MIA Drywaller

Before I chat about my house whoas, this is what I've been up to. Quilting! I have also been stitching some but I forgot to pop Freddie into my bag this morning so I could not take a photo of the progress. Above is a quilt top I started a couple of weeks ago. The center is a cheater panel and my sister and I though we could use it to practice centering stored motifs from the computerized long-arm quilter. The rest of it was a snap. I'm more used to smaller blocks and this one zoomed along.

I did this cute little quilt top yesterday. It's smallish, maybe three feet by two feet. It will look nice on my dining room table. I'll most likely to do an allover quilted pattern on it.

And here is the last quilt top I finished up over the weekend. It's a Twister pattern and I have to say I love the fabric hate the quilt pattern. This is the only sort of quilt my sister does these days. Quick, easy and quick. :-) I generally don't like to do quilts that don't offer up some sort of challenge but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I used Fa, La, La, La by French General. French General is making my favorite quilting fabrics these days. When I was finished I was really glad I didn't buy all the Twister books and templates and just borrowed them. The finished quilt will look nice however on my couch at Christmas time or maybe even on the table if I quilt it small enough and use a very thin batting.

Now onto the house trouble. My drywaller said on March 18th that he would be finished with the drywalling, taping and priming by last Thursday (the 22nd). I haven't seen him since that day. I seem to recall him saying he was going on vacation this week so I'm assuming he is out of town until next week. How irresponsible of him. I don't have much recall however as my brother in law hired him and is paying the bill. I'm so pissed because I scrambled like crazy over the past week to get everything in place for me to paint the room over the past weekend and put down the new sub floor because I bought this:

550 square feet of the sexist 5 inch wide, hand scraped hardwood floor in the universe. I bought enough for half of my house - I'm going to start to save for the other half. I got it at Lumber Liquidators and they have had this floor for years now so I know I'll be able to get more next year. I bought enough this time to do all my bedrooms and hallway and still have some left over so I can mix it into what I'll buy next year as I'm sure the die lots will change a bit.

But the biggest disappointment of not having my bedroom ready to paint last weekend is my brother said he would teach me how to lay the floor this week while he is on vacation - we were planning on Thursday. But the time the room is ready for the floor (first weekend in April hopefully) my brother will be back at work so I don't know now when the floor will go down. I'm handy but I really want to have guidance for the first room I do. And I need all his power tools. :-) I bought the floor nailer already - I didn't know anyone who owned one and they are $35.00 bucks a day to rent from Home Depot. I found a new one on eBay for $100.00. So I'm ahead and I can sell it when I'm done with the entire house sometime next year.

I'm so bummed. I was planning on moving into my bedroom this coming weekend and now I'll have to wait for who knows how long. The house is a mess with everything that got pulled out of the bedroom and there 550 square feet of flooring in my living room. Plus all the light fixtures, cans of paint and window treatments that I had to buy. And not to mention the dust from all the work being done. I dust and vacuum and it just seems to get dirty right away again.

tired

Here is the contents of my bedroom and half bath. When the guy who is doing the work said we needed a garbage bin I didn't believe him. Sure am glad I listened now! It's full!

I'm so glad I didn't listen to the people who were saying I didn't need to do this. The smell of mold and mildew in the bin is unreal. The smell would have never left the house. And we discovered I had NO insulation in the room! I'm sure it's the same throughout the house. New dry wall next. My guys aren't coming back until Thursday but they should be done by mid-next week. I'm going to pick out hardwood floors this week sometime. I'd like to buy enough for all three bedrooms and hall as I want the entire house to match. So hopefully by the first weekend in April I'll be done with the walls and floor and then I can move onto the painting and trim work. I'm going to ignore the bathroom for the present time. I want to get in the bedroom first and then work on the bath when time allows. I have the tile already as I purchased enough when I bought the tile for my main bath last fall. The plan is to put in a new pedestal sink and new matching toilet with a six foot high white/cream wainscoting throughout. It's going to look great and I'm so happy I've finally started.

My other project over the weekend.

I should have taken a before photo because this doesn't start to show how much work I did. This is what I call the wayback. It's an area of my yard behind the garage and shed. Last spring in order for FHA to approve my mortgage I had to do a ton of repairs on a house I didn't even own. I took the chance and as you know it worked out - I got the house. One of the tasks was repairing the stockade fence that surrounded the property. However when I got there to do the work it was obvious that the fence could not be repaired as it was falling down. I got permission from the owner and FHA to just remove the fence rather than spend money to try to fix it (it would have been replacing rather than fixing). It was in such bad shape that it only took about an hour to remove 60/70 feet (I left one side up as it wasn't in such bad shape and we replaced boards and such). But I didn't want to take the time or spent the money to have it removed so I put all the sections and the 4x4 supports in the wayback planning to deal with it at another point in time. So fast forward nine months of not being to particular when I put all my lawn detritus and trash back there. Well the weather so nice this past weekend I figured it was finally "another point in time". :-) And I also thought I have that big old bin in the front of the house that will never be filled so why not start the work and put the fencing in the bin? Well it was obvious within an hour of the demo starting in the house that there would be no room in the bin for all the sections of fencing so I had to break it down. So 12 or so hours later the sections of fencing are all broken down in to pieces that can be burned or tossed little by little into the trash (I can burn wood where I live). But I'm going to try to get as many of the support 4x4s into the bin still. There should be room for most of them. Of course I have to get them from the back all the way to the front. And I only have the bin for seven more days. That two or three posts a day. :-) So after two days of solid sawing, breaking, ripping and raking I got back a huge area of lawn. So the plan is to get rid of as much as I can so I can plant grass in April and maybe put in some raised veggie beds.

It was only until much later Sunday evening that it occurred to me that I could have paid someone to haul all the stuff away. I did a little a research on Angie's List and figured it would have only cost me around $100 to $120 bucks. Bummer - I would totally have paid the price - and it would be done. But I know have that knowledge for the next big (read huge and impossible for me) task in the backyard. Taking down the shed. It's attached to the back of the garage and it's 10 x 20 feet. I'll never use it and I just want it gone as I want the lawn back. But it's a real room with a shingled roof, wood siding and electricity. I'm estimating at least $1,200.

Ouch.

a finished bird

Frederick has a head and finished body! While not totally pleased with his progress I did manage to stitch at least six hours over the past week. Which is pretty good these days. I'd like to get in at least double that amount. Maybe soon. :-)

This is the first quilt finished with the long arm machine! I've had this top around for several years now and it's finally complete. It's a Ricky Tims' design from a book called Convergence Quilts. I went through a phase a couple of years ago where I felt I needed to do stuff out of my comfort zone. And everything about this is out of my comfort zone! The style, the colors, everything! I had to do a freehand meander since the autobot on the long arm isn't working. My sister had to take a few parts in for service so no more quilting for a couple of weeks. Hopefully we will be able to get some of the advanced functions working at that point. Her long arm is a totally automated machine. We should be able to just select a quilt design and tell the machine to go. While I want to learn how to do it all freehand, until that time comes it will be nice must to hit go and watch it work. :-) Since I have a backlog of at least 20 tops and my sister has about the same amount, I'm looking forward to getting caught up. All for the price of batting and thread. No more paying someone else to finish my work! And I'll have total control which is the number one thing I hated about sending my quilt top to be finished by someone else. While I really liked the work my quilters did, not having any say in what they did was frustrating.

Have a great weekend! I'm finally starting on the bedroom tomorrow. Yeah! Now I need to find an extra thousand dollars for my hardwood floor. :-( That's going to be tough right now.

lots of projects

I've been making good progress on Frederick. Thanks for all the comments regarding putting both pieces on the same linen. I wasn't sure it was a right way to go but I'm happy with it. I didn't even notice that both birds are facing the same way. I'll have to put something nice next to them for them to look at. :-)

Last weekend I started all sorts of little projects. Here is my first penny ever! I'm making a small penny rug for my table. It's going to be fun and quick. I want to make one for Easter also so this dark colored one might take a back seat if I manage to get some pastel colored wool in the next couple of weeks. I also started a quilt top and it's almost finished. But I'll post the finis rather than an in progress shot. Just a couple of hours to go on it before it's complete. It will be one of the first that I put on my sister's long arm.

Finally a shoot of my amaryllis! I put this baby into water in November and it's finally blooming! I had no idea they took so long.

Until next time!

really glad it's Friday

I've started work on Frederick proper. Progress is still much slower than I want but at least it's progressing forward. I'm pulled in so many directions right now it's crazy. I've starting tearing up my bedroom, on this past Wednesday I attended a long arm quilting class to learn how to use my sister's machine and she wants me to start finishing a million tops and tomorrow Isibeal restarts agility training. I don't have nearly enough time in the day. It's hard to pick and choose.

This weekend though will be about agility, home repair and quilting. Doubt I get any stitching in at all.

time to destroy!

I can almost tell Frederick is a bird. :-) Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have at least his outline in place. I'm finally feeling better - on Friday I got out of bed and knew I was going to live. I ended up being sick for more than two weeks. Isabelle is very happy because that means her trips to the dog park are happening again with some frequency. The pugs are sad because now they can't lay all over me all day long.

I'm finally in a position to start work on my bedroom! Below is the first picture of the fruits of my labor. It took the entire weekend to sort, toss and move around to other parts of my house / garage everything that landed in the bedroom since I moved in last September. I should have taken a before photo. The floor was so full I had a path to get around. I'll start the "official" demo on the 3rd of March when I have help but I'll start doing some little stuff before then - like taking apart the closet and starting demo on the bathroom. The goal is to have me sleeping in the room by the end of April. Very doable if I don't find a ton wrong with the walls once they are taken down. Cross your fingers for me that this will be fairly simple. I know I have a bit of a leak on the roof in a corner - hopefully it will be an easy fix. And I can't replace the windows yet because I want to do the entire house at the same time I replace the siding and that can't happen until I can get a home equity loan. Maybe this year, maybe next year. :-)

out and down for the count

So much for the new plan! I've been sick as all get out for almost two weeks now. It started simply enough with the flu two Wednesdays ago and then progressed to a sinus infection. The flue was bad enough but the sinus infection put me on my back. Oh my I've been miserable. So not a lot of stitching or sewing has been done at my house.

Here is my progress on Frederick. Not much and not nearly what I was hoping for. I did find some time however where I felt reasonably well to sew and I got my kitchen and dining room valances finished. And I love how they look! The brick gimp really set them off like I was hoping.

I love how the two look together. Really ties the two rooms together. I have a ton of red and cream French General quilt fabric and I'm going to make some table runners. I still need to move the three pictures on the wall over a bit but I'm waiting until I have help. I don't want to fix more holes than I need to. :-)

I have fabric for the two living room windows. Right now there are just sheers on them and I'm really tired of people walking or driving by at night being able to see all the way in. It's not my favorite but it was free. My sister hit a huge sale at Hobby Lobby and scored 16 yards for $7.00 a yard. The stuff was originally $36.99. It's a floral on a mostly reddish brick background but a tad "fancier" than I like. But the price was right and I'll have more than enough to do floor to ceiling drapes. I might or might not be able to replace those windows this year and I've got to have something in the meantime. It's ok enough for right now. I still need to pick up the lining and I'm working on ideas for a matching valance. Something much more simple I think for the living room.

Thanks for stopping by!

Step three - Scott Lee

Last night I picked up Scott Lee, a counted needlepoint by the late Jean Hilton. I haven't worked on this since August of 2010! Not sure why I put it down never to be seen until now because I really enjoy counted needlepoint. I think it was of course because of all the "have to" needlepoint I was doing at the time. Then this just got pushed to the background. I also found the note attached to it saying "don't forget to pay Kelly for the chart"! Sorry for being such a schmuck Kelly. But I totally forgot. I'll made good asap. :-)

Anyway the photo is of the completed part three. Hopefully this week I'll start and complete part four. It's another round of smyrnas in a lighter color inside the round I just finished. Not my favorite stitch but they always like nice when completed. This needlepoint has to be done at home because it's huge! Way to large to tote onto the train.

good housy weekend

I didn't get as much done on Frederick as I was hoping because I spent most of the weekend on doing stuff for the house. I like to get at least one thing done every weekend. This weekend it was all about curtains for the kitchen and dinning room. The rooms are next to each other in my open floor house. And they both have sliding glass doors. I really debated for months on what to do because I don't like the wide vertical blinds that most people use but couldn't figure out another plan. I usually go to a big box hardware store at least at some point every weekend see what I can buy on sale (since I still need one of everything) and Saturday I went to my local Lowe's. I found some really nice shears in a warm cream color that have a contrasting plaid strip on them. I only bought one set for the dining room but when I got them up I could not believe how nice they looked. The light is as bright but so much softer. So I went back and bought four more panels for the kitchen. Then I figured I might as well work on the valances I have been planning on sewing since I moved it. So five hours later (and one more trip to the hardware store for rods) I had one slider almost finished. It still needs the brick colored gimp that I had to order online but I'm so happy with how they turned out. I'm going to raise the rod a couple of inches - I don't want to see the top of the shears. The valance is a toile in a reddish brick color on cream with a cream lining. I used Simplicity 5696. Perfect for my house.

On Sunday morning I met up with a friend at an off leash dog park about three miles from my house. It was too cold for the pugs (around 27 and snowing) but perfect for Isibeal. My friend has three big dogs and the newly formed pack ran around for an hour or so. She was wiped! Hardly stirred all day. :-)

It's much warmer today (45 right now!) and I'm working from home so I took my pack back to the park for my lunch hour. All you can hear now in the house is the sounds of pugs snoring. :-)

day three into the plan

and I'm still stitching! I've managed to stitch everyday which kinda is the long term goal. And I'm enjoying it. I was getting into bad routine where I was just channel surfing all evening long. And I really don't even like what's on TV! This is much better. And I've been stitching on the train and not sleeping. I sure can feel that though, I'm much more tired during the day but I'm sure I'll get used to it again.

a new plan

I've picked up Frederick again from Carriage House Samplings (do they have a new blog or website? I still have the jewelery one bookmarked with no new stitchy stuff on it). I started him in May of 2010. Wow. I'm almost regretting putting Frederick and Frederika on the same piece of linen. Only time will tell how it will look finished. I'll have to make the same adjustment I made on Frederika on the top row of the bottom border. It was designed to be folkartie off by one row but that sort of thing drives me crazy so I fixed it - this one is off also and I'll have to adjust it too. I'll also need to decide if I should make the boxes inside the border the same as Frederika. There is a slight difference in the colors - I'm not sure if it would look better in the same color style or have it different as charted.


I've also come up with a stitching plan for the time being. I looked back over my past two years of finishes and tried to figure out why my stitching came to an abrupt halt. It was a combination of a couple of things but mostly two - my bought my house and second I noticed a real drop off in stitching hours as soon as I started working on my families Christmas gifts for 2010. I don't do so well when I "have" to do something. I think I totally lost focus when I was faced with months of "have" to do. I did take breaks between each one but they were short and in the end I almost didn't finish the gifts I had started to drag my feet so much. So I'm hoping the new plan will get me back in the groove. I haven't purchased much new stuff in over a year now. But rather than go shopping for new and improved I'm going to shop my stash. I have dozens and dozens of charts, hundreds of skeins of floss and more linen than I can count. Plus at least a dozen plus (I didn't even count) of started or totally kitted projects.


So here it goes - I'm going to work on a random WIP until it's finished. Or if I get totally bored and really am faced with not stitching or moving away from boredom for a while by stitching something different, pick up a kitted project that requires no new purchases. But I'm going to try not to start something kitted until I get at least two or three WIPs finished. That's the plan away. :-)


I've made a change to my blog - all part of the new plan. I'm planning on putting a nice photo mosaic on the top banner but so far I've been struggling with getting it to look right.


Last weekend was the first anniversary of meeting Isibeal. I can't believe it's been a year! And we are still trying to figure out our relationship. Both of us think we are in charge! We are restarting agility in a month. We lost so much time with my move and her being in a cast for two months. We are basically back to the beginning. The other in my class are already starting to trial. We most likely won't until late fall/early winter. That is if all goes well.
Here she is the day I picked her up from O'Hare on behalf of my sister.


And her beautiful self last weekend.

Joy finis

Joy - design by Blackbird Designs

recommended silk floss and linen

I finished up Joy last night. And tossed Frederic in my bag for the train this week. As in the past couple of months, stitching on the train is hard because all I want to do is sleep! Maybe I need vitamins. I never used to have this trouble. :-)

Nothing new on the home front. Just working on the house with my limited time and resources. I'm hoping for a nice income tax check to at least help me get my bedroom redone started. I've been finding time to quilt on the weekends and I have several tops completed to share in the next week. I'm loving the French General lines and completed two tops while on vacation over Christmas. I purchased the latest and it's on my table ready to be cut up.

I finally registered Isabelle with the AKC - her official name is: Isibeal Siofra. In Gaelic I've read that siofra means changeling. It really fits. :-)

Have a great week!

finis finis finis!

Those of you who have been reading my blog for over a year have seen these needlepoints before. But now they are finally finished!


My family has a tradition of taking turns making each other plus the parents a gift each year for Christmas. Last year was my year and I needlepointed designs from Laura J. Perin. The plan had been for me to have my box maker make me a flattish square box about 3 inches deep to fit each piece. But time got away from me and I never got the boxes ordered so I had to give my gifts with the promise of a box to come in the following year. My oldest brother who is a carpenter of course heard me say this and after Christmas came over to look at the box that was the original inspiration for my idea. My five sided dower box that I put a Quarter design in the year before. He told me he wanted to do the boxes for his year (this Christmas) and I told him my idea and showed him the photo of what I was thinking. He asked to take my dower box so he could check out how it was made and left. I knew he was making progress as he mentioned it a couple of times during the year but didn't think to ask to see the boxes. Three weeks ago he showed up at my door with five boxes. Five dower boxes. Five boxes that didn't fit any of the needlepoints.


In total guy fashion he didn't hear a word I said. He just duplicated the five sided dower box five times. Leaving me to figure out how to make my needlepoints not suck in them.

I decided I had to have mats cut for them but knew right away the finished product would look like the needlepoint and boxes had no real relationship to each other. And it would be my needlepoint and not the box that would suffer most. So I emailed Jill Rensel in desperation knowing if anyone would turn a sow's ear into silk it would be her. And she pretty much pulled off a Christmas miracle. I think they look great and they two piece look like they belong together.

Birds of a Feather finis

Birds of a Feather - design by With Thy Needle and Thread

Stitched on 36 count French Vanilla

Overdyed Cotton Floss

yeah! I started this bad boy back in May. It NEVER takes me this long to finish a piece. Of course I did have life pop in now and again. :-) Bought a house, rehabbed a house, moved into said house. Dog issues and more dog issues. But she is finally done. I recently started a relationship with Jill Rensel (she did a couple of mats for me - look for the reveal next week) and I want to start getting to my back log of 100's of pieces framed now that I have somewhere to hang them. I think this will be the first piece I send her as it's the first piece I finished while in my new home. I need to date it yet so I'll always remember this year (like I could forget!).

I started on the Blackbird Designs ornament, Joy, from this years JCS Ornament issue using the silks. I bought the little kit that Drema put together. This is the first time I've used the Belle Soie Silk floss and to be perfectly honest, I wish I had not purchased them. They are divine! But I really can't forward them right now and now I want want to use them. Bad move. :-)

Have a great weekend!

closer

Working on the last bits now. Just a couple of days to go.

getting closer

I had actual thoughts of finishing this last weekend. :-) Well I was going great until Saturday morning when I went out to my garage to get in the car and drive to the grocery store for a few things. Dead. As in like a doorknob. With no warnings either. Sometimes when your battery is dying a slow death you have some sort of idea. Nothing until I tried to start the car. So I called my sister for a jump and she showed up about a half hour later with a new battery. She really is my super hero these days. She called her husband and told him and he instructed her to just go buy me a new one. So no car until him came several hours later with my nephew to put in the new one. But by then the day was shot. My sister hung around then for several hours and helped me put up my Christmas tree. It's Isabelle proof being fake and so far she hasn't shown the slightest interest in it so I think I'm ok. But the good ornaments are close to the top just in case she thinks they would make good chew toys.

Clancy and Aoife showing off how nice their first Christmas tree is in their new home.

So stay tuned for later in the week for hopefully a finis for the first time in months!

Part one Finis

I finished up Part One this week and I've decided to finish this one up before I start a Christmas piece. It should go quickly and I already have a good start.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Isabelle says thanks!

Isabelle had the last bits of bandage and as long as she doesn't mess with her foot too much, she doesn't have to wear her cone any more! Almost seven weeks. We have work left, I have to massage her foot and leg everyday to break down the scar tissue and she needs to do some exercises a couple times a week but for the most part this little adventure is over.

Thanks for all your warm wishes along the way.

Have a great weekend.

part two finis!

I finished up Part Two of the Birds of a Feather mystery. Yeah so what happened to Part One? As you can see I'm still working on it. :-) I'll finish that up before I start on Part Three. But I'm sure I'll put it aside to work on some Christmas stitching. I need a ton more ornaments to fill up my tree so I'm going to focus on that for now. And maybe a pillow or two. I had out all my fall/Halloween pillows and I just love them. So I want to do the same for winter/Christmas.

By the Full Moon finis

By the Full Moon

Design by Ink Circles

32 count Ametrine by Silkweavers

I finished up By the Full Moon last night. How about that - stitching at night! :-) I LOVE this little piece and I can't wait to ornamentize it this weekend.

Jack O Lantern

Design by Casey Buonaugurino Designs

32 count hand dyed linen

I also stitched this little guy last weekend - cute and I'm going to finish it round rather than square like charted. I might add a little more dye to the background to make it a bit more orange. It came out a little lighter than I wanted but I didn't want to wait to start stitching. I figure I can just use a spray bottle and spray it on.

I started on this little guy this morning on the train ride into the office - Halloween Spot Motif Shoe by Prairie Moon. I'm doing mine on purple rather than the light green, well because I didn't have any light green linen. :-) This should be all that I get to this year but in case I have time I have two Blackbird Designs Halloween Stockings ready to stitch.


I did purchase this years JCS Halloween edition and nothing jumped out as a "have to stitch". I was hoping for a couple of non-square designs as that is pretty much all I have right now. My tree is going to look kinda boring. :-)

something new

As I mentioned last week, I've been feeling like working on something fall/Halloween related. So I picked out several Halloween smalls to work on. This is actually the second I've completed/ started over the past few days. I finished one already but forgot to take a picture. Hopefully I can finish it and get it on my spooky tree before next Monday. This one if from a past issue of Just Cross Stitch's Halloween issue from Tracey Horner of Ink Circles on a piece of Silkweaver. I love it. :-) And it's been a great change and I hope to get one more stitched before I sit down and finish the small stash I have from the last couple of years.

Aoife (e-fa) says thanks for all the warm words. She is still basking in the glow. And so am I. We didn't make the draw for the next trial in the area so we have nothing upcoming until November 25th. I kinda wanted to strike again quickly after her success. But we will continue to practice, practice, practice!

Yeah Aoife!

Two years in the making - Aoife's first Novice Standard Qualifying score and it was a first place with 100 points! We still have a long way to go before she is at the excellent level and I'm sure it might be several more months before she earns another one, but at least she is on the road.

Not to be outdone, Clancy qualified each day in Novice Jumpers with Weavers Preferred. :-)

Isabelle had her first physical therapy appointment last Friday and her outlook is excellent! She will still be in the splint for at least two weeks and for two weeks after a soft bandage so that means the cone for another four weeks at least. We are also going back to the office every Friday for the next six weeks ($$$) for laser treatments and physical therapy. In just two and a half weeks in the splint the muscles on the right side of her body are already larger and her left leg is getting smaller.

But the vet cleared her some freedom during the day when I can keep an eye on her. She spent her first free afternoon sleeping on the couch with the other girls. And she can also go back to obedience class. :-) We lost our space in agility class and will have to restart at some point in late winter. It is always tough to find beginners classes in my area as the really good agility instructors only like to give advanced classes. But I'm hoping I can get her as far as an intermediate class on my own. I have trained three other dogs in agility and do know the beginnings at this point. :-)

feeling fall

While the progress is adding up on this piece I'm really thinking I want to push it aside for a fall piece. Even a couple of fall/Halloween ornaments would be cool. I haven't purchased the JCS Halloween issue yet and I'm wondering if it's worth it this year? Of course by the time it would show up I'd only have a week or so to stitch. :-) I should have thought of this a couple of weeks ago. :-)

Isabelle is doing super! I had her stitches pulled on Tuesday and the surgeon thinks she is doing great. Almost full range of motion where her ligaments and tendons were cut. He didn't think she would need to be in the splint for the full six weeks but is going to let the rehab vet make the final call. Our first evaluation is tomorrow at TOPS. The place is super expensive but they are the very best in the area. I'm hoping I can stop restricting her activity level somewhat so she can spend more time out of her crate. I'm sure that would make her happy also.

Then on Saturday and Sunday Aoife and Clancy have an agility trial. Our first since a terrible trial in early July. I had just closed on my house and was under a huge amount of stress and we truly sucked. I should have known this would be the case and just passed on the trial but there was always a chance that I would not get the house and I didn't want to spend the weekend knowing one of my favorite trials was happening and I was not there. Wish us luck - especially Aoife. After two years I'm still trying to earn her first novice standard qualifying score and if I don't see some movement there soon I'm going to pull her from agility and focus on Clancy who is doing a bit better at trials. I only have so much money these days and I have to put my money where I can get results and Clancy is closer to his MaCH that Aoife is for sure.

Momentum lost

I was just starting to feel like I was getting my groove back when I found a monster of a counting error. I had been just living with all the others but this was a half a row mistake. And one I could not ignore. So frog, frog, frog. I don't know about you, but when this happens I tend to walk away for a while. Picked her up again yesterday and got past the frogged part.

Isabelle is starting to feel better and she is having her stitches removed today. Hopefully today I'll get some sort of estimate on how much longer she needs to be splinted. She also has an appointment with a physical therapist on Friday to start a treatment plan. Cross your fingers that we don't have to go the full six weeks. She is miserable in the crate.

long weekend

I didn't get much cross stitching done over the weekend - actually none. :-) Any progress I made was on the train this morning. I did sew some curtains for my front room bow window and I cut out some fabric for a valance that I'm making for the dining room. That was good progress given everything else I had going on.

It was a long weekend taking care of Isabelle. The poor baby is in pain and can't understand why I won't let her play anyway. I'm supposed to keep her on a leash when I let her outside but that proved impossible because she is so strong and determined and just pulls my arms off. The best I've managed is to keep her from launching herself off the deck. She still tries to run but usually stops short when she realizes just how much it hurts. It's going to be a long month.