I know I'm a little early but I work tonight and won't be able to post well wishes until Wednesday and I don't want to start the year late - it's bad luck according to my mum. I thought I'd have a finish before the year was over but due to family having time off from work/school I've been spending time with them. I HAVE A FINISH!!!! Last finish of the year is Homespun Elegance Delivering Fleurs!! I'm so happy *happy dance* Here's a picture...

I don't have the buttons and stuff but the stitching is done! Maybe I'll go to my not so LNS on Friday to get the goods!

Well hope everyone has a Fantabulous New Year's! I'll be counting down the new year's with my co-worker and whatever patients are alert enough to join us. I'm off to try to stitch! Hopefully the night at work will be quiet :)

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone is have a great day! So far I'm cranky but I blame it on the lack of sleep I got today, once I get a nap I'll be my cheery self again :)

Instead of singing Christmas songs like everyone else - I found myself singing "This is Halloween" this morning when Kelly told the conceirge in his building happy holidays, he laughed at me when he heard me. I also sang the song that Jack Skellington sang when he told the town about Santi Claws - I love the way he makes his hands. I think Halloween is such a better holiday LOL. Next year I'm going to try and make it the new Christmas and give out my presents then - it may be less stressful too, which could help with my psoriasis. Oh btw the new thing I have is psoriasis - in my scalp of all places! Three weeks ago I thought I just had really bad dandruff. When it started to become so bad that I'd wake up itching I knew I had to go to the doctor and he comfirmed I had psoriasis. Now I'm putting drops in my head every night/morning and washing my hair with smelly grease/tar smelling shampoo *sigh* I just hope this clears up. I told Kelly I wish I had a nice disease. So far what I have makes me feel ugly (I have vitiligo too on my face.)

Anyhoo, enough of that, the last 2 nights at work were HEAVEN!!! I thank God for the wonderful gift :-) I lounged, I played video games, I stitched, I went online LOL Last night was a little busier but not as busy as it usually can get. I had a patient in alcohol withdrawal (such a nice person!) and I stayed in the room while the sedative took effect so the hallucinations would go away. Luckily I had the time to stay or else who knows what could have happened.

I won't post an update pic of DF - I'm close to being done (thanks to my easy work nights) so I'll post a picture when I'm done.

Well that's all for tonight - I'm going to sleep. Hopefully I'll wake up early enough go over to Kelly's in the morning. If I wake up too late I get lazy and never make it out of here on time. I'll try to post more later on. I have gifts to look through and will try to share. Merry Christmas!

An Update

I've been stitching on Delivering Fleurs although I haven't been stitching as much as I would like. I finished reading The Memory's Keeper Daughter and started this other book that's hard to put down called Love and Ghost Letters. I've managed to get totally involved in this book and it's hard to believe that I'm only up to page 70 LOL. Here's a picture of how far I've gotten on DF. I'm almost there just half of the big flower, and other small flower and the cart and I'm done! Then it's back to either Dollhouse or Sampler Farm - I forget which one I worked on last.
I've finally decorated (half-ass though) the house for Christmas, only because I wrapped my gifts and wanted something to put them under. We only have a small tree (Kobe knocked out big one down when he was a puppy and we haven't gotten a big tree since.) Here's my teeny tree - I use to have a teeny nativity set but couldn't find it.
This is my "big" tree with my gifts under it. I'm still missing 2 gifts *sigh* I have to get a GC for my nephew (which I'll do tonight at Duane Reade) and I'm hoping that the Nintendo DS I got for my younger nephew comes in tomorrow (mail came in today and it's still not here.) My gifts are on the small scale this year but I hope they're enjoyed!
Finally, I went to my not so LNS to pick up BC's Yule in it's frame. The turn around time on this one was fast and I'm sort of grateful because I can use it this year as part of my decorations :) I must have not cut all the stray threads so you can see one pretty bad by the Y :( I'm trying not to concentrate on it - other than that everything looks ok.
Now I'm going to sleep since I work tonight and tomorrow night. I've been waking up early again on my days off (430am) and don't think I'll be able to work tonight without taking a nap before work. TTFN! I just realized I got stash in the mail so I'm going to play with that first before taking a nap!

I give up!

I woke up early to start quilting my quilt and I have to tell you, quilting something big is no way as easy as quilting something small! I think I'm going to send it out to get done since I don't have off for the machine quilting class that the store is offering. Piecing a quilt I can do, the quilting on my practice piece was easy peasy but I think I need more practice before I try out something big. *sigh* I had such high expectations too, maybe that's the reason I'm so down. Oh well I'm going to clean up and maybe try again later on. In the meantime I'm going to start cutting the fabric for my cousin's quilt. I'm suppose to go to work tonight but I think I'll call out, I'm just not in the mood to go and it's really nice outside so maybe I'll go out and start my Xmas shopping, I need a mental day anyway. Tomorrow it's going to rain and I don't mind being at work. TTFN!

Look what I picked up!

Pretty no? I had it framed just the way Shepherd's Bush had their's framed in regards to the matting, but I think the frame may be different, apparently the old frame was discontinued. I like it but didn't think it would be so big. The picture isn't the greatest but it looks so nice in person - the mats are wonderful. I took another piece to get framed when I picked this one up and I can't wait to see it. I went after work so I was tired and can't even remember what I picked out for matting or frame, I just hope it all matches LOL.

Today was the last day of my quilting class - I'm so sad! I signed up for another class in March. I was wait-listed for another one. I didn't care too much about being wait-listed since I was going to call out from work to go to the class. If I find enough energy I'm going to machine quilt my quilt tonight and try to do the binding and then start on my cousin's quilt. I had another weird night where I slept all day to wake up 12am to go back to sleep at 5am and then wake up again at 9am this morning though I woke up at 7:30! I need some more sleep.

I haven't stitched since that last update, I did buy more stash though when I went to pick up Spooky Spots. I thought I grew out of my Lizzie Kate phase but I saw the 12 Blessings stitch together and got the fabric for it. It looks really nice! When I told Tawny that I had grown out of L*K she told me lots of people have told her the same thing. I wonder if she's losing any money over this? Anyhoo, I want to start on Blessings like right away - I'm going to do it on 32ct over 2 with 1 thread. It should look nice, maybe I'll get creative and change some things around or maybe not. I'm so afraid of changing things, I envy those that can do it.

I'm reading this book and I think it's effecting (affecting?) my mood. It's the Memory Keeper's Daughter, and the family in the book is filled with repressed anger that it makes me feel so unhappy. This book has me re-evaluting my life and thinking if maybe I've made some bad decisions and this is why my life is the way it is, not that I have a crappy life so far life has been good to me. But the family in the book have everything, yet their sad because of a lie kept by the father. I want to stop reading it but it's a really good book so I can't. Maybe after this I'll read some funny chick-lit to make me happy again LOL. Okies TTFN!

Tis the season to be...

GROUCHY! LOL
Whenever I think that I have to buy gifts for people it makes me grouchy. Not because I don't want to buy them gifts but because I feel forced to and the stores are crowded around this time. I swear one year I'm going to do all of my shopping in August. I do love to buy gifts for people who don't expect it though, for them I don't mind waiting in line.

I made a list of what had to be done on my 2 days off and I swear lists make me counterproductive. Yesterday I spent the entire day sleeping. I've been so tired lately that I'm thinking of going to the doctor to get some labs drawn, maybe I'm anemic. Well anyway before going to sleep I did manage to get some if not most things done. Today I'm going to finish the rest. Of course I found more things to add to my list.

I did stitch last night when I was awake for a few hours. And I realized that while at my stitch meet Saturday I managed to stitch a lot more than I thought. I'm almost halfway done with Delivering Fleurs. And I'm like 5 stitches away from finishing that sheep - I hate stitching with white anything so I always try to do that first because if not chances are I won't finish it.


Well I'm going to take a shower and start my day. If anything spectacular happens today I'll come back to blog about it. Today I want to get my Christmas present to me from me and the backing fabric for my quilt and I'm even considering going out to dinner with Kelly, it all depends on time and how tired he is since he worked last night and isn't going to sleep right away. TTFN!

Another post and a finish!

I don't know why the fabric comes out so bright in pictures, maybe it's the flash. I took pictures with and without flash so you can see, but none of them show the true brightness of the fabrics. The one without is so dull. The last picture is one of Ana, I'm starting to think that she may be the recipient of the quilt once it's done. It's perfect "Ana" size. My mom likes it so maybe I'll give it to her or maybe I'll keep it :) The border is a midnight blue and is a batik so it looks dyed. It's really nice and picks up the light blue in my quilt. The white sort of brings out the light blue in the batik as well. I wish I had a better picture but I don't :( I like it and can't wait to quilt it. Well I'm going to take a nap - I've been up since 2am and am starting to get sleeeeeepy now.

Not a bad ending!

I honestly thought that I wouldn't be around by the time the end of the week rolled around but I made it and survived! Things weren't all that bad Thursday night at work, I knew it was getting better when I went to the vending machines at work to get ice cream and I didn't have enough for my favorite ice cream and had to get a runner up ice cream and guess what? Someone must have programmed/stocked the ice cream machine wrong and out comes my favorite ice cream! Ask Kelly - I swear by ice cream. I feel all the problems of the world can be solved with ice cream LOL.

Friday wasn't so bad either. I took Ana to the vet and instead of having to drag her by her leash into to exam room when I got up she sort of ran the best she could into the exam room. Although I think she must have been confused and thought it was an exit because when she realized where she ran to she turned right around, but it was too late then - the door was closed *insert evil laugh*.

*A Little History*
Ana use to like the doctor's office, she never cried or trembled; Kobe hated it. I use to have to physically carry him over the threshold because he wouldn't go into the office at all, he would start getting all nervous right after I'd get off the highway. It was so bad that after I had him neutered I had to changed vets because he just wouldn't go in, which ended up being ok since I found a vet closer to me that's SUPER nice (I think my old vet was afraid of Kobe.) One day I made the mistake of taking them together. When they called us, Ana (being her happy self) went to walk in and saw Kobe not wanting to go in and since monkey see monkey do Ana now thinks going into "the room" is just plain punishment. Kyle on the other hand doesn't care. He has this 24 hour look on him that just says I don't care. When I talk to him (I'm not crazy I know dogs don't talk) I swear he's telling me over and over "I don't care." He cracks me up LOL.

Anywho - back to Friday. I re-did my quilt blocks (pictures to follow shortly) I loved the color of my old fabrics but something was turning me off so I took out the green and just kept all of the blues and what a difference that made! I love my quilt top now and can't wait to finish it. I did make a boo-boo but I took it to class today/yesterday (Saturday)and my instructor said to leave it - that it looked fine. I'm the Queen of not wanting to fix things so this made me happy. I just need to finishing sewing on the sashing and my border and it will be ready.

OK this is how it was suppose to look - I thought that it made the top half look too dark and switched the blocks to make it look less dark and ended up wanting it to look like the picture below.
When I started sewing the sashing - I made sure to keep it the way I wanted it to be but I guess at 5am no matter how much you pay attention to something you'll always end up screwing things up and it ended up looking like this (see below) Now that I look at it, I kinda like it this way. I can't wait to finish this up so I can actually quilt it. I bought some varigated thread that hopefully will look good - I'm going to sign up for more classes. I just have to play around with my work schedule and see if I can fit it in.

After class I went to my first ever Metrostitchers get together and I'm glad I did. I usually feel weird stitching in front of strangers but how can one feel weird when everyone is stitching??? It was like wow I belong here LOL. Everyone was friendly and even though I hardly said anything I feel comfortable enough to go to more stitching events because stitchers are nice people :-) I had to leave early because I stayed up the night before until 6am and only had 3 hours of sleep so I was sleeeeeeepy. I knocked out on the train (which made the ride shorter) but I need to stop doing that because I'm afraid one day I'll wake up missing something.

Umm I guess that's all - I'm still working on Homespun Elegance's Delivering Fleurs (no progress pic yet) Thanks to work I'm on this odd sleeping schedule again so I'm just waiting for it be be late enough to start up my sewing machine and finish my sashing and put on some borders. I'll probably go back to sleep around 12-ish and then wake up to go back to work *sigh* Today is the last day of one of my co-workers working and I'm going to miss her. I didn't like her in the beginning when I went to the floor but after getting to know her she's a really nice person and always helped me, I wish she didn't want to quit. I wish I could quit and just stay home and do crafts (who doesn't right?) I have to plan my next year's vacation. Kelly wants to go to Georgia right after New Year's but after Kyle eating my glasses and he having to replace them I don't know if we have the money for such a last minute trip. I don't want to stay at his sister's house (I feel like it's imposing on her and I think I'll have my period around that time so I'd like to stay at a hotel - I know TMI hehe) but if we go we may have to, I guess we'll see. Okey dokey - I'm going to find something to do. I've been up since 2am and when everyone else is asleep it's no fun! TTFN

When it rains...it pours! - This is me bitching about my week...

This week has been a bad one. Maybe the worst week of 2006. As you already know I lost my wallet which was the worst thing that happened Tuesday. Monday at work was SUUUUUUPER busy. I had 2 really sick patients along with other needy patients which had me on my feet all night, in the end 1 of my patients had to transferred to CCU at 6:30am which is the second BUSIEST time of the shift. Needless to say I left late Tuesday morning from work. Last night more sick people, more running on my feet all night long. It wasn't as bad as the night before so I had a chance to start my work early, one of my IV pumps goes off and I go into the room to discover my patient unresponsive and pulseless *sigh* there goes my entire morning. I call a code (my first) and after it was over I was 90 minutes behind! Let me tell you initiating a code and helping with a code is TOTALLY different. It's like I forgot everything and I'm usually really good under pressure I don't know what happened :-( I was pretty bummed the entire morning. I left late AGAIN and instead of going to the DMV first thing I went to Kelly's to take a nap (he lives close to the DMV.)

Ready for the icing on my cake?

I lay down and take my glasses off and put them on the bed next to me. Kelly gets me food so I go into the kitchen to eat. Kyle is begging so Kelly puts him in the bedroom so I can eat without a cold nose on my leg. He doesn't bother me but apparently it bothers Kelly that he begs. Fifteen minutes later I hear Kyle at the door so I open it so he can come out and I decide to go in to take a nap. I straighten out the blanket and that's when I see my glasses chewed up beyond repair. Of all the things he could have chewed (I had my cell phone and nintendo ds on the bed also) he chose the glasses!!!! I could have kicked him but instead I laughed because of course I was tired and why shouldn't this happen? I have no access to my money and now I need to buy something I need. *sigh* I did get new glasses and my temporary license. I like my new glasses and now I feel complete again. I'm totally blind without my glasses and can't drive.

I'm going back to work tomorrow and I'm just hoping I don't regret not calling out. My mom told me to just stay home before something worse happens LOL. I'm going to take a proper rest. My feet hurt and all I really want to do is rest. TTFN

I lost my wallet

I say lost because that is the only thing that's missing from my bag. Unless if someone did take it that's all they wanted. I work tonight but am tired because I spent the entire morning calling my credit card company to cancel them. I don't think it could have happened at a worse time. Now my xmas shopping will definitely be late. Well let's just hope that I remembered all the cc's that I had my wallet and didn't forget one. I have to get ready for work. I'm so sad :-(

Longish

Not much has been going on. I've been sleeping a lot less but at the same time a lot more, if that makes sense. At night I get like 3-4 hours then in the late afternoon I take another 2-3 hour nap which makes it feel like all I do is sleep all day long. I go back to work Monday so hopefully I'll get back to some sort of schedule.

Stitching wise, not much has been going on. I'm working on Homespun Elegance's Delivering Fleurs, it's coming along except I had to change a color. The sheep is stitched in Crescent Colours Ginger Snap which is yellowish but in the picture the sheep is white with some brownish tones, so I froged what I stitched *grrr* and changed it to Toasted Marshmellow as per Kelly because I wanted to use either 12-grain or Light Khaki but he said it was too brown.

Today after my quilting class (which I love and am so sad it's over in 2 weeks) I drove over to Jersey to my not so LNS! I dropped off Spring Snapperland and Love to get finished. I love love love the frame chosen for Spring. I was worried that I wouldn't find anything to go with it but Don pulled out a frame that he said may be too big for it and I fell in love with it so I went with it. I can't wait to get it back and hang it up - I LOVE THIS FRAME!!! Love is going to be made into a flat fold and I can't wait to get that back either since the 2 little people are suppose to be Kelly and me. I didn't buy much, just some floss and fabric, Oh! and one chart. I was disappointed, to tell you the truth, when I got home and dumped my bag's contents onto my bed. There were a lot of people their so I really didn't feel comfortable looking around. They had another framed peice waiting for me.

Excuse my dying grass LOL. This is Elizabeth's Design's Old Green Gardens. I think ED may be one of my fav designers. I have her newest one in my "to do" list. I bought the fabric for it today and didn't think it would be so small. I can't wait to start it though.

I decided I'm going to make a quilt for my cousin's baby. She's having a girl so I'm going for an all pink quilt and actually started 2 of the blocks. Of course since going to class today I bought new fabric so these 2 blocks won't be in use but just to show you what the blocks will look like here's a picture...

I chose to change the fabric because the fabric from the store I take my class at has better quality fabric than these pictured. The fabric above is from JoAnn's. I've bought from them before but for some reason these are very thin, unlike the ones I've gotten in the past. I was going to make the quilt white, pink, purple, and green but didn't like it so now I'm going to stick with white, light pink, and a darker pink. My class quilt is coming along. I don't like the colors I chose but at the same time I do. Believe it or not before I chose my fabric for the class I wanted to choose something girly for the baby, but my quilt has become so dark that it isn't fit for her anymore LOL. I like it now though. Today we chose sashing and border fabric. I wish they still had in stock the light blue fabric I chose because I'd love more of it to replace the green or the brighter blue. I'll share a picture of that once it's put together.

While going through my stash I found another quilt that I put together before taking any classes. I know there's still one "missing" but I don't remember the days when I was "serious" about quilting so finding this surprised me, I also found 2 blocks that I put together. I can't imagine what else I'd find if I actually pulled out all of my boxes from the spare closet. They aren't perfect but I was surprised to find them as I said before




And lastly I'll leave your with a picture that should put a smile on your face! I tried to get my cousin to stand next to her in the picture but at the last minute she caught on and didn't LOL.