Monday Madness

Did you ever have one of those Monday's that just makes you want to crawl in bed and wish it was the weekend again? Well I did, thankfully I had some stitching along to keep my hands busy and amp me down a bit. ;) As previously mentioned, the cost of the church for the wedding is a HUGE issue and after talking to numerous friends a 4 times more expensive than every other church in possibly the province so on goes the hunt for a new location and new church home for our family. This upset me a great deal, and really feeling trapped with so little time before the wedding. That was before I got home and found the pamplet for the 'marriage course' in the mail, I could deal with the 80$, but the hours definitely weren't what we were told making them very difficult to arrange for childcare (and the fact Matt doesn't even get home, let alone eat until a half hour after it starts). So this led to LOTS of stitching last night ;) I plugged away at Summer's Magic, watching a little Battlestar Gallactica and passing out at 9:20 from exhaustion.

This morning I was up early as Matt left the door open meaning the second he turned on the hall light my face was blasted with light, grrr...so I got up and ready and arrived at work nice and early to get some more stitching in. Very therapeutic. At lunch I need to run over to singer and pick up a colour that's missing but that's absolutely it for my plans today. Yay!!

Progress Pic

Dragon Dreams Summer's Magic

Posting BP would have been bit frustrating considering how much I have to frog....sigh....  However, switching projects and temporarily distancing myself from my stitching for a couple hours meant I finally started the baby rag quilt who's materials have been sitting in my craft room for the last year, until I ran out of thread on the bobbin and had I replenished it would have had no thread left on the spool ;)

Another Weekend Bites The Dust

Wow, weekends have really been flying by. This weekend was the Dragon Dreams stitch along over on the Needle and Thread board. I diligently pulled out my Blackwork Princess at 9 am, stitched some, then played with DS. I snuck in a little more stitching in the afternoon before we went for a nice walk around the subdivision then headed to Hoodwinked, that movie cracked me up++. After a little sub from subway for supper and playing Ninja Turtles with DS until bedtime I got out BP only to discover an error in my stitching. I was so ticked off at myself I put her in a pouch and got out Summer's Magic. I was between that and There's Magic In My Needle but my fabric at the remainder of my Because You Count order is at Cathey's so Summer's Magic it was. I did take a little stitching break and logged into WoW, with DH and one of his friends from work. We had an Ogre ask to join our little group and couldn't believe there was an online couple (Bettycrocker and DuncanHines ;))...now if only DH would take an interest in stitching like I have his golfing and online gaming ;) It would only be fair right???

Today I got up and DS and I spent some more time playing Ninja Turtles. After making the Cheesy mushroom soup from Life's On Fire and griping to mom about my parish I headed to Body Pump and on my travel's passes Faith Ann from what must have been the photo session ;) I picked the wrong day to up my weights...a new release. My legs were aching but Bad Boys was on tv and they were just about to the scene with Will Smith running around town with his shirt all open so I hopped on the treadmill and ran for a good 15 minutes...until he put on the bulletproof vest. When I got home I worked on Summer's Magic while DS and I watched Toy Story 2. Santa brought him Toy Story on DVD and he loved it and the VHS version of no. 2 will have to do until the easter bunny comes around. He laughed so hard, especially at the Star Wars references.

For supper we tried out the cheesy asparagus lasagna from Life's On Fire, very good, although mine didn't look as good as the picture. Tonight should be relatively low key, some stitching and hopefully a new Cold Case as Desperate Housewives isn't new :( Hope everyone had a great weekend and thanks for all the support on this crazy stitching and weight loss adventure :)

Weigh In Happy Dance

Yay, the official count is now up to 22.5 lbs down since the engagement ;) I had newbody on Wednesday nights which really worked up a sweat. I had one of the not so fit women ask me how come I was sweating so much where I was relatively more fit but I also watched couldn't help but see her form through out the session and knew why her workout hadn't been as effective. Newbody was designed by a physiotherapist and relies alot on the Pilates priciples, control in all movement, not flinging weights around with momentum.

Yesterday was interesting to say the least. I was coming out of the government parking lot on my way to work and noticed it was really quiet in front of the jr high, until I saw the pile of kids out back. I got a glimpse of three bigger boys beating up a little fellow, I promptly crossed in hopes of finding a teacher as goodness only knows what else you can do anymore with all the silly lawsuits. But being a mom I couldn't stand back and watch or walk away from someone else's little boy be beat up either... Some of the kids saw me crossing (the only time in about a year that I've J-walked) and warned the 'bullies' and they dispersed. Not before I took down a description of what they were wearing, heights, etc and called the office the second I got to my desk. Groceries last night was also INSANE, it was one of the big sales at the coop and getting stuck behind one of those 'I'm paying by Visa but have to have a perfect pump' people I was already behind. Inside was crazy and I ended up getting in line when I'm usually leaving and the line up was back to electronics...thankfully 75% of everything I bought was on some sort of sale ;)

I was so zonked after supper (thankfully the boys didn't complain too much when I served left overs) that I logged into WoW for a bit and headed to bed, no stitching for me. DS was up at 4 with an accident, which seems to be more prevalent since the incident at school last week and DH turned off the alarms thinking it was Saturday. Thankfully DS's alarm is set 15 minutes after mine so it woke me up. I've never seen DH get ready so fast in all my life, although I think he might have been running for his life as he has been told on numerous occasions NEVER to touch my alarm (I don't know how many times he's turned off my alarm on work at home days).

This morning I did get to work 15 minutes early and worked on BP, I'm hoping to finish her this weekend, if not by next Wednesday ;)

Today there's nothing on the roster except BodyPump, yay!

Rule of Four

Rule of Four
There, Faith Ann had an 'open' tag so I'll consider myself tagged

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Playground Leader (summer program for kids)
2. Tim Horton's coffee chick
3. DFO secretary/self appointed computer specialist
4. Programmer Anaylyst

Four movies I would/do watch over and over again:
1. Star Wars
2. Ever After
3. Mr and Mrs Smith
4. The Notebook

Four places I have lived:
1. Miramichi, New Brunswick
2. Wolfville, Nova Scotia
3. Moncton, New Brunswick
4. Fredericton, New Brunswick
5. where I currently live :)

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. Lost
2. Smallville
3. Desperate Housewives
4. toss up between Bones and House (they're paired so well together)

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Kingston Ontario
2. Charlottetown PEI
3. Halifax, Nova Scotia
4. Manchester, New Hampshire (I don't travel very well)

Four websites I visit daily:
1. TVGuide
2. MSNBC
3. Needle And Thread Bulletin Board
4. Stitch and Stuff

Four of my favourite foods:
1. Estey's Fish and Chips (Miramichi)
2. Lonestar Fajitas
3. Lobster, cooked by people that actually fish them and use enough salt!
4. Mom's Strawberry Squares

Four places I'd rather be right now:
1. At the Nashville Market...one can dream
2. Disney
3. Yankee Cross Stitch New Hampshire
4. In bed stitching

Four people I am tagging:Anyone who wants to answer!!

Beat The Plateau

Yay, broke through any of my previous post preggie weight loss lows (and in probably the best shape of anytime I've attempted to slim down thanks to the mix of classes offered at the gym) Yay, now just 14 lbs to go before Matt owes me 350$ towards a new wardrobe, which in my head I have everything picked out now that I'm downtown where the nice stores are ;)

I worked on BP over the lunch hour, blackwork can be fun although next time I'll definitely do it on evenweave. She now has an empty lower part of the sleeve, her left hip and some chest ;)

In cooking we tried the sample curried chicken recipe from www.cookingfortherushed.com and it was amazing. I'm fussy on my curry and this hit the spot :) My two cookbooks also came in today, yay! Tonight I put Marla's Maple Pork from Crazy Plates into marinate, I can't wait to have it tomorrow, it's a personal favorite :)

Two Finishes

Well, there were two finishes this week on the stitching front, Snowman and Joyful Santa, both by Mill Hill. I can't wait to get the Christmas tree out again...

No progress as of yet on my Blackwork Princess though :(

I went to a kick butt Body Pump class on Friday, skipped the Sunday one though for Eleni's Mary Kay get together which was fun. I really needed a pampering session after this week. DS got in trouble at school on Thursday, swinging around and coming into contact with a grade 2 girl. I checked my phone messages (he's good about telling me when he's been punished for something) and the teacher left one at work (I was in training) and it was more of a "well they said", so we laid out a big restrictive punishment. Friday however I was talking to my friend Tracy (and coincidentally DS's after school care provider) about what had happened while he was outside and her ten year old piped up that these two grade two girls had been tormenting him all lunch hour and knocking off his hat. Don't get me wrong, he shouldn't have done what he did but I'm quite frankly disgusted at how, I dare say, gender biased the discipline has been in just his first year of school. So much for the anti-bullying initiative !!>:(

This week we also had a visitor to our lot, a nice big fox went flying through the back yard. Not what I was expecting to see stepping out of the shower! It was so nice Saturday we went for a walk through part of the subdivision and I'm now thankful we're on high ground. The street behind us is much lower (we have a sliding hill at the back of our property) and many of the homes on that street have severe damage to their culverts due to the unseasonably mild weather we've experienced lately.

Well enough of me rambling on...Blackwork Princess Awaits!!

Stitchy Night

I had so much fun at stitchy night last night, just what I needed after last week's headache of trying to find a photographer and track down our minister! There were a tonne of completed projects and I was kicking myself for forgetting the digital camera. I almost had a finish but realized that the charm I needed was sitting on my desk as training got out late and I didn't have time to go back to the office. I felt like an idiot this morning when I went to pull my needle out of my other mill hill kit and there was the snowflake charm I needed, included with that pattern too which I'd had one me, d'uh. After flip flopping between stitching the christmas elf fairy and the blackwork princess the girls convinced me to start the blackwork princess ;) It's my first go at blackwork and will look cool in the future home of the computers which we plan on building downstairs with a medieval theme (some day...some $$)

Faith Ann brought her Cooking for the Rushed books last night and I'm sold...so sold they were ordered first thing this morning. I like having a good repository of healthy recipes that the whole family will eat. Well...now onto training..

Back Down to Pre Christmas Weight

Yay, I made it down to pre Christmas weight again (actualy 1 oz under)!! Faith Ann's success has been a real re-motivator ;) It's been hard with the new job to feel that successful where my normal gym routine has taken a big hit, thankfully I have a stockpile of exercise videos to help supplement until my probation period at work is over.

In other news I'm getting really close to another happy dance, this time a Mill Hill Charmed Mitten. I was so surprised to see the progress at the end of just my lunch hour, very motivating ;)

Today was just one of those days, the roads were crap and my wipers froze up. When I reached the nearest red light I reached outside to flick it and the next thing you know it was off and in my hand! Yikes. Thankfully it's kind of on (no heavy duty work though...) until I can get to Canadian Tire tomorrow, roads are just too crappy at the moment. Then when I got in the parking lot did I not reverse a little too far into the little barrier...thankfully the snow hanging off my bumper started scraping before I did any damage.

Today I got in for a 25 minute run at the gym, a far cry from my 40 but it'll have to do. I did end up doing the 4 flights of stairs up and down 3 times today and the stairs to training in the other building (8 flights) once, that and the walk to the government parking lot has to add up to something. We've also been eating much healthier ;) Tonight was Little Chickens out of Eat Shrink and Be Merry, tomorros is Chicks on Sticks out of Crazy Plates, Wednesday Tartlette O'Hara's out of ESABM and Thursday is Awe Shucks out of ESABM (tacos on friday are non negotiable ;)). I also have a batch of Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice (CP) muffins set aside for breakfast/snack the next couple of days, how's that for planning? ;)

Wild Weather Weekend

Wow, it was so nice out Saturday! What a treat to have above zero temps (and how scary that we've damaged our climate so), this is the first time we've been able to take our christmas lights down/out in January (usually the deer and the spiral tree are frozen into the ground). Matt and Alex took this opportunity to dig out the cinder block that had managed to find it's way into the center of our sliding hill so we'll be able to use it this winter. Yay!

Saturday night I found my GAST Straw Bonnet so I could work on my Heart In Hand Christmas Medley again...only to realize that in our travels over the holidays the two WDW's I need to finish it have gone missing. sigh... I guess I'll be calling the LNS in Moncton this week. After I finished the sections I could today I moved to my Mill Hill charmed mitten that I'd been working on at lunch, it should be done by the end of the week :) This weekend we also got back on the Flylady wagon, the house is finally getting back on a normal cleaning schedule (and supper is mostly prepared for the week, veggies chopped, meats marinating, yay). I had planned on going to Body Pump today but the roads had a different plan, the temps dropped and made them quite slick, I turned back. It's not really good for the body if it lands me in a body bag... So while Matt was taking care of Alex's bath I did some more fat burning pilates :)

It's stitching week with the 'Friends That Count' and I can't wait to bring in some of my finishes and see what the other girls have accomplished over the holidays :) I really look forward to our monthly meetings :) Well, I should hit the sack.

Second Happy Dance of 2006

Jeannette Douglas Needlerolls 2003-2005

Yay! I just finished the Love Needleroll, after a sewing machine issue. It's amazing how a little thread remnant can make it jam sooo bad! I couldn't believe how LONG the petal stitch took, it looked so easy but by far it was the most time consuming row of all the needlerolls (including the hem stitching!)

Yesterday was busy+++, at lunch I went to check out gym prices downtown then stopped in the bank to transfer 75$ into Alex's RESP account, that ended up taking half an hour, sheesh (profile update, paperwork+++, had I have known I just would have called online). Then afterwork I got stuck in traffic going to Body Pump and the class ran late as they were having technical difficulties with the stereo, arghh...I rushed home only to have Matt's carpool end up right in front of us and stop in the middle of the driveway >:( Then I rushed out to my hair apt only to have the 3rd occurance in a year of them booking in the wrong week and my reaction was not good, especially considering it took about 20 minutes to drive there. The southside location accomodated me but I really missed MY stylist and fired off a letter to the manager today.

Today I just stitched, ended up getting up a bit earlier than normal as Matt didn't turn off Alex's alarm last night >:( Lots of vegging. Here's hoping everyone is having a great weekend!

Girlie Night

Oh my goodness yesterDAY wasn't alot of fun, attempting to find a non overpriced photographer that wasn't already booked was insane. This was worsened by the fact that pushing 30 and having a 5 year old gives one some sense of practicality, asking over a thousand dollars for an album that would sit in my closet and paying and arm and a leg for reprints, no go!
Finally on my afternoon break I had some luck and now we're paying less than that and getting the negatives :)

Although the day wasn't all not fun (I wasn't in official training either so yesterday was kind of unstructured at work) I did get out to lunch with Eleni and picked out my wedding band (just need some bigger diamonds in it ;)). We rushed home, had some awesome chili from Eat Shrink and Be Merry then headed out to order the girls dresses. I had SO much fun. Eleni went first and modeled quite a few, all looking very nice then Cathey went in, tried one one and we sat back for a little fashion show when the next thing you know she came out in white and lavender (not my colour, just the demo size), it took us a couple seconds (or me at least), to figure out she came out in a t-shirt! I forgot she was a power shopper and just wanted to check the sizing of the skirt ;) I had a really good laugh at this! After the dresses were ordered Eleni and I headed to Tim's on the way home and had some girlie, mommy talk time which felt so good. So my disaster day turned out pretty good after all ;)

Tonight is going to be hectic again, hitting body pump at 5 then dropping Alex off and heading over the the Avalon for my hair cut as it's soooo unstylable at the moment, yuck!

Long Day

Today turned out to be a long day, I work less hours but today I took a bad traffic turn on my way to groceries and it took forever! After two days of hitting the gym after work doing groceries was the LAST thing I wanted to do but with the girls ordering their dresses tomorrow night (can't wait :)) it was a necessity. I spent part of my lunch figuring out the weeks menu form Eat Shrink and Be Merry and the rest working on the petal stitch of the Love Needleroll.

When I got home I had to unload the car myself as Matt wasn't home, start supper, put a load of laundry in as Alex managed to get his ski pants dirty, put him in the tub, start homework and then Matt got in so we had supper. I finished Alex's homework and the boys disappeared, leaving me to start tomorrow's supper, unload the dishwasher, load it with new dishes, prep lunches and throw the laundry in the dryer *somebody shoot me*. I collapsed in front of the computer and read that Faith Ann lost another 2 lbs (CONGRATS!!!) and suddenly found motivation to exercise, and did Fat Burning Pilates for 40 minutes :)

Now to go set up the VCR (yes we still have one, no PVR yet) for LOST and do a little hem stitching as I'm dreading doing the frogging on the stitching over one, YUCK!!

Did the Alarm Really Go Off

Ughhh....I could use some more sleep! Monday 5:00, kerpow! toenail first kick to the shin, couldn't get back to sleep, Monday 10:20, finally asleep when big ruckus from computer room (DFH way too into teamspeak in WoW), Tuesday morning 5:10 thunk, elbow to the forehead, yet again...no returning to sleep. Next stop, purchasing a straight jacket until Matt gets out of whatever sleep cycle he's in ;) I expect snoring tonight, it always seems to come in threes ;)

I got to work super early yesterday and did some stitching while I waited for my Oracle training to begin (and the work day). I even got some stitching in at lunch. Where I've moved locations I'm going to be heading to the gym after work for the next little while so I guess I'll be able to get some stitching in over the noon break.

Last night was kind of crazy, I made super in advance for tonight and the roads weren't pretty making it a long drive. I was pretty tired so I headed to bed at around 9:30 after a failed attempt to located my package from Traditional Stitches, oh well.... hopefully some more stitching tonight ;)

Cake

Here's a preview of my cake, without the flowers of course...changed the verse to Happily Ever After, now just looking for a topper that I can actually put somewhere in my house...need to check out willow tree for something small enough.

Back to School

Well, tomorrow's back to school for the monkey, here's a peek at the amount of homework they sent home for the week I took him out of school before the holiday...and he's only 5 >:( This weekend was nice, mom and dad were down and mom and I hit the bridal shows. It was fun and also a little depressing, so far it's been shopping at places I know I can afford, but 600+ for a decent video and 500+ for portraits (the nicest photographer was 1100-1600). I just want one nice picture to put up on my wall but they want to put them in unchild friendly albums and then you need to order decent sized pics at extra $$. I've been really stressed out of the whole maid of honour situation as well, the time and cash its taking to be a part of my MOH's wedding is becoming a real strain mentally and budgetwise, especially where my car is for city use only. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so close together. I really don't know what to do.

Work so far has been good, I really like the people that I've met so far and must look into this 'hockey' sport. Not really my thing besides watching a university game or the olympics (after years of playing basketball and watching all school funding go into hockey, and a whole other bunch of bureaucratic bs it was hard to not harbor just a little anomosity) but I think I'll have to look into it so I can converse abit more. It's hard to when you're on probation to feel out just when you can start being a little more social.

We investigated our sliding hill today and after a good 40 minutes it looks like we'll have to get a sledge hammer if we want to use it this year. Somehow a cinderblock that was in our woods is now imbedded in the ground in the sliding path of the big hill :(

I did finish some stitching tonight while we watched Sideways, it had it's funny moments but not the kind of funny I was needing tonight. And now presenting Santa's Garden...

Christmas Tree 2005

Ok...so we're one of those families that keep their tree up for the full 12 days of Christmas (I'd keep it up all year if Matt would let me ;))

First Day of Work

Yay, the first day of work went great, of course it wasn't the same without all of my old work friends. Thankfully the city isn't too big and they aren't too far away ;) I'm really excited about the opportunities my new position is going to provide, the amount of training is phenomenal, I feel so blessed to be given the opportunity to update my skillset, that's for certain.

Stitching wise nothing too much on the table for tonight, I'm pretty beat after having the pre-work antsies all last night and not sleeping too much. My threads from Traditional Stitches finally came in though so I may at least look at my Love Needleroll and imagine putting the final stitches in ;) When I say 'finally' I in no means am upset with the length of time it took to get them, one of them was pretty 'rare' and I'd been figuring it would take quite some time.

Tonight on the 'back to healthy eating' front we had 'Awe Shucks' a pan seared scallop dish with alfredo white wine sauce and surprisingly my 5 year old LOVED it, I had to beg him to try a smidgeon of scallop but after that he ate half my supper (really low cal/fat after that ;)) So far so good with Eat, Shrink and Be Merry! Now to check the gym's group fitness schedule to see what I can do this period, especially where I don't think I'll be able to make it to the lunch classes while on probation... small sacrafices ;)

Happy New Year

Yay, it's 2006 already! Where does the time go? We spent new years eve fairly low key, some munchies, beer and checking out Matt's new Jade Empire for the Xbox (moi stitching away). New Years day we actually had our appetizers (we'd been too stuffed from supper to eat any new years eve) and then had a beef fondue for supper along with a bottle of red wine after Alex was in bed, a very fun night (obviously NOT a stitching night though)

Today was fairly quite as well, we shoveled the accumulation of snow and unpacked more from our recent journeys. I also got to stitch on Santa's Garden and he's nearing completion (although I had to frog the tree pots upon looking at the model, yet another poorly explained part of the piece). Tonight we tried out two recipes from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry! which were very good, Ponderoasta and Darth Tater (which Alex ate after he confirmed that I hadn't cooked his Darth Tater toy ;))

Now onto some stitching goals for 2006:
-Finish Mirabilia's Guardian Angel
-Stitch Flower Girl on L&L's The Wedding (this is going to be more of an anniversary project)
-Stitch 1 Mill Hill Santa
-Start L&L's In The Arms of An Angel
-Stitch this year's DD JCS ornament and Christmyth
-Stitch Lizzie Kate's Snow Days
-Stitch Fiddlestitch Cottage's Friends That Count
-Stitch and ornamentify at least 6 ornaments

Reading Goals:
-Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince
-The Davinci Code
-Sue Grafton's "I" Is for Innocent
-Monica Ferris' Framed in Lace

Gardening Goals:
Thankfully this will take less of my time this year as the majority of the beds have been rescued and have had new perennials/bulbs/shrubs put in. Also after two years of extensive pruning our lilacs are in tip top condition as well as the mystery shrub out front. Although I still need to: -build up the beds to either side of our arbour, two hosta plants are in order for sure and I'm uncertain on what else I might put in there
-add additional bulbs to the back garden and maybe some phlox
-continue building up the flower box around out maple/birch
-add another pjb rhodedendron to the side garden to complement the orange and white varieties (white added in 2005)

Limmerick Entries

Yay, the deadline has passed for the Dragon Dreams Limmerick contest. I'm sure there are hundreds of fab entries but that prize of all the Nashville releases would be soooo sweet, here are my entries...

I've cleaned my brick chimney of red
Hoping Santa will bring me thread
No gift cards or cash
Lord, I 'need' some stash
I pray this as I head for bed

From the chimney I heard a great crash
So, to the parlour I made a dash
Santa was covered in soot
Our fireplace was now kaput
But at least he had brought me some stash!

Now here's crossing the fingers