Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Chasing Rainbows

Last night I came out of body pump to the most glorious rainbow I think I’ve ever seen. I didn’t even mind walking in the sunshower to the van as staring at the rainbow really touched my childhood memories and had me reminiscing. Body Pump was awesome last night, the new tracks are tough (and I upped my weights) but they’re so peppy I love it! (I did rush out and finally bought the Black Eyed Peas after the release just so I could get psyched at home to Pump It!) ;)

Yesterday I spent the day at the Delta at an IT conference, fun. The morning was interesting, it was nice to see some more “place of former employment” refugees, people from my first coop workterm with HRDNB and just some old classmates from UNB. Lunch was ok, I went to the van to stitch in the downtime between lunch and the afternoon session. The one afternoon session was annoying, the screen wasn’t centrally located and we had someone talking at our table the whole time so it was really hard to hear.

After making the boys supper I headed out to body pump and when I returned I showered and played a little WoW, Katiebelle is now a level 45 warlock ;) I then stitched and headed to bed.

Today I have to meet with the minister at the church, and then I’m going to go home and put some more paint on the deck ;) I think I’ll have to do groceries tonight after Alex gets ready for bed so I’ll have time to pack on Thursday for our trip to the Miramichi. I can’t wait, I’ve only been home for an hour and a half this year, although Alex is concerned that his Friday taco routine will be disrupted again ;)

Monday, April 24, 2006

My Happy Dance Pic


Well...here's my The Time I Spend Stitching...now I really need to get working on 'The Time I Spend Framing' as I'm running out of room to pin stuff on my wall...

My Kind Of Weekend!

What an awesome weekend. I started it off with the new release of Body Pump and my triceps are still sore, awesome :) Saturday morning I was up bright and early for a girlie shopping day in Moncton with Cathey. We first went to Elite Framing for Cathey's second LL quiltmaker where I finally found a frame for my DD Imagination Creation, then we hit Because You Count, then I took a quick walk over to the quilt shop to get some variegated sewing thread for the baby rag quilt I'm working on (there are white blocks so I wanted them to have a littl oomph! After dropping some money at that mini mall (yay they had the thread I needed for The Time I Spend Stitching and Wishful Stitching as well as picking up Waxing Moons "She Who Dies With The Most Patterns"

At noon we headed to the seamstress who's doing the bridesmaid dresses for Lisa's wedding, all of mom's measurements were spot on, no need for pinning the hem. The only thing that was off was the arm holes which measurements wouldn't have prevented as they're rarely done... The next order of business was lunch, which we had at the Lonestar. It's located in the Blue Cross building downtown and I got to show Cathey all the neat things, like the waterfall/wishing pool with glass bridge and the glass elevators (ok...well maybe just cool for Atlantic Canada, this coming from someone who took their son to The Bay in Moncton just so he could ride an escalator as I don't know of any others unless they're in Saint John). We had a really good lunch, I had my traditional fajitas with a strawberry marg and then headed to the mall. Walmart just got a shipment of reasonably priced silk callalillies so I picked those up for the reception and some dips, then we found that the Children's Place (home of Alex's hat and the argyle knit vests) had a sale on. So Alex now has some stylin linen pants, a new tie and a new golf shirt for under 30$ sweet! After a trip to Michael's and a visit with Cathey's grandmother we headed back home. It was the perfect girlie trip :)

Saturday night I settled in and finished stitching The Time I Spend Stitching, I'll definitely post a pick when I get home. Sunday we got up and started cleaning as Matt's bestman was supposed to come down but couldn't make it, at least the house is now clean. In the afternoon I ventured out to save what lillies I could from Matt's digging and planted one of my Hostas. After that I started painting the deck and just have the floor surface to work on, yay!! I'm soo hoping we can get it done in time for the wedding. I had my fitting for my dress last night and I'm very confident in my choice of seamstress. It was nice seeing the dress actually fit!! I settled in last night to work on Wishful Stitching and I found I'd left the pattern portion of my pattern pack at work, sigh...I even had my new thread ready! At least I got to do some Bargello this morning when I got in early ;)

Friday, April 21, 2006

Fit To Be Tied

Arghh....last night was very frustrating. After picking up a cranky kid and making my supper seperate from the boys Matt didn't show up to pick up Alex, no phone call, nada. Now normally I'd just be late but where gas prices have been up Eleni and I decided that one vehicle was enough going across river and up to Douglas and were carpooling. So I had to bring cranky kid with me for the dress fittings, something I wasn't too happy about. It would be one thing if it were a shopping trip but a dress shop...where one could pay off a good chunk of the house with the inventory in the shop, not happy. Plus I kind of set a higher standard for myself when I'm out, I don't believe my kid should be out of hand enough for people to point out that he shouldn't be doing something, very stressful. I was so wishing that Bree Van De Kamp existed (before the whole AA subplot)!! It turns out Matt got confused and went to pick Alex up at Tracy's...I will not pretend to figure out how men's heads are wired ;)

The girls dresses look very pretty IMO, the indigo was a little lighter than I thought it would be but still very pretty. I also picked up some earrings for me. I find that sooo hard when I don't have my dress actually on. I was running around last night in my jammies, headpiece and earrings ;)

Sigh, this weekend we need to go on the hunt for a long ladder. Just after we fixed part of our water problem we had a HUGE windstorm Wednesday that blew the connector between the eavestrough and the downspout off, arghhh.... Today on the wedding agenda I need to pick up the unity candle holder, e-mail the dj (yay found the contact info) and double check our test meal time with catering services. In the last 24 hours I've...
  • dropped off or mailed the remaining invitations to the dance
  • gone to the dress fitting
  • set up an appointment for acrylic nails
  • dropped off the colour for the cake (DMC 341)
  • Set up a rehearsal time and scheduled a meeting about the service contents

But fret not, I did get some stitching in!! I started the smyrna crosses on Fiddlestitch Cottage's Wishful Stitching :) I should be able to put quite the dent in it tonight after doing some cleaning ;)

Thursday, April 20, 2006

One Month to Go!

Yay, after much debate I finally made a decision on what to do about the weekend :) Cathey and I are going to make a girlie stitchy day trip to Moncton so I can do that dress fitting and get some stash (and visit Cathey's grandmother). I feel like a big weight has been lifted :) Normally I love going to retreat but due to all the wedding prep and all the Easter events in Grand Falls I've felt like I haven't seen my boys that much and where we're going away next weekend too I'd like to make the most of this one. Plus last time we went they were renovating and if the facilities were anything less than 100% I think I'd burst into tears at the moment.

So with retreat cancelled I was able to not feel guilty about going to stitchy night :) I enjoyed bringing in my projects, I didn't think I'd done much but they really accumulated! I did as much work as I could on TTISS but I forgot one of the threads that I needed, the Kreinik will have to wait until Saturday, then I started Fiddlestitch Cottage's Wishful Stitching. I now have 2.5 out of 15 rows done :) If somone had of told me 3 years ago that I'd be working on samplers, let alone 2 already this year I think I would have laughed them out of the room, my how times change!! Tracy also had her new design that'll be released this weekend "Three Wise Mice" ready to go. I really hope that Hoffman picks up her designs, I just love them.

Yay, I met one of my reading goals yesterday as well, I finished Monica Ferris's Framed In Lace while running. It's so much fun to be back into reading again :)

Today is relatively low key. This evening the girls are getting their dresses fitted so I can finally see them, yay!! I just need to call the church today and make rehearsal arrangements, then try to find the DJ's e-mail tonight, fun. Hopefully I can squeeze in some stitching as well :)

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

To Retreat or Not To Retreat

Yay, it seems our floods are receeding *knock on wood*. Yesterday it rained on and off but the water in our storm drain went down, it's down a full 1.5 inches in 24 hours. Here's hoping that the drainspout fix will continue to take pressure off of the system. Way to go Dad!
I got a call from Tracy about a half hour before quitting time letting me know Alex had a fever, whatever she gave him worked as he was back to loving Alex when I picked him up 45 minutes later :) For supper he actually ate (he hasn't felt much like eating) and even ate half my ladle in red chili, beans and all! He said the chili made him feel better:)

Matt picked him up at 6:30 so that I could head out to Body Pump. I found out the new releases were this week so I signed up for the classes should I not get to retreat. I've been really on the fence about going where Cathey and half the rest of the group aren't going, then there's the money issue (although I still have to make a day trip down for a dress fitting) and there's the fact that I miss having some time with my boys as all the reorganizing to fit in workouts and our wedding activities due to the other wedding has cut into my time with them. I know it'll be all better soon but coupled with a bout of insomnia I really go back and forth on it. When I got an e-mail from Faye saying she too might not be able to go I really started seeing it as a sign, but some sleep aids and a good night's sleep has me not so certain again, sigh... I really hate being an on the fence person too!

Last night I got a little stitching in :) I have Bent Creek's Joy Angel on the go as my office project, and I've been doing up the last little bit of stitching until my Kreinik's arrive for The Time I Spend Stitching. I'm hoping to start Fiddlestitch Cottage's Wishful Stitching this weekend :)

Tonight's also stitchy night. I'm going to attempt to go to newbody first, then run home, shower, eat and make a later enterance. Normally we try to get there super early but with the upcoming wedding I should go to class and where I'll be travelling alone I can take my good old sweet time ;)

Monday, April 17, 2006

The Easter Racoon?

Well I've heard of the Easter Bunny, infact he was out scoping my new bulbs...twice. The tame little bugger let munched away defiantly until Alex was 2 feet away and then bolted. Then he had the nerve to come back while I was at the store picking up some coke so we could try out the rum mom and dad brought back from us (which is sooo much bette than the captain, I'm not a rum drinker but it was divine!!). Anyway, when I came back and noticed he was again in our garden I had a little converation with him. It took alot of talking to get him away from my arbor...then he took up camp back where my new lillies are planted, grr... It took a good 5 minutes to scare him off and he must have been ticked as he got the forest muscle to come knock over our garbage can.

Enough about bunnies and racoons, my other favorite subject my monkey. Alex is a flourishing fashionista. Thursday he had his first dentist appointment and we had some time to kill so I headed to the mall to pick up some more carpet deodorizer and stopped in The Children's Place to pick up a shirt for easter and Lisa's wedding. Well...he wanted an argyle knit vest (which he didn't get) but did talk me into the hat...


The trip to Grand Falls was uneventful. We made a pitstop in Centerville so I could meet one of our World of Warcraft buddies/Matt's Groomsmen, after mainly grouping with his dwarf and gnome he's much taller than I expected ;) We had a nice visit, eventhough that involved me going to a baby shower. Thankfully one of Eleni's friends husbands knows Matt's cousin and she ended up at the babyshower so I had someone to talk to (it's hard to fit into an enormous family). We headed back home Sunday after dinner with my wedding dress in tow, yay!! Unfortunately my monkey was a sick one by the end of the weekend, it's a good thing he had today off to play with grammie and pappy.



I did get some stitching in this weekend. After Matt and I watch the season finale of Battlestar Gallactica tonight I should be finished The Time I Spend Stitching up until the non gold Kreinik that I need to order, sigh... I can't wait to put that up in my craft room :) I also kitted up Bent Creek's angel (JCS 00) for my lunchtime project.

In other news dad thinks he may have part of our water problem figured out. He noticed when he was out walking the dog that most of our neighbors have their downspouts routed far away from their homes, and ours wasn't... and hitting some concrete patio slabs that are creating a negative slope pushing all that water against the foundation. You could just see the water seeping all along the wall that's had the problems. I put our wheelbarrow out under the downspout until we could head to Kent's and it was full in less than an hour! Now thanks to dad we have a nice new pipe that extends a ways away from the house. I really hope that solves our problem. While at Kent's I noticed their bulbs were on sale so I picked up six Hostas for one of my gardens, a black eyed susan and 5 japanese lanterns. I think the bulb budget is at it's max for this year ;)

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Adding Some Bling

Just so people don't think that all I do is complain about my incredibly horrible luck...I have a picture of the instock 'bling' that I added to my Merry Christmas Bellpull. I can't wait until the new cream magnifica beads arrive so I can finish it :)


Today got off to a crappy start, I seriously thought the IT conference was today but when I dropped by the Delta it was the registration was due today ;) So I had no lunch packed, no stitching and was too late for free parking. However I managed to turn some of it around and accomplish the following tasks.

  • Dropped two more invitations off in the mail
  • Addressed the remaining invitations from my side
  • Resheduled girls dress fittings
  • Scheduled my dress fitting
  • Got groceries, although I got stuck in the parking garage due to some idiot who tried to drive out of the automated parking building without paying
  • Applied for and received our marriage license
  • Went to Newbody

With all that said it's time for this red head to head to bed ;)

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Some Quick Updates



First off my HD Dragon Dreams Proof!


And now the Sweetheart Tree WIP


More Bad News...

Oh my goodness, just when we thought we were having a bad year Matt's mother called early (Matt doesn't usually get in until 6:30 or so) and sounded upset. I could tell from what I was hearing from Matt's end that it wasn't good and it wasn't something he was expecting (very shocked). To digress a little, Matt comes from a very large family and with his mother being the eldest we're actually more in the same age group as the youngest (their youngest child is a year older than Alex). Anyway, I guess his 38'ish uncle had a heart attack at work and passed away. Absolutely terrible, especially when there's children involved.

The contractor was over last night and he wasn't helpful at all. It was buy a sump pump, jack hammer a hole and I'll install it when I have time, WTF??? Do I look like I'm storing a jack hammer in my cross stitch closet? I know I'm crafty but do I look qualified to do it?? Anyway, I'm going to call insurance as we do have a sewerage rider but it's worded like it's possibly not covered but I thought I'd double check. He was more interested in excavating half the back yard and putting up a french drain...well if our drainage system hadn't frozen we wouldn't be having this problem, especially where we're already scraping to find enough money to go to the wedding at the end of the month. The water has been going down since Matt dug his trench so I'm hoping this is a sign of better things to come. I can't wait for my dad to arrive back in the country so I can ask him a whole bunch of questions.

After the contractor left and the lunches were made (minus mine). I picked up Proof intent on finishing it (well except for the one little square of 322, until I find it) and where was the pattern...at work. I did as much of the back stitching as I could patternless, all of the non detail backstitching, played a little warcraft and then Matt and I went to bed as we were both physically, emotionally and financially drained.

This morning I got to work on time, which is a miracle as we left for work late (I needed to write a note to school as Alex heard about Matt's Uncle passing away suddenly and where the whole death subject is still processing in his head post gram's death I wanted to let them know that he might be more agitated or have a bunch of questions). I had exactly 9 minutes between getting to my desk, yay for having to arrive early just to get a free parking spot, and when work started and I managed to finish Proof!. Now to finally take a pic tonight and upload it at home :)

Saturday, April 08, 2006

When It Rains...

It pours!! After having a super busy week with rescheduling gym time, dentist, having to go to blue cross to get the money to pay off the dentist bill, and the invitations I had a wedding course to look forward to friday and saturday, which involved preppiing for the MIL and a baby shower announcement, arghh...So I'm thinking already that's it in my already stressed out little world, WRONG! With the weird weather we've had this week we got up to a flooded guest room and laundry room! So we were late this morning as we spent 4 hours straight vacuuming and pailing in vain. After the course we decided to have our septic cleaned a couple months ahead of schedule which alleviated some of the problem as well as digging around a spot were we suspected the water was coming in through the wall. So we're going to have to rip off some dry wall downstairs and patch the corner, yay! I wonder how much that new wonder foam costs...my parents would know but their off in Cuba...

There were a couple bright spots this weekend though ;) My Kreiniks arrived to finish Proof....hopefully doing that tonight and I finished the stitching portion of my Sweetheart Tree ornament. I'll post some pics tomorrow (although I'll still be waiting for a bead colour to come in for the ST)

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Wedding Burn Out

Last night I lost my get up and go. Feeling a bit oversheduled I picked up some groceries and headed home. I put the maple pork and sweet potatoe fries in the oven and did up a couple more invitations and out of town packs. I had another 20 people distributed today and wave 3 should go out tomorrow morning when the addresses we didn't know come in from Matt's side of the family. I went through my e-mails and sorted them trying to find the addresses when I found a group of e-mails from my grandmother, that brought on some tears and tuckered me out so I headed to bed early.

However, with all that said I DID get some stitching in throughout yesterday (a trip to the dentist helped that). My Sweetheart Tree ornament now has all of the satin stitching up the side done and has Merry Christmas stitched in, not alot by my usual standards but getting there slowly but surely. Where the addressing the envelopes is all I really have to do wedding wise tongiht I think I'll probably finish the stitching portion :) Although I do have to tidy up the house some for Matt's mother's arrival tomorrow.

I also had a decent mailday yesterday, my Stitch'em girl came in from www.downsunshinelane.com. I'll have to take a picture of her when I get home. I can't wait to stitch her! Now if only my materials from Traditional Stitches would arrive, then I would be able to finish up Proof! and bead the Merry Christmas bellpull :)

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Feeling The Burn

Oh my, with the insanity that is the month of April I'm getting really tired really quickly. Last night I started my 'new' gym night of Tuesday where I can't get there Friday's for body pump due to Lisa's upcoming wedding and easter, sigh...Thankfully it's only for a month. Then I arrived home to do up the out of town information for the guests and did up about 20 invitations to send out (the rest are waiting for addresses or are for Matt's coworkers and aren't deliverable until Thursday so there was no rush)...oh I did shower first so the invitations didn't get stinky ;)
No stitching for me last night....sigh...This morning I got up late as Matt has a horrible habit of shutting off my alarm on the day's he works from home before I 'wake up', then I got out to the kitchen, dishwasher hadn't been unloaded and the supper dishes were everywhere....grr.... so this slowed down the prep for tonight's supper. The clothes also hadn't been sorted after I went to bed so I ended up digging through them to find something to wear, grrr.... It's a miracle I made it out the door by 7:30!

This morning I have a dentists appointment and Newbody after work, is that dedication or what?? ;) Hopefully I'll be able to wrap up the invitations and locate the thank you cards tonight and thursday I MAY just have a little me time after doing a 'make up' session of body pump where the gym is closed this sunday for painting and new carpets.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

The Frustrations of 'Intuitive' Software

Sigh, no stitching for me last night L Nor did I get to attack the side garden, for some odd reason Word was possessed last night and would not print the invitations properly. After fighting with it resetting my margins, playing with the advanced settings on the printer I finally gave up, went low tech and had wonderful success in word pad, go figure! Now I only have about 10 reply cards to write up, and then it’s onto addressing envelopes and sending/delivering them ;)

Now, just because I didn’t get any stitching done last night does not mean I didn’t get any stitching in at all ;) I did start stitching in the lettering to the Sweetheart Tree Merry Christmas Bellpull Ornament from the 2004 JCS. It is going to be so pretty when it’s done.

I didn’t get out to wash the car or garden last night as planned, the sky started looking iffy while I was making the quiche so I decided against washing the car. Fighting with ‘intuitive’ software took up my gardening time but now the invitations are 80% done, and the thank you cards are ready to mail out as well. We did get out for a nice family walk after supper though so the night wasn’t a complete washout.

I’m looking forward to heading out for lunch with Eleni and Jackson today, it’s hard to believe the number of weeks we’ll be able to do this is getting quite short (well to at least have Jackson attending). I’m going to try to arrange something with Matt so I can get to the 7 pm BodyPump class tonight as well, with the hectic schedule on the weekends I can’t make it to my usual Friday night class until May so it’s going to take some sacrifices during the week to keep on track. Hopefully I’ll be able to sneak a little stitching in though before bed!

Monday, April 03, 2006

Leaping Into Spring

Wow, for a weekend that wasn’t supposed to be busy ours sure turned out that way! Alex had the day off school Friday for parent teacher so Matt worked from home (I can’t wait until the probation period at work is over so I can take some flex time on those days) and he got a call from the parents of another little boy in his class who was supposed to come over this weekend to go visit instead. Well Alex was thrilled :) I was a bit anxious as I wasn’t there to take him, and remind him of proper manners but he did get an invite back, yay!! Saturday he was invited by Kayla to the end of session free swim at the YMCA which he really enjoyed. We also had tickets to the 1pm showing of Ice Age 2 which we all enjoyed :).

The weather was so beautiful Saturday that we spend the remainder of the day outside doing some spring work. The trees are all trimmed, I’ve planted 75 new bulbs (hoping I didn’t kill any old ones in the process), tilled up some of the garden area and cleaned up more garbage from the woods. Tonight I’m hoping to tackle the side garden and get it prepped for some bulbs ;)

I did get some stitching in this weekend. Proof! is now just waiting for the Kreiniks (I really need to take a progress picture) and I started The Sweetheart Tree’s Merry Christmas Bellpull ornament from 04’s JCS. I had started Dragon Dreams The Time I spend stitching but have a question out on e-mail that I’m waiting for a response on before I continue ;)

Last night we had mom, dad and Jazz over for a visit as they were on their way to drop Jazz off to the kennel this morning and then off to Halifax and Cuba…who on earth will I e-mail for a whole week???