A little late as the new one is coming up tomorrow…
Today’s “Stitching Blogger’s Question” was suggested by Kimberly and is:

Do you always sign your projects? If not, why? If so, do you use your first name, initials or what?
I do sign everything. It’s my hard work and a unique piece and that’s true with all pieces because your stitching itself is a signature even though the pattern may be designed by someone else.
For the Love Quilts I usually do my first name and last initials and year. Mostly I do my initials and the year.

I would like to thank the people I know who are overflowing with Christmas spirit and have their homes decorated already. I have been admiring your lovely photos and getting ideas for my house. I do things in a little bit of a different order. I like to get the Christmas cards and photo/photo newsletter done first. A few years ago, it snowed at the beginning of December, so we threw on our red sweaters and took a photo. It turned out really nice. We took another one last year of the three of us sitting on the new red sofa. My idea this year was to have Sean sitting in his ’98 Taurus and us standing next to the car on either side. I don’t know if they like that idea. We may skip it this year. And the photo newsletter isn’t a brag letter (you know the horrible ones you get), it’s a few shots of us through the year. People know I like to take photos and enjoy this kind of update on us.
One thing I would like to do is decorate the tree in something other the multi-color lights and a mismatch of ornaments. Not to get me wrong, I cherish all of them, but I want a Victorian tree with no red on it this year-mostly pink and white and silver. I’ve been saving these gorgeous Martha Stewart ornaments for a while, so it’s my turn to do the tree as I please. Maybe just this once or whatever. I do most of the prep work for all the holidays, so that will be my reward.
My mixed feelings are the way people are handling gift buying. I was sickened last year by the people rushing in the stores before the crack of dawn to purchase the ‘popular’ items at various retail stores. The stores know what happened last year (and other years), but their greed gets in the way. What’s the holiday about anyway? I am hoping that people will learn and celebrate the holiday like it is suppose to be celebrated-surrounded by family and loved ones.

Well it’s been a heck of a ride these last few days. I have been doing more cleaning and moving stuff then I have done in years. We did get the new bed yesterday. When I stand up next to it, it cuts me in half, that’s how high it is. It’s going to take some getting use to. My 4 poster white iron bed frame was removed. The delivery guys said it ‘wouldn’t work’ (they were a bunch of Hispanic kids). I believe the bed is too high for it now. We have no headboard and the bed is in a corner. Brian thinks he can at least salvage the old one and I was thinking of making a fabric cover to put over it since it’s missing it’s top poles now. I really didn’t want a ‘footer’ at the end. The iron bars were getting so creaky anyway. When you lay on the new bed it feels like you are laying on dozens of those oval sponges. I’m not use to anything like that. I am sure I will love it soon.
Brian and I took mom home today. We stopped at my brother Ken’s so she could pick up her car. It was due for inspection and Ken replaced the rear bumper that mom had damaged. He is a master mechanic. He’s the brother (I have three) who is redoing his entire house. He is working on his great room/kitchen and doing most of the work himself. Today we found out that a neighbor’s tree in the back came crashing down on their deck, destroying that, all the furniture and the grill. The garage’s gutter is hanging off, and their new skylight is scratched. The neighbor never said anything (Ken has homeowner’s). It’s a hilly neighborhood where you can look up and see the neighbor’s backyards. I was sick when I saw all the damage. I almost cried, so I was glad to go over to mom’s house. Everything Ken does is self-taught. I am really proud of my handsome little brother.
When we went to mom’s we got busy raking leaves. I turned on the leaf blower and cleaned off the patio. We were out there over an hour and made a big dent in the leaves, but we are far from finished. I told Brian I would take him out to dinner, so we went to Ruby’s Diner. I had the best bacon cheeseburger ever.
When I got home, I wrote my first recommendation letter for a friend. She had sent me one from another mutual friend and mine paled in comparsion. Needless to say, I added to my letter. I hope my friend likes it.
The Extreme Makeover: Home Edition show tonight is one that a young woman from Tribe.net went to witness. She took many photos of all the people associated with the show. I’m anxious to see if I notice her in the crowd.

Surprisingly, I am not that tired. I can’t be tired anyway. I have too much to do for the bed delivery tomorrow. I cleared the hallway area (even of the pictures hanging there) and am working on the bedroom. I have bags of Christmas gifts in there, so they need to be moved. The dust bunnies are revolting! I think I have rounded them all up, and another appears around a corner! Tomorrow we will disasemble the old bed and clean under it. Hope I find some goodies (I see boxes under there).
Sean took Mom out to Walmart. No way was I going and getting in the mob scene of Black Friday. I really don’t have a lot left to buy for Christmas and I think I’ll do most of that online. We said we weren’t going to overdo gifts because of our trip to Florida in May.
This afternoon, Carly Simon and her kids Sally and Ben Taylor were on Martha Stewart and sang with their mom. I love the Taylors and have seen Sally in concert a few years ago (it was free at a nice shopping area). I also have signed CDs (thanks to my friend Laurie) from both Ben and Sally’s collections. Sally was wearing a dress she had knitted. It was different colors of brown rectangles, with mocha at the top and dark brown at the bottom. Martha commented on it and her nice figure. I should be an ‘honorary Taylor’ as I have loved James since I’ve been 13. I almost got to talk to Sally at the concert. She eyeballed me and that’s it as she left to sign CDs. I have left a message or two on her website and she responded to one. I said she reminded me of her dad’s sister Kate and she liked that.
That’s all the excitement for the day…so far.

Here I am in my lovely Martha Stewart ‘coming home’ poncho given to me by my pal Karin. I look a little tired as I had just cooked all day. But don’t ya all love it?

I learned that is was snowing from Sean looking at the radar on the internet. Sure enough, it was correct! The first snow of the season. It’s a little early for us and probably won’t stick around all day tomorrow. Sean has to get my mom and bring her out and she’ll stay a night or two, so I hope the inch or so melts by noon. On Friday we have to move stuff away from where the delivery guys will bring the bed. I started that venture earlier in the week. I also need to kill some dust bunnies under the bed the next day. And search for missing shoes, and what not.
Sean and I watched ‘Hotel Rowanda’. He had to read the book ‘The Bone Woman’ that the movie is based on. He had seen the movie in school, but thought I’d like to see it. It was pretty good, a little nasty in some parts, but good.
I had to watch the movie and two of my shows, ‘Lost’ and ‘Invasion’ in Sean’s room. He has a futon (fold up) bed and it’s not too bad to sit on, but not for 4 hours. I had the cat off and on my lap more than once too wondering what the heck was going on. ‘Lost’ was good tonight as the plane crash survivors from the back met up with those in the front and one set was a married couple.
I got some lovely birthday gifts tonight. My friend Karin sent me an authentic version of the poncho that Martha Stewart wore when she got out of prison, from Martha Stewart’s website. I can’t remember being that excited about a gift for a long time. It’s nice and long. I’ll have to pose with it on. And my friend Charlotte sent me delicious chocolates from Ireland and some have liquer center. Oh mama!
That’s about it for the night.
Happy Bird day y’all and eat a serving of stuffing on me!

In that order please. I got up this morning and went to turn on the tv in the family room-no picture. No amount of fooling with the remote helped. Brian called and said he had watched tv this morning. I broke down a few hours ago and called a few places and one quoted me $100-125 to fix the transmitter. They both said it was the power supply. This is the first problem we have had with this tv. Bummer with it being Thanksgiving tomorrow.
I’ve been cleaning my arsp off too. Finally resorted to the clothes basket dump-throw all the odds and ends in a clothes basket for sorting later. I can’t believe the amount of stuff in my kitchen. Brian keeps buying huge cans of coffee and I have no cabinet space for them or lots of other stuff that is piled under the wall oven. I am desperate for a new kitchen. I keep entering contests and have no luck!
The mincemeat pie is baked (ugh) and I put the pumpkin into too hot an oven and when I went to check it, some splashed over the side. Not pretty. I hate when that happens. The house smells so good. Those smells are some of the best parts of any holiday-baking takes me away better than Calgon.
The best thing about today is that I sold some Snoopy flags for over $30! I have a nice collection of flags, but the pole didn’t like the stucco, so it fell out all the time. Since I can’t use them, eBay seemed like the right venue for them. I was right!

I’m trying to make room for people to walk in the living room. I still had the books from Saturday and the last book sale piled high between the living room and dining area. We really don’t use our living room. It has a little floral Victorian settee covered with teddy bears situated in front of the fire place. In front of the settee is a little curio table with goodies displayed inside not to compete with the tall curio cabinet in the corner next to the fireplace.There are teddies under a sofa table too. Then I have a roll top desk (painted dark green and bought new) and an old opened hutch that belonged to my great aunt that I had painted mauve about 10 years ago. I saved that piece from my mom’s basement. I may paint it again to go better with the desk. It sounds cluttered, but I do rearrange and switch out the teddies, especially at this time of the year. So on either side of that hutch are my 50+ hardback cross stitch books. I am gathering them all together to sort and inventory. I have to see if I really like them all enough to keep. I was telling Barbara (Mainly Stitching) that I have gone to one too many book sales and discount book stores. I go to them now and I hardly ever buy anything related to cross stitch-I have most of them I guess. If anyone in blogger world is looking for any hardback cross stitch book and I have it, maybe I can cut you a good deal.
The ‘neat’ person that is hiding in me wants to get things organized. We have people coming in the house and I need to clear a path, to where the cable guy may go. I need help with that. Then the new bed is hopefully coming on Saturday. I am counting the days.
I’ll ‘bake’ the frozen pies tomorrow and clean some more. A bomb looks like it dropped in the kitchen!

I wonder how many people bought the TV Guide this week to get the 3D glasses for ‘Medium’ tonight? I think it’s a cool concept, but maybe I was too far away to really appreciate or see the whole effect of it. I should have been sitting like 2 feet in front of the tv. I am near-sighted and I could never get those books that were popular a few years ago, also 3D or you were suppose to see the design moving. I usually felt half sick trying not to blink.
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I went out in the rain to food shop. I really didn’t want to go. I was hoping it wouldn’t be too crowded and it wasn’t at all. I had a coupon for $18 off if you spend $180. With Thanksgiving looming and it being over a week since I shopped, I had no problem spending that. I even treated myself to some flowers for the dinner table. I figured they were free.
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When I got home I made a batch of chili in about 20 minutes, took care of laundry and getting the flowers in a vase so I could see Oprah’s holiday giveaway show. I am so glad that the audience all helped in the Katrina relief effort. They got some awesome things like a video Ipod and a desktop computer. And a diamond watch.
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My house doesn’t look like it is ready for company. It’s just going to be Brian’s dad and my mom, though the guys are squawking at having to go get her that day. She really isn’t able to drive herself 45 minutes. I was even thinking of us eating and then taking mom and Jim dinner and having dessert with them. Brian thinks I will be too tired. He may be right, I know what time of the month it is (perfect timing) and I haven’t felt great all week. Wish me luck because I need it!
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My friend Vikki from Philly sent me some lovely things for my birthday today. She handmade me a silver beaded bracelet with teal beads (can you tell I like that color?) She also sent me a scissor fob made from beads and homemade beads. I’ll have to take a photo of them. I appreciate getting a sharp pair of scissors too. I can’t forget the little Uncle Sam button she also made that will go on something Patriotic. Thanks VG! We’ve chatted a few times on the phone lately which is nice, but my father-in-law keeps interrupting us-every time!
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Gonna go watch Jimmy Carter on the Tonight Show, one of my favorite ex-prez and all around human. I wrote a paper about the election back in 1976 and got an ‘A’ on it, so I’ve admired him that long!

Stitching Bloggers’ Question of the Week

How do you feel about staying totally true to a pattern? Do you feel that you have to rip out stitches to fix a mistake or do you feel it’s acceptable to incorporate a mistake into the design?

I would say I do stay true to the original pattern. Usually the colors are the main attractions to the design, correct? But if I wanted to change something, I have no trouble doing so.
I only rip out stitches if they totally screw up that area of the design. I will work around something if it’s only known to me that it is the incorrect color and still looks good.