Holiday Weekend

Planting, stitching, walking and relaxing. Those are my plans for the holiday weekend. I started the planting last weekend. These are my tomato plants.

The rhododendron is blooming. 

 I was surprised to see my irises in bloom. It has been several years since they gave me any flowers.

I have planted some of my flower pots, but they need to grow a little before they are pretty enough to take pictures. I ran out of potting soil, so the flowers below still need potting. The impatiens in the background are waiting for Hubby to trim the bushes so he doesn't step on them.

 Hubby surprised me with this beautiful hanging basket. He thought it was pretty so he bought it. 

I have been stitching the pup. Yesterday, I sat on my front porch and started filling in some of the open spaces.

I worked steadily until some bees decided that they wanted to be my friend. I like the bees to pay attention to the flowers rather than me.

I also added a few more stitches to Baker Beach, but not enough to give a photo update right now.

I will be working on both of these projects sometime today.I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Tomorrow I will link to the Stitchery Link Party over at Super Mom - No Cape. Pop on over to these sites to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

I resumed my morning walking this weekend. I walk a mile and a half around my neighborhood around 7:30 am. Since I am working every day (and the weekends have been cold and rainy), it has been a while since I have walked and I've been missing noticing it. Of course, it is back to work on Tuesday, but soon school will be done and I can walk (almost) every day.


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Slow Stitching

I am working on the pup with again.

I really want to get it done. I have a couple of other projects that I want to start. This is one of them.

I designed this a while ago and now I have a recipient in mind for it. 
I can't tell you who. I want her to be a little surprised when she receives it. Although I have the colors specified from my color chart, I have a feeling that they will change as I start stitching it. I might start on it today as it should be a really quick project. Tell me what you think of the design. I would like to know.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. The pup and the key will be my projects for today. On Monday I will join the Stitchery Link Party at Super Mom - No Cape. Be sure to visit this blog also.

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Happy Birthday Mom

My mom will turn 89 tomorrow. 

 The picture above is the two of them on Easter. She is knitting this afghan for my daughter.

 It is giving her fits. It is not that the pattern is difficult, she just has difficulty completing the actual knitting with her somewhat arthritic hands. Also, the dark navy that my daughter picked makes it hard for her to see the stitches sometimes. Currently, I am frogging about 50 rows of stitching for her because she found a mistake that far back. I marked it with the green stitch marker.

 Now my daughter and I saw that mistake back in February, but didn't say anything because my daughter really didn't care about it. Unfortunately, my mother recently discovered the mistake and insists that she must fix it or she won't want to finish the afghan. Sigh......

I thought this would be a good week to join Ginny for Yarn Along as I am doing some un-knitting. What are you knitting/crocheting? What are you reading? Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are up to.

As for reading, I am in the midst of The Glass Castle by Jennifer Walls. This is not I a book that I would normally pick up, but it is one of the group of books from the school where I work that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I am actually finding it quite interesting. It is a glimpse into a way of life that is totally foreign to me. There is poverty (although I don't think the author realized it as a child), homelessness, joy and sorrow. This is a well-written memoir. 

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Baker Beach has been getting some love.

I had a whole lot of time last weekend and yesterday to work on Baker Beach. The fifth page is well under way. I feel guilty that I am not washing windows or planting flowers (not that I have bought any yet), but not that guilty.

Here is where I was last week. 

This is my progress since then.

I have also been working bit by bit on the pup. You can see just a little bit of a darker brown color on the right side of the tale and underside of the belly.

This should be going faster, but I am not motivated.

Isn't this a great book that I received from my son for Mother's Day. 

I can't wait to have the time this summer to buy some fabric and get a start on one of these 3-D quilts. I have always wanted to make a tumbling blocks quilt, but I may start on one of the beautiful variations. 

This is amazing. 

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching today. On Monday I will join the Stitchery Link Party at Super Mom - No Cape. Pop on over to these sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by! 

4 down 6 to go

Yes!!!! I came home from work on Friday and set to work on Baker Beach. It turns out that there was one color of floss that covered the majority of the confetti stitches. Once that color was done there were less than 10 stitches to fill in with a variety of colors. The fourth page is now officially finished. 

I had already started on the fifth page, but I did add some more stitches today. You can see my progress in the upper right-hand corner. This page and the next are only 20 stitches wide, so they shouldn't take that long to complete....at least I hope they don't. Once this fifth page is completed I will be halfway finished with this project.

 I will have two more afternoons free each week starting mid-May. I hope to devote at least some of that time to stitching. 

I have to share this picture.

 Right outside my mother's front door is a somewhat overgrown bush that has now become home to a pair of robins. This is their nest with 4 beautiful blue eggs. I really hope that the baby birds will be safe from the neighborhood cats once they hatch. The bush is easily accessed from the handrail on the front entrance. (I could have reached in and touched those eggs when taking the picture). 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. On Monday I will join the Stitchery Link Party at Super Mom - No Cape. Pop on over to these sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by.

Stitching Along

I have been spending some of my time this "vacation" stitching along. You can see the most progress on the pup.

I finally spent some stitching time on Baker Beach. Here is where it was when I last touched it.

This is where I am now. You can see the progress in the lower right corner.

 Every time I sit down with it I plan to fill in all those confetti stitches, but I leave it an hour later and there is still more to stitch. There are more than five colors that still need to be stitched in the sand and rocks on the bottom. I will spend some time on it on this rainy spring Sunday. Maybe I can finish this page. I really want to get started on the fifth page. Once that is finished I will finally be halfway done with this project.

I am so happy to report that I have finished writing all of my lectures and even my final exam for my university course. I have two more lecture sessions this week and the final the following Monday and then all that I will have to do is grade the final. I really love teaching my university students, but I will enjoy the break and having my Monday and Wednesday afternoons free again. I need to start getting some walking in.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching today. On Monday I will join the Stitchery Link Party at Super Mom - No Cape. Pop on over to these sites to see what other bloggers are up to.

I did a little reading this week also. I read an older Nora Roberts romance novel (no picture) and then I picked up this.

A teacher at the high school where I work brought in over a dozen books that they no longer wanted. This was one of a few that I picked up. I really thought this would be a highly inspiring book especially when the date of the author's death was the date of my son's birth. I was amazed by the coincidence. Unfortunately, although there are inspiring stories of faith and the power of prayer throughout the book, I wasn't as moved as I am by some other stories. This is a true story of agony, despair, faith and hope, but it was not at all uplifting or inspiring for me. I will be returning it to the break-room for someone else to have the opportunity to read it.

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