Category Archives: Brian

Feb12

So you want to be a designer

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I was seriously thinking about this today-being a cross stitch pattern designer. I have a few programs, but what is blocking my mind is what to design? Mushrooms, Amish or primitives are things that pop in my head. Mushrooms, because of where I live and there is a store in the next town that sells mainly mushroom related things (they are the ‘Mushroom Capital of the World’) and each year the Mushroom festival in September gets a little bigger. Tourists do check out the store. What to do? See…I get stuck. And I live close to Lancaster, PA-Amishland, but I know a few well known designers have Amish designs. I visit so many cross stitcher’s blogs and I notice what you like to do. I don’t want to copy anyone else’s designs (and I wouldn’t but I mean taking their ideas), but I know I can be inspired by century old samplers like they are. Any input would be appreciated. I think I could do this if I put my mind to it!

We are getting a bit of a snow event, not a foot or anything, but maybe an 1 inch with some ice tossed in. I worry about Brian driving around in it.

Tomorrow at midnight I pick my One World-One Heart winners!!!

~By the way~people have really been clicking the links on the left to help feed children to rescuing pets-awesome!

~Update-I’m calling it ‘Toss it Tuesday’. It’s our third week of trying to pare down the amount of unless, dusty junk boxes that are taking up valuable space in the basement. The problem is everything is covered with that cat litter dust. I had asked Brian to switch to something else and it looks like he is back to the dusty stuff! Arrghh! What I do is put a load of laundry in (I only do about 2 a week) and while that’s washing, I start digging through the stuff. I do need to save some of the boxes for eBay (hey I found a ton more!) My guys are great at tossing electronic equipment boxes down there and leaving them after the alloted 3 month time to keep the box is over! I’m not going to talk about magazines and baskets right now, or tins or stuffed animals….

Thanks for your input Jennifer, I’ll check out the various sites for inspiration. 

Feb10

Two finishes!

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Since it was such a brisk and good day to stay in, I made two flat holds out of cross stitched projects. I will post Ground Hog Day and my works in progress (Giggles in the Snow and Zebra) throughout this post. Watch for the other hopefully in the next week or so! I will say that I keep Von’s tutorial for making these up on the screen so I could refer to it many times. I can’t wait to try her other items! Please visit her at The Twisted Stitcher to see the awesome basket she just finished off!

Ground hog day flathold

Ground hog day back flat fold

I made little messes in almost every room, even Sean’s as his dad needed his bank statement for his taxes. Sean has the exact statement they need up at school with him and his dad needs it now. You have to do your income taxes before you can apply for grants, etc.

Giggles in the Snow progress

Speaking of Brian, he went to visit his dad on this freezing, blustery day. I made some meatballs as I had defrosted the ground turkey over the last few days. I’ll eat some tonight and tomorrow with him! I have some lobster ravioli I’ll toss in the hot tub! (Rachael Ray’s expression)

Zebra update

Last night, I watched Casanova, a movie that Heath Ledger starred in about 3 years ago. I had only seen him in Brokeback Mountain. He was so talented and had so many more roles to fill-so sad.

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Erika’s fairy ATC card
For Erika, a little sick girl I read about on a Flickr group who would like some fairy art. My little calendar had fairies on the 5th, so I turned Becky Kelly’s fabulous watercolor into an ATC for Erika.

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A little bit ago, I answered the phone and it was a lady from a breast cancer org. I think they have been calling here for weeks and then hanging up! There is no number displayed on the caller ID. Does anyone else have that issue? I asked how she had gotten our # (unlisted) and she said the computer dials until they get a connection! So I heard BC and I told her about me and how we are paying a fairly large sum out of pocket for my procedure. She asked if I was ok and I said yes. But I did say that I click on the BC link on my blog everyday so women can get free mammograms, my little way of helping out.

Feb8

The Bucket List

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Since two of my pals Pea and Zoey did this, I thought I’d play along. Anyone else who wants to do theirs, go ahead!

There are no rules except to give your list of five things you want to do before you die, based on the movie “The Bucket List“.

  1. I’d like to see my only child happy in his life with a good job, wife and children, preferably 3 granddaughters, but I’ll take what I get. : )
  2. See more of the USA, especially the west coast where my paternal family lives in Oregon. Funny, but I feel a need to see it!
  3. Have a genuine crafting area where I can craft to my heart’s content! Maybe design a big selling item.
  4. Volunteer more as an older adult. I use to do this at Sean’s elementary school and church, but fell out of it.
  5. Meet my online friends, though I’ve met 3, but there are so many more I’d like to meet. ; )

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Our internet has been acting flukey, and I had to call Comcast for a ping or whatever they call it. I was in the middle of writing the above meme and off it went. The tech said it sounded like a local problem, not our system.

Woke up about 5 am with a terrible sore left thumb/wrist area. I used Icy Hot (that stuff is worth it’s weight in gold) and it helped. I did wrap it up a little while ago. I couldn’t find the wrist bandage, but one for every other joint! I think I lifted something heavy in a funny way as my scar was hurting too. I bet it was my purse!

Whoopi Goldberg wants to lose weight. Even though she weighs less than me, we have almost the same measurements, though my chest is 2 inches bigger, but hey girl, I believe in support garments! The guy that is helping her believes in resistant training over aerobics and of course he was showing those band things you put around your foot and pull with your hand, something I can’t do right now! I plan to go for a little walk soon.

Feb6

Can it be?

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There is a hint of spring in the air on this, the 6th day of February! It’s 66 degrees right now. That’s the only nice thing about the day so far as it’s been gloomy.

I finally packed up Sean’s Valentine Day goodies-had to use the box my tea kettle came in! Funny thing, everything fit in perfectly! While I was getting the box, I did a little power cleaning for an hour in the basement-ugh. I was also looking through my old papers in hopes that the autographed John Travolta photo would pop out! It didn’t. Darn. I did find some journals I wrote and will check them out to see if I’ve changed that much in 30 years! ~LOL~ And don’t worry, I had a dust mask on, but my eyes were suffering. Brian has a nice pile to add to the trash this week including my old biology papers! I can’t seem to part with the Early Childhood Education papers yet.

We are suppose to get some bad weather that effected the southern states overnight (tornadoes down there). Since it’s Ash Wednesday, I requested pizza. We decided to try to give up McDonalds and similar places for Lent, but figure Subway is ok. Bri mentioned pizza, and I said it was too much of a staple during this meatless Friday time. I don’t agree with that, but go along with it. My thing during Lent and throughout the year is doing things for those who are less fortunate.

Still working on the zebra cross stitch (which is a charity item) but had to rip out his butt section as I was making him too short! His body is white, off white, dark brown and medium brown and it’s easy to mess it up. His head wasn’t that bad to do. And to think I have his little brother next to him to stitch too!

It looks like we’re going to get rain sometime this evening.

Feb5

Tuesday already?

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So I completely skipped yesterday-not really! Had to get a truck load of groceries and was so not in the mood to do so. I want to get a goodie box to my sweetie son for Valentine’s Day ready to go and found that Brian tossed all the bigger boxes! Shoeboxes are fine, but I don’t need that many of them and they are usually heavier and too small to mail.

Speaking of which-does anyone want any Altoids tins? I have about 20 maybe and if you love to use them in your crafts, let me know. I swear by Altoids for a stuffy head and use a tin a week.
I’m going to the eye doctor at 2:30-please send me some good vibes. My mom thinks I’ll be fine. I sure as heck hope so. I’m after Brian to go for his bloodwork and then I have to go get my paperwork for mine. 1.5 years is too long to wait. I started taking Vitamin E a few times a week and I think I feel a bit more energetic. Hope that’s it or the disco dancing (kidding again-but when Brick House comes on the radio-watch out!)

Big election day in the country. I don’t usually discuss politics or religion here, but the election in November will be history making for the Democrats.

Something funny (thanks Joy):

A woman’s remote

Update-
I went to my regular eye doctor and he thinks I also have ocular hypertension when the eye pressure is up for no apparent reason. The nurse said that I should watch using Flonase that contains steroids as maybe I fall into that group that is sensitive to it and it sometimes causes eye pressure to go up. In two months I have to get the pressure rechecked (21 and 24 today, should be 22 and under) and get the thickness of my cornea measured to see if they are getting a false readings. He doesn’t think I have glaucoma because my optic nerve and peripheral (side vision) are fine. If I continued to have abnormal high or it gets worse, I will probably eventually have to use drops. That’s aging for you.

For Fat Tuesday-I have some NY strip steaks defrosting! : )

Jan30

Sunny roses

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On Tuesday I mentioned how nice it would have been to receive flowers from Bri the day before as I had been to the eye doctor and was a little bummed. Last night I got these (my favorite color too!)

Yellow roses

And since I was on the floor next to this pile photographing the flowers, thought I’d share:

Garden Books

I better get busy going through these! I signed up for some garden catalogs and got all three yesterday. Honey Girl Studio used hers for Art Trading Cards and I may copy her idea, though there are a few things I want to make a note of.

Then for those of you who didn’t know, we have a mascot for the PA lottery-Gus the Groundhog. Some west coast friends sent for this calendar and never received it. So here he is:

January Gus

The wind woke me up today-it’s wicked. Soon Mr. Cosmo the kitty came in and snuggled next to me. He’s my alarm clock too. Unfortunately my sinuses feel like they are full of cement-heavy though very dry. A friend suggested a vaporizer. I use to have one for Sean who suffered until he was 10 with winter respiratory illnesses (knock wood). So I may have to locate the old one or buy a new one. My above friend uses a warm mist one every night and it helps her and she has gorgeous skin!

Jan24

How many middle-aged people…

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…does it take to unplug and plug the modem box? Two! Seems yesterday our signal went from good to nothing. I tried what I had in the past, but it didn’t work. We have two boxes here, as we have the phone over the internet and got the box so we could have a wireless connection for Sean. The phone was fine. Brian couldn’t get it to work this morning so I got on the phone with Comcast. All I had to do was unplug the power cord in the ‘newer’ box. Holy Toledo-it started to work and a lot faster too. So now I know. The wires and cords are such a jumble, I thought for sure something came unplugged or was hanging on by a thread.

Yesterday I decided to list a few things on eBay that I had found in my closet cleaning efforts. I also listed some stuff for Sean, one of which was a 6-CD set of classical music that corresponded with a text book. I sold the CDs right away. I was sorry I didn’t ask more for them now! I have my own 15 or higher piece set of classical music so I didn’t need these too.

I also made some ATCs for a new challenge. I got the idea from Honey Girl Studios. Take your catalogs and clip them to make the cards. I found it was easier to look for say, all red items or candles. I had fun making them and will post soon.
Not sure what to do today, but I so need to go out someplace, so I hope the weather stays ok. I’m not one to have to run out everyday (believe me, I know women around here that hate to be home-isn’t that crazy?) Here’s hoping the weather holds out!

Sean is looking into internship. He mentioned that one of his profs will have one out in California in the redwood area. That would be expensive for us. He did find something locally and emailed the person in charge. I think he should keep his options open and if he wanted to go out of state, then he’d have to save up money to do so.

Have a great day!

Jan22

Finally

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I was happy to hear that my friend Carole finally received her birthday gift-almost 2 weeks after I mailed it. Her birthday was in October, but my crazy life (LOL) got in the way (and it was more involved than it looked), so I finished it up this month and off it went. She really liked the flat fold (the first one I ever made). It was made to commemorate her special birthday last year. Thanks to Vonna over at The Twisted Stitcher for the tutorial. : )

Carole’s flat fold
Design-The Prairie Schooler-Seasons-Book #50. Changed the top-it was suppose to say ‘autumn’ but I put the year instead.
Side view:
Side view

This is the 100th project listed in my Cyberstitchers gallery!

I just noticed that when I was adding these photos that WordPress has now given us 3 GBs of photo space! Yeah. : )

Have a pleasant Tuesday. I’ve been dusting and tidying up. Seems the old drywall dust has settled all over the house. I felt like I was getting my cold back last night and it occurred to me I didn’t use any form of nasal spray yesterday. Bad girl! Brian is still coughing a lot, mainly in the morning. I’m calling out ‘Chloreseptic’ (sp) which helped me. Oy!

Jan22

Brrrrr

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It’s so cold around a lot of the country these last few days. I really bundle up when I have to go out. My newest coat with the down is super warm. It helped me in my ice cold van on the way to the eye doctor in Wally World this afternoon. I didn’t think I’d be able to go as I had some tummy upset in the morning, but I was ok by the afternoon. I only needed a slight adjustment to my lens, so I have the option to get new specs or not. The only ‘problem’- the pressure in my eyes was high normal-over 20. I am going back next Monday for a quick check of that and may pick out new glasses. If she feels I need to go to my regular ophthalmologist, then I will. I told her I had my eyes checked in August for dryness, they did the same test and didn’t say anything. She replied you can’t get glaucoma in 5 months. Brian joined me and his eyes are good. He can swing by with his drugstore glasses for reading.

My brother is getting a dumpster at my mom’s and is really going to toss a bunch of stuff. She seems ok with it. I volunteered to go through boxes, but I can’t lift stuff. He said he’s not going to do it all at once. I hope it helps her a lot. I know she worries about it a bunch. Now to keep her out of the stores. Brian doesn’t think it’s solving the problem as she’s a hoarder through and through. I applaud my brother for taking action.

More tomorrow.