A Night Out

Last night I got a few and far between night out with Eleni to stitch. Gas went up to 119.9 a litre and supposed to go up to 1.30 overnight tonight so trips for 'me' will be fairly limited in the next little while. It was fun seeing what a household is like with two small kids. Callie's vocabulary amazes me (I know Alex was talking at two but I can't remember if it was as structured as hers, and only after 3 years) and Jackson is just too cute, I miss baby coos around the house. Although as a trade off I do enjoy the sleeping in that a much more independent Alex lets us do. I stitched on the Dragon Dreams Morning Fairy from Nashville '05, I'll be wrapping that up tonight watching Battlestar Gallactica. I just have the hair and wings to back stitch!!

I made an executive decision today not to enter the baking categories I'd planned on in the FREX, I'm tired and don't feel like picking up the supplies and would rather touch up my other entries before heading over there tomorrow to drop them off. My heart just isn't in it this year (probably still suffering from the pre Alex is starting school jitters, 5 just seems to young to enter the school system). There's always next year :)

Matt and I headed up to the mall at lunch. I needed to pick up a present for a party Alex was invited to AND we needed to pick up another copy of World of Warcraft, Matt was heading there from downtown so he picked me up, saved driving the V6 up the hill an instead took the much more fuel efficient Corolla. I'm really hoping that the party's location moves to this side of the river, I'm not looking forward to driving across on Saturday especially where I don' t have any errands to run. It was nice to have some adult time with Matt even if it was in a mall (which I generally avoid).

Friends That Count

I am truly blessed by Friends That Count. First Angela helped me avoid an invitation for disaster and now Lucy's lent me the itty bit of Kreinik I need to finish my stiched /unframed entry for the FREX that's due in Wednesday or Thursday. Thankfully I'm heading over to the Ryan's to stitch tonight so it probably will get done ;)

Last night was a stitchy night after I leveled Katiebelle (my world of warcraft, don't even ask..., human warlock) up to level nine. I have another warlock character called Mirabilia, I was hoping to have Matt run around this little make believe world professing his love for Mirabilia but he caught on that it was a cross stitch designer, d'oh....back to stitching...At 9:00 I resumed my stitching spot in front of the television and got quite a bit of stitching in on The Wedding while watching Prison Break (imo a VERY promising show, I adore the actor that used to be in John Doe). All of the white isn't as tedious as it may look...yet! I really need to get around to scanning a picture of my progress.

On the book front Chapters FINALLY got a copy of Roald Dahl's The Witches in on Sunday and Alex and I picked it up, as much as we liked the first Lemony Snicket book it's nice to take a brief break from that bleak world. After two chapters down Alex is absolutely enthralled with the book and the subject of witches :) I think he'll be getting The Fantastic Mr Fox for Christmas.

10 pounds down

Yippee! The official count is 10lbs for the month, now if only it would stay at that pace...

Invitation To Disaster Averted!

Well thanks to Angela my potential invitation disaster was averted!! We went to walmart this week to pick up the invitations (prices MUCH better than anything else we'd seen and us two tech geeks could print them ourselves) and there was only one box. I picked it up and kept the receipt should I not find another. Knowing they'd ask if we found everything we were looking for I replied no and they checked for me if there were any more boxes showing up on inventory...nope... They referred me to customer service as it was a non replenishable item to see if any other walmarts carried it, the only one in NB that had them was the only city in Fredericton where we have NO family (or no family that frequently shops in the city). I thought one of the local shops might have them as they carry wilton products but when it comes to invitations they do printshop referals. sigh...so no luck. It just so happens I was talking about this later in the day and offered to make arrangements, what a godsend...thanks again!! One of my bridesmaids and I had found alternate invitations at Staples with a double border being the only difference...oh and the price was doubled if worse came to worse. However in this whole drawn out process I did find out that Staples carries matching program paper, yippee!

In other news Alex was accepted into our school of choice via alternate placement today. YIPPEE!! We are one street over from the zoning cut off and were pretty concerned about the zoned school, it's right across from the high school and I used to walk through that area to get from my apartment to UNB once upon a time and I definitely wouldn't want my son in that vacinity. His new school will also avoid me having to provide transporation to his afterschool care and it's not on a congested traffic route which means I'll be able to volunteer there at lunch once in a while!

The weekend was pretty low key, Alex had a birthday party on the northside of the river which meant I killed 3 hours stitching at my grandmothers house which is only a km or two away from where he was, at 111.9 cents a litre I wasn't driving back home! I did get the bottles taken in to a much more efficient depot on that side of the river during my 3 hours. Saturday night mom, dad and my brother Steven were over for a visit. As usual Alex was up to his gracious host antics ;)

Sunday was also quiet, we slept in until 10 and then I got up, stitched a little (frogged some more) and went to the mall at 1. We had a delicious low cal/low fat crab quiche for supper and I'm getting the hang of this better eating thing!! Tonight it looks like Matt's ball game will be rained out, and deck scraping will have to wait...and hopefully there will be lots of stitching progress to report tomorrow!!

Finally, A Stitching Night!!

Hanwell's 5 and Under Soccer Stars!!!

It seemed like forever and a day but I finally got a stitching night in last night. Alex recieved a birthday invitation for his friend's party Saturday and was driving me batty about details from 5 until 7:30 (when we decided to accelerate bedtime). "Hurry up we're going to miss the party" "Is Saturday after Tuesday" "Mom we need to pick up a present" "I like Star Wars can we get Tim General Grievous" and on and on and on....... So after he had a bath we finished of The Bad Beginning and sent him to bed. Matt and I worked on the deck for about 40 minutes taking even more paint off of it and after making the beds up in the guest rooms I sat down for some well deserved stitching time. Although my frustrations were showing a bit and I have to frog the little section I did on the flower girl as she's two columns off. I should be able to finish off the 'train section' tonight. All of the white really isn't that bad to work with, I can trade off the boring aspect of it with the lightening fast results, especially if you're filling in like I've been. I've been seriously debating purchasing Lori Birmingham's Wedding Pillow as I just love doing hardanger, I did already order the unity candle wrap from BYC in Moncton. Thankfully the candle wrap should work up fairly quickly.

I missed Giggles a bit last night but knew I should probably get my butt in gear and do a bit more on the wedding where I wasn't sick to death of it yet. Why can't I get paid what I do now to sit home and stitch ?? ;)

You Know Your Head Isn't In The Game When...

You look at your e-mail in the morning and there's an e-mail from 'reception' and you think "I haven't booked a site yet". Wedding plans are beginning to move along, now to go scout out reception sites.

Last night was another stitchless night. I rushed home to bbq some chicken kabobs last night as Matt had softball but then it started pouring. I also ended up not mowing the front lawn which I had hoped. After supper I had some computer work to do and was flipping through my 'How to Plan a Wedding in No Time' and somewhere between that and loading the dish and clothes washers 10 pm snuck right up on me, sigh... I'm definitely setting aside some stitchy time tonight though :)

Eight Down!

Well after today's weigh in I'm officially a total of 8 lbs lighter since the engagement, it's really nice moving the scale to what it was the week before and have it thump being too heavy and all. Yippee!!

Last night was Alex's last soccer practice of the year. It was neat to see the progress they'd made on the second lot with some playground equipment installed and Alex was very pleased with his participation medal that he's still proudly wearing today. They even had cake for them! I was so impressed. Especially considering that the league he's in was more of a grassroots league started to lessen drives into the city and giving us parents a chance to meet neighbors, it's really hard to get a grasp at just how many people live in the area when all of the houses are on a minimum 1 acre lot. I'm really glad we moved to our (not so) little community just 7 minutes to the mall inside city limits.

After soccer we rushed over across the river to watch the local ball team play in the play offs. It was really fun although I don't think I'll sit my son that close to the bullpen again ;) It was really odd being in the stands as our team was playing my 'home' team, anytime a disgruntled fan would yell something at the visiting team I'd be sitting there 'well actually he is a really nice person'. I kind of felt like a traitor sitting on our adopted 'hometown's' bleachers. Matt and I have been following a reality contest, part of the reason we ended up at the ball field and when I was scoping out clues I couldn't get a good look from our seats so I decided to take a walk. When I came back my son asked me very loud if I'd #1 or #2 (a wee bit more graphic than that) while I was gone, assuming I'd been in the lou. I wanted to die. Where we'd had such a busy night we headed home after the 6th and ALL went to bed.

This weekend looks pretty quiet, just a baby shower to go to and hopefully stripping the deck. I'm really hoping to get some stitching in on Giggles and work on the Nashville Fairy on Dragon Dreams Stitch Along Sunday. Here's hoping!

A Little Happy Dance

I finally finished the afghan last night at our local stitching stitching night...I'm sooo glad it's done, although I could only fit this part on the scanner, so you can't see the ladder laced border that's all around the afghan

Last night was like a mini exhibition, I'd brought in my Secret Santa, Cathey brought in her Quiltmaker (I envy her frame) and Angela brought in her Angel Proclamation all framed by Elite in Moncton. There's going to be some really stiff competition in the cross stitch category at this years FREX!! Then Kathy had her Marjolin Bastin four seasons sampler in, simply amazing and Faith Ann had her Celtic Christmas and Potting Shed, I swear I could have spent all evening looking at the projects and trying to decide which one would be next after The Wedding!!! I brought in my Imagination Creation but completely forgot about it when I saw all of the others (and I'm a major sucker for bead work).

On the wedding front it looks like we might be getting closer to a compromise, we'll have to see ;) I'd really like to be able to set some dates (I'm a big party planning kind of person).

Impass

Well, we're at an impass.  I really want a church wedding and I'm getting no where with trying to compromise guest size etc to get that.  I was so frustrated last night I went to bed early and have been fighting through a killer headache today, drugs finally kicking in!  I'm sooo looking forward to getting out to our monthly stitching night and away from un pre-marital bliss.

I'm really hoping to finish up that silly afghan and get back to stuff for me, especially where I'm not in a stitch for others mood at the moment.  I definitely need some girl time to chill out.  Darn this weight watchers making sense, I've lost my frustration outlet of indulging in a max 5 bar!!!  Although at the rate this keeps up I might be able to move back to my frustration outlet of clothing shopping ;)  If only there were an LNS here today, they might just be taking advantage of my bad evening last night ;)

T minus 2 hours until we head out, I can't wait!!!

 

A Frog In The Jungle

There is one thing about having a healthy and gorgeous lawn that truly sucks, the amount you have to mow it!!! While most people on the block have theirs in the usual August slow down, maybe needing to mow every other week, ours was well up over my platform heels after only a week. So I spent most of last night mowing, and mowing, and mowing the jungle. I mowed pretty close to a garden at the side of the house and on my next pass I saw something jump (which almost made me jump, I fear wildlife). I stopped the mower as I thought Alex would like to see the frog. It's a good thing it was behind some of our ever greens because here's me inching forward REALLY slow to show Alex a frog the size of a loonie without it jumping on me. The frog would occasionally get lost in the grass I had yet to mow but when he'd hop on a mowed section he was pretty easy to find.

After a weight watchers friendly supper (who would have thought you could cook with diet coke) and bathing Alex, Matt and I watched the latest Battlestar Gallactica on tape and I worked on the afghan. I probably would have finished it had I not had the urge to run into the living room and do a quick dance workout :) I headed to bed at 10 (not accomplishing the wedding plan sit down I'd hoped to have) and flipped through some of my healthy cookbooks to try to plan next weeks menu. tonight hopefully I'll get a little bit more sleep & stitching :)

Weekend Report

Well we travelled up to Grand Falls this weekends. I spend the trip down fraying the baby afghan. We arrived in Grand Falls and went to see Matt's mother at the Museum and Farmer's market. Some moronic group was having a voluntary toll on the broadway (which isn't too voluntary when they're walking right up to your car) backing traffic up. Normally I don't mind fundraising activities, however being slightly environmentally aware and having gas in that area at 1.049$ a litre I didn't appreciate being forced to idle the car. I think they might have even been some sort of wildlife/wilderness group too...

Anyway, we got to market and thankfully I'd had enough points saved up through the week to get a sausage. Although Matt's mom loaded up on food for the weekend eventhough I kept trying to explain that I was watching what I eat, I have no willpower when it comes to sticky buns!

In the afternoon I went to Matt's aunt's bridal shop and found THE Dress (mind you the the picture and the pose are worse than the pictures put on the Mirabilia models, it just doesn't show how pretty it is and that the straps are actually double straps), Matt dropped me off there alone (yay, as no one warned me that they'd be helping me get dressed) and I walked back to the house to make a dent in that sausage from earlier.

It was really muggy Saturday night and I had to keep putting the afghan down that I'd been working on, although I did finish the regular stitching Sunday (and realized I forgot to pack the backstitching colours). Sunday we 'broke into' the garage as Matt's dad had the keys with him in the States, we desperately needed his pressure washer!! Matt and I figured out how to disable the latch on the screen in about 10 minutes and we dropped Alex in to unlock the door for us. I think I scared Matt when I pointed out it would only take about 5 minutes to unscrew the door to break in, I'll never understand why shed doors have hinges with accessible screws on the outside. I know if we ever bought a 4 wheeler or a new snowblower we'd be redoing the door hinges really quick!! We headed back home after supper and I managed to unpack and get a load of laundry in and the dishwasher unloaded before mom arrived with the ladder so we can fix a couple of shingles and some stuff for freecycling :) It was so nice to have her over for a visit :)

Five Pounds Down

Omigosh, I need to go on vacation more often!! I decided to suck it up and hop on the scales yesterday, I started at 10 pounds over what I weighed before I went on vacation (was to Estey's fish and chips twice so I was worried), the scales made a definite thump...then tried 5 lbs over my pre-vacation weight, more thumping, same with the prevacation weight....and stopped when I was 5 lbs under!! This week I've been making an effort to follow the weight watchers guidelines so maybe that's helping too. Nothing is more motivating than the thought of 120 people seeing you in the world's most unflattering colour!!!

On Thursday my Dragon of The Deeps arrived, I was sooo excited. I'm hoping to put that in the 'taking a break from the Wedding' rotation as soon as Giggles is done. This week I've been working on my cousin's afghan and can't wait until that's out the door as I need to hole myself up downstairs as it's just too hot to work on upstairs :)

Today we're making a quick trip up to Grand Falls to see DFH's family. Hopefully I can fringe the rest of the aghan in the car ;)

Tropical vs Traditional

Well that seems to be the decision of the week. I'd mentioned the possibility of a tropical wedding to DFH awhile back (before I remembered how much I hated the heat) and I think he's secretly pining for one. I'm not nearly as sold after considering the chance my wedding dress could get lost...the long wait for marriage licenses to be sent and translated...having inlaws along on the honeymoon (eww, talk about killing spontanaity)...traditional is looking REALLY good right now. Besides what better dieting motivation than the event of over 100 people seeing you dressed all in white, the least flattering colour of all?? Now to try to sell this to DFH so I can call reception sites.

Golfing was actually fun last night, although next time I won't kill myself at the gym before going. It looks like such a laid back sport on tv, hah! I didn't get in until 9:30 after awards so I didn't do too much stitching, just hopped in the shower and went to bed. I think I'll be doing groceries at lunch so I can get some rest tonight and veg infront of a tv with the afghan and watch some Veronica Mars.

Golf vs. Stitching??

Well here's one thing I never thought I'd be doing over stitching GOLFING! Especially where my son routinely beat me at mini golf at age 4! Matt hasn't had as much luck finding people to golf with this summer and my company was having a tournament. He didn't want to go where he didn't know anyone, so I offered to go to (secretly hoping if I tried golf then he'd try stitching ;)) So believe it or not, I'll be golfing tonight!

Yesterday's 'meeting' was a learning experience, it's hard to know what you little trivial information is just not coming back to you as quickly as you thought until you sit down and write a test, or how frustrating it can be to have someone asking you questions in your second language which you COMPLETELY understand however your tongue isn't cooperating in getting the answers out. Now I'll feel better prepped for any future 'meetings', the more I think about it the position wasn't really what I was looking for.

When I got home last night I baked some cabbage rolls and then headed downstairs after DS went to bed and stitched on an afghan for my cousin's babyshower in two weeks, it was just too hot upstairs to stitch on an afghan. Last night I finished the lettering "Bless this baby with love and laughter" and now it's ready for the bears and lambs to be stitched. After I finished the lettering I read over the weight watchers literature that I have and have been trying to figure out some smarter menu plans to slim down :)

Nerves

Darn this ring, I think it's made me emotionally vulnerable. I don't remember being this nervous for a 'meeting' before ;) Last night was a stitchless night although Giggles is begging me to take a wedding/baby afghan break and stitch him tonight.

I rushed home as Matt had softball and wanted some food warmed up for pick up on his way past the house, being used to relaxed supper times from vacation I went out and finished mowing the back lawn. The one disadvantage of living with someone from the landscaping world is that they take pride in how thick and long they can grow their grass, so it hadn't been mowed since a week before I went on vacation. The two lawns usually take about 2.5 hours to do, this week they took at least 5 they were so thick!! (boring stuff huh??) When I came into the house to make some zoodles for Alex as our grocery trip was disrupted by the need to get Matt's supper ready I could not find my small sauce pan. I looked all over and couldn't find it. After softball I found out Matt had managed to burn one my super duper matching tfal set small pot, by forgetting it on the stove, even managing to burn the handle! I needed to go for a drive as I was bound with my nerves for this mornings meeting to blow things WAY out of proportion. First leaving my good cutlery at work (when there is a specific for work set), leaving numerous containers at work, including my good Tupperware brand divided dish now my good pot set (I'm a kitchenaid kind of girl, and take great pride in quality kitchen tools and matching too boot). The stove incident was just unsafe and he knew that so me going off on a tear wasn't going to help, although I did slip in a suggestion that he stick to microwave cooking ;)

D'oh I was hoping my blogging would get rid of my 'meeting' nerves. The meeting is concerning a bilingual openning, which shouldn't be a problem but my french is rusty, although we've gone into boot camp mode at home trying to bring my confidence in using it up to par. I can sit through someone speaking to me or reading literature no problem ;)

Well...here goes nothing...

Presenting Secret Santa

Here he is, a little crooked picture wise but to avoid glare it's the best we could do ;)  Framing compliments of Elite Framing Moncton (now on the HIGHLY recommend list)

All Good Things Must End

Well today is my last official full day on the Miramichi...sigh! Relaxing is so nice! Yesterday I got a couples stitches into The Wedding but we did do some running around town quite a bit so there wasn't too much of that. We took Alex to market for lunch, I had the yummy seafood casserole from one vendor (I look forward to it every time I'm down on a Friday, skipping my traditional Kurt's sausage that I'd have at the Fredericton market) and Alex had some honey garlic meatballs, ever since we bought him Sesame Street's Kids Favorite Songs Two with a rendition of "On top of spaghetti" he's been obsessed with meatballs. We'll also be wrapping up reading The Bad Beginning tonight, I tried finding Matilda in the basement, came up empty but did find Judy Blume's Freckle Juice and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing...potentials for tomorrow night (my search for The Witches at the local book shop was fruitless). In other news Matt called last night to let me know that I'd received some feedback from some of the competitions I sent in forms for...now to prepare myself for the big 'meeting' ;) Last night mom and I also sat down and scrapbooked before watching Finding Neverland.

On Thursday we headed to Escuminac, New Brunswick's best kept secret for beach bums!! What an improvement since it went private, espececially the board walk, no more treking through the sand dunes. The coast line and tides have changed a bit since I was there last 3 years ago, now there are really cool waves! Alex LOVED playing in them. I spent a third of the time in the water, another third sleeping on the soft sand and the last burying both Alex and Pappy in the sand. Thankfully the digital camera was on the wrong setting so the pictures of me in a bathing suit did not turn out ;) Although here's the boys in action...

The Ring's The Thing

For those wondering about the ring here it is, keep in mind I'm trying to juggle a big camera which didn't want to focus so really, my hand doesn't look this bad!!! ;)

Maxing and Relaxing

Well this week has been pretty restful :) The shopping trip to Moncton was the most jam packed ever. I'm soo happy with my Secret Santa, Elite framing truly went above and beyond my expectations (so much that I'm actually going to enter him in the FREX this year). I did most of Alex's back to school shopping while I was there, finding him an Incredibles lunch bag and a Roots back pack at the Costco. I don't believe in spending money on junky character book bags so I thought the Incredibles lunch bag from the Disney store was a compromise. We headed over to Betty Rubin's which was a huge disappointment, half the dresses were dirty!! I remember once upon a time that was THE store to go to. I did some dress searching on line and will be getting some quotes from Matt's aunt as I see she carries them in her bridal boutique.

We then headed for a quick trip to BYC and I picked up the fabric for Fiddlestitch Cottage's up coming Autumn Teapot and the Fabric for Heart In Hand's Christmas Medley. I also showed off Secret Santa and everyone agreed it's much better than the picture on the pattern. Then it was off to Carsand Moesher to check out stamps and scrapbooking supplies for invitations, as well as Atlantic Fabrics and Michaels. Unfortunately none of them had the Sizzix dies I was looking for and Michael's dies are ungodly priced, the only good Sizzix prices are on their Sizzlits letter sets when they're on sale. We also headed to Old Navy and I actually bought clothing for me, did our trip to Costco and I got my Kelly Clarkson CD which now has my three song limit and was disappointed when we went to HomeDepot and they didn't have the bathroom light fixture I was hoping to pick up. We wrapped up the evening at the Lonestar where I had some yummy fajitas and the best strawberry marg in the world ;)

I came home and stitched for a bit, the train is really staring to come along on the wedding, I hope to have that done tomorrow and take a break from the white and plug away abit at the flower girl. Today was pretty relaxed...made a quick trip to Walmart to pick up some necessities for Alex for the school year, I've never seen someone so excited in the underwear aisle as he was when he discovered they made Star Wars boxer briefs ;). After the rain let up we took Alex to the outdoor pool and swam for over an hour and then after getting him in bed we headed up for an hour and a half pre wedding work out. I have Matt checking into his works Weight Watchers plan to see if I can get some of that subsidized as so many people I know have had such good luck on it. I wish we could get out for longer walks in the evening or if there was a walking group in my area, I'd really like doing that at night (I was so tiny from all the times I had to walk up and down the hill in university not so long ago). Well, should go get settled in with The Wedding and watch Meet the Fockers :)

Happy New Brunswick Day

Having a long weekend is sooo nice, it definitely let me recouperate from our reunion evening Saturday. I plugged away Saturday at The Wedding and was just about to start working on it again Sunday when the phone rang. Apparently I have a baby shower to go to in 3 weeks so I needed to at least get the ladder lacing done on the afghan I had hoped to have until October to complete. Baby showers aren't as much fun without a big belly to show off. So I spend sunday prepping the afghan (I don't have the pattern I want to do home and did all of the ladder lacing I wanted to do as a border.

Tomorrow we're heading for our annual mother-daughter shopping trip to Moncton. I thought we had enough stops already with the craft shops (and I need to pick up my framed Secret Santa) but now we've got wedding shopping to do ;) Mom is already surfing the net on Mother of the Bride duties, she secretly likes the acronym M.O.B. I'd also like to put my scrapbooking talents to work and make my own invitations. I thought after 6 and a half years the news of an engagement might not be as exciting, I'm pleased to report that was way wrong ;) Now to get back to stitching all the white on The Wedding...