MIA Blogger

Yeah, yeah, I've been MIA both from posting and reading/commenting.  Luckily that doesn't mean I no stitching either.  Not a lot done in the past few weeks, but some.

Last month a fellow blogger (a very generous one I want to add) was kind enough to remember from my rant the end of November that I liked the new CCN Cottages series, but wasn't going to be purchasing them.  Kris very kindly offered to gift me with her patterns as she finished them.  The one condition is that I must gift them to someone else once I'm finished.

I held off starting on January for a few weeks, since I have so many other WIPs begging for attention, but I couldn't hold out forever.  I had a picture in my mind of exactly what silk flosses in my stash I wanted to use.

Once January was complete it was just too easy to continue onto February.  Again, I converted this to silk floss from my stash, using a more muted and dusty palette.  Both are stitched on 38 count Natural Gander linen.

On a side note, Kris is going through a rough time right now, with a family member having some medical issues.  This is very similar to what I was facing a month ago with my grandmother, so please keep her in your thoughts, or even stop by her blog to offer up some good wishes.

For the non-stitchy news, I've been pretty busy.  The weight loss goal has turned into 2 personal training sessions, 4 spin classes, and 2 water aerobics classes per week, and sometimes some yoga classes thrown in.  Princess Annie (the dog) is getting walked twice a day, with some of those walks being 3+ miles on hilly terrain.  I'm still not losing much weight.  It almost looked like I had an under-active thyroid, but more extensive testing came back normal.  Damnit.

I got diagnosed with arthritis in my spine, so add in 2 physical therapy sessions each week.

Dad went to the ER again, for back pain.  6 hours and an MRI later we got sent home with directions to follow-up with his spine surgeon.  They admitted that any other person would have been admitted for surgery right then and there, but since his MRI from a year ago didn't show further deterioration, they were sending him home.  Moral of the story - he should have gotten the third surgery a year ago when they suggested it.  Now he's having to find a way to live with the pain 30 days before taking off on a 40 day cruise.  Listen to your doctors!

Somewhere between the fitness, ER trips, and doctor's appointments, I've managed to work on my MBA.  Not as much as I'd have liked, but I turned in my first assignment and I'm working on my second.  Hopefully things will quiet down soon.

A Valentine from me to you

I haven't been totally slacking the last 2 weeks.  I got the urge to stitch something small for Valentine's Day, and didn't have any Valentine charts in my abbreviated San Diego stash, so I designed something.

I even stitched it.

Twice.

Enjoy!

Procrastination...

...will kill me every time.  I'm the Queen of procrastination, and it really bit me in the ass this time.  About a week ago I received a fantastic surprise in the mail from Myra.  I was the very lucky recipient of one of her sewn project bags.  She picked out totally adorable Halloween fabric, making it perfect for the Halloween rules project we're doing as a SAL together (and no, I haven't stitched on it for a month).

The procrastination bit comes in that I didn't do the right thing and immediately get my tush up to the computer and send her an e-mail thank you that night.  The next morning my internet woes started.  To make matters worse, I never even thought to send her a hand-written thank you through snail mail until the day I got internet back.  How quickly I forget some of the rules of politeness my mother raised me with.  Now imagine the guilt I felt when I finally did get internet back, and before I could even send that e-mail thank you out, there's a very concerned email from Myra wondering if I was ok, since I had dropped out of blog-land for a while.

Anyway, she's forgiven me (I think), life is getting better, just hectic, and I'm trying to solve my time-management problems (I probably never will).  Lots of updating to do in this post.

WIPocalypse is due today (thank you so much to Measi for the lovely e-mail reminder, I'd totally spaced out on the moon date).  I don't have too much to show on that.  No real progress on Halloween Rules since you last saw it for Theme-a-licious.  My primary focus has been on Christmas Garden (my BAP challenge piece).  Crappy picture, both for the colors and the wrinkles, but I'm lazy and don't iron my pieces just for pictures.

My January wrap-up for Theme-a-licious was due a week ago (eep!), and I'm just going to say, look at the picture above!  The theme was gardens and flowers, and I think Christmas Garden fits perfectly.  I also got a finish in of Poinsettia House, but no picture.  Right now its so dreary and overcast, it would be useless to try and take one.  I promise I'll post one once I actually get it finish-finished.  Oh, and then there was the partially stitched sunflower on Halloween Rules.

The theme for this month is Fangirl February - stitch on designs from your favorite designer.  I'm going to make it a BBD month, and tie it in with WIPocalypse and try to get some done on Anniversaries of the Heart, and more of Christmas Garden.

If I haven't been stitching, or surfing the web reading blogs, what the heck have I been up to?  I started classes for my MBA on Feb 1 (just in time for the internet to go wacky), and that's all online.  No spending hundreds of dollars on books, but I need an internet connection to read them online, they can't be downloaded.  I swear the first tuition check I get from the VA is getting spent on a tablet of some sort so I'm not tied to my damn computer.

I  joined a gym in January, and I've been getting into the routine of exercising.  Monday and Wednesday mornings I have a session with a personal trainer at 6 am (gasp!).  Mon, Wed, and Fri I do gentle Hatha yoga at 1 pm.  Tue and Thur is water aerobics (mom joins me for this), and scattered in there I do some extra cardio work.  I've been hitting the gym at least once a day, 6 days a week (I feel like I almost live there).  Despite all of this, and religiously logging what I eat and staying below my goal calorie count for the day, I seemed to have hit a plateau already.  In fact, I actually gained weight.  I'm trying to be optimistic and telling myself I'm getting muscle mass back (which weighs more than fat), but its hard.  Maybe I should just ignore the scale and just use the old stand-by of "how do the jeans fit."

Grandma.  In some ways she's doing better, in others a lot worse.  Last week when I showed up at her place to take her for the weekly hair appointment, I saw she'd forgotten to take not only her morning pills, but also the evening ones from the day before.  Mom and I decided to bring her home, so she's been with us for the last week.  Daily trips to her place and phone calls to remind her to take her pills and eat weren't enough.  There aren't any obvious signs of distress, she's not on oxygen, she's not incontinent, she doesn't wander off and get lost.  She's just tired all of the time, has absolutely no short-term memory, and has become an extremely picky eater - meaning she's not really eating anything and trying to survive on Vanilla Ensure drinks.  Grandma is having a tough time deciding who's bossier - me or my mother.  At least I sneak her small amounts of chocolate as rewards for various thing.  Yeah, I know, not the best for a diabetic, especially when that's one of the meds she had to quit taking due to kidney problems.  Its time for us to re-evaluate where she's living, the care she needs, and come up with a long-term solution.

Sorry I wrote a novel about so much personal stuff in what is supposed to be a stitching-focused blog.  There just seemed to be a lot to catch up on and explain why I dropped off the face of the earth.  I've got a little surprise planned, and some other great things to post about, once I get some more stitching finished.