April 21/10

Not the greatest of photos, but you can see the progress being made on the Jelly bean houses of St John's:

I have almost completed the two strand cross stitches, but as you can see by the weird gap on the bottom that I have run out of yet another colour. That makes three in this kit so far. Fortunately, I have lots of this particular colour in my stash so yet again, not a big deal, but this floss number will be added to my email feedback when I am done with this kit.

And just for fun, introducing Oliver:

I am getting another cat this week, but he is not the one. This little guy lives next door and is really cute and friendly. I leave my patio door open during the day because otherwise I would be getting tendonitis from the continual "in-out" of the cats. Oliver spent a good part of his day here yesterday and went home around 10pm last night when I realized that he was shut into my house! He came back today to check out the facilities, taking a nibble out of the food bowl, a sip out of the water fountain and a long hard sniff of the litter box. My cats are not too crazy about him coming over to visit and it amuses me to listen to them try to scare him and chase him off. He just ignores them and makes himself comfortable!

Apr 18/10

This weekend has been a crash-out kind of weekend. I could not figure out why I was so exhausted the other day until I counted up all of the balls I have been juggling: an exchange student will be living with me for a couple of months, work has been crazy busy, I am gearing up to go to Guatemala for a couple of weeks, spring has come early so there is lots to do in the yard, and now I am getting another cat. Add that to still moping over the demise of my recent relationship and you have one tired out Vee.

I have been working away on the NONIA kit I bought but do not have a photo to post just yet. When I stitch, one cat curls up beside me and the other sleeps on the back of the couch behind my head. It will be interesting to see where the new cat will snuggle up in the evenings. The new kitty is from a friend of mine whose daughter is moving home from university with a cat, but the stepdad is deathly allergic so they were in need of a home and they know what a soft touch I am!

Well, the groceries are not getting bought by me sitting here in front of the laptop so off I go.......

April 10/10

I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and stitch up this kit. Seeing it sit there unopened on my ottoman was almost painful as I was/am still going through the grieving stages of the end of the relationship with the guy who was with me when I bought this kit as a souvenir of the trip to Newfoundland. Already hit on one pet peeve of mine with kits-----ran out of one of the threads! Fortunately, the chart gives the DMC number so I pulled the colour of out my stash, but I will be emailing them to let them know that they miscalculated. The jellybean houses of St John's are so beautiful to see in person and it is kind of fun to watch them come alive on the fabric under my needle.

April 3/10

I can not figure out how to rotate this picture, but am going to post it anyway because it amuses me greatly. The white cat is my Penelope and the black cat is Oliver from next door. I just happened to be walking by the patio door last night when I saw the two of them studiously ignoring each other despite the fact that they get along quite well.

My ort jar has been overflowing for a while despite my best efforts to tamp and squish the threads and scraps down. Perhaps tomorrow I might actually get around to dumping the contents. I love putting those first few threads into the empty jar because it seems like it will take forever to fill the jar again and then all of the sudden I am squishing down the overflow! Even though the contents are garbage, they are tangible proof that I have made something!

I am working this weekend so not a whole lot of stitching has been going on because I am worn out by the time I get home. Holiday weekends are always nuts because we still do the same number of prescriptions per week, but they are crammed into fewer days and/or less hours. The to-be-filled pile of baskets was almost as high as I am tall (5 foot 6) this afternoon at one point and customers just could not believe that *their* little prescription might take an hour. Yeah well, I am a pharmacist, not a miracle worker and chances are it is late afternoon and I have yet to take a break since I zipped up my labcoat this morning.