Still stitching...

I just finished a beautiful project this weekend while we were visiting Wenatchee. It is for my ANG Master Teacher project so, of course, I can't show a picture. :) It's called "Arabesque"...

I've been writing instructions, working on stuff around the house, and just doing a bit of traveling.

Victoria had a swim meet a couple of weekends ago in Pasco and did great. She's still about 10 seconds away from having a Bronze standard swimming time but she's trying! She finishes every race and does great in her relays. She's thrilled that this week is her last week of ballet for the year.

Today Madeline and I went to the Pacific Northwest Ballet's Director's Choice today. It was ok... I have mixed feelings about it. I loved the Balanchine / Stravinsky piece, Symphony in C I believe. Just smooth and so well done. The other pieces were just ok for me though. Also we were sitting next to an awful woman in the audience. She never learned her manners about how to behave in a crowd! I haven't resubscribed for this upcoming year but we will go see Coppelia for sure.

Travis is doing great - other moms will understand how thrilled I am that he weaned this last month *and* potty trained! Hurrah! I've been pregnant, nursing, or changing diapers for the last nine years and five months so I finally feel that my children are getting easier! Yippee skippy! :)

I'm headed to the Doctor later this week to get my neck and shoulder checked out again. It doesn't hurt as bad as when I first tore the rotator cuff in fall 2007 but it hurts. I keep thinking it will get better and it's just not.

Anyway, back to working on the MTP stuff. I have one more art class to take this year and just have to get instructions written. :)

More of the same...

Victoria was sick, passed it to Travis. He has had laryngitis and last night started getting croupy and having difficulty breathing. I took him to the Emergency Room around 1 a.m. and they administered an oral steroid and a breathing treatment. Yes on croup, and they also think he has asthma. He gets the breating problems every time he gets ill, which admittedly is very rare. SO, I will follow up with the regular pediatrician this week.

Tomorrow I have an art class up in Everett. It's on composition and should be interesting. I printed out the approval form for the ANG MTP and have been looking for my scissors for a while now. *sigh*

Right now I'm stitching on a Melissa Shirley Easter egg when I have time - pretty much only while watching the girls at swimming. It's been a busy couple weeks!

Fun morning...

It would depend on your idea of fun, I suppose. While the household was still asleep The Travis decided he needed some hot cocoa. He went out, placed the mix in a mug, and put it in the microwave. Note, no water. Travis then came running into the bedroom yelling "Microwave! Microwave!" Brad got up and went into the kitchen and I came yelling when I heard "Fire! Fire!"

I looked at the microwave on my way to the fire extinguisher, which is kept under the kitchen sink, and saw that there was no fire, just billowing smoke. Brad, meanwhile, was opening windows and doors. I closed the microwave and pulled it out and put the whole thing outside.

The girls were up by this time. We got dressed and went to McDonald's for breakfast (yuck). When we arrived home the house was frigid and still smells like smoke. I can only imagine how much it would suck to have my whole house aflame - cold, no clothes except pajamas, and losing all my needlework! Diane, we'd have driven up to your house and stopped at Target for clothes on the way. ;)

Brad thinks the microwave is toast... Travis says he won't use it again!

.......

It's still only noon and I'm exhausted. This afternoon I'm going to volunteer at a swim meet for five hours. Victoria's not in it but we have to do 20 hours of volunteer work a season. FYI, she did get her ribbons for her first swim meet - 6th place for freestyle and 2nd place for butterfly. go Victoria!

.......

Madeline gave herself another haircut yesterday. She chopped a bunch off each side and while it doesn't look bad, it definately looks uneven. Again. I'm really, really tempted to take her in and get her another pixie cut.

Children and life planning...

I've mentioned before my children's odd life goals. Take Victoria's desire to rule China and Russia together. Madeline changes her mind daily about it - right now she's in "I'm going to be a Princess mode."

Travis, dear Travis, is obviously going to be a professional debater. Truthfully, all three of the children will be great debaters. Not so much philosophers as just-plain-likes-to-argue debaters. They come by it honestly as Brad loves to play devil's advocate and I am a Taurus and just don't like to change my mind.

Travis, young Travis, is learning how to argue and cajole about nursing. Now, between the three children, I've nursed for six years. A few years ago a study was published about women who long-term breastfeed are less likely to get cancer. So, I figure, I've hit six years and I can be done. :-) I very seriously told Travis when he was two that he needed to start working on weaning. I told him a few months ago that when he's three he doesn't need to nurse anymore. Leading up to his birthday I told him that when he's three he'll be a big boy and doesn't need to nurse any longer.

His reply? "I'm not big! You're big. Daddy's big. Taria's [Victoria] big! I'm little!" When asked about Madeline, he replies that Madeline is little, like him.

Now, I've had to change the tune because we've also been using the "Big boys use the potty" line and I really don't want him to say he can't use the toilet because he's too little.

So, we work down the amounts we nurse and then I sort of cut the nursing short, much the same way that mother cats just get up and walk away. He'll try and call me back with "There's still milk in there!"

Other times, he'll try and cajole me. "That shirt is a wow! I want to nurse!" or, when I hold up a finished needlework piece, "Wow! I want to nurse!" or "I'm sleepy, I want to nurse." It's odd to me because my girls were so non-verbal that we really have no idea if this is how three-year-olds sound.

I remember, and still love, Lucia's comment that when people ask her about when she's going to wean her son she tells them she's working on it. She adds in her head "it may take four years!" Surely I won't be nursing a four-year-old. Right?




***Additional note. Please don't send me "helpful" comments like "Just cut him off" or "Let him cry it out." Those aren't helpful. I'm not really asking for help - I know he'll end when he's ready.

Monkey Business Quilt... and Facebook

I just finished the piecing on this quilt top. It's called "Monkey Business" and is from the "Certifiably Crazy" book from the Buggy Barn.

I love the fabrics I used in this quilt: oranges, red, purple, browns, greens, and lots of different creams. Why use two fabrics when you can use 37?

BUT, I'm really disappointed with my piecing skills on it. I know I'm better than this - but I was cruising through just getting stuff done instead of enjoying it. This is an easy quilt and I don't think I have a single sharp point on there. Bleh. Yes, they always look better after being quilted but I'm not going to pay for fancy quilting on this when I disappointed with the way I pieced it. So we'll see. I'm sure after I pack it away and get it out in two or three months I'll think it looks better. :)

***

In finishing news, I finished a bag, a bag rework, a pillow, and an egg. Pictures to come later! Today was a busy day with a fun birthday party and oh my, I'm now on facebook. I can't promise I'll update it more than my blog but at least I can quickly look at other people's pages!

***

Travis really needs to stop shoving beads into his ears and nostrils. It's getting really old. The easiest way to get them out is to have him blow, if it's too tight you can use a drinking straw. But seriously, it's getting really, really old. The joy of being three!

A series of small calamities...

Nothing huge, just all bothersome.

Monday the girls usually have gymnastics in the mid-day. This is a class I arrange at a local gymnastics center for our homeschool group. We have between 14-17 kids each week. It's pretty fun, usually. They get to see their friends, work on gymnastics, and the Mom's chat. The coaching hasn't been the greatest lately and I've been disappointed - I could let them run around for free in the yard - I'm paying money so they can learn bars and balance beam and floor routines. Monday was the kicker though when the teacher canceled the class with no notice and then left when asked to come down and explain. There was a meet going on at another gym so the owner and office manager weren't there to intercede.

I did finally speak to the gym owner today and we will have a new coach next Monday. I'm giving it another week and in the meantime have been looking around at other gyms. There is another one out in Snohomish that we are going to try next week and we may end up going there. We'll see. It's been very stressful to discuss this with the 9 parents in the class and with the gym.

Back to Monday, after getting home from gymnastics (or lack of) Victoria slammed Madeline's hand in the bedroom door. It was very swollen with cuts across two of the knuckles. I called the pediatrician's office. Even though Victoria has been there and Travis has been there, Madeline has not. Therefore I couldn't talk to a nurse and the next appointment wasn't until Thursday. They recommended the Walk-In Clinic. I suppose I should either A. schedule Madeline for a well-child visit (because she hasn't been seriously sick, in, oh YEARS) or B. find a new pediatrician whose front desk isn't a guard station to the nurses. I do like the pediatrician so when we're off Cobra I'll go with A. I just hate having to pay money to hear my kid is healthy, you know? Just so I can get on the books and be allowed to talk to a nurse.

At the walk in clinic they did do X-rays since the cuts were right across the knuckles and they were all swollen. She is fine and the growth plates appear undamaged. I still remember the horrible story from The Friend magazine as a child about the kid who damaged his growth plates and had a child-sized hand for the rest of his life. (No offence to any people with little hands, it's just not something I would wish on my child, both Madeline with the little hand and Victoria knowing that she'd caused it.)

Later that evening I decided to go ahead and start updated my "Needlework: Stitch to Finish" book. I've been planning on distributing it in eBook format. (Don't get excited). It turns out the Word file on my computer is NOT the final file. At some point during the horrible time last spring that I call the Great Triple Crash of '08 I opened and looked through my book document and said "yep, that's the right one" but didn't scroll through the last 3o pages. Basically it's missing about 100 pages of information off the final version that was printed. And it was in color, so it's not like I could just scan a printed book to recreate the file.

The same "false" final backup was on our desktop and Brad's computer.

On Tuesday morning I went to the safe deposit box because I *knew* there was a final copy of the book on a CD/DVD in there, created before all the crashes. Well, the fucking CD won't open in Vista. I could *try* and pay a data recovery service but I'm looking at a minimum of $50 to upwards of $400 to *try* and recover the file from the CD. When opened in XP it wants me to format the disc.

Sigh. Many tears last night and I just went to bed around 8 p.m. Today I'm irritated but I have a greater sense of peace about it. Yes, it was an awesome book. It really was. I'm sad that it is gone and I'm mad because I went to the trouble of backing it up - it's the whole reason we have a safe deposit box. I was mad at myself because I didn't, somehow, keep the final file. Anyway, I could go on and on but I learned long ago that one just has to sometime let stuff go.




***
Today was a better day. We did lessons and I took Victoria to ballet and Madeline, Travis and I went to the store and she bought a little puzzle book and some spangle trim. I'm going to quilt a bit tonight and finish my color drawing the the MTP section I'm working on.

Happy Birthday, Travis!

I cannot believe you are three today! Surely you were just born... You are such a big boy now - running and jumping. You can count to twelve and sing about half the alphabet. You love to play with your sisters and would follow Madeline anywhere.

I made you a really fun cake today. About 20 cupcakes were arranged in the shape of a football and frosted as one, with chocolate frosting and white stripes for the ends and laces. It even said "Happy 3rd, Travis" Of course, I'm not sure if you actually looked at it when you snuck into the kitchen and went wild in the frosting. When you then cleaned your hands of the frosting all over the bedroom carpet, whee!

May this year be the year of less messes and more "listening to Mama". You sneak into the kitchen and thus I've cleaned up countless eggs, spilled gallons of milk, orange juice, ice, flour, vanilla, pasta, syrup, and sugar. The vanilla on the carpet was the worst, suprisingly. We won't discuss non-foodstuffs.

Anyway, happy birthday, baby boy.

Life marching onwards...

I've been busy, but not overwhelmingly so. Just the continued shedule after a nice break for the holidays. The girls have their few activities - Victoria will "graduate" from speech therapy this week - yay! Madeline will continue onwards and will go for one hour instead of 45 minutes.

We've been consistent with their lessons as well so that keeps us busy. We started a Logic program with Victoria this week; she thinks it's "fun" and I suppose it would be. Like the child needs more lessons in how to argue.

I've been doing a bit more odds and ends for people. This week I made curtains for a neighbors' living room and I've been doing some Outlook work for another person. I like the odds and ends - they get me out of the house and bring in some small income. I have a few finishing projects I need to get completed and I'm hoping my Master Teacher stuff will get back soon so I can get stitching on that. I have another line drawing I need to submit as well....

We went to the zoo today and it was *supposed* to be in the low 50's. It was absolutely frigid. Bleh. Better cold than snow, though! The animals were out and about but we went through the insect and reptile houses where it was nice and warm.

Yesterday was book report lunch. Madeline showed her bead fusing craft that she made. Victoria presented a two-page report about Bill and Hillary Clinton. She did a great job. She loves to learn about the US Presidents and devours pretty much any biography at the library. I'm thrilled that they gave them their own [large] section. She also likes to read about the first ladies and of course leaders from other countries or from history, ie Constantine, etc.

I went to a presentation on Tuesday night about homeschooling through high school and how, in addition to the bookwork done with textbooks or in science classes, you keep track of the time and effort your child spends on independent interests. Therefore since Victoria spends at least 5 hours a week reading about the presidents after 8 months I could say she earned 1 credit on U.S. Politics. ;-) Studying the Egyptians for months at a time like Madeline does would be Ancient Egyptian History. It was a fun presentation - of course some of the laws will be varied slightly by the time we get to that stage but in truth she will need a transcript in, oh 7 years. She's over half way there! ;-)

Anyway, tonight I have a headache so I'm going to play Playmobil with the kids and perhaps stitch a bit later. Tomorrow I'm going to a client's house to help her type and format a personal cookbook. Fun! :)

Happy Christmas!

The children have had a great day. We had a nice dinner yesterday and they went to bed around 10 p.m. Brad and I stayed up and watched Disturbia, some Hallmark movie, The Family Christmas, I think, and also I watched The Dish. I love the Dish. All my reality TV and celeb updates (that I shouldn't care about but are funny) in 23 snarky minutes.

After we were sure that they were asleep we set out all the presents that have been in the corner of the garage, and also stuffed the stockings. We went to bed around 2-ish.

Alarm goes off at 8 and no kids are awake! I felt sure that they would be up before us... We made coffee and read until they got up around 9. They were thrilled with their presents. Each child received lovely gifts and lots of fun things to play with. Madeline and Victoria traded a few things. ;-)

Hallie and Greg arrived around 11. They played with the kidlets, opened a few gifts, and we had a lovely lunch. They are so good with the kids (which is good, because they get them if Brad and I both kick the bucket). Travis was thrilled to give Greg lots of fake shots with his fake Doctor kit. I found that particularly ironic.

After they left I read some more... the kids are playing and I think Brad is dozing on the couch. It was a long night! We're having leftovers for dinner and I am NOT going shopping tomorrow. We have at least a foot of snow on the ground and it's going to take forever to melt. My poor plants! I'm wondering how many years of this "unusually cold weather" we will have before Sunset starts changing people's zone recommendations for planting.

Happy Birthday, Madeline!

I'm sorry Travis took a swipe off the frosting before you got a chance to blow out the candle!

The sun is shining! The sun is shining!

So I should probably go out and rake leaves. Instead I'm going to do the dishes, go to the gym, do homeschool lessons with the kids, and work on some needlework finishing. Maybe the weather will hold...

I finished the stitching on my Christmas stocking. I'll finish it into a stocking in the next couple of weeks. This week was busy. We went up to Vancouver on Monday and saw the Aquarium there in Stanley park. Then we drove over and saw Brad's grandmother inthe nursing home. She looked really lovely and healthy. The girls were well behaved and Travis behaved like a small child in a nursing home. (Lots of running, spilling water, loud talking.)

Wednesday our homeschool group went to a glass studio. The older children did glass blowing and the younger children made a tile with glass to be fused. Both Victoria and Madeline made a fused tile. Victoria's art is incredibly unique. She considers herself an artist and truly, her work stands out. I can look at a dozen (or 30) pieces and spot Victoria's work. This held true at the glass fusing!

After the studio we went up to Madame Fifi's teahouse and had lunch. All the kids were very well behaved and the girls enjoyed having their own table with their friends.

We then drove down to Bellevue for ballet. I stopped on the way to buy Victoria a pair of pants (three is not enough for winter) and then to ballet. After ballet a quick stop for dinner at the grocery store deli and then on to swimming. They did great at swimming - Madeline has finally crossed the hump she's been stuck at and is now improving again. I talked to the swim team coach and we've scheduled a try-out for Victoria for swim team. She would start in January if she gets on.

After we got home the kids bathed and I photographed a bunch more ebay auctions. I sent out invoices for sold things (which I'll mail tomorrow). We watched a show (Chuck) and then went to bed and read (Angela Knight book) and fell asleep around 1 a.m. I was totally wiped out. TOO busy of a day.

So, from this I've learned that ballet, dinner, and swimming on every Wednesday are fine, because we do that every week and it's ok. But tacking on the extra stuff ahead was just too much. It was a one-time thing, and was a great deal of fun, but just too much. It's the same reason I don't like to travel with kids... they just can't go and go and go, and if you're there visiting you want to see everything anyway, right?

Anyway, time to head to the gym! :)

I'm still here...

Winter has settled in over the Seattle area. Rain, rain, more rain. This has been a very wet summer, fall, and hey, winter is looking like a lot of rain!

I've been busy listing stuff on eBay:

http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/burgundyelephant

There is a professional organizer in the area. She calls me when she has needlework to sell for her clients and usually I swing by and pick it up. This last batch, she had to deliver, as it wouldn't have fit in my van. So, some is listed and more is coming.

The children are doing very well, albeit Travis is coming down with something. He started sounding wheezy on Wednesday afternoon, that night wasn't the best, last night was pretty bad, so tonight will probably be terrible. The third night of croup is always the worst but then they get better. He's such a healthy child aside from RSV as a baby and the yearly croup.

Victoria is keeping up with her lessons and both girls have settled into ballet. Madeline has a new swim teacher and she's wonderful - hopefully she'll pass trout sometime this year! She's been in level three for over a year now.

I have gotten some stuff done around the house. I fixed the patch on the back wall and Brad hung the curtains. I bought a new hook rack for the red bathroom and Brad hung it. We don't have a towel rack in there now but we never used it - this way they can hang their robes and it will look nice. I also painted all the baseboards and touched up the paint but it already needs to be touched up again.

We've been listening to Alice in Wonderland and now Through the Looking Glass. We just finished Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. It was very cute and OH MY it actually taught Victoria why she shouldn't talk back. I was amazed, as that wasn't my intention behind reading the book! Victoria finished reading the Harry Potter series last night. She was thrilled and was laughing out loud at the ending. Up next for her "fun reading" is Madeline L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time series, which I'd picked up at Costco. I've been reading voraciously the last few weeks to get away from the weather. I read the Sookie Stackhouse Dead Until Dark series, Twilight and Breaking Dawn, a bunch of romance novels (whoo whoo) and am now reading The Root of Wild Madder, which is about the persian rug industry. There are rug dealers in downtown Seattle so after I finish that one I'm going to take Victoria down there and look at them closely now that I know more about them.

Yesterday we went to the Burke Museum at University of Washington. The girls had a great time and it was a lot of fun. Lots of homeschoolers there. Since Travis is ill he stayed home with Brad. The girls helped work on a button blanket and put together wildlife puzzles, aside from looking at all the exhibits.

I haven't been stitching lately - I need to finish my stocking and I have a few things that need finishing. Off I go!

Winter is here...

Winter is here in the Pacific Northwest. Of course, we had the lamest.summer.ever so I shouldn't be surprised. It's been wet for weeks and now it's grey, grey, grey. Bleh. I'm fighting the beginnings of a cold and trying to drink lots of juice and taking my echineachea and elderberry.

Travis shoved a popcorn kernel in his ear last night and it's all scraped up along the canal. We sucked the kernel out with a straw so he wouldn't shove it into his eardrum again. I am taking him to the Doctor this morning to make sure he didn't damage his eardrum. I'm pretty relaxed about taking kids to Doctors but I don't mess around with my children's hearing. Brad took the girls to speech therapy so it will just be the two of us at the Doctor's office.

My star quilt is coming along. I almost have all of the 4.5" squares pieced (of which there are hundreds, it feels like). After that are the blocks and then the sashing and then the piecing... Very exciting. I already have my next *two* projects picked out. Although they just go in a bag under my bed until I have the money to get them quilted, it's nice to finish things.

In stitching, I'm working on a drawn thread sampler. It's cream on cream and moving along smoothly. Some bands are quite tedious but it does look stunning.

Yesterday a woman posted (accidentially) the most hate-filled anti-Obama post to the American Needlepoint Guild list. Whew! I'd heard that there was stuff out there like that but had no idea how bad! This election... like all elections... is a mess. Even here we're seeing the ads between Gregoire and Rossi that are just filled with "he said, she said". Like they have to harp on the stuff that isn't important to show that they aren't too extreme on anything that actually matters so they'll appeal to the masses.