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!!!

What do you think?

First things first . . . I want to take a minute to thank each and everyone of you who visit my blog. I really appreciate those who always take the time to visit me and especially leave comments. Those comments are just wonderful to receive. It is like receiving a gift from a friend every time I get a comment!! I love it. I also love to see the number of followers growing. Not sure about you, but knowing that someone wants to visit my blog every time that I update makes me feel really good even those who don't leave comments!!! So anyway, thanks to everyone who reads this and reads my blog on a regular basis, you mean a lot to me!!

I got a great piece of mail this week. I received a package from Lisa, my model stitcher but most of all my very dear friend, but had no idea what it was. I was not expecting any model stitched pieces from her or anything and just could not figure out what it was. So, of course with anticipation I tore the package open like a little kid opening a surprise present. The excitedness that I felt was well deserved. She sent my the Christmas ornament issue of JCS!!! I do not subscribe due to financial reasons and have no where near me to purchase it. I have been drooling over everyones posts about receiving theirs though! Next year I hope to have one of my designs in that issue but just did not get anything done in time for this year to even try for it. Anyway, Lisa . . . You rock and I thank you so much for your friendship and all you do for me and of course my magazine!!!

In other stitchy news I have a progress pic to show. I usually do not show progress pics of my designs but I am this one. I love the colors but since I photoed it, I am not sure if it is going to take a good photo when finished for selling it. Don't really want to start over though, so I would like to know what you think. Do you think the colors are ok? Do you think that once it is finished it will look ok photographed? It will be framed once it is finished and I take a photo of it. I need some opinions here, so please let me know what you think. PLEASE be honest!!!I would like to invite you to join a new group!!! Deborah has created a group just for PIF's! You can go HERE to check it out and see if you would like to join! I think that it will be a lot of fun and of course it is always nice to send and receive gifts!!!

Oh and in sad news, the House Gecko that was found last week is no longer with us. I am not sure what happened but we don't think that he was very healthy to begin with. At least we did not have much time to get attached to him though! There were a couple people who mentioned my design "Welcome to our Zoo" being perfect for our home . . . Well why do you think I created it!?? LOL After Lisa stitched that set, she sent them to me and believe me, that one was the first of them to get hung on the wall!!

Well that is it for now and I am sure that was enough. So, if you are still reading this I hope that you have a wonderful and Blessed weekend!!!

I will leave you with a photo of 3 of our fur babies napping on the bed!!! They are so cute!!

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!!!

For The Pet Lovers!

Look at these . . . a New Release and Lisa done such an awesome job stitching and finishing these for me! I love the way they turned out! May I introduce the "Paw Prints Collection". Animal and Pet Lovers will love these cute little designs. They are all easy to stitch and look great. This set is available for sale right here or of course on at my Shop! You can purchase them to be emailed in PDF format or printed and mailed!

Paw Prints Collection

Sizes:
Prints in the Heart: 69 W x 92 H
Wipe Your Paws: 69 W x 68 H
Paw Prints Welcome: 122W x 54 H

Models stitched on 32 ct Linen by Lisa Durst

PDF Format $4.00
Printed and Mailed $7.00
Product #: CMD-12

Choose One

PDF Format $4.00 Printed and Mailed $7.00

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!!

Mothers Day and More!

First of all I want to wish all you moms out there a wonderful and Blessed Mother's day!! My son brought home the Mother's day gift that they made at school and just could not wait to give it to me! LOL The pic is below, too cute! The green with white and orange flower is actually a CD cover that they decorated. There is also a CD inside with about 4 songs on it. Two of the songs are by Alvin and the Chipmunks and the other two I am not sure about. Must be music his teacher likes! The other one you should be able to read if you click and make it bigger. You can see that it has a tea bag in it. Well . . . had a tea bag in it. John thought that he needed to drink that! LOL Kids are so cute!!
Stitching this week has been a little slow. I did complete the stitching for an ornament for "Stitching for a Cure". I have not finish finished it yet though. The pic is not that good and does not do the colors justice! I am also about half done with the next one. It is just like this one but a little different colors and I am stitching it on perforated paper. It is the first thing that I have ever stitching on the paper and am really liking it. I made to little progress on WW to show this week but maybe next week will hold an update with it.


I joined the new Lizzie Kate exchange and I am so excited about it! So I went through all my Lizzie patterns and decided that I did not have enough! LOL I went searching and have ended up adding to my wish list! I just love her designs!

I have received all but one ATC from the exchange that I joined on the WOCS message boards. Not sure I will be receiving that last one, but oh well. I love the ones that I did receive!! Anyway, I wanted to find a way to display them all and since I just loved the way The Collector piece came out in the front of my stitching notebook, I decided to do the same with these! I had a smaller notebook that has a ton of smalls and freebies in it so I thought the small ATC's would be a great way to decorate it. This is the front:
This is the back: Now this that is on the back is from one person, Paulie. She stitched the card and birthday ATC and her granddaughter stitched the fairy! Isn't that just the coolest!

And here is our newest mommy in the family. This is Jazmyn! This is my precious baby! Unfortunately that is just what she is. She is only about 8 months old and just had a litter. We did not even know that she was ever in heat! I was so worried about her during this pregnancy. She is so small and young and I was afraid she would have some issues. She only had 3 and one did not make it. The one that did not make it was very large compared to these two that did make it. She did not even know what to do at first, but with my guidance she has become an excellent mommy. The bad news is that it is going to be very hard to get rid of them. With only two and the way that she loves them . . . I donno, we will see what happens!

Lastly, I would like to ask you all to please keep my mom and dad in your thoughts and prayers. Mom and Dad are divorced and are both remarried but they are both having some health issues right now. Both of them are having issues that could end up being serious, so please pray for them.

Well that is about it for this time!!! As always, thank you so much for all the wonderful comments that you leave. I don't seem to have the time to respond to each one, but please know that I read each and every single one and I love getting them!!!

Happy stitching,
Cindy Mae