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!!!

Lots of Pics - Finally!!

I finally have some pics to share so that you can get a glimpse of what I have been stitching on. All of my stitching lately has been model stitching for my designs. Here is a sneak peak of several of them that I have finished. This first one is called Spooky Nights
This one will be one of the three patterns that will be in my first series which I still have not decided on a name for. The name of it is Friendship Tree.
This is a bit from one that is called Alphabet Tree!
And then this is one is Called Bless All Whom Enter.
I have a couple of exchange items that I need to get busy on but at this time I am working really hard on getting all my designs stitched up so that I can open shop soon.

I am praying that it will help our family out at least a little bit. As of last week, I am out of work. I am the main bread winner in our home as my husband has so many health issues. So this is going to hurt us a bit, but we know that God is in control and that we will be ok, one way or another.

I have added a widget to my side by or some of the E-How articles my husband has written, so please feel free to check them out!!!

The kittens are now about 8 weeks old. I can not find them a good home and that makes me really sad. We just do not need any more animals, we have plenty already, more than enough! LOL These little babies have stolen my heart though. Especially the little gray one. He loves to cuddle and loves to play. The both love to play. Anyway, the first one is a pic of the gray one napping in the recliner with out little dog Belle. Belle was very nervious at first and then she finally relaxed and zonkered out!
Here is the little gray one taking a nap on the sheets from the bed before they went into the washer.
And his brother enjoying a nap on the bed after the sheets are in the washer!
Well I hope that everyone has a wonderful and Blessed weekend!!

Happy Stitching,
Cindy Mae

Updates and a Winner!!!

We have a winner for the drawing on the pattern I just finished, The Cross Stitch Collector! Drum roll please . . . . . . . .

The Winner Is Chars!!!!!!! So Chars if you can email me (its in my profile) I will get it sent out to you this week!!!!!!!

I am absolutely blown away because I just won a giveaway from Sharon!!! I am so excited to see what I get!

I am also excited because I finally figured out how to finish my Collector girl. I went back and forth on how to finish finish her for a while. In the mean time of trying to figure out how to finish her I decided to start going through all of my magazines and organizing all of the patterns that I liked. I decided that I wanted to start tearing them out and putting them in a notebook in those clear sleeve things. So I got a three inch binder and got to work! It took me all weekend on and off to look through all of the magazines which are mostly those that I got such a great deal on recently from Maria. Well in the middle of going through them I started trying to figure out how to decorate the front on the notebook. I got to looking at the Collector and thought wow . . . I got it! The poem on it says "I Collect Floss and Fabric, Buttons and Ribbon - A Stitcher's Passion is her Pattern Collection". Well this is my pattern collection that I am categorizing and I do love my patterns so this is what I came up with and I just LOVE it!:Several weeks ago our dog had a litter of puppies. She is part Chihuahua, Corgi and Jack Russel and the daddy is something that does include Chihuahua. LOL Anyway, they have been staying in my sons room and they are now 5 weeks old and getting very playful. So the other night they were making just a bit to much noise and so I put them all in a laundry basket and carried them to my room. I snapped a couple pics of them, they are so cute!!!!
This little black and white one has really neat marking on her. It looks like lightening bolts! Not sure if you can see it in the pic.Well, thats about it for now! I do want to say thank you so much to everyone who visits my blog and especially to those who leave such great comments. I can not believe that I have only been back to blogging for a short time now ... and I feel that I have made some great friends! I have already been awarded two awards and everything. You are all so great! Thank you!

So until next time,
Happy Stitching,
Cindy Mae