… when you’ve just spent an intense week stitching 2 over 2 and move back to a 1 over 1 project make sure you’re using the right number of strands before you spend 90 minutes stitching.

Duh.

Pictures coming soon! (after I chase the frogs away)

White chocolate is my favorite chocolate in the whole world. Or at least it was. Kat and Mike went away for a long weekend of riding roller coasters and asked us to babysit their little boy, Pete. He fit in right away winding himself around our feet and making himself at home! He meandered around the house looking for any crumbs we may have left around for him to snack on. He wasn’t used to the 4pm walk to the bus stop, but hey, walkies at anytime had him quite giddy with excitement! Scott taught him a new game involving fetching a tennis ball and exploring the outside yard around our house. He was hip to the adventure! He got quite tuckered out his first night and did some snoozing on the couch like the prince he is! After Scott and I went to bed, Pete went upstairs and hopped on Maggie’s bed and slept with her which had her totally delighted! With him here being totally sweet and part of the family I couldn’t forget him when I did the grocery shopping. So I came home with a tug-of-war toy that we’ve all been having fun playing with him with. He likes it too! Here he is taking a break under our kitchen table with his toy. He’s also dumped it in the laundry basket and then rooted around in the basket snuffling to get it out! We’ve had a fun time Petey-sitting and will miss him when Mommy and Daddy come to get him!

It is clear that he’s homesick, though. He always goes right for the car when we go into the garage, making us think that he wants to go home, even though his house is right across the street. Silly, Pete!

… to myself. And here it is. Looks pretty cool, doesn’t it? It’s Bernadette Lusk’s Serenity Fairy from Heaven and Earth Designs; the chart I was practically singing about in my previous post from ages ago. Two weeks ago, I found some fabric that I had page gridded for another project. It’s perfect for this chart. The same number of pages in width and there’s more than enough height to accommodate it too. I adore the colors and watching the Klimt-like background appear. This chart, for lack of a better word, ROCKS! So what’s with the subject of my post? Today, while being a ballet mom, I recalled just what I had originally gridded this fabric for. It wasn’t for a HAED chart. It was for a Character Creations chart and Kerry’s pages are a wee bit smaller than Michele and Bob’s. (Ok, quite a bit smaller.) I came in the door, rushed to my stand, popped the fabric out of my hoop, laid it out flat on the floor, fended off the cats and measured. Then I looked at the chart again. I measured again. I cried. I have never made this mistake before.

So now I have to decide if I want to stitch this. I think I’ll stay away from it for a while and spend some quality time with the xbox and my DS for a bit. *whimperwhinesob*

The princess of the house has/is (hard to know exactly when as she’s a shelter baby) turning three this month. One look at this picture and you can see why she’s the princess, empress, resident goddess, supreme being, one-to-be-reckoned-with and lady in charge!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Nikki!

Happy 10th Birthday to you too, Fluffernutter, you scared ball of fluff!

Not the Serenity you may be thinking of, although you will hear things like, “I can kill you with my brain.” being stuck into conversations in this house more often than not being as there are Firefly fans around here. However, it’s Bernadette Lusk’s Serenity Fairy that’s been poking at me for a really really really long time. I positively love this background and know that I would never get bored with this. *sigh*

I believe I whimpered about needing some silk for Lady P’s Spanish Mystery Sampler. I have quite a bit more done, but that would require me to get up out of my chair and take another picture and I don’t have quite that level of energy yet this morning, so here’s my first picture for you to look at. It’s stitched 1 over 2 on 40 count Picture this Plus Thistle Linen with HDF’s Exemplar White Chocolate Silk. I am stitching the monochrome version of the chart. So when Lady P was talking about there being birds in this section of the chart I had no clue what she was talking about until I saw one of Nance’s WIPs. Then I got my clue. Thanks, Nance!

A month ago, I was a judge for the Northern VA Regional Odyssey of the Mind tournament. In summary, a team of 7-8 students, ranging from kindergarden up to college, get together to solve one of the six problems CCI has published for that year. My problem was #3, The Wonderful Muses. For regionals, we saw divisions I, II and III, which means Kindergarten through High School. These children were amazing! They sang, they danced, they acted, they built incredibly creative sets, they played musical instruments, one team had a victorian dress made from a plastic trash bag and another team engineered a rig that made their muse fly!

This past weekend, I had the honor of being asked to judge at the State tournament. This time, I only did division III, the high school level, as there were quite a few more entries and more than one set of judges were needed. Two of the teams we saw this day would make it to the World Finals. (No pressure on the judges at all… *gulp!*) The performances were spectacular… as a technical judge, it was hard to deduct points when we knew the teams had worked so hard to get where they were. After each performance, we talked to each team about their costumes, sets and performances and all the children were high on adrenaline and very willing to talk about what they had done. It was great to see that the arts are still alive in our children. I’ll be going back next year and years after. It was exciting to see and very rewarding!

I’m not going to post until I have a picture of part one of Periphaeria Design’s Spanish Mystery Sampler. My silk is due to arrive tomorrow or the day after and the mailman is being stalked! I’ve had quite the time getting my silk fiasco straightened out, but all is well and I hope to soon be stitching and will have a picture for you.

In the meantime, I’ve been stitching Mystery X and something I can’t blog about yet because it’s a birthday present for someone very sweet. It won’t be done in time for her birthday, but it will be done soonish.

So… I’m going to go back to my stalking of the mailman and working on a secret.