We're Back...

Hooray, we arrived back in town today at around 4. There's ALOT of unpacking to be done but I'm just doing it in spurts as I feel up to it. Can anyone say never ending cold?? I really need to find a sign that advises people that although I only have mild asthma the combination of their small cold germs and my condition do NOT mix. I know Faith Ann can hear me barking from her house ;)

Before heading back I gave the boxing day sales one last try. I mean day one I came home with a 99 cent package of gift tags and that's it (although I did run into Michelle while shopping who had my cold and was also up visiting family). Day 2 I hit Walmart and took advantage of their book and DVD clear outs. I picked up Hoodwinked for Alex's birthday and another season of Matt's favorite show for future presents. I picked up a book for dad, hard cover, only to find him reading the soft cover. So I guess that's going to be for Matt as well, 5$ for a Clive Cussler hardcover, how can one go wrong?? I also stopped by the gift shop in town and picked up a piece of Kim Kirkpatrick Pottery at 15% off. We received a bowl as one of our wedding gifts that we adore and I'd really like some complimentary pieces. Combine elegance and whimsy in a piece of art and I'm in ;)

With this cold I haven't had much stitching time, having to continually hold a kleenex is not very productive! However I did finish my Christmas Dust Bunny by Dragon Dreams. I adore him. Now to finish the Nun stitching around the edges. I should also check the packages that arrived while I was gone from the stitching shops but it just seems to require too much energy :( I did check my visa during the week and I see my Marbek Nativity Fabric shipped from Heaven Lee Creations during their rare sales ;) I guess I'll have to adjust my stitching goals for 2007 ;)

363 Sleeps Until Christmas

Oh wow, the holiday sure does go quickly. Christmas Eve I finished up some of the appetizers for our little party after church. Mathieu finally arrived late in the afternoon with his bag of burger king as predicted. He always says he's coming early and ends up coming late...and with burger king, ewww... Wow, I really felt my age in church, all of the kids were all grown up! I still don't see myself at 30 at all. Alex was very well behaved, although it wasn't until we arrived there that I noticed he'd put on his big winter boots instead of his dress shoes, eww... After church we all got to open a present. Of course the one Alex was after was way under the tree, but he was very pleased to receive his two transformers from Matt. Before bed Alex laid out the cookies, his letter, the new cross stitch and the Christmas Pickle for Santa to hide ;)

After he was safely in bed we rolled out the appetizers and settled in for some Scattergories and then Santa made his visit. Mathieu was quite impressed with the stocking he received.

Christmas morning was busy. Alex hopped into bed with us at about 8:30 and after the stockings were emptied I started the big Christmas brunch. Between that and the late start we only wrapped up gifts at 1pm. Dad liked his Alex Calendar and mom also liked her Voice of The Shepherd

We must have been pretty good this year. Matt received a much needed new wardrobe between Santa and my parents. Alex LOVED all of his gifts. Cutting back led to one much more grateful child. Myself?? I'm going to the spa for a day, have some new clothes, a new Pampered Chef Baker, pinking sheers, lots of goodies for my tender tootsies and a large Home Depot Gift Card to put towards finishing my craft room. Ceiling and painting over 'Go Habs Go' and maybe even some mouldings woo hoo! I am going to call an electrician though to see how much it'll cost to put in two new outlets and move the thermostat to one controlled from that room.

Boxing day we finally got some snow!! This green Christmas crap does not agree with me at all. If it's going to be green I'd forego the tree and head to Disney in a heartbeat and for once watch the parade LIVE. Matt was storm stayed and it made up for the day he didn't get down :) We didn't go far as the city plows weren't on the roads. I started working on my Dragon Dreams Dust Bunny ornament which should be done before I head home :)

Today's Boxing Day sales held nothing more for me than a set of 99 cent gift tags, although that's very good for the pocket book ;) Tonight I'm planning on taking Alex to A Night At The Museum which should have a couple of laughs and if not, some yummy popcorn ;)

We Wish You A

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Anxiously Waiting

Well, Alex has been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Mr Claus and has been checking Norad's tracking site religiously!! ;) It's hard to believe it's Christmas Eve, especially where the grass is GREEN! Gotta love the effects of global warming :(

Matt's arrival has been delayed due to work issues and some severe freezing rain yesterday. I think Santa may be picking him up en route ;) Meanwhile in between baking prep I've been sneaking some stitching in here and there and finally finished this little guy to place beside the cookie dish tonight ;)


Wishing you all a safe and Merry Christmas!! Katie :)

Alex's New Aunt

Well, city hall should be closed by now in Switzerland so Alex officially should have a new aunt. Congratulations Eddie and Isabelle.

I haven't been up to too much. Yesterday was spent assembling that last Christmas gift (woot only 3 more days and I can display it ;)). I took Alex to Charlotte's Web in the evening which was pretty fun. He's been pretty wound up so it was nice to have some quiet time. I did go to the cross stitch store here yesterday and it was a bit of a disappointment. It was the owner's husband working to begin with which wasn't nearly as fun and I don't know if it's just me in my no pattern buying that just doesn't get the thrill of the hunt anymore or the fact that she actually didn't have the 2006 Mill HIll Christmas kit as my source of disappointment. Needless to say I think the urge to go there when I come to visit is officially dead.

Last night's wind was crazy. It blew something in my eye and that combined with my cold had me awefully pretty this morning, not!! My eye was stuck shut and maybe that was so I couldn't see how bad it looked when I finally washed it enough to open it. It was sooooo swollen. After some compresses, drugs, shower, time and carefully placed makeup it was presentable enough for Market. We did some last minute grocery shopping for our appetizer Christmas Eve party and I snuck out to the final dollarstore to check in my quest to find some new frames. I think they had the remaininig NB stock, but I only had just over 9$ on me so I left with 8...for now. There are just soo many little projects that can go in them and where else would I find a square frame for a dollar?? There are none left in Fredericton so I'm justified in buying them ;)

The remainder of today I think I'll just go with the flow, I still don't feel all that great so putting my feet up (and maybe even having a nap) should feel glorious. Matt announced we could have an extended stay if we pleased where we aren't travelling for once immediately after Christmas. The poor guy forgot to book any vacation with all the stress of his work :( I'm so relieved not to have to do any additional travelling with this stupid cold!!

Now to hit the sheets :)

The Holiday Part Two

We've arrived on the Miramichi safe and sound!! The drive was thankfully uneventful although my timing couldn't be worse. I think we met every school bus on the highway. Alex slept the whole way home so I had two whole hours of peace and quiet. After a delightful supper at My Mother's Kitchen we came home to decorate tree number two. I absolutely adore tree decorating! This time around it was a live tree which is a bit more of a challenge than our artificial at home but here's what we ended up with ;)

So yes, relatively no stitching that night with the exception of beginning to attach the charms to that last gift that needs to be assembled ;)

I've been battling a new sinus infection *yuck* which had me out at the malls searching for drugs yesterday. With significant amounts of pseudoephedrine in my system I was able to steal a couple minutes of sleep here and there without being kept up by my ringing ears. I also finished attaching the charms, finished basting the outline of the stocking and basted on the cording yesterday. Hopefully all of this basting will pay off!!

After supper dad and Alex headed out to the pool. I think they swam the entire 2 hours as after they came home Alex went in to watch Miracle on 34th street and when we went back to check on him this is what we found...

Mom and I then snuck out for a girlie night, exactly one week since our adventures with Flat Shannon :) What did we go see?? The Holiday, again!! I think I liked it even better the second time. Jude Law was just too adorable.

Today consists of finishing up the Christmas baking and a little sewing, hopefully. The cherry balls are all assembled and now I need to dip the Oreo Truffles and mix up the icebox cookies :)

Happy Holidays!!!

Adventures in Curry

Oh my goodness! What an adventure indeed!! Last night where it was Alex's and my last night home before Christmas (Matt follows on the weekend before or Christmas eve) I decided to attempt to make a fancy dinner. Well, I've learned that there are more than one kind of curry paste, and that the Tandoori I bought will make your curry maple chicken penne bright fuschia, borderline NEON!!

After supper I packed up what stuff was safe to leave in the car in the parking lot, suitcases hidden in the back, stuff hidden under the seats and my stinky gym bag to detract would be burglars. I love minivans but that's my one little beef, there's no concealed area. I have tinted windows but it still feels a bit openNow I just need to make a quick trip home to pick up some mittens, frozen fudge and some mittens as its cold!!! I didn't get to stitch much last night, there was a couple things I wanted to get done so I didn't come home to a complete disaster zone, but took these tasks at a leisurely pace. I did however get to play with my stash!! :) I packed my big rubbermaid container with the supplies for DD's Deck the Halls, Not Dust Them, the thread to finish off the Lost Dragon Sampler, Our LK First Christmas ornament to ornamentify, Matt's stocking to sew and my Christmas Elf Fairy...oh and my stocking. Yes, I do realize I'm only going for a week but what if I ran out of a critical thread on one project?? Oh, or what if I had something to frog?? Anyway, it's packed and ready to play with.

When on the Miramichi I'm going to see if I can find a large count for Alex to play with (I donated all of my aida to one of the elementary school stitching groups). When he saw me packing up my stitching yesterday he asked if he could stitch with me. I then asked him what I was going to stitch and he informed me that he was going to stitch a dragon. Hooray, he'll like his christmas gift from me then ;) Anyway, I've got a tiny one of her freebies that should be decent to stitch and doesn't involve alot of colours. We'll see :) Just think of how many more projects that would be completed from the stash if there were two of us to do it?? ;)

Last night I also went on the mad hunt for my cherry ball recipe, which is what Matt requested for his choice of cookie. After digging through the cookbooks (which are on the please sort me list when I get back) I finally found the itty bitty Tartan cookbook dad found when he was cleaning out his mother's house. Little old ladies sure knew how to cook the rich stuff back in the day. Mind you, some of the recipe names reflected the times and not the great multinational Canada we know today. It seems that anyone that had a regular recipe that wanted to make it sound fancy put Chinese in front of it! Authentic Chinese Brownies, never heard of them??? Of course when I got to the main dishes section was there any recipes for chicken almond su guy?? Kung Pao chicken?? Szechwan?? No :( Now back to the cherry balls! I went to the index, no cherry balls!! I got thinking, could I possibly be wrong about what cook book it came out of?? Frustrated and not wanting to leaf through the numerous cookbooks and magazines I sat down to read some of the old recipes. Then I came across "Secrets" and there were the cherry balls!! They truly were a secret ;)

From Santa to Bond

Arghhh...why oh why do I get sick right before Christmas and why oh why is it the only the one night that I leave my Christmas cards at work that it happens??? I guess I'll have to mail them and I guess they'll probably arrive during the 12 days of Christmas. I've never woken up sick out of the blue in awhile, usually I have the head cold for days before Friday's beast. What's worse is I don't feel a heck of alot better but I start vacation tomorrow afternoon and it would look quite fishy if I didn't show up for work. Sigh...

Ok...enough whining. I did at least get to watch a slew of Christmas specials with Alex Friday evening, Winnie The Pooh and Christmas Too was a Warm up to The Santa Clause on CBC. Alex now has a new favorite Christmas movie. He asked this morning if he could watch it again and I told him we'd see about renting it and maybe the sequel when I'm on holidays. I got quite a bit of lacing done during the specials :)

Saturday we had our quick trip to market and a disastrous trip bookshelf shopping. I'm a very skittish passenger (a car wreck will do that) so I tend to annoy Mathieu on the best of days, so me panicing when the elderly lady was driving up our lane and was going to turn into the handicap spot regardless if our car was coming or not was like the boy who called wolf. Although this did get us home earlier than planned so I worked on my Christmas Elf Fairy and did MORE lacing. We rented The Davinci Code and I started a stocking for ME. After weeks of stitching other gifts and working on Matt's stocking I was ready to do something for me. Back to the code...is it just me or does anyone get annoyed when they change trivial things from the book in the movie, things that just don't need to be changed...like Sophie being a brunette instead of a red head and her connection with her grandfather. In another movie, Where The Heart Is, they changed the number the main character was paranoid of. Why? I have no clue! Saturday was also my first time framing a piece of fabric that was a hair too short for the foam core, something that originally I had planned on framing in something smaller. I was a bit worried at first but was pretty impressed with the results.

Sunday I was still zonked. We slept in until 10 and then I made the executive decision to go to Bond alone, we've been trying to get a sitter since it openned in November with no luck and it's not on in the Miramichi when I'm there. I absolutely loved it. I wasn't looking forward to a blond bond but a throw back to high glamour and less cheesy gadgets was totally worth it. I spent the remainder of the afternoon packing (without the checklist that was sitting on my desk) and I'm happy to say it's only got a couple items left to do, woot! That should translate to just doing some baking with Alex and then do some stitching :) I'm going to load the clothing items in the van tonight and make a quick trip out to the house tomorrow to pick up the presents after work before hitting the road. I don't feel the need to tempt people all day with my van in the parking lot.

Let The Countdown Begin

Wow, I haven't been blogging much. Maybe it's been the baking, wrapping, finishing and of course a 'wild' night out ;)

So far we have three batches of fudge and a bowl of gingerbread dough which should be rolled out shortly. I'd planned on having a little more done by now but I wasn't planning on waking up with the cold Matt and Alex had last week and completely wiped out on Friday. I almost fainted when I woke back up and saw the clock at 12:30pm.

Wednesday night was really fun, Cathey has the best account of our night with Flat Shannon. It's a good thing we'd planned our night out to the chinese restaurant and chick flick about a month ahead of time or I'd probably have found myself too wiped out, like any other invitation this month. But getting out was awesome, the closest I've had to a real girl's night out next to retreat in awhile. It really recharged my batteries.

I did inventory on the closet last night and just have a couple more presents to wrap, which hopefully will be done tonight so I can box them for the trip to the Miramichi on Tuesday. Woot! Any of my stitchy time this week has been dedicated to lacing pictures and doing some ornament finishing on both a project for me, and two gifts.

Tis The Season from the 2006 Tiny Tidings for Alex's Teacher

Britty Kitty and Britty Puppy, two gifts (and my first attempt at making cording)

And this is just for me...

Now...back to work...

Deck The Halls

Well here's some pics of what we've been doing around the house...and compromising my stitching time

Our Tree & Côtéville

I have a tonne more pics but I'll save them for subsequent posts ;)

This weekend saw more prep of presents and the finale of gym and swim. It was bring a friend day so Alex brought his best bud Kayla, after he'd gone to her finale on Thursday. I took the kids for a festive donut and chocolate milk at Tim Horton's (gee, thankfully you guys aren't as critical as some on the boards or I might have to provide all of the nutritional info for the week ;)) The kids had a little impromptu playdate while I got groceries. I really hate the grocery trip with the non grocery items that make the bill skyrocket. I did find a monky flyer for Alex's stocking, something we say at retreat. I showed it to Matt the other week and must have had a broken one and forgot about the piercing shriek it lets out, which of course scared the poor cashier half to death when I threw it on the belt! How embarassing!! Of course the thing screamed all through the parking lot too every time the cart hit a bump ;)

Today was a Jam/Pump day. Why of why do I attract the people that show up late and are exactly the kind of person you'd NOT be beside. I get talkers or 7 foot people at the movies and today I got someone who came in late enough for the give yourself plenty of room or end up getting hit speal. Said person also decided halfway through the routine and stopped to watch the instructor, right in my path, oye. Then at pump the queen went and put her step right beside mine, with no room for me!! She even had the nerve to tell me to move my step forward. Then I went to get my weights and had someone drop a 2.5 to 5kg weight on my shoulder/collarbone...now that doesn't hurt or anything. Nothings worse than trying to stay composed in front of 30+ people when you're already having a bad day. Well at least I got more of my Christmas gifts ready. I can't wait to do some lacing this week.

I also started my bakefest this weekend which saw some really yummy new recipes such as Irish Cream fudge, Grand Marnier Fudge and some bits and bites. That's the one 'work' part of Christmas that I truly do enjoy :) Here's hoping for some actual time to put in on Mirabilia's Christmas Fairy this week ;)

Did You Ever...

Have read a post on a bb that just ticked you off?? For Example this just drove me up the wall and back down again...

This woman just dumbfounds me. In July our 4-H club planned a trip to a high-mountain lake for canoeing and swimming. Her son was 8. She asked if someone could give him a ride. I said, "Did you ask an adult to be responsible for him?" She replied, "No, I didn't think I needed to."
I am currently organizing the Homeschool Ski Program involving nearly 70 people. Today the same mom asked another family if they could give her son a ride to the hill. They refused, saying that they didn't feel they could be responsible for him. "Well, Heidi didn't say I had to have someone responsible for him." DUH!

And responses such as

-"It's always amazing to me the number of parents that look upon these activities as free babysitting. I really feel sorry for their kids. "
-"Sadly, common sense isn't very common anymore.

And even more sadly, many parents just don't seem to care about actually *parenting* anymore.

When organizing trips, be sure that the first thing on the cover of your list of details, permission slips, etc. is a notice that EVERY PARENT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN CHILD and if their child is going without a parent, the parent is required to get another adult to agree to be the responsible party for that child and accept liability."

And the killer

"Makes you wonder does this woman leave her son alone at home unattended? How could anyone ask strangers to take her son to some place and just leave him alone? She has got to either take him herself or pay a sitter to take him and tend to him.

Yes, you have got to do papers that say child has to be taken by parents or responsible sitter or relative. Can not be dropped off or left alone on its own."

Its?? Obviously this isn't a real parent children are not an 'it'...or only on certain occasions?? ;) What on earth is up with people being overly critical of today's parents?? Bah Humbug?? Quite frankly I like the screening that most organizations do to their leaders, at least in Canada and I really wouldn't be overly happy with some of the other parents tagging along...or someone going just to be a guardian, what's that crazy percentage of a child related sex offenses being by a family member or friend of the family...trusted people...yeah I like some level of screening of who's around my son. My goodness, the economy almost demands that both parents work, and I know lots of working moms that burn both ends of the candle to be uber moms and are very hands on with what time they have.

I'm grateful we live in a nation who's justice system doesn't permit quite as many lawsuits! Whatever happened to "It takes a village to raise a child". I'd be more than happy (and do) drive other children around and ammore than willing to have an emergency playdate (or even a babysitting one). Letting one's child watch a tv show here and there is not a babysitter. Children have bad days just like alot of adults I know.

So to those who feel overly critical of todays moms...stop lumping us in with the wingnuts that have and always will be around...and BAH HUMBUG!

Final Score: Spiral Tree 2 Katie 1

Ack...I love the look of spiral trees but my good lord they hate me. I came home all excited to put up my new multicoloured tree, the same company and size as the last tree, went to put it on the existing pole and it wouldn't go...so then I assembled the new one, brought it outside and it still wouldn't fit over the hole. Spiral tree 2. I even tried frigging with it to get the star to possibly be propped. By this time I was getting a little irate. So my next trip out to the tree I had a power drill and the biggest drill bit I could find in the house and drilled the stupid thing until the hole was wide enough to fit. Katie 1 My neighbors must think I'm crazy ;)

Yesterday I got the remaining icicle lights up inside. Although doing the picture window lights was not the best thing to do before heading to work, I ended up with a Christmas cactus bud in my hair!! Mom came down to pick up her wreath and we went out for a wonderful family supper at Boston Pizza. My son, being the creature of habit that he is quickly picked up that we had not ordered our usual appetizer of cactus cut potatoes ;) He brought one of his Franny K Stein books with him to show his uncle. Afterwards we ran a couple of errands and picked up some food for Matt then settled in for a nice visit :) Why on earth do they put Christmas specials on so late that school aged kids can't watch them. I was shocked to see Santa Claus is Coming to Town on at 9 pm, I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and purchase that one (it's one of my favorites). I stitched as well and finished my Hope needleroll. I can't wait to stuff it and put it on the tree.

Today's been one of those days, kid that didn't want to go to school, van that didn't want to defrost, people that don't respect people's calendars and schedule meetings, one that even spans over the lunch time slot (well too bad, I'm going to my son's christmas concert) I'll be happy to arrive home tonight, hopefully with the pictures for the Christmas cards...

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank those of you who supported the school's wreath campaign, raffle draw and bazarre this year. These events raised over 16,000$ for Alex's school (on top of the 7,000$ they raised for Unicef), hopefully for some Smartboards to go with their new amplification systems they purchased last year. :) Thanks Again :)

Spiral Tree 1 Katie 0

Well, last week was another busy week. I was soo glad to see the bazarre finally roll around. Friday after BodyPump Alex and I loaded the 3 loaves of cinnamon bread, 2 dozen mini pumpkin muffins, 2 dozen brownie bit cookies and 2 dozen worth hoarding chocolate bars (thanks Cathey for saving my disorganized neck...I knew she'd be able to find the copy of the JCS I was missing in about 2 seconds) into the van and took them to the school. What a zoo! Alex helped me bring the food in and then we picked up the wreath orders. Alex practiced the whole way home saying 'Thank you for supporting my school' but by the time we got to Faith Ann's I could barely understand what he blurted out ;) He really wanted to stay and play and I got to hear the whole way home how disappointed he was that he couldn't stat to play, thankfully it's a very short drive.

We decided to skip the Christmas tree festival Friday night where it was freezing rain off and on. I brought up the ornaments and was surrounded by glass ones when the power flicked about 3 times followed by a boom off in the distance. Of course everything beeped as it died and woke up Alex who is terrified of the dark. After my eyes adjusted I was able to make it out of the glass forcefield I'd built while someone looked for his flashlight. I got to put my decorative candles to good use ;) He then went searching for the phone book to call NBPower, somewhere the 'I already programmed that number into the phone' was not getting through as Katie programmed the speed dial on the land line for NBPower. We all ended up in the same bed and sealed off the bedroom incase we would be without power for awhile. When we woke up it was back :)
We rushed out to Gym but skipped the Swim as you really need to be at the bazarre first thing. Our early arrival was rewarded when I got to the 2nd time around table and picked up a Magic Treehouse book, Lemony Snicket #4 hardcover, Ramona book and a George Shrinks DVD for 2.25 :) The boys meanwhile navigated all of the games and picked me up a little something from the secret shop for Christmas :) We had lunch there and headed out, we never win draws so why stick around for them...

I drug the boys grocery shopping as well, the family that suffers together stays together :) Neither was too pleased, especially when we got to the line up and it was a wait. I left them and the cart and headed to the shoe section and found a pair of Nike Air Assaults (I think) for 30$ less than the Footlocker. Matt's mother gave us money for Christmas and I desperately needed new sneakers for the gym and these fit the supportive bill. We unloaded and began decorate the tree, or correction, I worked on the lights and ribbon. I was dancing around the living room to John Denver and the Muppets singing Old St Nick and low and behold it finally started to snow. I called Alex out and he was just as excited as me. We then started decorating, Alex was much more into it this year!! The tree though did not seem to want to stay straight so we headed out to the mall for supper and to find something to tie it with :) After that we headed to the Christmas tree festival. Alex would have enjoyed it more if we hadn't had such a busy day but he still thought it was pretty neat. His favorite part was the ginger bread houses. Highlights for us, a girl guide cookie tree, present's under the police tree wrapped in evidence reports and bows of crime tape, and even a picture of our old apartment was on a tree!! One of the real estate companies bought out our old place and had all of their properties on. Another neat tree was the Women in Forestry tree, all forestry stuff in glittery pink, that got my vote for best tree :) Then we headed home, stuffed and wiped!

Sunday was low key. I headed to Pump after lunch and then finished the stocking shopping, even picking up Santa's 'naughty' reading material ;) I also found a light bulb tester and when I returned home decided to try to fix the spiral tree that only half lit up and all I got for my efforts was a borderline sprained finger, scratched up knucles and a half inch gash in my finger for what turned out to be a dead socket. Needless to say I picked up a new spiral tree today and may just light the old one on fire ;)

So yes...no stitching this weekend :( Although sometimes it's nice to have a little break from it. I'm all set up to finish my JD Needleroll for this year and put it on the tree tonight :) Here's hoping...

Wacky Wednesday

Phew...Last night was busy! Matt was home sick all day so I got him to pick up Alex so I could get to a class at the gym to make up for at least one of the ones I missed last week. It was interesting to say the least! It was the new release of Body Jam and it involved alot more spinning and jumping than the last one. Needless to say there were lots of flying bodies during what one instructor called the "African Disco" segment.

I returned home and heated up the remainder of our homemade cream of mushroom soup (which Alex actually tried and liked) and made some 'garden style' quesadillas. While Alex was in the tub I put in a batch of dough for cinnamon rolls and made a batch of pumpkin mini muffins for the bazarre, tonight I'll make another batch of dough and the squares so Thursday I'll only need to make a batch of cookies. After all that was complete and Alex was in bed after another chapter of Franny K Stein, I got to throw yet more clothes in the wash, shower and edit some photos on the computer for a gift I need to order tonight. So by 9:40 I was pretty zonked and headed to bed...with my needleroll in tow. I finished the dreaded over one stitching in the candles and shut the light off. This needleroll is progressing much smoother than the one I did for retreat :) Hopefully if all goes smoothly it'll be beaded tonight!

Tonight's agenda a) pick up remaining ingredients for bazarre cook off b)pick up kid c) do homework with kid and prep baking 'center' d)throw supper in oven e)fix son's beaver uniform f) start more sweet dough g) put squares together h)possibly make cookies i)drop kid off at Beavers j)Get workout in and bead k)Read chapter of Franny L)Squeeze in shower m)slay dragon (ie: geek stuff) n) head to bed....really not that bad a night...not!! Thankfully tomorrow is hot lunch day so I only need to pack recess. I'll be sooo glad when Saturday evening rolls around ....by then the tree should be decorated, the bazarre over with and I'll be looking forward to a relaxing week ahead with 'optional' baking. I seriously must have done to pledge sheet before medication!! ;)

A Week in Review

Where oh where oh where have we been? Last week was one of those weeks that you just want to crawl up and ignore some of the goings on and rejoice in the others.

Tuesday: Headed to Angela's for some stitching and bitching and also taking in all of the progress they've made on their home which is truly gorgeous

Wednesday: Day from Hell...After prepping poor Alex for his 'booster' we get to public health and don't 'need' it for school admission. I was pissed to say the least. I got a letter from the school that was forwarded all the way to district office about it and for no reason whatsoever. I tried calling both public health and the school to find out what shot was missing to confer with my doctor, neither could tell me sh*t. I found out that the 'audits' were done in the spring and that the school had left off telling me until a day or two before the last day they were legally obligated to. So, I spent hours trying to track down this 'needle', had to take an hour and a half off of work to go to public health, lost my parking space, burnt a load of gas for what...to be thrown in the same barrel as the deadbeat parents. There is one well worded letter being compiled for head office!

Thursday: Fun Day...Had another appointment with my doctor (two appointments in one week, yuck...at least only one was for me). Then I got to go home. Mom and Jazz came up for a visit and Alex was excited to let Jazz out when we got there. After supper we headed to the school for parent teacher. Alex was pretty excited to show mom his school and they headed off to the bookfair. The meeting went well and Alex found some new books at the bookfair (and thankfully avoided the Magic Treehouse book I'd already picked up). He now has another favorite book series Franny K Stein-Mad Scientist by Jim Benton, although Matt wanted to know who enjoyed them more, Alex or myself.

Friday: Out on the town...we had a nice outing with mom to Scott's nursery, house 'hunting', a little christmas shopping and a nice lunch at Quiznos. Alex only had a bratty moment at Scott's and was eventually turned around and happy as a clam. We got home to Matt telling me I had to go to the school...I was ticked, I had been looking forward to walking the dog before mom headed back...but Alex was drawn as the grand prize winner at the bookfair winning 25$ worth of books...that had to be picked out by 3... and it was 2:30. So we hightailed it in to town. I guess his teacher was pretty excited as the class got 25$ worth of books as well. I'd planned on going into town after mom left to get groceries and didn't want to make another trip in so I bit the bullet and took Alex with me, and didn't have my trusty list or menu. Oh well... After supper we went to the treelighting at Scott's but didn't stay for the whole thing that was really drug out for one wound up kid. He was pretty excited to see Callie sing and we got to chat with Eleni and Craig for awhile (and Jackson worked his...really you want another one just like me charm on Matt). Oh during our trip out with mom I got the last set of lights for my village and it's now lit!!

Saturday: Run AWAY: Ok...I left the boys Saturday morning to go stitch. With inlaws incoming and I needed to recoup some sanity. Their trip was uneventful, besides our trip to the parade...note to parents don't put new boots on your child before said event. Alex ended up on Matt's shoulders for most of it with my mittens on his feet if it's any indication of how that went! The highlight of the parade for him? Most kids are happy with Santa, mine went ape over the mascot for Boston Pizza!! All you could hear for a block was 'Hi Boston Pizza Guy!!!' until he was out of sight, Santa got a Merry Christmas a wave and that was it!!

Sunday: Our company left just in time for me to miss the second of my classes, sigh... Oh well, Alex and I still had time for a stitching playdate over at Faith Ann's. Alex was begging to go back if that's any indication of how well they played together.

Monday: Flex day off!! Alex and I had a nice day planned...with sewing of a christmas gift and wrapping Matt's gifts planned...until he showed up home sick. sigh... We met Angela and Eleni for lunch. The boy has been obsessed with trying clams since he saw them in a menu on our Miramichi trip! After that we took the bottles in and headed up to Fabricville where there was a really bad diesel smell so they called 911, of course everyone was rushing to get out and stuck with an incompetant cashier...top that off with "I've GOTTA PEE!! I don't want to pee my pants' and you can begin to guess how pleasant it was! And it only got worse, just as I was about to pull out of there to take Alex to the bathroom a firetruck pulled in behind our spot!! So we made a mad dash to Tim Horton's... I did manage to wedge the van out and head to the mall. First order of business, take Alex to Santa :) We did a little shopping too, Alex got to take the bottle money to Chapters where he was down right awestruck at the full collection of Magic Treehouse books (and ticked when I told him they were off limits for his purchase). Fast forward to two tired redheads driving in the yard ready to wrap and watch a movie to find out we no longer had the house to ourselves, sigh... Not that I don't love Matt's company, it's just very rare that I ever get the house to myself!! After supper I settled in to stich and watch Doctor Who and Heroes. I tried to watch Dexter but it was just too gross for me. Whenever Matt was out of the room I started basting the cording on the stocking, oye...

Today: No plans besides body Jam, woot!! I need to make a pan of squares for school and that's about it for me!!

Just One of the Things We've Been Up To In The Last Week

'Tis The Season

Woo hoo, there's no better way to start a weekend than with a report card that shows obvious improvement!! Alex's report card was sooo much better than last year, and much more positive. I also got back to Body Pump, which was good, I've been feeling a bit blah due to the missed gym sessions either due to our hectic schedule or colds/headaches. My goal is to make it to two body pump classes a week and then get back up to three in January.

Saturday was the usual run around day, Gym and Swim went relatively well and then Alex and I headed for groceries. For supper Matt decided to have a special dinner out at Pizza Hut and Alex got to order his cheesy bites pizza (essentially cheese filled garlic bread mini buns make up the outer crust). After we returned to the house I grabbed my iPod and keys and headed to Green Village for their annual tax free sale. The trees were gorgeous but I didn't end up getting too much as I already had alot of the ornaments. I picked up some snowment and that was about it. They didn't have indoor mini LED lights which I was a bit disappointed about. After that I headed to Walmart to look for the LED lights (again no luck), resisted the urge to heckle the suckers waiting in line for the Wii and find some replacement bulbs for the village. I was tickled pink when I found a 5 light strand for the village!! That definitely reduced the number of wires!! I couldn't remember exactly how many houses I had so I withheld on a second strand but of course I got home and found that I had exactly 5 more houses to do!! Oh...I also got all of the outdoor decorations put up during the mild weather...

Sunday we slept in so I stitched on Alex's teacher's present until the Body Jam/Body Pump combo at 12:30. After that I tried a couple more stores looking for the lights with no luck. Oh well! It was so mild that Alex and I were able to go for a bike ride around the block when I got home and then we made 'Worms in dirt' for dessert (chocolate pudding, oreo crumbs and gummy worms).

Monday was a bit hectic, it just seemed hard to get going in the morning. I tried out a new recipe from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry and Jellystone Pork was a huge hit. After Alex went to bed I settled in with my stitching and watched Doctor Who. By the end of the episode I had a little happy dance which was actually quite monumental, I'd finished Alex's teacher's Christmas gift (Tis The Season from the latest Lizzie Kate Tiny Tidings), it also marked the end of 'gift' stitching!! Seeing as Justice was a repeat at 9 I celebrated by making some healthy caramel apple muffins and tidying up the kitchen ;) Then I settled back in and watched Heroes and dedicated my full attention to it, and it rocked!! I meant to go downstairs after and get the pom poms for Tis The Season but the evil Sylar had me too scared to go down in the basement alone...who wants to have their head cut open and brain removed anyway?? ;)

Matt had a little surprise for me as well yesterday, a CARD!! Not only was it monumental because it was a card but he'd also doctored up an anniversary card to mark 1/2 a year, wow!! :)
Tonight I'll be stitching with the girls for a bit, I can't wait to see the improvements on Angela's house!! I need to track down my JCS though first so I can get back to my Hope needleroll :)

Twenty Dollars

Just incase any of you need a reminder of how special you are ;)

$20.00

Sometimes we just need to be reminded!
A well-known speaker started off his seminar by
holding up a $20.00 bill. In the room of 200, he asked,
"Who would like this $20 bill?"
Hands started going up.
He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you
but first, let me do this.
He proceeded to crumple up the $20 dollar bill.
He then asked, "Who still wants it?"
Still the hands were up in the air.
Well, he replied, "What if I do this?"
And he dropped it on the ground
and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe.
He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty.
"Now, who still wants it?"
Still the hands went into the air.
My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson.
No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it
because it did not decrease in value.
It was still worth $20.
Many times in our lives,
we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt
by the decisions we make and
the circumstances that come our way.
We feel as though we are worthless.
But no matter what has happened or
what will happen, you will never lose your value.
Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased,
you are still priceless to those who DO LOVE you.
The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know,
but by WHO WE ARE and WHOSE WE ARE.
You are special - Don't EVER forget it."

Save The Cheerleader, Save The World!

Ok...there is no cheerleader, just a Heroes addict and that tag line is just too cool to not use just once in the blog. After yesterday I plugged into the last 30 minutes of Heroes that I taped Monday to wind down..... why?? well...

The relief that my breast incident was an isolated occurance quickly turned into anger with the fact that the first surgeon is even allowed to practice medicine in the country. What is competitent about not reading a patients file before suggesting surgery and not being honest about that surgery. I came prepared with my questions, will it affect breast feeding later on...no. Well how the heck would losing a quarter of ones breast not (oh and that 1/4 was not the small amount discussed, I only saw that when I saw my file). Let alone his comments that I'd be able to go 'topless' after without anyone noticing a scar, tactless jerk. Between that and my desire to line up a whole bunch of people concerning another incident and have them explain the continual questions of my 6 year old honestly, well it was one of those days where the Dixie Chicks I'm Not Ready to Make Nice got alot of playtime.

Work went well yesterday, we had an interesting meeting on how the department's plan to move our apps to the .NET framework, then I plugged away at yet another 'standards' change to the reports I've been developing. It would be soo nice if Crystal had a way of safely applying Templates to predeveloped reports. By the time 4:20 rolled around (had some flex time to make up due to migraine day) I was ready to go home and pack up for stitchy night.

The one hiccup in that plan was picking up a child that did NOT want to go home and was being a brat for the x-consecutive pickup who wanted to quit beavers thinking he could stay and play in the meantime and continually ran his mouth until I had to put on the serious voice (which I hate using), try to find a politically correct way to say stop talking, and marched him to the car. Arghhh... There was one serious conversation in the car on the way home concerning this behavior. He was then good, doing his homework promptly, handing over the halloween treats for the night and eating. He got ready for Beavers and I packed up my stitching stuff and headed to his investure. Well...that was not the proud glowing mother moment I was expecting, three times I caught his arm going up and when the leader didn't say anything the third time I had to discretely make my way up and warn him that if he did it again he'd go straight home. Worse, the kids that he was having issues with weren't only one of the leaders kids, it was one of my coworkers...so then he tilted his halo and sat their stoically. Then came the actual investure of his group (which is all on video). While the other kids had one hand on the Canada Flag and the other in the beaver hand symbol my son was continually grabbing his butt. It was up to the parents to put their kerchiefs on and when I went to do that I heard "mommy, I pooped my pants". If the floor could have openned up at that point I would have been pretty appreciative. Thankfully it was only some questionable gas but just the thought of having to walk past a room full of parents to take poopy underwear out for lack of better words sucked!

Needless to say when 6:45 came around I was out that door like a shot to pick up Faith Ann and let Matt take over!! I was never so relieved to get to stitchy night!! What an exciting evening, there were a number of pick me ups, hugs and wonderful news, an expectant stitcher :) I vicariously live through people starting families ;) I tried out a pattern to see if it would be narrow enough to make into a needleroll for Alex's bazarre but that was a no go...so now it'll just look nice framed in my house (or mom's) and went back to stitching on my Jeanette Douglas needleroll, I'm getting pretty anxious to put up my Christmas tree. I can't even put into words how nice it was to unwind with some pretty awesome women for 3 hours!! Then when I got home I had a chance to open my mail and there was the letter Matt wrote for me at our marriage prep weekend, timing couldn't have been more perfect ;)

Today I'm FINALLY going to get back to the gym woot! I'm going to check out the christmas craft fair at lunch which should be fun :) Now for something completely off ranting ;)

The rules:
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether or not they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

1) Not Ready to Make Nice by The Dixie Chicks
2) I Belong to You by Anastacia and some dude ;) Body Track's Current Cool Down, and it makes me want to go home Friday nights and pretend we're not having tacos and instead light some candles, crack open a bottle of wine and have a romantic dinner...like lobster tails
3) Fly Me To the Moon by Frank Sinatra, Body Jam's Current Cool Down, this should be played after the dream dinner for dancing ;)
4) All I Can Do by Chantal Kreviazuk
5) Simply Irresistable by Robert Palmer, yet again another Body Pump Track, squats this time
6) Man Eater by Nelly Furtado, thanks to last weeks Desperate Housewives promo
7) Pretty Vegas by INXS, Body Pump's current Shoulder Track

Got iPod?

Yeah, long time no blog :) Friday night we headed out to pick up my iPod Shuffle as it was FINALLY release day. Well, I walked right past them they're sooo tiny, they're smaller than the pictures on the web. I was playing with it all Friday night!! I'm so glad we didn't wait to pick it up as we got the second last one at the futureshop.

Saturday, I loaded the van and connected the iPod for our trip to the Miramichi. It was soo nice to finally have current music in the van (which has a tape deck...and my old stereo does not like disks burnt with iTunes). Alex's only request was that I load Sesame Street's Hot Hot Dance Songs so he could do the Macarena ;) The trip was uneventful, besides almost mowing down some people, I understand people were going to the rememberance day ceremonies but parking on both sides of the road unexpectedly in a 90 zone and then walking two abreast with their backs to traffic....where's Darwin when you need him??

We had a nice visit home. The dog was a bit jealous of Alex and would try to eat the ninja turtles, even if they were in the box. I guess he was trying to discourage having to share dad with Alex for a whole week like our last visit ;) I got some stitching, relaxing and catching up in. My lost dragon samper is almost done, if I could find my Havana silk and I finished my Mill Hill Mandolin Santa.

Monday we headed back in the rain and fog, leaving is miserable enough without the weather adding to it. Yesterday I was home with a Migraine, which was a blessing in disguise as I got to keep an eye on the basement as we had a real freak rainstorm, there was water everywhere but thankfully the basement stayed dry. I did do some manual sump pumping before supper and took out about 10 loads of water from the storm drain in a big canner pot, what a workout. I could practically vacuum/dump/vacuum/dump, head up the stairs, head back down the steps, dump water return and repeat in my sleep. It's only on a day like that that one realizes how many steps you do in a raised ranch house :)

In my good news Monday, I don't need to go for a biopsy, woot! Just monitoring and a list of 'if this happens call'. It takes sooo long for a second opinion in Canada but it was worth it, the doctor I saw in the breast clinic was going to take 1/4 of my breast for biopsy, which wasn't the amount he disclosed with me, but I did find out when I saw my file >:( My lovely surgeon who reminds me of Monica from Friends, said while that would take out anything suspicious, we don't do mastectomies to reduce our risks. I should ask that jack a** if he'd like to have a 1/4 of his testicals removed to make sure nothing was wrong with them for nothing. After sleeping off my migraine I put up the Christmas Village and started to do some of the Christmas decorating, poor DH was caught a bit off guard when he got home ;)

Tonight's stitchy night, I can't believe it's been a month already!!

It's Friday! Friday! Fri-DAY!

Thanks for all of the positive feedback on my little mental health awareness plug, it's nice to know I'm not the only one :) It's hard sometimes to try to describe it in a way that doesn't make you sound self centered. I know my limits and there are days/situations where I cannot put up with people's bs and removing myself from them isn't being self centered, sulky or always getting my way. If lancing the brain was possible, painless and not life threatenning sure we could monitor it like diabetics can their blood sugar but it's not really a viable option.

Yesterday was one of those days, the work day that never ends!! I went for a run at the gym and finished reading Embroidered Truths in the car while I waited for Alex to finish playing with his friends, I wasn't in any mood to put up with "but I'm not done having fun yet". Not that he gets away with this normally, but it's not like I wasn't 10 pages away from finishing a book ;) So now I've read all of the Monica Ferris paperbacks, woot! I wonder when Sins and Needles is coming out in paperback, or if I can drop enough hints for Matt to pick it up in hardcover...yeah right!! So now it's onto the Scrapbooking Mystery series.

My Mandolin Santa was almost finished yesterday but I forgot my beads at home so I couldn't finish that part at lunch, instead I worked on my Lost Dragon Sampler which is working up remarkably fast. I also met up with Eleni and did a small stash exchange and got a little girl hug from Callie :) In the evening I finished doing my DMC inventory, now to set aside some time next week to wind!! ;)

This weekend Alex and I (and maybe Matt) are heading to the Miramichi Saturday morning, I can't believe it's been 3 months since I've gotten home :( Alex of course is VERY excited at this development (and mad at me for not going right after work, but if Matt doesn't go I don't want to be on the highway alone after dark). I'm hoping to attach the mustache to Mandolin Santa and quite possibly finishing the Lost Dragon Sampler this weekend, we'll have to see ;)

Sweet Retreat

Retreat was awesome, Cathey pretty much summed up our fun escapades on her blog ;) Retreat was great in other ways too. 550.75 was raised for breast cancer with our basket draw, I don't know how much came from the kits for cancer draw on top of that. I wish there was someway though that we could encourage a mental health dialog along with it. I'd catch pieces of conversation here and there and while it was comforting to know that you aren't alone it would be nice if we could celebrate being depression/anxiety/bipolar survivors as much as we celebrate surviving physical ailments. I've found great strength in the mantra "depression is not a flaw in character, it is a flaw in chemistry" this time around. It helps having a doctor this time that truly monitors my condition and just doesn't prescribe an open prescription, although I don't think I've had as many doctor's appointments since I was pregnant! It's taking a bit of getting used to ;) I'm slowly accepting the fact that it truly is a chemistry problem and something that will be a condition that just doesn't magically go away. Alchoholics do not continually drink 24/7 and those who suffer from depression do not mope around 24/7 either, although I could give a whole list of warning signs that are very easily ignored and written off as something else. So there's my open dialogue for the day, I'm still me, I still run around with my ta-ta tassle twin, I still put whoopie cushions under people's seats, I still have my very black sense of humor, I'm still a wonderful mother and loving wife and now I'm finally being responsible and seeking treatment.

Ok...there was my mental healt awareness plug (or should it even be classified as mental, that screwed up chemistry affects your entire body)...anyway...back to retreat. As for my part I stitched away Friday night and Saturday Morning on the Hope needleroll. I kind of like doing them for the exchange too to work the kinks out before mine goes on my anal retentive tree, especially when it involves samplers as diagramming does not always represent the space the stitches actually take up. I also enjoyed my Laura Secord truffles, pumpkin spice and caramel apple are divine!!!

After a lunch with the Dragon I settled into hem stitching and mylanta the afternoon went fast!! There was an incident with the fireplace that ended up smoking up the place temporarily, quite ironic where the dragon herself was in the center of it ;) I finished my piece and waited for a friend to bring in her sewing machine. I then hummed and hawed if I'd do The Lost Dragon Sampler or Mirabilia's Christmas Elf Fairy and The Lost Dragon Sampler won, who could resist those bright colours?!? Saturday evening we just got silly, Cathey and I changed into our matching jammies and donned our tassles ;) This cut into stitching time but garnered some much needed laughs.

I was sad to see Sunday come around, I could have stayed another week! The exchange was a bit disappointing, there's always 2 or 3 people that don't put that much effort into their stitching (not that I'm a stitching snob) and when the retreat numbers are down they show up a bit more. For me personally, if I'm going to stitch something to exchange I stick on the safe side, plus I try to stitch something that promotes a Canadian Designer (ok the first was a G&P but I customized it to have the camp name on it). But really the best part of the exchange isn't the ornament I receive, it's hearing people vying for YOUR ornament when they're in the dinner line, that is truly rewarding knowing your stitching will be appreciated. The other little downer was the fact that a couple of the leaflets Cathey and I were selling off went 'missing'. What was truly odd about it was they were ones that at least I couldn't understand people taking when there were Lizzie Kate's in my stash...although a reference to Shannon's Heart In Hand 'pooping bird's' quickly wiped that notion away ;)

This week has been a little hectic. Groceries weren't picked up on the weekend so Monday was shot, I've been buying/arranging installation of some studded tires, Beavers and a kid with ear wax issues...oh and trying to organize my floss finally. I'm just about finished another Mill Hill Santa...woot! Now to just find some down time to wrap the remaining presents I picked up in Moncton, it feels really good to be 90% done Christmas shopping!!

Enabling Alert

Here's one of the gorgeous pieces on the show and tell table. I wasn't big on the Prairie Schooler Santa's until I saw this....

Retreat Pics

A retreat update will follow after a good night's sleep, and figuring out how to summarize an awesome and much needed weekend away!!

But seeing as I won't be able to upload in the morning here are the pics before I head to bed:

Tracy of Fiddlestitch Cottage, myself and Cathey The Flamingo Girls from the South ;)

Cathey and I...and yes there's a story behind this...

My retreat finish by Jeanette Douglas for the ornament exchange, Cathey's 'winnings' are to the left.

Multiplication

Well, I'm beginning to believe the deer are multiplying or involved in some top secret cloning, we've gone from one to to two but now three deer. It was pretty exciting to see three of them on one of our neighbors front lawns, but it made the remainder of the drive a bit nerve wracking as they took off in the direction of our house and I was worried they'd run out in front of the van.

Well tonight wasn't as big a packing success as I had hoped, but I did get some more charts ready to attempt to sell at retreat and some pieces of hand dyed that I'm lacking vision for... ;) Now as promised some pictures...


Alex headed to the Beaver Halloween Party

His latest school pic

A picture before the Halloween festivities

One pooped clown, his deflated pumpkin mother (really I don't usually look that bad but I was too tired to even fix the pony tail) and our pumpkin :)

Trick or Treat

I'm back... The weekend was pretty busy, fun, but busy. Mom and dad were over for a visit Friday evening. Alex was pacing around the picture window from 8 o'clock until they arrived. He tried to convince mom that she should read the Magic Treehouse book to him until 10 o'clock but that didn't work ;)

Saturday we had a nice family brunch and then dad, Alex and I headed to gym and swim. He was soo excited to have his pappy come see his 'new' pool. As much as we loved the facilities at the Northside pool we weren't overly impressed with some of the instructors and found the number of different age groups in the pool distracting. His new pool is older but the fun distractions are gone so he can focus on lessons, the instructors (although there's a mumbler) are great, it's only kids his age in the pool and he can move around level wise if he completes it before the time frame is up. He found getting stuck for 8 weeks at the other pool annoying. After we returned we cleaned up and went to Boston Pizza with mom and dad, that restaurant is Alex's absolute favorite. Being stuffed and tired I napped for the remainder of the afternoon.

Sunday we enjoyed our extra hour of sleep. I got caught up on some Smallville and Desperate Housewives episodes and skipped class due to a cold and the birthday party Alex was invited to and while he was out I had my first trick or treater ever ;) (Matt usually gives out the treats). Faith Ann was by with her DS who was too cute. Then I proceeded to wrap Alex's Christmas gifts and got about half of them done before it was time to pick him up again. Sunday night was divided between cleaning up after a turkey dinner (yum), stitching and playing some computer with Matt, woot!

Monday I took an official sick day, it's not something I do normally but sneezing for 5 minutes straight had me convinced I'd either make people sick or be very distracting. I vegged most of the day. I tried to sleep but was woken up by Rogers, although we finally asked to be removed from the list (they've been calling for weeks but we always seem to be in the telemarket cue), then I had an e-mail that had me a little concerned. I was a good girl though and didn't move too far from the couch. Before I went to pick up Alex I did wrap a couple more of his gifts, anything left to wrap is small, a dvd and some xbox games. What a relief. Matt was having a good laugh at me Sunday, here I was wrapping gifts (and almost done) and he hasn't even thought of what to go shopping for, we're sooo different. I had a stitchy happy dance too...although dancing was more of rolling around on the recliner ;)

Yesterday was a flurry of activity, in the morning I prepped some dip for our potluck and loaded the car with everything we'd need for trick or treating (we trick or treat with Alex's friends directly from work). My little clown was VERY excited to be out (pictures will follow this evening hopefully). After doing the circuit with his friends we visited Faith Ann's (his gummy vampire/frankenstein head is now his most treasured posession ;)) and Alex wanted to move in and after being wound up all day wasn't the most cooperative kid. Sigh. We dropped by the house to pick up Matt and found out we had three trick or treaters (a new record!!) and then headed to his cousin's house. Down on our cul-de-sac I saw a deer, Matt then insisted it was a dog, but as we got closer he concluded it was in fact a small doe. Alex compromised and said it was a dog dressed up as a deer for halloween ;) We finally got to meet Taylor, Matt's cousin's daughter and then returned home to head around our block. I know I complain about the ding bats on one side of us but the rest of our neighbors are very nice people. We even went to our house's 'twin' on the street (it's not often you see a raised ranch on the street, let alone two of them). Although the interior layout isn't like ours at all, I definitely like our living room better ;). I washed my poor little clown when he got home, his happy makeup was looking kind of sad by 8:30, he had a treat and then passed out. I checked the rest of his candy, reclined on the couch until the end of 30 Rock and then rolled into bed too, a 15 hour day is hard on a girl!!

I was going to do groceries tonight but the boys will be in town when I'm gone so I think I'm going to stop being a martyr and ask them to do them for once while I'm away this weekend. The point of a retreat is a break, not to stress myself out about being away before the fact. Now I'll get to prep for retreat instead ;)

Through The Eyes of a Child

There are alot of things that are interesting to hear about from a child's point of view. Mostly this year we've been hearing Alex's view on death with the loss of my grandmother and one of his classmates, however lately the topic of discussion has been money. He's fascinated by credit cards, but hasn't quite come to grips that it's not a shopping spree on a card, and that it can take time to pay off debt, which even the best of us end up dealing with once and awhile. We bought him the first 3 Magic Treehouse books but took a look at the library and found that they have alot of the ones that he isn't getting for Christmas. So I went over yesterday and retrieved a beat up copy of Tonight On The Titanic. When I gave it to him after school he was very excited, but I explained that we had to give it back when we were done, which upset him some. He has visions of owning the entire collection...Anyway, then he started asking questions between the difference between a credit card and a library card. I explained that the library card could only be used at the one spot and that it was a loan, credit cards you had to pay money to to continue using. He pondered over that for a bit and informed me "Mom, it was really good of you to use the library card. Save your credit card for important things....like toys for me" *smacks head*

Last night was relaxing, I was curled up on the couch and stitching for most of the evening as whatever bug I'd had had completely zapped the life out of me. It was nice to make so much progress ;) I also cleaned the bedding for the guest room downstairs and tidied up a little. All and all a very productive night.

Alex is very excited mom and dad are coming down before they fly out tomorrow (and mommy too). This weekend should be pretty busy, gym and swim tomorrow, birthday party Saturday, a pumpkin to carve AND a turkey to roast :) Who could turn down cheap turkey and a week of easy leftovers?? :)

Doe, Two Deer, Two Female Deer

Well, when I went to get my quesadilla out of the toaster oven after helping Alex with his homework I was NOT expecting to see a small doe out munching at the base of one of my lilac bushes. Alex thought it was really neat to watch it eat and we followed it through the house as it made it's way back over where they jump our fence...but first peeing on my lawn :( Alex and I made a costume compromise. He was very overwhelmed (in a good way) when mom dropped off the tickle trunk of costumes that used to be mine and my brother's, he wanted to wear them ALL at halloween. I got him to try on my old clown costume and it JUST fits so I've been after him to postpone the crayon costume. So last night we compromised, he could wear one of the crayon costumes to the Beaver Halloween party if he would wear the clown suit halloween.

Where we have company this weekend I decided to get the groceries after dropping Alex off instead of on Saturday. Although this required a quick trip back to the house to drop the seat off to Matt. I was extra vigilent about looking for deer, nada. I hopped out of the van, put the seat in the Corolla reversed down the driveway and there was an even bigger doe outside munching on one of the lilacs out front, where on earth did they come from??

Groceries was uneventful, I even managed to price winter tires in that time period ;) Turkey's were on sale so guess what we got, now I don't have to worry about cooking much all next week (very good where I'm leaving Friday and Alex and I won't be home for supper Tuesday, lots of leftovers for poor Matt). I didn't get to watch my taped Desperate Housewives as planned BUT I did get to stitch through LOST and Criminal Minds, sweet. Although CM is past my bedtime so I literally flopped into bed, no reading for me last night!!

Tonight should be a fairly stitchy night, and I should be able to get caught up on my taped shows a little. I have some tidying to do when I get home and that's about it for my 'duties' and Matt's raiding tonight so I can just veg by myself on the couch :)

Removing the Blinders

Yesterday was just one of those days, not very stitchy at all. We had a branch meeting at work, which was actually interesting this time around. I didn't realize some people in the branch had been involved in Hurricane Katrina cleanup and the Malawi project. The lady who spent two week in New Orleans in January had a tonne of pictures that were quite frightening, especially considering that was 5 months after and from what her volunteer friends say hasn't improved much since. It is amazing how much news coverage or lack there of skews our vision of the world. Gee from what bits and pieces I've heard on the news it was only positive, like this section reopenning...I knew things probably weren't fully dealt with but wow, they aren't even half way there, or at least not the every day working people like our family. Anyway, due to the meeting I lost my stitchy break time, sigh. That kind of set the pace for the day.

I did get a little stitching done at lunch and was all set to have a stitchy night at home, until I headed to the gym and read for a half hour while running. Now I'm really into the book ;) Oh my goodness, that curiosity phase that I thought Alex skipped showed up last night. We were kind of skeptical when Alex actually stayed in the bathroom long enough for a good tooth brushing (usually we have to send him back in), then Matt noticed something on his sleeve....my lipstick, thankfully not my good Aveda... It was a good thing Matt could be stern as I was trying not to laugh at how silly he looked with his lips colours 5 times bigger than Angelina Jolie's ;) After that incident Matt and I watched 30 Rock (which I just love) and I retreated to bed to read some more.

Tonight is Alex's big Beaver's Halloween party, needless to say he's pretty excited. Matt's signed up for some computing so that'll leave me to get caught up on some shows and stitch tonight, yippee!!

An A-MAZE-ing Weekend

Well, the weekend sure flew by quickly! Did I make as much stitching progress as I intended, heck no!

Saturday started off as usual, load kid in van, drive to gym and swim (and yes Faith Ann, I'm exactly with you on the sibling situation). I was waiting in the change room for Alex when the instructor came in, apparently he'd slipped and bumped his head and was playing it up for all it was worth. I appreciate their concern but when you have children yourself you do run down the checklist for signs of more than just a bump fairly quickly and know when they're playing up how mad/hurt they are. I'm the mother of a future Oscar nominee. An accident report later we headed to my brother's apartment to drop off some goodies. Alex wanted to move in so he could play with the cat. This went as far as informing me I could pick him up on the way back from groceries, needless to say I left with a pouty kid. The Coop was insane++ Apparently it was a sale week, I really need to watch out for those and move my grocery day when all of the out of townies aren't there! On the way out I noticed a flyer looking for part time help for the week of their massive annual sale next month. Am I crazy for even considering picking up a shift or two? I mean I do alot of the school all year round, it would be nice if some of my extra time gave me money and it's only a one week commitment and that's not guarenteeing shifts every evening. Having a little extra cash to put studs on the future winter tire purchase would be nice. Matt's gormet meal was a trip to the Esso for chicken, but at least we got a family movie to watch. We were pleasantly surprised with Zanthura, it wasn't a cheap Jumanji rip off, actually I liked it better. Alex LOVED it, the aliens scared him the first night but he was laughing the second time. The movie sealed off any notion of being cremated as yet another 'grandma's urn' was decimated ;)

Sunday Matt got up at a normal time so we watched Heroes together to get caught up. I LOVE the show but it's not a good stitchy show at all, and won't be until the Japanese character learns some more english so I don't have to read the subtitles ;) I made the boys a quick meal of nachos and left over tacos (guess who had the tacos) and headed to Body Jam/Body Pump. Needless to say I was pretty tired when I got home and in desperate need of a shower. After that refreshment though I was all set to go to the halloween maze and Green Village and happy to be getting rid of some 'oops' pickups that have been cluttering my cupboards for the food bank :) We tried a new dish for supper, Mexican Potato Casserole from www.aimeesadventures.com, which Matt really enjoyed. I did too but would have liked some help with the cutting. After Alex was in bed I ended up 'raiding' with Matt's guild which was actually exciting, especially where they finally completed an instance they've been trying all week. I used to laugh at gamer's but my, they put alot of thought into the tactics behind these things ;)

Today's a quiet day on the schedule, I'll be stitching away with Doctor Who and Justice tonight if all goes as planned ;)

Wreaths For Sale

For anyone in the area who puts a Christmas Wreath up, Alex's School is selling the following as their annual school fundraiser (and they're gorgeous, you can ask anyone who ordered them last year at these great prices)
-Traditional Wreath 12$
-Classical Wreath 10$
-Swags 8$
Pictures to follow. Delivery Date December 2, last day for orders November 3rd.

Well, last night wasn't much of a stitchy night. Matt and I had a 'date' to do some computing together so the time leading up until Alex's bedtime was pretty busy. I did get some stitching in over the noon hour though which did the trick.

Tonight should be quiet. Alex wants to watch a movie together with popcorn, supper's easy (tacos) so I should get some stitching in ;) Saturday has the usual crazy combo of gym and swim followed by groceries, although this Saturday we're adding in a delivery to my brother's house of some goodies my parents dropped off last week. Thankfully there are no birthday parties this weekend. I'm hoping to get some Christmas presents wrapped tonight so I can take the remaining boxes down to recycling while we're at gym and swim.

Sunday should be quiet besides Body Jam and Body Pump, maybe I'll get around to cleaning out one of the cupboards and doing a little more stitching ;)

Oh Deer!

Well, there have been traces of them for years, knocking over part of our fence, eating my hostas >:( but today was the first day I saw a deer on my street! Today's been one of the only fog free rain free days we've had in a while so seeing a 'cloud' caught my attention, sure enough it was a doe just standing in the bushes. I waited until it decided it was going to do, they aren't exactly the most intelligent creatures on earth. Why on earth they continue to come in our area I do not know. Our section of the subdivisions have been established for quite some time now. Anyway because she took her good old sweet time deciding where she was going to go Alex got to have a really good look at her and was pretty excited. He wanted to go home and call his pappy so they could go 'hunting', good grief. I guess it's time to have him watch Bambi, Brother Bear and The Fox and The Hound again ;)

Last night we arrived home and I had to get Alex's badges stuck on his beaver uniform. Thank goodness for heavy duty Therma Bond. I'll probably sew around them at some point but I just haven't felt up to it lately. I've discovered that it's a good idea when you're dropping your child off and your husband is picking them up to put a full inventory of what they're wearing, eventhough I did the raincoat was left behind but they went back for it ;) The boys went to check out IPod Shuffle stocks but they haven't been shipped yet. They did find a nice logitech headset for me for playing WoW though, it even has girlie colour "clips".

Stitching night was really fun. We had a paper embroidery class which was fun. It was also really neat to see Faith Ann's Blessings of Christmas afghan in person :) I didn't get any cross stitching done last night but it was really fun none the less. :)

Tonight should be relatively quiet, no extracurricular activities, just homework, a little stitching and a little computer :) I should really drop by the gym for a run on my way home as well (and finish another chapter or two of Embroidered Truths). Oh the weekend is getting soom much closer ;)

Avoiding the Itch

Ack... There is nothing more icky than hearing one of the kids you child knows has head lice. Just the thought of it makes me want to scratch ALL over. I mean the chances of contracting it yourself is just as great sitting in a nice high back cushioned chair in a restaurant or theatre but still, ick! We went into defensive mode and picked up a bath with menthol and tea tree oil shampoo just in case. All of the remaining children at the daycare have been screened and it vacuumed but still...those incubation periods are scary. Although if you have a cold my house was the place to be last night as that was all you could smell!! While Alex was soaking in the tub I bagged his stuffed animals just in case, I think this'll be a good opportunity to seperate out some of the baby stuffed animals and put them down in the playroom, it's amazing how much bigger his room looked without the whole zoo in there!

That whole garfuffle made last night very busy, and we also made our phone call to my brother before he flies to Bolivia today until March/April. After Alex was in bed I had lunches to make, laundry to do and then plunked my butt on the couch, reclined and stitched to Doctor Who and Justice. Doctor Who cracked me up last night towards the end. Matt moved his work at home day to today so I'm going to see about getting to Body Jam tonight as well as making a quick stop to pick up Over the Hedge and haggle over 5 dollars (thankfully the two stores are beside each other). Other than that it'll be stitching and catching up on some taped shows tonight for me ;)

Three Day Weekend!!

One has to love long weekends ;) I had a flex day that I'd planned on using the day after thanksgiving if mom and dad were able to stay down but used it on Friday instead and it was heavenly. I took Vanessa in for an oil and filter change after dropping Alex off for school and got right in so Matt came over for nothing, besides a trip to Tim Horton's while we waited. When I got home I hopped back in my jammies and watched Star Wars and Eureka and did some serious stitching reclined on the couch, sweet! At about 3 I cleaned up again and headed out to do some Christmas shopping. Well if Cathey thought she might come over Christmas morning to see Alex's IDog, I know she'll definitely be over with his final purchases, the two Star Wars Lego Wars games for the Xbox ;) Of course since I found them I found the one place I didn't think to price check them against has them 5$ cheaper each so I've gotta go back to get the guarentee. I also picked up a Cars version of Uno for his sock, and was tickled pink to find a Ninja Turtles Mega Blocks set on clearance. I had 'lego set' on his list but he's kind of at the age where he's inbetween lego phases so a 'theme' set with a mix of sizes was in order and he relates more to the NT's than the Harry Potter sets they had that were actual lego. What was even better was I'd cashed out my Visa points to pay for my half of the santa list ;) Now I just need to pick up stocking stuffers for him and Cars when it comes out on video and we're all set ;) I also picked up a little something for Matt in my travels. After that I picked up the groceries and Alex and headed home for a nice relaxing evening. Matt was transferring my level 60 Warcraft character to a different server (which had a backlog) so even the computer wasn't able to tear me away from stitching ;)

Saturday was busy. Thankfully we didn't have to go grocery shopping after swimming though ;) I started the new Patricia Ann ornament out of this years JCS as my big project was too busy for the ups and downs of gym and swim. Alex had a blast at the birthday party at Kingswood, I hung around for about 15 minutes and then went home to watch Kung Fu Hustle on the free preview the movie channel was having this weekend. Matt and I enjoyed it, although I guess it wouldn't be for everyone ;) I had a bit of a panic when I went to pick up Alex. All of the kids were in the birthday room except Alex, I was so worried. I didn't know that with their treat bags they had coins to play the games there so he'd snuck off to go check them out. We ended up staying another 45 minutes to use up his coins. :) Matt picked up some pizza and we watched another movie while Alex played dressup with the halloween costumes mom brought up on the holiday, then we all cuddled (stitched) on the couch and watched Ninja Turtles 2 (Alex inherited all of his uncles movies on the holiday too where it wouldn't be cost effective to take them over to Switzerland).

Sunday ended up being busy so I appreciated my lazy friday even more ;) After putting a load in the laundry, a moose roast in the slow cooker and sweeping I headed out for Body Jam and Body Pump (thankfully the boys raked while I was out). I was completely spent when I got home, so much that I passed out on the bed even though the sheets were in the wash. Alex ate his moose without realizing it wasn't beef, yippee!! I had a little bit but haven't had much of an appetite lately, which makes up for my lack of gym time last week ;) I also laced two pieces, my SB Witches Moon as the frame is in and Katie's Eggs, stitched by Cathey, which is now proudly displayed beside my china cabinet. I've felt bad about not getting it up sooner. First there was the spring flood which had the basement in chaos, then the wedding, then hunting for the perfect frame, then misplacing my glazier setter, etc... It looks so nice were it is now though :)

Today I'm hoping will be low key, supper's quick and easy to make and my end of the laundry is done. So here's hoping I'll be stitching away to Dr Who and Heroes tonight ;)

Santa's Unexpected Gift

And yes...it's the name of the ornament, not some subtle hint we're expecting.

It's too bad the pick doesn't show how cute the fuzzy stuff is (and sparkly). Stitched on SMF Golden Turret

Girlie Night!

Hooray, last night was a stitchy night, it was a bit crazy leading up to it but definitely appreciated in the end ;) My goals for pre-stitchiness were clean out the freezer as the moose meat arrives tonight, get supper ready, clean up the remaining remnants of turkey day and shower. There's nothing like arriving home to the dishwasher not unloaded and just about being ready to hop in the shower when someone calls to make sure we're home to drop off something DH had to take to work with him this morning, he really needs to be a courrier business so we can right off some things!! Anyway, I did manage to get everything done in time for company ;) It was neat seeing Eleni and Angela's projects and getting caught up, although my meds were making me a little loopy towards the end of the night. Losing an hours sleep the night before didn't help but my train of thought was pretty derailed. :(

So, in my accomplishments last night I finished the cross stitching of this year's Dragon Dream ornament, Santa's Unexpected Gift and moved back to the other project. The deep freeze had alot of the frost chipped away and anything freezer burnt or unrecognizable was tossed so there's plenty of room for moose meat. I was happy to find some things though that must have fallen recently, like a bag of chicken nuggets and a package of yogurt, woo hoo, less groceries to buy in the future. I also shouldn't have to buy juice until about 2007! Cleaning the deep freeze is depressing, especially when there's waste. Definitely motivation to keep better inventory though!

Tonight will be another juggling act with our winter meat arriving and beavers. Speaking of Beavers does anyone want to trade places Saturday?? Beaver's has 'apple day' Saturday 8-12 but Alex has Gym and swim so he'll have to leave early...then after picking up some quick groceries I have to get him ready for a birthday party at 2, ughhh... I know I complained last year about him having no social life but now it's pretty much a new invitation every week. Thankfully the one that arrived yesterday was at the same time as another party, unfortunate for the sweet little girl celebrating her's but an invitation to a 'boy' party for someone his own age is what we've been hoping for. The next party is another logistical nightmare as I believe it's on the same day as our neighborhood watch halloween party, they probably are back to back but the time hasn't been announced for the halloween party. Oye!

Oh Pumpkin Head...

First off, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Ok...we had our dinner today on the civic holiday, which has been the 'tradition'. It seems that every year the only day that accomodates everyone's schedules for a dinner is the Monday as opposed to the more traditional (for the Christians anyway) Sunday. Dinner went off without a hitch and it was so nice to be surrounded by family, although a tad sad without Gram's presence :( Alex was soo excited to have everyone at the house for the feast. It was too funny when I heard a 'I LOVE mashed potatoes'....when he had none on his plate. He thought the stuffing was mashed potato. I even baked my first squash for the event, it was so yummy with the Epicure Maple Spice Dip Mix mixed in instead of brown sugar ;)

Well, I met my weekend goals, Crewel Yule is done (and my gosh I was scandalized when I read the back of Embroidered Truths!! I couldn't believe the victim), Boo (or lovingly nicknamed Pumpkin head by Cathy, Faith Ann, Shannon and I) was stitched and the house generally cleaned up. I got back to Body Pump Sunday and that's a whole other blog subject (long story).

So without further ado, here's Pumpkin head, stitched on navy eavenweave with glow in the dark lettering and some other finishes

I've Been Tagged

I've been tagged by Faith Ann!

So brace yourselves...5 weird things about me:
1) I too hate my food to touch, fish and chips are the only things allowed to touch!
2) I collect past seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer :)
3) I can pick up things with my feet
4) I can watch scary movies but my basement scares me at night
5) People touching my face freaks me out, kisses, ok but hands, including Matt's no way!

Who to tag now that the pumpkin head group has been?? I guess I'll leave it to Eleni, Angela and Barbara :)

Game On

Well...I think I'm game for the 50 pattern challenge. I was looking at my cyberstitchers gallery and last year I had about 25 completes and this year is 26 and counting (there's a few that haven't been posted). That's only two years of not buying any new patterns and I do have more than enough to do me until then.

Last night turned out much busier than expected. I was delighted to see some parcels waiting for me when I got home....All Epicure!! I was in seventh heaven. So last night's spare minutes were spent sorting spices. I took a very nice walk over to Faith Ann's to get some fresh air and drop off her goodies and visit for a little bit. I love her lilac craft room :) The rest of the evening I sorted some more and took the recycling out to the curb. I can't believe how much we accumulated, especially considering I'd taken a load down to the common bins in between pickups (we only have ours once a month). I did get a little stiching in but spent a little time unwinding with Matt in front of the PC.

Well...this weekend thanks to the 'halloween enablers' I'll be working on the 'pumpkin head' freebie over on the Dragon Dreams site, how could I resist ;) Thankfully I have all the materials so it'll be a cheap project ;)

This weekend's goals:
-Stitch 'Pumpkin Head'
-Finish reading Crewel Yule
-scrub floors
-Get a little more stitching in
-Get rid of this #$%^@ cold!! ;)

We're hosting the annual turkey dinner again this year, Alex is very excited that he'll have all of his grandparents present. Which reminds me that I need to pick up some placemats...

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Did the Alarm Really Go Off?

I too have been having fun figuring out how to use my stash for years to come. After the long weekend I'm going to have to make a stash list as well ;) Although I don't think I'll ever be as organized as Faith Ann ;) It's kind of fun seeing how far the supplies in the basement will go :)

Last night was fairly hectic. Matt has a client in from Australia so he's had to skip his work at home days, meaning I had monkey pickup and beavers to deal with, although after dropping Alex off I had a nice long bubble bath with a book. Matt was kind enough to pick him up so I pj'd up and set out Alex's clothes for today as well putting his makeshift homework in his bag (the regular homework didn't come home, but I preread the assignments so I have an idea of what to do). After he was tucked in bed Matt and I reclined on the couch, me with my stitching, and watched Bones. My goodness that show cracks me up, it's my snappy dialogue fix now that Buffy and Angel are done (although Eureka also satisfies this need). I was falling asleep though by the time the show was done.

I didn't get much sleep last night, my cold had me up at 4, but sure enough by 6:30 I didn't feel sick enough not to go to work. Why can't my body cooperate?? ;)

2007 Stitching Goals

Oh I do dislike having a cold. With my new job I have something like 3 weeks of sick time, much better than the 6 days max I used to have but do you think I can bring myself to use them?? Unless it's a high grade fever or digestive issue I have to drive Alex into school anyway so why not go to work right?? If that's not dedication I don't know what else is ;)

After work I was a good little girl and headed to the gym for my 30 minute run...which also involves plowing through another Monica Ferris book. Thankfully I'm on the one that Karoline lent me in March, I've been feeling guilty for having it so long but wanted to read the others in order first. I'm definitely on track to have Crewel Yule back to her by the time our next stitching gathering rolls around and should be done Embroidered Truths shortly after that ;)

Last night was another early night for me. My medication makes me pretty sleepy in the evenings, so Matt and I reclined on the couch and watched Heroes which we'd taped the night before. I got a litle stitching in but had an attack of the Frogs, sigh. I haven't had an off by one error on evenweave in ages. All the talk of going stash free has made me plan my stitching for next year, and besides some DMC replenishing I can do it completely from stash :) So without further ado here are my 2007 stitching goals:

-Shepherd's Bush Terri's Stocking (for me)
-Fiddlestitch Cottage Winter Teapot
-Fiddlestitch Cottage Spring Teapot
-Dragon Dreams Lost Dragon Sampler (for Alex)
-Finish Dragon Dreams Summer's Magic
-Finish Mirabilia's Guardian Angel
-Finish Lavender and Lace's In The Arms Of An Angel
-Leisure Arts In The Life Of A Child
-6 ornaments
-Work on Lavender and Lace's The Wedding
-Finish SB's Baby Bug Ball