Solo September and TUSAL

I am excited to take part in Justine's Solo September SAL. I have been working on the Faces of Joan Elliott SAL for almost a year, and while I think it is very pretty, I am not enjoying it right now. In fact, I know if I stop working on it I may never finish it. Fairies are not my thing. I decided to make it for my cousin, so I was enjoying it for a while, but now that I am so upset with her, I am finding it less and less fun. So, if I commit to working on this project as my Solo September piece, I think I have a good chance of finishing it and not throwing it away.

I don't think I have ever worked on any project for a whole month so even though I am not loving this project, I am excited to see how far I get. This is where I am today. Just this square and two more to go. Then the all the backstitching and all the beading.

I thought I would finish this square today, but happily that is not the case. Happily? Well, I thought we would be trapped in our house because of Tropical Storm Hermine, but the weather was actually beautiful today. I hope this means that fewer people will suffer flooding, etc. For us, it meant we were able to enjoy a nice walk in the park. About to start watching a movie, so I still might get the x-stitching done before bed.

And here are my two ORTs for Daffycat's TUSAL.

The glass boot is what I use when I'm sitting in the living room watching TV. The little plastic bag is what I use everywhere else; on the train, in the backyard, during lunch at work, in the car. I hope one day it will be totally full. Wouldn't that be something?

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And the Heartache Continues

I thought I was starting to come to terms with my mom's passing. I know I will never get over it. I miss her constantly. But this week something happened that made it worse. We found out that my cousin needs surgery to correct a cerebrospinal fluid leak. The surgery sounds rather non-invasive and from what I can tell the worst possible complication is that it doesn't actually fix the leak and a different approach will be needed. 

Now female in my family has anxiety issues. Two of us treat our issues. We seek therapy and take mild sedatives as needed. My mother never wanted to take a sedative, but I thought I had convinced her it was in her best interest not to let little things like a washing machine not working properly get her to a point that her hands were shaking and she couldn't move the laundry from the broken machine to the working machine. I had begged and pleaded with her to take one pill each morning so when something upset her it didn't result in a full blown panic attack. She told me she would do it because she loved me. Each time she would call and seem a little flustered I would ask, "did you take your pill?" She swore she did. Regularly. 

So my cousin who needs the surgery was given a slightly stronger sedative because her anxiety is not being well controlled. She won't take it and her husband asked me to talk to her. So I did. I only want what is best, and I don't feel allowing your heart to race and your blood pressure to rise against the direction of the doctor is a good idea. Especially while you are preparing for surgery. So my cousin tells me, "Well, you know your mother never took her pill. She flushed them down the drain."

This has upset me on multiple levels. 

One - my cousin should have told me while my mother was alive. My mother was complaining about being tired, which her doctor and I partially attributed to the sedative. If we knew she wasn't taking it... So the thought keeps running through my mind, would she still be alive?

Two - I guess she didn't really love me. She said she would take it because she loved me, but she didn't take it. And she found it easy to lie to my face every day about it. And I can't ever get closure to this cause she is gone. 

Three - She told my cousin the truth. So I feel like she loved my cousin and trusted her more than me.

Four - Why would my cousin tell me this, now? You kept the secret while my mother was alive. Telling me might have kept her alive longer. But now you tell me why? So I know that she loved you more than me?

I'm sorry to have used this entry as a therapy session, But if anyone has any words that you think might help, please share. If anything, writing this down makes me realize I definitely need to go back to my therapist. And maybe get back on my anti-depressants. I guess the reason I wrote this is that I am working on The Faces of Joan Elliott SAL. I've been working on this for about a year as a gift for my cousin! Part of me wants to just throw it away. 

Time Still Moving Too Fast for Me

Still not sure where the time is going! One thing I do know is I have lost some time this week with the Olympics. I guess I am still a child of the cold war, and the Olympics mean everything to me. I've been thinking a lot about watching them with my parents back in the '70s rooting for the USA and rooting against the USSR. It's actually been bringing back a lot of great memories of time spent with my father. He was the one who gave me my love of sports, and we spent the most time together either reading, talking about books, or watching sports.

When I have not been sitting glued to the TV I've been getting in a little work in on my Faces of Joan Elliott SAL. I really need to get this done. Was hoping to get this finished and made into a pillow for my cousin's birthday in November.I think if I stick with it for a few weeks in a row I might actually pull it off. If not, hopefully it will be ready for Christmas... maybe Valentine's Day.

I've also used another of my aperture cards for a birthday card for my 12-year old cousin. Thanks to Annie and Jo for the card making suggestions! I will definitely be looking at the sites suggested for future cards. This one is pretty basic and simple, but since my family knows my lack of creativity, I think they will be very impressed (ha, ha).

We were not scheduled to attend her birthday party, so I didn't have a card. We were supposed to go away for the weekend, but my husband threw his back out earlier this week. He wanted to go away anyway, but our plans were to go hiking, which would have been impossible. I'm actually glad we didn't go away since the heat and humidity has been so high this weekend, even if he was fine we would have been sitting in the hotel room. No way I could spend time outside in this weather. So we saved some money and went to a local museum instead... And watched the Olympics!

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Where is the time going?

Wow, time has just been flying by. I feel like I blinked on July 1st and its almost August. Apparently, I totally missed last week :-( What the heck!

Anyway, I can happily report that I have finished my 12 Days of Christmas.

I am really happy with how it came out. And I'm looking forward to the temperatures going down, and my being able to start practicing with the sewing machine. Right as I finished, our temperatures (and humidity) skyrocketed. The sewing machine is in a non-airconditioned room, so it will have to cool off before I can start on that in earnest.

I finished mid-week and I decided to make a birthday card.

I really enjoyed making the Happy New Home card I made a few weeks ago, and now I am just obsessed with making cards! So, I decided to spend a week working on two more.

Also spent a bunch of time trying to find a good place to get aperture cards for finishing the cards off. So far I have only found Craft Creations with a nice selection. Would love someplace in the US, just to save on shipping, but it seems the US does not do crafts. Sad... Looked around Michael's yesterday considering the option of actually making the cards out of card stock... But I'm not sure I'm crafty, nor creative, enough for that. But hey, last year at this time I never would have been planning on sewing a pillow.

If you have any ideas for card making, or good online tutorials, please pass them along.

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Need A Finish - Need Something Happy

This week has been really difficult. So many horrible things happening. So much hatred. It makes me so sad. It makes me so confused. I just don't understand and it causes me so much heartache. I almost feel guilty posting about my stitching, but my stitching is practically the only thing that is making me happy.

And even my stitching is letting me down. The finish of my 12 Days of Christmas still alludes me. The trains are still very crowded, not providing me the opportunity to stitch on the way to work, and this week, train delays even wiped out my train stitching on the way home. Work has been crazy so although I got a little stitching done in the morning before starting work, I have not had time to take a full lunch so there has been no lunchtime stitching.

So, although I was able to finish the Eleventh Day...

a project finish still eludes me. I'm about halfway done with the Twelfth Day, so I feel confident that I can finish the day and the project this week. I've really enjoyed this project, but it's time for a finish.

Once I do finish this, I want to get back to the Faces of Joan Elliott SAL and finish that. Then I need to decide what's next. Definitely want to make some more cards. I really love the Happy New Home one I made and I really started to like the idea of giving homemade cards.

But for right now I just need to finish the 12 Days. Wish me luck!

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To Hear A Mockingbird

When we first moved into our house, there was a bird that would sit at the top of the utility pole right outside our backyard and sing all day. The fascinating thing was that he sang all different songs - one right after the other. I was just about to ask my coworker what kind of bird sings all different bird songs when I realized I was being an idiot, it's a mockingbird! I remember my mother actually saying that she was about to ask if I had some sort of a recording playing, before she realized it had to be a mockingbird. Hey, we were from Queens - what did we know about mockingbirds!?

That bird blessed that utility pole for the first three years and then suddenly was gone. I felt so sad and missed the constant songs. I kept hoping another mockingbird would decide that pole was the best place to go through his repertoire. I saw mockingbirds flying around the neighborhood, heard them occasionally in the distance, but until a few weeks ago none were close enough to really enjoy. Finally, one has decided to set up his studio nearby. He's not on our utility pole, in fact I'm not sure where he is, but he is close enough that I can enjoy his singing most of the day. It makes me smile.

While I've been listening to the mockingbird, I've been plugging away at The 12 Days of Christmas. Had another week that did not result in as much progress as I had hoped, but I did make progress. I finally finished the tenth day on Tuesday night. I didn't have time to get a picture when I removed it from the Q Snap, so I can't show the completion of Day 10, but here is where I got to on Day 11 so far.

Since the plan for the rest of the long weekend is sitting in the backyard (listening to the birds) and relaxing, I'm hoping to be near the end of the eleventh day by the end of the weekend. And I am just going to keep plugging away at it until done. Time to get this project from the WIP list to the 2016 Finish list.

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Where did June go?

Where did the last 20 days go?! I can't believe we are almost done with June and into July.

My cousin was in the hospital during the second week of the month. She needed surgery for a colon resection to treat her Crohn's disease. I spent two nights in the hospital with her so I didn't get much stitching done those days, nor the day after because I was practically in a coma. I do not understand how people get better when they are in the hospital. They do not let you sleep! Every hour they are in the room taking blood, checking vitals, changing IVs. One night I think we got three hours of sleep and the second night maybe two. She did recover from the surgery though, and thankfully went home before I needed to stay another night.

I did manage to get a little work done on the Faces of Joan Elliott SAL that week anyway.

From there I went back to The 12 Days of Christmas. The Ninth Day went really well.

During that week I had a day off and I finally turned on my mother's sewing machine and actually tried to sew with it. I got it threaded, and then ripped up an old tee shirt so I could use it to practice. I was so happy when I managed to sew a really straight line. I finally know that I can make a pillow. Still need some practice, but I can do it!

With that knowledge under my belt, I decided to keep working on The 12 Days until it is done. But this week was not a good stitching week. The train was really crowded, so I didn't get to stitch on the way into work most days. Work was beyond crazy, so I used the 15 minutes before work that I usually use for pre-work stitching, for pre-work work. Never took a break for lunch either. And I was even busy at home. But I made some progress, and progress is progress.

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