Applejacked

This picture was snapped back in February but I was too busy/tired/scatterbrained to upload it then. As you know, we in Hungary don't celebrate Halloween. If kids wanna play mass dress-up, they either have to have nerdy parents who take them to ComiCon and other events featuring cosplay, or they have to wait for the masquerade season of February. Tamara is still very much into My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. She cosplayed Pinkie Pie before and this year she chose Applejack. She is rocking my chequered shirt and I sew felt apples on her jeans for a cutie mark. I think she looks great.

Are ya' all right, sugar cube?

10 years

It was exactly ten years ago on Valentine's day that I said "I do" for the second time. It was a warm February morning, with some leftover patches of snow on the sidewalks but a lovely sunshine. A friend of mind braided my hair with a champagne coloured ribbon, I wore a dress I bought at 19 because I thought it made me look like Snow White and I never had the courage to tell my mom how much it REALLY cost. We had lots of friends and family at the wedding, it was a jolly event, especially at the point when I couldn't stop giggling. I was eight months pregnant. It was possibly the happiest day of my life. The days after that... not so much. It wasn't perfect. It didn't last. I wasn't happy. My heart was crushed, my dreams with it. I regret getting married. I did not, however, regret getting pregnant. I wanted it more than I ever wanted anything else. And motherhood wasn't as perfect and jolly as I thought it would be. It is a lot harder than I imagined, but my daughter gives me the strength to cope with whatever life is throwing my way. Including divorce. And Valentine's day. Reminding me every year what could have been. What should have been. Our marriage was crap. Our daughter is... whatever comes after awesome, I do not have the words to describe her. She wouldn't be here for me without you, so... happy anniversary. You prick. :P

My sister and I at the wedding

Back to blogging

I missed blogging, but due to recent rearrangements in my job I just couldn't find the time and/or energy to do it. It's been a long winter and I missed my sunshine. I mostly run on solar power. Also, I have more and more problems with blogger, so I started to experiment with Wordpress. I may move my blog there. I will let you know if I do. Here is a brief recap of important things that happened, told mostly in pictures. 

May is about to end

I have not written anything this month. Mainly because I am too tired and in a new situation that both DD and I have got to get used to. Thing is, I have a job. My contract still says temp, but as far as I know, I am the only contestant for the position, which makes it a bit easy, but I am still very determined to do the best job possible. I owe that to myself and the position too. I will be working behind the counter of a needlework shop! Is there a better job possible for a cross stitch addict like me? No way!

February flashback #2

Now that we've entered April it is really time to get my February blogging done. :)

The other big thing to be remembered about February is of course the masquerade. Here in Hungary kids don't dress into costumes at Halloween, they do get to have a ball and loads of fun in February. It is the carnival season in many European countries.

In my daughter's school they prefer home made costumes to readily made ones. This cute cat was entirely my daughter's idea. She wore a pair of black leggings, black leotard, a pair of soft boots my sister bought her last year, and the ears and tail I bought her at a joke shop. She hates face painting so she only let me smear some black eye shade on the tip of her nose and a few lines for whiskers. And then she had some lunch: fish sticks. Ideal for my kitten, don't you think so?

Update

I have disappeared for some time again. My BWO membership stops me from apologizing. I can't say I was busy, I was "only" depressed. I spent my time mostly by leveling various Facebook creatures, whether they are slaying dragons, running restaurants or working on a virtual farm.
My soon-to-be-ex and I had another court appearance last week, now there's only one more before the divorce is final. I am still on a job hunt and the financial problems are not making it easier to fight my condition.
I tried to participate in the 100-stitch challenge one of my Yahoo mailing boards started, where everyone was supposed to do at least 100 stitches daily throughout May, and I did start off nicely, but eventually, as the courtroom date came closer, failed. I stopped stitching for two weeks completely. Instead, I rearranged my stitchy and scrapbooking stash around the flat so now I cannot find anything :P but at least it kept my mind away from the divorce and saved my from crying.

I also visited my daughter a lot more in May. She is the loveliest little lady ever. In this picture below she and I are in kindergarten just after she told me a Mother's Day poem. You see the little heart in my hand that she stitched for me for this special occasion, and yes, if you take a close look at my eyes, it is obvious I cried.

I found the mini kits I lost and mentioned in my previous post. They fell behind the table. Unfortunately I cannot scan them as my scanner/printer is acting silly ever since I last changed cartridges. I should re-install the software but I just can't be bothered. Plus, I have no idea where the CD is.

I was hoping that spring would help me fight depression, but the weather is mostly rubbish, thanks to which we had several floods in the country. And the threat is not gone yet, as we are expecting further weeks of rain.

To end the entry on a positive note, I wanna share a link I just came across. If you click HERE, you will be able to see 40 amazing houses that were inspired by various fairy tales. I would love to live in any of them. You can't really be depressed in a whimsical home like that, can you?

The Thumper rule

"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say nothing at all."

That is my number one reason for not blogging recently. Hardly anything worth reporting to my blogworld friends. Still depressed. Still divorcing. Still on a job hunt. Still kinda weak. Hardly stitching.

Okay, I did manage to do some stitching. Remember I promised myself to stitch the free kits of the Hungarian Keresztszemes Magazin every month? I skipped in December because that issue had some pink pig kits that I, no offense to the designer, found ugly and decided to not stitch. But it's not a very nice thing to say so I didn't say it at the time. I did stitch the viking-themed freebies of January and I am working on the hearts of February.

By the way, since we are talking about hearts in February, can I please have a request? Can you please NOT send me anything for Valentine's day this year? This request is not for any of the mailing lists, of course you are free to post anything for all the members, but no cards or personal messages to me, okay? It's not just about Hungary not having any traditions attached to this day. It's not even the fact that I would have my sixth anniversary on Valentine's if I would still have a marriage worth celebrating. It's more because a few days after that day my soon-to-be-ex and I will have to appear on court to officially state that we no longer wanna be married to each other. And quite frankly, that is enough of a stress and pain without having little pink hearts and lovey-dovey messages remind me of what I have lost.

What a strange year it has been

I started 2009 being sick as a dog and too weak to walk around the block. My daughter was already living with my parents for some months and I saw her on the weekends. My depression was in full force and I didn't talk to my husband at all, except when I asked if I could have my turn at the computer. I was awake all night, doing everything I could think of on the net, working on FaceBook collections, playing online games, reading all news sources and trolling gossip blogs, doing all kinds of things I didn't care about at all, but at least they kept me awake so I didn't have to go and share a bed with a man I no longer love. This habit made me even weaker and added a still present sleeping disorder to my list of problems.
Late in spring I finally managed to tear open all the wounds I've been licking and told my husband all the things that hurt me and made me want to divorce. It was very difficult for both of us, but also very necessary. Luckily, none of us wants to cause any harm to the other and we have no ill feelings towards each other, we just acknowledge that we're not as compatible as we have originally thought we would be. It did take some time of getting used to, we spent most of the summer trying to figure out what to do and how exactly should it be done. He started packing his things in the autumn and we filed for divorce.
Winter came and I felt completely numb, the weight of my decisions and their consequences nearly crushing me. Most of my days are spent without purpose or merit. The holidays were empty and weird. My daughter visited most of the relatives and enjoyed the festive season, but hasn't seen our Christmas tree yet. I spent New Year's Eve all alone, on World of Warcraft, doing random raids with strangers when the clock struck 12.

Giving thanks

I want to wish all my American friends happy Thanksgiving and so I decided to collect what I can be thankful for.

• I'm thankful for the internet because it made me possible to have amazing friends all over the world.
• I'm thankful for living in a country where women's rights to get a job, own property and get a divorce are self-evident.
• I'm thankful for living in the 21st century where vaccination, clear drinking water, heating, electricity and various forms of telecommunication are available.
• I'm thankful for globalization that lets me have a Big Mac with french fries while watching Japanese anime on my Samsung telly and making a phone call on my Nokia.
• I'm thankful for holiday sales that let me buy stash and make me feel like I'm saving money. :)
• I'm thankful for all our bad teeth because is shows we can afford candy.
• I'm thankful for all the clutter in our home, it shows we can buy more stuff than we need to survive and that we have more important things to do with our time than cleaning all the time.
• I'm thankful for frogging, because it shows I've been enjoying something else (movies, conversations) while stitching.
• I'm thankful for Lady Gaga, now I no longer feel like the weirdest person I know.
• I'm thankful for yesterday's blackout, it reminded me how much fun one can have by folding origami birds by candlelight.
• I'm thankful for the nights I spend alone, I didn't have so much time to think and re-evaluate things in years.
• I'm thankful for my financial problems because now I can appreciate what I have even more.
• I'm thankful for the cold because it drove a hungry black kitten to my doorstep where it's meowing every evening 'till I give it food and milk. If I can tame it, I'll keep it.
• I'm thankful for my ex-husband for helping me understand what I want and what I don't in a relationship.
• I'm thankful for all the annoying teenagers I come across, they make me love my age and maturity.
• I'm thankful for all the arguments I have with my parents and  sister, it shows they are still alive and caring about me (even if in a bit suffocating way) whether I ask for it or not.
• I'm thankful for blogging because it lets me vent.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!


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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!

Christmas Night is finished!

Finally! I have finished my almost UFO project! I thought this day will never come, but I decided to clench my teeth and get rid of it. Yippee!

This piece was meant to be a Christmas gift for my sister. I let Mónika choose a design she likes best from an online catalogue. Also, at the time we were so low on funds that she had to pay for it and I let her know that the time and effort I put into it will be her present. Of course, at that time none of us knew just how much effort this piece is going to take of me.
Anyway, we ordered the kit. The design was available with three different brands of floss: DMC, Venus and Puppets. The latter one was the cheepest - this was a fair warning, but we failed to notice it - so Mónika chose that one. I felt a slight suspence when I received the kit. The picture on the package wasn't a photo of the stitched piece. It was clearly a computer generated pattern. Also, as there is a car standing in the snow, I suspect it is a modern postcard scanned and shoved into a XS converter software.

As I discovered while stitching, the "designer" didn't bother doing anything else to the picture. I realized this, when I stitched the sky with a deep brown colour and found one or two random dots with another deep brown, barely distinguishable from the surrounding colours. Actually, I could not find any logic in the use of the several brown shades, so it must have been a software. I can surely say that the only thing a human hand had to do with this chart was hitting the Print button and then folding the sheets. And there were several more things I hated about it. For example, two colours - shades of blue - that are EVERYWHERE next to each other (resembling the snow) are marked by two very similar symbols: a circle with one half shaded. For one colour the left side, for the other, the right one. And these symbols are mixed together ALL OVER the chart! My eyes were flowing with tears! I had to extra go through the sheets and mark these kind of matching symbols with colour pencil.

I have always had mood swings and was treated with major depression for years, but my condition is pretty fine since Tamara is here with me. In fact, I haven't had such deep gloomy moment in years as I had while stitching this piece. It is quite logical if you think about it: greys and dark and dull colours, all scattered in random fashion, forming nothing but a confetti. Who wouldn't be down after spending hours looking at this thing?

I must be thankful for my online stitching friends. They taught me to take pictures of my stitching from time to time. Without this habit I would have felt I am making no progress at all! They also made me feel that having several WIPs is allright, and that I don't have to work on something I don't enjoy looking at. They constantly reminded me that stitching is fun, it should be a joyful hobby and not a pain in the neck. I am eternally thankful to you ladies! Thanks to you, I was able to put this horrid thing aside and work on more colourful designs, and I even had a few small finishes.
So, after taking a long break, during which I collected more and more stash, during one stash organizing session I came accross this piece again. Looking at it I couldn't believe how complicated this chart was and I wondered how on Earth was I able to work so much on it. I gathered the fabric, chart and floss once again and set out to work on it. This was about two weeks ago. All the bad memories came back at once. The stupid chart on thin, easily tearing paper, the interchangeable symbols, the cheap floss that almost melts as I stitch with it and keeps fraying and tearing... I hated it, but I could see that I am too close to the finish to give up. I worked on it whenever I could. I finished two small model stitching pieces in the meantime, but carried on stitching.

Sometimes, when I realized that I will have to thread my needle again, just to do a single cross, I was tempted by a little devil that told me "those shades of brown look all the same, so why not use a long piece of thread and do every brown shade with that single colour? Who would ever know the difference?" I have thought about it, and realized that I would, and that is all that matters. So with deep sighs I have threaded my needle again and again, and: ta-daaa! I did it! It's finished! I have already washed it and now it's drying. Tonight it takes off to the framer and I will not want to see it again in a while! I have gathered the floss and the chart in a plastic bag and sealed it to keep their wicked pleasure-sucking demons locked inside. Later I plan to ritually burn them on a bonfire so they could do no more harm.

And now presenting: