Busy, busy...

Thought I would post quick before bed- things have been pretty busy here lately.  It seems our weeknights are all full of places to be and the weekends are playing catch-up on housework and other things I've been meaning to do.  I have been squeezing in a little stitching time here and there. I've been working on my friends projects most nights, when I have the itch to stitch.. some nights I just sit and watch TV cause I'm pooped! And been working on Beach Cottage some mornings between Hanna and David going to school.. there is a 40 minute in-between time.  I will post progress pics on my friends project soon- right now it doesn't look much different cause I am filling in where I had to frog before- except I do have the window frame at least one row around on the sides that hadn't been started yet.  Here is my progress on Beach Cottage- just the top of the tree and a little backstitching to go- hooray!

I have been a bad girl in the stash-buying department lately- I said I would try not to buy any for a while and just stitch what I already had, since I had so much- but I got an itch to try to find some OOP Blackbird Designs patterns- so I hit ebay and then found others I liked/wanted too.. also caught a good sale at an ONS here and there- so here is what I have acquired. I was super excited to get "Flea Market Souvenir"- I have been looking for it for a while and found a needlework shop in MI that had it- I think it may have been her last one because when I went back to see if she still had it posted after I ordred(so I could tell others that wanted it), it was no longer listed.

Unfortunately I found an LNS that had gone out of business in my search- Needle Delights-she had some clearance posted on her site(www.needledelights.com) and I came across it in my search. It's where I got BBD's "Trifle from a Friend." It makes me sad so see so many LNS's going out of business.

I took Ginger for a walk today and we saw some signs of spring already-

These little violets(at least I think that's what they are) are growing randomly in my lawn!

And Ginger was so tired from our walk, she eventually fell asleep, while playing no less. I thought it was so funny and cute. :)

Night night!

Spring goodies!!

My Brooke's Books Yahoo group is having a spring exchange- I am still finishing up my piece but I have already received from my partner Georgena (no blog that I know of) so I thought I would share with you what she sent me!  The theme was Spring/Easter  and the exchange was for a stitched item, but you know us stitchers always send other goodies as well. :) I hope I can remember to take a picture of mine before I send it out!  First-most of the items( I forgot one so took a separate picture of it)-

A close up of the stitched card she made me-

And the cute towel I left out of the picture!

Thank you Georgena for all the wonderful goodies!!

Saturday Hanna and I had a "girls day"- we went to zumba in the morning, and then started a search for a new fish for Hanna, as her fish, Blueberry, died a week or so ago. :( At our local Walmart all the fish looked pretty pitiful-some were dead in the containers already and that made us nervous about buying any of the live ones- we were worried they may die shortly after we bought them! We would've just gone to a pet store first but she wanted a female betta and that is the only place in town that carries females. Anyway- we didn't buy a fish there.  We drove through McDonald's for some lunch and went home to change- we had a zumba presentation to participate in at a local festival so we wanted to change into clean workout clothes. By the time we did that it was time to go to the festival.  It was a small town near here but there was a pretty good turnout. Good parking spaces were hard to find so we had to park quite a distance away from where we needed to meet the others but it was a nice walk.  There are alot of older homes to look at on the walk, so pretty- and some wild growing flowers like these-

After we finished the presentation we didn't stick around long- Hanna wanted to continue on the quest for a fish- so we left and went to a local pet store.  They only had 3 bettas, none of which caught Hanna's eye, so we ventured on to the last pet store- they always have a good stock of male bettas so after much pondering she finally chose one.  Sadly I don't have a picture to show you in this post, I have been meaning to take a picture but haven't, and now the kids are in bed - don't want to scare the fish with the flash, lol.  He is lovely though, yellow with blue fins and some pink in places too.  She named him Tiny because he's so little compared to her previous fish.

That night my boss had gotten us tickets to "Dance for Christ".  This is a large group of local youth that do dance performances all with a Christian theme.  He thought Hanna and I would enjoy it so he asked if we'd like tickets.. anyway this performance was amazing and so moving at times.  Most of the songs they danced to were contemporary Christian- one in particular-Mercy Seat- was beautiful.  It depicted a girl being tempted by all the things of this world- drugs, drinking, eating disorders, I forget what else- but in the end Christ protected her from them all.  It's hard to describe, you just had to see it.  It had me in tears. I think Hanna thought I was a bit crazy. lol I totally plan to go again next year.  Hanna loved it as well.  I tried to find some video to share with you but so far have had no luck.

And lastly- here's my little ME ornie framed in it's little frame- I couldn't get it centered like they had it in the picture without cutting out some of the poof ball on his hat.. so this is what I ended up with. Not too bad!

I have finished stitching my exchange piece this evening so hopefully in the next day or two I can get it finished however I am going to finish it(haven't decided yet) and mailed out with some goodies to Georgena. :) Now -what should my next "lunchtime project be?"