I didn't post on Tuesday because I had my stitch group here and by the time everyone had gone home, I was tired. I made soup and salad along with a gingerbread cake with limoncello hard sauce. I managed to injure a toe ... swollen, purple, and hard to get shoes on ... the day before Thanksgiving. It is still a bit swollen, and shoes aren't a big treat. So, as you can imagine, I was awfully glad to take my shoes off that night.

Thanksgiving was a special treat this year. As usual, my sister-in-law hosted. But, the difference this year was that both my son and my daughter (along with their families) managed to make it this year. Jon and his family usually head to Ocracoke for the week, returning home after Thanksgiving. This year, Barbara had to be at work on Friday evening, so they stopped in on the way home. It was a nice treat.

Speaking of my son's family, the afghan for Meri is complete. Finally. Here are the final letters, and a view of the end of the project.
 I think that xylophone is the greatest! Very, very colorful.
I finished just in time to get it packed and shipped.

It is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. We have a lot to be thankful for this year. Our son-in-law continues his fight against cancer. He is currently between treatments due to a lung infection. Our son and his wife presented us with a new grandchild in June [our fifth]. Our children and their children are well and healthy.
We are also in pretty good shape. My carpal problems have gone away [knock on wood] and my arthritis is taking a break. Bill's back continues to be a minor annoyance ... it is minor because he is learning to NOT do things that set it off and to wear his support belt.

The afghan for Meri is almost done. Just a few more squares remain ... well, and putting her name on it somewhere.

S is for Shamrock. T is for Turtle. U is for Umbrella - I changed the colors on the umbrella ... it called for red, orange, purple. i didn't like the orange in the middle, so I made it light blue. V is for Violin.

W, X, Y and Z remain.

The stitch group is taking today off so everyone can prepare for Thanksgiving Dinner. I don't have to cook the turkey this year. My sister-in-law and her boyfriend are taking care of that. I am to bring a salad and an appetizer. There are lots and lots of allergies in the family, so the salad is tricky. I think I will bring a broccoli salad ... no nuts, no fruits ... just broccoli, onion, celery, sunflower seed kernels and a dressing. I'm thinking about a shrimp mousse for the appetizer. A little work for a lot of goodness.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

The stitch group was back in a 'normal' mode today. No party! It sure felt different. Our hostess tried to make up for it, though. She had a jello salad; two different kinds of scones with strawberry jelly to go with them; two kinds of cheese and assorted crackers; and two different kinds of nuts [one seasoned with herbs and the other with garlic and both from Estonia. And that was before dessert ... she had a fabulous pound cake with raspberry ice cream to top it, three or four kinds of candy including a very dark chocolate from Estonia  I am still full. Poor Bill, he may have to have pbj for dinner.

Kaethe brought the last of my ornaments today. As always, they are beautifully done. The little girl with the baton is for Becca, in honor of all her first place finishes at the Nationals. (I had originally stitched it in a very pale but very pink ... her mom saw it and suggested any color but that pink would be better because Becca currently 'hates' that shade. Oh, well, it was smallish. It is now a deep raspberry.) The Karate Kid is for Xander. He earned his Blue Belt this fall.

Thanksgiving is looming. The kids from Long Island are traveling down to Ocracoke by way of Centreville. A bit of a detour, but we will take care of their dogs while they are gone. They have to come back early this year because Barb has to be home to work Friday night. So they will spend Thanksgiving day traveling back here. If they make it early enough in the day, they will head on over to my sister-in-law's for dinner. She is the hostess this year. She has given out assignments. None of this pot luck business. She knows what she wants each of us to bring... I was assigned an appetizer and a salad. For some reason she thinks I make good salads. They tend to be a challenge because of all of the food allergies in the family ... fresh fruits, most nuts, mushrooms, some vinegars ... does make a selection hard, but I think I will go with a broccoli salad with sunflower seeds for the salad, and probably a brie with almonds and cherries that is not heated, but served chilly - not terrifically cold but colder than room temperature.

Yesterday was Election Day. I am sorry to say that my party of choice lost big time, except for one saving grace. We did manage to re-elect our congressman, Frank Wolf.

Yesterday was also my stitch group's party for an 80th Birthday. A few of us couldn't make it, but we had a very nice turnout. That meant that we had more food than was needed, as usual. We all bring a dish for the potluck and most of us bring a larger dish than necessary - no I am not complaining, just commenting. I brought an Waldorf Salad that used almonds instead of the usual walnut because one of our members can't eat walnuts. As usual, it was all delicious.

I continue to plod through the afghan. The end is in sight.

A cute little necklace

An adorable octopus

Petunia Pig

Quilt .... guess they couldn'r draw a quail

The rabbit required a color decision. It is only one space from the pink pig and the chart asked me to stitch a pink rabbit. Not only was it too close to the pink pig, but, even more importantly, I don't do bright pink rabbits. So, I had to change the bunny's color. I started with white ... couldn't see it against the afghan color. Then I was going to make it black - like the rabbit I had as a kid - way way way too dark. I ended up with the brown and now I don't know why I thought I had to mess around with the white and the black at all.

Our son and his family will be coming down near Thanksgiving. They are supposed to celebrate Thanksgiving with his wife's family on Ocracoke Island. But, she works at Kohl's and Kohl's has a policy that all employees will work the day after Thanksgiving. So they will show up here late Friday night before Thanksgiving, spend the night and Saturday. Then they head for Ocracoke where they will have an early Thanksgiving and be back here to pick up their dogs before heading home on Thanksgiving day. A lot of driving for them, but they enjoy the time at Ocracoke, so it is worth it.

Sandy Passed Us By ... Thanks Sandy

Well, it is Tuesday morning, about 10 am. Sandy apparently has come and gone. We never lost power. Not even a flicker. But, we had a lot of rain ... too much for our leaky basement. Bill has had to vacuum up the water several times. The waterproofers don't get here until tomorrow. <sigh>

I was supposed to host my stitch group today. I cancelled because the weather gurus were predicting hurricane force winds and extremely heavy rains for today. Right now ... no rain, no wind. Go figure.

I had planned a spinach salad with curried pecans, pears, red onions and a cider vinaigrette dressing. We will have some tonight, along with the pumpkin soup I had planned. I didn't make the dessert, though. When our son and his family come by around Thanksgiving, I will do the Butterscotch Tiramisu Cheesecake.

I got three of the six ornaments back from the finisher. I think she did a good job ... The one with the baseball mitt is for my grandson Bryce .. she put an ultrasuede back on it that looks like a baseball glove leather. The Girl Scout ornament for Eme has a white back and the little mitten for Meri has a blue ultrasuede that picks up the blue in the cuff.

I was planning to work on some additional ornaments while not stitching on the afghan, but something got in the way. Instead, I started my three part mystery by Brenda Gervais. I have a little of the border done and most of the alphabet. I'd post a picture, but I can't seem to get enough light on it today, and when I use a flash, the light bounces in a very peculiar manner. Maybe when the cloud cover moves on I can try again.

If it is rainy and windy in your direction, take care.

The birthday party was a huge success. We had a potluck luncheon. And as always, the food was spectacular! We had everything from soup to nuts [well, not soup but almost everything else] and a fantastic strawberry cake. The birthday girl even brought a dish to share - the pimiento cheese.

Next week we will be meeting at my house. Normally, all we provide is a beverage (hot tea is always nice) and a dessert. Some hostesses provide a salad, or perhaps scones, or something extra. However, I have been craving soup and my husband doesn't like soup. So, I am taking advantage of having a nice little group and making soup, knowing most of it will be eaten at lunch. The stitchers get a nice soup, I get to have soup, and hubby doesn't have to eat it. The best of all worlds.

 I continue to plod along with the afghan. Frankly, I am getting tired of it. I need to take a break and do something else for a day or two. Since I am at the halfway mark, I think I will give myself a week off

I have several ornament charts picked out to do, so one of them is going to be stitched this week.

 the 'M' isn't really lopsided ...
just the photographer ----->

Our daughter's husband had a 'little' party to celebrate her 50th birthday. They live in a large house, and every corner was packed with people from all parts of her life! Our son and his family did not make it down ... their newest [now just 4 1/2 months old] has decided that she absolutely does not like riding in a car, and to prove the point, she screams [not a cry, but an actual scream]at the top of her lungs the entire time she is in the car. They wonder how she can keep it up. They also decided that they just were not going to ride for 6 hours testing whether she would every stop screaming. Several other members of the family did make it, though ... Daughter is in the green shirt, hugging her son.

I have managed to get more done on the afghan for Meri [aka The Screamer].


OK ... something is wrong here. Those pictures were supposed to all line up. I don't seem to have the skills needed to make it work, so, here they are ... they way they want to be on the page.

 The "I" didn't take too much effort. So far, it has been the easiest.

I am almost through with the one from the Mary Ann Blackburn booklet.

I didn't make it to my stitch group today. After the big party, I seem to have developed a cough complete with sneezes. I didn't think anyone in the group really wanted me to share it. Next week, we are celebrating the 75th birthday of one of the stitchers. We will have a pot-luck luncheon. I am trying to decide what I want to bring. Good thing I have a week to make up my mind.

Normally, Wednesday come and go without much notice. Not today. Husband has a meeting this afternoon and showed up at the breakfast table in his organization shirt. This only alarms me because we still have 2/3 of the basement to move around before the water proofing guys come in. Being togged out in his 'go-to-meeting' duds means nothing is going to get done today. Mostly because he won't be messing up the shirt and I won't be traveling down the stairs. [My knees object to stairs as a general thing - but today is a really bad day - funny stuff that arthritis.] Granted we still have three weeks until they come, but, we have over 40 years worth of accumulation in that basement to shove around. They asked for 4 feet from each wall. Some places that is easy. Others, not so much.

On a much more pleasant note, my stitch group met at Greensprings Village [a retirement community] yesterday. Our hostess treated us to lunch in one of their restaurants. Everyone agreed that lunch was spectacular. Their special of the day was a Caesar salad with fried chicken, and the dessert of the day was orange cake. Yum.

I am almost finished with my current Tuesday project - the topper for the wooden box in the Mary Ann Blackburn booklet. Just a part of a bird's wing, three eyelets and my initials need stitching. Then I need to find another project to work on Tuesdays. I can't carry a really fussy project because we spend far more time chatting than stitching and I lose track of where I am.


The afghan for Meri continues. It should be finished long before Christmas ... which is a good thing because we have to ship the gifts to New York. These gum balls were fun!

My daughter is turning 50 next weekend. Her husband is preparing a slide-show of pictures of her throughout her life. All of her friends have been asked to contribute. We have sent hundreds of pictures. That means that even more slides [yes, slides - we have a large box of slides that no one made prints from] had to be gone through and sorted. My husband won that chore. I sorted through even more pictures that did make it to albums to find ones that I thought would scan well. Turns out we had lots and lots of pictures that didn't seem all that fuzzy when we looked at them, but when the scanner looked at them ... fuzz grew.

I stitched 'La Trappestine' for her ...... It only took 10 years to complete. Well, that is misleading. I started it in 1992, but put it aside because I had made some errors that I didn't want to fool with fixing that day. I found it again this spring and decided it was time to finish it.

This isn't a very good picture, but it is the best I have. LA TRAPPESTINE written above the lady, and her skirt billows a bit more than shows here. But, it does give you an idea of what she looks like. This is sooooooo different than my usual choice in stitching.





I am continuing with the afghan ...

Only 20 letters to go .........
And then I get to do a Christmas stocking for her ... but I'm pretty sure that won't get done in 2012.

Missed My Own Deadline, Again

I was thinking I would post once a week. Well, unfortunately, the best of intentions often go by the wayside.

I am still working on the afghan and have a couple more letters to share.

I don't really like the 'C'. I think it looks like it was over-achieving and trying to go on to be a 'G'. But, I'm not changing it.

I love this little duck. His crooked little beak looks like he tried to break out of the afghan and failed. But, I give him of credit for trying.






My Tuesday Stitch group met in DC yesterday. I don't like to drive there, so I depend on fellow members for transportation those days. We had a full car - 5 of us - Thanks, Sallie. Another stitcher's husband drove us to Sallie's and my husband picked us up  - Thanks, guys.

I wish I knew how to change the alarm clock in my head that reminds me to post. I think the one I have is a couple of days out of whack.

A Day or Two Late ... or even more

I thought I would get back to this almost a week ago. I don't know where time goes, but it surely does go.

I am stitching again, but not as much as I did before the carpal issues. Here are a couple of the things I did since last September -

I always did love
"The Raven", so it
just seemed obvious
that this should be
one of my projects






Just a nice little Quaker ... on the diagonal








Unfortunately, I can't find a picture of the birth sampler I did for the new grandchild. Maybe when we head to Long Island next time I will remember to take a picture of it to post.

I have started working on an afghan for Meri. It is going pretty fast, so it will probably be done by Christmas. I hope so anyway. It is a pretty basic alphabet, BUT, it fits in the squares. I am using the Charles Craft Afghan for Alphabets, and the DMC chart for the child's alphabet afghan.

I did alphabet afghans for her sisters - Becca got 'old fashioned toys' and Eme got  a floral alphabet. The boys both got lighthouses - Bryce's was lighthouse on the Chesapeake Bay, and Xander's was lighthouses in the Long Island area.

I'm Back ... Maybe

I've been encouraged by friends to go back to blogging. So, for today at least, I'm back.

The really big news is I have another granddaughter. My son and his wife welcomed their fourth child on June 1. Her name is Meridith Olivia. She was a big baby, as were her siblings. She was christened on August19. . . on her sister Eme's ninth birthday.

My oldest granddaughter received numerous first places at the Twirling Nationals in July. I am extremely proud of her and her talent.

My oldest grandson became part of the American Youth Baseball of Fame in Cooperstown this summer. His team didn't make it to first place but and a great time.

The other two were also busy, but, didn't get huge awards like these. More on them later.

I have gotten back to stitching, and, again, more on that later. For today, a brag.