Never rains but it pours...

I know, I know, it's been a while now since the last time I posted. My bad, I know. What can I say? Too many recent episodes of Criminal Minds where the victim posted about their lives online? (I joke, but I'm not actually fully kidding...)

Otherwise, it never rains but it pours. Everything in our house has been breaking lately. There is not a day in the last week that I have not had to call for repair people on something. Some of it isn't priority, however the stuff that is, is just annoying to say the least. The last thing I expected is when my kitchen is almost fully complete, to have to call a refrigerator repairman... *rolls eyes*. I love my fridge, I have a giant GE double door fridge with the freezer on the bottom. It's one of those gigantic "entertaining" fridges and is always full in our house, despite that we seldom entertain. The fridge is still only 4 years old, and should not be breaking down yet. It's not a big fix, just that the water dispenser on the door is broken (ice maker still works though, very weird.) And the repairman comes in and before I can say anything, has dragged the fridge (completely full) across our new floor, scratching two gouges in the floor. And thus, another damaged thing in the house - That's the way my week has been going.

Otherwise, I did finish off two of the Mill Hill patterns. One is the snowflake that I showed on here with my last post, and the other is a Halloween Ornament "Love Halloween". So far, I have succeeded in keeping them away from L & G which is nice. They do like to look at them though.

I'm also nearly done the "Beaver" design on my afghan which would give me 4 complete designs of 11. After that, I'm thinking of taking some time to work on a Mirabilia Fairy pattern while I work on a couple of my own designs before I go back to the afghan. I've reached the point in which I never want to actually stitch it, which is usually when I have to switch patterns, otherwise, no stitching will happen, you know?

I was finally able to see "The Hobbit" in theatres, and I do have to say, there are some darn fine looking men in that movie (even made up as dwarves!) I also was thrilled to get "Les Miserables" on DVD. I have always loved that musical, I went to see it twice in the theatre when I was a teen, and the music is spectacular. And surprisingly, the "Hollywood team" didn't completely destroy it (it's supposed to be sung by opera singers, and they had moments where they did butcher some notes. I only notice because I know some of those songs well enough to sing without music.)

And lastly it was Ostara, which is the name my religion gives to the Spring equinox, so celebrating was absolutely necessary. There's not going to be an "egg tree" this year as in previous years however, I decided to make some "Ostara Buns" which are basically Hot Cross Buns without the Crosses. They turned out beautiful and I was very proud (and excited to finally do some baking in my new kitchen!)

Shoe shopping

So here's today's actual post... I've got some actual time tonight since J is working until 6 am (been happening far too often lately as far as I'm concerned...) so I've got some time on my hands. I can't believe it's almost Friday again. Seriously, where does the week go? L has all next week off for March Break... I can't believe she's almost 3/4s of the way through her first school year. It barely feels like it just started, and yet she's grown up so much in that time.

I've been frustrated with all my UFO's lately so I've started a tiny design today in an attempt to keep me stitching (I wasn't able to stitch at all yesterday because I just couldn't bring myself to pick it up) so I'm working on a Mill Hill design of a snowflake. It's only got three thread colours and three types of beads, so I should be done it tonight or tomorrow. I'm hoping that gives me enough of a boost that I can go back to the Beaver without dreading it.

I took L for a mommy/daughter walk today to surprise J and G with an Ice Capp & Smoothie from Timmy's. It also gave me a chance to test out my new rain boots. I picked up some Hunter boots last weekend since my last two pairs of rain boots have holes in them. I was devastated with one pair, as they were Tokidoki boots (designer and very expensive!) but the other was just annoying. My biggest problem with rain boots is, I walk everywhere, always have and so my calf muscles are big comparatively to most women. Most rain boots just don't fit, no matter what I do. But I love my new pair. They have a wider upper leg than most and fit beautifully. It would have been nice to have a prettier colour than dark gray, but I'm still not complaining. Hopefully this pair lasts for a while.

The funny thing is, when I was a teenager, my mother used to fret because all my friends were guys. People used to call us "Sam and the Boys" (lol, that would make a great band name!) since it was always me and at least 5 - 6 guy friends, never any girls than me. My mom desperately wanted me to have some female friends, and to act like a girl. I hated dresses and purses, I wore black and dark colours, refusing pastels and adamently avoided pink at all costs. The funny part is, she never realized that I still had the female appreciation for shoes. I love shoe shopping. I have sworn that I need shoes of every colour of the rainbow. (I still have not achieved this goal!)

Well, when I went shopping for my boots, I found this adorable pair of low heels with rainbow butterflies. What can I say? I couldn't resist, even though the last thing I need is to add to my shoe collection. I now can't wait for spring so I can wear these shoes. Lol.

In regards to the above, I have since grown out of my female rebellion, revoking the bans on purses (I have a purse collection to rival my shoe collection) and I love wearing pastels, especially pink now. I still however will not use pink to decorate. As far as I'm concerned (and please no one take this personally) pink is a decorating colour that is reserved for and should only be used by gay men and old women. Unfortunately though, too much of my house is still random shades of pink from the 1970s. I'm slowly phasing it out, and a lot of my walls are changing to blues and greens. I love decorating with colours from nature.

7 Days and counting....

This past weekend seemed to just fly... I'm starting to wonder where they go. Not to mention, I'm exhausted constantly... can't figure out why. Finally all my packages have arrived and I'm dying to play my game. Still working though so I'm trying to deny myself all but a little bit of time in the evenings.

Yesterday L and G found another one of my UFOs and decided I should work on that. It's a 3D halloween house I've been slowly working away on for years, usually before Halloween. However, they have decided it's a house for them to play with and so are constantly after me to work on it and get it done. However, I'm still trying to work on my afghan so it's a bit of a battle between us. They seem to win though since they're cute.

I've also been working on some new conceptual art for my patterns. I'm loving my Phoenix pattern now that I've put a little more work into it. Hopefully I will get my background fabric soon so I can work on that one... I need to know the background and since it's going to be on a hand-dyed fabric, I want to be sure the colours are right. Also designed a pattern of a blue tit sitting on a watering can (that's been a concept for a while, but I finally drew it out) and it's super cute. Can't wait to convert it to a pattern.

In other news, it's 7 days and counting until I get (most of) my countertop, 8 days until I get my kitchen sink... so excited to have an end in sight. Being that I'm slightly OCD when it comes to cleaning, it's been driving me crazy and I can't wait to be able to be able to function in my kitchen.

BTW, started this on Tuesday however, since I had no photos I've been holding off posting it... well, here it is, photos or not.