It’s Sunday afternoon. the hubby is taking a nap on the couch in the family room and I’m in the computer room trying to figure out how to plat “the game”. My DH is a game player, there is one online that he has set me up to play with him and I have to say it is a whole lot easier watching him play than actually having to do it yourself. I’m so frustrated that I could just scream and he’s a bit peeved at me as well, because I’m not paying attention to him. Well, I’m trying. I do not react as fast because there is a whole lot of stuff to remember. Gee whiz, the most complicated game I ever played was Solitaire. Well I did play unreal, but I was in God Mode the entire time so I could not get killed and I could fly and I basically did the easy version with a walk through right by my side AND that in most cases is considered cheating. But what the heck, I did managed to figure out some of the stuff, I had a good time playing it so I guess that’s what counts. This game is on-line for pete’s sake. It has other real people playing it and I have to be sharp to play this game. At some point I will get good enough to join his guild and there will then be other players counting on me to know what in the hell I am doing. Right now I’m so awful I feel like throwing in the towel. I’m a cross stitcher and designer. I bake bagels for a living. I’m not real experienced at this game thing. OK, enough bitching, I’m gonna go try it again

The topic says it all. I really dislike Sundays. Not because it’s the day before Monday, but because it’s the day I have to go to bed at 6PM to get ready for getting up at 1:45AM. Then there is the whole thing that the dogs do not want me to stay in bed and I had best be up by 6:30 or all hell is going to break loose in this house. If they are sleeping upstairs they climb all over me and it is a tad distracting when your trying to sleep in. The hubby gets to sleep in both days on the weekend. The first day of the weekend for me is Friday, I do not have to get up at the butt crack of dawn and I could sleep in, but the alarm goes off and that sort of wakes me up, even if the B&C hits the snooze button, the dogs have started their day.

I have to brush Skye. I think I might start on that tomorrow for a few hours then go up and put laundry away and bake some cookies. I gotta get me some Christmas Cookies or it’s going to get ugly around here. I need cookies!! I need my cookies! Not store bought ones, I need my favorite cookies.

Anyway, I will get started on Skye. I really do not want to shave her down and have to wait another year to show her. She has to get finished this year. Then she can stay shaved down while I get the 2 boys finished. (Actually that will be Laura getting the boys and Skye finished)

On a totally different track here I have been thinking about my designs lately and the direction I want to go in. I think I might concentrate on Christmas and Winter for right now. I seem to be always wanting to do something snowy, so I might as well get it out of my system. Could a designer do nothing but winter and Christmas and still be successful? I want to finish the snowflake mystery I’m doing and maybe crank out some smaller stuff. I might even do some nutcrackers.

This just totally cracks me up! I have been observing this for awhile now and wanted to put it out there for fun. Ok I have a strange sense of fun, but here it goes. Have you ever noticed that when you go to the drive up window at a fast food place, if it’s a guy (male person) on the window that gives you your food, you NEVER get napkins in your bag? Now if it is a girl (female person) there always seems to be a few napkins in the bag. I wonder why that is? Is it because guys just use the sleeve of their shirt, or do they just think it is a money saving  thing for the fast food employer? Ah well, just another one of those men are from Mars things I guess. I don’t think I will ever know the answer to this mystery of fast food delivery.

Now as we approach the Christmas holidays I am finding that I sort of wish I had kids. Did I really say that? Oh my gosh, what am I thinking. Or at least maybe that the BIL and SIL were here so that I could enjoy their kids at Christmas. What I want to do is decorate the house. You know, put out all those Christmas things I have in boxes here in the storage closet. Also all my Santa’s, and Nutcrackers and the big 9 foot tree, drape the banister with the garland and the Nutcrackers that I have hanging from them. I want to bake Christmas Cookies and have the house smelling like its a holiday. I want to see lots of wrapped packages under the tree and to see stockings hanging from the fireplace mantle. I have some great stockings to put up there. In other words, I want to have the holiday here in my home. Now what is it that we usually do? Well first off the hubster will sleep in till the last possible moment, my folks will come over to have dinner with us. The B&C will deep fry the turkey and I’ll do the other stuff in the kitcher. My mom will do some of the stuff at her house, like bake the pies. It will be a quiet day with just the 4 of us,  unless you count the 6 Sheepdogs as well. The Sheepies do not care if I put the tree up or if I have stockings hanging from the mantle. They do not care if I decorate the banister, or put the Santa’s and Nutcrackers up. They do care about that turkey and they would also love to get their teeth into some of those cookies. They could care less about wrapped packages under the tree unless there was a dog cookie attached to the bows.

When I was a kid, and even into early adulthood there was something about this holiday. The advent of the VCR was a wonderful thing in my family. I think some of the first movies we purchased were the Christmas films. White Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Bells of St Mary’s, Christmas in Connecticut, The Bishops Wife to name a few of the older ones. Then as time went on there were the Home Alone movies, and who can forget the Santa Clause movies with Tim Allen, those have almost become a tradition as well. I miss that, watching those movies, and eating cookies (I really don’t need the cookies but what the heck, it’s Christmas time), and maybe even having a fire in the fireplace. That’s why we have one right? That’s why I need kids. I need the feeling that you get when you are doing all that stuff for them, not to mention yourself. It’s the end of the year, it is a holiday after all and I think I need the festivities.

I did put up a tree this year, it was one of the small ones we had in the shop. It’s maybe 3 feet tall. I put some inexpensive glass ornaments , lights 300 of them and garland. I even placed an angel at the top of the tree. I think I needed that this year.

Now to the topic of Nutcrackers. I love them! I would love to have tons of them, but I have no place to put them. I’m not sure why I have developed a taste for them, I don’t eat nuts and I sure would never use them for cracking nuts anyway. I would love to have one of those 3-4 foot tall nutcrackers to put in my living room when I put the 9 foot tree up. I also think I need several of the 1-2 foot tall ones and all sizes under that as well. I could place lots of them on and around the tree. Well I guess thats going to have to wait for another year. I just wish I could get my Husband excited about Christmas. Make it a special day for us and not just treat it as another day of the year. Maybe this is one of those women are from Venus things?

I think that is a very good question! My shop has been closed for a month now and I still have not developed a routine for myself. At least not one thats consistant AFTER I feed the dogs. Maybe that is what I should concentrate on this week. It is about time that I actually got down to business and got the house cleaned up, especially the dog room since that is where I will be doing my initial designing. That is also where the phone is for the design part of the business now so I really need to spend some time in that room getting it ready for me to share with the dogs. Once I get it cleaned, the floor shampooed and the green piece of furniture in there, I can begin to sort through the boxes in the garage. I really need to do that because there are things in there that I need and I can not find a thing right now. Also, if I plan on selling any of that stuff, I need to be able to locate it. I might even write on the side of the box, whats in the box so I can find things easier. Now there is a concept.

I wrote last time that I discovered Gay Ann Rogers. I got my patterns from her on Saturday and I want to start on one of them right away, but I have to practice a bit of dicipline here. I decided to work on a sampler by Sampler Cove located in Thiland. I love her stuff! I changed the colors, using shades of one color, and so far I like it. I can’t believe I’m doing it in pinks. I am so not a pink person, but it’s what I wanted to use. I don’t even have a pink room in the house. The design is called Double Dutch. It’s on her web site, www.thesamplercove.com so if your looking for some really fun samplers go check them out. They can be purchased from European Cross Stitch

I really need to be doing something besides surfing the web. I’m actually enjoying it, I seem to find all sorts of wonderful things out there. So why am I just now finding it? Stitching related mind you, why now when I have to pay retail? Well first off, I have loads of time to sit here and snoop, second I don’t have my mother coming back into the  office wondering why I’m not up front keeping her company. Guess I answered that question.

I discovered Gay Ann Rogers, and a very cool shop in France as well as one in England and if I ever win the lotto I’ll be doing a lot of shopping there. I also seem to be drawn to canvas work lately. I just migrate towards it and can’t seem to figure out why?

My parents first shop was a needlepoint shop here in Colorado Springs, I had a real job then so I just hung out there after work. But even then I did more cross stitch than needlepoint. Also, doing the decorative stitches on needlepoint canvas was sort of a new thing. You did it, but mostly is was the regular continental stitch. So here I am back at my roots so to speak. Actually I love the stuff that has all the geometric designs that just beg to have decorative stitches used on them. I can hear the begging and pleading now all the way down here on my computer.

So what am I working on? Hmmmm let me think, I’m still trying to complete Martina Weber’s Alpine Garden. I was trying to get that done before winter, but now I’m just hoping it happens before the end of the year. Actually I’m not doing that much stitching at all. I’m not comfortable in my surroundings to stitch. I miss that table in the front of our shop. I had so much stuff around me everything was easy to find, it was right there, now I have to go look for stuff. I am not really comfortable in my seat in the family room, so I might have to move to a different location and listen to books on CD again like at the shop. Forget the TV!

And while I brought it up……have you noticed the really awful TV available during the day? OMG I had no idea it was so bad. This is not really a slam to the TV guys that do the programming, but more a comment on how out of the TV loop I have become. I do have several favorite shows and we record them every week and I do try to watch them during the day now. The downside of that is by the time the weekend rolls around I have nothing saved up to watch and I’m stuck trying to find some way to entertain myself. This is where the stitching would come in, but as I said earlier it’s just not comfortable. I could get up and clean the house, brush a dog or do laundry, but somehow that seems like I’m supposed to do that in addition to stitching. Oh well, I’m also messing around with that snowflake as well as my very first needlepoint design. Been trying to get the B&C to show me the photo post on here thing, but no luck so far. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll get both the designs up here and any comments would be appreciated. Let me know if I’m headed in the right direction. That’s the feedback I used to get at the shop.

Since I’m not dog showing it this weekend, and I am no longer going to a shop every Saturday, I think I’ll make cookies. I can not remember the last time I made cookies here at home. I found a recipe that I used to make when Andy and I first got married and as I remember they were good and easy, so I’ll start off with that. Then I want to try my hand at truffles. I have all the stuff to make them, just been procrastinating in doing it. I might even have to fix a real dinner for a change. I really need to get back into that habit.

Well, so much for tonight. With luck I will get the photo thing done tomorrow and then I can do the bolg dance of joy. I might even be able to show the progress I’m making on the stuff I’m suppoed to be stitching.