A Work in Progress

During those long car trips to take my two younger children to college, I've used my time wisely and stitched these canvas ornaments. These are Kathy Schenkel designs from a series called "Countdown to Christmas." The first two or three ornaments took me around five hours to complete. Now I have it down to a science and each one takes about three hours. Except for this one which took me about three months. That pesky satin stitch on the candle (see close up below) was ripped out, oh, about four times, before I could get it to a reasonable facsimile of the way the stitch looked in the diagram. Fronts will be joined to backs (not by me--way beyond my finishing competencies) and embellished with ribbons and hangers to go on a small tree that serves as an Advent calendar. In fact, I tried to drop these off at the needlepoint shop on Monday, but forgot they aren't open on Mondays. It wasn't a wasted trip as I had breakfast near the shop with a good friend and enjoyed...

We're becoming expert movers as the past two weekends we have loaded up the van to move two of our children to college. Daughter's move is on the top and middle son's is on the bottom. LOTS of stuff is now gone from our house and we are technically empty nesters. Just have to get rid of the mountain of stuff my older son has parked in the basement and we will truly have a more empty nest. Both college moves went smoothly. Our daughter's roommate is from Hawaii (I've already researched flights) and didn't arrive until early evening. That gave us the chance to work in the room without bumping into anyone else. After everything was set up and we retrieved the refrigerator that I had ordered (LOVE being able to order online and pick up in the store at Best Buy!), my husband and I waited with our daughter for awhile. Eventually we decided to go to our hotel and she contacted the girl from her high school who also goes to her university so they could get together. We...

Today is my 35th wedding anniversary. We were married in the church in my hometown in southeast Nebraska. No air conditioning and people thought my husband was nervous when they saw him shaking his leg. He was just trying to get the sweat to run down it a bit faster! Mine was the first of three weddings my parents planned, and since I had spent the summer in Pennsylvania working and setting up our new apartment, most things fell to my mother. My parents decided to have the reception in my hometown and that meant there was only one venue--the "supper club." Actually, this was the basement of the local pool hall/bar and had formerly been a bowling alley when my mother was a teenager. Although there wasn't a private room, my parents figured very few people other than wedding guests would be there since it was also the weekend of the county fair. Sometimes I miss life in small town Nebraska. Mostly not. Turned out they were right, but choosing that venue also meant that they...

Our children are on the move this month. Here's some of the stuff my oldest moved from LA and has dumped, I mean temporarily stored, in our basement while he looks for an apartment in New York. And here's some of the stuff that my daughter will be taking with her to college on Saturday. I didn't bother to take a photo of what has been in my middle son's room since he came home from college in May because, well, you get the picture. And speaking of the middle one, I spent the day traveling up and down the Pennsylvania Turnpike from our house to his camp in the Poconos and back again. He hurt his left hand on Thursday evening and finally went to the ER near camp on Saturday afternoon. X-rays confirmed that he had fractured a bone near his little finger. They gave him a splint and told him to see an orthopedic surgeon in 5-7 days. So I spent Monday morning arranging the appointment, dithering between whether he should go to someone close to his school or come home. W...

Sherry! Please send me your address so I can send the Bloom chart to you this week. Congratulations!

I periodically attend inservice presentations at a local center that is part of a statewide training network. Usually the presentations are telecast to the center that I go to. I often see the same people at the inservices and one of them is a woman who brings her needlepoint to work on while whatever expert is on the screen talks away. I've always wanted to join that woman in stitching while learning and now I have--only not in public. Before and after vacation, I listened to an on-line conference for about 30 hours (lots of different presenters, thank goodness). While I listened and occasionally glanced at the powerpoint slides, I sat on my couch and stitched on Hester's Needle Grace and Truth and all that multi-tasking led to another finish. I'm sure someone is going to look at my collected works someday and comment that 2010 was a very good stitching year. I started this sampler last year as my reward for having the scale dip below a certain number. The sampler ...

I'm back! (Although you didn't even know I was away). We were in Orlando for five days to attend the wedding of a very good friend and to get in a short vacation before we start the work of moving our children to various places in August. We enjoyed strolling around Lake Eola in Orlando, wandering on Park Avenue in Winter Park, and eating dinner at the Millenia Mall. We spent one day at Universal since my daughter wanted to see the new Harry Potter area. I am so not a rollercoaster person which is one of the two reasons my family has never visited Disney World. (The other reason is that when they were younger, my kids were not good at waiting in line.) But I was brave and went on the Dueling Dragons ride which turned me upside down a time or two. I kept telling myself that I had been through childbirth three times and really, how much worse could a rollercoaster ride be. My daughter is an amusement park veteran and advised me to sit on my sandals so I wouldn't lose them du...