Before and after

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful baby girl.

And seven years later, she was still a beautiful little girl.

To be continued...

Another notch

Last week I have turned thirty-seven, or, as one of my Wilde-loving friends would say, I have turned thirty-five for the third year in a row. :) I disapprove of lying in any form to the extreme, which is why I refuse to wear hair extensions or padded bras, and I stopped applying make up for the same reason. Last week I have dyed my hair for the very last time, only because the ends were still very light reddish shade, while the roots were my original dark brown. So I got my hair consistent and from now on I will just let it hang. :)

Picture heavy

 Here is my baby in the progress of teaching her bunnies to beg. They are truly adorable creatures, but no match for my girl!
I added several pictures of my parents' garden. I wish I could arrange the pictures better, but Blogger is really terrible in that respect. The pictures are difficult to position and they don't stay where I put them in the editing frame, so I have to keep switching to the preview. Next time I will simply add a Picasa slideshow but I just cannot bother now.

Breaking news

For the very first time in seven years, my daughter finally caved in to my pleas and let me, wait for it, braid her hair!

Mommy is really over the moon now.

Seven years ago

"Mom, please don't call me Luca!"
"Why? It's your middle name."
"Well, I don't like it!"
"What's the matter, honey? Does it mean something bad for you? Do I say Luca in a different tone than I say Tamara?"
"No, I just don't like it. I like Tamara. Call me Tamara every time you talk to me!"

The end of an era

Today I have removed the child safety latches from the kitchen cabinet. I no longer have to worry that she will unknowingly reach in and grab a knife by the blade. She's a big girl now.
*sigh*

Brought to you by Motorola

The sweetest little girl I have ever seen in my whole life.

Mandala design

I spent the weekend with my baby, so I couldn't be bothered to blog. Partly because I was having such a good time with my girl, and partly because she was camping the computer. She has a bunch of games she likes to play on the Nickelodeon website and a Hungarian site. She also loves drawing on the computer. For a six-year-old, she is very good with the mouse. I spotted a mandala maker on one of her favourite sites and decided to play around with it. I'm sharing the link in case you want to give it a go. The buttons speak for themselves, so I don't think you will need instructions. I just wish I could hold the mouse a bit more steady. Some of my lines are too shaky!

Of dragons

By now you all know that I play World of Warcraft on a regular basis. There are many creatures in that game that are too scary for minors to see, so I do my best to avoid showing those to my daughter. On the other hand, I think kids are way smarter than the average grown up gives them credit for, so I do let her see some parts of the game. The healthy part with green grass and trees and wolves for monsters. Not the Plaguelands with gigantic worms and rotting carcasses and attacking undead creatures.
I did, however, let her play some of the more innocent features of the game, like flying around on one of my drake mounts or fishing. Yes, you can fish in WoW. Or just let her watch the game, it is almost like a cartoon anyway. That was before November, 2008, when the game expansion Wrath Of The Lich King was released. From that point forward, the loading screen of a slightly ominous but still definitely peaceful stone gate was changed to the icy landscape above, with a huge undead skeletal dragon occasionally flying in and releasing a chilling roar before departing again. I was first worried that might scare my baby and tried to hide from her, but one time she woke up earlier than expected and saw the loading screen. "Oh, cool, an ice dragon" she exclaimed and seemed to completely ignore the fact that there is neither flesh or skin on its bones. I quickly affirmed that it is indeed an ice dragon, not unlike the one she is playing with in the game Fairies and Dragons, installed from a CD we got for free in a McDonald's Happy Meal.
So all was well until last December. That is when the latest expansion, Cataclysm was released. The powerful black dragon, Deathwing, has finally found it's way from its prison and scorched the lands of Azeroth in the event that is referred to as The Shattering. As a meta-gaming consequence, the loading screen had changed too. It is Deathwing in person, during his attack on the city of Stormwind.

I totally forgot about it as to me it made no difference what is on the loading screen, but my girl got all excited. "Look mommy, it's a new dragon" she shouted when she first saw it. "Yes, honey" I answered, "this time it's an evil fire dragon". She froze on the spot. Her eyes got big. I obviously said something shocking. I asked her "what is wrong, honey?" With her eyes still fixed on the loading screen she asked in the voice of disbelief "dragons CAN be evil?"

Mommy is so proud.

Horseland

Horseland is one of Tamara's favourite cartoons ever. Mainly because of the many horses in it. 

Another WIP

I still didn't find the hand dyed floss for my x-mas SAL, so that is put aside in my UFO pile for now, but I will definitely finish it as soon as I put my hands on more floss. But since I was going through my UFOs I found an earlier project, that happens to be another x-mas SAL. At the time I couldn't finish it because I couldn't print the chart. I ran out of ink and couldn't afford a new cartridge. I know. Anyway, long story short, I got the ink, the chart, the floss, so I dusted it off and am determined to finish it this month. As you can see, I changed it to say 2011, and I plan to make it to a nice pillow for my girl this X-mas.

 The photo isn't the best quality, as I took it with my new cell phone. Yes, I have a new phone. The old one was kinda, well, old, and mom found a sweet deal at a provider, so she bought me a new one. I love it most because it has a big screen and a radio. And just look at the pretty pictures I managed to take with it! Of course, there is no way you can take a bad picture of such a pretty face!

Girls will be girls

I bought a whole bunch of toys for my baby for Christmas, but I thought that the real girlie thing to do would be to go shopping for clothes together, like girls do. I only had money for one item, but she was very understanding about it. She chose this pretty lavender ballet skirt in H&M and she's wearing it every day. Obviously, given the weather that is unusually cold even for winter, she can only wear it indoors, but she loves it and won't stop dancing in it. She even drew a picture of herself in this skirt. Please observe how much care she took to add sequins to her belt. Yep, she's my girl, and she's multi-talented.

For my baby

I have collected a few adorable animal photos from the web that have a parent and offspring in them. I will print them for my baby but I also wanna share them with my friends. Here you go!

Kids of any race will nag mom while she's working

My gal

This is a drawing by my dearest six year old. In case you were wondering, it is a patched cat where the patches for some reason are are flower shaped. She has a little striped baby cat, because no living creature in this world should exist without an adoring and irresistibly cute offspring. So mommy cat and daughter cat are walking on the field of flowers and lollipop trees. She's been watching a lot of Strawberry Shortcake cartoons recently, hence the candy flora.
She also wrote DVD on the picture just to show me that she can. It is not part of the picture, she just didn't find another piece of paper to write on. Yes, she is due to start school next September, but already knows all the capital letters and most lower case ones. And she wrote her very first letter to Santa in crayon. I don't have it on me now but I will definitely scan that too. I'm planning to design a piece where I use her various drawings and then I will stitch it for her. Not sure of the end project yet, maybe a few pillows. She is very fond of drawing and so I have plenty of material!

She also likes to help me with my stitching. Please kindly ignore the 20+ years old T-shirt I'm wearing in the picture, as well as my obviously unwashed and unkempt hair. Focus on the undivided attention, concentration and dedication on my baby's face. Thank you so much.
Below is the photo of her progress. It's the brown dotted line in the top left part of the project. She has finally figured out that one is supposed to punch the needle into the bigger holes on the fabric and that one must always advance to the next one in a neat row, she just doesn't do crosses yet. So she is doing a semi-finished Holbein stitch. Whatever. She's my daughter and whatever she does is perfection to me.

New minies and more fun

I have managed to finish two more mini freebies recently and last weekend we visited the zoo again. It seams that my daughter associates the zoo with her dad coming to visit. I don't mind because we have a great old time every time. This time we even managed to catch some of the shows, like the seal feeding when the animals do all kinds of tricks for the fish and everyone's amusement, including their own.

Later that day my mom called me in panic because she heard on the radio that a six years old girl was attacked and severely bitten by a seal during the presentation. I googled the news. It was a boy, 11 years old and in Australia, but the rest of the news was true. He is okay now. I only shared this little incident to let you all know what my mother's general state of mind is. This "if something awful happens, it probably happened to my kids" attitude is what I had to deal with on a daily basis for the past 30+ years and I don't think she will change soon.

But never mind that, enjoy my stitching and my girl pretending to be a funny little squirrel.

Her ideas

My girl is getting bigger and bigger, and her thoughts are also getting more elaborate in time. Sometimes she scares me. Like the one time she said she wants to try if umbrellas really function as parachutes, and one can jump out of the window with them, as seen in several cartoons. I explained to her that that is impossible and if she tried that, she'd be severely injured and possibly even die. I hoped that would be enough of a threat, but no. Here is the conversation that followed:

Her: I don't mind dying! At least I would see my great-grandma again and play with Valiant! (Our dog that died last year.)
Me: (shocked) But don't you think about me? What would I do without you? I would cry all the time if I ever lost you!
Her: Oh, then you should simply die too.


I managed to talk her out of that idea before she convinces the family to commit mass suicide.

Another chat with my girl, the budding fashionista:
Her: Could you buy me a backpack with a zebra's head on it?
Me: (thinking she has those funny kiddie packs in mind) Sure, no problem.
Her: But not a fake one, a real zebra head actually sewn on a backpack.
Me: (facepalm) I don't think they make such backpacks, honey. Besides, remember the zebras in the zoo? Their head is way too big to be used as an accessory. (mommy trying to reason with a 6-year-old, lol)
Her: Then maybe not a grown zebra? But the head of a zebra foal? (practical solution)
Me: (shocked) Do you actually want someone to kill a baby zebra so you can have a pretty backpack? (trying to raise a future PETA activist here, lol)
Her: (thinking) Well, not kill it, but if a zebra baby would die anyway, can some people cut its head, wash the blood off (details!) of it and then sew it on a backpack for me?
Me: (giving up) I'll see if there is one available in the shops, honey.

Seriously, where does she get her ideas?

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?

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.

Pictures and progress

I've been playing around with Picasa for a while. It's great for organizing image files. The 3.0 version is also brilliant at red eye removal, which is essential for us, because my daughter has the kinda beautiful greyish blue eyes that will always look red in photos. I have used these features for months, but now I decided to explore Picasa even more thoroughly and I have been experimenting with the collage tool a bit. Here, let me share a few of those! In the first one I have some of my recent pictures with my little beauty.

The second is only her in her ballerina outfit. Yes, she is taking ballet lessons. My little sweetheart! And yes, I am browsing the net to see what child ballerina charts I should order for future stitching. How did you know? :)

Finally, some recent stitching. I have found a Permin kit I started working on about this time last year, but my illness just got worse and my shaking hands didn't let me stitch at all. But now I'm back on my feet and I am working on it every day! I hope to finish it in a few weeks. I will keep you updated.

Giveaways galore!

Maybe there is something in the way the stars and planets align, maybe it's just generosity in the air or the blogosphere, but I found another giveaway that I just have to enter and this is the post for it.

People who know me can tell that only two things make me more fanatic than cross stitch (not counting my daughter who is so important, she's off the chart), and those two things are boxes and beautiful papers. I'm in love with paper. I still write lots of letters on paper, and a diary, and a calendar, and whatnot.

But that's beside the point now. What matters is that Unikat has made this absolutely stunning little box and decided to give it away to a lucky person entering the draw. To see more photos of the box and read the rules in detail, please click right HERE.

To get an extra chance in winning I also have to post my favourite finished project for this year. It would be the DMC kit by Betty Davis of the little girl washing up, not only because my daughter loves it and tells everyone that the picture shows her doing chores, but also because it's the first piece of cross stitch my mother appreciates.