I have been busy this week with sick kids, preparing myself for quitting smoking, starting my new Yahoo group for self improvement, and a new contest in the CrossStitchAddiction Yahoo group.

With all of that I managed to get around 1000 stitches put into my son's letter. I had wanted to put in 2000 stitches this week, but because everyone has been sick it didn't happen.
I also tried out a disappearing ink fabric marker to grid a row for stitching. And I love it! It is so much easier than stitching it in and I trust these types of markers. I use to use them for hand applique in quilting.

I have almost gotten a few different projects for when I quit smoking kitted up. Scrap booking is all ready, knitting is almost ready, and I always have something ready to stitch. For those of you that knit too here is the link for my knitting blog... http://thecraftywitchsknittingbasket.blogspot.com/
And then there is the new contest for my CrossStitchAddiction group...but I will blog about that later.
Until next week.....

Beautiful Me - not about cross stitch

I started another Yahoo group. I am calling it Beautiful Me. Originally I intended it to be for weight loss, but then I realized that people (including me) sometimes need support for more than that.

I have had a break through in my life. It started when I asked my Dr for help with weight loss. I had been trying and failing with weight loss for years. He prescribed me with phenteramine. It has worked, but I needed more. I am an over eater. I thought maybe a support group would be the place for me. But even though this certain group says religion isn't involved, I have found that doesn't seem true. Their 12 step program was all about the Christian God...I am Pagan. We don't believe that a higher power can make all the bad things in our lives go a way. But I figured that I could deal with that. I sent the main office a message asking them about this. They told me that they didn't feel it endorsed one religion. I was worried about religious prejudice. But I decided to try and find an online meeting anyway...so I looked and I found one that was perfect for my schedule. It was a Yahoo group and at the very end of the group description it states, "The mention of God as your Higher Power is welcome and encouraged here". I know this wasn't a religious attack, but it didn't make me feel welcome. I want to know that if I am going to be discussing a topic like my weight, I want to feel completely comfortable in every way. I have absolutely no problem with Christians or their beliefs, but those beliefs are different than my own and I don't want that to be an issue anywhere I go.

Then the other day I had another breakthrough. I realized that all day, every day I do everything in my power to raise my two children to become healthy adults. I make sure the food they eat is healthy, the toys they play with are safe, and they have the proper clothes for the proper season. But the one thing that would kill them if they didn't have wasn't the best I could give them...air. I am a smoker. I have been smoking for 14 years. When I catch a cold, more times than not I get a cough so bad that I loose my voice. It makes it so I can't breath or sleep and it weakens my bladder muscles (OK, that was hard to admit). Before smoking, I could carry a tune. I joined another support group succesfully...quitnet.com. My quit date will be April 22.

So I had 2 break through already this year and realized that it is time for a life style change. And that is why I started this new group. It is a support group for people who want to change their life style. Weather it be one thing or their whole life. And it is open to everybody. If you are interested in joining, here is the link. http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/beautifulme/ I will also post the link in the margin of this blog. Thank you for hearing my story...

I started a new project this week from HAED. It's a the letter I by Selina Fenech. I plan to give it to my son for his birthday. If not his birthday, then Yule Tide. I had started it on Monday night, but I had to start over on Tuesday because I left out a whole row! But I still managed to put in 1757 stitches. I am hoping to put in 2000 more stitches by next Monday.

I have also been doing some scrapbooking this week. I have so many pictures and I need to get everything documented before I forget everything. I tried scrapbooking a few years ago, but only had been able to get a few pages done. My last apartment was too small for a kitchen table, so I had to do it on the floor and that wasn't any fun. You can see pictures of them on my Multiply account... http://jessneal.multiply.com/photos/album/29/Elizabeths_baby_book

I wish I had more to blog about this week. Maybe next week...

Good News

Well, another week has gone by and I have some progress to show and some good news! Good news first.

I bought myself a 1982 Chevy Blazer! I was tired of getting stuck in the snow this last winter and vowed that the next thing I would buy would be a 4 wheel drive. I choose the K-5 Blazer for nostalgic reasons. My mom had a K-5 and it was the first car I had ever driven. And because it doesn't have a brain, so I can work on it myself. I don't have to rely on paying anybody to change my oil! So am I Happy? Yes, yes, yes!!!

I also finished page one of Lavender Moon. I am really happy with how it looks. This pattern calls for Krinek and it was weird working with it . They have me using it on the moon craters.

I was PIFed a small pattern in my Yahoo group CrossStitchAddiction. The original owner used the charm of a little red bird...something I wouldn't have used anyway. So I replaced it with a little snowflake. The dyed the fabric I stitched it on. I think it looks really cute!

I had thought I was finished stitching on these Celtic knots from InkCircles. I had wanted to make them into biscornu's. But then I realized that you wouldn't be able to see one of the knots. So I am using the boarder for the back and making them into two separate ones.

HAED has been calling my name again. LOL So I am going to start a Tiny Treasures by Selina Fenech. The letter 'I' is going to be for my son Issac. I also have 'E' for my daughter. I want to have them stitched up for Christmas.

And to close, here is a cute picture of my son. He climbed up on the couch and passed out after eating a cookie with blue frosting.

Page 1 - Almost Done

I havn't been working on Lavender Moon as much this week as last week. I had wanted to have all of page one done by today, but Twilight came out yesterday and we all know I can't stitch and watch TV. LOL But I did make some progress. And if you look at the bottom right corner, you can start to see some of the moon! I am so excited!

We are suppose to get our income tax check this week and I already have a list of patterns I plan on buying from HAED! I want to try and hold off until another sale...maybe Easter? But I want to try a couple of Tiny Treasures. I picked out Selina Fenech's letters I and E for my children. If they stitch up as fast as I hear, I want to have them done by Christmas. But if not, there are a ton of other Pagen holidays too. With so much to stitch, I have to keep reminding myself that I don't have to stress about getting it all done. I don't have to put my self on a time limit...it's suppose to relax me. LOL Sorry I don't have any more progress to report. May be I will get the rest of my stash diet finished this week...even if I did fall off of the wagon and buy some silk weavers off of e-bay. LOL

2000 stitches

Another week has gone by and I have managed to put in 2000 more stitches into Lavender Moon. That brings it to a total of 5504 stitches total that I put into this piece. That leaves me with 160,396 left to stitch! LOL I can't wait to start seeing the fairy in my stitches. But that will happen in page 2. I still hope that page 1 will be done by the end of the month. But I am thinking that if I work really hard, I could have it done by next week's blog entry.

I have also started a Yahoo group for cross stitching fantasy lovers. It's a branch from the original CrossStitchAddiction group that I co-own with my friend Mary. The new group is called CSAFantasyLovers. I want to focus on HAED patterns along with other fantasy designers like Mystic Stitch, Dragon Dreams, and so on. I would love to see more people join, so if you are interested, you can find a link to the fantasy group along with the original CSA under the groups and blogs section to the right of this post.

I am also almost done with my stash diet. I have 2 more finishes to complete before I can start stash shopping again. You can see all of my finishes that aren't HAED related on my Multiply page at http://www.jessneal.multiply.com/ And now to close this weeks blog entry with a cute pic of my little girl.

1250 stitches in 5 days!

Here is the last progress pic that I have from a few months back. I worked on it for about 12 hours this week and ended up putting in about 1250 stitches. I have found that listening to audio books instead of watching TV keeps me on task. Right now I am listening to Twilight. On of the ladies in my Yahoo Group, CrossStitchAddiction told me about it. I think I was the last person on the planet who didn't know what Twilight was. I thought it was a TV series. LOL I didn't know it was a book let alone a movie now!






And here is my latest progress! I couldn't tell really how much progress I had made until I had seen the pictures side by side. Now this is only about half of the first page of Lavender Moon, but I want to have page one completed by the end of March...do ya think I can do it?!