June Goal Wrapup:
1) Finish Quilting Green border on Amish Quilt [YES]
2) Piece Ohio Star block 10 [Started but not finished]
3) Embroider Fan block for raffle quilt [YES]
4) Piece 4 blocks for raffle quilt [YES]

5) Start/Finish Ever So Little - Gazelle [YES] and cut mats :)
6) Legends of the Dragons - stitch border and start Magic [YES - almost finished Magic!!]

7) Work on Website ~16 hours [no idea but i did work on it a bit - probably more like 10 hours]

NOT BAD!

Crazy day - no time to blog...

Yea I had an eventful morning, it started with me not being able to log onto my machine for an hour, finally got on my computer and it was time to head into the closed area. I worked in there till lunch, got some lunch then got interupted with more work. Now I'm back in the closed area to get back to what I was originally working on before lunch. My goal is to finish all that up by tomorrow afternoon!

Let's see - was I good last night and pieced my ohio star - NO. I did nothing last night, another day with no stitching. And no stitching at lunch today but I do hope to stitch tonight at stitch night where i may be starting....

BLACKWORK DRAGON!!! i think - i will get opinions tonight.
I think my comment thing is broken again - it's wierd because it works for me just fine, but usually Carol comments a bit more and I know she's had problems with my comments before so I'm sorry if it's broken again, feel free to email me:
ngroudas AT alum.rpi.edu
We'll see if that brings on more spam or not. I get only about 35 a day so that's not too bad :)

Okay - time to do my monthly wrap up!!

Guild last night. The last meeting of the summer. A new year begins in September, then October is our annual quilt show. Unfortunately I do not have a quilt to put in the show, if I make serious progress on the amish quilt this month (doubtful) i may put it on the list because I can always pull out later but I doubt i will have it done by the November deadline let alone October.

So no stitching last night. Guild went until 9 with auctions and I got a book, focusing a lot of techniques, and some solid green fabrics.
After guild I walked to my car with 2 other women that are also in my quilt group at the store once a month. They are also in the software field, both leads, we ended up talking for an hour. I finally got home at 10:30! Unfortunately I pretty much went right to bed after packing up a bit. I wanted to get up early today so I could leave early, I did get up earlier - and made it to work in time to leave by 3:15 to meet up with my aunt at the Quilted Crow where she works now.

So yesterday at lunch I did a little backstitching on Magic, I backstitched his tail. Today he won't get any attention as I'm not taking a lunch break and tomorrow I hope to start a new project as I said before. Still leaning towards Blackwork Dragon if I can find a thread color I like on my grey fabric.

Well I didn't have hot chocolate yet this morning and that's how i get my caffeine so I must go...

Decisions!

I went through my stash last night, I have a LOT of stuff!! Anyway, it's down to three projects, I need to pick one and start it possibly Thursday at stitch night. Here are the patterns:
-Blackwork Dragon
-Green Old Gardens - this chart is from Carol who recently finished stitching it.
-Dance of the Bumblebee

Then I went through my fabric to see if I had fabric that would work. I have a beautiful gray marble fabric that I could use for blackwork dragon, I just need to figure out the thread to use, which I can always buy Thursday.
For Green Old Gardens I have Bay Leaf Jobelan, it has a bit of a shimmer, I'm not sure if it will work for this or not, I would have to do a floss toss, I may rather go with an irish linen or something, which I can always get thursday.
For the bumblebee I have lots of choices, I've got it down to one that's similar to what it was stitched on for the model I think, kind of a yellow earth tone, a bit orangish.

I'm leaning towards Blackwork Dragon for now because the nature of the work is a bit different than anything I've done. Green Old Gardens is very close behind it though as it had a lot of fun stitches. The Bumblebee will probably get kitted up soon but I will wait I think until the next time want to start something, it's small so it's not as big a deal.

Opinions are welcome :)

On another note - after I went through my stash and baked some brownies for my guild tonight. I settled in to quilt. And....

I did it, I made my monthly goal on my amish quilt, finishing the green border! This weekend I will start the cross hatch in the purple triangles. I'm so happy. The only bad thing is that I quilted until 11 to get it done so I didn't do any yoga or go to the gym or anything. Tonight however I will go to the gym after my guild meeting.
Well a great night I do think and by Thursday I will have a new project to start. Another reason I'm leaning towards blackwork dragon is that i only need to worry about one color of thread to get together, Green Old Gardens I will have to gather a lot :)

Note: If the pictures look like old ones try refreshing the page, I often overwrite old pictures with the new ones instead of taking up space with old WIP photos.

Yea - more pictures and a day at the beach!

More stitching this weekend on Legends, a lot more than I had planned. The temperature last night was just too hot to take out my quilt and have that on my lap so I worked on Legends and here's the update. He won't get any more attention however until Thursday at the earliest, I'm very busy this week and tonight I need to work on my quilt a lot if i'm going to make my June Goals.

Here is Magic - with accumulated time of Legends at 60 hours:


And here's a picture of all three Ever So Littles with the double mat that I cut:


Let's see, a crazy weekend - Friday I had to go to the laundromat and do laundry, then we picked up some dinner and headed home to play some Medal of Honor online with my uncle. That was a fun night, which ended with me finishing the book that I was reading at 1:30 am.

Saturday we got up relatively early and went to the gym to run. Then we got ready and went to the beach, we didn't get to the beach last summer at all so I've really wanted to go and it was fun. We went in the water a few times, up to my waste and got a bit of a tan/burn too. We were only there about 2 hours max, we had to be back in time for my mom to arrive for dinner.

The rest of the evening was with family, my mom and brother and his girlfriend came over for dinner and I grilled up some steak while we tried to stay cool under fans. Made it without A/C :) My mom stayed the night so we watched a movie before bed and I read again, starting a new book of course.

Sunday was a lazy day, we spent 5 hours playing Civ on the computer, and after we ached so much from laying around we went to the gym to ride the bikes, then made dinner and I cut the inner mat for the Ever So Little piece. The outsides of the mats don't match exactly, I have to figure out how to get them to match, they were measured exactly but that part is cut with an exacto knife so it's trickier to hold close to the line than the mat cutter.

The rest of the evening we watched tv and I stitched on Legends, I did want to quilt but it was crazy hot and last night was a rough rough night sleeping for sure. Altogether I couldn't have gotten much sleep because I was awake almost every 10 minutes. Hopefully tonight will be better...

Hmmm... I just joined netflix. Supposedly there's a free month, and I can cancel before July 7th and pay nothing. I'm going to try it out, they will send the first 2 movies next monday and we'll see how it goes. No matter what i won't have the account for long because there just aren't that many movies I want to rent. I own a ton of movies and hope to buy more, any good ones that come out anyway but for now, with the summer I figure I could watch Alias from the beginning or something (never seen the show but i've been told i'll like it).

Anyone have netflix before? Opinions?

A mat is cut :) My first time cutting a mat, and I did one with 3 openings. It really came out pretty good too if I don't say so myself :)

Contrary to what I expected, we did get out of the linux course early again yesterday, about 3, so I was home by 3:30, and I decided to try my hand at cutting the mat, so first I set everything up and just tested out the cutting process to see how it worked. After I got the depth of the blad right and the concept down I went at the new board. It really didn't take long, I'd say about a half hour and it was done. I can definately do the next one within a half hour, that includes measurements I think since the measurements are easier using the cutter system for the outside ones. Once I get that cut I will take a picture of the animals in the windows of the mat. I haven't decided if I'm going to wash the piece before framing but I don't have a frame yet so i'm not too worried :)

After cutting my mat I went over to my stitch buddy's house for the evening for dinner and stitching. We did both :) I worked a little on Legends, starting the inner stitching on the second wing. Magic is really almost finished which is much more than I was expecting to get done this month. I hope to work on him at lunch today and maybe I'll have some time this weekend. But then there's the backstitching which I can't even think about yet, really I should be just quilting as I may not make my goal this month on the amish quilt!

I guess there's a heat wave coming this weekend. This is not good news because my mom is coming to visit us saturday night and we do not have a/c. I may have to go out and just get one because otherwise it will be a rough weekend.

Pictures coming monday :) Back to work...

Thursday.

My linux class is going well, today is the last day and tomorrow it's back to work, regular stuff. Traffic hasn't been that bad either. It's nice only having to drive every other day too (carpooling) :)

Carol's Legends progress is great, this SAL has been awesome, I don't think I'd have made nearly as much progress as I have if I didn't have someone to virtually stitch with. Especially as I get to the last dragon, the support will be great as TW's are scary for me. Maybe after this small dragon I will try one of the ones I have in my stash, like Celestial dragon :)

I have the itch... that I want to start a new project itch. Not a good thing as I should be really concentrating on my quilt which I did last night. I am almost done with the third green border piece, leaving one pumpkin seed and the 4th side until I can start the crosshatching in the purple triangles.

Anyhow - with Legends as my lunch time piece I was thinking I could fit in another piece... maybe :) Maybe just something small. I have some cute little patterns I really want to do, maybe one of those, like Dance of the Bumblebee (still waiting for my LNS to get me the Ladybug sister piece). Or maybe another small dragon, I have lots of freebies. Of course there are always WIPS, like my Wisdom dragon from the virtue series but I think it's time to start something new.

This will take some thought, maybe this weekend, we'll see how busy I am. I measured out the dimensions I need for my mat board to mat my 3 african animals together. I didn't start cutting the mat yet as that parts a bit scary but I'm ready to start it soon. I have large enough pieces that I could mess one up and still get 2 out of the rest, and I need two since I'm doing two of these as gifts for christmas.

Well breaks over, back to class ;)

Got out early today, a nice treat. I was home by 4 and watched Dreamcatcher while quilting on and off. Basically it was a movie night where I tried to quilt but I kept getting distracted.

I just finished up my yoga dvd again, it's a difficult workout for me, but so far I can do all the poses for the length of time required. And now I'm headed to bed to read for a while before drifting off to a relaxing sleep (hopefully) :)

And a quick note to self:
Tuesday: Amish Quilt - 2 hours
Ohio Star: 1/2 hour
Monday: Legends - 3 hours
Sunday: Legends 1/2 hour
Gazelle 1/2 hour (finished)

Pictures!

Here's mister Gazelle all finished up, the quickest of the three so far:


And an update to Legends, I ended up spending 3 hours on Magic tonight, good therapy but I have to be good and stick to quilting the rest of the week, November isn't far enough away and this quilt needs to be finished by then.
Anyhow - here's Magic:


A long day but definately different than just working. I am taking a Linux course for 4 days and days one and two are pretty much things I already know, I do work in Linux on a daily basis. But the third and forth days are Linux admin things that I'm sure I don't know so it's worth it in the end. No lunch break to stitch however :( Hopefully Friday at lunch I can pick up Legends again.

Well I must get to bed, I didn't eat much for dinner and if I don't go to sleep soon I'll give in and eat ice cream which is not the solution! Basically I'm up later than usual so I'm getting hungry again which is bad. I didn't make it to the gym today either, however I did do yoga for 45 minutes :) I bought 2 yoga dvd's, each has a 1 hour workout and there's a third in the series but I've never done yoga so I figured I'd start out with just the 2. So far I like it and hopefully tomorrow I will go to the gym and do some yoga!

Really off to bed now!

Pictures coming tonight. I'm in my linux course right now but I do plan on updating my Legends picture and the Gazelle being finished deserves a new picture :) I may even take a picture of that with the new mat board I bought for it if the colors come out alright.

Back to class :)

Congradulations to Carol - she just finished Fairy Flora which she started in January - amazing, it's such a large piece :)

I also have a happy dance today - nothing like Carol's, but I finished the Gazelle, which is the third animal so that whole piece is ready for framing now. I finished it today on my way to lunch and we stopped by ACMoore so I could buy mat board for it too. So my next project is to attempt to cut out the mat board, i have some practice pieces to try with and then I bought enough of these 2 colors to mat both this piece and the second one I will start stitching next month which is for my sister's boyfriend. It will have Chimps, Zebra (again), Lions.

These Ever So Little's I've been stitching are so fast, I'm actually still trying to get a hold of a few of them which are OOP now evidently, particularly I'd like to get the Turtle one if anyone has one and would like to trade or I can buy it from them, I will start my internet search for these shortly, I think Elephant and Giraffe are the other ones I don't have yet.
I have: Zebra, Tiger, Gazelle, Chimps and Lions.

Well it's been a weekend of playing video games with my boyfriend mostly - no stitching really, and I'm about to play some more CIV III Conquests - if we do stop at a decent time I'll probably pick up Legends a bit since it's been a while and I plan on mostly just quilting this week.

Carol: some times i forget to write everything in my blog - but last week we were preparing for our security inspection and that's what went well, I was really busy all week so i just forgot to elaborate.

This week I am taking a Linux course for 4 days in boston, I won't have my regular morning of blog reading/writing but I will see what I can do in the evenings. I won't be completely disconnected! Off to play Civ!

It's finally over.

And it didn't go too badly, not bad at all really, now we just wait about a week or so. Luckily I will be out of the office Mon-Thur next week taking a linux course with another co-worker. When I get back hopefully everything will be done and over with for sure :)

Anyhow. Stitch night last night. Man did I need that. I came to work early and stayed until after 5. No break at all. Then a long drive home through traffic, a quick stop home and I was still late to stitch night. But once I got there I had a great time, laughing and stitching and buying new charts :) I stitched more on my Gazelle, I'm very close to finishing that now so I may finish him up this weekend, maybe work on him at lunch today instead of Legends since I'm so close. And these animals always get tons of compliments, stitching in groups is so motivating, I love it :)

So what did I buy...
Well I bought the DMC i was missing (1 color for legends), and a strand of GAST that caught my eye... purple Iris I think it was called.
I got the chart I was waiting for:
Cookie Dragon

And completing my series by Twisted Threads, i now have the last two months I've been waiting for:
Mini-Gingham August Away
Mini-Gingham September Study

I'm not supposed to be buying stuff but it was so little and I really feel like I owe it to the store owner for opening up her shop to us for the evening, and I couldnt' just buy a skein of DMC! All in all I didn't spend that much and I won't buy any other stash this month. Technically I have been working on the website but currently I'm not, until after my linux course anyhow when I can start the upgrade since I finished everything else.

I will be buying more stamp stuff in August for sure, my friend is having another stamp party, but I won't spend as much as last time hopefully, I'd like to keep it around 100 instead of 200, we shall see for sure, maybe 130 or something. Yikes and I must not forget that I still need to pay for stitcher's hideaway.. I think it's time for me to take a peak at my bills and get them taken care of :)

Going to be another busy day. At least yesterday I got 15 minutes to eat my lunch, but no stitching time... probably none today either but it's stitch night so I will be breaking out the Gazelle tonight for sure!

Well gotta go already - things are happening. Oh and no stitching or quilting last night at all, just settled in and watched a movie with my aunt.

Update:

Well now it's 10am and there's no sign of our inspection person. They were supposed to be here at 9, and we're ready so for the last hour I've been back to doing my real work instead of what I've been doing all week (preparing for inspection).

We watched Bridget Jone's Diary (the second one) again last night, my aunt hadn't seen it and I really liked it so I wanted to watch it again. I couldn't get myself to work on my ohio stars though which is a bummer.

I've been thinking lately about sewing walls. I don't have a sewing room, or any extra space whatsoever really but I'm trying to figure out how I could make a sewing wall (just a piece of felt to put my blocks up on to organize them (specifically for the ohio star quilt which is small so we're not talking a lare wall or anything. I just need to buy the felt and find the space. I'm not thinking permanent, something I can tack up and then roll up when it's not needed.

Oh man the delay waiting for our inspection is horrible, i just want it over with. I'm so nervous, mostly because I've only been here a year and I have so much responsibility. Maybe if I do well I'll get a bigger raise (i'm up for my annual review which should include a raise and i'm waiting to hear anything about that). This is all new stuff to me, never having had a job for this long (being in school mostly), so we shall see...

It's going to be a busy day but at least it's cooled off.

And boy has it cooled off! I was cold last night after work (of course I was still wearing shorts). I drove into Brighton after work to get some computer parts we needed yesterday but today will have to do and then I went to my quilt get together (i was late having never driven to Brighten and getting a wee bit lost).

Anyhow, I got to show off my Amish quilt and see all the amazing quilts everyone else is working on. I bought some sashing fabric for my ohio star quilt, I couldn't find that perfect fabric for the triangles yet but I'm no where near ready on the quilt for it (still have 4 ohio stars to finish). I hopefully will be motivated enough tonight to work on it at my aunt's after dinner.

A little work on Legends at lunch yesterday was nice, finishing up some purples in his stomach. I've been putting off the blended colors but I really should do those probably. And I can not find one DMC color at all - luckily I have stitch night thursday and i'm sure i can get it there (i wouldn't normally buy it anyplace for more than 20cents but it is convenient and it's only one skein) and ACMoore just isn't happening anytime soon as far as I can tell with my crazy busy schedule... maybe joann's this weekend .. maybe..

Well i'm hungry and i have a horribly busy day that will probably turn into a late day too :( I must get a start on it...

Yesterday was a long day!

No lunch break like I had hoped at all - finally after 9 hours working in 84 degree temp (our a/c is broken in the office right now), i headed home.

I was home by 6 after stopping to pick up a pizza (a whole pizza for myself will last 3 meals so i'm good for lunch today and tomorrow). I watched the second Bridgette Jone's Diary - that was a great movie, I wouldn't mind owning those two movies some day, for now i just rented it (1 dollar at my library for a week). While I watched that I started embroidering the second block for my guild's raffle quilt.

Then at 8 since my show wasn't on yet (on at 9), i went to the gym - yea for me ;) I ran over a mile which was good and walked a bit. Then I headed back home to watch my show. After the premier of Summerland during which I FINISHED embroidering the block (it's the same japanese fan I embroidered last month), anyway, after that I pieced the 4 blocks for the raffle quilt by machine and then went to bed.

I feel like I accomplished so much last night and going to the gym was great. Today however I got up way late (40 minutes), but it's no biggie if i only work 7 hours today since I worked 9 yesterday, and if i end up missing lunch again I'll fit in 8 anyway. The only reason I have to leave today by 4:30 at the LATEST is because I'm giving someone a ride to the car dealership after work so he can get his car. It's on my way home so it's no big deal at all.

Then tonight is my quilting get together, I'm going to bring my Amish Quilt to show and tell and my ohio stars - since I have 9 done now. I may pick out the two fabrics that I need to finish that quilt too if I see anything I like, since I get a discount shopping on these get together nights.

I came prepared for a hot office today - i actually wore shorts. This is a rarety, as I'm one of those people that is always always cold! Last summer I wore jeans and long sleeves all summer but with the a/c broken yesterday I was sweating in capri's and a tanktop so today it's shorts. With my luck the a/c will be fixed today and i'll end up freezing but it's warm right now so i'm good so far :)

Progress:
Legends of the Dragons - at approximately 52 hours, here's Magic:



Here is my Gazelle progress at 2 hours:


What a HOT weekend - oh my! Not only hot but humid - yuck! Well it was a relaxing weekend at least. Saturday we went shopping, mostly to BJ's (where I always spend more money than I plan on) and then shoe shopping for some summery shoes.

The rest of the night was spent watching movies from the library and stitching when I could stand to have the light on (my light generates a lot of heat).

Sunday I worked on the website a bit and stitched and frogged some stitching (I messed up on Magic's tail and had to frog a bunch and restitch it :( )
I also worked on my Amish quilt a bit - getting 5 more pumpkin seeds done, there are 7 on a side but I can only fit 5 in my hoop at once so I finished those 5 and now I have to move my hoop to do the others to be halfway done with the border.

I completely forgot to piece together my raffle quilt blocks so i'm hoping to do that tonight and also to draw the embroidery design onto the fabric to start that for the raffle quilt. Tonight is my only night home to get stuff done. Tuesday I have my quilt gathering where I finally get to show off my Amish quilt. Wednesday I go to my aunt's where I will work on piecing my ohio star maybe. Thursday is stitch night and I will work on my Gazelle more. That leaves Legends to only be worked on at lunch time this week and hopefully this weekend I can work on my amish quilt more as I have a lot to do on it still.

I also have a movie to watch tonight hopefully after Summerland is on. I got the second Bridget Jone's Diary from the library and hope to watch that while either embroidering or quilting (or both).

Well I think this week will be a busy week and that's always good so I better get some work started, I am looking forward to stitching on Legends at lunch time though!

It's FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY!!!

That means my boyfriend comes home tonight :) I can't wait to see him.

Besides that - I'm feeling better, thank you everyone for the good wishes. I have an annoying cough now but I'm clear headed and had no problem either staying up later last night or sleeping.

My stitching friend came over and we had dinner last night and worked on some cards she's making. Then we switched to stitching and watching Law and Order :) Always fun. I started the Ever So Little - Gazelle which I think is going to go faster than either of the other two as I finished the head and started the shoulders already besides backstitching. The best part about the Ever So Littles though is that there is hardly any backstitching so they really finish up quick. I look forward to getting this done and ironed so I can start experimenting with my mat cutting to get the perfect double mat for this, I will have to buy some new mat board in the right colors but i have plenty to practice with. Then I have until Christmas to get a frame for it, even if I have just a custom frame made and I do the stretching myself and stuff as now I've learned how to lace, it takes a while but definately doable.

So I will put away the Ever So Little until next thursday (stitch night) - hopefully i can resist him... and this weekend I will stick to quilting my amish quilt and maybe stitching on Legends a little to satisfy myself :) I like legends as my lunch project because I get to touch it almost every day - but today i am going out to lunch so no stitching break :(

I'm looking forward to another relaxing weekend, work on the website a bit, start the upgrade process if i can get my local server running the site - so far it's not looking good but maybe ... It's really a database problem i'm hitting right now, the permissions are wrong and they won't let me as a normal user edit the database, only as root and i don't know how to change that so the website can edit the database... linux... hmph!

I promise pictures on Monday, I will have a nice update of Legends - with my dragon Magic coming along, I started outlining his second wing now, I took one color and I'm just going through and stitching that color wherever it is called for, which gives a nice shape to the dragon but hopefully I won't mess up my counting!! I might start the sparkly part this weekend as that's hard to resist :) Also my Gazelle warrants a nice picture.

Well work calls, only 2 hours before lunch so i have to get my testing done, that will leave me the afternoon to write up my results. If I finish early i may even just leave early, but if i run late i have to stay late... oh the pain of it all!

Bagel Day - if I can eat one.

Well the cold is better still - but the sore throat is a bit worse, probably going to be a tough day for eating, but I have some fruit I can cut up and hopefully I won't irritate it further.

No stitching last night at all. I kinda figured that would happen with my cold. I got a tiny bit of stitching at lunch time done, sitting outside with a few coworkers, but not much.

It was hot yesterday - hot and muggy! We ate dinner around 7:30 and then tried to go for a walk, hoping to beat the storm, but about 1/4 mile down the road the storm hit big time and we were soaked (even with umbrellas which we definately knew to carry). The rest of the night I slept, mostly on the couch then after 11:40 up in bed. It was a long night but I think the sleep has been helping me big time.

Tonight hopefully is a stitch night. I need to get in touch with my friend and see if she wants to come over for dinner and stitching. I have chicken defrosting at home so I figured I'd make chicken parm or something simple, maybe chicken and rice. So hopefully tonight a little stitching will get done of some kind and at lunch today I'll add a bit more to Legends of the Dragons.

Well bagels haven't arrived yet and I'm not sure my throat will handle them anyway so I'm going to make some oatmeal up.

Feeling better.

Well last night was horrid, by the end of the day I was in pain (sinus/headache etc) and I just wanted to sleep. I went home and slept for about an hour - mostly in a delusional state of uncomfortableness and constant waking up. But finally at 6:30 I got back up and did some work on the website for 2 hours. that was tough on my head but it had to be done.

I had really wanted to get the apartment cleaned so even as sick as I was I cleaned, a bit anyway, cleaned the bathroom and kitchen and then vacuumed all the floors. I still need to do a better vacuum job to get the cielings and behind the couches etc, before my spider craze will be gone but this is much better.

Then I tried sleeping again. Didn't work out too well, I was still delusional and finally when my boyfriend called me at 11:30 (which I complained about but I wasn't actually sleeping when he called - just trying to sleep), anyway, I took Nyquil finally and then slept till 6 no problem, even fell back asleep after my alarm to make it in a little later than normal.

So today I still have a headache and some sinus pressure/congestion but I feel 80% better than yesterday and if I eat better today and sleep again tonight I should be fine tomorrow.

So no stitching last night, I worked on Legends of the Dragons at lunch time, made a bit of progress on his left wing. Today at lunch I hope to continue with Legends.

What am I up to stitching wise:
Well in the evenings from now on I'm going to work on the website mostly and quilt any free time I have.
At lunch I will work on Legends of the Dragons.
At my stitch nights (every thursday) I will work on my next Ever So Little (Gazelle), and work on that on the weekends until it's finished as well.
I need to embroider a block for my quilt guild still too - so this weekend I hope to start that and piece the other 4 blocks for the raffle quilt as well. The embroidery is due by the 28th but the 4 pieced blocks must be done by the 18th.

Now I've already eaten breakfast and I am going to get some work done this morning, even if I have to shut my office door (to block out the talking in the hallway) to do it!

Well now I definately have a cold. I thought I was getting it friday but getting 13 hours of sleep must have pushed it off until last night, I got home and it hit big time. I had a headache and sinus pain. This morning it was all a little worse and my throat hurts, so I took some tylenol cold and I just had a cup of tea (instead of my regular morning hot chocolate).

Besides that I did remain pretty productive last night. I touched the website a tad, and stitched a tad more while watching the end of The OC season I missed but had taped (last 4 episodes I think). So I made a little progress on Legends, started working on the left wing of Magic and the head. Then I picked up my quilt and finished the one green strip I had started so I'm 1/4 done with the first green border. I need to focus on this more than my stitching for a while if I plan on meeting my June goal of finishing the green and starting the cross hatch in purple.

Tonight I have to clean - really I have to. I haven't cleaned in a while and I'm seeing those little spiders (the ones that look like daddy long legs but smaller), in the corners. I'm horribly afraid of spiders so if I don't clean I'll start having nightmares or something. So I will start as soon as I get home tonight which shouldn't be too late, i've been getting to work early enough that I can leave before 4:30, that's with an hour stitching break too.

Tomorrow night I go to my uncle's, hopefully I will work on my ohio stars a bit, since I didn't last week. I'd like to get number 10 pieced so I have no reason to put off cutting out number 11,12, and 13. They are still not cut out!

Well my cold is getting to me, maybe this calls for two cups of red tea? I hate colds, maybe I should have just called in sick today and slept, but I wouldn't have slept and I have tons of work to do...

An Awesome weekend with some stitching too!!!

First, check out this progress on Legends, I pretty much finished the border around Majesty and just started Magic last night:


I quilted a little last night, I wanted to quilt more but it was too darn hot to hold a quilt in my lap with my light over my shoulder. I have a picture though of the center part quilted now:

The green border on the left is the one I started on and I have the top two pumpkin seeds done on that and most of the zig-zag is finished on that strip.

What a weekend! The weather was amazing! I don't remember much of Friday night, I was pretty out of it, I felt like I had a cold coming on so I cuddled up behind my boyfriend on the couch and went to sleep while he watched tv. Saturday we drove all the way back to NY (not city but upstate), to his bank to deposit his check, then back, we were home by 2:30 - that was 5 hours driving - which gave me about 4 hours stitching!! That was Legends progress right there.

We had the rest of Saturday to kill so we went to the library and got some movies to watch and some language tapes, with a commute for both of us this summer we thought we might try to learn Italian on tape at the same time. We'll see how it goes. I haven't started yet because I'm in the middle of a book right now but he is starting today.

Sunday we got up and went running (bonus), then we both worked, he brought home work and I worked on the website finishing up a bunch of tasks I had to do. Around 2 we were feeling like we accomplished a ton so we decided to go out to the park. It was 83 degrees or so, it was hot! We went to the local park and put down a blanket, he worked more and I stitched for a while and then read. Even got a bit of a tan on my shoulders.

What do you do after a hot day in the park?? We got ice cream :) I love warm weather. I spent the rest of the night relaxing, stitching a bit, quilting a bit. I would rate this weekend as excellent. The only thing that could have been better is not having to drive for 5 hours but what can you do??

3 little girls...

That's what my night consisted of. Oh boy! We had a good time, we started with dinner which was cereal (as per the mommy's instructions, i would have voted for something like chicken and rice - no milk to spill on my skirt that way). Anyway, all three sat at the table together and each ate their own cereal. Then it was time for bed. The youngest is now over 15 months so she is getting easier and after an hour and a half I got them all to bed. Actually the middle one (3 years) was the toughest, they've been going through a rough patch getting her to sleep lately, she likes to just lay and talk which wakes up her sisters!

Finally I got to spend some time with my boyfriend, which was real exciting considering we were both exhausted, so we watched Stigmata. Then we went to bed when my aunt and uncle got back from the movies. All in all i'd say it was an easy night and it's so cute in the morning when all three want hugs and kisses before i go to work (even the youngest now). What loving girls, my aunt and uncle must be doing something right!

It looks like tomorrow my boyfriend and I are going to drive back to NY for an hour, he needs to go to his bank. That's 5 hours in the car - maybe i can stitch the whole time??? At least for 2 hours I can stitch, I may drive a bit too. We are thinking about getting language tapes to listen to on the ride and then on our commutes. I generally listen to books on tape but while he has a commute this summer he wanted to learn a language and I'd like to learn along with him. So, he mentioned Spanish, i was thinking more along the lines of Italian since I definately want to go to Italy and Greece (a heritage thing), and Italy would be a great country to spend 3 weeks in, so much history there.

So i'll go to the library tonight and see what they have for language tapes/cds.

It's going to be a long day today - I've been at work a whole hour and I'm already yawning! I think I may need a nap!

A nice night out.

My cousin had her "last" soccer game last night, i say "last" that way because since they tied they are going on to the playoffs in some form or another, but technically the season is over. It was a good game, not a lot of interesting things going on since it was tied 1-1, both teams had a great offense and defense.

After that we went out to dinnr to celebrate my aunt's birthday. It was a really nice dinner in Groton. I pretty much passed out when we got back but I did manage to stay awake while my aunt opened presents.

I hope to stitch at lunch time today, at least for a half hour. That will be Legends. I'm looking at my blank calendar on the wall. I have 2 stitch nights this month that I can make it to, so I will work on the Ever So Little then and until that time I will stick to Legends and quilting my amish quilt.

Next week is the week that marks me having worked here for a whole year! I started on June 14th last year which is the 13th this year. I have an annual review that should be happening soon, my boss has a back log of the reviews because he's been really busy with a program, so i'm not sure when my review will happen but hopefully not too late. I would just like to get some feedback if i can.

Well it's bagel day and I think i better go get one!

I was very good last night! I worked on the website for 2 hours!

Really that was very good. It was my first night alone for the summer as my boyfriend is spending week nights up at my uncle's house since it's closer to his internship (otherwise he'd have to drive 140 miles a day). So I went home and ate dinner, watched a little tv and worked on the website while the last 2 episodes of Gilmore Girls were on. That was great too because I had missed them but I do have them saved to watch later (now I don't have to worry about it).

Still in the queue to watch are the 2 episodes of gilmore girls before the last 2. And the last 3 episodes of Summerland. Also the last 5 episodes of The OC. Maybe a few Tru Calling episodes too.

So no stitching. Tonight I am going to my aunt and uncle's for dinner, I am bringing my stitching, I will probably work on block 10 of my ohio stars.

Thursday night I head up to my other uncle's house which is where my boyfriend is and we'll babysit his 3 kids while they go out to dinner and a movie. I don't expect to get any type of stitching done that night, probably some tv watching and mostly sleeping :)

June Goals :) --is it June already!

1) Finish Quilting Green border on Amish Quilt
2) Piece Ohio Star block 10
3) Embroider Fan block for raffle quilt
4) Piece 4 blocks for raffle quilt

5) Start/Finish Ever So Little - Gazelle
6) Legends of the Dragons - stitch border and start Magic

7) Work on Website ~16 hours
(i know that's not a stitching goal but it will affect my stitching a lot), plus it causes a decrease in the number of stitching goals.

But I think I can make those goals, and more importantly if I follow those goals I will feel good about what I'm working on (working toward finishing the amish quilt and the ever so little's for christmas).