18 years ago....

October 14, 1991. That was my due date. I had a doctor appt. that day at 1:00p.m. Much to my dismay the Dr. said she expected it would be another week before baby girl McConnell was born. I can't describe the utter depression that invaded my body at that point. I was never one of those "Happy" pregnant people. In fact, I hated being pregnant. Love the whole labor and delivery process, hate the preceding 9 months. It could have something to do with the 9 months of non-stop belching (think construction worker after downing a cold 6 pack in 10 minutes), that always started within 8 hours of conception. Or perhaps it is the fact that I knew the instant I got pregnant. And I mean the instant. I swear I felt that little spermie hit the Amy egg and the resulting fireworks that followed. I even told Dan within minutes that I was pregnant. He laughed and said I was nuts. Until the next morning when I started belching. Then his face lost all color. He'd been scheduled for the little clip clip appt that week. Best laid plans and all that. God has a strange sense of humor. It's amazing that it even happened if you think about it. 3 different forms of birth control and yet still a baby was made. I've always said God really wanted this baby to be in my life. She was destined for great things! Anyway, I digress. Back to October 14, 1991 and my depression. After receiving that news from the Dr. I did what any self respecting pregnant woman would do and went shopping. The panacea for all that ails you. I was browsing Shopko when the first labor pain hit. Hmmmm, what was that? Then another hit. Hmmmmm, maybe I better head home. By the time I got to my mom's house 10 minutes away the pains were 5 minutes apart. Called Dan, went home got the kids bags packed, picked them up from school and got back to my moms house by 3. Dan arrived and off we went to the hospital. Arrived at the hospital with the worst pains shooting down my legs, got my epidural (gotta love an epidural!) and Amy was born at 5:59 p.m. Ha! Take that Dr. H. That'll teach you to say things like it'll be another week!

Here she is the week of her birth.

and just the other day when it snowed.


HAPPY 18th BIRTHDAY AMY!!!!

Progress on Signs of Fall has been slow the last few days. Actually if you count all the ripping I did trying to get those darn background triangles to look nice I've done alot. Ripped those puppies out 3 or 4 times and I'm still not sure I like how they look. Originally, the triangles were supposed to be done in shades of dark green but the cover picture looks like they are black and that is what I wanted. But there were 3 shades of green involved and when I substituted the same colors that were in the pot it just looked too bold. After trying several different things, I decided to just use 1 strand of floss and that seems to be better. What do you think? Does it look okay?


I guess I best wrap this up and head to the grocery store. Amy wants ham, hashbrown casserole, whipped jello, corn, rolls and ice cream cake for her birthday dinner. I have none of that in my house at this time.

Thanks for stopping in and wishing Amy a happy birthday! I'll talk at ya all soon!

S Happened!!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here's two thousand words then....


The leaves have just started changing. Madness I tell you, M.A.D.N.E.S.S.

Progress on Signs of Fall:

The "S" Word

I hate the "S" word. Well, hate is pretty harsh, let's just say I dislike intensely the "S" word. I know, it's only 4 letters. But they are 4 very ugly dirty letters and they make up an ugly little word. Some people love the "S" word and think nothing of throwing it around like confetti. I just don't happen to agree with them. Those that use this dirty little word are not my favorite people in the world. In fact, I have been known to use a rude hand gesture when people on the TV use that particular word. And last night was one of those nights. Every other word out of their mouths was the "S" word. Didn't matter what channel my TV was on. There it was. Nasty.dirty.word.

My one daughter had a 5th teacher that actually banned the use of this word in her classroom. If the students used it, they had to write an essay on the word. At the time I thought that was a bit harsh, I mean you can't go around banishing a word from the English language just because you don't like it. Flash forward to today and I find myself agreeing with her. More and more all the time. This teacher requested the children use an alternate word for the "S" word. Her preference was "Frozen Precipitation". I don't know though, frozen precipitation man just doesn't roll off the tongue like snow man does. Neither does frozen precipitation storm. That's right folks I am talking about snow. The dreaded white stuff that falls from the sky, makes the road slickery and generally means the temperatures have to be below 32 degrees. Which means, it's cold out. I do not like the cold. I will never like the cold. That's why I designed this cross stitch piece. So everyone knows how I feel. In case you can't read the little sign the rabbit is holding, it says... somewhere else. I don't mind the snow so long as it is somewhere I am not.

I especially don't like the cold in October when we are still supposed to have 70 degree weather. But last night every freaking TV weatherman was talking about how we are going to have the dreaded "S" word this weekend. IN OCTOBER. If I'd have had a shotgun, I might have done some damage to the new TV my son bought us. Good thing all I had close to hand was my middle finger and my cross stitch needle. Neither of which did a whole lot of damage, but not for lack of trying. My only hope is that the weathermen are, as usual, wrong about the forecast. I'll keep ya updated. In the meantime, I have dug out my wool socks, my extra blankets, my hot cocoa and my chicken tortilla soup recipe in preparation for the big freeze. Let's all hope I don't need them.

In other news....anyone here play bejeweled on facebook? I'm an addict and they just the other day launched a new version. I think it has made it easier to get a high score than the old version. But since my score is now one of the highest in the world (their words, not mine) I've gotta say I like this new version! :) How I got a 300,000 plus score is beyond me cuz it wasn't anything I did but I'll take it!

The new TV season is off to an okay start. So You Think You Can Dance has been good. Looks to be another great season of dancing. I like the new Christian Slater show The Forgotten. I also like The Good Wife. But I have to watch that one online. It's on opposite The Forgotten I think.

While I've been watching the new season of TV I've been getting some good stitching time in. Here's the last couple of days progress on Signs of Fall. Which should be Signs of Winter I guess since we've skipped right over Fall!


That's it for today folks. I'll leave you with a picture of the sunset I took the other night from my front porch. I thought it was pretty. Have a great day, thanks for stopping in and commenting. I love comments! See ya soon!

Food, Decorating and Stitching....all my favorites

Happy Monday Everyone!

It's October. Already. Before we really ever got going on summer. The days are getting shorter and shorter, the temps have dropped to below my comfort zone of 75 by 20 degrees and everything is turning brown. Can you tell it's not my favorite time of the year?? So to cheer myself up, I set up my Halloween Diorama. It usually sits on the hearth in the family room but this year I decided to put it in the library so the piano students could enjoy it. I hope you do too!



I know, most of you don't like Monday's and I am the same 99% of the time. But today I was happy to see it. Do you ever have one of those weekends when your family, as much as you love them, drives you insane?? That's the kind of weekend I had. The girls couldn't say a civil word to each, they haven't done their laundry in I don't know how long and my upstairs smells like dirty clothes and then they were fighting over who got to use the washer. God knows we wouldn't want to cooperate and do our laundry together. Then there is the crap that over the weekend they have managed to spread throughout the entire house. We are not talking little kids here. No, everyone in this house is an adult and should be able to clean up after themselves. But it didn't happen. I counted the pairs of tennis shoes, flip flops, dress shoes and slippers that were left around. 10! Ten pairs of shoes. There are only 4 of us living here. And none of them belonged to me. The dishwasher is another bone of contention. How hard is it to open the door of the dishwasher and load your glass? It's not rocket science! The gist of this whole rant is.....I'm glad it's Monday. I don't have to see them or hear them until this evening and for today at least, that makes me smile with relief.

I'm waiting on the furnace people to show up today. I turned the furnace on Saturday and Sunday morning we all had headaches and queasy tummies. Shut the furnace off and opened the door a bit and we all felt better. It's probably nothing but better safe than sorry.

I've made some progress on my Signs of Fall, it's stitching up relatively quickly for me. At least it was until last night when I had to frog quite a bit of it. I need to spend less time on the computer and more time actually stitching or I am never going to finish most of what I want to stitch. But I'm sure I am not alone there!


Mmmmmm. Can you smell it? Come on, take a deep whiff....I'm sure you'll be able to smell the pumpkin loaf I made this morning. It's done and it smells delicious! The bread is glazed and is all ready for eating so come on over, we'll have a cup of tea and piece of pumpkin bread and talk stitching. I'll be waiting!


Thanks for stopping in and I hope you all have a wonderful Monday! See ya soon!

Retreat!! Warning, long!

Good Morning!

I finally have all the photos from everyone! I have them resized and purtied up, figured out some caption code all by myself and now I'm ready to post!

Let me begin by saying this was my first retreat. Not even really a retreat, more like a stitching weekend getaway. There were no door prizes, there was no cross stitch shopping, and there were no classes offered. Just stitching with friends and a bit of regular shopping thrown in just because. And I had a great time!! I think everyone else did too.

Our weekend started on Friday afternoon with most of the stitcher's arriving around 3 p.m. Sleeping accommodations were then chosen based on people's individual needs and preferences. Once that was taken care of the serious business of stitching began. (click on pics to enlarge them and hover mouse over pic for captions)




I think everyone was in bed by midnight that night but they were at it again bright and early Saturday morning!




After breakfast Saturday morning, 7 of us headed out for a bit of retail therapy! Merrilyn and Mary, dedicated stitcher's that they are, stayed behind. This would explain why they actually came close or did finish a project! We drove 10 miles down the road from Stuart to a town called Atkinson. If you are ever driving hwy 20 in Nebraska and you go through Atkinson, Stop!! It may not look like much but it has one of the best gift shops I've ever been to. It's a large 2 story building full of every kind of gift item you can imagine and Christmas all year round! Everyone had a great time and some of us even bought some things. I would be included in the buying category. Connie bought some gifts also but she had more fun just ringing the bell on the front counter. Not because she needed help, okay yes, she needs help but she isn't going to get the help she needs by ringing the bell. No Connie was ringing the bell because it was there. And she could. So she did. Look out those of you who are heading to the PALS convention, Hurricane Connie is headed your way!



When everyone was finished at the gift store, we decided to head on down the street to the 5 & dime store. Tucked inside this store is an old fashioned soda fountain. Not too many of those still in existence so I try to go whenever I'm in town.



The five and dime is a wonderful little store. They have a bit of everything crammed in this place. And I mean everything! You remember Connie the bell ringer from above. This was her kind of place, let me tell ya. It's like taking a 2 year old into a candy store. Ya never know what they will find that they have to have.
Like this for example: (make sure you click the pic to enlarge)

or this

and then she made poor Mr. Goeke hold her frog for her.....



I believe she bought 3 yards of the fabric so she could wrap herself up in the all the hunky cowboys and I'm pretty sure the frog came home with her too!

BUT! One of the best reasons for going to Goeke's is......


Candy Cigarettes! You remember them don't you. Come's in a box, looks like cigarettes complete with red tip? Well, they aren't called cigarettes anymore, now they're candy sticks, there isn't any red tip unless you color it with your red lipstick but the taste is the same and it's the only place I know of to buy them so I usually clean them out when we visit. This trip I couldn't buy them out. I had to share with the rest of the group. You wouldn't believe how many candy cigarette addicts there are out there! At first it was just Deb and I hanging around outside.



But soon we were joined by others of our kind.



We were just too cool weren't we? At least I thought so until they all turned to me and said, you never really smoked did you? Dang, and here I thought my candy cigarette technique was so good!!

At last it was time to head back to Stuart, we had caused enough of a stir in Atkinson for one day and I'm pretty sure they were happy to see the last of us! But that Connie had to get in one last laugh. Leave it to her to spot a sign in a local window and turn something innocent into something not so innocent.


We arrived back at the Sister's House to find it empty of our 2 stay behinds, figuring they had gone out to lunch we quickly settled in for an afternoon of stitching and laughter. Except for our youngest stitcher Stacy. Stacy is going to school and she had homework to do. So being a good student she went out to the sunporch and finished up what she hadn't get done on the car ride to Stuart the day before.



Soon we were joined by our missing stitchers and everyone got back to the business at hand.



Here are some of the projects being worked on...





We took a break from stitching later in the afternoon and walked over to the Catholic Church to have a look at the beautiful windows and then we sat outside on the deck for a bit as it was such a nice day. Stacy went one further and got a blanket and laid out on the lawn. We had sandwiches for supper that night and later on my Aunt Edith stopped in to visit with us. Can ya tell we're related?



Everyone drifted off to bed at different times Saturday night but Sunday morning, we were up early and stitching away. Breakfast was eaten, more stitching was done and finally it was time to pack up and head home.

Stacy and I were the last to leave so I checked all the rooms for left behind items. Didn't see anything so we closed up the house and headed on down the road. Everything was just fine until I dropped Stacy off at her house. For some reason, and I don't know what that reason is, I suddenly remembered I had left my pillow draped over a chair in the living room of the Sister's house. My pillow that I can't sleep without. You do not want to know the words I used at that point. But the story ends happily, my Aunt was able to get my pillow and she overnighted it to me so I only had to sleep without it for 2 nights! :)

That finishes our Stuart Adventure Story. I hope you enjoyed as much as we did! I think we should do it again next year. Only maybe we could all arrive Thursday evening so we had all day Friday for stitching instead of traveling on Friday. It's not a short drive so more stitching time would be nice. I might actually get something accomplished then! NOT! World's slowest stitcher here!

Thanks for stopping by and hanging in there. It's a long post! Comments are always welcome and appreciated! Have a great day everyone!!

A start and a finish

Morning!

Hey, I am so sorry for ignoring my blog for the last week. It's been a busy one and I just haven't had any time. I'm still working on the pictures from retreat, trying to get pictures from another gal to add to the ones I took. I should have them in my hot little hands this afternoon and then I can get them ready and post but I didn't want to leave ya'll hanging for another day so I will show you what I started while at retreat. I should have stitched on one of my wip's but everyone voted and said I should start this one since it is for fall. Not too much done on it though because I needed to finish another project but I will talk about that one later....

My new start is from an old issue of For The Love Of Cross Stitch, November 1994 to be exact. I have always wanted to stitch it and just haven't gotten around to it. When I was going through all my stuff to organize the craft room I ran across it again and said to myself, I really need to stitch this. Then myself answered back "Well what the heck ya waiting for? " That's all it took. No arm twisting involved whatsoever! My plan for this new piece is to put it on top of my hutch in the kitchen in the fall. Probably not this fall at the rate I'm going though. Usually this picture sits on top of the hutch:


This is the new project:

Just the stitching:


I think it will work just fine for up there in the fall. I'll have to find one similar with a Christmas theme next!

The other project I stitched on while at retreat has been in the works for about a year now. A friend of mine saw a chart I designed for our stitching group and wanted to know if I could design her family crest from a picture and then stitch it for her. I told her I would give it a shot but wasn't going to make any promises. She said she would like to have it for a gift for her father this year for Christmas. Seeing as how it's getting close to the holidays, I thought perhaps I oughta get 'er done. I finished it up last night and I think it turned out pretty good. Debi seems to be pleased with it anyway and I guess that's what counts!


Oh! I ordered a couple of new things this week. I don't know why I keep doing that! I have plenty to work on and no hope of ever finishing most of it. It's a sickness I tell ya. A sickness.

I had Last Saturday Stitching at my house this past Saturday. It was fun and I think most had a good time. I'm a little torqued at myself though. I dumped a crock pot of weenies and barbeque sauce all over the carpet. I now have a nice pink stain on my floor down there. Stupid of me.

Amy, Dan and I traveled to Des Moines last Friday for a college visit. This was our first college visit ever. I have 2 older kids but they went to school here in town. Amy isn't planning on doing that. She has worked very hard to have the grades to win large scholarships so she can go where ever she wants to. We toured Drake University. She wants to go into journalism, specifically magazines. Meredith publishing is in Des Moines so they have a wonderful program for magazine journalism. She fell in love with the campus and was impressed with everything. That's just fine and dandy in my book except for the fact that a year there is in the neighborhood of $33,000.00! That's a lot of scholarship!! Did I mention I have recently lost my job? Not sure how this will work out, I hate that she might not get to go where she wants after all her hard work. But maybe, with a lot of prayer and tons of applications for scholarships it will work out. I hope so.

And that folks is about all I have today. Thank you all so much for stopping by and leaving comments. I'm so happy that I have inspired people with my craft room. Now I just need to find the time to go down there and enjoy it!

Have a great day! See ya soon!