EH 1875 Week 8

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to one and all.  I hope you all had a wonderful day, spent with family and friends.  I had a lovely day, with my three children, and the oldest son's girlfriend, plus my hubby and my mother.   The meal was terrific, and it will be the exact same menu for Christmas.

Somehow between all the meal preparation, I still managed to finish 3 pages.  Not quite sure how that even happened!  But I'll take it!  Anything that gets me closer to page 34!

Next week, I'll probably venture out to start the Christmas shopping.  I never shop Thanksgiving weekend.  Can't stand the craziness and crowds.  Actually the more shopping I can do via my laptop, the happier I will be.  But there are always those impulse purchases, that you can't do, without actually being in a store.  Plus, our local mall has become large enough, that it will take my mother and I several days to go from one end to the other.  Have to do things a lot slower since my lovely mother turned 93 in October and her legs, while always short (downside of being 4'11") she just isn't as spry!  Course for that matter neither am I.

EH 1875 Week 7

Another week has flown right by, and somehow I managed to get 3 pages completed this week.  I'm not really sure how that happened, and to be sure, that if I have more time to stitch, then housecleaning projects are not being done.

I celebrated my 60th birthday on the 22nd.  I had a lovely birthday.  Flowers from my oldest.  Late lunch, early dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, with a piece of White Chocolate, Caramel Macadamia Cheese cake to come home with me.   Hubby, and my two youngest were there.  Life couldn't be more perfect.  I am blessed and truly a lucky girl.

It's hard to believe it's Thanksgiving this week, with Christmas right around the corner.  Shopping, decorating, baking, cooking.  Whoosh, I'm already exhausted just thinking about it.

The first 3 pictures are pages 15, 16, and 17.  The last page is at least the top of the sampler as completed so far.

EH 1875 Week 6

Another two pages completed.  I am happy with that progress, only because I know I completed other things at home that were sorely needed to be taken care of.

Plus, Saturday the George Herbert Walker Bush returned from it's nine month deployment.  I, my youngest two kids, and my son's girlfriend where there to meet the ship and my oldest when it returned to it's home base in Norfolk, Va.  Both the ship and my son were a sight for sore eyes.  The weekend went by too quickly and it was too soon to say goodbye, to the youngest two so they could return to college, and I had to return to Manassas.  Thankfully, my daughter will be home from college tomorrow to begin Thanksgiving break, the youngest returns on Fri., and Jason and his girlfriend will be with us for Thanksgiving!

I also managed to work on my take along project while waiting for the kids to show up, and waiting for the ship.

EH 1875 - Week Five and .....

Only managed to stitch two pages on my EH 1875 this week.  I know from here on out it will be slow going!  I've got too many house projects that need to be done, plus the holidays are quickly coming up with decorating and shopping.

I managed to complete pages 11 & 12

I also managed to put a few stitches in my take along project, which is the Family Name Sampler.

 This week was a very difficult week for our family.  We lost a member of our family!  One of our family dog's Sandy,    We had her in our life for almost 15 years.  She was a lovely dog, friendly, happy.  My father told me that that their passing, will break your heart and it does!  The house will be a little quieter, a little lonelier, with out her here.

On an uplifting note, my oldest returns from his nine month deployment on the George Herbert Walker Bush.  I and the kids are going to meet the ship, and be there for his homecoming.  This last week, will crawl by at a snail's pace!

EH 1875 - Week Four

I am a little late on this post.  I was hoping to finish one more page, to photograph and add to this post, but alas, I could only complete two pages last week.  First, my husband is gone and so I have taken this time, to do some deep cleaning, that isn't possible when he's home.  He works from home, and I never know if he's talking to himself, talking to a client, or dictating.  Running the sweeper, or cleaning carpets is totally out, during the day, and by the evening, I'm too pooped to clean.

Plus, page 11 is one of those pages where I seem to be making a lot of mistakes, and have spent time sewing, ripping out, and resewing.  Guess my mind is distracted.

But, I did get pages 9 and 10 finished.

I managed to take two more completed Christmas gifts into Michael's yesterday for framing, and take advantage of my 60% plus 15% coupon I received in the mail.  I was even more ecstatic, when I pulled a gift card for Michael's that I had gotten for Christmas last year and had yet used, to discover that the gift card was for $100.  Made my day, to get $100 off my framing costs.

I belong to several Facebook pages for Cross stitch.  I am sorely tempted by the beautiful projects I see.  One thing I can say about us stitches, we hold on to our stash, and sometimes it takes us years to get to those charts.  Recently, someone posted status of American sampler that was in the Treasures in Needleworks magazines from 1992 & 1993. There was charts in addition to the American sampler, but also a Dutch, English and Spanish Samplers.  I just had to have these and went in search for the issues, and was lucky enough to find all four on ebay.  Don't ask me when I will get to them, but I have them!

The bottom one is the Spanish one.

In addition, I had to run an errand in Alexandria, and of course, I couldn't miss the opportunity to make a side trip to In Stitches.  I walked out with 3 small charts, and the fabric.  My favorite sales lady, Patricia Eaton, was back at work after being out for surgery.  Glad to see her back.

The reason why the smaller charts, is that I like to have take along projects, plus I recently saw a picture of a sampler wall.  I want one of those!  But I realized that almost all my projects are about the same size.  So, isn't any excuse a good excuse to purchase projects?  I think so!!!!!