It's Halloweenie!

On the way home yesterday, DH and I came upon a murder of crows. I couldn't get over the number of them! It really was an eyrie sight. They had all descended on this one particular house. It kind of reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's popular movie, The Birds.

I've always been a fan of horror movies. I have no idea why. Halloween, with Jamie Lee Curtis, was one of the first ones I ever saw when I was growing up. Friday the 13th, with the popular maniac Jason, was next and shortly followed by A Nightmare On Elm Street with my good old pal, Freddy Krueger :o) Yes, I had a poster of Freddy on my wall as I was growing up. Maybe that accounts for my twisted mind ;o)

How many of you are scared after watching a horror movie? I don't think it was so much the blood and gore that got to me. I would have to say it was the 'music'. Each one of those horror films has its own unique and frightening tune, enough to send shivers up your spine. I wonder how they come up with these things.

For those of you who were reading my Blog last year, you might remember that Brie dressed up as a vampire :o) Well this year she's decked out in John Deere -

Someone was NOT happy! LOL! So I put the rabbit costume on her -

GOTCHA!

Pickles was a better model but he had his limits. He was also bribed with a carrot ;o)

TOM

If you're a female, you definitely know Tom ;o) You know...

the Tom that comes around once a month
the Tom that irritates us and unleashes our wrath
the Tom that sends us on eating binges so we gain weight
the Tom that wakes us up in the middle of the night and starves us of sleep
the Tom that is twisted enough to inflict pain


As far as I'm concerned, Tom can take a flying leap into the Grand Canyon! LOL! Why were we cursed with this monster? Tom is nothing but an inconvenience that I'm sure any woman can do without. There is only one thing Tom is good for, depending on your preferred outcome :o)

You know what really irks me? There's an ad on television for Always (panty liners) and their slogan is "Have a happy period, always." WHAT? Happy and period in the same sentence? I don't think so! You know, you just know that a man came up with that marketing campaign ;o)

Now I've been blessed with both Tom and menopause, even before I reached the age of 34. I'm not sure which I detest more. It's basically just replacing one sadistic act with another. Instead of pain, you experience hot flashes and let me tell you, it's very embarrassing when your ears turn an extra dark shade of crimson while you're in a meeting. Do you remember the commercial for those home heating units? Well, I was that woman who ran outside, in the middle of winter, with nothing but a t-shirt and shorts ;o)

To be perfectly honest though, aside from the few discomforts, I felt my best during those four years. Plus, I save A LOT of money. LOL! I'd be scared to calculate just how much we do spend on those "necessities". What do men have to worry about? Shaving? Big deal! We shave too. Do you ever see any embarrassing ads on television for men? No, because it's all taken up by Tampex, Always, KY and Vagisil.

So I guess I might as well accept the fact that this will be 'Bitch Week'. Maybe I should track down that company that makes pregnancy tests. Their slogan? "This is the most sophisticated piece of technology that you will ever pee on." (thanks for the correct wording Christine!) I'm NOT kidding :oP

Hey Foxy!

It seems that our little friend has become somewhat of a permanent fixture around our house lately -

Our fox came around yesterday at lunchtime (this seems to be his/her preferred time) and took to hunting moles and mice in our side pasture. Since the field had been cut back in August, it was long enough to house lots of potential food and short enough for us to see our friend :o) I ran in and got the digital camera and over twenty minutes, DH and I tried to get closer and closer as we took pictures.

This guy, or gal, is not really skittish, although I would not call him/her friendly. For some reason though, it comes by during the day and is hardly bothered by cars, humans or dogs. From what DH and I can tell, he/she looks very healthy. He/she was so consumed in hunting that it never even noticed DH get about ten feet away from him/her!

The cheeky little bugger came back though and I was able to snap this picture as he/she ran by -

The only thing I worry about is the dogs. Brie especially because she's so small, although she puffed herself up when she "finally" noticed the fox. The only thing that worries me about Duncan is that he would chase after it and possibly get bitten. That would not be good :o( Thank goodness both have their rabies shots.

Anyway, it's enjoyable to watch him/her. So as long as we can still live in harmony, no one has to move ;o)

Finish Forty

Woohoo! I'm in the home stretch! Now that the JCS Ornament Issue is out, it looks like Christmas ornaments will be in the Q-Snaps for awhile :o)

This is Winter Joy by Sam Sarah Designs -

He was featured in the JCS Ornament Preview Issue. I used the same material suggested but I opted for DMC instead of the Belle Soie. That's a "little" too much money to invest in a small ornament right now but don't get me wrong, I sure would LOVE the silks ;o) I also just used one strand of DMC black for his face because the two ply looked to heavy in my opinion.

I'm not sure how I'm going to finish him just yet. Since I had all the colors out, the next project will be the companion piece to Winter Joy. It's called Winter Love and it's in the new JCS Ornament Issue. There is one thing I will point out though. The suggested DMC colors in the Ornament Issue are different than the DMC colors suggested in the Preview Issue, even though they both use the same colors of Belle Soie. I went with those listed for Winter Joy and I will use them again on Winter Love so they'll match each other :o)

I want to send out a HUGE thank you to Carolyn today. I'm not feeling the best and when DH brought in the mail, there was an envelope from her :o) Inside was an adorable Stoney Creek pattern book called Tricky Treats. Can you guess what the patterns are of???? PUMPKINS!!!! Thank you again Carolyn, you put a smile on my face today :o)

I want to thank all my readers who leave comments on my Blog. I LOVE reading what you have to say and sometimes you have me in 'stitches', especially when the topic has been somewhat...interesting ;o) If Rachael is out there, please send me the address to your Blog because it wasn't listed in your profile :o( I love wandering over to other Blogs and seeing what everyone is up to. Kinda like a nosey neighbour. LOL!

Finish Thirty-Nine

Hot off the Q-Snaps! This is Thankfulness by Imaginating -

I love these charts! For my color combination I used 28 count sage Jobelan with DMC 780. I was hoping there would be another autumn design that I could match up with it. Maybe next year :o)

The leaves are starting to come off the trees now but they had put on a lovely color show all month. DH and I went to the park in town and walked through the woods. Of course I didn't bring my camera so I missed the perfect opportunity to take a picture of a woodpecker that nearly flew into DH's head. LOL!

DH and I finally gave in and turned on the heat this past Monday. Our goal is always November 1 but seeing as my toes were purple and my hands were too cold to stitch, I figured it was about time. I think our little heater, Brie, will be used quite a bit this winter ;o)

That's What Friends Are For

I want to thank everyone that either emailed me or left a comment on my Blog. I deeply appreciate the kindness and support that you have given me :o) It means so much. I know most of you I have never met, but just knowing there are still kind people in this cruel world is like a breath of fresh air.

To me, friends appear in many ways. You don't have to actually meet someone in person in order to call them a friend. In the 'older' days, I did a lot of writing to pen pals all over the world. Then email came into play :o( Not that I don't like emails but there is nothing more comforting than seeing a special letter sitting in your mailbox at the end of a hard day ;o)

I have never met any of my pen pals or online friends. I would definitely love to though! I have talked to some of them on the phone. These women are just as sweet to talk to as they are in their emails :o) I think it would be a riot to meet these friends some day. It just amazes me how you can reach out to someone you have never meet before and instantly have a connection.

I was never one for making friends easily. In person anyway. The first impression people get of me is "Oh, she's a b*&$#." I can't tell you how many times people will tell me that once they get to know me better. In reality, I'm shy. I'm also guarded but that's my protection mechanism from years of learning the hard way. I'm kind of curious to know what friends think of me once they get to know the 'real' me ;o) LOL!

Friends come and go. Life happens and it's out of our control. Some relationships can stand the test of time though but not all. Either way, there is always something that you will carry forward with you from each of those friendships. They are almost like stepping stones there to guide you through the path of life.

Someone sent this to me in an email once -


I just love it! Every time I look at it, it makes me smile and it reminds me that I have friends out there that care :o)

Take Care Of Those Boobies

Feel free to post this little guy on your Blog or pass him along to someone else :o)

When It Rains...

...it pours. Literally :o(

Come here. Just come here for a second. Take a look. Do I have a sign that says "Kick Me" on my back? No? Do you see any sign that a curse has been put upon me? No? Okay, so have you found that horseshoe that obviously fell out of my a*%? Maybe it wasn't there to begin with ;o)

If you haven't guessed by now, things are a 'wee bit' more stressful here. DH is still waiting to hear about a new job and we're coping with the fact that we only have one car now, although my parents have been kind enough to lend us one of theirs :o) That positive attitude I had a few weeks ago when I thought we did really well organizing ourselves has gone right out the window...

On Friday, I noticed that my bad tooth was throbbing. I blamed the fact that my mouth guard must have irritated it. By Sunday, I had changed my mind! It was SORE! I couldn't even let my bottom teeth come in contact with it because the pain would send me leaping off the couch. As much as I hated to admit it, the word 'root canal' came to mind. I was keeping a positive attitude though so I was hoping it was just an infection.

Monday morning I called my dentist. Now you have to understand something about me. I absolutely HATE going to the dentist, for anything! The anxiety that builds up is enormous. The receptionist knew I must have been in a lot of pain for me to be calling and 'asking' to come in. They have come to know me pretty well. LOL!

Well...the bad news is...I have an infection AND I have to have a root canal :o( The good news...that tooth only has one root so we're only looking at $400. Remember, no dental coverage now :o( More bad news...they can't get me in until December 3 so that means I have a month and a half to wait and know that it's coming. Not what I need right now.

So off I go to the drug store with my prescription for antibiotics. I hand it over to the woman behind the counter and she punches it in and says "You have no insurance coverage on file. Have you recently changed it?" I explained the situation and told her we had to buy our own and that it was all done the first of the month. "I'm sorry, there's nothing on file here so you'll have to pay the full amount."

Great! I head down the road to the bank and checked to see if the payment for the health insurance had come out. Nope. Nada. I finally located a pay phone (I HATE cell phones but this was the time to have one) and call DH to inform him of what is going on so he could call and find out what's up. Everything was sent the first of the month, by courier, but 'apparently' the health insurance company claims they never received it. Can you guess how many times I hit my head on the steering wheel????

What's the verdict? I'm on a waiting list with the dentist but I complicate the matter because I have to take antibiotics 24 hours ahead of time because of a heart condition. The health insurance matter is still being looked into and we've had no word yet. I have prescriptions coming up that I need and they are not cheap :o(

There you have it. I ranted. I raved. I'm still looking for that horseshoe. I feel a little better though :o) I don't even dare to say the words "What else can happen?"

Freeze Frame

Last weekend at the ocean, I was able to get out and work on my photography skills some more. It was a beautiful fall weekend so there were many opportunities for great photos :o) I even dug out my SLR camera and popped in a black and white film.

Recently, I was challenged with a new project...how to display emotions with pictures. Does that sound hard or easy to you? What makes you happy, sad or fearful? At first, I thought the idea would be easy enough but once I started taking pictures and trying to tie them into my emotions, I found it to be a little more challenging.

Happiness seems to be the easiest for me :o) How can this picture not make you smile?

Trying to picture what makes me sad became a little easier the more I thought about it -

Death is a sad thing. It represents a life that may have been taken away too early.

I would have to say that my fear is going to be the most challenging. Most of what makes me fearful comes from within so how do I express that? The best photo so far has been this -

Water would definitely be on the list. But what about those fears that are deep down in the core? How is that to be expressed?

As you can see, I have my work cut out for me :o) I like the challenge though because it makes me think more and it broadens my ideas. There are other pictures that have recently been taken and they are now loaded into my Picasa Album. I hope you enjoy :o)

Where's Hammy?

Don't worry, he's still around :o) Every once in awhile I'll see him jumping through the trees, but most times I just hear him and don't actually see him.

DH has checked the storage shed periodically and so far there have been no signs of entry. Last month DH noticed that Hammy was going into our birdhouse -

Usually this is home to the swallows but since they were gone, I guess Hammy figured he would move in :o)

So, DH and I watched him for about a week going back and forth gathering food. I went by the birdhouse the other day while taking some pictures and something caught my eye -

Yes, the birdhouse is STUFFED with Hammy's stash :o) The swallows are going to have quite a surprise when they come home next year. LOL!

Finish Thirty-Eight

This little guy is called Sailing Dragonlet by Dragon Dreams -

This is a very special freebie that was given out to shoppers during the Sue Hillis visit. Given our situation at the moment, I thought the wording was quite appropriate :o) I stitched mine on 28 count light blue (not sure of the exact color name) Lugana. Let me tell you, my new fabric inventory system is FABULOUS! It sure simplifies my life.

As I already mentioned, we are at the ocean this weekend. It's bird hunting season right now so we've all had to be careful, including Brie -

LOL! She is just the cutest ;o) She's waiting in her chariot (the golf cart) ready to go!

We had a delicious Thanksgiving Day supper yesterday at my in-laws but it's hard to believe that this is the first week of October! What a gorgeous weekend it has been so far. The skies are a lovely blue and the trees are sporting all the different colors of fall.

Last night we went down to the bar and did some fishing. I couldn't believe it when my rod started jerking and here's proof of my "huge" catch -

LOL! This is a mackerel. They have such a colourful top on them. We only catch and release so this little guy went right back in the ocean. DH caught one later on but his was a little bigger than mine. There weren't many bites but we were down at half tide so that might have been a factor.

The tides are very low at the moment so we get to walk further out during low tide. It's neat to comb the beaches for sea glass and shells. I was able to find five or six sea urchins. I'll take some pictures later and post them :o)

I want to wish my Dad a very Happy Birthday today! Remember Dad, pick your age and say you're that forever but make sure you can get away with it ;o)

When Enough Is Enough

Even though I have not been stitching as much lately, I have still been somewhat productive ;o) I finally decided to tackle my fabric drawer(s). I say drawers, plural, because I now have two. I started with one and somehow it morphed into two, leaving me completely clueless as to what I had in them. This is the end result -

In theory, organizing sounds like a good idea but when your inventory is finally put down on paper, that's when you realize you may have WAY too much and that you possibly could open your own needlework shop. LOL!

So now I have the fabrics in my drawers grouped by count. Martha Stewart would not think that I'm "that" organized because I didn't break things down further by grouping fabric types and colors together. BUT, I did it on paper! I'm very proud of my new spreadsheets :o) They show the fabrics broken down by count, type and color PLUS the size of the fabric. Are you shocked?

But wait, there's more! By doing this, I was able to calculate just how much fabric I have and that is definitely the scary part :oS These are rough numbers because I know there are pieces here and there that I have missed but you'll get the general idea. Eighty-one pieces have been set aside because they have been pre-assigned to projects already. They are tagged with the count, type, color, size and project name. There's more...on top of that, I have 184 pieces, of various sizes, just waiting to be used. Now how shocked are you? LOL!

To take things even further think about this. I average about 50 projects a year. So if I add 81 to 184 (this is not going to be 100% accurate) I get 265. Divide 265 by 50 and I get 5.3. That means that I have enough fabric to get me through the next five years. Is that really enough though? If I expect to live until I'm 75, let's say, I still have 34 years to go, therefore, it shows that I need to buy MORE fabric in order to last me that long ;o) How's that for reasoning? LOL!

I'm going to say Adios for the weekend because DH, the dogs and I are going to the ocean :o) It's been a very stressful and emotional week and we really need some down time. I'm bringing my computer with me though! Things are still up in the air here but we're hoping for some good news in the next few weeks. Fingers crossed everybody! I just want to thank you all for the supportive comments you have left for me and DH. I can't tell you how much I appreciate them. As stressful as this is though, we're looking at it like this will be a new change and a change for the better. Okay, a show of hands...how many of you bought that ;o)

You know me, laughter is the best medicine! LOL!

Finish Thirty-Seven

Seeing that I have not been in the stitchy mood lately, I'm surprised I even have something to show! LOL! This is The Plum Berry Sampler by Bent Creek -

I don't know if it was just because of my state of mind but this little project gave me the most headaches. Grrrr! I had to frog the "complete" alphabet because I had stitched it in the wrong color :oS All along I was wondering why it wasn't showing up that well. D'uh!

I made a few changes to this pattern. Mine was stitched on 32 count Lambswool Linen instead of the Touchstone Linen it originally called for. I also replaced the WDW Mulberry for WDW Crimson and used round buttons to match. The Crimson was used for the specialty stitches; Rhodes, Smyrna and Eyelet and this picture gives you another angle -

I detest doing Eyelets! Does anyone have some good advice or hints on how to make them uniform?

I want to thank those who have left comments on my No Joke entry. You guys had me in "stitches" this morning!!!! LOL! The different ideas you all had just cracked me up so much that I was sitting here laughing out loud to myself ;o) Oh how I wish we were able to get a set of these for retreat. Imagine the mischief we would get into... ;o)

Look who dropped by today -

This little red fox has been through our yard twice this week. I believe it to be the same one I saw this past spring. It's not tame but it's not that afraid of being seen either. It's usually odd to see a fox out like this during the middle of the day but the coat looks healthy with no outward signs of disease. The dogs aren't too happy about the new intruder so we have to be extra careful when we have them outside. As much as I dislike foxes (one killed all my ducks a few years ago :o( ) they are quite beautiful and graceful to watch. I even got to see it hunting for mice and to see a fox pounce is just too cute :o)

No Joke

Since things have been a little blah around here this past week, I thought I would inject a little humour into my Blog :o) As my regular readers already know, I'm quite open about various things and when I saw this in a magazine, it really took the cake and I couldn't resist writing about it. LOL! Meet Pee and Poo -

No, I'm not joking! These are actually stuffed toys for children who are learning about potty training :o) They were developed in Sweden and they are being sold there as we speak. They even have their own website!

Okay, how disturbed are you by this? Can you honestly say that you wouldn't mind a pile of poo or pee in your child's room? What if friends come over and ask what that brown toy is over in the corner. Are you going to tell them "That's (my child)'s poo." ROFL!

Since I am not a mother, maybe some of the moms can comment on whether they think these toys would be great learning tools or not. Personally, I can't see it. Is it possible for a child to connect potty training with stuffed toys?

So the next time you ask somebody what they got for their birthday and they respond "I got Pee and Poo." they may not be shitting you ;o)