A little progress:
I know it isn't much, that pathway took me forever, especially since I was designing it as i went along and had to rip it out a bit. I went with a mosaic stitch, small at first then larger for the second part, then switched to a diamond, alternating diagonal pattern for the part behind the fence. The mosaic stitch was too dense under the fence and took away from it too much and the diamond is kind of hidden inside a mosaic when you stitch 4 mosaic stitches in a square so I went with that.

It came out alright, then I started the two pine trees, I'm making this house similar to the house I grew up in so certain things are key (blue house/pine trees). Tonight I'll finish the tree and put in some grass and then start on the gardens.

Oh it felt so good to be back to stitching! It has felt like forever (I know it was just last week some time!) This weekend - unpack and stitch!!

Holy Moly - I had no idea how much stuff we had! I'm back from the move - officially living in NH now.

Quick recap of this insane "weekend":
Friday - fiance's graduation, drive back to NY for family reunion LATE
Saturday - family reunion
Sunday - recover, drive back to MA, then pack up cars and drive up to NH and clean up new apartment
Monday - go into Boston, get truck and brother, pack truck, move up to NH and unpack, out to dinner and drive back to Boston to drop off brother
Tuesday - unpack and shop for necessities and unpack and unpack

I have a kitchen and diningroom pretty much unpacked but that's it. The furniture elsewhere is all set up but everything is still in boxes and it will stay that way tonight as we're going to my uncle's for a night - much a needed break!

I have unfortunately not touched my stitching, tonight I will work on my Neighborhood RR finally some more but it will definitely be a little late, hoping to finish it up this weekend??

Going to be offline for a short bit...

First - I did get to stitch Tuesday night - I worked on my RR and finished the fence and started the walkway from the house to the fence. I hope to have some more time to work on this during the weekend festivities, but we'll see. I will post a picture as soon as I'm back online..

So why am I offline - well things will be busy -

Friday : Fiance's Graduation
Saturday: Home for Pig Roast
Sunday: Still home - but coming back in afternoon/evening
Monday: MOVING DAY
Tuesday: Unpacking - internet should get hooked up but I won't have time to be online most likely

So I'll be back on Wednesday - driving in to work from NH! Oh there's so much to do still - yikes!

Alas I did not make my stitching goal last night. When I got home we went for a long walk but my headache was already setting in. After some dinner and Law & Order I fell asleep. All well.

On the moving out front, all holes in the walls (from pictures) have been patched and 2 of the 3 colors have been painted leaving just the diningroom/kitchen color left to finish tonight. I'm using the same foam brush so I have to wash it and let it dry between colors.

Tonight I hope to do some more packing, my fiance has some events for graduation going on the next two nights so it will be grilling hamburgers for dinner, packing and stitching!

House Complete:
As I mentioned the actual house is complete and I started the fence. My goal tonight is to finish the fence and figure out what I'm going to do for the path from the door to the fence.
I have lots planned for the landscaping, first a pine tree or two on the right side of the house and gardens in the front, a bunny will be in there someplace too!
I'm very excited, things for the move are working out, I got the cable to transfer the day after we move which is perfect since I have that day off. I'm waiting on the electric still but I've started the process.

With a little more packing to do in the evenings but that's it, I should have some good stitching time in the next 4 nights. I probably can't make the June 1st mailing just because of the packing and unpacking that will happen between now and then but I'm hoping for Monday June 3rd since that gives me the weekend to find the envelopes I have somplace and get everything put together! That's not too bad!

In my neighborhood...

I had some time this weekend to work on my house! I finished up the stitching on the house tonight and started the landscaping, starting with a fence. I have a lot of room for landscaping so this is going to take a little while :)

Luckily I got a lot of packing done this weekend and the website finished! The site isn't live yet but it's tested and working. After the owner has updated all products we can go live with it and I'm all done!! So this week I'll pack a little each night and then stitch. Thursday night I'll probably clean and finish any packing I can since friday is my fiance's graduation!

Oh it feels good to have things finished!

A relaxing night...
Well I worked a little later than planned and traffic was horrible but I got home around 7 and we went out to celebrate because my fiance just finished his very last final exam for law school!!!! Next friday is graduation! I'm so proud of him.

So we went out to Bertucci's, then a quick trip to home depot and then we settled in and watched Pan's Labyrinth which I really enjoyed watching even if I had to cover my eyes for a LOT of scenes! No stitching as planned though because of subtitles.

And today is a free day off from work thank goodness. So I'm about to work on the website and see what I can do as far as that goes and then it's packing time! I'm very excited. Of course my wrist has been bothering me this week and it's really bad today so I have my brace on and I'll have to be careful with lifting and things. I wonder why it's acting up??

Stitching my neighborhood rr finally!
Here's my start, stitching with GAST on 40ct cream linen. It took a while to get started last night as I did a little more basting (still not done basting) but I'm loving it. I can't wait to work on it more tonight! Plus with no work tomorrow I can work tonight until I can't work on it any longer.

Unfortunately my wrist was really bothering me last night -it is again this morning as well. I may need to bring out the brace I have for it for tonight as I need to be functional this weekend to get all my packing done! Can't wait to get back to packing. OH and then there's the website- gotta finish that tomorrow too! Going to be a great day tomorrow. Now.. to get through work.. at least I can leave at 4:30 since I got in early, if I can get everything done that is.

Oh my I have a lot of stuff...

Well I didn't stitch last night, my quick packing of the closet took HOURS! I used up all 6 bins that I had bought plus a few boxes and there's still stuff in my closet!!! I can't believe how much crafting stuff I have.

1 HUGE box with yarn/knitting stuff (and i hardly knit!)
3 boxes of stamping stuff
1 bin with all our framed pieces (mostly cross stitch!) wrapped in fabric
1 bin of fabric (quilting)
2 small bins of sewing/quilting supplies and fabrics and notions
1 bin of cross stitch supplies (not patterns OR fabric! - those aren't packed yet)
1 bin of quilting books and fabric (that's a heavy one)
1 bin of misc. top shelf stuff (scrap books/photo books/stuff to be scrapbooked)

This is a little insane. I'm looking at all the bins and wondering where it all fit in my closet -i'm really good at organizing evidently! My closet is still filled with clothes and my xstitch patterns and fabrics to all be packed. Some are in drawer units I may not remove them from, just use stretch wrap around them and pack that way.

So needless to say I didn't get much stitching done, I did baste a little more on my RR and I hope to start my house tonight at my aunts' where i can't pack :)

Oh and now I'm out of bins - I need to either buy a few more or try to use all boxes for the rest. Bins are nice because you can put heavy things in them with no worries. I planned on using the small boxes I have for all our books (we have SO Many books!) Yikes, deep breaths, no need to feel overwhelmed, I have a whole weekend to pack up books and dvds and such. I CAN do this!

Wow I just noticed I have over 800 posts - that's a lot :)

I started basting my neighborhood RR fabric last night, I got the left and top across done - man that 40 count is hard on the eyes when you have to stay in one row all the way across! I think tonight I'm actually going to start stitching my house before finishing the basting as I have the house picked out and the thread for it.

So hopefully tomorrow there will be a first picture of my RR - maybe, if i actually make progress and don't end up with too much of a headache. 1 more hour at work to go!

Last local shopping trip:
Well with moving to Nashua I'm really going to miss popping over to Lucy's to buy some last minute fabric and threads, and of course some neat charts I find (see above).

So I bought a fat 1/4 of 40 ct linen for the Neighborhood RR. I'm going to sit and start gridding it right now so hopefully by tomorrow night that will be finished and I can maybe start working on my house which I have picked out, thread and all. I'm very excited about this RR and I'd really like to make the first mailing date even with the challenge of moving too...

Oh and I did a little packing tonight: my good pots and pans and my good dishes (these are rarely used) - they are now packed up tight!

CELEBRATIONS (finally) - in order

First off I took a punch needle class - and thursday night when I got home I finished up the little sheep pin which was the practice piece:
Punchneedle was fun and fast but I had even more fun using french knots in the beginner's knotwork class with Teresa Laymen. I worked on this piece in my free time saturday as well:Friday night was the round robin, we got 4 projects and when my friend and I got back to my aunt's I started one of them. The petals are 3-d and i know mine looks like a corn on the cob - it will be ripped and redone a little wider and shorter but it's a really neat weaving technique!
And finally my favorite class with Catherine Strickler - Kate's Necessaire. We worked on one of the pockets for the inside and we made that round pin cushion (not finished yet but it's round at least). This kit comes with all finishing supplies and I can't wait to make the little book!
Celebrations was great. I ended up spending a ton - I didn't get a picture off all the stuff I bought because Sunday I organized it all and put it in my binders before realizing I hadn't taken pictures yet. But I have enough to keep me happy for quite a while!

I've been thinking about the neighborhood RR and I can't wait, i picked out my house pattern and I just have to grid some fabric. I'm going to do a 10 block layout (2 rows of 5) and leave the last block for the names to go in, i'll grid it out to fit the names as well. I'm very excited now and with a June 1st deadline I better be! :)

Stress...
Well the deadline that I was working towards for the last two weeks finally ended Friday at midnight. Has my stress dissipated with it? Of course not - because now I'm 2 weeks behind on my other work project that I was supposed to be working on and got pulled off of and we're moving in 2 weeks and I haven't even really started packing, nor have we signed on an apartment!

But I need to focus on reducing stress because it has been causing physical symptoms for the past month or so that I can no longer deal with. I'm sleeping 10-12 hours some nights (weeknights 9-10 and weekends 11-12), this just causes more stress because it shortens my daytime hours. That's the worst symptom but there are plenty more and now that I know it's stress causing it I'm going to do some things about it.

First off - this week I will leave work by 5pm each night, I will get some exercise in (preferably a nice run outside). I will pack/clean for 30 minutes and then I will relax with some stitching on my Neighborhood RR which I need to start. I'm going to take next Friday off completely to make sure I finish the website, pack and stitch.
Before bed I will do some breathing and relaxing exercises (friday night I took a bath at midnight when I got home which was great) and I will try to get up after only 8 hours of sleep.

It's time to take care of myself a little better because how I'm feeling affects my loved ones and in particular my fiance who has plenty of stress himself with a final this week.

So you will see my posting more often again - and hopefully with some stitching. Tomorrow I will post my Celebrations report finally. I will take those pictures tonight before bed. Now I need to go check out the website and see what I can do in the next 40 minutes before I start "relaxing".

To all my friends - don't forget to take care of yourselves, you can't help those around you if you yourself are not happy and healthy.

I know I owe a Celebrations report - and an apartment report - soon I promise. I'm still working until 9:30/10 each night (maybe later tonight). Last night I got to leave at 6, only because we were going up to look at an apartment. Now I'm crossing my fingers that we get it - getting very close to the deadline!

Please keep you fingers crossed we get this place and then this weekend or monday i promise a proper update is coming!

Celebrations post to come shortly i promise...

Things are crazy hectic at work - I promise to give a proper weekend and Celebrations update either later today or tomorrow when I can add lots of pictures...

What brings me here right now .. I'm getting a little worried about the nieghborhood RR!! I need to start this .. heck I need to pick fabric still! Where has the time gone and when do I get time again??? Yikes. I promise myself that the next stitchy moment I have will be to figure out the dimensions for the fabric I need and to put in a purchase if I need to. I have a local shop I can call, she may have what I need and I can get it, I'm hoping for 36 ct.

Then I guess I need to baste and then figure out what to stitch myself.. yikes - I guess I figured May would be an easy month work wise and that I'd have my apartment situation all figured out at the end of april - neither of those wishes came true.. deep breath!

Okay back to work, I will focus on this later :)

Sorry - I haven't been blogging - that will continue for a short while longer, things at work changed unexpectedly towards the busier side of things so now i have new deadlines that come on fast and I'm working long hours etc...

HOWEVER - today is CELEBRATIONS!! I'm taking a punch needle class at 1! I can't wait - leaving work early to do it. I'm taking a knotwork class tomorrow at 2 (again leaving work early for that) and then I'm taking a class saturday morning.

All i can say is that i can not wait until noon to head north, listening to my audio book and forgetting about work for a few hours!!!

FINISHED!!!
Sorry about the picture, I used my camera last night, if you click on it you can see it a little better. I will be taking a better picture once I frame it anyway which is hopefully very soon. Maybe i'll have time to scan it in today or something then I'll fix the pic.

So I finished Peaceful Silhouette last night! Really I needed to because work has decided to take a turn and it looks like I'm going to continue to be busy for 2 weeks.. but Celebrations is this weekend and there's no missing that!!

A quick wrap up of goals and goals for May below. Happy Beltaine!!!

April Wrap up:
1) Finish Barnabee! Stitching but not beading
2) Finish Peaceful Silhouette! YES!!!
3) Finish Baby Quilt before Easter! YES!!!
4) Start a new xstitch piece! Nope
5) Finish Leanne's block 7 Nope
6) Piece Leanne's block 8 Nope
7) Piece Leanne's block 9 Nope

May Goals:
1) Finish Leann'es block 7
2) Frame Peaceful Silhouette
4) Start Neighborhood RR
3) Work on Celtic Banner??

I'm keeping it very light - with the move at the end of the month and the ongoing search for an apartment who knows what kind of time I will have.