mainely stitching

So … the kids had a day off school yesterday (teacher workshops) and we had a showing scheduled. What a combination – get the house showroom-ready with all four kids at home and then skedaddle with kids and dogs before the showing. Well, thanks to Max’s help, the house was nearly ready at 11:00 – only the floors needed washing – when the phone rang. Yep, you guessed it: the realtor said the people wanted to reschedule for Wednesday! Groan!! It was too late to take the kids any where special to enjoy a day off school, so we headed over to McDonalds where the kids could play and relax (and make as much mess as they wanted, LOL!).

and while i was making lemonade

… dear friend Anne has been busy making the most gorgeous fobs you can imagine. Not only are they gorgeous, but they can be yours! Anne’s selling her beautiful fobs to help raise money for Coral’s grandson, Tim. Coral’s also a good friend who’s been mentioned many a time here in this blog. Her wee Tim has been diagnosed with leukemia and, as you can imagine, the medical bills are staggering. I’m giving Anne a standing ovation for her efforts and I’m hoping that you’ll stock up on some great gifts, stocking-stuffers, or even a little trinket for yourself. You know, a gift for sewing well, to borrow from Mary Garry.

Take care, all, and thank you so much for coming to visit with me!

Big presents come in small packages, as the saying goes, and this is no exception. Please meet our new nephew, Daan Tomas. I can’t wait to meet him in person! Congratulations to the very happy parents.

It’s not nearly as momentous, but here’s another small start – my attempt to get back to stitching. This is a very small design by Handwork from their Sampler Ornaments 8 leaflet.

And to encourage me even more to get stitching, I experimented with a piece of 35 ct white HDF linen and my Chinese herb dregs, coming up with this. Isn’t it fabulous? I only wish I’d done a large piece….

There are, of course, other small packages that figure importantly in my life. Like small, quiet girls on rainy November afternoons.

And small boys who are happily missing both their front teeth.

And other little boys who are finally feeling good again. (In a sweater knit by his great grandma!)

This is a rather big package, but what funny wrapping it has!

And finally, some furry packages that will soon be underway to America.

Ever have the feeling you’re being watched?

As Halloween isn’t really celebrated here and the kids can’t go trick-or-treating, I made a ghoulish meal for my little band of creatures. We had witches’ fingers (strips of French toast with green food dye added to the batter), fried bats & spiders (pancakes with food dye to make them blackish-purple), zombie eyeballs (devilled eggs with mini-tomato slices in the eye socket), and a brain filled with rotting guts (hollowed-out cauliflower filled with lettuce and quartered mini tomatoes). For the brave, there was pus to dip the veggies in and vampire blood and powdered cobwebs to cover the pancakes with. Thanks to Tanya’s prim stitching group for some of the wonderful ideas – this will certainly become an annual tradition at Chateau Chaos!

As you can see, we have one sick little fellow – Arden came down with a cold that very suddenly turned nasty on him. We’re keeping the fluids going and keeping an eye on things. It’s scary with all the H1N1 fear in the air, but we’re hoping he’ll soon be back to his usual cheery, healthy self.

Hoping everyone’s Halloween was fun and safe!

A feeble attempt at total relaxation was needed to deal with the unexpected stress from work, so I’ve been out to eat, watched the BBC version of The Tenant of Windfell Hall, finished Karen V’s Quaker RR and stitched the Rose Basket by Niky’s Creations since I last visited with you here.

The dining out was actually due to it being the 9th anniversary of our first date. The dinner was fine, but the company was much better!  My, how much we’ve packed into nine years!!

Here’s Karen’s stunning version of the Ackworth Friendship Book for our round robin. I just love this group of stitchers, and I hope we’ll do something together again in the future. Karen, your RR was posted today and will hopefully arrive quickly.

And while watching The Tenant at Windfell Hall on my laptop because it would not play with sound in the DVD player (I don’t even pretend to understand this stuff), I stitched the Rose Basket, a wee kit I bought from Niky’s Creations. I’ve stitched it with one thread over two, using the supplies that came with the kit. If (or when, more likely) I stitch it again, I’ll leave the date off I think. Interestingly enough, it took exactly the length of the film to stitch this. Useless factoids ….

(LOL!! Look, I forgot the handle on one side! Oops!)

As for the blow dealt by our employer, Niek went back in yesterday and talked to them again and feels cautiously optimistic that we’ll regain at least some of the lost ground. We’re supposed to have everything in writing (again) by early next week. Arden, as you can see, is ready to go now.

Wishing you a wonderful week!

Thanks for all the well-wishes regarding today’s showing. The realtor was enthusiastic about it, and complimented us on how well the place showed. Hooray for insane cleaning! The lookers are at home, discussing the house, while we sit here with crossed fingers.

It was a very hectic day, which isn’t particularly pleasant, but things got a lot nicer when I found out I’d won Beth’s giveaway via her FB group. Yay! And thanks, Beth! I love her designs and now I get to pick one of my choice!

And speaking of great designs, I took the plunge and ordered a couple of Niky’s designs. I’ve long admired her blog, though I’m a lurker. She sent them incredibly fast. I really love how she packages her charts – aren’t they adorable? I’m a little less enthusiastic about the layout of the charts, however, because there’s no stitch count and no center point marked. I’m lazy, I’ll admit it – I want someone else to do the work for me. But these are super-sweet designs that I look forward to stitching up once my obligations are done.

Gilbert seems to think he needs his own Daylight lamp. When he was having some free time yesterday, he let me know that I’ve got the angle all wrong. LOL!

And to close on a very silly note, here are my three younger kids acting up in the tub. Nick and Rowen are into Halloween this year and were trying to pull their most dreadful poses. With some help from Picnik, I made Nick into a proper ghoul.

I hope you’re all doing something fabulous on this rainy end-of-October day! Thanks for visiting!

Our weather has taken a turn for the worse – although given what a gloriously sunny autumn we’ve had, a day like this feels more cozy than confining.

Rowen used the quiet time to make a new book. This one is about a little lost dog who is found by two nice kids. (She doesn’t have a black eye, but has been bitten by mosquitoes. Naturally, she’s scratched the bites and now has a nasty-looking red area under her eye and along her nose.)

However, rain does result in muddy footprints that need to be cleaned up.

“What mud?” asks Lola.

And while that was being cleared up, the phone rang … the realtor called to say that there’s already interest in our house, which hasn’t even been online for 24 hours yet! So I opened a new can of elbow grease and cleaned up all three levels of the house to prepare for a Monday showing!  Still have to tackle the interiors of a few kitchen cupboards, but it is nice to only need a couple of hours to whip the place into shape instead of a few days!

Rigby and Lola approve my efforts.

Here’s hoping that your weekend is full of coziness!!

This woman is 89 1/2 years old. Seriously!

I know it doesn’t seem possible, but it’s true. This is Oma Sanders, the kids’ great-grandmother. Like my Dad, she’s proof positve that living life with enjoyment will keep you young.

We had a great day with Over-Oma (great-grandma). Arden warmed up to her remarkably quickly, and Nicky and Rowen just picked right up where they last left off with her. (I have to say they are two remarkably outgoing kids, and I’m not just saying that because they’re mine.) We hung out at her place for awhile, then headed over to our usual pancake house for a huge lunch. There’s an indoor play area so the kids could bounce off some of their pent-up energies. Arden, unfortunately, fell and cut his mouth but he’s okay. As always, the day passed far too fast and before we knew it, it was time to brave the traffic jams once again. Here are some very happy photos of our day.

I hope your weekend will be great. Mine is going to involve a whole lot of relaxing!

Despite the damage done to my hands by all the intensive cleaning, I’ve managed to pull out some stitching and really enjoy it. First up is Karen V’s Quaker RR because there’s a deadline coming up next month that I don’t want to stress over. A fine group of us have done Ellen Chester’s Ackworth Friendship Book Sampler together and this is the last round. Karen’s is the only that isn’t monochromatic – isn’t it stunning?!

I also splurged a little bit on this threadholder from The Gift of Stitching monthly magazine shop. Kirsten comes up with the coolest things, and despite the fact that I’m supposed to be packing and getting rid of things, I simply had to have this. Check out the shop for this and other goodies! (Hint: The kits are fabulous!)

Sadly, this is probably about the extent of my Halloween decorating this year – that’s a no-no with the house up for sale. No showing off the beautiful Halloween goodies I’ve received in the past from Su, Becky SC, and Mylene (among others!) or those I’ve stitched myself. Speaking of the house, the realtor was duly impressed with the tremendous changes wrought since her original visit 2 weeks ago. The property pamphlet that she created for the house is very nice, and now it’s time to cross our fingers and hope for the best!

Even if we have to keep the place gorgeous, playing must be allowed, and here are the kids with a particularly elaborate train tracks and city they built this morning. (We also enjoyed a nice visit from Marlies, but I neglected to take my camera out. Oops!)

Enjoy a wonderful day!!!

I’m so glad that this phase of cleaning and packing is behind us. And now, with only a few days remaining in the kids’ autumn break from school, it’s time for some fun! This morning we went to the kinderboerderij (or petting zoo) bright and early. We were some of the first people there, but by the time we left 2 1/2 hours later, the place was really filling up. We petted the animals, admired the plants, and played on the playground. My favorite was feeding the ducks and geese. Rowen’s favorite was “talking” to the horse. Nick enjoyed the swings. Arden just had fun tottering around.

After lunch, it was time to pull out the board games. What school break would be complete without seemingly endless hours of game-playing? Here we are playing Nick’s choice, a maze game.

Naturally, the Wii came out of retirement for some serious usage, and I suspect that before the bedtime gong rings, the XBox will also come into play. Let the good times roll!

There has been some stitching, too. Hooray! Pictures in my next post.

Tomorrow the realtor will descend upon us with the photographer in tow, so today I’ve tried to re-do all the cleaning of the past week to ensure that the place is picture-perfect (literally). Nothing like redoing a week’s worth of cleaning in a day. LOL. What do you think? Would you buy the place?

The kids have the week off school, so hopefully once this horrible housework is done, we’ll be able to relax and enjoy some time together.

During my little rest breaks today, I checked in at The Crafty Crow (one of my regular stops) and they’re having the coolest giveaway. I can just imagine how much fun my kids would have with these setups. If I don’t win, I just might have to buy one anyway! Once we’re where we can happily make a mess again, that is! LOL!

Enjoy a wonderful week full of laughter and love and licking cookie crumbs off the table!!