Didn't this turn out well? I was a little concerned when I attached them together, kept changing the order and worried about the colors but I really like how it's turned out! No frames to fit it, well one that I would have had to paint, so I decided to do a bellpull. I had to make the actual pull, for some reason I don't seem to have any bellpulls?? I swear I had a bunch! I have to shift some storage to make room for John's desk (poor John, no computer for three weeks!) so maybe I'll find them! Went to Stitches 'N'Things for their moonlight madness sale and spent a bit I shouldn't have, but they had such great charts at such great prices.

No new stitching, some frogging but otherwise I seem to be busy with laundry, cooking, and dishes (does it EVER end?). Amazing how much work there is to be done when you add one more person and 2 more dogs to the household. Even the feeding of the dogs is an ordeal, they all have to be shut in separate rooms to eat so they won't fight. I miss my stitching and trashy TV! I did last night get to catch up on TV a bit while I did laundry and baked a cake for the church halloween cakewalk tonight. I also went to the ASU/Icecats hockey game last night, that was great!! Because I have no willpower I am going to the rematch tonight after the church party and trick-or-treating at the zoo. Hope to have lots of good pics from the zoo. I really want to dye my hair green to go with my witch costume but I don't think going to church with it green is the best plan I've had, lol. Will definitely be dying it Monday though! Hope to get some stitching in tomorrow and also finish the Halloween decorations!

Last night we went to Petsmart for what we *thought* was a pet Halloween party. We found out it was actually a costume party so we made a few adjustments. We only took Watty and my grandfather's dog Samantha since all the dogs seemed a little much. We tried to get my mom and her dogs to come but she says Ky (the big moose posted much earlier this month) is too embarrassed to go out without his fur. Watty came as a diva with a red feather boa and a strand of pearls, Sammy was a princess with a tiara. Watty came in 4th place, Sammy got 3rd. Not bad for 2 second costumes! Next year John says *his* dogs will win, so we'll have to think on costumes to beat them out, he insists I left his at home so Watty could have all the glory, LOL. On the way out I found a set of pink furry UGh dog boots, don't you think Watty needs some? With a little pink scarf???

There's the top of the wedding cake and we are cutting it. This is the first photo I have seen from the wedding and it wasn't a very good quality! Hope someone will share more soon :o)

Spent the weekend cleaning the laundry room (floor? floor? we don't need no stinkin' floor!) so I can move a whole bunch of my designer stock into there and John can have a desk and computer. Yesterday morning, he brought up the subject of moving his stuff from the garage into the house, I've been practising my deep-breathing techniques. At least he understands that I'm the boss so I don't have to be too tactful when I tell him no. Kidding!!

We did it up right this weekend! Those of you who own stock in pipe cleaners and/or glue will be thrilled! Saturday afternoon two of my sisters, the five kids, and myself went shopping for final costume details (well for some of us), pumpkins, and craft supplies. We met up at my house for dinner (pizza) and then we proceeded to get down and dirty. My hands are still green from dying all the zombie hands (surgical gloves filled with water). We made glue ghosts, lollipop spiders, tombstones, zombie hands, and more. We hung some zombie hands, lollipop spiders, and spiderweb from our tree--we'll see how long the lollipops last, we've already lost one. As you can see I decorated the front door with a giant balloon spider with huge pipe cleaner legs. I want to add a red hourglass on his abdomen to spice him up. Tonight we have to carve pumpkins, hang the glue ghosts (that didn't fall apart), hang more spiders, set up the tombstones, and spread zombie hands around and I think we'll be suitably scary! I've been munching on homemade pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin my nephew Andy carved. I'm pretty sure I'll be cleaning pumpkin guts off everything for weeks ;o) We have 6 pumpkins to carve tonight, I think I'll be good and Halloweened by then!

I just found my pattern for Don't Make Me Call My Flying Monkeys (Glory Bee) finally, and now of course can't find my half stitched piece. Still stitching on BC Summer Row but no progress to show yet. I think I left it in the truck so I had to start a new lunch project today. It's a tiny xmas ornament from one of the JCS ornie issues. I'm not thrilled, hopefully it will end up cute. It's already half done (VERY small!) so that's a bonus. Xmas is sneaking up fast this year, I'm having way too much fun with stitching for ME!!

I've been so busy I've missed one of my favorite seasons, HALLOWEEN!! I've watched as neighbor kids up and down the street stole the craft ideas we've done every year (and that we taught them last year, lol) to decorate the house and trees. Not wanting to look like a copycat I scoured the net for some new ideas to take the place of our papertowel ghosts and got some really neat ones. Wish I'd seen some of these for our Halloween party last year! I'm so sad we're not having one this year but after the wedding I really need a little time to slow down (or as much so as I can, lol). So be on the lookout for what I hope will be some neat decorations! We're close enough to Halloween we can actually go get our pumpkins and carve them! In AZ it's so hot if you carve them too soon they rot well before Halloween. As a bizarre sidenote, I just found in the freezer the mini pumpkin I froze last Halloween in case I needed it for model photos ;o)

I'm wanting to do some Halloween stitching (my favorite kind!! Monsters and witches and pumpkins, oh my!) but I am still trudging along on Summer Row. I have the RRs to get moving on at home, actually I think only one because I need to send one back to the owner unstitched as that group has disbanded. I included a pic above of how far I am (close to halfway done?) on Summer Row. I got frames (different frames in the right size range) ordered for it so I should be set when it's done. I'm wondering how my patriotic row is coming along, it seems ages since I sent it out for finishing! No stitching getting done at home, last night I tried to organize all the clean laundry during my little TV time. A necessary evil but surely very unfun!

Finally photoed the adorable buttons Kris made for me in the Beat the Heat exchange. Aren't they just darling?? Not sure where I want to put them yet, maybe if I stitch the Glory Bee summer freebie?? My sister was over last night and was bemused by me carefully photoing buttons ("But don't you usually add them to needlework first?"). Guess non-stitchers just don't get it ;o) To be fair she does stitch occasionally, but she's certainly not obsessed so I don't expect her to understand. Was it even a year or two ago that I stopped hating buttons and embraced them fully?? LOL We're having a button exchange at the end of this month so I have to get cracking! Unfortunately I can't make buttons (I surely have tried, over and over again) so I will have to make do with trying to buy some neat ones. My partner is Joni, and since we share a love of patriotic and halloween I should be able to have lots of fun!

It's as fall as it gets here in AZ, so nice to be chilly (at least for a bit before I get too hot and kick the covers off in the middle of the night). Had to dig out the parka for Wats a few nights ago, here she is on the couch modeling ;o) During the winter she becomes "Parka Pat." I put it on her after John had gone to bed, and when she wandered into our room in the morning he did a double take and asked "Did Watty join the coast guard last night?" LOL Too funny!! What's even more funny is watching her preen in her jacket!

I applied to have Norden (one of two major distributors for needlework) carry my charts several months ago. I felt reasonably confident they would "pick me up" since mostly if you're with one distributor you're with another. My charts sell well for Hoffman's, I get a nice chunk of direct orders every month, have shops on auto ship, etc. so I didn't really believe I would be turned down. And also it had been a few months and normally you get rejections in a timely fashion. Imagine my surprise yesterday when shoved in the mailbox was my entire line I had sent to Norden for consideration (50 charts at least) and a rejection letter. The charts were so bent from being put through the mail system in nothing other than the priority mail plastic bag that they are complete junk. So not only did I get rejected, but I didn't get anything back in resale condition. Maybe that's standard, but it's still pretty disappointing :/ Well, I'll just count my blessings with Hoffman's and put this behind me. Now I know that's a closed avenue (or at least blocked for now) and I'll focus on some other marketing ideas I have.

Worked on my BC Summer Row the last few days at lunch, progress report tomorrow. I need to get my RRs out and get cracking on them at home, plus I need to make a gift list for the holidays. I have one already but haven't decided on stitched gifts yet. Normally I start in July so I'm way far behind, plus I've added quite a few people to the gift list by getting married ;o)

Thanks to everyone who wants to see pics of the wedding, wedding band, etc. I hope to get pics back soon, I'm dying to see how it all looked. As soon as I have them I will post them!

I stitched this bookmark for John's sister as a thank you for driving down with him and helping to make the wedding and weekend run so smoothly. I took a million photos but couldn't get it to show the colors and design better. It's a very muted celtic knot design (in keeping with the whole irish thing we have going, lol).

Still working on BC's Summer Row, haven't done any stitching for about 2 weeks!

There's my new ring :o)

Whew, I have survived the craziness. We had a relatively lovely wedding, if you ignore the rings arriving at the last hour, the groom's pants being picked up from the UPS office half an hour before the wedding, me losing my skirt an hour before the wedding, leaving the marriage license on the hood of my car and driving off, etc. We spent the weekend unloading the U-haul trailer and John's truck bed as well as having fun with John's sister and the kids. We went hiking, out to dinner at the old west traildust town, out to a huge family dinner at the country club, had a bachelorette party, and just generally exhausted ourselves. We got to go to the Grand Canyon for a mini honeymoon, and although we booked rooms at the historic hotel on the rim, we somehow managed to end up with a room at a lodge down the road (still not sure how that happened??). We did get to eat breakfast at the hotel so that made up for it ;o) We also saw 3 elk and 3 deer!! Elk are HUGE!!

Things I have learned this weekend:

--Flagstaff is cold in October.
--If the room price ends up being $50 less than quoted, you've booked the wrong room.
--Dogs should be skinnier than the doggy door (John's dog Cody can't fit through ours!)
--6 hours is not enough time to get from the Grand Canyon to Tucson no matter what Mapquest claims
--UPS is more incompetent than I ever thought possible
--The Grand Canyon may be breath-taking but is in actuality just a really big hole ;o)

John started work already and I don't get to see too much of him so far, they keep him very busy (he's an on-call driver with the railroad). So much news, I can't possibly share it all, but for those of you who wondered if marrying someone you haven't seen in over 3 years was a good plan, I have no regrets :o) He's everything I could hope for and so much more (and I'm not just saying that because he surprised me with an engagement ring with a diamond so big it costs more than my car, lol). Photos to come!

That's the question I keep hearing! I think the word is catatonic ;o) At this point I've been avoiding the thought for over a week because so much needed to be done and I knew I simply couldn't do it, and that thought was so painful I decided not to think at all. Tonight I will finally be back at my own house, the dog and sister being much better and also my parents are coming home tonight. I'm so excited, no more having my toothbrush and other toiletries in my purse since I never knew what house I would be at or vehicle I'd be driving (little car for the dog or 3 kids, van for 5 kids, etc.). I accomplished nothing this weekend other than losing the scrapbook we were/are? going to be using as a guestbook. We cleaned the house thursday night and it was beautiful, till the slumber party ;o) I am once again scared to go home!!!

We survived the slumber party with the 10 kids or whatever it turned out to be. I learned two things:
1) Always investigate city noise ordinances and apply for permits if necessary
2) Have parents sign medical waivers upon drop-off so I cannot be sued
3) Take ibuprofen BEFORE the headache starts, have faith that there WILL be a headache!
4) I can't count (as evidenced by the list of 4 things when I said I learned 2)

Photo above is the result of many many hours with my sister Alei last night. She did a great job on the hair and makeup, but when we went to do photos, I look gosh-awful. That photo you see is the only one I can stand to share, and it prominently shows my nice bump on my cheek from the acne break-out I just had, probably due to stress.