School is out! Summer Vacation.

Last Sunday we celebrated Father's Day with a walk with our son at a local waterfront park. Our daughter had visited the weekend before. 

School is out as of Friday. I don't go back to work until the last day of August. Oh the crafting plans that I had for the summer that will now have to be scaled down due to my shoulder injury. How sad. I was supposed to have another appointment with my orthopedist this coming Friday, but his office called and said he would be out all week and postponed my appointment by a week. I want to get started on physical therapy. That being said, I have been doing the exercises that I was given and my arm/shoulder is getting stronger every day. It still gets tired when I do too much cross-stitching though. Then again, my other forearm starts aching when I do too much also. I do have to be happy that I can now type this post using both hands. So much easier.

I have been working on my secret stitching and Santa a whole bunch this week.Here is a peek at the secret stitching.

Do you see the beige shading off to the left? Well I had completed a bunch of it near the top of the piece and was surprised by how dark it looked compared to the photo on the kit. I checked and double checked that I used the correct floss. What I didn't notice was that it was only supposed to be stitched with one strand of floss. Needless to say, I did a whole lot of frogging this past week and then I couldn't rest until I put all those stitches back in and finished some more. Now at least it looks like it is supposed to and I am pleased that I caught that mistake. 

Here is where Santa is. You may not notice much progress, but I have added a pale blue (almost light grey) to the fur on Santa's hat near the holly and I added more swirls to his beard. 

I have also been knitting the Butterfly Baby Blanket while watching Mets baseball games, Islander's hockey games (sadly over now) and US Olympic trials in various sports. It has grown a decent amount with all those sports.

My daylilies have begun to bloom. Always so pretty around my deck. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Slow Sunday Stitching

 

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband. I don't know what I would do without his help right now. He has always been a wonderful father to our children. 

I have been steadily working on the Santa Stocking lately. He has the holly on his hat now and some more of the red hat too.

I have also been making very good progress on the Butterfly Baby Blanket.

When we are watching the New York Islanders in the hockey playoffs or a New York Mets baseball game I can actually knit up to 4 rows at one go. That is why it is growing so quickly.

My shoulder is feeling much better. I have a couple of exercises to do each day. One is just walking my fingers up the wall while in a warm shower. I can measure my progress by the tiles on the wall. The other is where I bend at the waist and hang my arm straight down then try to swing it a little bit front to back and left to right. This is somewhat painful as I am doing it, but eases once I stop. I have to work up to three times a day. I started on twice a day yesterday. I will do that for a week and then add once more. I go back to the doctor in two weeks. I still haven't tried driving as I am not supposed to be raiding my arm at all.

Hubby set up my wind spinner this week. We took down an overgrown evergreen in this spot last summer and were going to look for another tree to plant. For now the windspinner will take up this space. We want to get a new fence prior to planting a tree. That fence is 20+ years old and starting to rot. It is time.

My Kousa dogwood has been in bloom. I really love that tree.

Hubby treated me to wine and appetizers on our front porch one late afternoon this week. It was a gorgeous day. Not too hot, not too cool. Perfect for porch sitting.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I think Santa will get some attention today as our son is visiting for Father's Day and can't see my secret stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stitch Along and Shoulder Updates

I really did not expect to be able to post an update for quite some time following my shoulder injury. Here it is, 3 weeks later and I am so happy to be able to cross-stitch a little more each day. Following my orthopedist visit on Friday, I am now allowed to remove my sling during the day for as long as I am comfortable. I also no longer have to sleep with it on. He gave me a couple of really basic exercises to do once a day to start getting my arm and shoulder more flexible. I can't straighten my arm at the elbow just yet. At my next appointment in 3 weeks he will give me a few more exercises to do before I even start rehab. 

All that being said, here is where Santa was on my last update.

This is how he looks now. I have added some more red to his hat and started on the holly.

Thanks so much to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other talented bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. You will see a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, 

Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

 Deborah, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy,

 Anne, AJ, Laura, Cathie, Linda, Helen  

Thanks for stopping by! 

Gradually

I am gradually able to do a little more cross-stitching and knitting each day. I surely jnow when I have overdone it though as my upper arm aches. 

Yesterday I worked on Santa for the first time in over 3 weeks. I added a few stitches of a pale blue to the fur on his hat on the right side. I'm not sure you can even see it. It almost looks grey.

I then promptly dozed off sitting in my rocking chair. A good night's sleep has been hard to come by since my injury. It is recommended that you sleep propped up to limit the shoulder pain, but that aggravates the herniated discs on my lower back. I have had little to no pain in my shoulder when sleeping flat in my back in bed.....too bad I like to sleep on my sides. That is just not possible until my shoulder heals. So most mornings I wake up at 4 a.m. and cannot return to sleep as I am no longer comfortable on my back and my legs are restless. The latter is no doubt due to the fact that I am no longer getting my mile and a half walk in each day. Hopefully it won't be too much longer before I can resume those walks.

I have made decent progress on the Butterfly Baby Blanket. I had trouble getting the pattern started and had to remove the first pattern row twice, but I am on track now. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching.  Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

No surgery.

After deciding to go ahead with the surgery to repair my shoulder, I had an appointment with my orthopedist on Wednesday. In the end, he favored just letting it heal as he feared I would have more pain (I currently don't have any) and, as the surgery is invasive, it might do more harm than good. So I am not having surgery. I am allowed to remove the sling during the day while keeping my arm near my body in order to allow the upper arm muscle to start doing its job holding the bone correctly in the socket. I have been doing this on and off as my arm begins to ache after a while. 

I can also knit or crochet while the sling is off, but casting on 119 stitches for another Butterfly Baby Blanket (you can see the 1st one here) tested the limits of my arm's endurance. I believe I have enough yarn. 

This is where I am so far. Just a beginning.

Throughout last week I added a few stitches here and there to my secret stitching. Again, my arm starts to ache after stitching with less than 18 inches if floss and all it is doing is holding the standing hoop steady. Here is a peek.

I have done a lot of reading. I am catching up with some back issues of Country Home and Good Housekeeping magazines. I also read "Year of Wonders" by Geraldine Brooks. Set in the 1600s during the time of the Plague it was not the most uplifting story, but it had its merits and was easy and enjoyable to read. Now I am reading "The Winter Sea" by Susannah Kearsley. I am already a quarter of the way through it. It is quite intriguing. I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Over the weekend prior to my fall I started filling some of the pots that sit on my deck. I planted 2 cherry tomato plants and some lettuce.

I also filled some pots with salvia, petunias, and impatiens.

My rhododendrons are in bloom, though yesterday's cold rain have since depleted the blooms.

My irises are looking very pretty this year also.

Hubby and I took a drive down to a local bayside beach the other night to enjoy the sunset.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site and see what other bloggers are stitching. I will be visiting other blogs and attempting some kind of crafting.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Stitch Along Update

As I explained in my last post there is most likely going to be a break in my stitching updates every three weeks as I have broken my left shoulder. Thankfully I am somewhat ambidextrous, but I still have to wear a sling and I am going to opt for the surgery that will probably occur this week. That will result in another 4-6 weeks of wearing a sling followed by physical therapy.

So, here is where Santa was three weeks ago. 

This is how much I had stitched prior to Monday's fall.

In the last three weeks I filled in a lot of red and some blue in the fur trim of Santa's hat. It going to be diificult to work on Santa as he currently resides in a scrool frame that is too unwieldly to manage one-handed.

I think I may be able to continue to slowly work on my secret stitching, but obviously I won't be able to show my progress. 

By the way, for someone who normally touch types, typing this post one-handed is exhausting and annoying.

Thanks so much to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other talented bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. You will see a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, 

Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

 Deborah, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy,

 Anne, AJ, Laura, Cathie, Linda, Helen  

Thanks for stopping by! 

Totally Sidelined

It looks there is going to be huge lull in my crafting and blogging for quite some time. I was out on my early morning walk on Monday. Usually I walk in the street, but the school buses were picking up the middle school kids so I moved to the sidewalk to be safe. That was a mistake. I tripped on a raised sidewalk and fell onto my hands and knees. Well I actually fell on my right hand and both knees, but my left hand slipped on the slick grass and I fell on my shoulder. Oh the agony. I was found by a nice man walking his dogs. He called my husband who called an ambulance when he got to me. I thought I had dislocated my shoulder, but no it is broken. I have a sling to keep it immobile as well as pain meds and a muscle relaxer. Right now I can't really do much for myself. Washing and dressing are impossible especially as I can't put my arm in a sleeve.  My daughter had to cut off my t-shirt and sports bra Monday night. Walking is even tentative as it hurts to jostle the shoulder. Getting up from a chair is painful as is getting out of bed which I can't do on my own. This is going to be a multiple week recovery most likely followed by therapy. I go to the orthopedist tomorrow. 

Thanks for stopping by!