Chinese Goddess of Mercy

Well, I finally got to work on this without a migraine and so here is what I got done over the weekend. I'm excited that I got so much done. I included the pictre of the page that I am working on so you can kinda see where I am at. It's the right side of the goddess.

My hubby finally finished painting the livingroom too this weekend. He insisted on doing it alone and so I stitched while he painted and the girls played in their rooms. Now he has the diningroom left and finally my house will be completely painted at last! He is using a water based paint so it wipes up easily from the hardwood floors if he drips (he refuses to use a drop cloth) and there are next to no fumes!

I was in this cooking mood like crazy too this weekend. I baked cookies with chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, coconut, and walnuts in them and made a double batch of those. These have always been a HUGE hit with my family every time I have made them so here is the recipe if anyone wants to make them:

Ingredients:
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) HERSHEY'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips each white and dark
1 cup chopped nuts(optional)

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 375°F.

2. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large bowl with mixer until creamy. Add eggs; beat well. Gradually add flour mixture, beating well. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts, if desired. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.

3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. About 5 dozen cookies.

PAN RECIPE: Spread batter in greased 15-1/2x10-1/2x1-inch jelly-roll pan. Bake at 375°F. 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely; cut into bars. About 4 dozen bars.

HIGH ALTITUDE DIRECTIONS - Increase flour to 2-2/3 cups.- Decrease baking soda to 3/4 teaspoon.- Decrease granulated sugar to 2/3 cup.- Decrease packed light brown sugar to 2/3 cup.- Add 1/2 teaspoon water with flour.- Bake at 375°F, 5 to 7 minutes or until top is light golden with golden brown edges.

Enjoy!

I also made oven baked fried chicken for dinner saturday night and handmade coconut shrimp with an orange sauce for dinner last night. It was soooo good! And I hadn't had coconut shrimp in years so I just had to make some.

On the other side of things. Destiny has wednesday and thursday off for parent-teacher conferences and she has all day Friday off for whatever reason. So she gets a five day weekend and the hubby has Friday and Monday off for a four day weekend. The nice thing is the hubby is planning a trip to Rome for us that weekend. I have never been and one of our friends is going and is looking for some people to share the expense with. I can't wait!

Chinese Goddess of mercy WIP

Okay! Photobucket finally complied to this so here is a picture of my chinese goddess so far. As you can tell I really didn't get too much done last week as I was in bed with migraines and today I have another one so still no additional progress. Hopefully I can get somewhere on this upcoming weekend. Destiny has tomorrow off from school so I am already anticipating her giving me yet another migraine and making her sister cry and scream all day.

A quick cross stitch joke and a freebie

A cross-stitcher was very naughty in this earthly life and didn't go to heaven. At the gates of Hades, she was met by the Devil. "Welcome,"he said, smirking at her. "Let me show you around your eternal home."
The Devil led her to a large room that looked uncannily like a large needlework shop. The stitcher blinked her eyes, wondering if whatshe saw was an illusion. No, it was true. The most wonderful needlework shop she had ever seen was right before her. Still unbelieving, she asked, "Is this real?" "Of course," murmered the Evil One. "Reach out and touch it."
The stitcher was worried that she would be zapped by 1000 volts, butreached out anyway, unable to help herself. IT WAS REAL! "May I lookaround?" she asked excitedly, all the while thinking, This can't be Hell! This is too good! "Of course," said the Devil. "This is your eternal reward." The stitcher began to survey the particulars of her damnation. There wasevery chart ever published, including all the ones that were out of printin her lifetime and could never find. There was a full run of each needlework magazine, including all the old ones with the historical examples -and each issue was pristine. She continued to look with wonder. Every thread imaginable was there; silks, cottons, metallics, pearl cottons,over-dyeds, hand-dyeds, rayons and twisted-rayons (Yes, maybe I am in Hell, she thought when she saw those) Her eyes lit up when she saw the piles and piles of fabrics. There werebolts and bolts of every colour and every type. An array of beautiful thimbles were hers for the choosing, as were scissors and cleverneedlework gadgets; all organised just as she would have done it on earth. And there, beside her favourite earthly stitching chair, were all her unfinished projects! Yes, she thought, you can take it with you. Ihave all the time I want now. I'm going to finish them at last. The stitchers fingers were just itching to get going! She turned to Beelzebub and said, "THIS IS HEAVEN ! ! ! " "No," he rejoined. "This is Hell. DO YOU SEE ANY NEEDLES?"

Okay so here is the freebie, its a new cardinal snowflake

http://www.victoriasampler.com/VS_Club/Free_Patterns/

Ah, I love this picture. Its of my wondrful husband and our 1 year old daughter who wanted to be like her daddy. She was the only female soldier we saw all night long. The long thing you see her holding is a green light so she could see while walking in the dark during trick or treating. And the first picture is our oldest daughter Destiny, she's four years old and she was a Harem/Belly dancer. Everyone kept asking her if she was cold but she wasn't, she was having a blast. she was so excited that she was giggling half the night. This night we saw more kids than ever before since they opened it up to the Germans off base. It was fun though. We saw so many witches though like no one had any originality. One os the Sgt's dressed in a maids costume, it was hilarious but I forgot to take a picture to show you all. The hubby and I had planned to dress up like pirates from the pirates of the carribean movie but lacked the funds this year so maybe next year.

Okay Stitching talk, I did decide to start my chinese goddess but didn't get too far since a migraine hit me, itwas so bad it decided to stay all week long so when I wasn't caring for my little ones I was laying down in the dark thankful for the silence and lack of light in my bedroom. Thus, I have not touched one project all week long and most of last week but just so you can see what I have done, here is a picture of it. You can't really tell but there is white and a pale grey. There is 20 pages to this and I haven't gotten too far on page 8 which is where I started since it seems to be the center page.

I went to the post office today and mailed out my ornament exchange from SWC. I am only the second person to mail out but everyone still has 9 more days before they have to send out. I also sent out two postcards to people from postcrossing. I picked up some other postcards that had some different scenes of Germany. So I am going to post a few here if I can get them to ever load for me. Both blogger and photobucket are refusing to load my scans of my postcards and my stitching WIP so when i get those loaded I will then try and post them.