Spooky! (and IHSW and TUSAL, too)

I must start by wishing a big Aussie G'Day to all my new followers - I have noticed a few new names added to my Google Connect.  Welcome, welcome, welcome!

I am so excited, despite having actually planned to stitch other projects, somehow SPOOKY by Lizzie Kate turned up in my hands and here it is all finished!

 This is what I had planned to work on:  Part II of A Very Scary SAL, also Lizzie Kate

.... and here is my TUSAL for this month:

 .... and, of course, a Furio pic - here is sitting snoozing on the top of my stitching chair - lucky for me, he lets me share it with him!

I hope that you all had a great IHSW, too.

hugs,

PIF news....

..... .... and the three stitchers chosen to be a recipient of some handmade gifts by me sometime within the next 12 months are:

• Rahenna

• Emma

• Mouse

Congratulation, Ladies, please send me your snailmail addresses and then watch out for the postman for the next 12 months!  Because you never know when he will bring you a surprise!


Please remember that part of the PIF deal is that you in turn need to Pay It Forward to three other stitchers in the future.
I have a stitchy update, too:
Ta Da....Lizzie Kate Mystery SAL, Part One finished!!

See those three pesky acorns in the bottom left - the Frog King visited twice before I got these done right!

This evening, TraderVic and I went to see a fabulous Aussie movie "The Sapphires".  It was really great and is based upon a true story, apparently at Cannes earlier this year it had a ten minute standing ovation when it was shown.  It is the story of four Aboriginal girls from a mission in the Outback who in 1968 performed as a girl group in Vietnam for the troops.  Here is a link to an article about it from The Age newspaper and below is a video clip showing a trailer from the film. If you get the chance to see it, I can highly recommend it.

Have a good week, everyone,

hugs, 

SAL progress

I have been stitching the SAL "A very scary SAL" by Lizzie Kate and I have nearly finished Part One!  (Unfortunately the Frog Prince came for a visit last night or Part One would have been finished)

I am off to the APA (Australian Publishers Awards) tonight as one of the educational book series which I worked on a couple of years ago is up for an award.  Wish me luck - it would be awesome if it wins!

hugs,

P.S. Don't forget to check about entering in the draw for my PIF in this post.

Oh Dear!.....

[Warning: long post]

Oh dear, I have not blogged for what seems the longest time (24 days now!!!!!)  and I have really missed it.  I have had a chance to catch up with a few blogs but my blog reading has been sporadic at best - not like me at all - and it has taken me a week to write this post!!!!! There have been a number of reasons for my absence from blogland and if you  are interested please read on, I promise that there are a couple of stitchy pics at the end and, of course, a Furio pic!

Here we go:

1. My DFIL (nearly 86 - who lives with us) collapsed when he was out visiting some friends and was taken by ambulance to the hospital where he was diagnosed with dehydration and a urinary tract infection.  Apparently because he had the UTI he had stopped drinking water as it was painful to urinate and this is a real worry as he only has one kidney.  TraderVic and I are finding it increasingly difficult to look after DFIL as he is becoming more and more difficult in his behaviour and about dealing with his health properly and this puts a lot of pressure on us as we both work full time.  However, luckily, DFIL was only in hospital for a couple of days and is home again but we are still very worried about him and what the future holds and what the best way of caring for him is going to be. [And you might remember that only a couple of weeks before that my DM (90 yo) was in hospital with pneumonia - so I am quite exhausted with worry and concern.]

2. My arm was burnt by a hot cup of tea.  DS2 kindly made me a lovely cup of tea but then proceeded to spill some on my arm!  As it was freshly made the tea was boiling hot and my skin blistered almost straight away - it was very painful for well over a week.

3. Work has been frantic - I have had to forensically analyse a number of our publications to get them ready for a new concept which we have been working on - this involved very close scrutiny on my computer screens (I work with a double screen) - the pressure was really on to get it done within a very short time frame - so it has been very intense and absolutely exhausting and makes it very difficult to face getting onto a computer to do any blogging, no matter how enjoyable it is.

4. Plus at work we have had the removalists in as the part of the business which is in Port Melbourne and the part that is elsewhere is being brought together into one, new, state of the art building in the DBD (yay! I will be able to train it in, in less than half an hour rather than a one hour or so drive through peak hour traffic!).  However, we have been culling our shelves and reducing our storage for over a year now and now it has really heated up as the move is only a couple of weeks away so as we sit and work the removalists are packing up boxes and removing shelving, etc.,  around us!  Necessary but quite disruptive!

5. Olympic fever hit the house - my family are SPORTS MAD!  We Aussies love a good Olympics and my family is no exception!  DD is planning to be a Sports Journalist so it was Olympics, Olympics, Olympics all day and nearly all night.  This was really disruptive to my sleep patterns as even though I might go to bed, everyone else was up half the night, which made it hard to get a good night's sleep - so I would lay there worrying about my parents, DFIL, how to get all of my work done, what we were having for dinner tomorrow night, how on earth am I going to fit any exercise into my day/week/life?  you know, all the usual stuff.  However, they do all now they all have Olympic hangovers - lol!

6. I "bought" a new toy - using my flybuys points from supermarket shopping at Coles - an ipad!  I am loving it, but playing with it and learning how to use it has taken up more of my very little spare time.

7. Lastly, all of this stress, worry, overwork and lack of sleep has led me to develop a skin condition on my face called Rosacea.  You can read about it here but I warn you, at its worst the pictures of sufferers are quite upsetting if you do decide to follow further links.  I am finding having this condition (I have a sore, red rash plus acne type pimples - DD and DS2 say that I have some sort of medieval disease - I used to teach both of them medieval history at High School - it made me laugh, did they mean leprosy or the plague? lol!) rather stressful in itself as it is right in the middle of my face and whilst I have lots of body flaws (being overweight for one) I have always been praised for my beautiful skin and whilst I try not to be vain I am finding it hard to deal with this condition.  The doctor has put me on antibiotics for SIX MONTHS! and an antibiotic cream, as well and I have been told that it will be a slow process.  And, of course, one of the triggers is stress and as I said,  I am under a lot of stress at home with DFIL, worried about what will happen with my mum and dad (at their age they will not be able to live on in their own home for much longer) and now I think that I am back where I started!

Thank you so much for "listening" if you have read this far - now for a bit of a reward - some stitchy and Furio pics:

I have been working on my Secret Santa Swap and whilst I cannot tell you what I am doing, I can show you some sneak peeks.

I am also doing the Lizzie Kate Mystery Halloween SAL and here is my progress so far.  Lots of stitchers are doing this one and it is a fun stitch so far:

And to finish off, here is a pic of my darling Furio.  One of my colleagues came to my home to work with me the other week.  Furio, of course, needed a cuddle and here he is snuggling into my dear colleague.  She, of course, was trying to get some work done!  But she did love the cuddle and tried to smuggle Furio home with her!  lol!

Well, I am finally done.  Thank you so much for listening - it means a lot to me.

hugs,