Stitching and even a completion!

First here is Chinese Goddess of Mercy. I am almost done with the moon above the little girl

Here is a freebie hummingbird i stitched and completed today. Its my first cross stitch finish this year! Freebie found here And i just realized i forgot the white on his chest! dangit! dangit! oh well cant do anything now.

Some Cross Stitching and a finish!

Recognize this? Its my Chinese Goddess piece. After I finished crocheting the baby blanket for Baby Girl Martin I was in the mood to stitch on it. I did some more of the light pink around her head. Not too much done but its progress and it was so nice to stitch on something. My big round hoop stand was destroyed in the move so I'm on the hunt for a new stand.

Here is the baby blanket I finished for Baby Girl Martin. It is the size of a crib bed. Plus its not the normal rectangular ones. I wanted something different for her. Besides we found out she is going to be a special needs child. She has Cystic Fibrosis ( 1 out of 3,000 get it). We won't know the severity of it until she is born this September.  I am hoping its a very light case instead of a worse one as I know that my sister is very sensitive and won't be too emotionally stable if its a severe case. Anyways pls keep her and the baby in your prayers. 

Chinese Goddess Of Mercy

Well here she is as of last Friday night. I'm sorry for the bad picture but DH went to the field for 2 weeks and took his camera with him along with the memory card so I am stuck trying to use our webcam to snap pictures especially with this one as it is way too big to put on the scanner. Anyway by last Friday I had completed all of the little girls head and started on some of the moon and other outlining.

By Saturday I was way too bored with Collecting shells to even do more than 15 white stitches on her so no photo yet as its too pathetic to even take a picture. So for the last several days I have been working on the peacock chair. I had to order some batting for when I put it together which won't be done until DH returns home anyways since he hammers the feet onto the chair. I'm way to nervous to take a hammer to some beads. I noticed on my Garden Chair that I ordered back in Feb from ABCStitch that I was missing the beads and 1 1/2 inch brads to attach them so I emailed Marie and she apologized for them missing from my package and said they would be sent out to me but its been weeks and I received today some things I had on backorder since Feb but no feet yet. I'm going to be really mad if I don't get them since I did pay for them.

I sold my first thing on my etsy store! I'm so excited especially because their books I won't use anymore and at least they can go to someone who will use them.

Do any of you buy Disney books for your kids or grand kids? I get them in regular shipments but I have 6 of them that are repeats and so they need a new home. They are all brand new, hardcover, and in English. I'll sell them for $5 each and that will include the shipping and handling too. If your interested then please email me at Poohcorner1114 at yahoo dot com and put in the subject line Disney Books so I don't mistake it for spam mail. Oh! The list of books are: Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Toy Story 2, Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, and winnie the Pooh's How to Catch a Heffalump.

Chinese Goddess Of Mercy

Woohoo! I finally completed the moon! I stayed up until midnight determined to complete the moon this week so I can start on the little girl to her left where you see the red and the beginnings of a smaller moon. So in total now I have 5 pages complete and about another 13 to go. The bottom 4 or 5 pages are going to be the hardest because every stitch on each of those pages is filled in unlike these top ones where you have spaces so they are faster to complete. Okay time for me to go to bed now, I am babysitting 4 additional kids on top of my 2 at 3 pm until about 8 or 9 pm so their parents can go out to dinner in Pottenstein before the DH gets deployed.

Chinese Goddess Of Mercy and picture day

Okay so here is my oldest DD before she leaves for school. Today was picture day and her pics were at 1400 so I wanted to take a photo in case she messed up her hair while at school. She didn't do too bad though, but I'll have to wait for the proofs before I know how her pics came out. And in case you are wondering, thats a cheese stick in her hands. I took this pic out on the balcony before she left for school and I don't think it came out too bad considering it was a rainy and cloudy day. :)

And here is my chinese goddess of mercy after working on her yesterday and today. I worked on just the moon. I want to finish filling it in so I can be done with that page. I got a large amoutn of it completed and could finish over the wekend if I chose too but I have chosen an old WIP collecting shells as my Saturday and Sunday project. If blogger lets me, my rotation will be in one of the side bars. Not too many projects in it for now but some kind of rotation is better than none. So my goal will be to get at least 2 to 3 pages done this year.

Page 7 Complete and PIF Gift Received

Here is the great PIF gift I have received from Michele. I saw the tin and was instantly excited! You all know how much I love snowmen. She also included an adorable santa ornament (which is already on my tree) that she stitched up and had someone else do the finishing. And what a cute box of chocolates, a reindeer card, a pillow insert, and a beautiful skein of overdyed floss by Needle Necessities #152. I'm already thinking of what I can stitch to put into this cute little pillow this floss. Thanks Michele!!!

And here is my excitement! I completed page 7 last night! I still need to work on page2 which is whats left of the moon you see there. I did a little last night and I may continue it till I'm bored with the yellow again and then I am going to do page 6. so anyway this is 4 1/2 pages completed out of 20 pages but 2 are blank. I was wondering whne I started this so I looked up my first WIP photo and can you believe I started this Nov 01, 2006? I hadn't realized that I only got this little bit done in a year, which is motivation enough that I am going to work on this for awhile and see how much more I can get done before another project screams at me.

EDIT: I also completed my Round 4 F&S Exchange last Friday and have mailed it out today too so Vicki, its coming your way in the USA. :)

On the non stitching side Here is my xmas tree this year. Destiny and I did the decorating and the DH put fiber optic Santa up there. Please ignore my DH's workout bench to the left and the toolbox behind the tree or those hideous curtains either. Our house is a bit over crowded so deciding where to put the tree each year is a toughy. But we are currently working on cleaning out the basement so this stuff can go down there and I can have my space back. I think I have most of my xmas shopping completed and now it all needs wrapping up. I also have my tree up which my DH refused to help put up so Destiny and I did all by ourselves. I also put out a few of my xmas decorations around the house too but I don't feel much like celebrating this year. I did my grocery shopping on saturday and paid $10 for a small ham for xmas. I have never liked cooking turkey's so I do ham on xmas. Anyway today I went up to the store with a friend of mine since I needed to buy wrapping paper. Well we go into the commissary so she can get some groceries first and she tells me she is hosting xmas at her house this year. The Lindsey's had originally volunteered to host it but backed out last night. So she has $60 to buy 2 weeks of groceries for 2 adults and 3 kids plus xmas dinner for everyone. I'm like holy crap! But didn't ask how that ended up since their finances are not my business. Anyay so she went to the hams and we are noticing they are all expired! So I think holy crap I didn't even look at mine! well, once we got home I looked and sure enough its says Nov 21st! Now I am pissed! The commissary is getting horrible for expired foods. I can never buy ham from them and Destiny loves ham! The cherry tomatoes were moldy so that was out of the question. I hate this! During the summer I get Euros and go off base to the German farmers market to buy my fruits and veggies but its now winter and I am forced to stay at the commissary especially because the USD to Euro rate is outrageous! Why is it that this commissary has such low food standards?? I think I am going to start putting in some complaints or find out who I can speak to about this. Even most of their fruit is bad too. So here I am with a expired ham that i now have to return to the store and get refunded. I think I may just say forget it and pay the extra money to go out onto the economy to the German stores if it means I get fresh fruit and veggies.

Chinese Goddess of Mercy

Okay this is how far I got last night before I decided I wanted to get Round 4 of the F&S Exchange done up and out of the way. So all day I have been working on my squares for Vicki. I am hoping to mail them off on Friday afternoon after the girls and I get our flu shots or nasal sprays I should say since the only shots now are for under 2 yrs old. Anyway, I have to go to the post office on Friday so I wanted to mail off the exchange too so I have no worries about forgotten deadlines through the holidays. Its not due to mail out until January 5th but I'll forget or I'll worry about forgetting so much that I'll hardly sleep. Yes, I know it sounds stupid to lose sleep over these things but I am one of those people that if I have something to do, I hardly sleep until its done. A Dr, once told me if I make a list of everything that needs doing, then I'll rest easier knowing its written down and so I won't forget it. Great idea! except I never do it or I forget to. Anyway I still want to complete this page by the weekend or over the weekend so I better get back to those squares so I can return to my Goddess of Mercy.

A little more progress on Page 7

Well here she is as of Sunday night. I worked on her a lot but I don't feel like I got a lot done. That little part of the moon felt like it took me forever. I am hoping to finish this page up this week. To her left is the little girl which is what I'll be doing next after this page.

Chinese Goddess of Mercy WIP and Round 3 F&S Exchange

Okay here she is so far as of last night. For those of you that have read my blog for awhile now, I knw you recognize her and I know I haven't worked on her in several months. I did all the outlining to page 7, I wanted you all to see how big one page is. There is still a partial moon that goes on the left side too. I know I need to get a rotation in so that maybe some progress happens in all those WIP's that you see on the right side of my blog. But I just can't seem to get myself into a rotation. As some of these WIP's including this one are on Aida cloth and I am starting to veer away from it. So what happens to those WIP's? I am going to try my hardest to finish them and if I can't then I will see if one of my sisters want them. Not this one though, its a BAP and so I am determined to complete it and turn it into a wallhanging. Though it could be another year or so before this is complete unless I work on it continously but you all know how I feel about filling in the moons on here, it boring and tedious so I think I will definitly save these for when I am watching a movie with my DH, then I won't be having the frog come for a visit.

I finally recieved my round 3 squares for the Fair and square Exchange from Peg. She really likes samplers so she did this one up for me. She did it in this color to make it look like fall which I think it does. Its very nice Peg, thank you. I just got them in today and Peg had posted to them to the board not knowing if I had received them or not which kinda ruined the surprise but oh well it doesn't change how I feel about them.

Stitching and Castles

Well here is my Chinese Goddess of Mercy so far, I was stopped because my frame fell apart. so the DH took a day before he got around to fixing it for me. So in the meantime I worked on some PIF gifts and won about 16 new packages of Mill Hill beads on ebay for $20.00 USD. I crocheted this little needlebook too yesterday afternoon:

And here's it opened up:

And now for some fun pictures. This past Saturday we took a bus for 5 hours to visit two of the most famous castles in Germany, Hohenschwangau and Neushwanstein. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the inside though but they were awesome and we all definitly got more excercise than we had bargained for. It was a 20 minute walk one direction to one of the castles and then 45 minutes to the other castle in the opposite direction, and we were rushing all the way just to make our tour times.

This one is the princess castle but from the backside as thats where the trail was to go up it. We didn't have time to go around to the front and take pictures. We had a five hour drive back and a bunch of people waiting on us so we plan to go back on our own next time, it should only take about 3 hours to drive there the way my DH drives plus we have a GPS so we won't get lost like the bus driver did.

Neuschwanstein Castle
Southwest Bavaria, Germany Built: Construction began in 1869 by Ludwig II, King of Bavaria. Pop culture connection: The design pays homage to the operas of Richard Wagner. It served as an influence for Cinderella's castle in Disney's Magical Kingdom, and Oroduran Castle in the 8th Pokémon Movie. Highlights: Its fantastical nature isn't owed to an architect, but to theatrical set designer Christian Jank. It features a room made to look like a cavern, and a secret flushing toilet in the master bedroom.

Exchange piccies

Today my squares cam in the mail from the F&S exchange. Here's what Tanya made and sent to me along with some scaps of fabric, thanks Tanya I love them:

Also my bookmark exchange came in from the Robins Nest. Catherine also sent me a pattern and the charms that go with it. The bookmark is designed by teresa Wetzler:

And heres another WIP pic of my chinese goddess, almost done with this page. Thank you everyone for all the kind comments on her, its rally helped keep me working on this moon.And one last picture. Its Destiny's school photo. Kiley is in it because the lady was so nice enough to put her in it. They normally don't do that kind of thing and I wasn't allowed to tell any of the other parents.

Chinese Goddess WIP

Okay so seeing everyones huge projects coming to life made me think of the BAP I have sitting in the office that I haven't touched in months. Why? Because that moon is huge and I am still on the first half and doing never ending DMC 745. I've used up two skeins already and still going if that gives you some idea of its largness. Anyway almost done with the second page of the 20 page pattern, though two of the top pages are completely empty. Anyway I got about 22 rows completed yesterday and I hope to get this page completed today.

And then I had to share this photo I snapped last night. This was Kileys way of not going to bed. She has daddy wrapped around her little pinky.

Weekend progress

Non stitching news:

We got tons of snow so the girls and I went to build a snowman. Destiny wanted to pose with him. We even made him a top hat. She even hugged him good night before we went inside for dinner. Here he is (my daughter was in love with him as its her first snowman):

The thing that upsets me is that some awful kids, I am thinking its the neighbor kids that destroyed him overnight, as he was smashed the very next morning. Destiny was so upset it was all she could talk about all day. Her daddy was going to go out with her so she could rebuild him but that afternoon it started to rain and so there went the snow. I know most of you would say that it was just a snowman and therefore we shouldn't be upset but since Destiny spent most of her life in El Paso, TX where it was a blue moon before you got a tiny bit of snow, this was her first year she got to make a snowman here in Germany. Kiley went with us but quickly became bored and my 2 year old threw snow at me! LMAO! So the snow fight was on! Both girls were giggling like crazy. Destiny even made a snow angel, which I taught her last weekend. Here it is she's still getting up from making it, hope you can see it:
The DH was glued to the computer all weekend that i couldn't get on to even check my email. Saturday we got up at 0730 and boom! He was on the computer and even when I asked him if he was going to be on the computer all day, he was like no just a little bit. e had planned on going to see his grandparents who live about 10 minutes from graffenviere but with the bad snow storm that morning even his grandmother said not to come. So e played with Limewire all day downloading music till midnight! Then Sunday morning the same thing! I think I pryed him away at about 1530. Completely ridiculous! He even refused to go outside with the girls and I to make a snowman which meant so much to Destiny.

Anyways, things were going fine, at 1530 we all left to the bowling alley since the DH is on a league and he said that another guy was bringing his kids so then they could all play together. We got there and nope he didn't show up but luckily the girls were able to play together and give me a bit a peace. It got to about 1700 when Destiny said she was thirsty and so I went and got a pitcher of diet coke since thats the only thing there she can drink. I also gave them the Goober sandwiches I made for both girls with their drinks and sat them down, should be easy right? WRONG!! Kiley stole her sisters soda and was running with it! I got it back gave it to Destiny and then sat Kiley back down with her drink, turn around and Destiny spilt her soda all over the floor, table #1, and my purse! I clean up my purse as much as possible inside and out, thankful that it somehow missed my cellphone. Then I cleaned the floor. Kiley is finished eating and drinking and goes to play. Destiny still eating stays and I go back to the grown up area. Destiny comes over a minute later asking for a sip of my soda, I see no harm in it and hand it to her, by the time she got it to her lips, she dropped it hitting the barstand and splashing all over me. I was so mad by this point. I yelled at her that can't she hold onto anything?? I know it was an accident and she has never been this messy but I couldn't help it, I was soaked in diet coke and sticky as heck. So I get cleaned up the best I can in the bathroom and get the floor and table #2 cleaned back up. My DH takes pity on me and agrees to take us all home. So I get home start dinner and work on unloading the dishwasher while the DH gets back onto the computer. Kiley takes his glass of tea off the table and puts it right behind me while I am unloading the dishes and I turn around and yep you guessed it! I hit the glass which then rolls across the floor hitting the trash can spilling tea everywhere and on me as well! I was so mad I had the DH take the girls into their rooms till dinner. I was now covered in tea and soda and needed the second shower of the day before dinner. Let's just say thankfully dinner and the rest of the evening went without incident.

Stitchy news:

Okay worked on the chinese Goddess I know its not much progress since last time but I got a bit bored with all the yellow so it slowed me down:

And I made my first biscournu! I did the front and then kinda cheaped out and did my first initial on the back using a font I had in one of my books, still I like it. :o)

AND one other thing I started and finished up this weekend! Through the group I am part of we started a sampler a nice lay came up with. Each month she is releasing a new section 8 in total. So here is part one completed of the TOL sampler. We all picked our own colors. There are 5 total but the first section only uses three.



I am doing it on 18 count almond aida with the colors: 350, 518, 522, 3042, 3354 all in DMC floss.

Update

Here you go, just wanted to post a quick update on my Chinese Goddess of Mercy. I finally fel like I am accomplishing something on her after I got her face done up last night. And today has just been filling in the white which you can see I only have that one big space left then its off to do up the moon next to her head.

First finish of 2007

Okay so today hasn't really been the greatest of days. We were late getting up to go to Wurzburg hospital for Destiny's ear appointment. She had faild her hearing test at school so they were going to do a brain wave test to see if she just was being stubborn and not answering. Anyway, So I send my DH to get her medical records from the clinic since the Dr in Wurzburg needed them and then I would get myself and the kids ready and we could leave at 09:15 though her appt was at 10:00 I know it takes my DH 1 hour to drive there though he swore up and down he could et there in half an hour. I was like don't think so buddy. Anyway so he takes his sweet time getting ready and getting her records so we leave at 09:30 and guess what? He drives so fast that I become sick to my stomach and poor Kiley throws up in the car all over her jacket, clothes, shoes, and car seat. Well, us not having any change of clothes and running late as it was, pulled over, stripped her down and I wrapped her up in my jacket. DH pulled the cover off the car seat and put it in the trunk with her clothes and shoes. Now imagine this in 50 degree weather with an already sick child. Fun huh? So we're like ok after Destiny's appointment we will go to the PX and buy her a new outfit and some socks. Well, did anyone know Wurzburg has like 6 hospitals? What the hell does one city need so many hospitals for??? This Dr had just told me the hospital, that was it and I didn't take his number with me. But we stop at the Kinder Klinickum and ask there, they call the University hospital and find thats it. So the lady gives us directions there even though we already are 1 hour late, thats right its 11:00 by now. So we go anyway and find 3 different buildings all saying University Klinikum, by now my DH is frustrated and pissed and refuses to check any of them out so he leaves! I told him he gets to call back and make a new appointment and can ask which building to go to. So then we leave and go to the PX and get Kiley some clothes and socks cause the poor things legs were like ice by now since I had to take her out of the car so many times. Then Destiny started complaining she was hungry but the DH wanted to look around first so he took an hour doing that while I developed a migraine listening to Destiny going I'm hungry every minute of the way. Even when we finally left and got her some food every word out of her mouth made me want to pull my hair out but daddy promised her she could go play at the play area if she ate all her lunch and she did. Can you imagine my stress levels by now? Finally after that i think ok as he promised we are going to stop in Sweinfurt and pick up some white DMC floss as you all have noticed I need. ( I did manage to get one skein last week) But nope he was like we will go on Saturday. I had to bite my tongue to keep from smacking him while he was driving. We came home after that and the girls slept on the drive home which gave me the quiet I needed to calm down and some of my migraine went away. Good news is though I was abl to find Red Yarn at the Wurzburg PX that I need to make a gift for a friends son's birthday this month.

Okay stitchy news, I used the white I got and covered in some of the areas until i was sick of doing just white so heres a pic of it so far:

So like I said I got sick of the white and needed a distraction so I completed my first project of 2007 Its called Cat sampler by Helga Mandl Designs and was in my gift of stitching magazine for this month. Its also my very first sampler too. Saturday I am going to buy some matching fabric and turn it into a hanger thingy I think. So I will post a pic of it then too so you can see how I finished it. The picture I took is a bit crooked though, sorry.

I'm back! And with updates!

Yay! I am so excited to finally be back online. Thanks for your kind words everyone. Okay as for updates, I did my stress killer project as far as possible and then I ran out of white so I need to email my floss mommy in the states since she can get it much cheaper than me and doesn't have to drive three hours to get it. I also ran out of white with my chinese goddess before finishing page 8 but I did do all the rest of page 8 and started on page 3, the one above page 8. So here are the pictures.


Also on another note both my girls had birthdays in November. Destiny turned 5 and Kiley turned 2. Both went very well and they got lots of clothes and toys from everyone.


Thanksgiving was a success this year too! I didn't burn my candied yams, lol. I made a Greek Lemon turkey(no I am not greek), candied yams, carrots, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, biscuits, fruit salad, and pumpkin bread. I was expecting three addiotional visitors besides my DH's Oma and Opa. But they never showed so I had all this extra food left over which lasted another week and I still had leftovers I had to throw away. All that cooking and entertaining wore me out though and I ended up falling asleep for an hour. I still feel a bit burned out from it and so am not making a huge meal at christmas. Here is a picture of our table from Thanksgiving and (my 1st)turkey:

My DH was not happy with our 6 foot tree this year so he bought a new 7 1/2 foot tree that thankfully was prelit. It was way too tall for me to put the garland on so I had to have my DH to the top part till it got low enough for me to do. I was thrilled this year on the gift I got for my DH. He is a HUGE NFL Dallas Cowboys fan and I found an autograph picture of Troy Aikman for about $450 Its a huge picture, about the size of a painting. I am so excited just to see the look on his face when he see it! I'll post pictures when he opens it. :P

And another picture, here is what I sent for my secret santa exchange, the limit was $10 to spend. I never received anything from the lady who was suppose to send to me though...:(

And here is what I received for my ornament exchange: I love it!

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!