village Town Square. I've stitched a lot on this one but there's still a lot that needs to be done. It's truly a bap! I'm just hoping to finish it in 2011.

I plan to start 2 sals today, LK's "Boo Banner" (with a couple of friends) and LHN's Winter Band Sampler (my Jan 1 project with one of my yahoo groups).

It was supposed to get "cold" here in SE TX but it's still too warm for my tastes this time of the year.