We’ve been hit with so much snow, it is beyond ridiculous.  We were lucky enough that we didn’t have to deal with the first snow of the season, but we’ve gotten hit almost every week and I AM DONE WITH THIS SNOW BULLSHIT.

There is a pool hiding underneath, I promise

This was taken before even more snow was pushed towards the house to help clear the road

I miss the days when I can take the kids out for a walk and not have to worry about anyone slipping on ice.  It would be so nice to be able to go outside, feel the sun on my face, take a deep breath and NOT have my nostrils freeze.  I cannot wait to go outside and see this instead:

I had TWO stitching finishes for 2010.  I stitched up an ornie and I finished Coffin Buzz.

That’s pretty bad as far as stitching goes, BUT 2010 was a very busy year.  We traveled, we packed up, we traveled again, we fixed up bits of the house, we moved, we cleaned the nastiest pool on earth, enjoyed the summer, enjoyed the fall and I made awesome progress on Autumn Wildlife.

The goal for 2011 is to finish Autumn Wildlife.  Ideally, I’d like for all four of us to have stockings by Christmas 2011, but I know that’s not realistic at all.  I don’t even have designs picked out for the kids yet.  Finishing Wildlife would be awesome.  I started it in 2004 and its long overdue for a happy dance.

It has been crazy, crazy, CRAZY!  The end of the year is always super hectic.  I had a lot going on.  Work had to get done before we left to visit family.  Then we were gone a day longer than planned (thanks a lot, snow).  This week was spent just trying to get back to normal.

We were gone for 6 days but it has taken me over 3 days to catch up on laundry.  How is that possible?!

The good news is, we only had to shovel a teeny, tiny bit of snow.  A lovely neighbor played with his snow blower and cleaned up our driveway!  I only had to clean a path to the back and front porch.  Easy peasy.

Christmas was great.  My kids opened presents for FOUR DAYS straight.  Then we got home and there were more presents to open!

Anyway, Happy New Year everyone!  I hope we all get more time to stitch! 

The last time I blogged, I whined about summer ending.  And now, here we are at the end of Autumn.  The leaves in the front and side yards have been raked, the Christmas tree is up and it now gets dark at 4:30 PM.  I find myself being incredibly restless around 2pm.  I think this is my body going nuts as there would only be a few hours of sunlight left for the day.  That’s just something I never really got used to.  I grew up with the sunrise at 6 AM and sunset at 6:30 PM schedule.  Dark at 4:30 just does not agree with me.  I suppose I could always get up early to enjoy more sunshine, but I’m thinking maybe not.  LOL.

And to prove that I do stitch, here’s some progress on Wildlife.

Summer is ending and there is no way for me to stop it.  Last night, I actually had to turn the porch lights on when DH got home.  It was that dark out.  *sob*

Last week, it was so nice.  We were able to swim and hang out on the deck.

This morning, it was barely 70F and the kids had to wear hoodies.

Maybe being indoors more will mean more stitching time?  We’ll see.

… still not a stitching happy dance, but still happy happy happy.

Reeve is TWO!

It’s not a stitching happy dance, but this took MORE work than anything I’ve stitched in the recent years.  There are no “BEFORE” pics and that’s a good thing.

DURING the clean up:

AFTER draining and 2 solid days of scooping up muck and scrubbing:

As you can see, we packed up and left the old place.  We’ve spent a lot of time trying to get this place not so disgusting.  I haven’t stopped cleaning since June 25th.  I’m tired and I haven’t had time to unpack my stitching, much less do any actual stitching.  Patience, grasshopper.  I will stitch again when fall comes and we close the pool. 

These pics are slightly better.  I went out on the deck, laid down a towel and put my project over it.  I really need to improve on my needlework photography skills.

ETA:  I am using 35 count undyed linen from Vikki Clayton and 1 strand regular (over 2) and 1 strand premium Purple Purple aka Old Maid of the Aubergine silk also from Vikki Clayton.  I tried to get a good “view” of the weight difference in the silks with the close up shots.  I hope you can see them!

I picked up this project again on Friday night.  I think I made decent progress.  I frogged out a couple of the smaller motifs that were originally done in 1 strand regular and re-stitched them with 1 strand premium.  I really like the effect.  I wish I could stitch faster!  Sorry for the awful pictures.  The sun seems to be on strike and even with the help of my OTT lamp, this is the best I could do.

I started with this:

And ended up with this:

The goal was to give it MORE life.  The original photo looked so pale compared to what I saw that day.