Jim

I am so sorry that this blog has taken a back seat to my everyday duties.

I lost my loving husband of 19 years (but with him for 33) on October 5, and these last few weeks have been the hardest of my life to get through. Every once in a while something makes me think of him and I get the weepies, and although I know that life goes on, it's terribly hard. I think with his son commiting suicide just a few weeks before he died, it took everything out of Jim to help him keep his life.

I have been stitching some, but it's so much easier just to sit in a chair and not think or do anything but look at the TV. It doesn't even matter what's on, just noise. How horrible this life is right now.

A friend recently told me that after a loved one dies, people rally around, and then they go back to their neat little lives, all packaged up as before, and you are left with the unraveling of your life. I never thought about this much before, but do now, and am going to be a better person about taking care of other people's mental health.

Julie and I are having a quiet Thanksgiving this year, just with family, and a great friend, and will go and visit my sister and her DH who live in NH and who has recently had open heart surgery with 3 bypasses. I hope that he does well and that he and my sister have many long years more together.

Then, a dear friend and I are going to meet on Saturday in Sturbridge for a day of looking in shops and just getting to know each other a bit better. Should be a wonderful day.

I think that it is going to be a long road for me to get over Jim, not to forget him or what he was, but just to be able to think about him without crying.

Thanks for reading this.

This and That

Hello there -

Just got back from my wonderful finisher, Sue, a few of the stockings that I have finished stitching, and she put them into stockings for me. They are wonderful. Will take a picture of them in the next couple of days. Some go to an exchange and some are mine.

My stitching the last couple of days has gone by the wayside. Many of you know that Jim has been so, so sick the past years, and he just came home from the hospital on Wednesday. When he's in the hospital, I get tons of stitching done, nothing else to do, so I stitch. When he's home, I have all the daily things to do PLUS. So, the stitching gets put to the side. BUT hopefully this afternoon I'll be finishing up my exchange for PS and also get the hangers on the stockings for their recipients.

Am loving all the new items coming from market, but have to tell myself that 1) you do not have nine lives, 2) that you barely have time to stitch what you already have, and 3) and most importantly, stitch what you love only. SO, I'm concentrating on #3 most of all.

I guess that's about all for now. Everyone is doing well, and Jim actually slept all night last night, for the first time in months I think. So for now, all is well.

Sunday

Well, since this is a stitching blog, I just wanted to SHOUT FROM THE ROOFTOPS that I've finished 3 of the new Blackbird Hallowe'en stockings. YIPPEE - and I've started another. These are just so addicting. I'll figure out how to take pictures of them and get them on this blog.

I am just so happy that the Blackbird ladies are so talented and know what the stitchers want. I ordered and sold so many of the charts - they went like hotcakes.

Am going to have to start looking for some more Halloween items so that the gals who are in an exchange with me won't think they are getting stockings - they may - or may not get them, but I would really like to have a tree full of them.

I think things are turning around for the cross-stitching world - seems as though as soon as the new charts come out, they are immediate best sellers.

Have fun today.

Stitching Sunday

It's been a great day for stitching. Just received the new Blackbird Designs 'Tis Hallowe'en booklet that has 13 stockings and projects to stitch. WOW - I'm almost finished with the first stocking out of the booklet. Every page you turn you want to pull the threads, and find some material to start a new project. I'll send a picture when I finish the stocking, and hopefully if I don't spend too much time on the computer tonight, it will be finished.

I am still working on a few projects - actually more than a few - but at least one will get done soon.

I did manage to finish a Plum Pudding Needleart freebie - and I hope to be able to put up a picture as soon as I figure out how to do it. LOL

I guess that's about it for this Sunday.

Have a great day everyone.

New (updated) Blog

Hi to everyone. I'm Bonnie - a married mother of 3, grandmother to 6 and a hubby who is a great person who unfortunately is sick. The two oldest of my children are living in NC, and SC respectively, and the youngest daughter still lives at home and helps me with taking care of my hubby.

The name of my blog came about because that is my new profession. I had worked in MD's offices for almost my entire life, starting at age l4 working as a Candy Striper volunteer at a local hospital. Loved the medical life, but alas, never went to nursing school, but I did learn almost as much as a nurse knows by working for different MD's. Then I lost my job in 2001 and decided to open a cross stitch shop. When that closed I had to find some kind of a job that would pay the health insurance. I now drive a school bus for the district I live in, and drive a small bus for either the special needs children or the private school students. I absolutely love it and can't think of anything else I'd rather do. I also work in the summer driving the bus for the recreation department.

If you know me, you know that I also have a business, cross stitching and cross stitch items of course, called The Painted Giraffe Stitchery, www.paintedgiraffestitchery.com. I also answer to Buzyladee@aol.com.

I love to stitch, and have been doing this since I was about 6 or 7 - learning from my mother who did beautiful embroidery, but didn't crochet or knit until later on in life, and by then I wasn't interested in learning those creative outlets, but now I wish I had learned. BUT I do love the stitching.

In the days to come, I'll take some pictures and hopefully be able to get them to make some sense of what my stitching is like. I am quite eclectic in my stitching, as sometimes a Lizzie Kate will hit me, and then a Prairie Schooler, and I've just recently found Prairie Grove Peddler and then who knows. I love the thoughts of the needle going through the material and me making something of nothing but a pattern and some material/floss in front of me. I almost never choose the material that the designers use for their patterns, and I use lots of different flosses. I think stitching should be unique, and mine certainly are most of the time. LOL

I have a very dear friend, Barb Cooley from Plum Pudding Needleart - www.plumpuddingneedleart.com who is a mentor to me with this darn computer, so once she and I 'sit down in front of the computer together' even though I'll be here in Spencerport and she'll be in Tolland, maybe we can figure things out. I'd love to be able to change things around once in a while. She also designs some really great charts that I've had the pleasure of stitching, even doing one model for her. Wish I stitched faster, I'd do all of her models, but I tend to stray too much. LOL

So, saying all of that, I guess I'm done for now. Be happy everyone, and remember to pick up your needle at least once a day even if it's only to put in a few stitches.