My father is back home again

I got 2 e-mails from my sister today.
dad is getting ready to go home either today or tomorrow. They thought he might have to take oxygen with him, but he won't have to do that. The pneumonia has cleared up, they gave him 2 units of blood over the weekend and he is ok from that and his appetite is back. They did do the bone marrow yesterday and he was not a happy camper over that. I don't know what the results were from that. They are going to have a nurse stop in once a week to check his heart and lungs. He does look better and says he feels better. They took out his staples and his incision has healed well. The pacemaker is working well and he wants to go home now.
Will keep you posted on the bone marrow outcome.
Then I got this one:
I just had a call from mom and she brought dad home this morning. He is a very happy camper and so is she. He is doing well. They did not get the report from the bone marrow and one the meds one of the docs wants him on they forgot to write a prescription for. Let's hope this is all his sick time for a long time.

My DH is still gone, he keeps running into little problems that come up after others are fixed. He's not sure if he will be home Thursday or not.

I haven't stitched much lately but I have been working on my April Easter Sampler.

March 25

It's so quiet in the house, no tv blaring. I very seldom turn it on when DH is gone, not much on that I like to watch anymore.

All of a sudden the temps have gone up here, it's been in the mid 90's and very humid during the day, only the high 70's & still humid at night too.

Saturday night I finished Easter Spots. I started that on the 18th. I used 32 ct. Angel Blush linen in place of the dark natural linen the pattern called for, and I changed the border color from a dull dark green to some floss called Cross My Art in pastel spring colors. It looks a lot better than the chart cover. I didn't use the silver trinket charm because I don't have it, but I don't like it either. Maybe I'll find a cute button or something.

When I finished that, I started my April Easter Sampler by The Monkey Works.

March 24

I called my father at the hospital the other day. He sounded ok but not his usual self, but I guess that can be expected when you are ill. He is doing much better but still has to have breathing treatments 2 or 3 times a day. He wasn't sure just when he would be going home.

There were pretty scary sounds the other night. DH was on the couch watching tv and I was on the computer. I heard a very LOUD BANG, I looked over at DH and he asked if that came through the speakers on the computer and I told him no. He went out on the patio and I followed him out. We could hear "popping" noises, he told me to get back in the house now. I froze. He went around to the front of the house and saw the guy across the street looking around too. He then came inside and went upstairs on the balcony and looked around. He came back and said he didn't hear any sirens so it must have not been much. We heard another loud bang and he went back outside. The guy across the street said he went up to security and asked what the noise was and they said it was "kids playing with fireworks". I kept hearing those loud bangs a couple more times. So far we haven't heard just what it was but kids do play with all kinds of fireworks here. It was pretty scary for a few mintues though.

I didn't do any stitching at all Friday. I just didn't feel like it. Still trying to figure out this XP & IE 7 thing.
DH leaves tonight for a business trip for a few days so maybe I'll get some serious house cleaning done.

Holding Hands

A very close friend sent this to me in an e-mail and it got my eyes damp, I just wanted to share it with you:

Holding Hands
This picture shows a line of little girls holding hands facing the immensity of ocean waves.
Alone they might be washed away, but together they stand strong.
Thank you for holding my hand somewhere along the way when I was facing a wave of my own. I hope you will reach for my hand when your own wave threatens.




All of us girls...
Old and young...
Near and far...
Hold special memories of good times we've shared.
We've had our share of hard times when our friends were there to make us feel better.
We've shared...
our hearts
our time
our secrets
our fears
our hopes
and our dreams.
Let us never break the chain of friends!

March 21

Dad update e-mail from my sister:

Dad did not have as good a day yesterday. He is still coughing up blood.but not as much or as often. They are going to do an endoscopy sometime today to see if it coming from the upper GI tract. A lung specialist saw him yesterday while we were there and they are going to start some respiratory therapy on him. He still has no appetite. The chocolate I left him Mon. night was still there yesterday. It didn't appeal to him. He must be sick. He is still getting 2 different antibiotics intravenously every 6 hours. Hopefully the tests today will give us some answers.


Then my DH says he's gotta go away for a couple of days on business, leaving Saturday evening. So I guess I have to go to the grocery store this weekend. Anyone want to come over and keep me company? 3 days of not having to worry about cooking, WOOOO HOOOO!

My sinuses still hurt, but not as bad as yesterday, that attack just came out of nowhere and hit me like a truck. At least the kids have been quiet today.


I finished another project this morning. It's a flip flop ornament by The Cross-Eyed Cricket, there is a whole series of them. I stitched this with Terry on the Needle Nook board. She sent me the lovely fabric to stitch it on. Now I just need to finish the ornament.

Late update

Today has been miserable, a sinus attack came on in no time, my head feels like it's going to blow off, my face hurts, my throat is dry and scratchy, I ache all over. Those snotty brats are all outside with whistles today, and chasing the poor cat with them. (edited to take out nasty bits)

Tracy's surgery did not go well, he is worse off than they thought. I am so heartbroken over this.

No more news on my father yet.

(Edited to take out the vent)

March 20

This is what my sister said in her latest e-mail: My father was FINALLY moved to a room 24 hours after going to the emergency room.

I went to the ER desk and made my displeasure known and am writing a
letter to the Administrator and Public Relations Dept. No lunch ever
appeared so mom went to the kitchenette across the hall and got him graham
crax and coffee He will be there until Thurs. because they are giving him IV
antibiotics because they can give heavier doses over a longer period of
time. He is looking and feeling much better and has stopped coughing and
spitting up blood. The reason they had him on respiratory precautions is
because they thought he might have TB. He is going to be fine. He did ask
the nurse if she could change the channel on his TV in the ER as he was
tired of looking at all those wavy lines. She looked at him like he was
nuts. I said he was just kidding that he knew it was the monitor.

I started another project yesterday, a Flip Flop ornament that I am doing with a SAL on one of my boards.

One more week for the month long stitchathons

Tracy from San Man originals is having his surgery today and I really hope everything goes well, I will keep him and Sandy in my prayers.

March 19

My sister sent me an e-mail last night that my father was taken to the hospital by ambulance yesterday. He was having trouble breathing and they found out he has pneumonia in the upper left lobe of his lung. They were going to keep him overnight to see how he does. Naturally my mother got him all upset and "cranky" while they were in the ER. I hope everything is ok because I don't think I can get there right now with all the cancelled flights to Central NY with all the snow. He just had hernia surgery last week and is recovering from that.

I got stitchy snail mail on Saturday!! I was so excited, that brightened my VERY miserable, upset day. I got a very nice package with 5 beautiful pieces of fabric and some craft foam from a friend that I am going to do a SAL with starting today. I am so excited that this envelope got through and wasn't even opened!

Sunday I also finished a small pointsettia ornament, it was part of a SAL on a board I post on. So another ornament done for my ornament tree. I also started another project called Easter Spots by the Trilogy.

Last week one of my kitties was sick, very sick, I thought she was going to die. Come to find out there is a pet food recall out and she had eaten one of the pouches that was in the recall. I was so upset to read this, I almost lost my kitty because of that. She is much better and is back to her normal self now.

A couple of other things have happened here but I am MUCH TOO ANGRY to even try to talk about it. Let's just say if this was any other country, these asshole brats would be in jail!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

We had our corned beef & cabbage dinner on Friday because Saturday starts the new work week here. It turned out pretty good, I got compliments on it from everyone who ate it. I had a regular 3kg hunk of beef that was soaking in the brine & spices since early February since they don't sell corned beef here. We'll be eating leftovers tonight.

Yesterday I finished Spring Awakens! I LOVE that fabric, it really makes the project so nice. Now all I need are the buttons for it. I wish I could get a better picture of it but it won't fit on the scanner.

Now to decide what to stitch next.

It looks like there is another winter storm hitting back home, lots of snow, rain & ice. Glad I'm not there to see it. It cooled off here the last couple of days to where I could keep the patio door open and get a nice breeze. I know it won't last long though and it will be back up in the 90's again soon.

March 15

Another surprise from DH. Apparently he bought me a new hard drive for this old computer. I didn't think I needed but one but it is very sweet of him. The only problem is a lot of the programs I have installed and use on this computer won't run with XP or I don't have the original CD's to re install them.

And another surprise this morning. He went to the grocery store early this morning to buy stuff for the corned beef & cabbage dinner tomorrow and brought home 4 HUGE, gooey, sticky YUMMY buns from Cinnabon and coffee for breakfast. What a sweetheart he is!

Day 2 update on Spring Awakens, I need to find a darker color blue for the words Spring Awakens.

And of course I hit publish and nothing showed up on my blog. 2 hours later and it still isn't showing up on my blog.

March 14

Another weekend here, it's Friday in my part of the world.

So far I'm doing good with my March goals, I'll just have to finish up the projects I start this month.
Yesterday I started stitching Spring Awakens by Stitchopolis on 28 count hand dyed fabric called Spring Awakens by Sassy's fabric. I'm using Weeks floss. This will probably be a quick stitch.

March 12

Well it looks like I made progress on my anniversary project and of course just when I start making progress it's time to start something else. Tuesday I'm going to start Spring Awakens by Stitchopolis on Sassy's fabric of the same name. Here is my progress on the anniversary project:

All day one of my boards was messed up, I couldn't get any new posts to show up and another board just wouldn't load at all. So I had to delete all temp files, delete cookies, clear history files, log out, log in, reboot my computer and my DSL box and finally things worked for awhile until I logged off the internet. Then the same thing happened again and I had to go through all that nonsense again. That is getting fustrating. It has nothing to do with re setting the clocks because we don't have time changes here.

March 11

WOOOO HOOOOO, I have vacation reservations!! Unfortunately I have to fly Air Farce, rather Air France and not British Airways. I totaly HATE air farce, their cabin crews are misesrable, rude and so very unfriendly, their food sucks and their airport is fucked up. But they were a lot cheaper than any other flights so I guess $$$ wins out again. I get HOME to the USA on June 1 and come back to this hell hole on Oct 18, 3 days before my 50th birthday which also sucks. Plus DH & I come back together and we do NOT fly well together, he annoys me and I annoy him when we fly. He won't come home until the middle of Sept, so I will have all of June, July & August to myself at home.

While I'm on the subject of sucks, I can't get to my e-mail today. It was fine earlier today but right now I can't get in. One of my message boards is also messed up again, but there is nothing new about that, it's always messed up for some reason or other. I am about ready to just stay away from that board until things get fixed. As much as I like the ladies there, that Yuku is just so messed up and it gets SO damn frustrating.

I made almost no progress on my anniversary project today. A few stitches here and there and that is about all. I did manage to count and grid to the outside border to make sure I had enough room on the sides of my fabric but that is about it. I did kit up another project called Spring Awakens by Stitchopolis. Maybe I will start that tomorrow.

March 10

Stitching update. I sat for 4 more hours stitching my anniversary project today and it doesn't look like I got very far at all. This is going to be a SLOW moving project. I need to pull out the bottom of the L in Pearl and add one more stitch to the side of it to make it even. I HATE having to do that. That blob under my name is supposed to be a flower but it just looks like a blob with green things stitcking out.

After 3 attempts to order something online then having my order cancelled I called the place on my cell phone and was able to place the order. I was trying to order something for my DS as a surprise, I placed the order twice and it got cancelled because of "missing or invalid credit card information" so I checked the information, re-checked, re-ordered and still got cancelled. I told DH about this and he said well when you re-order the item, order me one too. Ok, I reordered again with a different credit card and THAT got cancelled. So I called the place and ordered. The guy had no idea why it got cancelled and he didn't know what to do, so I placed the order again with a live person and it went through. DH checked both of the credit card statements on line and nothing had been charged except the last phone order and all of the information was right on both statements. Now I can't wait until my DS gets the order!
WOO HOO!! An update to the order, it's been shipped! I got an e-mail from them this evening. I can't wait to hear what DS says!

After sitting for almost 4 hours on Thursday re-charting my 30th anniversary project I just found the center of the motif I want as my focal point, found the center of the fabric and started stitching. I am going to center all the other motifs over and under the center one and just go from there, it will eventually be made into a bellpull. Here is what it looks like after 2 days of stitching. Not really much progress. I am stitching it on 28 count white opalescent lugana fabric with Anchor brand floss. This was a kit that I bought from an online shop.



My daughter enjoys cross stitching as well. When people post about new designs they see, we both usually look at them. We saw a new design the other day and we both like it so I think I am going to order it and we can stitch it together during the summer. That will be neat to do a mother/daughter project.

March 8

Finished the March blackwork project last night. I added all the beads. (I posted this at 10:05 Thursday morning and as of 1AM Friday morning it still isn't showing up on my blog)

I sat for 4 hours trying to re chart a pattern for my 30th wedding anniversary. I bought the kit but decided I just didn't like the ugly flowers or the colors of the flowers. I got it to where I could at least start it so I will add to it as I go along.

We tried to call Popeyes for dinner delivery tonight and they said they couldn't deliver until after 9PM because they didn't have a driver. I don't know how many times I tried to ask the guy when this policy started but he just kept saying "no driver until after 9" He had no clue what I was trying to ask. So much for ordering from there again.

March 7

I did manage to stitch a little bit. I started and finished this little ornament in 1 hour 15 minutes.













Ugh, I just don't feel like stitching today. All I have left to do is add the beads to my March blackwork project, about 80 of them, plus I want to start a new project but I don't know what I want to stitch. Here is the progress I made yesterday on it.

Another weekend is starting, basicly it's Friday here. I ordered pizza delivery from Papa John's. Whopee!!
I just hit publish at 1:57PM my time and the post didn't show up, so it must be Wednesday.

March 5

Yesterday was my grandson's 1st birthday and as usual I missed being there. I called to wish him a happy birthday and talked to my son. The baby started walking the night before his birthday. He just pulled himself up on a chair and took off! That must have been so cute! I sent him some Yankees outfits that I ordered online but he hadn't opened his birthday presents yet. He was also getting his own chocolate cake for his birthday. I did get to talk to James and said Happy Birthday. He very distinctly said HI!

I stitched on Scooba Dooba Saturday & Sunday and made a little bit more progress, now it is almost 1/4 done. It's getting too big to put o the scanner now so the pictures won't turn out very good.

Today I started my San Man March Blackwork SAL on the Needle Nook message board. This is the progress I've made so far:

That is what 1363 stitches look like in 4 hours 45 minutes. There was a bit of frogging involved too. I am using San Man strands Picnic in the Park floss for this months project. The color looks a lot better in person that it does here.

I spent most of yesterday updating my online photo website, adding and deleting project pictures and re arranging things. Now I hope I can keep it up to date. http://members.tripod.com/bedounlady-ivil/index.html

March 3

It's 1AM Sunday morning, there is a lunar eclipse out, almost 1/2 way complete and the morons are wailing away outside. Howling and wailing and screeching. What the hell is up with that? What is there to carry on about over a lunar eclipse?

My eye is swolen this morning, it doesn't hurt or sting, it's just swollen. These glasses must be so far off my perscription, they are bifocals but in order to see my computer screen I have to look through a very tiny part of the bottom of my lenses. Really annyoing.

While we're on the subject of annoying, these message board posters are getting on my nerves. They're away from the board for a few days or a week or so, they gotta dig up all the old posts from like 2-3 weeks ago and start posting to them so that all the recent new posts end up at the bottom of the page. I mean news and things that happened 2 weeks ago that is over or resolved and they post to it. Then they have to post to finished project pictures from the middle of last month and all they can post is 2 words, the same two words to EVERY project. So far I've opened up 3 posts that I thought were newly finished projects to find that they are from like the 10th of Feb!! But i suppose that is a great way to run up post counts.

I go to start supper and there's no water. DH gets home from the grocery store after saying he's going to pick up supper, gets home at 6:30 with steaks and vegetables saying let them marinade for a couple hours and we can cook them. 8:30!!! No wonder I can't go to sleep until the wee hours of the morning. I am so tired of eating this late.

I am going to stitch a bit on Scooba Dooba Saturday & Sunday. I got out the floss from the kit for my anniversary piece and put a couple stitches in 2 different pieces of fabric that I had chosen and neither fabric will work with the floss colors so I guess I'll stick with plain old white linen again.

Painful Friday

I guess I left my contact lenses in too long. I took them out today and my eye is so swollen and hurts. I think I go a piece of sand underneath my lens and didn't know it and it scratched my eye. My eye keeps running and burning and eyd drops don't do any good. This has happened before so now I have to wear my glasses for a few days. So much for being able to see to stitch.

I finished the stitchinng on my March sampler this morning and now I'm trying to do the finishing hemstitching on it. Hopefully I can finish it tonight and be really ahead on my projects for this month.
Despite my eye tearing up and dripping and hurting, I finished my March sampler.

March 1

Phew, what a stitching day! I started my SAL project at 10 in the morning, took a few breaks and finished the project at 10:30PM. 7:03 total stitching time, the project actually went fast. I'll get around to making the needleroll sometime. There were 1381 stitches in this, this is a great start to my stitchathon month!

Friday I will finish my March Sampler

It was grey and overcast today, very windy too. If this was anyplace else, I could have said it was going to rain, but not here.

Another Wednesday

And of course the internet is messed up. It seems to happen every Wednesday lately. It takes forever for pages to load.

I started another monthly Sampler project the other day. This one is March Lucky Leprechaun by The Monkey Works. I'm stitching it on 28 count hand dyed fabric with DMC threads. Here is what I have stitched so far. Only 3 more bands and the stitching will be finished.

March 1 starts monthly stitchathons on 2 of my boards so I've got my projects lined up. On the 1st I start a SAL project with another lady on CSC, America Needleroll by Eventide Designs. It is very nice and it looks like it will be a quick stitch.