Yippee!!!

It's amazing, I think! I did go to my WeightWatchers meeting this morning, and...I lost weight over the holidays! I was so pleasantly surprized. I did not follow "the plan", I strayed so far from what WeightWatchers teaches, but I LOST. Another 6.2 whopping pounds. That is 9 pounds altogether. So...I owe 9 quilt blocks. I am going to have to do that now I think. Just think, a quilt after losing weight. I now only need to lose 87.4 pounds to get to my initial goal weight, another 4 for the recommended goal weight. Can you imagine what I would have lost if I had stayed program faithful! That's okay...it doesn't matter now. I am so encouraged to keep it up now. I kind of knew I was losing, cause my pants slide down. At this rate I will have to go buy new clothes...darn.

I'm headed to Fresno the 14th and 15th. I don't want to mess with the weight loss, so I already scoped out an Applebee's. Their menu looks fantastic. WeightWatchers is in kahoots with them (or vice versa) and they have a WeightWatchers menu with all the points figured out for you...even a yummy looking dessert. I already chose what I will have...and it comes to 13 points. What with a balanced diet early in the day, and maybe having to use my weekly flex points, that should be good. That's appetizer, entree, and DESSERT!

Well, I am off to JoAnns to pick up some floss and fabric for the Mystery Sampler out of "The Gift of Stitching" I really want to do that...at least one of them, just to experience it. It's an 18th Century Band Sampler from Long Dog Samplers.

See you all next time! Hopefully soon, well at least once a week, cause I have to track the weight loss here.

Not a Creature Was Stirring...

Okay, okay, it's past that time, I know. But I started this BEFORE Christmas, I did! He's still not finished. All he needs is a little more back stitching and some BEAD-y little eyes and some Holly Berry beads. He's cute in real life, the picture didn't turn out too well. I got the pattern from the December issue of "The Gift of Stitching". He is called Mr. Christmas Mouse by Twisted Oak Designs. As I figure it, if I do one of these a month, I will have ornaments to give at Christmas this year...instead of the usual thought process of..."Oh man! I should have started ornaments...it's too late now!" Ya see, I tend to not get into the mood until a couple of weeks before Christmas. I will finish him by cutting a circle around him and then the same size of a Christmas-y color fabric for the back and then maybe some red and white cording made from floss around the edges, and for the loop to hang it. I'll take a finish photo when I get there.

Earth Goddess is on a back burner until she gets a voice and calls out to me. I think the fact that I made a boo boo made me stop, cause I had to fudge to fix it. Boo boo was found too far into the process to frog it, so fudging is called for. I will finish it, some day.

I'm going back to Weight Watchers tomorrow morning. It'll be better for me to go in the morning and now since my days off have changed to Mon., Tues. I can go to the local meeting Tuesday mornings! I have been on the monthly pass (wasted money since I kept forgetting to go after work on Wednesdays...or I'd be too tired to move once I get home. Gee, do you think if I lost some weight I'd have the energy to go after work then? I'm going to post losses here for that as well. I will have some other sense of accountablity if I know somebody may read this. I have just under 94 pounds to lose...keep checking back to watch it roll off!!!

Another blogger I read does a quilt block for each pound she loses. I thought that was pretty cool. I would have enough blocks to cover quite a large area if I do that. I want to try it out. I won't commit to it just yet, we'll see how it goes when I start making blocks per pound. Technically, I should have 2.8 blocks made so far, but since I took a leave of absence (or maybe it was...I took a leave of my mind) I will start this endeavor this year. So...what ever I have lost (a-hem) since the last time I was there, I will do blocks. (I say a-hem, because of course I didn't go throughout the entire holiday season...hmmm, can you say avoiding the issues?)

I just realized that it is 11:50 PM! ACK!!! I slept a lot in my chair today and I guess it really had an affect on my sense of where the day is at! Got to go for now. Check back, see if I stick to my words!

Happy Festivus

Or something like that. George Castanza used to say that on the Jerry Seinfeld Show. At least that's what I "heard" him say.
Well, it's been a month. Hmmm...what's been going on? Not much for stitching. I try. I put Earth Goddess away for a while. Rather; my DAUGHTER put it away. She very nicely surprized me, by cleaning the frontroom, which means she put my stuff away and it took me a little bit of sleuthing to find where she put it. And now, since she uprooted my little stitching corner, I have barely touched a piece of material. I did start a little ornament, because I subscribed to The Gift of Stitiching and there was a darling little mouse ornament to stitch. It's like about 30 x 35 stitches big and I haven't even gotten half way done. Can you say A.D.D.???
There is a sale at JoAnn's Fabrics going on and I went up on the first day of the sale to get some organization stuff. (They didn't have what I went for) I did manage to spend $58. I bought 30 skeins of DMC...blind, I only repeated about 8 colors and 4 of those were white and ecru, done purposely. I got some skeins of yarn on sale, simply because the color grabbed me. I have no clue what I will do with it. Maybe put it with the other 100 or so skeins of yarn I own and move it around cause it's in my way. I know someday I will thank myself for having such aforethought to buy all this stuff. Or I will be thanking myself when I decide to clear out my head and house and be amazed at how much money I made at a garage sale!
My neice and her new son are doing fine. My grand nephew did have to have surgery on his heart. He is grumpy, (that is to be expected) but he will be just fine. I have only gotten to see him once. He has to stay away from germs, and since he was born, one or the other of my daughters has been sick and I didn't want to carry anything to him. There's time for snuggling with him when I know I won't share anything bad with him. I just want him to stay healthy!
I bought a new to me truck. I bought it from my other neice. She gave me a good deal. I desparately needed a new vehicle. My poor old Toyota is just about to die. My youngest daughter is using it until she gets her little truck a new clutch. She only has to drive a couple of miles to work, so it will suffice til then.
Well, I should get to bed. Tomorrow's another day. I work Wednesday through Sunday, so I am on the downhill slide of my week. I have been revamping the art department at the hardware store where I work. This week I have done a physical inventory and inputting all the products that don't scan and am now re-inventorying those. I am slightly brain dead over the numbers and hours on the computer. Happy New Year to you all! See you in 2007!

AAARRRGGGHHH!

I have been s-l-o-w-l-y working on Goddess. Haven't been there every night, but most nights. The progress is slow, because I had made a small boo-boo. I knew I had made it, but it would have taken a lot of frogging to fix. (you see, I didn't notice the boo-boo until I had made a lot of progress) I figured it would be easy to fill in and fudge here and there to fix it when I got to this point, but it is really taking a lot of thought to make it look right! I now have a greater appreciation for those that go before us to make a design and chart it.

I work for a hardware store that has a great, but small art department. The woman who was taking care of the department, is out for knee surgery. (four months) The art dept. has been a thorn in the owner's side since he bought the store. The woman who was taking care of it was either not interested enough, in too much pain, overwhelmed or all of the above, because that dept. is an absolute mess! They have asked me to clean up the dept. I went into work yesterday for a half a day (my day off) to meet with the salesman. Apparently, he was just given permission to just order and ship by the previous dept. person. We get "surprize" boxes of product. Some of which is not in our system, so he is sneaking stuff in just to make sales, and there was no one to contest the shipment. She had stuff stashed in corners and under shelving...OMG! I told him, he was not to ship anything that we don't approve of. He didn't like it. I then explained that once I get the dept. to the point where I am comfortable, then I will tell him what new (if any) products we will accept. The the owner came over and told him the same thing...so I got good backup. I got some catalogs and pricing sheets, so the next month or so, I will be really getting into deep cleaning and purging...this could be fun! Plus, it will be like doing the buying that I normally would do for myself at home. I'll get it out of my system and save a bunch of my own money!

My youngest daughter is very sick. She had a nasty temperature the day before yesterday. Unfortunately, she got my work ethic and feeling of poverty, so she wouldn't stay home from either of her jobs. I finally talked her into giving up the night time job until she is better. We are going to see the doctor today, but she still insisted on going to the morning job. (working at a ranch cleaning stalls, that is after all her first love...HORSES!) Hopefully the doctor will scare her into staying home for a couple of days. She has holes in her heart and any real bad illnesses could affect that.

My neice went to the hospital the day before yesterday to give birth to my first grand nephew. I have three grand neices. We are waiting semi-patiently for news...he also has holes in his heart, so we are praying that everything goes well. Me especially, because I know what it feels like to have an infant with the holes! We won't be able to go and see him until we are sure that all the germs my daughter has is not on any of us. Sniff!

Okay, I have ranted enough. Thanks for "listening".