Christmas ornament exchange

I wanted all of you to see the teriffic Santa ornament that Carla (from Peru!) made me for the SBEBB Christmas Ornament exchange.

I love it so much! It will have a place of honor on my tree this year (when I get it put up...yes, we are a bit behind at Chez Bah Humbug....anyway, she sent me chocolates, some fabulous Christmas ribbons, a cute snowman pattern and a giant snowman paperclip. Of course, I pilfered this picture because my camera is fritzing out...it's slowly dying. (Hello, Santa? I would love a Canon Digital...Santa?)

Here at Chez Bah Humbug, we are counting down the days until vacation (only 2 full working days to go) and I will be taking 2 glorious weeks off. I am hoping for a lot of stitching time. I want to work on The Stitcher's Wallet (I'd love to finish it before 2008 but I doubt that will happen cause I have too much left to stitch), True Virtue or Maria Short. I did plan on beginning Mary Garry's, Remember Me but now I am not so sure I'll begin anything new. I have way too many needles in fabric right now. And it can't be all fun and light over my vacation, I have to clean out a closet or 2 and re-organize my craft room cause I dismantled it during Thanksgiving when I started organizing it! I need to make a run to Staples and get some magazine holder thingies. I also have to finish painting a cookie plate for the Cadet to give to the lovely Jenna's Mom.

I've been thinking about what I want to accomplish stitching-wise next year. I think I am going to concentrate on finishing up a few of the things languishing around in various plastic bags. I've also pulled a bunch of patterns and put them in a special binder so that when I want to start something new, I'll have them in one place. And I am going to re-start My Home Town. And I also promised myself that I would stitch at least 6 ornaments next year cause I need some almost instant gratification. This year, I felt like I didn't finish anything so ornaments will give me that Happy Dance which I'll need while I plug along on all those big projects that I started in a fit of delusion. I really enjoyed the ornament that I stitched this year for the SBEBB ornament exchange and I sorta was sad to put it in the mail cause I wanted to keep it so bad!!! I stitched a Lizzie*Kate ornament from one of the Tiny Tidings series called Just Add Snow. It came out adorable! It was an easy stitch but it took awhile cause Lizzie*Kate's look deceptively quick.

And most of all, one thing for sure, I am working from stash next year. I am going on an austerity cross stitch budget. I'm counting on all of you to keep reminding me that I said I would stitch from my stash especially around February when all the new charts are released. Right now, I am lusting after the latest Needleprint Quaker, Mary Peacock. And The Essemplaire has posted the Quaker sister piece, Lydia Trump, to Ann Trump. I'd love to have it but I can't justify another $100 kit especially when I have Maria Spence (another beautiful Quaker sampler), My Home Town and Houses of Hawk Run Hollow kitted up in silk.

I haven't picked up a needle for at least 2 weeks. The David had a big team project / presentation for school (did I tell you he's going for a Masters of Arts in Teaching?) that I got elected to put together. It's hard to layout a presentation board when working with engineers and computer geeks. The David trusts me implicitely for my arty-farty design skills (my BFA in design and a $1.50 will buy you a cup o' joe) but convincing the other players was a hard sell that didn't work so well. Communication was lacking and they were not impressed with my design or my design skills. In fact, one of the engineering geeks commented the he took a poster design class. I think it was his way of telling me that I didn't know anything about laying out a presentation board. So, the David politely told all of them they could do whatever they wanted with their sections of the board and guess what! It looks like something computer and engineering geeks put together except for the David's section which looks like someone with an arty-farty design backround put together. I am glad that's over because it took every evening for two weeks and the entire day on Sunday. I was tired of the board, tired of gluing things down and tired of knowing that no matter what I did, the computer/engineering geeks minus my DH would hate it.

We got a hugh snow storm today, we got about 10 inches. It snowed all day. The roads were yucky and I thanked God for my 4 wheel drive, gas guzzling SUV. I wasn't scared driving today until I had to go down the very last, steep hill before I went up the hill to the house. When I got home, David was unhappy, cranky and really crabby cause his tractor died. Which is really bad because a) the driveway is 35o feet long from the barn to the road and b) we are staring down an N'orEaster this weekend that has the potential of dumping a foot or two of snow over Saturday or Sunday. And then we will get wind (I know we will) and the snow will drift which will force us to park the car and the truck at the end of the driveway which forces us to walk through the drifts and that just makes us more cranky and hating Winter. Geez...is it SPRING yet???? Anyone see any crocus? LOL!!!