I actually stitched some this week!

I'm mostly better from "the plague" or whatever I had.  Now DH has it...but he's starting to feel better already.

This week has flown by...in addition to all the wife and mom stuff, we've been in the process of getting bids to get our roof replaced.  Cha ching!!  We've reroofed before and I have to tell you that you should have a lot more fun showing off your new roof for all that $$ you spend to get it done.  I picked out the color yesterday.  They roofer we chose made a big deal out of suggesting the wife pick it out and told me how beautiful it would be.  I made a slight change but it's going to pretty much match what's up there now....just newer and less faded.  It will be good to have out of the way...esp. before hurricane season starts again.

Speaking of hurricanes, we finally got some rain yesterday.  It had been 2 months so we could use some more.

T and DH continue to work on T's Eagle project.  They're hoping to finish up in a couple more weekends.  We're ALL hoping they do.

In addition this weekend, T's gf has her senior piano recital.  (I think I'll go to this), T has his piano recital (I know I'll go to this) and DS returns home for the summer.

Now for some stitching:  I worked a bit this week on my bap (Village Square Sampler), Beds of Roses, a sal from the Novalee02 blog, and LHN's Liberty and Justice.

Also, Nikki at Country Cottage Needleworks just released a model I stitched for her.  You can see it here:

http://countrycottageneedleworks.blogspot.com/2011/05/button-button.html

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day out there to all the mothers and children of wonderful mothers.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while.  It's been rather busy around here with the end of the school year activities mounting up.  I accompanied my DS's band on their spring trip to Dallas last week.  The kids performed in a concert competition in a wonderful concert hall (smoked the competition).  The hall was gorgeous and the acoustics were fantastic.  In no particular order, we enjoyed dinner and some jousting at Midieval Nights (some of the girls---both teens and moms--swooned over some of the cute knights), dined at Hard Rock Cafe and had a rocking breakfast at House of Blues, toured the JFK (6th Floor) Museum, rode some roller coasters at Six Flags, and had a behind the scenes tour at Cowboy Stadium culminating with the kids being able to play some football and throw frisbees on the field.  Unfortunately one of our kids came down wrong on his ankle so we had an unscheduled visit by the EMS who took him to get checked out.  He's ok and now has quite a story to tell about his experience.

The weekend was cold and rainy and I couldn't yell at the kids for forgetting to pack/wear their jackets b/c guess who forgot to pack hers too.  lol!  Do you know how hard it is to find a hoodie at a TX amusement park?  Slim pickin's!  That's why DS and I have matching hoodies.  Poor kid!  I tried not to hang with him too much with our mother/son hoodies.  He was a good sport, though.  And...since another DS attends UT, these will come in handy another time.

The first band Boot Camp was Tuesday (I work those helping monitor the kids, pass out tyelnol, ice bags, etc. if needed, and directing traffic (so parents don't drive on the portion of the parking lot that serves as the "field".  That same night, our DS was initiated into National Honor Society.



My throat started hurting on the trip and I just couldn't seem to get my energy level back up.  Turns out I had a horrible cold or flu that really knocked me off my feet.  I'm feeling a lot better now but still pretty low-energy.  (I couldn't stitch for most of the week which is a big indication of how bad I felt.)

DS's band banquet was Friday night.  It's so convenient that he can drive himself to things like that now.  It would have been a golden opportunity for DH and me to go out to dinner but I only had an appetite for a bowl of soup.

This weekend DS and DH (and some other friendly Boy Scouts and a Scout dad) have been working on his Eagle project.  He's replacing 2 footbridges (feetbridge?) at a local Bird Observatory.  They ran into a glitch yesterday but have figured it out and got the frame for one of the bridges cemented in this afternoon.  I'd taken pizza over to "the crew" yesterday and lost my reading glasses.  I thought they were just gone but today DS found them for me.  He's joking that finding them is my mother's day gift.  Speaking of gifts....I've been offered a smart phone if I want it.  Since it's not really a necessity, I'm mulling over if I really want the extra montlhy fee on our phone plan...but I'm leaning towards getting it.

I've been stitching a bit the last couple of days...working more on my bap sampler and also started a seasonal sal piece where you get the next part by emailing a pic of the finished part to the designer.  I also started a sampler called Bed of Roses which is monochrome.  I'm using GAST Faded Roses for that one.

DS #2 has finals this coming week at college (and has a cold, darn it).  Potentially he could be home for the summer by next Sunday.  (Which means I have to clean my stuff out of his room this week.)

I hope to get time soon to "redecorate" my blog and maybe post some stitching progress pics.

A Sort of update

Sorry I haven't been updating much lately.  I'm working on a model lately so I can't really talk about what I'm stitching.  Also the end-of-the-school-year activities are revving up so I haven't had much stitching time.  Hopefully I can get some more stitching time done this week but with Easter coming up (and choir cantata Maundy Thursday), who knows.....

Yesterday was busy with DS's high school prom.  I sang with the choir at a memorial service for a dear friend so I didn't get to be there for the "send-off" and pics.  DH was assigned picture taking duty and he did pretty well.  I think the kids had a great time.

Happy Friday!

We've had some absolutely gorgeous weather here for the last few days.  I'm trying to drink it in because soon enough it will be way too hot and humid.  My walking buddy is out of town but I've managed to motivate myself to keep up my 3-mile walks this week except for one day when I was a slacker.

I've made progress this week on my Village Square Sampler.  I got the biggest part of the inner border finished as was overjoyed to see everything "met up" the way it was supposed to.  Hopefully it will turn out that way when I get the outer border stitched up.

I also stitched just a bit on ALTWL.  I'm devoting some time on Wednesdays to work on this one along with some stitching buddies who are working on the same project.  I've played around with the colors on this one just a bit.  I was a bit too tired to think much about counting so since I'm playing around with the idea of making the outline of the "boxes" in rows of red, white, and blue, I just worked on getting some of the boxes stitched.  The jury's still out about the colors of the boxes.  I hope to finalize a decision before many more are stitched...esp. if I decide to frog them out.

I saw a sampler on others' blogs last week that I instantly fell in love with.  I didn't have a chance....bought it the same day.  It's an antique repro called Marianne Wenn and available for purchase as a downloadable pdf from Needleprints...if I remember correctly on their blog.

I hope to soon be working on another model.  From the description from the designer, it sounds like I'm really going to like this one.

Until next time, happy stitching!

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!

Giveway on a beautiful blog

My friend Carolyn is having a nice giveaway on her blog, Just One More Stitch.

http://carolyn-justonemorestitch.blogspot.com/

Even if you're not interested in the gifeaway, she has a beautiful blog and you won't want to miss seeing it.

Another Friday already

Happy Friday, everyone! My younger boys have spring break next week and I celebrated by buying some flowers for them to help me plant.

I've been stitching too. I may have mentioned that I recently stitched a model for Country Cottage Needleworks. Nikki's released it on her blog so I can now share it with you. It's a beautiful design and it was a pleasure to stitch it.

I also finished a couple of blocks for exchanges. One is a summer themed block by Erica Michaels, and the other is an owl themed block from a blog called Stickeule.

I'm working on another model for her now. I'm also working on an older freebie by Jean Farish called America, Land That We Love. I decided to stitch the states in the order that they became states instead of alphabetically.