New Year, New Start

Happy new year everyone! Hope everyone had a merry Christmas and a happy new year.  We did here- after a long month it was nice to have a day to share together as a family and relax.  It was a crazy month, and not just because of the Christmas preparations. 

Early in the month my husband had hernia surgery- it was something we had put off for too long and our old doctor had ignored for too long.  I had switched doctors and got my husband switched over too.  The new doctor's office took one look and set him up with a surgeon.  His surgery was around the first of the month.  They kept him a couple of days after then let him come home.  He was home a few days and started experiencing a lot of pain, more than normal for the procedure.  So we went to the local ER- scans and x-rays had shown that the mesh did not hold- so he was taken to the hospital he had the original surgery at and was kept for about a week after the almost -immediate surgery.  The hospital was about an hour away so it was a lot of driving back and forth, leaving the kids with friends, etc. But he is home now and recuperating, and was in time for Christmas, thankfully.

I have been doing a little stitching here and there; I am hoping with the start of the new year I can get back into my old stitching habits and get some things done.  The Alamo is still a WIP, and I have also started a gift for some friends- it was supposed to be a Christmas gift, but that didn't happen. To inspire me I can do a little stash shopping- I was fortunate enough to win a giveaway on Laurel's Stitchery's facebook page and won a $20 gift certificate for her shop! Was browsing tonight- such decisions to be made. I know that fabric is a must, as I am always running short of good fabric.

The kids are doing very well in their new schools, and Ginger is well also.  We had a little scare with her a month or two ago- she must have gotten into something she shouldn't have, and was a bit sick, but thankfully with some medicine and some special canned food, she is fine now.  (and always expects canned food with her dry food now, unfortunately. ) She has gained a little weight but is not unhealthy, as you can see in this photo taken at Christmas.

 

As some of you who have been reading my blog for a while know, I had some links to the right for my webshots albums- wish list and items for sale/trade.  Well evidently webshots was bought out in 2012 and I was sent an email that I needed to save all my photos because they would no longer be available after such and such a time.  WELL- I did not see that email- I have a tendency to let my emails pile up and probably purged it in some mass email purge at some point.  This is a bit upsetting because I'm not sure I had some of those photos saved anywhere else. Grrrrr. Oh well.. there is nothing to be done about it now. New year's resolution: Keep a better handle on my email accounts.

 

I was really so excited- since we have a new house I wanted a new Christmas tree- we had one of those fiberoptic ones from the 90's and I hated it - the lights just do not have that glow.  Well my dh knew I wanted a new tree and fortunately a friend of his from work was getting rid of one or two- they have a large house. And he got us a new tree for a steal.  So this was our tree this year-

I ♥ it. I don't want to take it down!

 

Well that is life in a nutshell here- thanks for sticking with me! Will post some stitching pics next time(I know, I probably said that last time.)