July 29/10

Whenever my brother is away for an extended period of time for training or a deployment I try to send him a letter or a postcard once a week. The Canadian postal service has a sweet program where letters can be sent to armed forces personnel serving overseas without having to pay postage. In return, my brother sent me this post card of the valley where the Taliban destroyed the Buddha statues several years ago. The date stamp says June 30/10 and it arrived today. Not bad for having to travel all the way from Afghanistan through the Canadian military and civilian postal systems.

Another ornament stitched for the Christmas giving season:

This ornament is a Joan Elliott stitched on 28 Lugana and using my mystery thread collection once again! I usually take a quick look at the photos of the finished design to get the general idea of the colour scheme as envisaged by the designer before selecting what I have available to me in my mystery thread box. Every once in a while I do not do so well with my colour choices, but more times than not the design turns out quite well if I do say so myself!

July 25/10

The screen really distorts the image, but if you squint you can make out the day lilies, the thistles, the bee balm, the daisies and the other flowers for which I do not know their names! This is the view from my computer desk.

July 22/10 Part II

This post is brought to you first by a Lizzie Kate ornament:

stitched on 28 count Lugana and using mystery threads. I ignored L*K's colour suggestions because it is my ornament dagnamit! I also did a different stitch on the centre of the two-toned blue present. Because I am blissfully ignorant of actual embroidery terms, I can not tell you what it is, but bargello is coming to mind or perhaps a version of satin stitch. Someone help me out here! My brain is fried after only having one day off since a week ago Monday.

These two ornaments are some of the Dimensions series that I purchased from Mary Maxim a few weeks ago:

There are 6 in total and I bought two of each because I give the finished ornaments to my pharmacy assistants and since I work between 3 pharmacies, I have a few assistants to stitch for! So far, I really like these kits in that they are properly supplied and the stitching is pretty although not complicated. If anything, Dimensions has supplied too much floss as I stitched 1.75 ornaments with the floss kit from one kit! The mystery thread box is going to explode if I put much more into it which is why I stitched up the L*K to use some of its contents!

Well, it is off to bed for me as I have an important errand to run tomorrow morning!! Hello Nissan!

July 22/10

Honestly, there has been some stitching going on around here and one of these days, I will have the camera in the living room to take photos of the ornaments I am working on! In non-stitching news, I will be parking this:

in my drive way tomorrow. Hello to my 2010 Nissan Rogue in Iridium Graphite or purply-grey to those who call a spade a spade. The starter in my 2001 Saturn went two weeks ago and I replace my vehicles when something big like the alternator or the starter goes because I just do not have the patience to keep nursing the vehivle along at that point. I am having trouble admitting to my green eco self that I am buying an SUV, but that same self gets really irritated when the Saturn gets stuck in the street when the snow plough is late coming to clear the street. Also, my darling back is starting to get creaky from too many years of not drinking milk or eating dairy and not following my own professional advice to take calcium supplements so my Saturn is too low for me to easily get out of these days. I keep calling the Rogue a car as in "I am getting a new car!!", but it is an SUV. I shall have to find a way to compensate for my destruction of the planet.

July 17/10

Don't let the smell put you off! I have just come in from mowing the lawn and adding stuff to the compost bins. The weather is hot and sunny here today so I am rather fragrant after my multi-tasking of exercise and yard work! This summer I am experimenting a bit with the water that comes out of the dehumidifier that is going gangbusters in my basement. Instead of just pouring it down the drain conveniently located next to the dehumidifier, I have been stewing it in my plastic wheelbarrow along with all of the weeds that do not fit into my overflowing compost bins (I have 3). Each time I go out to add kitchen waste to the bin I am adding to, I scoop up some of the water to dampen the contents of each bin. The water is really boggy and smelly, but at least I am not just dumping it down the drain for it to be pumped to the sewage lagoon. I have also used some of that boggy water to water some of my flower beds that were drying out recently.

Well, off to work I go for the evening shift now that I have finished my yard work and showered!

July 11/10

Here is the Joan Elliot ornament:

Please do not look too closely at my finishing as it really sucked the big one! Somehow I was all thumbs and nothing would go right despite all of my efforts to correct the mess. The ornament is for Elsa and the adorable Robeez booties are for her gorgeous son Luis.

Yesterday, I went to St Andrews to visit with friends who are trailering there for the week. One of our must see shops was Candyland on Main Street. I was re-living my youth with this picture. As a treat since we were not allowed to drink pop that often, my dad would get a case of Pop Shoppe pop every once and a while. Now the stuff is hard to find so I could not resist when I found some in the cooler at Candyland!

Right after my friends had called to invite me to visit with them, I received a message on Facebook from a pharmacy classmate at Dalhousie that she was participating in an event in St Andrews that is raising money for hospice. From the paint brush of the very talented Poppy Balser:

And just for fun, I purchased this cute piece:

I was lucky to get it according to the organizers because if I had not bid the buying bid for it when I saw it, there were plenty of other people who were eager to get their hands on it! There were two other variations with different hair colour, but there was just something about this mermaid that made me smile!

July 10/10

Whew! It has been hot here these past few days! Yeah, yeah, there are those of you who are living in warmer climates who would scoff at the temperatures that I melt in, but remember I am Canadian where a fine day is 15C.

The heat has slowed down my walking and running somewhat although I did make great use of my treadmill in my lovely and cool basement last night. Another 5km in!

Some stitching has been done. The Joan Elliot rose ornament is finished and waiting to be photographed and mailed to my friend who has promised to deliver it to Elsa in Guatemala for me. I have also started some Christmas ornaments that I purchased as kits from Mary Maxim. Pictures to follow tomorrow as I am off to lovely St Andrews by the Sea for the afternoon to visit with friends who have a trailer at one of the camping parks.

The only other "creative" thing that I have done recently is to sit down with pen and paper to write a letter to my brother who has been deployed to Afghanistan. He probably would be glad to receive an email, but there is something special about getting something that you can hold and feel from home. Whenever he is away for extended periods of time, I try to write letters or send postcards once a week. Perhaps it is more for my sake than anything, but I know that he appreciates the effort.