What a Week!!!

Well this week has been . . . well Challenging!!! It is ending well though. I have not stitched since late Monday night, I have not been on the computer since early Tuesday, I have not watched TV since early Tuesday, I have not done lots of things since early Tuesday. Why you ask! Well, I am not going to get into a sappy story or anything like that but we did not have electricity. It was back on today at about 5:00 pm! Thankfully my daddy came to his 33 year old daughter and families rescue!! SAD, I know!!!

I could have stitched some but the wind was horrible out side and of course I just did not have good lighting inside, so stitching was out of the question!! The bad thing about being away from the computer for a couple days is that when I logged on today I found that there was over 400 blog posts to read!!!! Of course I was already a couple days behind before all this happened! LOL So, please do not be upset if you do not have comments from me on your recent posts!!!!

I did get one good thing accomplished though . . . we found a new home for all 7 puppies!!! That is just fantastic!! I was getting so sick of cleaning up tiny piles of doggy poop from every single corner (and in between) of this house!!! LOL I feel that they all got really good homes and will be very happy though and that makes us all happy!!!

Now, you are all going to think we are crazy but we do have a new member of the family. Yes, The ZOO pattern was created with my own family in mind!!!! LOL LOL LOL!! His name is Noah and he is 11 weeks old. He is a Border Collie / Heeler mix and is adorable!!! You might be wondering why we would get a different puppy when we had 7 to choose from. Well, Romo (our Chocolate Lab) needed a play mate. One that would be a large dog like him. Ever since we lost our dog Duke several months ago, he has been terribly lonely!! The puppies that our Belle had will not be very big dogs at all and so we have been looking for one that would fit well with Romo and Noah is what we found!! So here he is.So, now it is time to get off this computer for a while and let my fingers do some stitching!!! I am having severe with drawls from my stitching but I was having worse with drawls from all of you, my dear stitching blogging friends!!

I will be by all your blogs soon to get caught up, just remember that you might not get comments from me while I get caught up though!!!

Animals, Stitching and a Giveaway!!!

Just when you think things are getting to be NORMAL and you are getting into a routine, something has to get in the way. My son spent 3 days at home this week running fever. We were not even sure why he had a fever but he is all better now and was able to go back to school yesterday. I hate it when my kids are sick! My daughter went to the local fair last night and ended up riding to many rides and lost her pizza. LOL She was really embarrassed but I think by this morning she was over it! At least until she gets to school and her friends start telling everyone what happened! We will have a good time teasing her for the next couple days though!

I have started stitching the "Four Friends" but of course can not show you that since it is for a gift. I still have not decided how I am going to finish it though. I did get my Lizzie Kate exchange in the mail the other day. It has a ways to go but hopefully I will be able to post pics of it soon.

In other stitchy news I have created my first Quaker Sampler. I love it and hope that you all do too. I am going to start stitching it this evening. I have created "Stitchy Gifts - Series 2" and have one of them finished but have decided that I am going to wait a while to stitch more of them because I am really excited about the quaker design. It was going to be Christmasy but then I decided that I just wanted it to be an everyday sampler. I am going to try and wait to show it to you all though. I may give a sneak peek of my stitching progress next week though, we will see. I know there are a lot of quaker fans out there and the more that I get into the quaker style, the more I understand the addiction to it!! Anyway, I hope to have it finished and released by the end of this month!

A while back Sandy sent me some Linen's and I just love them all but have not had a chance to stitch on them and try them out. So, I am stitching the "Four Friends" on 32 count linen and now I also understand why everyone just loves linen. At first I started using 2 strands of floss though and it just looked like crap but then I went to 1 strand and I am just loving the way it is looking.

We have a new member of the family. Yep, another one! LOL My MIL come and got my husband and I this morning and told us there was something in her room she wanted us to see. So, we go in there and on the side of her bed is a little lizard. I picked it up and we immediately found something to put it in. We at least wanted to keep it and show the kids when they got home from school. Well after googling a bit, we figured out that he is a House Gecko and so we have decided that we will try to keep him and give him a good home. My husband has wanted a lizard type pet, even though he wants one of those big ones that you can walk on a leash, he will have to settle with this little dude!! He is really cool! Here is a pic of him.I also finally have pics of all the puppies and kittens to share. It amazes me how much alike all 5 kittens look!
Oh, before I forget . . . there is a great giveaway going on over at Dip Diddly Designs. Nicole will be having a weekly giveaway for the month of October, so make sure and stop by and check it out!!!

TUSAL and Lots of Pics to Share

This week has just been one of those weeks. Both of my kids missed two days of school due to being sick. They are back up and going now though. Since I am taking care of my great nephew now, it has made things seem even more crazy. Even though it has only been about 7 years, I forgot what work a little one is! With both of my kids home sick and a six month old hanging around . . . I am tired! LOL

I got permission to post some pics of Adam (my great nephew) on my blog, so here he is. He has stolen my heart! He is a really good baby and has such a cute smile.I have not had much stitching time at all this past week!! Since I don't have any stitching photos I will post some other photos. I don't share a lot about my family on here but I do SO LOVE to hear about everyone else's family. I love to hear about and see pics of all my stitching friends and their families and feel like I get to know them better, so I have decided that I am going to start sharing more with you. So, here is a couple pics of my kiddos! Now my daughter Candice don't like her picture taken much, at least not by me! LOL so, in this first pic, you can see she is getting a little frustrated with me trying to get a good pic! LOL Too funny! Caught her in a good laugh here!
My son John playing in the dirt!
and climbing trees, he loved to climb trees!!!
Another thing that had me a bit worried this past week is Romo (our Chocolate lab). One morning we woke to him looking like this: Now Romo does not normaly look like this, of course. He normally looks like this:We still have no idea what happened. At first we thought maybe a snake bite, but there is no signs of a bite of any kind. So we gave him Benadryl several times and it started going down. He is almost normal now. We still are not sure what happened to him, but just very happy he is doing well now!

Remeber several months ago my kitty Jazzy had 2 kittens and we kept them because we could not find them a new home and we just grew too attached to them. So we have Jazzy, Ratty, and Twister. Well before she was even done breast feeding them she went into heat and guess what. We have 5 more kittens living under our bed now as of the night before last! Grrrr!!! Thankfully, I think that I have already found them all five homes, finger's crossed!!! And remember Belle, our little dog . . . yep you guessed it . . . before we could afford to get her fixed she went off and got knocked up again. On 9/11 she delivered 7 puppies which are living in my sons closet! They are normally easy to find new homes for though, so hopefully they will all be gone with a day or two of being weened just as the kittens. I will try and post pics of them all this following week.

Oh my goodness, I almost forgot . . . it is TUSAL update time!! My vase that I was using got broke by Ratty! So, I found something else to put my strings in!Well that is about it for this time around. I am working on getting my blog roll list up to date! It is way out of date, so if you are not listed there . . . hopefully by the end of this week you will be!!! Hope everyone has a wonderful and Blessed weekend!!

I am so in Love!!!

First of all I have to explain the title of this post! It is true, I am in love and not with just my husband! I am also totally in love with evenweaves!! I have been forcing myself to stitch more on the evenweaves lately and just love them!!! The 28 count linen is great too. Not really comfortable with the higher count in the linen yet though. I don't have a lot of evenweave and lines though so I am still having to use some 18 count Aida for now. I still like the easiness to cutting and fraying the edges of the Aida so it is perfect for cards, ATC's and anything that I want frayed but even then it is getting so that it don't "feel" right to stitch on! LOL So, this means that when I ever have a chance to get out of town and actually have money to spend, I gotta start watching for those sales on evenweave!

I have gotten some stitching done lately even with all the hospital and medical stuff going on with hubby. Most of it has been model stitching though. I do have a teaser pic though.There will be three patterns in this set. I am not sure of a title yet, but it will probably be called the Shooting Star Collection or Wish upon a Shooting Star. And it may end up being something totally different by the time I make up my mind. LOL One of the patterns included is a sampler. This set will be released in September!

The others that I have been working on is for Ranae for winning the drawing that I held way back in May or June. I feel horrible that it has taken me so long to get this prize to her. She won a pattern that I designed for her. I actually ended up liking this so much that the set will be released for sale next month and the pattern will state that it was inspired by Ranae. She will receive the pattern in print as well as stitched and finished by me with who knows what else! Anyway, Ranae, if you are reading this, I am so sorry that it is taking so long!! I promise that I am almost done and will get this in the mail to you soon!!!!

I have also made some progress on this months freebie from The Holy Needle.It is TUSAL update time! It does not look like a lot from last time but that is because I had to squash it down some! LOLI have to tell Donna that I am really sorry that I have not gotten my ornaments in the mail for Stitching for a Cure! I did find the ornament that I had started on the perforated paper though. So I am going to finish it up so that I can mail both at one time. Now I have to say that I was not happy with the way that I finished the first one up. I thought it look really bad. So, after my mom gave me my sewing machine, I decided to change it up a bit and I am happier with it now!
I want to mention a couple of awesome giveaways! There is a great giveaway over at Vonna's!!! She is holding a drawing to win a couple items that she has stitched and finished. They are wonderful and even though I don't want anymore competition at winning them because I would love to have them, I thought that I better pass it on anyway! LOL!!! There is also a awesome giveaway going on over at The Daily Me. Now this is another fantastic giveaway with a ton of great stitching goodies up for grabs!!! Check them out!

Now, I will leave you with a couple photos of our fur babies! Romo has such a huge smile on his face. I think he has really gotten to were he likes his picture taken! LOLRemember the kittens that my baby Jazmyn had a while back. I tried for weeks to find them a new home and it was impossible. I tried everything, including going and sitting with them in front of Wal-Mart. Nothing worked so we decided that they were just destine to be our cats. So, this is Twister and Ratatouille (Ratty). Twister is the black and white one and he is really laid back and calm. Ratty on the other hand is a mess! He LOVES food and loves to eat, thus his name! LOL We love that movie!Sorry for such a long post! Once again, thank you all so much for the wonderful comments and the support for my husband. It truly means a lot to me. You are all such wonderful friends, true blessings from God!!!