ahoy!

Well didn't I just drop off the face of the earth. I've been so slacking in my stitching it's not even FUNNY. Going through one of those slumps, it seems.

I did start Little House Needleworks Summer Splendor after seeing Mouse's progress on it. I got one of the birds stitched in and a few leaves, but that's it!

On with April Goals! Lets see how I did.

- Mail threads and pokemonz  I mailed the threads, but not the pokemon. He wants me to finish Eevee before I mail them, since I'm sending it to AUS, he wants me to save money.. but I have to get Eevee done. doh.

- Continue on with Follow Me/Letter S Didn't get much of either done. Follow me was put away until I feel like working on it again. Letter S sort of got thrown on the backburner because the client I stitch it at is away at respite for 3 weeks. I go back there on the 12th of May, so I'm hoping to get working on it again then.

- Stitch up Rageface for another Guildie. It suits him perfectly haha. Still on my to-do list. It's super easy to do, I just need to DO IT!

- Get crackin on Cougar!  Didn't touch it. At all.

- WALK A LOT (Once my treadmill gets here!) Finally something I AM doing! I've been walking 5-6 days a week, for 30-50 minutes each time and feel great doing it. The google maps thing is WONDERFUL! I've made maps of places in Paris, Australia, New York, and around my town so far and it's been great. I'm down 3.5 pounds so far, and have been watching what I eat for the most part. the iFit program has a lot of bugs as it's something that is constantly evolving, and they are constantly working on it, but even with the problems, I'm still enjoying it. Finally something that gives my mind as much of a workout as my body. That will hopefully be the key to my success.

Should I make May goals? I don't even know. I'll try it. Seems with the better weather I want to spend time doing other things! But here goes.

- Suck it up and finish Eevee so I can mail my friend his package

- Work on Letter S when I'm back with my client on Saturdays

- Stitch up Rageface?

- Continue with LHN Summer Splendor

and finally last but not least: KEEP WALKING!

OH yeah, before I forget. I should be getting the stitcher's package in the next two weeks from Shakespeare's Peddler, and I already know I have one of the things already that is being sent, so I'm hoping to have a giveaway sometime this month, so stay tuned for that!

That is all for now. I really enjoy reading all your lovely blogs and admiring your work and life and pictures. Take care! :)

It's been a week

hi guys. I've not had the best week ever. On Wednesday one of clients passed away and it being my first actual client witnessed death, I've been taking it a little hard. I am glad that she passed away at home, but her poor husband had no idea she had passed on and we (coworker and I) had to give him the bad news. My Coworker told me I could leave at that point, but I decided to stay and help the husband call his family while she called the office, and wait for family to arrive so he wouldn't be alone with her.

I've been using the treadmill all week as well, and I am really enjoying it. I also saw my doctor on Tuesday and got the bad news that my blood pressure is through the roof. She's giving me the month to see if I can bring it down with low sodium diet/increased activity before putting me on medications for it.

I don't really feel like working on Follow Me right now. Doesn't seem very appropriate

I think I might pull out another project to work on.

I did say I would talk about the treadmill. I got the Nordictrack C1750 and after a bit of a time getting it together.. (One of the screw holes, the threading was messed up so we had to use a tap and die tool to fix it) I was ready to GO

It has a program in it called iFit. That is what you use for downloading workouts to the machine. There are many different programs like Power Walking, Get Fit, Lose Weight.. whatever you think you want to do. After signing up on the website, it asks for your age, height, weight, and activity level. Then you browse through the different Training programs. I picked Get Fit and started with the intensity level 1. It's an 8 week program that you do 3-4 days a week. It started me with 20 mins each workout, but after 4 of them it bumped it up to 30.

The drawback to the treadmill is that you pretty much need it connected to the internet. It uses the connection to download your workouts from the iFit site, and then upload your progress to the site. Also apparently if the computer module stops working, you have a very expensive doorstop. I bought the extended warranty JUST IN CASE of that!

Monday to Friday I do the assigned workouts, and Saturday I use Google Maps to plan my own route and watch my progress on Street View which is completely awesome. I don't feel like this is drag to do, I find it very fun in fact.

Sunday I'm doing NOTHING! Well, except work. :( That is it for now. I hope everyone is doing well, and I love seeing all your progress and finish pictures :)

Hello~

Well then, this week is turning out to be another really busy week at work. Stitching is at an all time low, I'm afraid. I did get my Birthday stash a month after I ordered it.. I present to you my three Mirabilia Fairies!

how festive!

Sorry about the glare, they are in a plastic sleeve and my Ott-Lite is like right there!

Theresa over at Shakespeare's Peddler is trying to raise money for the Gatos to have more fun in their lives. She is offering needlework goodies (fibers/embellishments/patterns) in exchange for 50 USD! She did mention in the post about US residents... I emailed her anyway to ask if I could join in the fun if I sent a little extra to cover postage to Canada. I really hope she says yes! You can click the link and see what it's all about, and if you have the extra dough lying around maybe you could help her out too :)

SHE REPLIED! and yes she'll ship to Canada, hurray! I was so excited that I was about to get dressed and head to the post office to get a MO and mail it, but then remembered that it's Good Friday. Not open! I'll do it tomorrow. :)

Speaking of tomorrow, I can't wait for it. Yesterday I drove about 78 km to visit all my clients. That's a lot of driving in a 7 hour shift! Tonight doesn't look too bad so far, but I do have a 20 km drive between two clients at the end of my visits. Tomorrow I have an easy shift of 4 hours but it's with the same person who is nice to be around. No long drives for me!

I took a picture of my progress on Follow Me. I have been slowly working on it, a few stitches at a time. :)

Oh yeee, my treadmill got delivered yesterday. We were told that it would be between 8am and 2pm, that he would phone 10 mins before he arrived, and that he had to deliver it in the back entrance. We were told he would have a dolly.

None of those things happened. He arrived at 3:30, didn't phone, didn't go to the back entrance, and didn't have a dolly. So he left it on the back driveway by the ROAD. I paid over 1400 for this thing, and this is the delivery I get? Lucky for me we have fridge dollys (heavy duty ones!) because this treadmill is a beast. It weighs 317 pounds, so getting it from the road to the house was really fun for my brothers and dad lol. It is still sitting on the back deck, so I don't know when we'll be able to put it together. It's going to have to come in to the house in parts lol. There is no way we are going to be able to bring that box in here. :)

My Dad emailed NordicTrack to complain about the horrible delivery service. lol.

I think that is about it! Happy Stitching everyone and enjoy Easter Weekend!

March Goals!

I had goals! did I do them? we'll see.

Start and Finish Eevee uhh. yeah about that. Eevee ... just didn't get stitched. I don't know what is with it, but I can't bear to do it lol. Going to give it a rest and see how I feel later about it.

Finish Pinkie Pie ALL DONE! and mailed. He got it two days ago and LOVES IT! that makes me so happy. :)

Work on Follow Me I did do some, but not as much as I'd have liked.

Finish my take-along project that I work on on Saturdays which is a Dinky Dyes pattern that came with a thread pack I bought. I worked on it over 2 weekends before switching it out and putting Letter S in. I found it sort of boring! I put it in a drawer for now and might pick it up later. For now, Letter S is in!

Mail everything that needs to be mailed after the 23rd but before April 1st, which includes Paladin, all the Pokemon, Pinkie Pie, and all the threads for Sunflower Fairy which I am sending off to a stitching pal of mine. I ended up mailing Paladin and Pinkie Pie and forgetting the Threads and the Pokemon stuff. Those are next up!


April Goals!

- Mail threads and pokemonz
- Continue on with Follow Me/Letter S
- Stitch up Rageface for another Guildie. It suits him perfectly haha.
- Get crackin on Cougar!
- WALK A LOT (Once my treadmill gets here!)

And that is that! I can't believe it's going to be April. Where is the year going?!

March can just stop marching tyvm!

Where IS this month going? WHERE? My goals went all wacky but I did do some of them. I switched out that dinky dies piece I was working on at my Saturday client and put in Nora's Letter S. So far it's coming along nicely :) I picked up Follow Me last night and worked on that a bit while I watched Planet Life. I did manage to mail 2/4 packages. I went and forgot two of them at home. They are going to have to wait for a bit as I'm short of money right now.

Wanna know why? :D I ordered a treadmill. I *really* want to be more active, but I also have high levels of social/anxiety so going out for something simple like a walk is really unbearable for me. Some times it takes all my will just to go to work.

I did a lot of research and ended up getting NordicTrack C1750. You'll notice the tablet on it. I am *that* geeky that I wanted it to be able to use google maps/ access the internets. This is supposed to recreate places I want to walk - bumps, hills, and all - and use street view so I can see where I'm going. That was a big seller for me. I'll let you know once I get it how awesome/bad it is haha. :)

If you have any places you think would be cool to walk that has street view, I'm up for suggestions! Pretty excited about this.

So here is to stitching and walking... just not at the same time!

.. or can I....!!!

Ever had a project...

That you just can't stand to work on? Eevee has turned into that project for me. I started it, frogged it, started again and just can't get into it. It has lead me into a shame spiral since it's for a friend and I know how excited he is about getting them. I told him about it and he said to relax, I'm doing this for fun and he doesn't care when he gets it.

BUT STILL. I feel pressure! It's not even that big and won't take that long to do. Agggrhhh.

So I got Twisted Stitches from Amazon on Monday! There are some very off the wall projects in there and a few that I'm interested in doing. Ones that stand out are Lizzie Borden

Would make the perfect gift for my parents. hahaha. Yes I am really that morbid. I doubt I could do my job if I didn't have such a sense of humor about it. :)

and this: on the one side is a happy go lucky bunny, on the other?

My job requires me to drive, a lot. With the increased driving comes the increased chance of hitting something. One fateful Easter Sunday I was driving to a client when out jumps in front of me, a bunny. I couldn't slam on the brakes because I was on a busy road and unfortunately for Insurance purposes, it's my fault if I cause an accident over trying to avoid an animal. So I ran over it, hoping that I didn't actually hit it. I looked in my rearview mirror to see tufts of hair flying all over. When I got to my client I was holding back tears. On her table was a newspaper. The picture on it just happened to be Easter related: two kids holding a brown bunny. That didn't help my guilt AT ALL.

The client after her had a calender with a brown bunny on it. Seriously, my day couldn't have gotten worse lol. I never forgot about that bunny and I think I'll make this keychain for myself.

This one I really like too.

creeepy eh?

And last but not least:

The Sugar skulls are really nice too. What's great is that on the back page is a pocket with charts for the bigger designs. My only problem with the charts overall is that they are sort of hard to see. The symbols that is. I would have to enlarge them. Some of the patterns (like one of  the sugar skulls) is in the middle of the book, so that's not cool to try and see the chart there.

I started Nora Corbetts Letter S yesterday. While I really love the pattern, she could have at least put the colours/symbols on the inside where the pattern actually is. Now I have to write them down somewhere so I don't have to keep flipping the pattern over. The pattern itself is really too big. I don't like messing up my patterns and this is just begging for a working copy because of it's size.

Tomorrow I have to iron and pack up all the projects that are heading out on Friday. It'll be nice to finally get them out :) I hope my friends like them!

That is it for now, take care!

Checkin in

Mid-March checking in! I am finally done Pinkie Pie. I AM FINALLY DONE PINKIE PIE.

FINALLY.

FINALLY!!!!!

Leaves me 7 days to get Eevee finished! So I'm still within my time limit/goals I've given myself! I have 3 more Saturdays to finish that Dinky Dye piece, too. That is 12 more hours! I think I can get it done in that, mostly because I'm not doing the border. :)

I am really enjoying Planet Earth and if you haven't seen it, I suggest you do! I got the Mr Attenborough version. It makes me sort of sad that so much of our planet won't be seen/enjoyed as it is right now. Won't be long til we've destroyed most of it's wonders. 

Tonight I have 3 hours of work spread over 4, and tomorrow I am sort of excited about. The family I'm working with get 4 hours of respite each Saturday and I work from 6-10pm. That doesn't really give them much flexibility so I told them I could change my hours to whatever suits them. This Saturday I work from 12-4 and have the rest of the night off. I haven't had a Saturday night off in ages! :)

Oh I have this funny story. I wouldn't consider myself religious, but I really love learning about religious history and what people believe in now. I have a couple clients who are Jehovah's Witnesses. One of them has Alzheimer's and her  short term memory is really bad. She gets very frustrated with my visit because she doesn't think she needs help, but her family are insisting on it. We talk a lot about her beliefs and she's always hinting that she wants to do bible studies with me. I agree to this ONLY if she has a bath first. I figured she would have forgotten about what I said, since I was just trying to get her to bath. I was not only wrong about her forgetting, but now she's having her bath BEFORE I get there so we have the 2 hours to study LOL.

Between these two clients I will probably be a Jehovah's Witness by the end of the year. LOL. What did I get myself into?!