I finished this up yesterday for a fellow charity stitcher. She had a little girl on July 15th after having twin boys 9 years ago. I’d say her daughter was a nice surprise! I had started this for another online friend, didn’t finish because the lady needed money toward a car seat more. I lost touch with her and tucked this away. Now it will have a new home soon! It’s a 100 page photo album (5″x7″). I mounted the stitching on white cardboard and glued it on. I had to use binder clips and heavy books to flatten it out. The card-well there are so many great Rachels in the entertaiment world, I couldn’t resist. And that is Jennifer Anniston as her character ‘Rachel Green’ from Friends. The baby’s last name has been erased for privacy’s sake. Opps-reprint time! I have ‘off’ instead of ‘of’ and no one here even notice.

This has been a fun site for me. I’ve talked to about 3 of the recent people (out of about 34) who have just signed up. As grown-ups they are pretty nice-just kidding. I knew the one lady from graphics class and working as an office aide. Another fella is a funeral director in the same town where Brian works a few days a week. I told another guy he hasn’t changed a bit (just his hair, but I didn’t tell him that) and he thanked me and told me I should go to the 30th next year so no one would gossip about me.
When you refresh the home page, a new photo appears and I happen to be the one on there this morning.

We’ve been pretty much laying low this week. Sean’s been going out running errands. I asked him to get not one, but two ink cartridges for the printer at Wally World Monday and he did and even paid for them! Nice to have him earning some money. He usually only works from 6-10, so he has his entire day to do what he wants.
I am watering the grass, I mean flowers every night. The weeds are terrible and it makes me feel like I wasted my time planting flowers this year. When the heat breaks, I’ll get outside and do the best I can. I shoulda mulched! I am so drenched with sweat, by the time I come in I either take a shower or put on my nightgown!
I talked to my uncle tonight. His speech is a little slurred at times and he takes a few seconds longer to answer me. He said he is sleeping and eating a little bit more. I told him I loved him and he said he loved me too. I almost lost it while I was still on the phone with him-I don’t want to do that and scare him. It’s so hard.
I did do a little home improvement today. I’ll end on that note. We use to have a wall phone on the dining room wall as you round the corner. I had found an old-fashioned looking phone and all anyone did was run into the thing. When I cracked my arm into it for the millionth time, I practically tore it off the wall. Brian took the circuit thingie and stuck it in the wall, put the metal mesh over the hole and spackled it. I finished it up and I must say, it’s not too bad. There are a few bumps, but my love of cross stitching has helped me to match up colors pretty well. If you didn’t know it was painted with another blue 9 yrs ago, then you’d never know.

In ode to the beautiful monarch! They are all over the place here-they must love the heat! I leave milkweed around (I have pulled up a bunch too). The monarchs love milkweed, so hopefully that is why I am seeing their gorgeous orange wings. The above image will be printed on card stock and I am selling it on eBay soon. My eBay page is in the side bar. I am also doing a peacock and ladybug card too. Some of the above images in the collage are my own.

I was looking in my old email account and there was a note from a fellow classmate about an alumni site our high school had set up. I have to give this guy credit for keeping a bunch of what’s left of almost 500 kids in my class rounded up. I went to the site and registered. It was only $10 to do so for a lifetime membership. I noticed that many other ’77ers’ had been there already! I uploaded a few pictures and wrote my bio. I always enjoy seeing what people are up to and what they look like. I even checked out my brother’s class. A woman from ’78 had written a book about the Bicentennial of the township I grew up in. I bought a copy (some of proceeds benefits the library I frequented quite a bit) and had it sent to my mom. I plan on borrowing it.
Other than web stuff, I’ve been tidying up in this dust bowl of a house. I don’t want to neglect it like this, but I’d rather be outside, but since it’s so darn hot, I’m happy pushing the duster around.

My uncle that is. His stepdaughter was telling my mom that he needs help with everything. He left the hospital to go in a rehab/nursing home facility on Saturday. He was told not to, but he got up to brush his teeth and fell in the bathroom and scraped his back. He’s so stubborn. My mom called me at 10:15 last night all emotional. There’s not really anything anyone can do for him. When the time comes, when we know for sure that all this is true (you always have hope for a miracle) then we will help clean out his house. Looks like if he is in there until the end (and his wife is in another place) that he will need the money from selling his house to pay for it. Mom said she could always count on him. But he is 83 yrs old and now her kids will have to help her.
Too bad he had to give up his woodcarving and painting-he was good! I have a few of his pieces. Pain is a wicked thing. It makes you lose interest in the enjoyable parts of life-even down to eating.
Wish him well, it’s going to be hard for him.

… I flipped on my little black and white tv in my bedroom to watch the wedding of Lady ‘Di’ Diana Spencer to Prince Charles. I think it was around 5-6 am and I don’t get up that early for everyone. Brian thinks it’s funny I watched this, but it was like a fairytale wedding to a young lady like myself. We all dream of finding our own ‘Prince Charming’. I was shy like Diana, I even got my hair cut to a similar short style as hers. At the time, her wedding dress was rather bulky when other brides were going for chantilly lace, etc. Here is a photo I always liked of the late Diana:

I made this with my 7 yr old niece in mind. I printed it out for her last night in hopes of seeing her today at a birthday party…

The guys couldn’t see my ‘ghostly’ face in the middle. Some of these are my own photos.