Christmas Eve Hullaballoo

Well it's here. Christmas Eve. I hope yours is going wonderful and lovely. Mine is, um, a bit frantic, hurried and out of sorts. My husband's mom is in the hospital again. She has a chronic intestinal problem and it picked today to kick up for her.

As I write this, it's looking like she has to have surgery and my husband is on his way up there now. :( Between that, trying to get insurance issues resolved, and some family estrangement, it is not a an overly happy holiday. I'm usually a "glass half full" kind of girl, but there are some issues that are preventing even me from seeing the bright side at this time. I SO DO NOT want to be a downer.

It's also very hard having Christmas without my step-dad around. Seeing how hard it's been on my mom being alone while dealing with some pretty awful family issues is just emotionally taxing on us all. You just want to make it better for everyone, but you can only do so much.

OK, let me try and turn this around.

I have started collecting some different type Christmas/Winter decorations and have really found some cute things the past couple seasons. I'm trying to concentrate on things I can leave out all winter. I got the tin houses at Marshall's and HomeGoods. One is very large and the other is a bit smaller. I adore them! I want to collect more of these type things.

I picked up two of these snowflake lanterns at JoAnn's last year. It's a matte pottery type thing that has been pierced. They are pretty large and look so beautiful with candles in them, or even without! 

These little ceramic tealight houses are from Homegoods. They are a matte style and I love the non-descript nature of them. Just kind of soothing to look at.

These pretty trees are from JoAnn's from last year. They are glittery/snowy, but not too overly Christmas-y. 

And just a little shot of our tree. We are so lucky to have so many presents. Not all of them are showing here. There have been many added since I took this! And of course, my sweet little Jenny in the background there. OK, starting to feel better now.

I'm thinking about goals for 2019.  That will take up the whole next week of my thoughts, I'm sure. Along with trying to help my husband's mom get back on her feet and healthy. We have been trying to get all of our parents to move to our neighborhood where we can all be there for eachother. Don't know if it will ever happen, but it would be nice.

I hope anyone coming across this blog will remember to pause to be thankful at the end of this year for what you have. I'm going to concentrate on that, along with my goals for next year. All in all, we are lucky and fortunate.  That is not lost on me just because of some current hurdles we are facing.

Enjoy your holidays and I hope you everyone gets lots of stitching time, reading time and time with who ever it is you call your family!  I plan to finish those dang witches and get a new project going by the 31st. Wish me luck, lol. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

So close! December Musings and other stuff.

I hope everyone is having a nice end of Fall and early Winter. Here, on this day, we have a LOT of snow coming down right now and it's beautiful.

  As of right now, around 5:30pm, it's really dangerous on the roads and there are many accidents on both major roads and all the back roads near us. My husband has gone out to fetch my son's girlfriend (bless him!), and bring her home safely. I wanted her to come home much earlier, but she had something to take care of and got on the road as soon as she could, but it's just too bad out. Really pretty snow to look at and watch from inside, but deathly dangerous to be out in it!

Thanksgiving was nice with friends and family around again. Menu was much like last year and everything came out great. I just cannot believe Christmas is upon us again. Love these kids right here.

I'm beginning not to enjoy it like I used to. Lots of reasons for that, and I think I need a separate blog to discuss those things.  Heck, maybe two additional blogs, lol.  Be on the lookout...........
Nearly done with The Giving Sisters. I'm getting tired of looking at it with all the snow and cold going on around me. Used the pin stitch to do the single stitching above the cauldron.  So many ways to fudge around with a stitch out there all by itself.  Easy to lose count too!

 SO CLOSE to being done! I want this off my bars before Christmas, and I want to stitch something wintry!

Also been working on some crochet stars. So relaxing and fun and it puts me a bit more of a festive mood working with all white yarn and some pretty snowflake stars. I'm going to turn them into a banner or string of them to put up somewhere for the whole winter season.

Well, I'll stop for now. Time to get dinner (pot roast) out of the oven and hope my husband and my girl make it home safe and sound. I hate not having everyone safely inside these four walls. I hope you and yours are tucked away, enjoying the evening and being festive!

And then there were two--sisters, that is!

YES! Sister has finally made an appearance! It's coming along great and I'm really enjoying it. There
is so much black floss in this design, and I love it. Hoping to have this completed by Halloween!

 

We kicked off our Halloween season by going to King's Dominion for their Halloween Haunt. We were a bit disappointed this year. Seemed like some of the haunt areas were gone and some of the atmosphere is was just "off". But we had a great time anyways, as we always do.

The wheel of the year has brought me back around to Fall again. This is my most favorite time of year. Each season has it's own appeal, but for me, Fall is just something special.  It's the season of introspection with it's shorter days and longer nights. It's perfect for crafting, reading, taking inventory of one's own life. I plan to do that this Fall, as I do every year.

We don't have much in the way of cleaning out or improvements to do to our home, aside from painting.  Oh yeah, my husband is building a deck! That will be nice. We have a concrete patio, but it looks disjointed from the house and putting a deck over it and re-doing the stairs will pull it all together wonderfully. I'll share some before and after photos when it's all done! Until then,

9-11-01

Goodbye August! Moving right along .....

Hello there! Still plugging along! I've not had much time to stitch as work has picked up a bit and trying to go to the pool most days before it closes after tomorrow! But the sisters are stitching up nicely. One is waiting to be brought to life, but I had to stitch half of the border so that I would know where to put her! I'm telling you, even with 2.5 or 3 magnifying glasses, I lost count every time I would try to skip across to start the other hat. This old gal is learning to adapt!

You can see a bit more of the staining and dye than in previous photos. The light was on my side today!


I'm getting so excited for Fall! I had my birthday recently and I never take them for granted. I'm so glad to have lived my 52 years relatively healthy and happy. Most days, I'm just content and satisfied. Just very thankful. My mom's birthday is just a few days after mine and we always celebrate it together. This year, went to a new Mexican place nearby. Good food, and we ate too much. I loved it.

My son's girlfriend bought me a special and delicious cake, which she went out of her way for, and it was amazing. Chocolate mousse cake - not too sweet and just right. We thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm ever appreciative of the nice things these kids do for me. She is lovely and wonderful and beautiful and if I could have chosen a young woman for my son, she'd be it. My son took us all out to a LOVELY and yummy lunch at one of our favorite Italian places about 30 mins away. Boy was that a great meal!

One night recently, I came out to check on my moonflowers and found a gorgeous Luna Moth munching on the leaves. He was so intent on eating that he let me get some awesome photos of him. Isn't it gorgeous?

I was also able to utilize, finally, the camera my husband bought me a couple years ago to get a nice shot of the moon.

Well, enjoy the first week of September, the unofficial first days of Fall. I hope everyone is getting lots of stitching done! Until next time,

Notforgotten Farm Giving Sisters and Moonflowers

I pulled a switch-a-rooni and stitched her ALL OVER AGAIN on linen! This has to be the third or fourth time I've begun this project on different fabric. I hand dyed this linen to be darker than the aida was, but you can't get a feel for the color here. It's a warm brown and turned out very pretty. The linen is Zweigart I believe and I picked it up from Hobby Lobby. I'm enjoying hand dyeing!

So now I think I'll progress to the other side, or maybe the top border so I don't get my counting wrong for the second sister. Ha, that is most likely what I need to do! It's been a fun stitch so far (you would hope so for as many times as I've started this project!). I'm trying to continue to let go of perfectionism in pursuit of completion.  Hard task indeed. But I'm getting there.

We had our first moonflower bloom around mid July, which is earlier than we ever had at our previous home!

They are so lovely.  I managed to do a video of one recently opening. Totally amateur, but it's OK! Only a minute long, but it captures it pretty well.


We had our first year anniversary of moving into our new house on August 2nd! We've been so happy here. I am so grateful to be living where I do with the people I love.  A full four seasons here. I can't believe how the time has gone.

I hope everyone has a great week!  Next time I'll have some more updates of my witchy sisters.  After all the starts I've done on that thing, it could have been done by now! 😁

Could I stitch ANY slower?!

Hello, hello! First, a stitchy update. I have been going back and forth between my witchy stitching and a crochet shawl I've been trying to finish up.

I need to start cracking down on this one-I love it so much! I've also been spending a good deal of time at the pool. Oops! No stitching or crochet happening at the pool, lol. But hey, that's what summer is all about. We moved here last August and only had a couple weeks for the pool, so we vowed to take FULL advantage this year! And we have!

YES! We have always wanted a pool and now we have one and it makes you feel like you are on vacation all the time!  It's been really hot here in VA and the cool water is just how you want to finish up a long summer day.  As a kid, I remember the pool being such an event!  You went and you were there for hours and hours.  Now I have the luxury of going when I want for as long as I want and I feel really thankful for it!

We did absolutely nothing for the 4th of July.  I actually did not miss hearing the boom of fireworks at all.  My son's girlfriend has to get up super early for her job, and we all work, so we are just in bed at a ridiculous early hour.  But that's OK!  It's how we like it.

Have you ever see a Hummingbird MOTH?  Well, I have, and it's a rare treat.  Because they are even harder to photograph than the actual bird, I got a video of one that was feeding in my petunias early this past week.  Enjoy!



I hope everyone has a great week and you get some quality time to stitch.  Hopefully I will make more progress on my witchy stitching (I'm doing more as soon as I finish this post!)  I should have my Hotel of Bees Shawl finished shortly as well.  It's been a really nice project to work on.

Notforgotten Farm The Giving Sisters-pumpkin time!

Here's an update of my (not too much) progress on The Giving Sisters by Notforgotten Farm:

 This is a fun stitch! I love all things Halloween, especially stitching. I made a brief foray into designing some years ago, and had to give up my pursuit after a short time. I'm thinking I need to give it a go again, because I have so many great ideas and I'm so inspired by designers such as this one. So many other great ones too!

Since we moved last August, I did not get to see our Moonflowers bloom at all, and I think the young man that bought our home ripped them all out. It shouldn't matter to me, but gosh it made me so sad! We were unable to plant any last year but, fear not, I made sure I'd have plenty this year. I have missed these perfect little heart shaped leaves so much!

You can bet I'll bore you with the blooms as soon as I have any!

My son turned 22 on June 11.  I just can't believe so much time has gone by.  Wow.

He is in college and doing great. He has a really good job and they love him there and we're really proud of this kid.  

Here are some lovely bees I managed to get a good pic of.  I just want to pet them.

And I will leave you with a beautiful waxing crescent moon from a few days ago.  We have been getting SO MUCH rain that seeing the moon was a real treat for me. I'm always looking at the sky it seems. 

More stitchy updates to come soon! I hope everyone has a productive and beautiful week!