The CADET IS COMING HOME!!!!

Oh, in about 2.5 hours, my boy will be walking off a plane from Detroit...he's coming home from field training! He called this morning at 5:30AM just to say hi (we haven't heard his sweet voice in a month) and it was so cool to hear him! He called a few times today, mainly cause he's got long layovers in Denver and Detroit.

Field training was quite the experience, I guess. He was ranked in the middle of his Flight of 22 which was the best flight of the three in this session. He's pretty pleased with himself overall with his performance in the flight.

While we were talking to him, he gave us his full itinerary for the weekend. By 5:30AM, he had made plans for me to make him a lasagna dinner when he got home tonight, vanilla cappuccinos and bagels in the morning, leaving for Rochester bright and early, shopping at various stores, including the bookstore and grocery store, and then topped off with treating him, the lovely Jenna and one of his buddies to dinner and ice cream. Whew! There's a lot of running around in the next day but who am I to refuse The Cadet?!!

I thought I was going to have a relaxing 4 day weekend but my boss has other plans for me. I have to put together a presentation for him (and me) for the 8 o'clock AM staff meeting with the Sr. Exec team. I have to be at work earlier to go over it with him before the meeting. Actually, I am a bit excited about all of this cause I think he's finally comfortable with me doing these things with him. Normally, I think he would have just done the presentation himself or had Tom do the work for him but this time it's my job. I just hope I do a good job for him and don't make him look like a fool...eek!

SO...I AM VERY HAPPY right now, cause my CADET is almost home!!

All I have to say is...

I AM SUCH A WHINER!!!!

Thanks for listening to me though...Love to all of you!

Still foggin' up the mirror

I am still breathing...
Sorry that I haven’t posted in a few weeks. There’s a few reasons for my lack of witty repartee...
1. I am really boring.
2. I’ve been working on exchanges, a Halloween exchange, a Quaker alphabet exchange and the Grateful Hearts exchange on SBEBB.

All are due within the next month or so and I have to say each of them are joys to work on. I am really bored with my rotation and my WIPs right now, although I feel obligated to work on them I’d like to pack them away and forget them for awhile and I really don’t know why except that most of them were started in the last 2 years. These last few years haven’t exactly been banner years...it seems that after my Dad died, life sure took a turn south. Now, my life isn’t ALL bad. I have good friends (like you, dear stitchy blogging buddies, whom I love so dearly, all of you!), a wonderful husband and son, plus great health.

But, sometimes life just wears away at me and I feel, well, eroded.

The house situation grinds at me and the Cadet’s antics over the last year really tested my resolve. Stitching time is the same but I don’t feel that *I can’t wait to stitch* feeling like I had before. The slump isn’t too slumpy really, when I do stitch and I did for a few hours on the weekend, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I have noticed though that I don’t spend nearly as much time stitching as I have previously. When I was enjoying stitching, I spent at least 15-30 hours a week with my needle. Recently, I’ve been logging in about 8 hours. If I do anything, I fondle my stash and dream.

Most of the WIPs I have in progress are beautiful pieces but nothing is pulling me right now. I have the following in active rotation, the A list and the *B* list (we won’t even go into those on the C list and the D through Z list cause even I don’t want to know what’s languishing in the dark recesses of WIP-dom.)
So here goes...this is the WIP *A* List
1. M. Pollard - Quaker Sampler from the Scarlet Letter
2. Their Song - Blackbird Designs
3. March Hare - Blackbird Designs
4. Maria Short - Moira Blackburn
5. Peace - Birds of a Feather
6. Autumn Leaves - Prairie Schooler
7. A Stitcher's Wallet - The Gift of Stitching magazine

Here’s the *B* List:
1. A Prairie Year - Prairie Schooler
2. Beatrix Potter - Quaker Sampler
3. Sarah Tatum - Quaker Sampler from the Scarlet Letter

And the 3 exchanges, plus the SAL with Sue that neither one of us have really committed to stitching just yet.

Not a bad list really and I love the pieces. But listing them made me notice that most of them are BAP's (with the exception of the exchanges) or I am stitching over one (Autumn Leaves and A Prairie Year). Plus, I am heavy on the Quakers.

Think I need to change things up a bit? I'd like to add a Drawn Thread piece, I've always had one in WIP-dom but after I finished Welcome Spot, I failed to begin a new one. And I've been trolling blogworld, especially that Smalls blog, so many interesting pieces there! Maybe I have the *Grass is Always Greener* thing going. Plus, I bought a lot of new stash...and a few of those pieces are just begging to be started.

So, what's a girl to do, I ask you!

Comments appreciated.

David and I heard from the Cadet. The mail is sparse and it takes 4 days to get from South Dakota to New York. The Cadet sounds tired and somewhat frustrated. All the glamour of military life has been stripped away. He's anxious to come home and have a steak. There's lots of yelling that goes on and he rises at 4Am and goes until 9PM. He's doing ok though, a bit disappointed in his ranking but as long as he does his best that's great for us.

Work is super busy too. Audits, audits and audits. No time to stop for a breather.

And on the home front, I sorta had an epiphany. I've decided that I was going to love my house no matter what state it is in because it's a gift from God and I should take care of what I've been blessed with. God knows why we are in this mess of a construction situation and that's good enough for me. So, since I've neglected some things around here for a good while because I have been waiting until the construction was done, I decided that I was going to make things right. I began hoeing out stuff. I filled the back of the Explorer with enough stuff to take to the Salvation Army and I deep cleaned a few of my rooms. I feel a lot better and more in control.

Anyway...I gotta run, the David wants dinner.

I will post some pictures soon of some stitching.

Stay tuned!

BIrthday gift revealed

I just checked Carol's blog, Garden of Stitches, and she posted that she received my little birthday gift. Carol is such a sweet lady and I wanted to stitch her something special. I stitched the Summer Face biscornu from the patten Seasonal biscornu for her. I also sent her a sampler note pad and a pattern that was on her wish list. The pattern was a thank-you though, she sent me her Barnabee Quest patterns when she finished with them. It was a nice thing to do and I appreciated her kindness.

*Summer Face*

Seasonal Biscornu

MTV Designs

Stitched on 32ct Belfast Linen Cream

Olde Willow Stitchery Threads

I was disappointed though, cause the beautiful fimo pins that came with the pattern were crushed in the mail and the replacements didn't come in time for me to put them on the edges of the biscornu. I tried beading the edges but gave up cause beads and I don't seem to play nicely together. The biscornu looks a bit naked. But I love it cause it's really tiny. Happy Birthday, Carol!!!

The Cadet has been gone now for 3 days...it's very weird not knowing what he's doing or how is doing. Field training is intense. I know he will do well if he just keeps a positive attitude. David thinks that once he gets used to getting yelled at, he will actually like it. He's always loved a physical challenge so I don't think the running and PT work outs will bother him too much except it's really hot there. It's the boredom that will get to him. The endless drilling and marching. Standing at attention for hours. That stuff. Plus, he does have a temper and I am afraid if he gets discouraged, he will say ENOUGH and quit trying. Mike is a lot like me, when he gets to a point where he feels that he's exhausted all possibilities, he will just STOP, give up and quit or take an *I don't care anymore* attitude.

On house news, David and I now realize that we will never see any of the money we gave the contractor, nor will we be able to finish the job like we planned. We've had a number of other contractors come out to estimate finishing the job. Because the house is partially done and most of what has been done must be removed, all of the contractors said they just want to start it over. No one wants to touch what's been done because the job and the materials are sub-standard. The estimates we've gotten to see what it will cost to finish the house are in the 50-60K range, the amount we were quoted when we started this mis-adventure. So I went to the bank to see what they could do for us and they are willing to consolidate our existing mortgage and give us another 40K on top of what we have out in a home equity. Unfortunately, the payments would be over 2.5K a month and we can not afford it. SO, David and I are forced to rethink all of it and cut back on the *niceties* and drop back on the type of windows we wanted. And to afford this, we will have to do the work in stages, which means I will have to choose replacement windows over new construction windows because they will have to fit into the existing structure which really limits us on style and type. Also, it will limit us on siding choices too cause we were looking at siding with built-in insulation which is thicker than normal siding and requires the windows to be framed out to meet the thicker siding.

Needless to say, I am quite beside myself. I really want to just cry. This entire situation has put me into a state, I am really, really angry over it and I can not shake the feeling of helplessness because I can not do anything to fix this situation. Two managers at work have approached me and told me to come see them if I needed to talk. One told me that I never smile anymore. The other said that it's evident that I have the weight of the world on my shoulders. I don't believe my work has been affected yet, my manager just gave me a pay increase, much more than I expected. This situation is like an unspoken wedge between David and me, though, I cringe when he wants to talk about it and I get snarky over it.

I believe that this is the cause of my stitching slump. It's not a full blown, put everything away slump, it's just an *Ok, you have to do this slump*. There isn't much joy in stitching cause I can't seem to concentrate on it. Usually, the rythmn is calming but now I get all fidgety after 15 minutes or so. It seems to be a chore right now so I just stitch a little at a time. I worked on my Stitcher's Wallet a bit and I picked out the patterns for the exchanges I am in. But, I did put away most of my WIPs. and I will work exclusively on exchanges until the end of September. It's ok cause it is stitching, and obviously, I enjoy the process much more than the finishing! I am very happy to work on pieces for others, it's a good feeling to share my work. It takes my mind off of the Cadet and all the other things going on in my life right now. I don't know what I am going to do when all this stress finally goes away. I'd love to find out though!!!

So, thanks for sticking through this long whiney post..I'll take a glass of merlot to go with my *whine*. I appreciate you and I am glad that I can share with you.

I hope that your weekend is filled with good things and a lot of stitching time!