Bristol Baby ...

Seems like the weekend was a long time ago. We had record heat for about 3 days and now I'm sitting in the family room, watching the Olypmics and reading blogs and listening to it raining like crazy .. and it's still warm! Not hot like over the weekend .. 90 with 90% humidity .. makes us Washingtonians really ugly and grumpy! lol Even in the heat we had a good weekend. It was only Terry and I .. the kids were at a subaru car rally all weekend. Friday was take out dinner and Weeds. We are on the 3 season. This is one great tv series on Showtime. We just started watching it this summer, I love Blockbuster online! lol Saturday Terry worked on the deck and I worked in the house. Once it got to hot outside to work, we got in the air conditioned car and ran errands. One of the errands we had was for Robert. His favorite Nascar driver's show car was at the mall and he asked if we'd go and get pictures. The country radio station I listen to was there giving away stuff and promoting their station. One of the things they were giving away were Gary Allen tickets .. well, guess what? I won a pair of tickets!! woo hoo! I love Gary Allen .. he'll be at one of our local state fairs on Monday (8/25) with the Lost Trailers. I'm soo excited! Nobody in the family really likes country music except for Monica (dil) .. she's going to take a day off work and we're going to the fair and then the concert .. should be lots of fun! Sunday was spent dealing with family stuff with my dad (cleaning up stuff from the passing of my Auntie Dee) and laundry .. such a fun day! lol

I have been stitching off and on during the Olympics .. sure is hard to keep my concentration sometimes! Anyway, I did get some secret stitching done and finished two more words on the L*K double flipit's. I have 4 more to do by the end of September .. they stitch up pretty fast if you just sit and stitch! lol Here's what it looks like so far ..

The best part of this week is it's a short week for me .. Terry, Rob and I are leaving on vacation tomorrow (Wednesday) night. We are off to Bristol, Tenneessee for the Nascar race. We've been planning this trip for a year now. It is one of our favorite tracks and we are all sooo excited! We leave on the redeye, arrive Thursday morning and have a day to spend enjoying the city of Bristol. Friday night is the Nationwide race, and Saturday night is the Nascar Cup race. We fly back on Sunday. I'm seriously hoping for Matt to have another win at Bristol like he did in 2005 *smile*

Hope everyone has a great rest of your week and a fun weekend. I'm sure I'll have lots of blog reading when I get back .. do a lot of stitching for me, cause I don't think I'll get much done while I'm gone ...

I'm grateful for vacations with my boys ...

He's a fish ...

Michael Phelps is just blowing me away with his swimming abilities. That boy is awesome to watch .. just beautiful in the water. I'm really enjoying the Olympics so far. Do you have a favorite event? I always say I like all the swimming/diving the best, but then when the track and field events start, I really enjoy those too. And of course there's baseball/softball and beach volleyball .. they are all great! lol I joined Melissa's blog for 2008 Summer Olympic Stitching Challenge. At first I thought I would concentrate on my Family Sampler that I started 2 years ago, but changed my mind yesterday. I really want to finish L*K's double flip-it's for Chris and Monica's 2nd anniversary (9/23). I'm about 1/2 done, and since it is a pretty quick stitch, I think it's a great use of my stitching time. At least I hope so!

I finally received my copy of the Halloween JCS issue .. omgosh there are some incredibly cute Halloween ornaments in here. I think the witch shoes are my favorite. I know I'd love to stitch all of them sometime.

I also picked up this cute Halloween kit by Cresent Colours. I don't know if you can really see the colors of the flosses, but omgosh they just soo yummy, deep and rich.

Thanks for all the compliments about Christmas Drawers and the framing. I have it hanging in the hallway and really enjoy seeing it everytime I walk down the stairs. And thanks for all the positive thoughts and prayers for my two friends. We all really appreciate your gentle loving concerns.

OK ... time to get off this laptop and get to stitching and watching the Olympics .. gooooo USA

I'm grateful for Wednesdays ...

Starts and Finishes ...

Hope everyone is having a great week. It's been pretty crazy at work and at home .. I'm thinking the plants are a bit out of alignment? Owell, as they say, this too shall pass .. quickly I hope! I have been stitching, but mostly on exchanges I can't show you yet but I do have a couple of pictures of stitching to share. This is my first pictures of Joyful Summer by CCN. I changed the fabric to a neutral brown (can't remember the name of it). I already have a couple of pieces stitched on the light blue and just wanted sometime new. I really like the colors on this fabric. It's a very fun stitch .. the birds make me smile! I'm leaving all the french knots to do after it's all stitched .. poor birdy doesn't have any eye yet :(





Earlier this year I posted pictures of my finished Christmas Drawers by Shepherd's Bush. This piece has meant a great deal to me .. all the challenges with new speciality stitches, the number of retreats it attended and just the fact that after about 7 years I really finished it. The bad thing, I waited to long to order the frame that SB had used. I was talking to Lois at Elegant Stitch about it and she suggested I have Jill Rensel do the matting and framing. I loved the idea and decided I was worth the splurge. Well it arrived home on Saturday and all I can say is I'm so glad I decided to splurge .. it turned out better than I ever expected. And DH was still impressed with the framing after seeing the bill *grin* Here it is ...


A close up .. yes, there is a bead missing on the top drawer :( I didn't noticed I had left it off .. until after it was framed! owell .. makes it mine, right? along with a few other "mistakes" ...


Don't you love the mats! So danity and a bit whimsical too :)

I don't know what I love more .. the frame or the mats .. but check this close up .. this is a lovely frame ...


I know I won't spend this kind of money on everything I have framed, but I am very glad I have Jill do the framing and now I know what to do with that "special" piece in the future.

Before I close, I would like to ask you all for positive thoughts and prayers for a couple of my dear friends. One is dealing with some major health issues concerning her 19 year old daughter. The other is my good friend and neighbor who had surgery today, they were taking a biopsy for possible lung cancer.

I'd like to say hi to a couple of new readers of my blog .. it's always nice to get comments from new readers (and old ones too! lol) .. check out Jade and Dawn's blogs. I'm really enjoying getting to know them.


I'm grateful for Karen and Joan ...