windows!

I have a door and windows! Yeah!

And what is the big deal you ask? For those of you who are newcomers to my blog, you might think this as very normal. But those of you who have been visiting for years, know that me not stitching on a regular basis is not the norm. But I'm making progress. :-) And I love to get back to my usual rate of finishes. Especially now that I might have a house to put them in.


I picked some spring flowers yesterday from my garden. Is there anything better than this?

sunny weekend!

Northern Illinois had a sunny warm weekend for a change and the pugs, lab and I enjoyed every second of it we could. So I didn't at much stitching in as I wanted to but I did get some in! All that is left on Farm House is the house and it's a big one. I'd love to have this puppy in the can by Friday but that's wishful thinking on my part. :-)

Have a great week!

making progress

I've made some progress the past couple of days on Farm House. I haven't managed to stay awake on the train ride into work but have managed to stitch on the way home. I'm hoping now that's is light (or almost so) when I leave the house in the morning, soon I'll be staying awake on the way in also. :-) It would be good to get back into the swing of things. I think when I finish this block I'm going to take a break for this piece and work on something else. Maybe a small finish will motivate me to work more on my stitching. And I have so many to choose from. :-) It will be fun just to look though my stash.

Not much news on the house front. The sellers now have a contract from me and I'm hoping for short sale approval from their bank within the next 60 days. That's pushing it but I don't want to be held hostage by them and I'm thinking more houses will come on the market starting in the summer. Cross your fingers for me. I originally didn't want to go the short sale route because not many are approved. But it was just too good of a house not to take the chance. Walking into a house with $30,000 of equity in this market is worth the try. :-)

snow?!?!

Spring snow is always so startling. Especially when I had no idea it was coming. We got about an inch and a half and the only one who seems to be enjoying it is Isabelle. :-) I did get some stitching in but not as much as I had planned. I found home improvement books to be far more interesting. I've been going to Home Depot and looking at the books and if I like them, buying a used copy on Amazon (some for just pennies). I had a ton show up on Saturday and spent hours looking at how to re-wire, trim and tile.

Isabelle is getting so big! Here she is with Aoife taking a nap. She is now double the size of the pugs. They just run under her when she is in the way. :-) Isabelle is five months old this week and I expect her to continue to grow for at least through the end of the year. At this point I'm hoping I end up with a 24 inch agility lab rather than a 20 inch one. There are far less dogs in the larger class and fewer border collies.

Have a great week!

house buying pain

Is buying a house ever hard! At least 20 times (or at least that is what it feels like) the deal felt like it was going to go bad and something happened and it was saved. But now I'm in a holding pattern again. The seller needs to make some repairs for my FHA Loan to happen but it's a short sale and the bottom line is they don't have to do anything if they don't want to. If they don't make the repairs I have to walk away. But in the meantime, I've had to pull my financing deal (I locked in 4.75% and had to let it go) and I won't be closing in April. At the rate I'm going not even in May. The stress is killing me. And I started to pack in anticipation of moving at the end of April so half my craft stuff is packed while the other half is not. I'm living in box land. So between the stress at work and at home I haven't been stitching. I'm starting to miss it. I have no plans for this coming weekend and I'm hoping to get some time into some of my projects.


The pugs are doing great with agility. Clancy has earned three Qs (one of them a third place in Excellent B Jumpers) in the last couple of trials and Aoife got a first place last weekend in Open Jumpers. A bit of a break until May and we go at it hard again.


Here is a photo I took yesterday of little Isabelle. She is huge! And she is living on my coffee table. No matter how many times I tell her no or off, she gets right back on. It's driving me crazy.