Happy Birthday, Dan!

I just love my husband. He is absolutely my best friend in the world. He is funny, kind, loving, intelligent. A fantastic husband. A terrific dad. An awesome Gramps. Today is his 57th birthday. We have been together through thick and thin. Through sickness and health. Through richer, poorer, and absolutely flat broke. Through it all he remains the calm to my anxieties. He's the rock to my quicksand. I always enjoy our time together. We can talk about anything. He does a great job of being interested in my life. I love him completely. Happy Birthday, Dan!

With Sunny

With Thunder

With Skye

Week 34 - Stitching Update

Finally, I have a finish to share. I finished the baby sampler I made for one of Katie's friends.

Happy Birth Day for Girls

Sue Hillis Designs

Now it's back to Christmas stockings fast and furious. I'm going to have a lot of stitching time (I hope) over the next 10 days so I'm hoping to get Katie and Gabe's stockings and finished.

I'm saying this now so that you can hold me accountable in January: I am ONLY choosing small projects for the 2013 Crazy January Challenge!

Craft Blog Directory

While I was visiting new (to me) blogs today, I ran across this Craft Blog Directory. There are too many craft blogs to count listed there. I foresee hours and hours of blog reading ahead of me.  Click here for link.

TUSAL Update

Is it just me, or are the updates coming faster and faster? Most of my ORTs this month are from Katie's Stocking and a baby sampler I'm making for one of her friends.

If you're like I was last year and you wonder what in the world TUSAL stands for, let me fill you in. Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long. It is hosted by Daffycat and you can join in at any time here. You will find an explanation of the rules as well as a list of the many bloggers participating.

Birthday Fun!

I had a great birthday party yesterday! Twelve of us gathered at The Spicery at 1895 House in historic downtown Glendale for lunch. We talked, laughed, ate, hugged, and reminisced. It was terrific. I had so much fun. Dan watched Sunny and Thunder. They showed up in their football jerseys in honor of football season starting. Sunny wore the Raiders and Thunder wore Chargers. I'll begin the photos with them...

Sunny helped me open some presents before we left. No, I was not brave enough to wear my hat to lunch!

Sunny loved my hat.

I think she enjoyed my gifts as much as I did.

Two Handsome Guys

Tia Jessica and Thunder

Marti - 15 years of friendship

Joanna - 11 years of friendship

Kelly - 34 years of friendship

Ashley - 3 years of friendship

Mom - 56 years of friendship

Francesca - 20 years of friendship

Jessica - 28 years of friendship

Leslie - 20+ years of friendship

Beth - 15 years of friendship

Katie - 26 years of friendship

My beautiful daughters

Followers

When I first started blogging in October 2009, I added the "Followers" gadget to my blog. But I'm going to be brutally honest here... only a few people followed me. I got discouraged and removed the gadget. The past few months I've had several people comment that they want to follow me. So, I put the "Followers" gadget back up today.

I follow many blogs. I don't always sign up as a follower, but once I put your blog on my blog roll, you can rest assured that I read it every time you post. I guess I need to get better about signing up as a follower... after all, I don't want to be part of discouraging a fellow blogger!

As always, the comments you leave are so appreciated. That's the thing about blogging that I just love... we may not meet face-to-face, but we get to know each other and can count each other as friends.

So... Please, if you enjoy reading this blog (or my holiday blog - Christmas 24/7/365 ) join in as a follower.

Thanks to all of you who have been kind enough to encourage me to add followers to my blogs!

Happy Birthday... to Me!

Today is my 56th birthday! I love birthdays. I enjoy celebrating the fact that I've made it through another year (relatively unscathed!). Usually my birthday celebrations consist of dinners out with the kids or my folks or Dan. But this year I wanted to celebrate in a different way. So I'm throwing myself a birthday party.

Tomorrow I will be joining 11 of my closest friends and family for a girls only birthday luncheon. We're going to The Spicery in downtown Glendale. It is located in an 1895 house, and is filled with lace, flowers, antiques, and vintage decor. I'm so excited! I will be sure to post photos tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to a birthday breakfast this morning. A birthday lunch with Jessica and Adam. A birthday dinner tonight. And a day filled with x-stitching! For me, it's the perfect way to ease into my 57th year...

The birthday girl with Duke

Week 32 - Stitching Update

It's been so long since I wrote a stitching update that I had to go back and count the weeks. In doing that I discovered that I had gotten off a week somewhere along the line. So I marked my calendar so that I know what week is what in case I don't update again for a long stretch!

I have been stitching every day. It's just that my progress seemed so slow it wasn't worth photographing. I have also made a few purchases, but they've been filed and it's not worth the effort to sort through my stash to pull them out for a photo. Plus I just have to stop buying patterns. I am swamped with patterns I want to make. Even if I live long enough to stitch them all, I'm not sure my eyesight will hold out!

With that in mind, I've already been thinking about the patterns I'm going to choose for the Crazy January Challenge for 2013. I'm picking out all small patterns. I already know I'm not going to finish the challenge pieces I chose for 2012. This will be the 2nd year in a row that I will not complete my challenges. It can be discouraging. So, I'm going with small stuff just to repair my self-esteem.

I had to take a break on Katie's stocking to work on a birth sampler for one of her friends. It is a quick stitch. I think putting the stocking aside will give me my second wind to finish it when I pick it up again.

Of course, let's not even talk about the fact that I have four stockings to go for this year. Yeah, I know. It's not going to happen. But I'm going to be in denial until at least November 1st...

Almost finished!

I'm Still Around...

Gee whiz. Just noticed I haven't posted for two weeks. I've been so busy with grandkids, appraisal work, cross-stitching, Pinterest crafts, and planning my birthday party that I just haven't taken the time to blog.

I created a new board on my Pinterest account. It's called "Look What I Did" and I'm going to post the projects that I try on there. I don't want to just pin things... I want to do things! This past weekend I worked on a Pinterest project and as soon as I can get a photo I'll share it.

On Saturday, Katie and I took Sunny to a dance studio for a trial session. Although she was too shy to participate much, she does want to dance. So this fall she'll be starting a weekly dance class. I can't wait for the recital in the spring!

Thunder chatters away in a language all his own. He has a great throwing arm and is even starting to catch the ball occasionally. He crawls in hyper-speed, but still won't let go and walk.

Rascal has had a "hot spot" on his front right leg for over three years. It used to come and go, only showing up every few months. I did take him to a vet to have it checked out a couple of years ago and they pretty much said they didn't know what it was (really?!). We took him to our family vet a year ago and he recommended a home remedy. It has steadily gotten worse so now we have to have surgery. He will be immobilized for over a month after the surgery. I'm apprehensive about him getting around. He's too heavy for me to lift and carry very much. I'm sure he'll figure out how to adjust. I sure hope so!

Here's a few random photos from the past two weeks.

Sunny and her best buddy Rascal

Thunder and his best buddy Gramps

Rascal after a day with the kids

Summer after a day with the kids

Duke after a day with the kids... do you see a pattern here?!