Moon and Stars Flower Pot

With Sandy or San Man Originals http://www.sanmanoriginals.com/index.html permission. I painted her logo Moon and Stars from her monthly newsletter. I just think these guys are just adorable. I had so much fun painting them.



I started with a standard Terra Cotta Pot 6 inch. It had a blue glazed paint finish. I painted the pot white and drew the outline of the moon and the stars and went to painting them. I used acrylic paint. I finished the dry pot with a clear coat. Add bonus the glaze gives it a nice shine too.



So here are a few shots of Moon and Star Pot thanks to Sandy’s adorable design.

More Hoots for the Year of the Owl

I finished Heritage Crafts Three Little Maids, this pattern as been in my stash for ages and ages. I thought it was going to be big, the pattern pages where huge, once I stitched it up not so big. What was I waiting for. I stitched them using DMC and 28 ct white Monaco by Charles Craft.




Cute hoots Ollie

This is Just Nan’s Ollie. Cute little owl on orange. I messed up the tail feathers but decided not to frog to fix it so the colors are not as they were on the pattern, oh well; I think he is still cute even with his imperfections.

This a a 32ct maybe 30ct linen called carrot. The threads are DMC mostly and GAST – Hazelnut. The beads, snaps felt and ribbons all came with the kit, I had to order the owl bed separately.









Oakhavens April

Another one of Tonia’s owls from her 2011 SAL. I never did them then, but they are getting done now in my year of the owl. I worked this one at work during my lunch break. I get 30 minutes, took me 3 days to do it. So this is a fast stitch.

April is stitched on 28ct Stellar Laguna I think by Weeks Dye Works, but I am not 100% sure on that. I used DMC to stitch April.





Major

This is Just Nan’s Tree Hallow Hoot with “Major” hoot charm. This was a 1 night stitch up. Decided I am going to turn this into a No Sew Cube. The fabric is a 28ct, but I don’t remember the name of it. The threads are all DMC. The pattern for Major came with the charm.

Administratvie Professionals Day

Wednesday at work was Administrative Professionals day. Ok maybe not just at work, it is an official


Hallmark card day now. But it feels good to be appricated sometimes regardless of it being a another made up day to sell cards or not.

I did get a card – I think the puppy looks kind of like my puppy Sydney.



I got a Mylar balloon, I borrowed the image from online, my balloon wouldn’t stand still



And I got a flower, a cyclamen, going to repot it on Monday. It’s a pretty pink flower, I bought a terra cotta pot for it that has a glaze finish on I already but I am going to repaint the pot to look different. The glaze finish will help to keep the water and the paint from coming in contact with each other.

Easter Sunday Update

I finally got a neat x-ray of my collar bone. I have been told it looks like a caterpillar or a one of those stick bugs. Granted it is not a very good picture but you get the idea. This picture is a scan of the print out they gave me at my last DR appointment.




I am happy that I seem to be healing well. No physical therapy yet. I have a broader range of motion in my arm each day. I can reach my hand behind my door and I can almost reach my arm out the window to use the drive thru ATM. Almost. I am once again able to put my own hair up in buns or a pony tail. This is a huge deal for me as maybe two weeks ago I could barely touch my chin with my left hand.



I still wear out pretty quickly, but I don’t think that is 100% my collar bones fault.



I still need Frankie (my second pillow pet frog), at work to support my arm during the day. I had to buy a 2nd one when I left Freddie at home one day. Thankfully pillow pets have dropped in price from $24 to only $10.



I am happy to report I am no longer taking any pain meds. I had one bad day where I had to with draw off of it. Apparently I had become addicted. I ran out and had none to take, at least not the stuff I had been taken. So I went almost cold turkey that day to get off of it. I had a raging migraine that day was totally sick to my stomach, I had the shakes and all I could think about was getting another pill. I ended up sleeping it off and I did take another pain pill I had found from my last back pain flair up. I took that for the next 2 days and since then I haven’t taken anything except Tylenol and Midol. My shoulder feels tight some times, but no really pained.



I have also been able to lay down to sleep at least for a couple of hours at night. Before I get up and migrate back out to the cat for the rest of the night. That is huge. I miss sleeping through the whole night in my bed.



Neo finally got a bath and a haircut. He looks loads better already. Smells loads better too. I need to make sure I take him more often, he needs to get used to being groomed. Apparently he is a huge handful at the groomers.



I am cooking today for the first time in well longer than my accident. I am not much of a cook, I don’t really like to cook. So I like to do most of my cooking on the weekends or let my son cook. I made up the fish for a cold fish dish, that you serve on slices of cucumber and tomatoes. I made the cucumber sauce that goes on it too. I am going to serve it with a Greek salad with a lemon dressing. That will make two days of meals, then I am going to make stuffed bell peppers for the rest of the week, I didn’t get them done because I ran out of steam. I still need to mix the dressing and back the veggie chips for lunch. I made a wardorf salad and I make tuna salad for stuff tomatoes for lunch next week. I also made lemon cupcakes for dessert and chopped up the turtles carrots for next week.



Tonight I am making the dinner I was going to make for Christmas Eve dinner, but since I was able to go to visit family last minute that day I stuck the meat in the freezer and I am making it tonight. I had to call my Aunt Deb and converse with her on how she made it. Hers was so tender at Christmas I hope I can duplicate it with her advice. I am going to make the attempt tonight. Looking forward to being able to eat better and feel better and just maybe even take off some weight again, First Christmas holiday season and them my broken collar bone had me eating foods that were not so good for me.



Sydney is now officially an adult dog. She has reached the 1 year of age mark. But she still has a lot of puppy tendencies. She mellowing out a little bit. She is still super hyper, but is listening better. I need to get her to the dog park again to run but I can’t walk her myself right now, it is too much for my shoulder still. She needs to get out and run more. She loves it.



I had Neo and Sydney weighted yesterday at the Vets. Neo is 11.3 lbs that is pretty big for a Yorkie, but he is not heavy. Sydney weights 69.9 lbs. She may still fill out a little more as she gets older but I have a 70lb Akita Husky on my hands. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love her she is an awesome dog. Wish I could take one of her little brothers from this year’s litter. I even have a name picked out for it if I got it. Dakota, but I would probably call him Kodi for short. I am not how ever getting another puppy, I have no room, time or energy to train it, let alone afford all its puppy’s needs with the medial expenses this year. Syd would love it though another high energy dog to play with.



So that is the update, I will try and get the pictures of my latest finishes in here is a day or two, I have to fix the pictures, I also have a picture of Tokka to post, he is growing, slowly, but is a little bigger than he was last year. So much fun having a tiny turtle. Tokka is about 18 months now. Raising a hatchling turtle is nerve racking I have found. They need more care than adult turtles do. Thankfully Tokka took to self soaking fast than Tucker did. I will post pictures in the next post.

Three More Hoots

Best thing about being home on medical leave is I have time to stitch. Once my staples were out it was easier to stitch. That sure helped with my boredom of being home.


I managed to get 3 owls done for year of owls. I think I am going to have more owls than year, I add more to my stitch pile than I complete.

Tribal Owl

Best thing about this pattern, is when I made mistakes they blend in well.



Got up on the Oakhaven 2011 owls, I plan to do one each month so I finish them by the end of the year.

February - Oakhaven’s month SAL owl







March – Oakhaven’s month SAL owl





Now I am working on Hetitage Stitchcraft – Three Little Maids, they have such cute faces. Easy stitch too. So far anyways.

My Accident

On February 19th, 2014 at about 7:30 am, the boy and I left for work and school as usual that warm Wednesday morning. Day was already off on the wrong foot, errr at least the last 12 hours had been.


The dog ate my cake that I had just baked, a really good one too. It was the first time that I had bought this mix, didn’t know if golden butter flavored cake sounded all that great. I hoped it would, I do like butter flavor. The dog stole it off the counter while it cooled.

The dog also pulled my bra off the clothes line in the back yard. Wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t chewed it up too, re-washing, while annoying I could have done, she make it a strapless bra. That bra cost me $30 bucks so I wasn’t happy. She knew this.

But I couldn’t stay mad at her, not when she smiles at me. She is after all my girl.



We went to bed. About 4:30 I wake to a crashing sound. My brand new $300 flat screen HD TV got knocked over, and the screen cracked! My sales reps gave me the money for Christmas to buy that thing! I was really mad at my cats. They don’t smile so I stayed mad. Not how I wanted to start my morning.

We went along with our morning, making lunches, getting dressed, feeding the critters, only this morning I was shooting dirty looks at the cats and muttering mean things at the cats at regular intervals.

Finally we leave for work; we head out to the car, put our stuff in the car, get in the car, and start her up. Put her in reverse. She won’t move, I rev her, she VROOMMMMS real nice and loud for me, still doesn’t move. I mutter DAMN what is up with my car!, I get out of my car. She suddenly lurches backwards, my open car door plows me down, drags me a bit before completely passing over me. She keeps going, until she hits the brick wall across the street.

I get up swearing, that hurt, a number of colorful metaphors spew from my mouth over the next few minutes, I am still operating adrenal fueled. I look at my car, I am standing in the middle of the street still, I look to wear my car was. My first thought, seeing my shoes laying in my parking spot are “oh it knocked my shoes off.” Go ahead laugh, I did, I thought it was funny seeing my shoes there. I collect my shoes and go and move my car back into place. At this time my neighbor comes running out, “are you ok?”, “no” I respond, she’s ready to call 911. By this time my son has run and told my Mom I was in an accident. By now I am starting to realize my left arm isn’t working. I am also starting to notice I am in a great deal of pain.

I call my boss, “I know I am going to get an occurrence, but I am not coming in today, I was just in a car accident, I am going to the ER” My mom takes me to the ER, very brief wait, but by this time I am crying as the pain has fully set in. I try to stay chipper, not totally working.

At the ER they take 5-6 X-Rays oh my shoulder, my knee stars to hurt so my DR orders X-rays of my knee, another 3 or 4 shots, I ask the tech, “with all these X-Rays am I going to glow in the dark now?”, I smile, they laugh “no, you won’t” trying to lighten my mood and not be a cranky patient. It is taking all my energy to do this. I see the pictures from across the room, I mutter, “ I am not a DR but that looks broken to me. I know you can’t tell me the DR has to look at it first” back in my room we don’t wait long, DR comes in, tells me it is broken, big time (me words not hers) gives me 2 Percocet and a valium. 30 minutes later, a new sling, and orders to see my DR ASAP I am released.

I start notifying the masses of my accident. My best friend asks what he can do; I ask if he will replace the tail light on my car. He agrees, picks the car up later that evening. He mentions it is more than just the light, the light is all I need to make road legal again, the bumper, and the dents are just cosmetic.

My ex husband has been great through all this. His first concern is our son of course, mine would be too. He offers to call my insurance company for me, give the details, get claim number work with the owner of the wall. He works for an insurance company so they deal with him. Give him a case number. The landlord to my apartment gets him or my Dad in tough with the brick walls owner. They are agreeable, most of the bricks are salvageable, what isn’t I will need to pay for, sounds fair to me. My insurance will cover the property damage if I choose to submit the claim; I am waiting on the bill so I can decide if I will pay out of pocket or use my insurance.

Here are the shots of the damage

A normal collar bone, not mine.



My collar bone, it is in 3 pieces



The car



The Car Again, scratched my Anti-Obama sticker 



And more alright this actually an after shot but it is the only one of the side damage I have



The wall



My ex took the boy Wednesday night so he could go to school Thursday/Friday, in hindsight I could have used him at home I needed a lot of help, I couldn’t do anything for myself. But he needed to go to school; my mom, dad and Ozzy took good care of me when wass away. The boy came home from school each night and did some chores. Ozzy brushed and tied my hair up each day and let me play with their puppies and say hi to Yankee, the pups are Sydney’s new baby brothers and sisters

I saw my DR on Thursday; he was surprised that I was seeing him before an orthopedic after looking at my X-Ray then playing show and tell with the other DR in the office. He makes some calls gets me an early appointment the next day to see a ortho. The ortho takes 5 minutes with my pictures, and has me scheduled for surgery for Thursday February 28th at 8:30 am. I am allowed to go to work until then. Great I was actually bored at home.

My Mom took me shopping Saturday, to find clothes that would be easier for me to get in and out of, so far my Mom and Ozzy have been dressing and undressing me. The also do my hair for me. We go to Goodwill first, we find an ugly pair of pants and a periwinkle skirt. mothing in the line of button up shirts, hmmmmm.... we try Ross. score, we visited 2 Ross stores, I find 5 cotton t-shirt material dresses, 2 tunics for later after I loose more weight, and 2 dress cover jackets., a light weight heather gray sweater and a black t-shirt material, cape like dress jacket. They cover my arms which is important for work, no bare arms allowed. We go to Target and I get sleep aids, 2 pillows, a body pillow pillow case, an ottoman. I can't lay down so i need things to hep prop me up. I also get a couple of easter peeps, they are my favorites and i will ony eat them at easter, so the are more special even though I know they come out for Valentine's, Christmas and Halloween now too. I look forward to them all year long.

Monday, was hard, but I made it through the day at work, Tuesday was harder, I didn’t have good support for my arm at work so it took its toll. Spoke to the surgery center and the ortho billing department Tuesday; I am supposed to pay upfront $500 to the surgery center. They didn’t threaten the cancel my surgery like the ortho DR did if I didn’t pay $887 before the surgery. I have, just no way of getting it to the office; I am not allowed to drive, I don’t have a checking account or debit card/credit card, they won’t budge, won’t even let my mom bring it over in the morning while I am in surgery. Really? So I start to cry, I am stressing, hurting and I want to start healing now. My girlfriend sees me crying, through the tears she eventually gets the story out of me. She says she will go and take it for me; she takes me at lunch to get the cash, and true to her word, at 4:20 sends me a picture of the receipt she gets from the office, now I am ready for surgery. Oye, good thing I got my tax refund on Thursday or I would have not had the cash for surgery or my dresses ans sleep aids, or any of my prescriptions. I need to build a savings up more. Going to make that a bigger priority now for sure. I think I also need a checking account I could use it have for this sort of thing.Just transfer what I need over and pay online. Save me some trouble from people that won't work with me like my ortho DR. I understand they want to be sure they get paid but their policy is really stupid.



Wednesday I barely made it to 10:30 before I was in tears working, my shoulder hurt so bad, my girl friend took me home, only after I knew she wouldn’t be in trouble if she didn’t make it back in 30 minutes, she offered when she knew how bad I was, but I didn't want her being late getting back to the office. My boss was out so my girl friend’s boss sent me home. Wednesday was a hard day.

Got up good early Thursday morning, but I always do that. Check in, pay my $500, they start the pre-op, I cooperate with everything except the pregnancy test, I know 100% without a doubt I am not pregnant, so I don’t want to pay for the test. I haven’t had what would cause a pregnancy in 4 years and my name isn’t Mary so there won’t be any immaculate conception either. They don’t argue with me. Yeah one less expense I will see on my bills, a major minor victory, but I am happy about it. Besides, I really didn’t need to go either.

They keep prepping me, I try to stay perky, I am scared, and this is my very first surgery ever. I hope my last. They weigh me, and take my history again, get me into my gown; I actually repeated my history 3 times that morning. Fine as long as everyone knows what is going on. I meet my nurse advocate, the lady who will be watching out for me in the ER with all the “boys” They give me a pen to draw on my shoulder, mark it with a yes like they tell me. The Dr also signs his name on my shoulder, he did it a little roughly that it hurt I bit my tongue when he did. They put my blue party hat on over my hair, I requested the Tweety Bird, (one of the nurses had a cap with Tweety Bird on it) and they only have the gauze blue ones.  They put cuffs on my legs; compression cuffs that help prevent clots. They try to start the IV, my veins won’t cooperate. I start to cry it hurts I cry out. They stop, said they will do it when I am under in the operating room. They cover me with blanket and get ready to wheel me, just before going through the doors, they give me a heated blanket, I clutch it and pull it to my chest, I was a little chilly.

I notice the sign on the door to the OR, has a Latex warning, they are making sure I don’t have a bad reaction to latex, excellent, that is a relief but they would know what to do anyways, but the signs make sure everyone knows.

In the OR I am suppose to scoot from my gurney to the table, I have only 1 working arm, and they want me to go left, I can’t do it, I ask them to let me stand, and step up on to the table. They get me a stool and I move easily from one table to the other. Good idea they said. Now the hard part, they want me to lie down. This causes pressure on my shoulder! I immediately start to cry again, they put the mask on my nose and tell me to breathe deep. The next thing I remember, I am waking up, groggy, they keep forcing me to sip apple juice, I still haven’t opened my eyes, I feel funny, puffy, my shoulder, I am not sure it is still there anymore. I touch it, oh there it is. I feel like they are hustling me to wake up, get dress time to go home. Maybe they are their job is done now my body has to do its thing and heal.

Now 3 days post op, I am feeling pretty good. This morning I felt real good, best in over a week. I aggravated the boy; I made him help me clean this morning. Vacuum the living room, clean up my junk collection shelf, and the boy mopped the kitchen floor.

I then sent the boy to Wendy’s to get us some food and Circle K to get my Sunday paper, after lunch I took off the bandage, oh that is what I have been waiting for since my surgery, I get to take ashower, oh the warm water felt so good, I finally got all the orange scrubbed off of me it felt so good, I felt so fresh again, getting that puffy bulky bandage off my shoulder felt great too. I got to see the incision for the first time. It looks like the DR put a zipper in my shoulder.

The zipper



My best friend returned my car to me, looks great, fixed the light and the bumper too. It looks great. He did a great job, and he tells me not to worry about it when I ask him how much the car damages cost.



New bumper



The wall still waits its repair





Oh and I even stitched a little today, slower than normal, but I got a few stitches in before I fell asleep for afternoon nap. I have been doing that a lot lately.

I am staying home Monday and Tuesday, going to see how Wednesday goes, I got a pillow pet to support my arm if he works out then I will be able to work, if not I will file for temp disability. I hope I can go back to work, with this guys help.





My Yorkie Neo has been keeping watch over me, doesn’t he look so abused snuggling in my pillows? He does need a bath though.

Other Cross Stitch and Craft Finishes

Sock monkey




you may remember the sock monkey I made, I found this kit .99 at Wal-Mart and decided to make it as well, it matches my guy the last detail, slippers, the teddy, even the hat, took a couple our hours to do start to finish. saving it for my Christmas tree



VW Bus











This was a chart from cross stitch gold, I didn't know what to stitch my best friend for Christmas, well what to make this year. I always make him a gift. Its tradition. it is getting harder and harder to come up with something

each year



any ways this chart fell into my lap last minute and fit perfectly on an Altoid tin, so his gift was born



i left the people out of the design everything else is the same



he loved it, he likes that I reused an Altoid tin, loves the felt i found to line the inside and says the bus on tin is providing inspiration for his real bus new paint job. Even if his is the 84 Vanagon and not a 60s loaf style bus



i used a piece of yellow and orange ribbon to make trim on the can, don't think you can see it in the pictures.

Pumpkin Doodle



This maybe a repeat, this is pumpkin doodle along with apple doodle I want to turn these into throw pillows for my fall decorating.



Not a Creature was Stirring

I made this one for my Christmas ornament exchange. He went to live in Australia. He was fun to stitch.

28 ct white Monaco

DMC thread

black beads

I made the coding myself with a new toy I got



he's a lot off center



JCS ornament issue





Mr. Pumpkin Patch



This was for Hallofall I thought he was cute

he was fun to stitch.

The pattern was from one of the Halloween issues of JCS

JABCO buttons, DMC thread and 28 ct Monaco

Mickey and Minnie ornaments

I made these for my friend’s 3 kids for Christmas, I used felt to my the heads and pink bow. I used puff paint to do the lines on the bow. These were fun little stitch ups. My girl friend said the kids loved them. I am just learn how to hand stitch, this is only my second project I have done.



Jingle Bell Mouse



There are two of these adorable mice, I have only this one, I can never remember which one it is. It comes as a partial kit; the embellishments are in the kit you need to get the fabric the DMC your self

Red Bird



Forgive me if I have already posted these, i am drugged, and have a broken collar bone so typing spelling may be off in my posts



this is red bird from one of the jcs ornament issues, made it for Sue.

28 ct taupe monaco

jabco buttons, a red ribbon from my stash

red memory thread

the thread is Gast i believe