Tuesdays Are My Stitchy NIght

It's stitchy night and I want to get stitching. I don't have a lot of progress to show. At most, I've put three lengths in Letter G and I am itching to get back to her. She's a lot of fun and it makes me realize that I miss stitching on Mirabilias so I am putting Fairy Moon back on my project list and hope to get started on her very soon. She's been kitted up for 2 years now...just waiting. But first, I have to get through Letter G and Newton and one more exchange before devoting the rest of Fall and maybe part of Winter on stitching on some serious BAPs...Mary Wigham and Fairy Moon. Talk about contradictions in stitching!

The weekend was a blur! So fast and then back to Monday. Most of the weekend was devoted to finding the right materials to frame my mom's gift, framing and wrapping it. Throw in some errands, housesitting, visit to the local school festival which is literally in my backyard and a date night with *the boy*. We went to see Psycho at the local classic theater and have a nice cajun meal. It was nice and it was my first time seeing Psycho. That Norman Bates is one creepy dude! It was a packed weekend and I didn't have time to get ahead in my sewing class so I am *so* behind!!!

My parents arrived from their trip safely and I talked to my mom and she *loved* the gift. Yay! She was very touched, said she cried and that the gift was "better than diamonds"! Yay! Umm, but diamonds were not an option! I'm just happy that she liked the gift and I think that my amateur framing job worked out nicely. I went to Aaron Brothers because I just wanted a regular frame she could display on a table versus the wall. I found one I liked but despite the design size being 4"x7", the 5x7 frame was to small. WTF?! So I had to upgrade to an 8x10 frame but my fabric barely covered the front widthwise(about 1/16th of an inch too short) in order for me to lace it so I had to improvise. I went to Joann's looking for lace and couldn't find any suitable lace but I found tan crochet lace trim and that worked out great and seemed fitting since my grandmother tatted and crocheted. This was my finished product.
Not bad, huh? Took me forever though. Finishing takes me forever. Kind of like sewing...in class last night, I was wondering why my sewing was coming out all jacked up. Took me 30 minutes to figure out that the presser foot (or whatever the heck it's called) was up so my fabric was dancing all over the place which meant my stitches were all over the place and messed up. 30 MINUTES!!! I'd have finished my sample if I had my head attached. Are you laughing? Yea, I'm laughing at myself too...it's ok.

42 more hours until I turn one year older. Time has flown this year! I am treating myself to a 4-day weekend (because working on your birthday should be illegal) so that I can stitch and sew my booty off. I cannot wait! I have a ton of sewing homework to do (see scenario above to understand why) so that will be my focus but Letter G is hard to resist. I hope to have made great progress on her.

Have a wonderful week!!

Until next time...

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday...and I am hoping she likes the gift I made for her. She won't see it until she comes back from her trip on Tuesday. Both my parents are September babies. My dad's was earlier this month and he's getting a fax machine for his birthday. That's boring...I know. But this is the exciting and pretty stuff!

BBD Red Sampler Freebie
32 count Lakeside Linens Vintage Light Examplar
WDW Lancaster Red, CC Clay Pot and GAST Antique Rose

I am really happy with it! I tried to correct as much as possible...especially the bottom border, the flower border and that seven. This was made in tribute to my maternal grandmother who passed away in 1994. She was 90 years old. I think it's fitting that because of spacing issues, I moved the 8 to the third row and kept the 9 and 0 by themselves on the fourth row. I didn't plan it really. Once I finished it last night and looked at it, I was all "hey! She was 90 in 1994 and lookie there...it all adds up!" I suppose that's kismet in a way. My maternal grandmother was the only grandparent I ever knew. All my others passed away before I was born or could even remember. Almost every summer, my mother would pack me up and we would go to Nicaragua to spend 2-3 weeks visiting family. I got to play at the beach and play with all my aunts, uncles and cousins. My grandmother was very much the matriarch of the family. She kept all of us in line and loved us all so much with her warm and wonderful heart. When I was young, she'd sometimes come to the States to visit. I remember her making tons of little yoyo's and making lovely crocheted doilies. The craftiness passed onto my mom and me. With her passing came very heavy hearts. Even the parrot would still scream "abuelita", waiting for her to yell back. I had planned this little tribute for Mother's Day but I got sidetracked. I thought my mom's birthday would be just as fitting. *The boy* and I are heading to Aaron Brothers and Michael's to see if I can find a suitable frame for it. I hope so!

Happy Birthday to Mom!

Happy Accomplishment!

Way back when...at the beginning of the year...I made a list of goals. This has been a bad year overall and looking back on my goals...I can already see that I went off track and will not get to some of the things I thought were important or at the top of my list in January. And it's ok...things change and so do priorities. But there has been one thing that has been a ball and chain on my ankle year after year...

and now...

I am happy to say that I am 100% completely and totally debt-free! DEBT-FREE!

Wow!

That's the first time I can say that since the end of high school. The lure of having a credit card during college and then student loans to help me pay for college and then car payments to help me pay for the car that got me to work and then real-life expenses coming at me during bad times made me turn to credit cards again. Student loans (Private Jesuit schooling is expensive!), car loans and credit card debt have been brought down to zero! Yay! It hasn't been easy but I was always very diligent about my payments and rarely ever missed a payment and the diligence helped and I have great credit!

Being released of this burden feels great and comes at a perfect time. I am looking at the possibility of my paycheck becoming a little smaller over the next few months due to possible furloughs. I wish they would just tell us now. I hate waiting!! But the announcement of how bad the furloughs will be will not happen until November. But with no debt, that means I can save. Like actually have some bills to put in savings and keep there because I.don't.need.it.now.

I am so happy! I am hoping to be careful with my spending especially as I am in my "expensive" part of the year with many birthdays and Christmas but I think I'll be fine.

Goodbye debt! Hello savings!

Until next time...

Tuesdays Are My Stitchy Night

Well...I'm a raving hormonal witch today so I will spare you guys the bitching, moaning and whining tonight...cuz really...I can barely deal with myself! It's just one of those weeks...or at least shaping up to be one. But it's Tuesday and I have my stitchy report to submit. I am *still* working on Red Sampler.
I think that I've either become the slowest stitcher ever or I am just *that* busy. I'll say I'm busy...last week was fairly disappointing considering all the relationship hoopla and that has kind of run into this week along with the intense desire to be anywhere other than work! The photo above was taken before I started stitching for the night and I've finished up the 4th line but then had to rip out the 9 and 0 to add a smidge more space and change the color to something with more contrast. Oof...long names are a killer! I'll probably finish this up over the next couple of nights and frame it this weekend. Just in time for my mom's birthday...this one is #79 but don't tell her I told you guys. She'll get all upset about how I'm blabbing to people about how old she is.

It's also that time of the month! TUSAL time! I'm late reporting but the photo of the jar was taken the day I was *supposed* to report on it. It still looks the same despite contributions to it. I wonder if *the boy* is playing with my orts when I'm sleeping! Well, that's it for today. *The boy* has been yelling at me to go to sleep for the last 15 minutes. Something about how I should go to sleep early so I don't wake up all tired. Yea, yea, yea...going to sleep early. What a concept. I think sleeping early and work are both over-rated. Now to figure out how to win the lottery. Its thoughts like these that are important in life and keep me up late!

Have a good week everyone!

Until next time...

Vacation - Day Four to the End

The rest of my time on the East Coast was not as great as the first three days. Things kind of went downhill and I kind of wanted to go home early.

Day Four was supposed to be RISD day. We had found online that the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design had a textile and costume collection which included some samplers from the Mary Balch School. I was excited to be going. We got there, paid the $20 admission and walked all over that museum...and you know what? I didn't see such a collection shown anywhere! After asking a handful of employees that didn't know anything about what I was talking about, I was finally told that even though they have the collection, it is not on display. Yea...waste of time and money. I think that if they are going to boast on the website that they have all these fantastic items, they should also state that said items are not on display and that a request for private viewing will need to be made in order to see the collection. So note to anyone looking to see some Mary Balch School Samplers, RISD has them but a request would need to be made weeks in advance to the curator in order to actually see them. I was quite disappointed.

After that, we went back to the house and waited for the mom to get back from work so that we could take a trip to AC Moore. I'd never been to one since there aren't any here and I wanted to check it out. On our way there, we saw a child get hit by a car. It happened so close to us that it could have been our car that hit the child. It was scary...and fast...and kind of set my mood for the rest of the day...and my mood wasn't all that great after RISD. Who lets kids wander around by themselves? Cross a busy street without adult supervision in a not so good area? This child was small...maybe six years old at the most! And he just ran into the street...didn't even look to see if a car was coming. Amazingly, the child was able to get up and limp to the curb while his mother finally came out of their house only to scream at everyone "what happened?!". Perhaps she would have known what had happened if she had been supervising her child! Everyone else but her was trying to make sure that her child was ok. Once we saw that the situation was being handled, we went on our way to AC Moore and dinner at a local spot for clam chowder and clam cakes.

Day Five was Boston. Boston seems to be a city with great architecture and history but between *the boy* getting lost repeatedly despite him saying he knew where he was going and being stuck in a car in a walking town, Boston wasn't that enjoyable. I'd like to go back sans rental car and just walk the city and take public transportation. The drivers and pedestrians in Boston are crazy! The traffic, crazy drivers and pedestrians just walking right out into the street contributed to my blood pressure sky-rocketing and us just leaving out of sheer frustration! Seeing traffic accidents happen in front of me didn't help matters any after the scene the night before. Seriously...not the best impression Boston could have left on me. Plus $9 for 20 minutes of parking is just insane. That was the parking fee in order to park the car near Faneuil Market. Boston definitely is not a good siteseeing place to go to with a guy on crutches! I do have pictures to share for Boston. We took a Duck tour and that is how I saw most of the key sites in Boston and we got photos of a lot of great things. I think I'll show the photos in a separate post.

Day Six was supposed to be South Shore day but after the total bust that the last two days were and it being the Friday of Labor Day weekend and the newscasters telling everyone to go to the beach because the weather was supposed to be fantastic, we decided to stay close to home and kind of hibernate. So I stitched and relaxed and we ran a few errands and had a big family dinner with loads of pasta with clam sauce and literally...like 30 pieces of italian pastry and cake! It was yum! This was our final night on the East Coast!!

Day Seven consisted of packing and getting ready for our flight that evening. We had to head to Boston Logan airport on the early side to allow time to return the rental car, catch the shuttle to the terminal, check in and get through security. We allowed way too much time and had to hang out at the airport for a while! The flight took forever (seemingly) but we got home safe and sound. I know there is plenty of crazy in my neck of the woods...it is SF after all...but this is the crazy I am used to and can handle! I was very happy to get home.

It's now 2.5 weeks later and truth be told, I don't feel like I had a week long vacation! How does that happen. Back to life's daily grinds...work, housesitting, classes, relationship hoopla. Ugh, can't wait til my next vacation!

Vacation - Day Three

So back to vacation stuff...

Day two was lazy and basically consisted of me being in jammies all day, talking to the mom and trying to stay awake. I was really tired. At some point, I pulled out the Snappers and started my reconstruction of the border.

Day Three was fun. We made the drive to Plymouth, MA to see Plymouth Rock and The Mayflower II and stop off at a couple of stitching shops. It was a beautiful day. We started it off eating at Wood's Seafood where I had my first lobster roll ever!
It was yum. Lobster roll, some fish chowder and a diet Coke and I was ready to face the sights!
See! Lobster for $6.99 a pound! You can't find that on the West Coast...


I made the requisite stops at Plymouth Rock which is a lot smaller than most people would think!
As I was walking about and getting my act together, *the boy* would snap a kabillion photos of me. Many have me sticking my tongue out at him because I hate having my picture taken and can act like I'm three once in a while. This photo cracks me up...it's not a good photo but it's me in motion. It's also the only sneak peek of me that I've ever posted on the blog. I like being mysterious and all that jazz!
These swans were hanging out nearby...I think they are swans...
I love seeing these horse-drawn carriages at touristy locations. I had to take a snap!

Then we walked over to the Mayflower II and it was an awesome looking ship.

I walked around and then got all upset that it cost $10 to get on the ship. *The boy* seemed puzzled that I didn't want to do the whole tour but seeing as he was on crutches and I wanted to save as many pennies for stash shopping, I made him stand there and tell me the story of the Mayflower seeing as he's a huge history buff and from the East Coast. So he told me the story and it sufficed and I went souvenir shopping instead. Many may not think so but I have my priorities in check...souvenirs and stash over history tour! LOL On the main street, I found a great candy shop and came out of there with Charms Sweet and Sour lollipops! I love these suckers...I bought them by the fistful as a kid much to the disappointment of my dentist and my dad's wallet! I can't find these suckers anywhere near me though so I was happy to find some as well as some sour powers. I loved that candy shop! I didn't really find any souvenirs though. That's ok. We got into the car and drove the short distance to Sampler Needlework in Old Historic Plymouth.
It was a cute shop tucked away on the second floor of a shared building. There were lots of fantastic samples hung on the walls as well as a nice little framing nook. I peeked over to see what works were being framed and it all looked fantastic. This shop was decently stocked considering it's size. I was trying to be good and was looking for things specific to New England seeing as I can stock myself pretty well otherwise and what struck me the most was a simple needleroll pattern specific to Rhode Island...with apples, violets, roosters and maple leafs...all things supposedly specific to Rhode Island. I've never made a needleroll before so I thought this would be a good practice piece and souvenir all-in-one. Plus, these patterns are done by a designer in Plymouth who hasn't yet started selling them on the web. In fact, I think they were exclusive to Sampler Needlework for now. There was a needleroll pattern for most of the New England states. New Hampshire's appealed to me more but since I was technically visiting Rhode Island, I decided that was the one I should buy.

We left Plymouth to go to Middleboro. There was this cross stitch shop I was interested in checking out. This is an example of how you shouldn't let the guy obtain the details. I had asked *the boy* to call to check on hours and I remember him telling me that the store opened at 11am and I guess I just assumed they closed at 5pm. I got to the shop at 250pm and from what I could tell...it was a fully stocked shop. I was getting excited and looking through the chart bins and kind of making a mental tally of what charts I might pick up when the owner came up to me and told me she had to close the shop and I had to leave. I was rather put off...and she didn't really say it all that nicely. I told her I was sorry...I thought that the shop was open until 5pm but she told me that on Tuesday, they are only open until 3pm. I left without buying a thing and frankly, I probably wouldn't go back despite it looking like a nice shop. I just wish the owner would have told me she was closing in 10 minutes when I came into the shop. It would have saved us both some trouble as I would have just left...I can't look around and shop in only 10 minutes! I called the shop to try and check on their hours...they don't have a website or any hours listed on the web and they now have Fall hours on their phone line which means they are closed on Tuesdays all together. I find this very odd. So I left feeling rather put off and stranded in the middle of *I don't know where the hell I am* because *the boy* went to go gas up the car and let me shop in peace. He quickly turned around to get me and bought me an iced coffee and a donut to sooth my ruffled feathers. So out of the whole trip, the only stash I bought was that Rhode Island needleroll pattern!

That's another thing...there is Dunkin' Donuts everywhere!!! I had a lot of iced coffee (which is nowhere on the level of my beloved Peet's coffee) and donuts (not as good as Rolling Pin). I thought it was funny that the folks there are devout about their Dunkin' Donuts. Their coffee isn't that strong. And considering I need rocketfuel (aka Peet's) to get moving, I was always in this half-sleepy state...well, at least more than usual. I remember that *the boy* made me go in by myself to grab coffee and juice. I like my coffee regular...no fancy milks or foams or syrups...maybe once in a while, but for the most part, I like regular coffee with a little cream and one Splenda. I walked in, tell the girl I'd like a large coffee and she asked me how I would like it made. Errmmm, what? So I had to go into this whole thing about how I just wanted coffee and don't they have the cream and sugar out somewhere? Apparently, coffee culture is very different on the West Coast than on the East Coast! The girl was nice though...she explained that regular coffee at Dunkin' Donuts already included cream and sugar and if I wanted to do it myself, I had to order it black. Errm, ok. Is there even a Starbucks here?! Uh...nope! I didn't see one single Starbucks but there is Dunkin' Donuts on every block! *sigh* I just learned to say light cream and light sugar so my coffee wouldn't become this weak yet sickeningly-sweet mess.

Heading back home from Middleboro, we hit insane traffic...people in MA and RI drive like maniacs! I thought driving habits and traffic was bad here...oh no....MA and RI has NorCal beat!! We made it home in time for dinner...the mom made ham, mashed, rabes and bread and I got to meet the aunt. The aunt was a hoot!

So it was another good day with a couple of glitches.

Tuesdays Are My Stitchy Nights

It's Tuesday so time for my regular installment. First up is fun mail news. I was the winner of Melissa's huge bloggoversary draw celebrating her 8 years of blogging and 1,000 posts. Whoa! Talk about a huge surprise. I rarely win anything!! Her fantastic package arrived on Thursday night and it boosted my spirits. Look at all the charts!!
And she included a ton of goodies! I am so drooling over the fabric, Carrie's Threads, the scissors, PinPals, the Chatelaine and most of all...the cute little door hanger Melissa made...just perfect for Fall!
Here's the little door hanger contributing a lovely splash of color hanging on my living room door. I can see it perfectly from my stitching spot on the futon. I love it! Thanks Melissa!!
I've been stitching but not much. Life keeps getting in the way. Here is my small start in Mirabilia Letter G. This will eventually end up being a gift.
And I stitched a little bit more on Red Sampler. I better get cracking! My mom's birthday is the 24th although they don't come back from their trip until the 29th so I have an extra few days to finish this up and frame it. Umm...I still have quite a ways to go!
On Saturday, I made a quick trip to NiaH to pick up Tall Turkey from the finisher. I had him made into a small weighted stand up. A perfect display for Fall and Thanksgiving. I had a couple of Halloween things and Christmas things but nothing for Thanksgiving so here he is! She did a great job! It's backed with green velvet and has a multicolor-metallic cording. If you click the picture, you can see how cool the cording is a little better.
Well now is the part for the good news and the not so good news. The EDD hearing for *the boy* went well considering the former employer did not show up to the hearing so *the boy* won. But the whole thing...appeal after appeal and showing up to the hearing was just a waste of time, money and brought about a good deal of anxiety. *The boy's* doctors appointment also went well. Not great but it's a step in the right direction. He's been upgraded to a cane. Three views of x-ray came back healed and one view is still questionable. There's a little gap so he has to be careful walking with the cane, still use the bone stimulation machine and go back in 6 weeks for a progress report. Now the not so good news...*the boy* and I are taking a break from dating. We've been dating a little over a year and the majority of it has been him unemployed, crippled, sick and me taking on the brunt of the expenses and caretaking. I'm mentally, emotionally and physically drained. As much as I would like things to work, it's just not working for me right now. I'm quite sad and torn up about it. We both feel him going back to RI is for the best until he fully heals, can get a respectable job and afford his own space. Perhaps when he is ready to come back, the stars will be re-aligned and it will actually be normal and happen smoothly for us. For now...we're on a break and not broken up...but it really does feel broken up to me. I wonder if that even makes sense. My birthday is in a couple of weeks and I feel terrible...certainly not the happiest of times. He asked to stay til then so he can still give me a special day since we had just started dating this time last year and he was out of town on my birthday. I figure it's best to try to have a happy day with *the boy* before he leaves than be sad and alone on my birthday. I so wish things could be different and normal and what we had planned for months ago.

So there it is...a total bummer. I'm not quite sure what will happen but I'm happy to have my stitching, sewing homework (lol) and great blogging and real life friends to keep me occupied and entertained. I'm definitely grateful for that...

I'll come back with more vacation photos soon...

Until next time.

Vacation - Day One

I arrived into Boston without a glitch and actually managed to sleep through most of my red-eye flight which was great. I had a big day ahead of me. *The boy* was going to pick me up and we were going to head up to Rye Beach and Portsmouth, NH. It was a nice drive and the green-ness of everything was amazing. But then...New England had been experiencing a ton of rain. I was lucky too...everyone, including myself...was all worried about Tropical Storm Danny and it hit the day before I arrived. The weather was overcast and gloomy...my kind of weather! LOL But the weather stuck to 75 - 80 degrees the rest of the week. Perfect!

We took a drive through Rye Beach so that *the boy* could show me where he used to live and I can see the beach on the East Coast. Here's a shot while on the drive.
And the piece de resistance...Portsmouth, NH. Since *the boy* was slightly disabled on the vacation, we didn't really walk around but I wish I had taken the time to visit the shops. Portsmouth has a wonderful downtown area with lots of quirky shops and boutiques. We stopped at a local spot for breakfast called Colby's for a yummy start to the day and then we drove to John Paul Jones' House which is part of the Portsmouth Historical Society.

I learned of the Portsmouth Sampler exhibit from Jacqueline at Needleprint. After asking how far Portsmouth was and finding out it was close, the exhibit became the first concrete plan of the vacation. I came expressly to see the Portsmouth Needlework Samplers and the ones on display were amazing! I will let the pictures do the talking.




My favorite of the whole exhibit...Sarah Emily Currier...Age 11. Age 11 people!! With 22 years on Sarah, I have doubt in my ability that I can produce a sampler as stunning as hers. It was quite humbling to see the beauties that young ladies...basically children, back in the 1800's could produce. The samplers were all beautiful and the lady working at the "House" was very nice, informative and pleasant. If anyone is planning a trip to NH or lives closeby, this exhibit is certainly worth the trip and the $5 price of admission.

The grounds were also pretty to look at...perfectly manicured and green...

Drooping Sunflowers...
And the needlework exhibit wasn't the only items on display...there was a lot of Items on John Paul Jones and others...not being the most historically tuned person...I kind of passed everything else by but this room caught my eye...the linens and dresses were lovely...not to mention the antique furniture. So pretty!While I was ooooing and aaahhhing inside at all the lovelies, *the boy* was outside waiting and taking a million photos of this poor bee pollenating. Here is the little bumblebee in flight!
Then we headed "home" to Providence and we passed all these message board signs on the freeway like the one below that said "Thanks Ted from the People of Massachusetts". I arrived the day after Senator Kennedy's services and funeral. I thought these signs were a lovely sentiment from the people to the Senator...for all the hard work he put in for the state and the country. Day one was a great day but tiring considering a 4 hour nap on the plane and a cross-country flight. I was literally falling asleep on *the boy* by 730pm!

I still have loads more to tell you not to mention the happenings of the past week but will save it for another post(s). For now, I am off to stitch on Red Sampler and get my supplies ready for my sewing class tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a terrific weekend!

Until next time...

Tuesdays Are My Stitchy Night

Just a quick post tonight. I'm tired! It's hard working a full and busy day when you've been a sloth for 10 days. I haven't stitched one bit today. I got home and listened to *the boy* rant about his day and offering advice. He is having a tough time getting one of his former employers to just accept the fact he is eligible for unemployment considering they fired him...because they were running out of money. He's now on his third appeal and has to make an appearance at a hearing tomorrow. A part of me just wants to slam this company because they are bad business people but knowing them, they'd sue me for slander or libel (I always got those confused) so that they could try to earn money to save their business. They have been a subject of constant consternation with us...*the boy*, being the calmer and more rational half, finally had it. We will wait to see if they (bad former employers) will actually make a presence at the hearing tomorrow.

There is a lot of stuff up in the air this week...revolving around *the boy*...seeing as the drama seems to follow him everywhere...EDD hearing, doctor's appointment, lots of trips into the city. I'm just hoping that the drama doesn't prevent my chicken tortilla soup from being made. Girl needs to be fed!

I've also been doing a lot of reading and my Google Reader is now down to 117 posts. Whew!! There is lots of stitchy goodness out there in blogland.

Ok, I'll get to it...my BIG finish. The Snappers are Done! I am relieved. I was seriously close to throwing it out the window at least twice. This is the only project I worked on while on vacation. I was adamant about finishing it and I knew if it went beyond the weekend, it would probably get pushed into a closet and almost forgotten just out of pure frustration and boredom. That border can kill the spirit out of anyone...or at least anyone who was dumb enough to make a mistake in it, not once but twice...like I did. I figure I've stitched the border twice over for all the mistakes I made with it. I don't think I'll be able to stitch anything using GAST Dried Thyme for a while too! lol Here is a craptastic photo of it. It's very hard to photograph considering the length of it.

So I broke it down into quarters to see it a little better. January - March...April - June

July - September

October - December

Bent Creek Snapper Year
32 count Wichelt Country French Cafe Latte
GAST and WDW as charted
Border: GAST Dried Thyme instead of WDW Bark

I plan on framing Snapper Year as I have the perfect spot for it but I'm short framing money. I want to hold off on any big expenses seeing as budgetary talks at work sound scarier and scarier with each passing week. Time to save those pennies...just in case...you know what I mean? So this is going in the closet with ABC Lessons to be framed at a later date.

Well, that's all the energy I have for tonight but I will leave you with this picture. I promise to fill you all in on my east coast experience. The trip started on a high note! Once *the boy* picked me up from the airport, we headed straight to Portsmouth, NH to see the gems on display at this place. This was truly the highlight of my vacation. I can't wait to show you what I saw there!
Now to decide what I will actually start next! :D

Until next time...

Back and Buried!

Hi Everyone!

I am back from the East Coast and already buried. I am struggling to keep up! It's amazing how you can go from being completely sloth-like...hence no blog posts while being away...to ramped up and frazzled. It's amazing I tell you!

It didn't help that when I finally logged onto my computer when I returned, my Google Reader was up to 310!! I am down to 215 now so you can imagine it will take me a bit of time to catch up with everyone and see what you were all up to.

I have a lot of pictures to share and a lot of things to talk about and I'm not really sure if I can get it all together for my Tuesday installment. There were positives and there were negatives to the whole trip but in the end, I am happy to back and at home on the West Coast. Needless to say, the East Coast did not win me over like everyone thought it would. I'll get into it more later. I also have a huge finish to share too. Huge!!! Super relieved than happy and that should be a big hint as to what I actually finished! lol

I do need to announce the new adoptive parent to the Butterfly Family. Per my count, there were nine interested and #6 was picked by the random generator.

True Random Number Generator
Min: 1 Max: 9
Result: 6

The new parent is Peg! Congratulations Peg! Please send me an email (found in my profile) with your mailing address and I'll get it packed up and ready to mail to you.

Well, that's it for now. I hope to be back soon to share my big finish.

Until next time...