Catching Up to the New Year - an Update

Yes, I got a little bit behind with the updates here the last few weeks, mainly due to the fact that, for the 2nd year in a row, I was sick over the whole holiday season. Fortunately, this time it wasn't the flu, just a virus that had my throat aching like strep but wasn't, and then, when I thought it was just about gone, turned into a sinus infection that had me out for the count for a couple of days before I could get in to the doc. I haven't had one of those in at least a dozen years - I like them less now than I did the last time I had one... Good ol' amoxicillan 875 to the rescue! So as I try to recap the last few weeks, I'm giving you fair warning - this might be long :)


Christmas was had, and I think by all accounts, it was a good one; DH has new Chelsea FC gear, the boys got a pile of new clothes, and they all got TOMS shoes, and I got a new CAMERA - the Canon Rebel I've wanted for EVER!!!


All in all, a good day....


I also met my last goal for the year, and finished Tree of Stitches on Christmas night. In hindsight, the threads I chose are a bit too dark to really show off the different stitches, and I should have done Lester & Horace (the owl & bunny) in something darker - and still might, if it's still bugging me when I get around to doing something with this. Anyway, it was done:


So the week between Christmas & New Year's, I had off - and was sick, though I was feeling much better by that Thursday the 29th, when a few of us ran over to Marietta to go to Abcedarius :) Much ewwwing and ahhhing was done, and stash was bought, some I needed (PTB for Sparkly Hummingbird) and much I didn't :)


As I couldn't decide what WIP to work on that week, I just decided to go ahead & get a jump on my January Startapalooza - and out came Secret Victorian Garden on the 27th :) I had Part 1, minus the beads, done by that Thursday or Friday (it's been too long, I forget when now):


All those outlined blocks will have a Cantaloupe bicone in it at the end :)

New Year's came & went, quieter than usual, as no one did fireworks or anything. Fine with me, it's not really my thing. I did manage to remember to grab a shot of my ort jar that I started on 1 October - this is from then until December 31, which includes all the orts from the finishing frenzy I've managed the last couple of months:



I moved onto Part 2 of SVG, and this is the progress on January 1st, 2012:



And then the progress as of last night - getting closer, will have this part done this week:


The question is - do I do Part 3, which is filling in some section of Part 2 (though a lot of the blanks are beads, and I will save these to the end, even though I did them for Part 1 - 2 is just too big, too many) and some mostly-bead border, or go ahead and move on to the next new start, IC Growth Rings? I also need to get some more time in on Anne's London - I want to finish the dome on St. Paul's before sending it back home. I guess I'll just wait & see what I see when I get there...


In other news, I made a kid cry the other day. We wanted to get another betta, so off to Petsmart we went. They had ONE that wasn't a female and looked like a male; just the boring, no-fin ones were left. So, since he was turquoise, it was a pretty good choice, but I wanted to make sure there weren't any somewhere else in the store, so we left him on the shelf and walked back past the other fish tanks. Not finding any, I came back and picked up the one I'd seen. As I'm walking to the register, a kid comes out of aisle, and lets out a wail - I took his fish. Well, I was already putting it on the conveyor, and the mom I guess smoothed it over right away by putting another one in his hand. Crisis averted, I think. So now we have 2 - but the new one isn't acting quite right - he likes to get UNDER the rocks in his bowl? Not sure how long he's going to last, but here are the two of them flaring at each other from their separate bowls, taken with the Canon, of course :)



And with that, I think I am caught up. Hard to tell, there's so much of nothing that's gone on the last few weeks :) Happy stitching to everyone, and so far, 2012 isn't looking too bad!