More progress on the cross stitch

I know I haven't posted progress of the eagle in 2 weeks, but really there has only been slow progress. There were 8-9 colors crammed into the white areas of his head and tail feathers so I'd do 20-30 stitches, switch to another color, then do 20-30 more and switch again.
He's starting to look very regal sitting on his partially-formed branch. This week I intend to do more of his body, though for indulgence's sake I might do his beak. :)

A Total Loss

We received word from the insurance adjuster yesterday that the Trailblazer was declared a total loss. WV regulations on flood damage to vehicles says that if the water comes into the passenger compartment, it is totaled. Fool me once, shame on the red one; fool me twice, shame on the green one; third time is the charm. I'm convinced that the Chevy Trailblazer has been cursed for my sake.

So we're car shopping. Yay (insert sarcasm font).

We think we've found a minivan in Hagerstown for a reasonable price, and it gets pretty good gas mileage, too. I keep hoping that maybe we can make do with what we have for a little bit and maybe save some money up for a later purchase. We'll see. It depends on if I fall in love with this vehicle.

Oh, and as promised, I have a progress picture of the cross stitch. There's not much of a difference - only a little more of his head and part of his tail feathers, but it is still progress.

Oops.

I left the house this morning feeling like I forgot something. I couldn't quite place my finger on it, but there was definitely something missing from the car as I drove to work.

Was it my purse? No, I had that on the seat beside me along with my cell phone and lunch, but what was it?

Then I realized... I'd left my cross stitch home... and I hadn't taken a picture to post here showing the progress (albeit little) that I'd made on it. I'm still working on the bald eagle in the design, specifically the "bald" part of him. I promise I'll post my picture of it tomorrow.

Oh, the places you'll go

As you might have read in my last (sporadic) post, we traveled to NY last week to attend the funeral of Sam Papa. We left Tuesday afternoon, arrived that evening before 10pm, and slept until mid morning Wednesday. I opted to take the kids (both mine and Cindy's) to the park so that they could go to the viewing... I don't do viewings very well, so I was glad to have this distraction.

The funeral on Thursday was, um, interesting. I'd never been to a Catholic funeral before. I'm still trying to process what was happening during the whole thing. They interred him in a mausoleum not far from where he lived. Overall it was a lot better than I was expecting.

Tim and I decided to attend a session in the Palmyra temple on Friday with his mother. It was the first time I've been to a session with her. It was BEAUTIFUL! I even got to wear the slippers I crocheted on the trip up (I'll post pics of them later). We even stopped in to Savoia's to pick up some of Tim's favorite cookies.

The trip back on Saturday was equally tiring, but this time we left earlier and arrived around 6:30. We ended up working for a long time with Audie and Chloie on their homework. I didn't realize how much work they gave Audie until we sat down to go through it. Funny thing is, he didn't once mention on his own about his work, but Chloie was asking often if she could do hers. :)

In any case, it's Monday, and I owe you a progress shot of the cross stitch. I finished the left half of the picture except for the eagle. The moon is done, as are the stars and branches. I've decided to scroll over only half way so that I can complete the eagle, and then I'll start on the right side of the moon, branches and stars.
On another interesting note... I have another cross stitch called "The Castle". It has a castle on a rock outcropping in the middle of a lake with a dragon curled around it. It's really pretty, and I started it upwards of 9 years or so ago. During one of my military moves, I lost the pattern, but I still had the thread and stitching that I'd started. I finally found the pattern to download online, so at some point I can finish it. YAY!!!

Cake and Cross stitch

I did a baby shower cake for a co worker's sister. Seeing as the new mommy-to-be likes rubber duckies, this was the idea we came up with.I decided to use a real rubber duckie on the cake so that she would have a souvenir. Funny thing is, when I went to the store I couldn't find the duckies in the toy isle where *I* thought they should be. So, I asked a delightful employee, "If I were a rubber duckie, where would I be?" He just stared at me for a moment before suggesting the baby department. Aha! I'm so glad I talked to him. The best part is, I heard him chuckling to himself as I walked away. Success!

Behold the cuteness that is the rubber duckie!!! The cake is 10" across and almost 8" tall. I carved the sides and covered them with slats of brown fondant with "wood grain" marked into them with a clay carving tool (love those tools).

For the bubbles, I rolled white fondant in random sizes and just stuck them on there in clumps like I imagined bubbles would gather. Oops, a little bit got out of the tub...

I had a failed attempt at making my own piping gel. After reading the ingredients on the pre-made stuff and deciding I didn't want to pay that much for something I might only use once, I used corn syrup, a drop of blue food coloring, a little hot water, and some gelatin to make my own. The gelatin didn't dissolve like I wanted it to (I was hoping it would thicken the corn syrup), but it did give it that uneven textured frothy-shiny look that bath water might have, so it wasn't a total loss. :)

OK, enough about "fun with fondant". Here is the weekly progress pic of the cross stitch I'm working on. It may not look like much was accomplished, but I assure you that the branches are now done, and I've started on the white of the moon (you can see a little bit at the bottom - it almost glows against the black fabric).

Over the weekend

With family in town, things were busy!

Friday night Sarah and Mom came up to visit for a while. We got to sit and talk while the kiddos were getting ready for bed. It was nice to catch up, and definitely nice to see Sarah. I haven't seen her since Tim and I got married.

Tim and I also got the wood for our bed Friday afternoon. We've been having trouble with our backs during the day that seemed to be stemming from the bed at night. We could both lie on our backs on our respective sides of the bed and roll towards each other by the end of the night. It caused a few "arguments" about who was the greater bed hog! It didn't just curve from side to side, but also top to bottom which curved our backs in a crazy way because we are both stomach sleepers. So, we made a quick frame that would make Dad proud to replace the dilapidated box springs that only cost us $37 for a few 2x6 boards and some OSB. It was put together in under an hour, and OH MY it feels wonderful! I've slept so much better since we put it in two nights ago!

Saturday was non-stop, too. Tim wend to the DMV to renew the tags on the Nissan; I got to play Star Wars: Force Unleashed while he was gone. :) We went to Peyton's baptism at 3pm where I got to play the first song, and then we went to a dual adult baptism at 5pm where I led the music and sang a solo for the special musical number. I was SO nervous. I keep hoping that I'll get over it, but I never seem to. Both baptisms were awesome, and I'm so happy that the three of them made their choice to join the church.

We went to China City Buffet after the baptisms and met my parents there for an early mother's day/ way early father's day dinner. Mmmm, tasty Chinese food! We didn't know it because no one called my phone, but Tim's family had called his phone (left at home) to invite us to the Olive Garden for dinner at the same time. It's OK, we'll have dinner down there sometime later, but I think it would have been nice to spend that time with his family as well. We ended up getting the kiddos in bed when we got home and spent the next hour putting the new bed frame together. We also watched The Tourist until the wee hours of the morning (awesome movie BTW, it had me guessing until the end!).

We got to sleep in a little on Sunday morning, but not much. I got up and straightened my hair before we left for baby Matthew's blessing at Steve and Hannah's ward. He was so cute dressed in a little white suit! Squee!!! I was so proud to see Tim go up there to participate in Matthew's blessing. He's come so far since I met him almost five years ago. Tim and I were chuckling to ourselves as we tried to sing the hymns during sacrament. They... Were... So... Slow... I couldn't keep up. Just wow. But I was impressed with the members doing ASL. I don't know how they do it, but kudos for the effort!

I had my first taste of Thai food at their house for the luncheon afterwards. It was pretty tasty and toasty, but I've decided that curry doesn't agree with me at all. I paid for it later. I did get to hold Matthew and ogle and coo over him for a while. It makes me happy. It also worries Tim a little. Every time I get to hold a wee one, it rehashes our conversation about having one of our own. It would cost a lot of money, however, if we were to try, and then we'd have to worry about having more than just one. For now, I'm happy with our three. We got to talk to Chris and Lori for a while towards the end as well. If we can get the clearance anytime soon, maybe we can get everyone back out this way for our sealing when it happens.

Sunday evening we had home-made pizza rolls for dinner at our house with Tim's parents while we watched TRON: Legacy. I liked the movie, but I loved the music. :) The pizza rolls were made with a double batch of pizza dough cut into 16 parts and rolled, filled with 9 slices of pepperoni and a little mozzarella cheese, then rolled up and baked for 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven. We used spaghetti sauce to dip them in. Tasty!

Finally before I close, an update on the cross stitch project... because the branches are a full cross stitch and not a half like the moon colors are, they take a little longer, AND I haven't had time in the last two days to do much on it, but here is the progress pic. I'm on the last color of the branches and doing the outline on them as I go.

BEFOREAFTER

Over the weekend

We spent a fun-filled weekend baking and preparing for Easter. I had cupcakes for a special Easter edition of "Singing Cupcakes" in primary that were all shades of the rainbow, a last minute cake order for a white cake with coconut filling, Tim's Mounds birthday cake (for Friday), and an angel food cake for choir practice. Whew!

We had a steak dinner at the house for Tim's birthday. We had a full house and plenty of food. Tim grilled some awesome steak, and I made herb and garlic mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. Mom even brought some veggie pizza that was really very good as an appetizer. I was made with croissant rolls rolled out for a crust, cream cheese spread out for "sauce" and a mix of shredded carrots, broccoli (or green beans for those with a green-tree aversion), and shredded cheese. Tasty!

Saturday night we colored eggs with all 5 kiddos. I didn't know this, but this was Christian and Connor's first egg-dying egg-sperience. :) (you liked that didn't you!). We had 5 colors (one for each kiddo) and we rotated through. Each one got to dye 4 eggs. We made deviled eggs and egg salad sandwiches out of them later. Sunday we went to my parents' house after church and ate tasty ham and had an Easter egg hunt. My sister was the "bunny" and had a "bunny manual" so that she could make sure we found all of the eggs. Don't laugh. It worked.And as promised, progress pics of the cross stitch. Since last Monday, I've completed the third color (darkest in the moon) and have since completed a fourth (med-light on the moon), fifth (darkest brown on the branches) and started on #6 (med-brown on the branches). So what we have here is an (almost) full moon and the beginnings of branches for the eagle to perch. I actually had to scroll over to the left to reach the left most branches. I'm going to finish them and do their outlines before I complete the moon and finish the bird. Then I get to scroll to the right and do that half of the picture. :)

Over the weekend

We had some rain this weekend. In other areas of the country, this storm produced a record number of hurricanes. Here, however, we got hail and plenty of rain. The back yard turned into soup, we had a stream flowing along side the house, and the bridge flooded. We received so much rain so fast, that it almost backed up into the basement. Tim and I spent two hours in the pouring rain digging up landscaping rocks (sorry, Dad) to dam up in front of the basement door so that it wouldn't flood with Cindy and the boys down there. We even had to go so far as dig down the path to the social circle because it was holding up the flow of water (sorry again, Dad). We've decided that to fix the drainage issue, we're going to dig down even further and run some culverts along the bottom of the ditch. Then put the path back over top of it. That way the path will still be there without hindering the torrent. As for the basement door, we're going to bring the level of the walkway there up a few inches and slope it away from the house to encourage drainage without collecting water at the door. We were seriously within 1/2 inch of pouring in.

For the first time in the 2.5 years we've lived in the house, I saw flood damage to the road at the bridge.It actually lifted sheets of asphalt 3/4" thick and the size of my desk and just slid it off of the road and onto the shoulder. I've never seen it do that before.On another note... how about creation instead destruction? I started a new project. Cindy has been cross stitching words as part of a project she's working on for Christmas (I think), and it renewed my interest in counted cross stitch. My unfortunate curse is that I'll start a project and work on it for a while, get bored with it because I don't see any progress, and put it down for weeks (or months) before I pick it up again. Sometimes it's because the project (i.e. the quilt) isn't portable so I can't take it on trips like I can with knitting.

My mother gave me a couple counted cross stitch kits that I showed Cindy last week while we were discussing cross stitch. She took one look at this one and said that her husband would love this one... so I decided to do it for them for Christmas.So I started working on it on 4/11/11. One week later, this is the progress I've made...I've decided to work 1/2 at a time, so I started in the middle with the black on the eagle, then moved to the moon to his left with a second color. You can see at the top that I've started in with a third color and filling in more of the moon with the darker gray. Unlike the last cross stitch I did, this one is going a lot faster because it has about 10 fewer colors and they're not tiny bits here and there with a stitch or two in places spread out so far that it takes forever. Another thing I like about this project is that it is on black Aida cloth so the moon really comes out of the fabric. :) More progress on this in a week!