Happy Anzac Day!

To all of my New Zealander (do I still have any of these?) and Australian readers, Happy Anzac Day! I hope you all enjoy the long weekend. 🙂

For those of you who don’t know what Anzac Day is, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Anzac Day is commemorated by Australia and New Zealand on 25 April every year to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. Anzac Day is also celebrated in the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tonga.

Beginnings of the Memorial Day

Anzac Day marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. The acronym ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, whose soldiers were known as Anzacs. The pride they took in that name endures to this day, and Anzac Day remains one of the most important national occasions of both Australia and New Zealand.

You can read the rest of Wikipedia’s details about Anzac Day here.

Posted in Life in General | 4 Comments

P.S. I Lied

I just spent the time since I last posted sitting here, getting my accounting software (mostly) up-to-date and filing my sales tax return for last quarter. Luckily, I didn’t owe anything anyway because OSL did no sales to Pennsylvania customers last quarter. My first quarter with no sales tax due to PA. Woohoo! I think…

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Eeek! A Mouse!

And I disturbed its house!

Actually, it’s more like “Awwww…” than “Eeek!” Today was another gorgeous day and I was determined to spend some time outside when we got home from work. Probably more because I was frustrated and angry than anything, but anyway… I planted some lavender seeds and promise photos if they take. I planted some last year, only got some of them to germinate and only really got two grown plants out of it, I think. They are still in a container in the back yard, waiting for me to transplant them somewhere. They are a different variety than the ones I’m going to try to cultivate this year for use along the driveway, so I’m really not sure what to do with them. They may just get a little more space in their existing container for now, until they get through another season. Maybe.

So, after I got the lavender seeds in their little, expanded peat pots, I went outside, checked on the clematis in the front yard and generally surveyed the overgrown landscape. I have to admit to not being very good at tending my lawn and the green things around the front of the house. I’m a “live and let live” kind of person. Plant it and forget about it. 😆 I filled the two bird feeders, since the pigs emptied nearly both of them in just one day. Then I turned my attention to dumping out my old african violet plants and transplanting the new ones into their new homes. To do this, though, I was going to need my bag of potting soil. In previous years, I had left one on the porch for just such occasions, but, for some reason, I bought a bigger bag last year and left it in the shed. I retrieved the bag, having the dig it out from under some miscellaneous implement and set it on the front sidewalk. I then went inside, pulled out the four old pots and brought them outside, along with the four new plants. I dumped out the contents of the old pots, gave them a once over to make sure they were relatively cleaned out, then pulled the first new plant out of its bag. I opened the bag of potting soil and immediately saw what I knew to be nesting material for a field mouse. I figured, “Ah-hah! That’s where they nested this winter, instead of on top of the riding mower engine, like they usually do.” (Yes, that can have a sad outcome, if we’re not really careful in the spring.) I pulled the material out, figuring it was past nesting time and then I saw some wriggling in the bag and a little mouse poked her head out of the soil beneath where the nesting material had been. I went over and grabbed Terry to have him help me transplant her to another location so that I could use my potting soil. Well, imagine my surprise when he comes over, opens the bag and we see that it was a mama mouse with 3 babies actively suckling her! I felt so bad that I had disturbed the little lady and her babies. Here she was, trying to move around a little bit, scared to see us, with three babies hanging onto her teats. So, I gave Terry the nesting material and he put it back in the bag, gently scooped it up and put it back in the shed.

I wish I could have gotten a picture, but I didn’t think of it until Terry had put the bag back and poor mama was so scared, I wouldn’t have wanted her to go one more minute without her nest back. So, sorry I couldn’t share the moment with you, but it was cute. Now I’ll have to buy another bag of soil to use this weekend. I think I’ll go back to keeping it on the porch this year… 😉

Now, let me go and see about some stitching, completely ignoring the fact that I have a quarterly sales tax return for OSL that’s a couple of days overdue. It can wait a little longer, can’t it?

Posted in Life in General | 9 Comments

The Rash Saga

So, Monday morning, before I get in the shower, I notice a rash on my abdomen. Little tiny red bumps. No itching, no swelling, no other symptoms. Just this vaguely bumpy rash. But I had to report it to my psychiatrist, so I called her to check in and she called me back that afternoon. She told me to get into my physician and have it checked out as soon as possible. See, while I was reasonably sure that the rash was benign, there’s this little thing called Stevens-Johnson syndrome that is a rare, but serious side effect of one of the drugs I’m on (Lamictal) which can be life-threatening. So, again, while I was relatively sure there was nothing to this rash, I was still mildly panic-stricken.

On Tuesday, there was fortunately no visible difference in the rash. No better, but no worse. In looking at it more closely, Terry discovered that it pretty much seemed to be the areas of skin that I had exposed to the sun on Friday when we were out working on and sailing the boat. We suspected it was some sort of reaction to the sun or sunscreen.

I worked from home on Tuesday and ran out to see the doctor in the early afternoon. She checked it out, we agreed that there were no dietary or soap/lotion/etc. changes recently and she didn’t believe it was a drug reaction. She has had people who have reactions the first couple of times they are in the sun for the season. She’s also had people who have an allergic reaction to old sunscreen. Since mine was technically from last year, we’ll throw out the little bit that was remaining and already bought a new spray can for me and for Terry. So, she prescribed an allergy medication (Allegra) and a topical cream. So far, no change, but I’ve only taken one pill and used the cream once.

I called the psychiatrist back today and let her know what the physician had to say. I’ll be seeing her next Tuesday, so we’ll see if the rash has cleared up by then.

On the stitching front, I was able to finish the other half of the Italian cross stitch band on Barnabee on Monday night. Yesterday evening, I worked and then slept, so no additional progress. We’ll see what I can get done, if anything, the rest of the week. Hopefully, I will get some stitching in this weekend, if it’s not too nice. 😉

Posted in Life in General | 5 Comments

Sunny Times

We did get out on the boat finally Friday afternoon. We took it for a relatively short sail, but had a nice time in the 80+ degree weather. I was wearing a bikini top and jeans.

Saturday, we did some errands, running around getting another bird feeder (the birds around our house are little piggies) and 40 pounds of birdseed. I also bought some African violets to replace the ones that I pretty much intentionally killed off a while ago. They needed to be transplanted and I didn’t feel like buying additional, larger violet pots for them. Combine that with unintentionally forgetting to water them, and nature took its course. I had really wanted to take cuttings from the parent plants and start new ones, but this works, too.

My seedlings are coming up quite nicely, for the most part. The tomato seedlings are quite vigorous (which I have found in the past), with each little pot yielding at least one seedling. The green onions aren’t doing too badly, either, though they didn’t germinate quite as nicely. But, the regular onions only germinated with a 30% or so success rate. I had problems with them when I direct-sowed them into the ground last year, as well. Not sure what’s up with that. Next up, it’s time to work on germinating some lavender seedlings. I want to create a border along the driveway of all lavender at some point, so I have to start somewhere!

No stitching progress this weekend. I was back to feeling tired a lot, which just isn’t conducive to working with specialty stitches. Every time I went to work on it, I looked at which band I was on and was turned off. I’m halfway through the Italian cross stitch and because I’m using a dense evenweave (Monaco, I think), the stitch won’t pull the fabric at all. So, it ends up just looking like a cross stitch. I think that has me a bit bummed out. I need to finish this band and move on so that I can feel better about what I’m working on.

Well, that’s it for me for today. Hopefully, I will have some stitching progress to share in the near future, if I don’t go home and sleep every evening this week!

Posted in Life in General, Stitching | 4 Comments

Feeling Better

I’m feeling a good bit better today. It actually started yesterday when I laid down for a nap after work and only slept for 2 hours before getting up. To be honest, I think I only laid down in the first place because I was bored. I should have stitched instead. 🙂

I’m hyped on caffeine today because I woke up with a sinus headache this morning and took Excedrin plus Sudafed. Now I’m freaking out because I’m super-efficient at work with not nearly enough to do.

Today is a gorgeous day, with highs potentially hitting 80. The sun is shining with not a cloud in the sky and I just want to be outside right now. Terry is taking the boat down to the marina today. We decided to get a slip this year (thank you tax refund) so that we don’t have to continually put the boat in and take it out of the water. Much easier and quicker when the boat is already in the water, so all we have to do is load up and go.

Unfortunately, the jack on the trailer broke last night, so Terry dropped me off at work and then had to go get a new jack. Now he’ll have to install it before he can even get the boat down to the marina and then the rigging will take several hours. At this rate, I may leave work and go with him to help with the rigging. We might be able to whip through it at the rate I’m going. Eventually, I’ll slow down.

Anyway, I’m typing 90 miles an hour and talking 90 miles an hour, so I’ll end this post here before I ramble on forever. 😉

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Posted in Life in General | 4 Comments

SBQ: Most Complex Project

This SBQ was suggested by Jennifer and is:

What is the most complicated piece you’ve ever completed?

Since I haven’t finished anything big that I’ve kept for myself since around 1998 or so, I would have to say that my most complex piece was the Welcome Hearts bellpull, with the hardanger and pulled work sections. I gave it away, of course, but will do another for us to keep… someday. An upcoming finish that I would put in this category is going to be Barnabee’s Quest.



Posted in Stitching Blogger's Question | 8 Comments

Dreamscapes II

So, I don’t have as many details on my three latest nights of dreams, but they were all-nighters again. At least, I think they were. They were long, at least.

Three nights ago, I dreamed that we were moving out of our house into a slightly bigger house with a much smaller backyard and closer neighbors (eek!). There were three African-American kids in the family that was moving out, except they didn’t seem to move out when the rest of the family did. They helped me figure out the intricacies of the new house and I let them paint their own rooms. The backyard was fenced in, which was nice and necessary since we had not only our little Phoebe, but a much bigger black lab that wasn’t full grown yet and was completely untamed and energetic, so we needed to be able to fence him in. We also got a cat, as our neighbors were moving, as well, and had taken our cat at some point. They decided to give her back when they moved.

We had to have portions of the yard re-fenced because, for some reason, it went straight down the one side to a certain point, then came in a bit and went back out to the back of the property, instead of just making one big rectangle along the property line. And the back property line was wavy and went back at an angle, so we had room to put a swingset in the back left corner. Anyway, the kids were male, female and male, from oldest to youngest and the elder male had some developmental problems. I figured out, and was told by a teacher at the same time, that he liked crafts, especially working with beads. So, I went right out to a Michael’s or something and bought a bunch of craft kits utilizing beads. Somehow, this helped to break through his developmental barrier and transformed him into a normal child. The middle child, a girl, was the most helpful of all of them, though, and we grew to have a good bond.

Two nights ago, I dreamed that I met Ash in person. Which is highly unlikely due to her new location. But anyway, we met at a football game at my high school and I had brought some stitching to work on and some to show her. Anyway, when she showed up, I was absolutely ecstatic to see her and kept giving her hugs. In the meantime, I had left one of my stitching pieces further down on the bleachers where I had been sitting. When I went back to get it, someone had been working on it and made great progress. I showed it to Ash and some other miscellaneous people who were in the scene and we were all making a big deal about it. Of course, I didn’t go try to find the person who did it… Then, it was time to go and Ash needed to borrow some money. I asked my parents to help and they refused. So, Terry and I took her to her hotel and I used the ATM there to give her the money she needed.

Then, last night I dreamed that I was back at the University of Delaware. The landscape had changed drastically, with the whole university much bigger than it was when I was there and lots of additional dorms. I wandered from my dorm to another dorm to hang out with some classmates and then couldn’t find my way back, so I asked an older gentleman to help me. He was more than happy to help, but then when we were almost to my dorm, he put his hand down my pants. Hello! Anyway, it was interesting because all of the classes that I had signed up for that semester were art classes. One was abstract art using quilling paper, where I met this Asian guy whose dorm it was that I went to to hang out. I remember not being able to remember my class schedule, too.

So there you have it. More of the twisted workings of my mind. And more of the reason that I’ve been feeling tired in the mornings, I suspect. Weirdness.

Posted in Journey to Self-Discovery | 1 Comment

More Lyrics for Thought

This is a short and sweet little ditty that packs quite a wallop. Can you tell I’ve been listening to a lot of Hilary Duff lately? 😉

Inner Strength by Hilary Duff

Gotta find your inner strength
If you can’t, then just throw life away
Gotta learn to rely on you
Beauty, strength and wisdom too

You’re beautiful inside and out
Lead a great life without a doubt

Listen girl, gotta know it’s true
In the end all you’ve got is you

Posted in Journey to Self-Discovery | 2 Comments

Song Lyrics – Food for Thought

I left out a stanza or two, but these are the parts that hit me the most. Mostly the chorus, though the last two lines (and the title of the song) are less relevant to me than the rest. Even when my mood is bleak like it has been and still is, I remain optimistic that this too shall pass. After all, each and every day is a brand new start.

Someone’s Watching Over Me by Hilary Duff

I found myself today
Oh I found myself and ran away
But something pulled me back
A voice of reason I forgot I had

Chorus:
So I won’t give up
No I won’t break down
Sooner than it seems life turns around

And I will be strong
Even if it all goes wrong
When I’m standing in the dark I’ll still believe
Someone’s watching over me

It doesn’t matter what people say
And it doesn’t matter how long it takes
Believe in yourself and you’re fine

And it only matters how true you are
Be true to yourself and follow your heart

So I won’t give up
No I won’t break down
Sooner than it seems life turns around

And I will be strong
Even if it all goes wrong
When I’m standing in the dark I’ll still believe

Someone’s watching over me

Posted in Journey to Self-Discovery | 2 Comments