Stitching Update

Courtesy of writing my exam this morning, I earned some stitching time tonight. This is Jen and Joe's Te Amo after another 5 hours work. I love how quickly this is stitching up!

Thankful Thursday

I want to start this feature up once again. I often think we're so
rushed we don't take time to enjoy what we do have. So I'm going to
try, but not try to make myself come up with 7 things every Thursday.

I'm thanful for Spring Break. Not because I get one, Hah! But because
it means I get an extra week to study/prepare for my midterm exam.
And before the take home midterm is due. Yes, that's right, both a
take home and a regular written exam in one course. Oh fun!

I'm thankful for executive travel. Apparently that's how we got the
snow day last week... The normal exec's who *don't* call them were
away.

I'm thankful that both of my icky-nasty-scary medical tests are done,
and that the results are negative for the worst one. (Still have to
wait a week for the other...)

WOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

For obvious reasons I can't identify which, but we've apparently sold
the product that has my most hated, abhored and despised test method.
I shall never have to do ******* again! Wohooooooooo!

Just for mom!

I'm taking some time out from studying this afternoon to watch the CAN-US hockey final, and wanted to post to show mom what Brian's wearing in honour of it! I figure I've gotten 14 lectures summarized so far, I've earned a little stitching time!

My First American Snowman!

I took a break from studying to have a little fun on my snow day.

I am stunned...

This is the view out our back patio door. We've had more snow than I was expecting, but it's still not that much. Remember those chair tops from prior snow photos? You can pretty much still see all of the chairs themselves.
So why am I shocked?

FOREST IS CLOSED FOR THE DAY.

For the first time in company history, we get a snow day! Wohoo!!!

Now... to study...
Which seems somehow wrong for the thing I'm most looking forward to doing on my first snow day in 17ish years...

Stitching Update

So, last weekend, for the first time all term, I got totally caught up on my course for school. The university had some "technical difficulties" which meant those of us taking it on line had to wait a week before our first lectures were posted. And there's homework due 3x/week for this course, so I've been playing catch up for weeks. But... since I did get totally caught up by Sunday, Monday was stitching time!
I can't show one of the things I finished for a couple of weeks yet until I know it's been received and opened, but I can show you what I got done on my project for me: Teresa Wentzler's The Unicorn:



That's after 10 hours of stitching time, and it still doesn't look like much, but this is what it should look like when it's done! (With the usual provisos that the photos on the website never look close to as good as they do in person, of course!) I've seen it done, once, and it was just as stunning as I'd always imagined.

OMG, it's Snowmageddon!

They're forecasting anywhere from 4-18 inches of snow and you'd think
the world was ending. It's hilarious. I'll freely admit that
tomorrow's forecast sounds nasty. Full on blizzard even. Maybe.
They also forecast over a foot of snow for us last Saturday. We got
nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. So I'm betting I'll be going to work
tomorrow, whether I want to or not.

No wonder I always feel so rushed...

Would someone please remind me to slow down? Here's this week's
schedule, on top of the 50+ hr week at work...

Monday night: babysit 3 year old for friends (Keira's awesome and we
love her to death, and she thinks we're waaaay more fun than daddy!)
Tuesday night: 3 hours of homework and lectures
Wednesday night: dinner and Crackasonne with Carrie and Saul, and most
importantly, we finally got to meet Yvie!
Thursday night: 4+ hrs of lectures and homework (tonight)
Friday night: Dinner with the J gang et al
Saturday morning: lectures and homework
Saturday afternoon: run D&D game (um, I haven't found any prep. time
in this schedule yet...)
Saturday evening: dinner and games with Pat and Laura
Sunday morning: housework and any remaining homework
Sunday afternoon/evening: Randi and John (hopefully) finally manage to
get out here with all of us happy, healthy and safe!

Phew!

Some quick photos

I've spent a fair bit of time the last two weeks getting the downstairs bedroom setup as a study/library/craft room. And now, at last, I have a dedicated stitching space, complete with a new stitching chair! :) I have to get another footstool, and given how long I've been looking for one I like, I think I may end up making them myself. But I'll wait until it's warm enough to use the garage to do that!

I decided to let myself do some stitching for myself, mixed in with all the obligation stitching. I've joined a TW stitchalong and decided to start The Unicorn. Below is a photo of it after 5 hours of work. It's a few of the flagstones of the path, and it doesn't look like much, but I'm pleased with the progress.



Next up is Jen and Joe's wedding gift. Given that they're approaching their third wedding anniversary, I need to get cracking. In my defense though, I only got my hands on the pattern last fall. It's Arelate Studios' Te Amo, and Jen had planned on stitching it herself for their wedding. I'm starting in on it once I hit post. It's a quick, fun stitch, and doesn't need nearly the level of light and comfort of the TW. I expect it'll grow much quicker than The Unicorn! :)



And finally, a photo of our stockings from Christmas morning. We don't tend to do a lot of gifts for each other anymore, but I always look forward to seeing what Brian's come up with for my stocking. Mine's the bear one on the left (hanging on my dresser so it's there when I wake up in the morning), and Brians' are the two on the right. I stitched the farthest right one for him a few years ago and still love how it turned out.

Happy New Years Everyone

Just a quick update, I've lots more to type, but I'm going to bed soon. We're surviving but have been pretty sick over the holidays. Brian's got a very bad case of bronchitis, and went back to work too soon. Now he's off again, for at least 2 more weeks this time. He was coughing so hard New Years Eve that he tore the cartilage in his ribs! So, not good, but we're both starting to get better, and he's definitely getting much better.

As a result of being sick, and not taking any time off work, none of my holiday projects got done. But I did try to flake out, and I needed that. My next course starts this week, and it looks like we're going to have a great professor. At the very least we've had as much communication from him already as we did for the whole term last term!

I'm making a serious effort to manage my time better and get more organized. I *have* the time to do everything I want to do, it's just a matter of using my time effectively and not wasting it. A big part of this is making sure I get to bed on time and making the time to go early enough to read a half hour once there. I need that wind down time. Wish me luck!

Oh, and to publicly acknowledge, my weight on New Years Day was 205. I'm down 25 lbs from the point where I decided to fix it, and I'm pleased. I've a ways to go, but I'm getting there. That deserves a full post on its own, but who knows when I'll get to it! :)

Photos!

Was it wrong of us to laugh at poor Percy trying to see out the patio doors or at least figure out what was going on?



Out the same patio doors. The brown bits to the bottom right are the tops of our chairs, folded up and leaning against the table for the winter



Brian wanted to make sure I knew which spot I parked my car in 'cause he wasn't sure he'd be able to tell from a quick look out the front window.




This window is the opposite side of the house to the patio door. And the drifts come up all the way to the sill!



And last, but not least, don't you like my fabulous wrapping job on this present yesterday?

And as of noon today

The flurries have finally started!
Better late than never.
Wohooooooooooo!

It's kind of fun to do the impossible
- Walt Disney

WOHOOOOOOO!!!!

I know most of my friends just shake their heads and say I'm nuts, but
I am so thrilled. They're forecasting up to 18 inches of snow this
weekend! I don't expect we'll actually get that much, but I'll post
photos if we do, and I am thrilled!

A Long Delayed Update

So, have we been busy? Yes. Abnormally so, even for us? Yes. Is this
truly something you didn't expect from me? No.

Going back to school is a great thing (I think) but it certainly has
cut down on the amount of time I have for hobbies, one of which is
updating this blog. I've found I'm spending ~8 hrs/week on the school
stuff just to keep up with lectures. That doesn't include time
reading the textbook, or working on assignments. Speaking of which, I
turned in all three of my term papers yesterday. Yes, you read that
righ, three term papers for one course. All due within a week of the
final. Which I'm taking Monday. Wish me luck. I know I'm better
prepared for it than I was for the midterm, but there is an incredible
amount of detail to be absorbed. In just this half term, we covered
40 techniques. All of which I need to understand how they work, what
they measure, in what range etc. I see a stack of cuecards coming.
Actually, I've started on them, which is how I know there are 40 of
them! The hard part is figuring out what needs the rote
memorization... Remind me again why I wanted to go back to school?

So, with that time sink, there went most of my crafting time. I have
one stitching project going, which is a Christmas gift, and so should
be posted soon, except it's been stashed somewhere from our madcap
trip home*. I'm really hoping I haven't left it at my MIL's house
because if I did, it certainly won't be done! I haven't been taking
time to stitch so I could get school stuff done. I've been so slack
on birthday cards this year it's disgusting. Maybe during term break
(three whole weeks off!) I'll premake a bunch of them. And my Google
Reader is just informing me I have >1000 things awaiting me... I'm
afraid to know how many more!

*Madcap trip home. So, my plan for Thanksgiving weekend was to have 4
days to study, write my term papers, and finish the stitchy gift.
Brian would be working a lot of it and I'd have the place to myself.
Except they've just changed his boss at Gamestop (another long story
there, grrrrrrrr) and Brian wasn't scheduled at all. So suddenly we
had a 4 day weekend, haven't been home since a weekend trip in April,
and wouldn't be able to go home over Christmas. Hrm… Well, I'd have
24ish hours in the car to study… and if I can buy my birthday present
early** I can use it to listen to lectures while driving, adding in
extra review… But we certainly hadn't budgeted for a trip home, and
hotels at home are EXPENSIVE if we want to stay somewhere you don't
have to worry about catching something from the sheets… Enter Mikey,
best friend from highschool and his awesome wife Jan, who out of the
blue offered for us to stay with them and their daughters at their new
house. A trip home, no hotel costs, fabulous downtime with Mikey,
Jan, ,L and M (as opposed to normal quick trips home where we don't
have time to visit with friends) and I was sold. As expected, it was
mostly a mad rush, but we had a great time and are very glad we went.
I even took part of a morning and got one of the three papers half
written at Mike's table. Mean Brian wouldn't let me go to Costco for
the chocolate run until I had. Grr. Not that it surprises me, but
Brian was astounded Mike's daughter L remembered Brian from the last
time we saw them. At Disneyworld two years ago when she was 3. It's
amazing watching them grow up. We were supposed to meet up with them
at WDW again this year, but then had to change the dates of the trip
so we missed them, and we were not happy about that aspect! When I'm
not posting by email, I have photos of all the neices and nephews to
share since we got to see all of them. Brenden seems like he's
finally recovering more fully from his case of H1N1. Fingers crossed.

**Yes, I chose my own birthday present. And bought it, opened it and
started using it before my birthday. Live with it mom! :P We'd
bought an iPod Touch before our last trip to Disney for Brian to use
on the plane. He's so terrified of flying it's nuts, and anything
that distracts is good. But we were already having to haul my
gigantic laptop (silly Florida schools go back in August. AUGUST!)
and didn't want to carry a dvd player along as well. Yes, we could
have used the laptop, but the battery isn't *that* great, even if it
does weigh a ton. Besides, the Touch has games, movies, music,
internet (wifi) and fun! Not to mention a great app with all the
Disney restaurants with menus and meal plan options in it. But then
we started feeling guilty about the cost. And were glad we bought it
from Costco since they (as expected) released new versions the week
after we got back. We returned the original one. And I've missed it
ever since. My lectures this term are all provided online, and
conveniently come in a format designed specifically for iPods. And my
slides are all .pdf's, which can also be accessed on the touch. So I
bought myself a shiny new 8GB iPod Touch for my birthday. I used my
$20 in GC's I'd saved, and a 10% off coupon I'd earned to make it even
more reasonable. Go me! I'd have liked the larger size, but we don't
really need it. As it stands right now, I've got half my term's
lecture videos, all the slides, an 800 page textbook, far too many
games, 1 movie, and ~650 songs on it. So Brian got to listen to all
17 hours of lecture from this half term during the drive to Canada and
back. His main comment: How do I keep the alphabet soup straight? :)

--
It's kind of fun to do the impossible
- Walt Disney

Favourite Ever Lecture Quote:

"So you need a nuclear reactor, and not everyone wants to have a
nuclear reactor in their lab..."

On this Veteran's Day

Thank you, to all those who have served.
Thank you, to all those who do serve.
And to paraphrase our good friend Thorin, a marine, remember:
"Plan A is to come home safe. There is no Plan B."

By 10:30 this morning...

(And with some help from Brian) I had:
Done 5 loads of laundry
Done 2 loads of the dishwasher
Scrubbed 1 shower, 2 toilets, and 3 sinks
Vaccuumed the house
Cleared the countertops
Put away *all* the loose junk everywhere in the living spaces
Moved a bookcase upstairs to my study nook (and packed up the random
junk that had been living on it)
Prep'ed the backyard for winter (including pulling all the dead plants
for compost and moving all the pots)
Fixed the garage and gotten it back organized
... and finally went and had a shower.

The rest of the day is mine to enjoy! I forsee a visit from a good
friend, movies and stitching...

WTF??

Pardon me for a minute here while I deal with some WTF issues...

I have gout!
In my foot!
And it hurts like hell, and I'm used to living with daily pain...

WTF?

I'm in my mid-30's and eat meat ~3-4 times/week. I get enough exercise, and for the last 6 months have been consistently getting at least/if not more than my recommended water intake. I have none of the standard risks. It can't be diet induced. I do need to lose weight, but not that much, and I'm working on that one. So WTF? body? I get down to only one thing to deal with and you feel unloved, so you throw something new at me?

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful that we have Brian's brother James staying with us.
Reconnecting with family is always worthwhile.

I am thankful that James was awesome and grabbed us some Timmy's from
Penn Station on his way through!

I am thankful the Dr. could fit me in to see about my foot. Verdict
is still out on cause though.

I am thankful for the warm weather that means Brian and James will be
BBQing tonight. Yumm, steak!

I am thankful for extended fall hours at the library that mean easier
access to books for me!

I am thankful that today is Make-A-Wish day at Cold Stone Creamery.
Free ice cream *AND* fundraising for Make-A-Wish, what could be
better?

I am thankful that I am swamped at work. Job security is a comforting thing!

It's kind of fun to do the impossible
- Walt Disney