July 30/07

May I introduce the first of the stockings that I am cross stitching for my family? My intention had been to do my mom's first, but there was a huge delay in getting the fabric because the order was lost in the mail from the supplier, but my LNS has yet to call me 4 months later to let me know if it has come in so I ordered it from eBay. The result is that my stocking is now stitched instead.

EDITED TO ADD: The stocking is a Dimensions kit called "Holiday Harmony".

July 26/07

Hold onto your hats, folks! I finally have some stitching pictures to post! These are my first biscornus and while I am proud of them, please do not look too closely at how badly I negotiated the corners when stitching them together!

The one on the left is one that I designed with my cross stitch pattern maker one night and the other is Protection from Lady Periphaeria (see the blog for Peri on the right). As part of playing around with my design, I stitched it using pink (DMC 223) on one side and a brown from my mystery threads container. I stitched Peri's with another thread from my mystery collection called Coron #222. The beads are Mill Hill.


I have made some headway in my christmas stocking. The backstitching is almost done and then it is on to stitching my name before attempting to assemble it.

July 23/07

Here is a photo of my brother and his son with his university diploma. When I was about to take the photo, his son pointed to the diploma and asked, "What's that?". I replied, "One of the two things in the world your daddy is most proud of."


Me and my nephew, or The Helmetheads as my mom called us that afternoon!


The most use my exercise mat has seen in a while!

July 19/07

The biopsy procedure went well yesterday and now we just have to wait for the results to come back in the next two weeks. Both of the doctors involved are on holidays over the next two weeks so we have no choice, but to be patient. The patient is in a little bit of discomfort, but I knew that things would be fine when the second thing she said to me was, "Can we stop at Tim Hortons on the way home?". Canuck, through and through.

The daughter(me), on the other hand, is exhausted. I went into work at 3pm instead of my usual 1pm for an evening shift because I just could NOT get it together and get out the door. The stress of the past week or so caught up with me and floored me. I still do not feel great, but hopefully another good night's rest will help because I begin my weekend shift tomorrow! Work sucks and will continue to suck hard for a while yet. The new pharmacist is supposedly starting at the end of July, but she is unavailable for most of the month of August so guess who might get one day of vacation during the month of August to squeeze something that might look like a long weekend. I have not taken any vacation time since last November and have only been away from work for more than 2 days once in that time period because the schedule has rotated in such a way that my weekends to work have fallen on 3 of the 4 Canadian summer long weekends. Something is going to break sooner or later and I suspect that my sanity will the thing to break. Stress is not my friend and my anxiety and upset about all of the recent bad news that keeps making itself known to me has me feeling really fragile. Oh well, the more I dwell on it, the worse it gets so maybe I should just go to bed.

Tomorrow, I am going to pick up my brother's engineering diploma that I had framed for him as a graduation gift. I am very excited about it because he has worked so hard to get this degree and I am very, very, very, very proud of him!! I am also dropping off two boxes of materials left over from my renovations to the ReStore which is on Rothesay Ave in Saint John for anyone reading this who has materials that they no longer need. The store will be opening as soon as they have an adequate inventory.

July 14/07

I am in a slightly better head space today. Funny what a good dose of sunshine and a good night's sleep will do. As soon as I turn off the computer, I am going outside to work on staining my decks and weeding my flower beds. My shed also needs a little attention as everything is just haphazardly thrown in there and there are some things in there that can go to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. For instance, there is a bag of nails leftover from when the shed is built and several bits of lumber that I will never use, but maybe someone else can use them.

I put some stitches last night into the biscornu that I designed so hopefully within the next week I will have finished pictures of the biscornu that Peri designed and the one that I attempted.

The website that holds my UNB course on globalization is down this morning so I could not get any reading done there despite my best intentions. My original goal had been to finish it in July, but here we are mid-month and I am nowhere near being done. The thought of writing papers has been somewhat paralyzing to me, but the thought of the $500+ tuition that I paid for the course keeps me slogging away at it.

July 13/07

So, this week has kind of sucked. On Tuesday, my boss finally told my co-workers that he has prostate cancer. Four of us were told a month and a half ago, but we were not to tell anyone else until he had several tests to determine exactly what he was facing. On Wednesday, my mom called me at work to ask me what I had been diagnosed with last year when the lymph nodes on the right side of my neck swelled last May. She had just come from an appointment with a surgeon about the swollen lymph node in her armpit and he used the phrase "It looks like a lymphoma" when he examined her. She is having it removed on Wednesday morning at 8am so I hope that everyone reading this sends out a little hope and love on behalf of my mom. This all on top of the death of the wife of my town's mayor. She was a friend and the mother of a guy I grew up with. She will be greatly missed.

Needless to say, not much stitching or course work has been done this week because I can barely get home from work and eat before taking a nap just to stay awake until bedtime. Stress is so not my friend.

July 5/07

The rain today put a little dent into my plan to stain my deck and stoop today. The sinus headache that went migraine-like also put a dent into my plans today. The only reason why I crawled out of the house at 9am was because I had to meet up with a fellow Rotarian so that I could get a plaque that needs to be engraved. I am sure that I looked so graceful and beautiful when I had to pull over to throw up on the side of the road. Needless to say, it was back to bed for me until the meds could kick in and the sinuses could unblock. I began my day for the second time at noon.

Not much stitching in the past few days because I have been busy reading through my online course notes for a course on globalization. Today's reading included the transcript from a speech that US President Wilson gave in 1918 where he outlined his Fourteen Points to create international stability. He concentrated mostly on problem spots in Europe, but it struck me as ironic because his 14 points are still very valid today if we just substitute Middle Eastern countries for the European ones he used. Plus ca change, plus ca reste le meme.

Things I am up to this week: Strawberry Festival at the Bloomfield Hall (good food + old friends and neighbours = good times), getting my brother's engineering degree framed for his graduation gift, helping out at a Habitat for Humanity site on Saturday(my friends' house is being torn down and HfH is salvaging whatever they can sell in their ReStore) and having some co-workers over for a BBQ on Sunday.

July 2/07

Life has been busy with work and family so not much stitching although I am working on my first biscornu called Protection from Periphaeria Designs. Stitching over one thread has been a challenge and is slowing me down because I am having to adjust where I place my needle and how far to swing my hand as I stitch. The end result will be cool, I am sure!

My El Salvador trip has been confirmed for March 1-9, 2008 and I have a trip code which has not yet been posted on the Habitat site to accept donations. Now, I just have to finish building the team!

Yesterday was Canada Day here in Canada so I went to watch the town fireworks last night with my family. My nephew managed to stay awake until the end, but I would bet that he is rather bear-like this morning! He loved the little Army helmet that I bought for him at the Citadel in Quebec City because now he looks "just like Daddy!".