Hopefully we have fixed the computer!

Future guest room

Wetbar plus bathroom

Drywalling and mudding in process (my least favorite)

Before the walls went up

What we started with!

Or rather, hopefully Anders has fixed it! I can't say that I contributed to much!

I don't have much to show in the way of stitching. I tried to take a decent picture of my Pine Mountain pillow but I think I have to wait until it's not overcast outside. The other 2 pieces I have worked on are for exchanges, I haven't decided if I should post them or not here. There's not that much chance that my exchange partners are reading my blog but you never know.

Our company left early this week, we all had a great time together and everyone did get along great the whole time, even the kids. We did some touristy things here in Omaha and they did shop quite a bit. Everything is so much cheaper here compared to Sweden.

The basement is starting to look like it's actually going to be finished, maybe even this month! It's been taking so much longer time then we all thought but hopefully it's just 3 more weeks left and then I will get my house back. It will be awesome to not have people in the house at all hours and work around their schedule so they can get in.

So since I don't have any stitching to share I will post some basement pictures!

Oops, that went in in the wrong order! We are doing a guest room, bathroom, home theatre for DH and the rest is a rec room with a wet bar. And we have some storage to of course.

My computer died!

And it's still not fixed! It's not the first priority here with my in laws visiting, the boys in the basement are still at it full time, and we have a new entertainment center to put up and get up running. It's not easy when you are married to a computer engineer who has to put a computer in there with the dvd and cable box just because he ha can record on HD with it.

I have a feeling this will take the whole weekend.

But my SIL is in Kansas visiting relatives a couple of days, my BIL is up in Minnesota for a free lance job on swedish sister cities in the US at the same time. They are all coming back Monday which gives me some time for myself.

I have one finish that I would love to share but I don't want to down load my pictures into Anders computer so that have to wait. It's Pine Mountain Designs Sit a spell that I stitched on during swimming lessons.

And I have started the exchange piece for the Birthday Blogger club. It's turning out ok but it's going slow since I'm stitching over one.

Well, DH is standing behind me waiting for his computer. I hope to be back soon!

I'm still here!

St Basil's Cathedral - Dimples Designs

Not that I have been very active on my yahoo groups or in the blogging world lately! I still try to check out blogs and admire finishes or progress rapports now and then but it's so darn busy here.

The basement is progressing slowly. They are mudding the walls this week and then I think the cabinets are going in next week since they should be ready by next Tuesday. This has taken much longer then I thought it would. At least Alice is getting better with the noises now. We try to carry her down in the basement to show her that it's ok and it's just the guys working down there.

Bernie the painter is coming in next Monday to paint our entrance and the kids bathroom. I've been waiting for him a couple of months now so it will be nice to have it done.

My BIL and SIL and their two kids are coming tomorrow. We did decide on finishing the basement because they were going to come and stay with us for 3 weeks. Evidently the basement is not done so we have to work our way around that.

It will be fine, we are all pretty laid back. The toughest day will be when Bernie is painting but he's coming early and won't leave until it's done so it's just one day. My BIL is leaving for Minnesota that day too to write a travelling article on Swedish towns up there. I think my SIL is going down to Kansas to see relatives too during that time so it won't be for 3 full weeks that they are staying here.

At least the kids daily swimming lessons are over now so I will try to pick up and get everything ready. It's been hard to get anything done the last few weeks since we have been so busy with play dates, swimming and we have done a lot of 4 H activities.

I got some really sad news yesterday. One of my girlfriends husband died yesterday morning of a heart attack. He was just 48 years old, they have 3 kids 5, 7 and 9 years old. Their oldest son is autistic so he's special needs. We got the news yesterday, I haven't event talked to her yet since I didn't want her phone line to be busy so she could talk to relatives. If this happened to me I would like to have my family around me as soon as possible.

It's really hard to realize that I won't see Rolf again. They moved away a couple of years ago but we still have some contact. When they lived in Omaha Judy and I were quite close and I know that she is devastated since they were very devoted to each other. I think it will take a couple of days for this to really sink in, at the moment I think we are still in shock.

I'm slowly making progress on St Basils. I'm going to finish the left side of it and then I have to start on Villages of Hawk Run Hollow. Then I want to pull out my Valentine Holiday again and restart it on the red fabric Becky sent me.

I finally figured out what I'm going to stitch for my Birthday/Christmas Club lady. There's so many things that I have considered stitching for her but I finally decided on what to do. I have the rest of her package almost done so I just have to get cracking on the stitching gift.

St Basil's Cathedral again!

St Basil's Cathedral from Dimples Designs!


Thank you everyone for the nice comments on my Spring Sampler! I appreciate them so much!

If you want to see something cool, go over to Becky's blog. She used one part of another one of the Spring Samplers and made a ruler pocket. Very creative!

This week has been another busy one. With the kids home I have been trying to do some fun things with them. So we have been to the wading pool, the Children's museum and the girls like to go to the gym and play. I started them up with the summer reading program too.

I don't know if I have mentioned it here but we are finishing our basement too. We have a company that's doing it for us but but it's still a lot of work. Friday I picked up tile, carpet, cabinets etc. I still have to pick out door knobs, faucets, light fixtures and pick up paint samples to have at home. If I have enough energy I will bite the bullet and do that tomorrow.

The whole basement should be finished in another 5 weeks or so, at least that's what I'm hoping.

My youngest DD is scared to death of the noise in the basement so it's not fun dealing with that. She's convinced that there's bears down there. Hopefully it will go over soon when we are done.

I haven't stitched for 3 days now, it just haven't worked out. Thursday I went out with the girls, Friday we had the parent - boys soccer game that wasn't over until 7.30 pm so we were all starving afterwards so we stopped at Applebee's. When we got home I was just to tired to stitch. Yesterday I was planning to stitch after our graduation party but DH had done some extra wiring in the basement that day and somehow the outlet for my Ott light didn't work so I just watched/slept through Lucky Number Slevin instead.

Hopefully I will get some stitching in today! I miss it! I did get quite a bit done on St Basil's earlier in the week so here's an update picture.

Julie - yes, PS released a winter, autumn and summer samplers leaflet too. I picked them up when they were released so I have all of them in my stash. I just love all of them, they are my favorite PS designs.

Marika- I'm from Sweden originally. My DH and I moved to north America in the early 1990's so we have been here for a while. I grew up in Stromstad just of the Oslo fjord and in Goteborg on the west coast of Sweden. We still go back for the summer every other year so we can visit with family. Isn't the yarn stores in Norway impressive, I used to knit gjenser, my best bud in Montreal was Norwegian. They are almost to hot here though so I haven't done one in almost 10 years.

I'm keeping an eye on those trees. DH put down a lot of mulch around them and they are surrounded by some flowers. How awful that you neighbor took down your trees. Unfortunatly I have heard others say that their neighbors took down things that they didn't like in their yards.

Thank you all for visiting!

Back to reality!

Spring Sampler from Prairie Schooler # 60
32 ct Summer Storm from Silkweaver, DMC threads



So now when the weekend is over it's back to reality with the kids at home. Wonder what we will do this summer? I'm heading to the gym and the park today and I'm hoping to do the zoo and the childrens museum this week too. Someone told me that the pool has opened but it's a bit to cold to go yet.

Yesterday I dragged DH to 4 different nurseries to look at trees and we still ended up getting two at Wal Mart. We only wanted to find something cheap since they are still going to fix up the lot behind us and although they are only going to even it out, seed it and hopefully plant trees on it I know that there's a risk that they will end up in our yard and kill plants and trees.

Last time they did something major they killed quite a bit for the neighbor and I don't think they reimbursed him ever.

So I'm not spending a lot of money on that part of the yard yet. But we found 2 little maples (sticks really) and got them in the ground. DH says that next tree has to be something different, we now have 5 maples.

My foot is starting to get better, my body is adjusting to the celebrex. Hopefully it will heal so I don't have to get The Shot. It sounded pretty bad when the Dr talked about The Shot, so I'm kind of hoping to avoid it.

Seems like both my blogging and stitching mojo came back when I started stitching on something else. I finished my Spring Sampler late Saturday (yay) and picked up St Basil's Cathedral from Dimples Designs that I'm stitching for Mel's birthday. It's going real well, I have to share a progress pic soon. My scanner is throwing a hissy fit at the moment, sorry for the cut off pic but it was my 4th try. And all of the sampler is there.

Memorial Day weekend!

Angel Procession from Mirabilia.

Memorial Day weekend has been real nice this far. The kids did get out of school Thursday, so they have had a bunch of friends over the whole weekend starting Friday. We have had friends over two evenings in a row so I haven't stitched much. But it has been nice to just sit out in the yard chatting in the evenings.

I have had it with Angel Procession, just a lot of potpourri stitches and I'm not making any progress. So I'm handing it back to the lady that are handling the whole thing. Our EGA is stitching it for the church we meet in and I think she had about 8 more ladies on the list. So I think that I have done my fair share, I can always stitch on it a bit more later on if they run out volunteers.

So this means that I'm almost done with my PS Spring Sampler! I will post a picture when I'm done.

My headless angel!

Mirabilia's Angel Procession


I'm working on the border of the skirt now, it's nice have finished up the flowers she's holding. She does look a bit weird without her head though. I'm going to work on her until she's done and then finish up Spring Sampler.

I have a 3 things that I have to finish before August and this is one of them. At least I can just hand her over to the next person as soon that she's done, I'm not doing the beading on her.

The carnival went ok, it's always a lot of work and I spent the whole weekend recuperating. I was really tired afterwards. Most of the weekend I didn't even have energy to stitch. But I'm reading a real good mystery by Donna Leon, one of my favorite authors.

Molly found the the right shade 3051 for me, thank you so much Molly!

Thank you all for your sweet comments on the Spring Sampler. I can't remember when I enjoyed stitching a design this much.

Phew! Just another day!

Spring Sampler from Prairie Schooler

The school Carnival is tomorrow so it's just one more day and then I will have some time for myself again. I'm quite stressed out, lots of things that has to be done and DH is off on a business trip to China and India so he has been gone while I've been juggling carnival and the kids activities.

I ran out of 3051 for the Spring Sampler and the new thread I bought was quite a bit darker so I had to put that away for a while. Some of the girls on STO have been going through their stash for lighter 3051 so help is on it's way.

So I'm stitching up a hardanger bookmark for the basket that I'm putting together for the Carnival. There's a couple of handmade wash cloths, handmade soap, Bent Creek's framed Angel sampler and a couple of small cross stitch kits and something for scrap booking.

Thank you so much for your comments, I do appreciate them all!

Sally, people that I have known for years still spell my name wrong now and then.

Prairie Schoolers Spring Samper start!

I started one of the 3 Spring Samplers from Prairie Schooler # 60 this week. It's a real fun stitch, I just love the sun peeking out from under the clouds. After going through my fabric stash I decided to stitch all 3 of the Spring Samplers on Silkweaver's Summer Storm 32 ct Lugana.

This is the busy season for me, I'm chairing the Carnival for our elementary school here and I just have to get everything together and lined up for it. It's first now that I filled all the volunteer slots, I need about 65 to 7o of them so it takes time to recruit that many people. We are doing treasure jars and raffling off basket and other donated items which we have call around and get from parents and local businesses. Then there's the food and pre sale tickets and and and.....it never ends!

At least we are now having a professional company that comes in bring in all games and rides. It's worth splitting the profits with them since they have insurance and people that they bring to make sure that the everything is safe for the kids. I do suspect that we doing better with them financially too in the end since the rides and games are more fun and in better shape then the ones we got from the rental place.

I do have some really good people that are helping me out and I'm so grateful for that!!

Today I'm going to spend time in the garden, I'm putting roses and sage into the retaining wall under our big tree this year. There was no way I could get that into the budget too last year (it's a big space) and this year we are not leaving for Sweden so I can be home and baby that garden the first year. I got those nearly wild pink roses, I wanted something hardy and those remind me of the roses that grew wild where I grew up.

Just a little update!

Sampler Gameboard from Drawn Thread

I have been working on the Sampler Gameboard from DT a bit. Added 5 more houses and 10 more squares fillers. The fabric that I'm stitching it is just lovely and I do like the way it's turning out.

This weekend I haven't stitched at all. The spring allergy season is here and that makes me real tired in the evenings. Hopefully the next few days will be better. We got some rain this morning so that might help.

Thank you for your input on Valentine Holiday, I might just finish it later but for now I'm putting it away. But I will restart the design on a red fabric because I think I will like it better on red.

Thank you so much Becky for offering to send me some red fabric! I have email you1

I'm not sure about this one!

I've been stitching on BOAF Valentine Holiday the last few days and I'm not sure that I picked the right fabric for it. At first I didn't want to stitch it on the red linen but I think I have to change my mind and just try to find a small piece of red somewhere and try that instead. The skin color does just not work out and I been tossing the floss on I don't know how many different fabrics now without finding the right fabric for this design.

So I think I will put away this project until I can find some red fabric and then try again.

Yesterday I pulled out Mirabilia's Angel procession again and I will work on it for another day and then I don't think I can resist starting Spring Samplers from PS. It's pulling me in!

Thank you so much!

Spring Row/Bent Creek finished as a cube it!

For all the lovely comments on my recent finishes! I do appreciate them all and it is so much fun to get some feedback from other stitchers out there. It's my daughter who's holding up Sleeping Beauty, I stitched it for her so she's really happy.

Here's another finished item, Spring Row from Bent Creek that's finished into a cube it. It's another bad picture, I will move it over to the bakers rack in my kitchen now when I took down my Easter decorations. It will stand out a bit more against the darker wall there.

Otherwise I'm putting in quite some hours for the school carnival that I'm the chairman for. It's always a bit stressful the month before it, hopefully I can get people moving at the meeting tonight. I need volunteers and donations, not something that thrills most people.

I'm stitching on Birds of a Feathers Valentine Holiday, have to take the time to scan a picture soon.

A little ice cube!

A Bent Creek Design.


This is the little extra design that came off The Very Cold Snowman leaflet from Bent Creek. I finished it a year ago and haven't been able to figure out what to do with it so a couple of weeks ago I made it into a cube it. The ribbon is a bit to much but I didn't have time to change it before my friend Karen took it home with her. As she said, the face matched her other snowmen in her living room set so it was meant to be;). She's to funny!

Sorry for the picture, I just snapped it really quickly before Karen and her husband left that evening. It's really nice to have friends that appreciate and takes care of stitched gifts and Karen is one of those friends.

I had a lovely evening last night just relaxing after running my errands all day. My youngest daughter goes to a kids day out program on Fridays from 9 am to 2.30 pm. I bit of a long day but she really does love it.

This means that I'm on my feet all Friday trying to run errands that it's hard to bring her with on. I have slowed down a bit, now I go and work out in the morning before I start but I'm still exhausted after running around all day. So yesterday I worked out, paid my car taxes (stood in line for 35 minutes), had coffe with Claire, drove down town to pick up my Australian oil painting which I had framed by Ruth Richard's Gallery (she's THE best framer in Omaha IMO), stopped at the second hand book store, got Under Armour gear for DS, and did pick up some clothes for the girls at Old Navy. I think I put another 100 miles on the car just doing itty bitty errands.

So most Friday evenings I'm so darned tired I don't even stitch!! It will actually be nice when DD starts preschool next year which means shorter days but I have 2 days to run my errands on. I had my new yummy books yesterday though so I was nice just relaxing and reading.

DS and DH left for Iowa yesterday afternoon. It's a soccer tournament there and due to the fact that the forecast was that it was going to be cold and rainy all weekend we decided that I and the girls should stay home. I think that the forecast improved but we had already made our plans at that point so we didn't change them. DS was a bit disappointed but I think it will be nice for him to have some one on one time with DH. They will have so much fun hanging out together.

I decided this morning that I will put away the Sampler Gameboard for now. I finished 5 more houses, 10 more motifs so it's really going well but it's starting to bore me a bit. Tonight I want to start Birds of a Feathers Valentine Holiday, it should be a quick stitch.

Autumn Silhoutte from Blackbird Designs!

Autumn Silhoutte Loose Feathers # 10 from Black Bird Designs

I finished another oldie last week, a Loose Feather design from Black Bird Designs. Last fall I messed up quite a bit when I stitched it so I just had to put it away for a while (it was that or the thrash can). When I pulled it out again it went much quicker then I thought to fix the mistake and here it is all finished.

Since then I've been working on my Gameboard Sampler, I should post an update on it. I'm approaching the halfway mark on it so that feels pretty good.

Easter was good here. We had a lot of people over Sunday so I was really busy all day. Actually all weekend. But next weekend DH and DD is off on a soccer tournament road trip so I'm just going to catch up then. I'm hoping to get some major stitching time in in the evenings. Can't wait, I'm kind of tired after the weekend, but I think I'm coming down with cold so that is probably the real reason I'm not that chipper. Sometimes you just want to curl up on the sofa and just rest.

Finished Sleeping Beauty!

Sleeping Beauty from Mirabilia.

It was really awesome to finally finish her after 3 years! She has five boxes of beads on her so I spent a lot of time beading in the end.

Thank you Brenda for sending me this kit in an exchange at Chartswappers, that was so sweet of you. My DD is so excited that she's finished and that she will be on her wall soon.

It's been a pretty good week here, don't feel that I'm getting to much things done but thats fine. My 3 year old and I have met people for lunch and been going to the park so we have been doing fun things. I did cut out the fancy fabric for my curtains but I figured out that I need more muslin to finish them so we'll head down to Hancocks today after I have worked out.

Have to get everything planned for Easter too, don't think that will be to much work though.

What a dreadful week!

Delivering Plenty from Homespun Elegance

It's been a rough one, seems like everything that could go wrong did. My best friend Karen's Mom died from liver cancer. She was just diagnosed a couple of months ago so this went so incredibly quick that we all are still trying to understand it. I made it to the funeral last Thursday but didn't have time and stay and talk since DH and DD had a stomach flu that day. Karen and Tom is coming over Saturday though so we can catch up then. Very sad business.

Emma succeeded in coming down with two different illnesses in one week, which I think might be a record. She woke up with a terrible fever Monday night, seemed like it was a 24 hour thing that goes around and then she came down the stomach flu Wednesday.

Just a question, why do they have to put super red food coloring on so many things? I almost went into shock when I walked into Emma's room Wednesday evening and thought that she was bleeding internally for a moment until I realized what it was. I think my carpet cleaner is one of the best things I ever gotten, BTW.

But I did get some fun things done too (well, I enjoy the result at least). I finished painting the living room and I did get most of my yard cleaned up. Yay! It was so lovely Sunday and I was out there working for the whole afternoon. So nice to be outside after it rained all day Saturday. But that was ok too, my whole jaw hurt all day after my dentist appointment that morning.

I didn't stitch much last week, didn't go online much either. A combination of Emma being home and playing with her Webkinz on the computer and just having to much to do I guess. But Delivering Plenty is finished! I might add some smaller charms later on but I think it looks ok without them.

At the moment I'm beading on Sleeping Beauty, hope to finish her soon.

Stitching Camp!

Homespun Elegance Delivering Plenty

Mirabilia's Angel Proclamation

I went off to a stitching camp this Saturday, so much fun! It's organized by different chapters of EGA in our region so it's people coming from all over but it's really close to me. Which is good, since it's hard for me to be gone more then a day. This year I took 2 finishing classes, Cathy Haberman from Hands on Finishing taught them. The first one was a needlebook and scissorfob class, the second a box top and a strawberry class. I had used all the finishing techniques before but I did pick up some quite good advice and some new ideas to use.

There was a lovely lady from the day group that I hadn't met before that I chatted quite a bit with since she took the same classes as me. We had so much fun!

In the evening they had merchandise night and I picked up way to much stuff. Cathy had brought all her clearance stuff with her that was left after she closed the shop and there were some great deals to be found there. So much lovely fabric, sigh.

This was just what a needed after a pretty busy week. I got almost all of the living room painted and I just love the new color, it looks so good. Then my 3 year old got sick and she was up quite a bit during Tuesday and Wednesday night. I don't deal well with sleep deprivation, I was walking around in a haze here, had a hard time even thinking straight.

Friday I did get out and down to Richard's Gallery to get my Australian painting framed. I waited with picking out the frame until I had the new paint on just to be sure that it would all work. It will be great to be able to finally hang it on the wall. I have started on the new curtains too, but that will take some time to sit down and finish them.

I did get a couple of more stitches in on the Angel Proclamation and I started HE's Delivering Plenty. The latter is a pretty quick stitch so I'm hoping to finish it this week.

A blurb!

Future Mirabilia's Angel Proclamation

Where has the week gone? It feels like I spent it in the car, actually. Took the kids to meetings, parties, and drove their friends home.

It's been gorgeous here, temperatures in the 60's and we'll hit 70 today and then it will start to cool off. My early tulips, crocuses and daffodils have started to poke through. That's nothing compared to my neighbor though, his is already up about 5 inches. It must be some early daffodils that he has found or maybe they are just getting lots of sun. I try to figure this out every year. It's really nice to have someone that are into gardening living beside you, you always have an interested audience when you have found something really cool or are looking for something specific and it goes both ways.

I've been going through my finishing pile and actually got my Lizzie Kate Flip It's mounted so Oscar can start displaying them in his room. I just got one frame but he can easily change them every month. Then I put some felt on the back of one Mill Hill ornament, finished a needleroll and started finishing another one and I'm working on finishing JN's September Song into a bell pull. I need to pull out my iron today so I can press the edges on that needleroll, I just can't do the hem stitch without having it pressed down good. We were watching Borat yesterday and I couldn't be bother to do it in the middle of the movie.

So I haven't gotten that much stitching done on the angel from Angel Proclamation, it's just like a blurb at the moment. I have to take out the purple too since I stitched it in the wrong purple color, but I will wait with that until I have gotten a bit further on it. Then it won't feel like I'm taking out that much.

My other project this week is to start painting the living room! I pulled out the quarter gallon test paint can yesterday and just painted some up close to the green in the kitchen and up against the wood trim. It looks like it's going to work out well and Anders liked it quite a bit. So I'm off tomorrow to get more paint, but I will try to get the taping done today.

My newly painted kitchen.

I did the last of the painting in February but it didn't look quite right until now. The paint I'm using takes a real long time to dry and color looks a wonky until it does

St Basil's Cathedral update!

This one is going much faster then I anticipated. Quite a bit of backstitching to do eventually though but that usually goes quick.

I did go to much EGA meeting yesterday which was fun. Last time I was there was in October and then we started having both soccer and swimming on Mondays there for a while but that's over with now. The ladies agreed to come in and help my daughters 4 H troop out when we receive our DMC kits (that will take a while). Everyone is pretty excited!

Then I somehow came home with Mirabilia's Angel Proclamation. We are stitching it for the church that we are holding our meetings, hopefully they will like it. Seems like I'm almost the first one to stitch on it (the little bee on the left hand side is there already), I'm doing the angel on the left hand side. Hopefully she's going to be a quick stitch too, I have so much that I have to stitch on this month. I told them to not expect it back until May though.

After the blizzard!

Our street.

Cleaning up the drive way.

My new WIP, St Basils Cathedral from Dimples Designs.

It's still a mess here after the blizzard that hit us Thursday. It's been snowing on and off for the last 4 days and we have strong winds too. So some roads are still closed due to drifting snow and the snow is piled so high in certain area's that the street crew can't plow them.

They finally cleaned up our street. These are the pictures that turned out ok, tried to take some during the blizzard but they didn't come out. And there was no way that I was going outside to take them. I would have ended up somewhere in Iowa or something with those winds.

Yesterday I had to brave the weather and go out for groceries, the cupboards were empty after everyone has been home for such long time. Unfortunatly I was not the only one. It took forever, I was not in the best mood when I got home. I can't take crowds.

I did sit down and kitted up St Basil's Cathedral from Dimples Designs and started stitching on it, scanned a picture of my progress. It's for Mel, she turns 50 this year in August so hopefully I will finish it and have it framed by then.

We went out for a nice anniversery dinner yesterday. Almost didn't get out since our babysitter had forgotten about it (he had the flu so he's excused, it's not easy to remember when you are that sick). But he's brother filled in for him and we did get the last open table down at our little nice French restaurant that's pretty close to us. Nice dinner and a nice bottle of wine, and it's so nice to sit down and talk without being interrupted by kids.

So in all it turned out to be a pretty good day!

A quick update!

2006 Just Cross Stitch Prairie Schooler ornament

My progress on The Gameboard Sampler from Drawn Thread

I was hoping that they would have had started the clean up after that big blizzard we got yesterday but that didn't happen. Me and the neighbors have tried to help out all the cars that got stuck in on our street today, but as soon as we got one car out, five minutes later another one is stuck in the same place.

I guess the county is trying to keep the main roads clear first and foremost but with strong winds and more snow that's hard.

Just wanted to add some stitching updates today. Since the kids have snowdays they are out and in and everytime they come in they drag a cubic meter of snow with them. I'm working hard on getting it off the wood floors.

Look at what Veronica sent!

I'm still trying to recover from the flu. Even after a week it feels like I don't really have any energy yet, some evenings I'm not even stitching.

But it's slowly getting better so I'm hoping that this will be over soon.

We had really bad weather here this weekend, for a while I thought that we would be hit by a blizzard but it just ended up being a winter storm. It was kind of nice just hanging out at home with the kids, hubby and my stitching.

Look what I found Sunday in stucked inside my storm door! My gift from Veronica!! What an amazing package, that needlebook that she stitched for me is just perfectly done. I just love it! All the other goodies are great too and I can't wait to stitch up those charts she sent me.

Thank you so much Veronica, you're great!

I did get my order with my fabric for Villages of Hawk Run Hollow Saturday and don't you think that they sent me the Sand Dune linen instead of Vintage Sand Dune. I've been on the fence about contacting them to correct the matter but I think I will. This is a piece that I had my heart set on using an overdyed fabric.

This weekend I finally started on the 2006 PS ornament for the STO SAL, don't know if I will have time to finish it up before the month is over though.

More pictures!!

The tuck pillow I stitched for Lavon!

The goodies I got from Amanda in the exchange!

Some birthday presents from me to me!

I'm adding som more pictures since that other post did go through (not perfectly, my spacing disappeared, don't know if I dare to mess with it).

Lavon came up with this great idea with a After Christmas exchange for some of us ladies in November and we just sent out our packages the last week of January. I got Lavon's name and I stitched the little JBW tuck a way pillow for her that I've been saving up for Lavon for quite a while now. I knew that I would get her name in an exchange eventually;>. It wasn't until I sent of the package that I remembered that I should have taken a picture of all the goodies, but I did send her some chocolate, a couple of charts and some other small fun things (I'm getting old, can't really remember what more I sent).

When I got home from Colorado I got this great package from Amanda! I love that scissor fob, actually the whole package was great! Thank you sweet heart!

I did get my little birthday gift from myself from Drema early February too, lots of lovely new stuff. My order from Stitching Bits and Bobs was shipped yesterday so it only took then 5 weeks to get that going, I only order from them when I want something that I can't find anywhere else. I usually use Drema but she didn't have the CD with the Town freebies. So when that arrives I can finish Sleeping Beauty.

On vacation I did stitch on The Gameboard Sampler, I have to scan my progress there later today. There's a lot of catching up I have to do though, my laundry room is full (really, can't walk in there) so I know where to start at least!

I think we will survive!!

Rose bouqet from DH.

The gifts from Kath, she's the sweetest!

What I got from Veronica!

Blogger is driving me crazy, I just wrote a huge post and saved it as a draft then I couldn't publish it. While I was playing around with everything, trying to figure out what went wrong the post just disappeared. AAARGGH!

Since I last wrote everything just went from bad to worse. Two of the kids are on penicillin. Oscar ended up fainting in the bathroom while throwing up one night. My dad who was here visiting got the flu from the kids too and I'm sure he thought that he was dying. He was on the phone with my brother in Sweden (who's a Dr) a couple of times per day. Anders (DH) came home from his 3 week long business trip a day early just to get the flu too. The only one that hadn't gotten this plague at that point was I!

The worst of it all was that we were also preparing to go on our ski trip that we have had planned for almost a year. So I ended up taking all the kids to the Dr to ok all of them to go (emergency rooms in strange town is the worst) and after she gave us some instructions and meds we did go on the day we planned.

The drive up was ok, we did stay in Ogallalla and we had dinner at Ole's www.olesbiggame.com which the kids enjoyed. I felt sorry for those poor animals though, but I guess it was different times.

We arrived on Thursday, after a pretty eventful drive up after Denver. A snowstorm went over the mountains just when we drove up there. It was really bad there for 20 minutes but it was ok since we took it easy. After renting ski equipment for the kids and getting groceries we took it easy the rest of the day since we planned on skiing the next day.

But that didn't happen since another weather system pulled in. Lots of snow and strong winds, the kids cried just walking over to the club house for swimming. It was good with a day of rest for everyone though, the kids were almost back to normal by then.

With all the snow on Friday we did have a beautiful day of skiing Saturday. I think it was my best ski day ever. Wonderful slopes and powdery snow, lots of sunshine so we had great day!

But in the evening Anders felt worse again and had a fever (103 F) so I think he overdid it. We had a talk the morning after and decided to leave before the next storm system came in on Monday morning (we were planning on leaving Monday morning). My dad was flying out of Denver that afternoon so we took the kids and went tubing (what a blast) and ice skating. Emma was thrilled with her new skates that Anders bought for her in Vancouver. That afternoon we packed up and left, drove back to Ogallalla after dropping dad off at the airport. So we did get back Monday afternoon. But by then I got this blasted flu so I've been totally wiped out until now.

I of course forgot to bring the camera to Keystone in the commotion before we left. But it was beautiful up there and the condo we rented was great. Two bedrooms and a sleeping loft, it had everything that we needed to be comfortable. To bad that we got this flu so we weren't 100 % but these are things that we can't change. The skiing that we did do was wonderful and I think the kids enjoyed the trip in the end too.

Since I haven't really uploaded any pictures of my gifts for my birthday I'm adding them now. Hopefully Blogger will not erase this post!

Very quick post!

I got a lovely gift from Veronica (Senorita Stitches) from the Bloggers Birthday/Christmas Club this Thursday. She sent the cutest little knitted washcloth and some other goodies and she's even working on some more things for me. It was just perfect and I'm going to take a picture later today. Thank you Veronica!!

Unfortunatly Thursday (my birthday) was the same day as Emma came down with the flu and now Oscar is sick too. Really high fevers, 103.7 and 104.5, body aches and sore throats etc. I feel bad for them, they haven't been this sick for a couple of years now. At least I picked my husband up from the airport late yesterday evening so now I have some help. It's not so much that we can do but it's easier when you are there for each other.

Apart from that, I did have a nice birthday. People remembered me and I got some other wonderful gifts. I'm going to take some pictures and share, especially of Kath's gifts, amazing and the flowers DH sent.

Time flies!

Or rather, the weeks goes by quickly but the days are really long. DH is away on business again and is going to be gone a couple of weeks this time. These are the days when I think that we were crazy when we signed the kids up for all these activities. It's not too bad with the girls but I just can't see why 11 year old kids have to practice soccer 4 days a week, and that's not even including games. No wonder that kids burn out when they are 13! But it seems like all good organizations are doing the same thing so there's not a lot of options out there if you want your kid to play.


Enough whining!


I did do a double take last evening when I sat down to check my emails. Seriously, I thought that I was having some major issues with my sight. Everything looked really blurred all of a sudden and it actually took me a minute to figure out that my darling 3 year old had covered the whole screen with my Vaseline Lip Therapy. The effect is very psychedelic for sure, and that gunk is almost impossible to remove.



The kitchen is finished! It's now all green, even the rounded corners turned out ok after I spent an hour just taping them to get it just right. Funny, it just hit me yesterday that it's a very Shepherd's Bush green that I picked out. The shade is one of the greens that they use quite often, can't remember the exact # of the silk now but I have to check it out next time I stitch one of their kits up. So this will work out perfect since I'm hanging the Gatherer's in there in the eating nook when they are stitched up and framed. I just have 2 finished at the moment so I better get cracking. Harvest Moon is already hanging in there on one side of the window, maybe I should get and stitch Winter Moon and hang on the other side.


Anyways, I'm taking pictures at the moment but it just doesn't look alright yet. That Behr paint dries really slow so it looks like a patchwork quilt on the walls, usually it don't look real good for a week. Hard to work with that paint but it's excellent if you have pets or kids who are hard on walls. It dries hard and is very scrubable.



I'm still waiting for my beads from Stitching Bits and Bobs. Since I ordered several other items for my birthday at the same time so I'm sure she had to order in some of the things. Wonder if it will get here before I pay my Visa bill?


And I still haven't started my Gameboard Sampler! I haven't had the time to go in and pull out the threads and I just love working on The Sanctuary, it's just impossible to put it down. It's a pretty crooked scan, sorry, I have a hard time getting the fabric to work with me today.

Just some updates on my WIP's!

Beading on Sleeping Beauty's(Mirabilia) skirt.

And some on the left corner.

Close up of The Sanctuary from The Drawn Thread

This is how far I have gotten so far

I think I posted about running out of beads for Sleeping Beauty! Anyways I did, but this is how far I did get before I had to place that order with Stitching Bits and Bobs. I don't think it will take me that long to finish her after I do receive my order since it's only the swirls on the skirt left to do.

It will be so much fun to get that order. I included the last new PS charts, Winter Wind and St Nicholas I think they were called and The Town Square CD with for the Stitchers Time Out SAL. But it will probably take a couple of weeks before it gets here.

So after I finished my little SB goodies (thanks for the nice comments, I do appreciate you taking time to look at the finishes) I did pull out The Sanctuary from Drawn Thread that I started last summer. It's very fun to stitch on, all those little flowers are so dainty and as always, the stitch diagrams are wonderful. I had stitched the verse and 2 tree's before I started again and this is how far I had gotten Sunday.

Then I decided to join in on that Gameboard SAL too! Don't know if I'm taking on to much but it's a year long SAL so hopefully I can keep up. Milly is sending me an invitation to the group so I'm hoping I will get that today. After an hour or so of digging through my fabrics yesterday I found one that will work out, a Silkweaver Classic Belfast, Dark Tan. My finished Gameboard will be quite a bit smaller then the one on 25 ct but I will probably just frame it and hang it in our basement when we finish the kids game room down there. It's safer that way!!

I love Shepherd's Bush!

2006 Just Cross Stitch ornament

SnowDay kit from Shepherd's Bush

And I have been stitching some of their stuff lately! So much fun to work on, just what I needed.

Had a lovely lunch with DH before I took him to the airport, now what to do with the kids tonight?I'm hoping their Netflix pick comes in the mail today, that would make them happy. We do have a 4 H meeting almost straight after school, hopefully that won't take a long time though. They are listening to a presentation and doing a bird treat of some sort. Sounds cute!

I'm stitching on Sanctuary from DT at the moment, and I'm also contemplating joining a Gameboard Sampler SAL. Very tempting but I don't know how much time I can devote to it. The other day I pulled out Winter Moon from SB too and I want to stitch it up and hang it beside Harvest Moon. So little time, way to many projects.

Snowy here!

Close up of Mr. SC.
Lavon stitched this for me!
Inside of needlebook
Cover of Needlebook, it's a Just Nan design.

Well, it snowed all day here but to the kids huge disappointment they didn't get a snow day. I felt sorry for them this morning, my son especially was a bit upset. Since it's really cold I'm sure that they won't be able to go out and play either during the day but maybe we'll have some time in the afternoon before swimming and soccer (indoors of course). DH is off due to MLK Day and he's waiting with the shoveling on the drive way for a couple of hours so the wind will die down and the temperatures rise a bit.

I got some more beading done yesterday on SB while watching Rome, seems like it's going to be another good season. Now I'm done with one corner and I'll start on the skirt tonight.

Here's some pictures of finished things, I'm going to put Mr. SC up in our bath room beside our big bath tub. And then there's the Just Nan needle book, I think this was a class once upon a time when we still had a couple of LNS's in town.

"Just" the beading left!

Sleeping Beauty from Mirabilia
The girls in their sari's


I finally finished the stitching on Mirabilia's Sleeping Beauty, now I have to do the beading too, that is not going to be quick but it will be nice to get this finished after 3 years. It's cold and snowy here so I'm going to bead tonight.

Here's a picture of the girls in their sari's that DH brought with him from his India trip in December.

Happy New Year!

Box with JBW design for Karen
Samplers and such tin topper for Mel
The cute bag from Kath!

I have had a hard time posting pictures to Blogger lately but I finally was able to upload these. The first two are pictures of the gifts that I have been stitching on on Elf Nights, and the third one is the bag I got from Kath. I LOVE it!! Just perfectly done and so cute!

Otherwise I'm busy painting my kitchen (2nd part) which I hope to finish up today and I have started the prep work for the school Carnival which I'm the chairperson for.