HS Graduation Quickly Approaching

Our "baby" graduates from HS this spring.  I knew this year would go by quickly but things seem to have gone into hyper speed.  Some "last times" this week...his last band concert, last drum line gig, last prom tomorrow night. He turned 18 last Friday and his graduation announcements have arrived.

The picture above is from a photo shoot for his senior piano recital coming up next month.

Most of the drum line seniors at last Sat's gig.  They're missing one who was at a jazz band competition. These kids have been drumming together since 6th grade and are like brothers and sisters to one another.

He's SO excited to be moving on to college next fall and we're excited for him, but all you parents know this time is bittersweet.  Our oldest child is in her early 30's so we've had children in the house for a long time.  Empty nest will be an adjustment to say the least...but a natural and desired outcome.  While I'll miss having kids at home, I have some things to look forward to doing too.

On the stitching front, I finished a model and started another so no pictures.  I have another model coming after the one I'm working on now.  I have so much fun model stitching--it's fun to be "in on" a secret and so fun to see the models I've stitched being released by the designers.

Happy stitching!

Rita

A Right Spirit----Finished!

I loved stitching this one!  I changed it slightly, thanks to my friend Sherre and her DD.  The cabin was changed to a house and I stitched the name of the verse on the bottom.  I hope this one doesn't spend too much time "ripening" before I frame it.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter.  Ours was a little nontraditional.  We spent the weekend visiting our DS at UT Austin.  We took his 2 roomies and a friend of our other DS's out to dinner Sat. night...with me checking the score of the OSU basketball game every few minutes.  Let's not talk about the outcome of that game.  :-(

Yesterday we went out for subs for lunch before heading back home.  The boys weren't too thrilled having their picture taken.  ("We're eating, Mom!")

From the "simple pleasures" department....We use lemons quite a bit in cooking (and DH's lemon mint sorbet).  I think I mentioned before that we planted a Meyer lemon tree this year.  We were introduced to this lemon juicer while visiting our DD a couple of years ago:

I have a fancy juicing machine but this is great to use when you just have 1-2 lemons to squeeze.  DD sent DH  a lime squeezer like it recently.  (He likes to drink soda water with a little lime juice.)  Since I've been making Cranberry Orange Scones lately, I've been looking unsuccessfully for the orange squeezer version.  I finally found it at Central Market in Austin so we now have a full set.  WOO HOO!  I'll have to bake some more scones this week to try it out.

  The trip home took >2 hours longer than usual because of several accidents along the way.  A couple looked pretty serious.

We enjoyed seeing the bluebonnets along the highway though.  Pictures just don't do them justice!

I've found myself lately checking ebay often for samplers...and have bought a few.  This one was "getting up there" on ebay so I checked to see if it was available at a more reasonable price at an ONS.  As luck would have it, it was on sale at 123 Stitch.  I believe I was meant to obtain it.  Isn't it a beauty?!  Ginger's in Austin has been closed for a while but there's a needlepoint store in Austin that sells some of the same fibers we stitchers use so I stopped by and bought the GAST needed for this one.  She'll have to wait a bit....I'm model stitching for a while.

Prom is coming up so we ordered DS's tux last week and one of my Monday errands is to order flowers today.  This will be DS's last school formal dance which makes me a little sad.  Graduation is right around the corner!  Life will certainly be different after DS graduates!  We've had children in school since the mid 1980's.

I hope everyone has a great week.

Happy stitching!

Progress on A Right Spirit

I'm moving along on this piece and enjoying it.  I'm hoping to frame this one without too much "ripening" time after it's finished.

I received another LHN model to stitch so it will be taking priority until it's finished.  It looks to be another great design.  I'm afraid I'm destined to stitch it twice bc I love it already.

Speaking of models, Nikki at CCN released I design I stitched for her.  Very cute!  I love the little birdies.

You can see it here:

Singin' in the Spring

Last night was DS's last percussion contest.  It's beginning to really hit me just how soon he'll be graduating.  Here he was with his fellow percussion seniors (and a few that dropped band) when they first started band:

Seems like it was just yesterday.  Sigh.............................

Here they are now:

Today is DH's birthday.  He never wants anything but I'll drive up to near Houston to have lunch with him.  I'll stop off at a plant nursery on the way home.  May pick up a key lime tree to plant and we'll call it his gift. ;-)  He much prefers pies over cakes, so I'll bake an apple pie for him to have after we grill some steaks for dinner.  We're so exciting in our old age!  We find lately that we enjoy the simple pleasures.

Speaking of food, I tried a recipe I found on the internet for Pecan Pie muffins.  They were pretty tasty.  I really liked that they weren't overly sweet.

Until next time.....  Happy Stitching!

Rita

Spring Fling Drawing at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe blog

Please let her know I sent you.

Good luck!

Spring Fling drawing

Spring Break week

We've been enjoying a laid back spring break and having our college son here with us.  I've been doing a little more cooking and some baking since he's been home and since we have been doing less running around than usual.

Last night we celebrated St. Pat's Day for dinner last night since DS is leaving for Austin today.  I made corned beef with baby carrots and red onions and some colcannon (a concoction with mashed potatoes, cooked cabbage, green onions, and seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper).  I'd been wanting to try baking apple pies inside hollowed out apples so DS and I made them yesterday.  They're cute and tasted good but more work than I'd have thought just trying to scoop out all the apples.  We both thought making mini pies in muffin tins would be just as cute and probably a little easier to do.

The weather has been gorgeous this week and we've been taking some walks too.

On the stitching front, I finished a cute model for Diane at LHN and she received it yesterday.  (It always feels good to know a model has arrived safely.)  Since then I've been working on La D Da's "Right Spirit".  As you can see, I've changed the cabin originally charted to a saltbox house.  I admired how my friend, Sherre, did this and used her idea.  I'll have another model coming next week.  I sure enjoy model stitching for both Diane and Nikki.  I love their designs!

I finally finished reading Atlas Shrugged.  I really enjoyed reading it but it's a long book and I started it during marching band season.  I'm not sure what I'll read next.  I have the Steve Jobs bio but it's another long one...I'm thinking an "escape" fiction might be just the ticket.  Something less than 1000 pages.

Then I tried making another "books" page on my blog and ended up erasing the ones I already had posted.  Obviously I'm not a computer geek.  Rats!

It occurs to me that I've forgotten for a long time to do labels on my blog posts.

 I'm probably lucky to just remember how to do blog posts.  lol!

Happy stitching!

Contest on another blog

Great contest can be found on this blog:

To Stitch or Not to Stitch

Happy stitching!

Rita

March already!

Wow!  Feb sure flew by quickly!

Not quite so busy around here for me anyway.  DH is on a business trip, T is busy with his activities, and we have some good leftovers so I haven't even had to cook much this week.  We've had a few days of cooler weather so that big pot of soup I made is sure tasting good.  I've enjoyed my am walks during the cooler weather too.

On the stitching front this week, I finished LHN's Liberty and Justice for a block exchange:

I started La D Da's Right Spirit and am making a couple of changes inspired by my friend, Sherre.  I changed the cabin to a saltbox house (same colors and same stitch count of the original design).  I just didn't care for the "cabin" on the original as much as the house.  I'll also stitch Psalm 51:10 as charted out by Sherre's DD.  I look forward to making more progress on this one.

I haven't worked on the snowmen this week but here's the progress so far:

Finally, I started another model this week so it will have to take priority and, of course, I can't show it until it's released.

As I said above not much cooking going on around here this week but DH and I went out last weekend to Johnny Carino's.  I love their Angel Hair and Artichokes and thought maybe I could figure out how to make it at home.  Thanks to a google search, I found a couple of recipes online so I'll be trying it out soon.

Happy stitching!

Rita