Ace of Wands

This is the picture I started last year. It's a Heaven and Earth Designs chart and the original artwork is by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, currently my absolute favourite artist. It is the card from her Tarot series.

This is what it will look like when it's finished. As you can see, I still have a long way to go. Surprisingly, I am not worried.

This image was a love at first sight for me. I took my time with it, even though I had the chart and floss for it for some time. Then I wondered if there was anything else than looks that draws me to this particular image and googled what this card stands for. This is what I found, below... basically my big dilemma through my life. For almost forty years, I had no idea who I am and what I want to do with my life. Then I got a job at a needlework shop, and I realized that stitching and embroidery is so much more than a hobby for me. It is my passion, my dream, my life. This is what I want to do all day, every day. This is how I want to make my living. This is the legacy I wanna leave behind when I'm gone. This is how I want to express myself. For the first time of my life, I at least know which direction I should be going to figure out what I wanna be when I grow up. Now let's take this reversed card and turn it the right way up... I'm making it my goal for 2014 to figure out how I can make that happen. And I keep stitching on this project to remind myself of that.

Just the pictures

October in November

It's time for the October edition of the WIPocalypse report. Do not adjust your clocks and calendars.

Kit by Vervaco

Progress and S.E.X.

I've been stitching a lot lately, obviously I cannot show you the secret project, but I can inform you that it is growing steadily and I even started another minor secret project I am about to finish and reveal. Here are my progress pictures and a photo of my recent purchases. Yes, I've been a bad girl and increased my stash yet again.

Game time!

Okay, I am still working more hours than I'm comfortable with, but at the same time I am happy with the direction my life is taking, and to celebrate that I decided to host a little game. I call it "guess the HAED" and it pretty much describes what you must do. Last month Kelly from GA decided to RAK me on my birthday, which was awfully nice of her and caught me by surprise. It made me look through my HAED stash and regardless of the WIPocalypse madness I have going on, I just had to start working on one of them! It also inspired this bit of fun. 

So here's the rules: 

1, Kelly, I love you, but sadly, you are disqualified. :) 

2, You may go through the HAED website, but please don't look at my wish list for clues!

3, If you believe you identified the project, leave a comment with the name of the design you think it is. One guess per player please!

4, If one person gets it right, he/she gets a small prize. 

4.1, If more people get it right, I will pick one of them for the prize.

4.2, If no one gets it right, everyone takes part in the sweepstake.

5, You have until midnight of July 17th to guess.

6, I will publish the results here on my blog.

7, Kelly will be compensated for not being able to take part. ;)

So start guessing and good luck!

Edited to add: okay, I take back rule two, you can look at my WL if you wish. But really, leaving a comment with any HAED design that has blue in the top left corner will get you in the draw, so as I said in my comment, consider this a giveaway! :)

I have also removed word verification, as I have to approve every comment anyway, so no point. 

36

I'm back and I'm blogging again because I don't really have anyone else to talk to.

When DD and I wake up in the morning, the discussion usually starts with her going "mom, wake up already, the sun is shining". Yesterday her first words were "happy birthday mommy"! How adorable is she to remember my birthday first thing in the morning? Even I didn't remember that! And neither did most of my family, actually. :( How sad is it that I get more b-day wishes from strangers on my Facebook wall than from the ones who knew me all my life?

I have managed to do some stitching on Feasting Frenzy. I joined a SAL on one of my favourite groups, Stitching Sisters. This month we have a bird/insect themed SAL so I jumped on the opportunity to dust off FF and join arms with my online siblings. I hope to make some really nice progress and maybe even finish!
Today I even managed to fall in love again. No, it's not a guy, I've had quite enough of them for the time being, thank you. It's - what else? - stitching. Heaven And Earth Designs, to be exact. I tried to avoid their website for months, knowing that a, I cannot afford a new chart, b, I already have some of their designs in my stash that I didn't even start, c, I have a HAED WIP I haven't touched in a year, d, I signed on for the HAED bookmark SAL 6 months ago and haven't even started yet. I only printed the first parts of the chart.
But I visited the page today, and oh my heart, it's captured again! Mostly by Linda Ravenscroft's work, who as long time readers of this blog may already know, I'm a big fan of, but also a few more designs. Here, let me share some lovely pictures that have captured my attention.
I will upload these and the rest to my HAED wish list to my picasaweb album later today.
Okay, what else was I gonna chat about? Oh, yes, I have experienced an unusually large amount of hair falling out every day in the past months and I got fed up with it. I tried all kinds of home treatments but none of them really stopped my hair getting thinner. So I decided to take extreme measures and visited an expert. He started my treatment earlier this week. It is rather painful and there are no guarantees it will work, but I am hoping for the best. He is injecting minor doses of steroids into my scalp. I am terrified of injections so you can imagine how desperate I got if I signed up for this treatment. I have the next one scheduled in four weeks and we should see results by the end of summer. I really hope it was gonna be worth it.
I have also been hitting the gym in these few weeks. I just realized that I gained 5 pounds, which would not be a tragedy as I was too thin anyway, but all of it is on my butt and thighs, so I can no longer put on most of my pants. I have to admit it, it came pretty much as a shock to me as I didn't recognize the process of gaining weight, as much as I could tell, I have been eating exactly the same amount that I always have. Which is why I am not going on a diet or anything, I just work our 2-3 times a week in a local gym and also do some exercising at home as well. I know I wouldn't put on a bikini right now. I look like those funny kiddie books where you can mismatch the top and bottom half of the body. No fun at all.

Lazy needle

I haven't been stitching a lot lately. I got a bit lazy with my Christmas sampler, so now I'm stitching part 7 and 8 together to catch up. I can't take my time because part 9 is already available on Carole's website.
I don't know why I'm acting as if I didn't know what to do with all the empty hours of my time, but I did sign up for a HAED stitch-a-long as well! Not sure what made me do it, don't even ask! HAED simply makes me weak. I cannot resist their beautiful designs! Misery and cross stitching likes, what's more, craves company, so if you want to sign up, you can do that on the HAED message board, come along!
I spent four days at my parents with my amazing little girl. I missed her so much! She got better, waved her cough good-bye, so she is back in kindergarten again. Good thing too, she simply loves that place.
By the way, on this picture she is sitting on Granpa's head. Yes, she's allowed to do that. When she is at Gran's house, she is allowed to do whatever she likes. I'm not particularly happy with that, but what can I do? I need their support.
For the four days I dusted off an older WIP and took it with me. I worked on that single project for the time I spent there. Tamara was really delighted by my choice, because she loves tigers just as much as her mommy does. Here you go, this is my latest progress picture:

On my last day the family doctor gave me and my daughter the H1N1 shot. I never got a flu shot before. I didn't want this one either, but after I heard news that a few miles from my hometown an elementary school was temporarily closed due to a mass outbreak, I changed my mind. I thought, it is simply not worth taking chances. The doctor assured me that the vaccine is strong and has only minor possible side effects, such as light fever, muscle pains, tiredness and slight pain at the spot of the shot. Tamara did develop some fever and seems very tired and sleepy most of the time. In my case it's only the muscle aches and my right arm is very much in pain. I can feel a small lump under my skin where the shot was injected. I put some warm wet cloth on it, it does ease the pain a little, but I still can't do my washing dishes or ironing.

I think I have the perfect excuse to just sit on the couch and stitch a little.

Picturelessness and other technical problems

Shoot, my camera is broken, therefore I cannot take any pictures. And when I say camera, I think of the device taking photos. We have recently purchased the kind of camera that records moving pictures, if you know what I mean. Native English speakers, please help me out!

Anyway, now I can tape my baby girl's singing and dancing. I have even created a YouTube addy and hope to upload those little scenes soon. For now I cannot download them to the computer because we cannot install the camera's softwares. Our CD drive is dead too.

I have complained about this on my Yahoo! boards but for those who have missed it: we had record breaking heat waves in Hungary during the past couple of weeks. Our computer is unfortunately located at the warmest spot of the flat which often led to a number of emergency shutdowns. This made it impossible to do much work at the computer, so I couldn't update my blog or answer my mail as frequently as I wanted. One day the PC gave up completely, and moved to the other side of the rainbow, advertising its departure with a loud "pop" and a blackout. After switching electricity back on and getting rid of the smoke, we bought some spare parts for it, including a new power supply unit with a more effective ventillating device. Since then, our PC has been running more smoothly and with less noise. However, certain parts refuse to work, including our CD-drive.

Lucky for me that the scanner is working just fine. This way I can keep my HAED progress updated. I stitch on Magic Witch every week, at least for a couple of hours. I still have a lot to stich on my Round Robins too. Here is a scan of my latest finish. It's Birthday Flowers by Jeremiah Junction and I stitched the last segment, the Lily-of-the-valley.

As you an see, I have been trying to redesign my blog too. I'm afraid I'm not very good at it. I tried to use some free blog skins, but I can't use them without using all the extra info - links and stuff - I have at the sidebars. I have not given up yet, but I am a little bit frustrated. I haven't even figured out how to use my Yahoo Avatar! Whatever, at least I have added at least a dozen more stitching blog addresses. I have been planning to do that for months. My goals may be far, but I am getting there anyway!

The big WIP line up

I have put together a show of all the major WIP projects I have started. Some of these you may not have seen because I only got as far as a couple of stitches, but at least I am that far. :)

Magic number

I have turned 33 today. They say it is a magical age, a real turning point. I don't feel any different though.

My poor little baby girl is still full of spots. I found the first ones on her hand on Monday but I have mistaken them for mosquito bites. But at night she developed fever and been sleeping restlessly, often crying. Next morning she had even more spots. After waking she didn't have breakfast, just a bit of nursing and went right back to sleep another three hours. We visited the doctor who told us our baby had chicken pox. I was already suspecting that as the neighbour's kids had that illness two weeks ago. I tried to separate Tamara from them but it seems it was too late. Anyway, chicken pox is lurking in the body for three weeks before developing its symptoms, so we may never know when Tami got infected. Doesn't even matter.

We had a hard week, with no walks outside for any of the girls, lots of TV, lots of nursing, very little sleep. DH was with us on Tuesday, but been at work for the rest of the week. Unusually busy week at his workplace, but that is OK because we need the money. But I am more tired than ever. Tami is coming around nicely. Today she stopped growing more spots and the old ones are already beginning to dry off. She was amazingly disciplined in these past days. She really tried not to scratch. She did pick some of the spots but hopefully they won't leave a nasty mark. She is so pretty! I feel for her, some spots are really ugly, they must terribly itch.

Back to my birthday: I told my family and friends that I don't want to celebrate now. My baby is still sick and I am exhausted. Everyone agreed. I got some nice cards though and a great book from DH. It's Terry Pratchett's Masquerade and I love the Discworld books. I won't be reading it yet as I am still reading the Shogun. I also got DH's credit card to order myself a chart from Heaven and Earth Designs. I haven't been to that site for a while so now I just couldn't resist the temptation and bought two charts. :D Hey, it is my birthday after all! Anyway, I created a wish list too but I guess I will have to edit it. I should live for another 150 years to stitch them all!