A whole skein of DMC 3823!

I'm really loving this lady! It's alot of fun to stitch using these beautiful colors. I was able to fill in the background and finished one whole skein of DMC 3823 and took a picture. I've always wondered how far one skein goes and this gave me a great idea since it's pretty much solid stitching.

My camera isn't that great at capturing the detail and then the sun was really bright on the bottom left corner but here's another picture of the whole picture up to the same point:

It's nearly completed and I'll have the backstitching and beads to complete. I've decided to give it to my aunt, her birthday is next week. She'll have to receive it late but I know her reaction will be well worth the wait. Aside from my mom and sister, she is the recepient of alot of my stitched gifts and she has them all hanging on her walls.

Now that nursing classes have begun again, my stitching time has quickly diminished but I am determined to push forward. Keep praying for my endeavors!

Happy 15th Anniversary

We wouldn't have an anniversary if it weren't for our son. He's the glue that has kept us a family unit though all the rough times. He's such an awesome kid that we couldn't break up this family during the toughest times, but we have since made a commitment to stick and stay and so now the rough edges are smoothed out and we have a great family environment now.

I never thought we would make it to 5 years of marriage and here we are celebrating 15 years! The last 10 have been much better. Big Ray has let me know how much he loves me and how much he doesn't want to start over without me. And now, we are beginning (continuing) our medical studies next week and are very comfortable being together round the clock.

We celebrated with dinner at our favorite restaurant, Outback Steakhouse. We are regulars there so even if we're not celebrating, that's our choice to go out for dinner. The staff, although it changes periodically, always remembers us and they gave us a complimentary dessert of a sampler of carrot cake, brownie, and cheesecake. We sat in the bar area so we could watch the first half of the opening NFL game: New Orleans Saints vs. Minnesota Vikings and Bret Farve. Happily, the Saints won.

When we got home, my son and husband gave me an anniversary present. They gave me a medical scrub top that has hearts on it (and really great pockets). That is such a thoughtful and very practical gift and I was completely surprised that they thought that out. They are great guys, worth keeping!

Happy stitching and new pictures will be posted soon!

Look what we ate!

I took a picture of the pineapple upside down cake that I baked for my son's birthday. The first picture is the setting of the pineapples and cherries before I poured the batter in my favorite Pampered Chef 9X13 baker. The next pictures are after it was taken out of the pan, followed by the lighting of the candles.

I also took a picture of the lasagna that I made. He wanted 2 lasagnas because there is never any left over. He was right, there was none left over from one pan and we had a whole pan left for the next day.

Again, I used my favorite Pampered Chef pan for one of them. I cannot tell you how many meals I have made in this pan, and all the pineapple upside down cakes that have been baked in this. It's funny because the men in my family that I bake birthday cakes for all request the pineapple upside down cake. And they also want lasagna: my son, my husband, my brother-inlaw, and my dad before he passed away. My nephew requests the cake but not the lasagna, he prefers to go out for steak. What's wrong with that guy????

I failed to take a picture of the toasted French bread that my husband made in the cast iron skillet. By that point, I was ready to eat and not thinking of pictures. It was delicious!!

I'll go ahead and show you the cinnamon roll I made for breakfast on my son's birthday. (Okay, it wasn't his whole breakfast - it was a treat).

I thought it was funny that my husband stuck a candle in it. We were in a hurry to leave for school. Silly guy!

What a fun day his birthday always is. Here's to many, many more! Susan~

August 30th - The best day of my life!

On this day, 14 years ago, my life changed in ways I'd never imagined or dreamed of. My little boy was born and since that day, my heart grew so much and keeps growing every single day with love for this guy. He is such a sweet thoughtful, kind, compassionate, funny, smart, loving and caring guy. Everyone told me to wait for the terrible two's, wait til he turns a teenager. But not this guy, he defies the norm. He's always been a very loving person to be with and I miss him when he's at school or away for whatever reason. He's a great conversationist and never lacks for something interesting to talk about and easy to laugh with. But what really makes him special is his heart. He has a heart for God, then his family and somewhere down the line, himself. I have no doubt that he will be incredibly successful in all that he does in life and will have many friends and family to support his endeavors. I thank God for him everyday and can't believe I have such a special person so dear to my heart. Thank you God for this beautiful blessing, every single day. Happy Birthday sweet son!! Love, Mom~

Here's my Art Nouveu Lady WIP

With the beginning of football season comes the beginning of a new project. I chose this Art Nouveau Lady from a British magazine, designed by Lesely Teare. I thought the colors were beautiful and reminded me of summer. So, starting with the Hall of Fame game with the Dallas Cowboys, I began and got 5 hours of stitching accomplished.

Here's my progress after another 10 days of stitching:

When I got to this point (above picture) I realized something wasn't right. The colors weren't as pretty as the picture and were kind of dull. It wasn't until then that I referred to the color picture and saw that many areas have the wrong symbol and I'd been stitching the wrong colors.!!! First off, the outline that I initially started with is the wrong color. Then, the bosom of the dress is yellow and right where I was starting the highlight of the dress (below the forearm) it is charted with the darker flesh color. That's when I didn't like what was going on. Come to find out, the dress where I started stitching her knee (above her forearm) is not the right shade of orange. Plus, the orange outline inside the blue circle is the wrong color too!!! Guess what! I frogged all of it and began picking out the colors that closely matched the picture.

So...after all that disappointment and sending off an email to the publisher (they are looking into the situation), here's my new progress:

I estimate I'll have it done in 2 weeks. A little late for me because my husband and I are headed back to nursing school and once it starts, there'll be very little time for stitching if any at all.

Wish me luck on all endeavors!

By the weekend, I hope to have filled in the light blue background and then I'll add the features to her face and detail of dress. I am loving this design! Happy stitching!!

Vacation's over but was fun!

We had a great time on our vacation! Fell in love with the great-grandbaby girl and got to babysit her many times. She's going to be a talker and a sweetheart. She has a sweet disposition and is very spunky and coos all the time. She made a great first impression on us as she loved us and laughed at us and all the faces my son made at her when we met her. They bonded really well and I was impressed with how protective he was of her since he is only 13 yrs old.

Here's the great-grandpa pretending to bite her little tiny fingers. She loved playing with him!

And here's the finished and framed pieces I stitched for this sweet baby:

And for my brother, I finished the binoculars and was able to give him the stitched piece along with the binoculars we used as kids on so many of our vacations and camping trips. There are many, many memories tied to those binoculars and the case. I could never get them back in the case properly and always had to rely on my big brother to put them in nice and neat. Even now as an adult, I still find it tricky. I didn't frame the piece since I hadn't been to his new house and didn't know what frame would work best so I left it to my big brother and his creative wife to take care of that task. :-)

Here's a thrift store find that I got for my mom: a copper kettle for $3.99. I knew she could clean it up and make it look spectacular and that's exactly what she did and now she's showing it off on the kitchen table for now.

It was really fun to be in Dallas and see family and friends. The trip was 10 days long but flew by in the blink of an eye. My husband, son and I were all very sad to leave but also ready to get back home to our own spaces. It didn't stop us from touring some neighborhoods for possible places to relocate in the future.

See ya later Big D! Until next time...

We made it to Dallas!

No pictures on this post, but just a note to say that we made it to Dallas in one piece! We had such an adventure traveling. The day started out lovely, some clouds in the sky then it started to get thicker darker clouds, then the most beautiful dark blue/grey stormy skies. Those dark, dark clouds turned into big rain drops. I was driving and when I turned on the wipers and they streaked across the windshield because of lack of use! We happened to be in a mountainous area, no towns or exits for hundreds of miles around. All it was was just rain, mountains and 18-wheelers.

Cars were pulling off the road to wait out the storm but I kept forging ahead. The storm was so bad that the road wasn't even visible! Honestly, for long periods of time I could only see the white line right in front of the car and knew I was still on the road!

There was an orange 18-wheeler in front of me and I kept my eye on that because I couldn't see the road at all from the fierceness of this storm. There were a few times that I lost sight of the big rig even though it was only about 50 feet in front of me. When I lost sight of the truck, I just kept the steering wheel straight and relied on God to keep us on the road. It was such a scary experience but I knew the road was pretty much straight and there weren't any cliffs so I figured that if we did get off the road, we would just be driving on the ground and not down a ravine.  Once we got through to lighter rain, I relaxed, then realized that I had to pass some other trucks that were spraying water so bad that I couldn't see again! Ah well, by faith, we made it and have a story to tell and are so happy with our survival and our vacation.

When we were able to finally pass that 18-wheeler, my husband rolled down the window and pretended to "text" thank you to the driver and waved. He said the driver was laughing and waving back. He was obviously relieved he made it as well!

Before the storm started I noticed the temperature was dropping quickly, once we emerged from the heavy rains I saw the temp had dropped down to 68 F, that was a 30 degree drop! I don't know what it was during the actual storm itself. When we arrived in Dallas, at night, it was 90 degrees, but completely clear skies. So many lights and businesses and excitement! We are so happy to be here, even for a few days.

BTW, mission accomplished on the binoculars. It is all stitched and I brought the binoculars that we had as kids to give to my brother along with the stitched piece. I will take a picture of them together when I give it to him tomorrow. Happy weekend!!