My Stash is Packed

I packed my stash a few nights ago ready for the move. I was able to fill 3 standard sized cartons with everything stash related; fabric, thread, charts, wips, finishing fabrics, ribbons. These are all in their own plastic tubs, containers etc. It is a bit sad not being able to look through my magazines and charts, but we should be reunited by about the 20th of January. I have kept three wips out to work on when I have a chance, VOHRH, Bubbles and A Love Song. Really enjoying these ones at the moment. With VOHRH, I have finished the second block and started the third.

The removalist van comes on Friday the 10th and will arrive at the house that we will be renting on Saturday. We will all go to the new place then, but I will have to come back as I don't finish work until the 17th, and DH starts his new job on the 14th. I will go as far as my parents and stay with them for the night on Sunday, and leave their place on Monday morning in time to start work at my normal time of 11 am. I will be staying with one of my closest friends until DH and the kids come back to help finish cleaning this house so that it can be rented to someone else. Hoping to get most of the cleaning done after work through the week, so it shouldn't take too long, and it will be easier to to floors one all of our furniture is out.

We managed to secure a lovely house to rent, three bedrooms, a study, and two living areas, bigger than what we are currently living in. It has a large garden shed for storage and comes with 4 chooks. We went there last week-end to have a look at houses and were really struggling to find something suitable, we were trying to not be too fussy, but you still need to be able to store things and live comfortably. After looking through one house and driving past two others we put in applications for all of them hoping that one would be successful. We decided to go home and twenty minutes down the road we got a phone message from a real estate agent saying that they had just had a new property listed on their rentals and thought of us. While DH was deciding on what to do I told him to turn around so we could have a look at it, and it will be wonderful. Joel and Caitlyn will need to share a room, but they are large rooms, and it will only be until we can sell our own house, which has been getting rented out near Geelong, and possibly build a new house for us.

We had a lovely Christmas, spent the day with my in-laws, and spent New Years Eve with some friends who live about two hours away from us.

Well I had better go a pack some more boxes. I am currently sorting through toys that have not been played with for a while and have almost managed to send more to charities than what we will be keeping. Of course this doesn't include what was received for Christmas, so the kids will still have plenty to play with.

I hope everyone is well and is getting lots of stitching done. My bloglines is currently at about 900 feeds, I am determined to not just click mark all as read, I may not be able to leave replies but I will still read them all. I may not be able to post for a while but will return as soon as I can.

Stay safe everyone.

Joanne

It has been a while

Sorry it has taken so long to get organised enough to put together a post, life just gets is the way of the things that we like to do at times, doesn't it?

I would like to thank everyone for their comments and for their kind wishes and thoughts for DH's job interviews. Still no new job, though still in the mix are; Devanport, Ballarat, a job at Melbourne University, a council in surburban Melbourne, and new ones at Warragul, one hour from Melbourne and he is still following up on a couple of others. There was one which he didn't feel that he interviewed well for which has been re-advertised. He contacted them and asked for them to trial him for 3 months, and that he would prove that he could perform the neccessary tasks required, still waiting to hear back from them.

I have an exam this afternoon, my first written one at university level. I have already seen the questions and have formulated my answers but I am still not over confident. I haven't received my assignment back yet either, just waiting to see what penalties will be applied as it was 'very' late, no doubt I will see in due course.

I have been stitching, even if it is only for an hour or so every night. I have also started to knit an afghan with six different colored stripes, eight balls of each color, and I am on the third stripe of the first lot of eight balls - I hope this makes sense, not feeling very coherent at the moment, not a good feeling before an exam.

I have made fairly good progress on Cirque des Cercles over the past two week-ends. I have also stitched on Bubbles, Celtic Banner and at the moment I am stitching on Daughters, hoping for a happy dance on this one (fingers crossed).












Here is CdC. As you can see I have been concentrating on doing the border and the outer circles, I am sure progress will seem to come to a halt once I start filling in the gaps.







Here are before and after shots of Bubbles. Not the greates of photos unfortunately, but the after shot is actually showing a second patch of lighter colors as in the before shot.













And finally here is Celtic Banner, again not much progress, but at least you can tell that it has been worked on. The left hand side border got some attention this time also.

Well I have some washing to hang out and a few other things to do before DH comes home from work to baby sit so I can do some last minute studying before my exam.

I Am Still Here

Hi everyone, as the title says I am still here, have just been busy.

My assignment is finished WOOHOO at long last and when I last checked with my uni, it had been sent to the assessor for assessment, so should have it back in the next week or so. Hubby didn't get the job in Melbourne. It was with the Australian Cricket Board, but he has four interviews today in Ballarat, two with employment consultants and two for actual jobs. There is another in the pipeline which would mean relocating to Tasmania, this would be fine as it is located in Devonport which is where the Spirit of Tasmania (ferry between Melbourne and Tasmania) docks. It is able to carry cars as well as passengers, and as all of our families and friends are in Victoria or southern New South Wales it means that it is not too difficult to reach them, or of course we could also fly. This prospect is exciting for me as Tassie is the only state in Australia that I haven't been to, what better way to check it out while living there. But we shall wait and see.

I have been stitching and I owe a few progress pictures so here they are:

First is There is no Place Like Home, before and after. Not a huge amount of progress, but still progress. I was concentrating on my assignment so stitching had to take a back seat. Not to worry.

Next in my rotation was And A Forest Grew, before and after.

Again not much progress, the three small trees are out of position my a stitch, I didn't rip them out as the position of their neighbouring motifs is not affected, I may decide to 'fix' them, or I may just leave them.

I did stitch on CdC over the weekend and made some good progress and will post of picture of it soon. My clicky finger has been at it again, this time I put in an order with 123stitch, How fast are they? I placed my order on the 11th, it was shipped on the 11th, and I received it on the 19th. I will post what I ordered and pictures later on.

Thank you everyone for you comments, they are very much appreciated. Happy stitching.

Blog Reading.

I think that I am rather anal about my blog reading.

When I first started looking up blogs on the internet I would add them to my favourites and read through them, from the beginning, starting at the first one in my favourites. As I finished each blog it would go to the top of my blogs folder, in alphabetical order of course, and as I continued reading other blogs I would check back on the ones that I had already read about once a week to look for new posts.

As you could imagine as my list of fully read blogs grew and grew, it would take anything upto a week to read through them, let alone reading any new blogs. So then I decided to begin my own blog, and as a consequence I joined up with bloglines and thought that it could sift out any new post for me. This worked really well, and still does, except my feeds have been consistently over or around 200 for a few week now. I will determine to get them down some day. At the moment my feeds number about 185, with about 20-30 being added every day.

I guess where I am leading to with this post is that I am apologising to people when I reply to more than one post at a time, creating multiple messages within whatever system you use to track new replies. I hope that no-one feels any frustration at this 'system'J of mine.

Stitching - I finished off my week with Shepherds Bush Reed's Stocking and will post a progress picture soon. I am stitching on ANOTHER new start The Drawn Threads Sampler Game Board, what a fun design with bits of everything, border, alphabet, quick little motifs and intense little blocks of houses.

I received my order from Jenna of Ones Stars Light, it was packaged very well, and I will post pictures of this also. I received my Dinky Dyes threads from Stitching Obsession for CdC and was hoping to start this on the weekend, and make it a weekend project, but my piece of fabric is to small, unless I want to stitch it over one, NO WAY!!!! LOL So I will be placing another order with Stitching Obsession, whose postage is quick, and will make a start hopefully the next weekend.

Hubby travelled to Adelaide on Monday/Tuesday for a second interview for a job, and should hear today whether he has gotten it or not, please keep your fingers crossed for us. The job is actually situated on the outskirts of Adelaide and would be great for us, having the convenience of a state capital city nearby for family outings, and the pleasure of a larger town to live in.

I will hopefully post pictures later on today.

Stay safe and happy stitching, Joanne

My son is awesome

You may remember that Luke qualified to run in a cross country event. This post. On Thursday morning DH and Luke left home to make their way to Sydney. At this level Luke was representing his schools' district. Out of a field of 15-20 other kids Luke came 7th. Only six kids go on to the next level, but if someone is unable to go Luke, as emergency, will go. We don't care what happens after this we are just proud and pleased that Luke was able to do so well, and get this far.

As far a study goes. I have decided not to continue on with this semester. The topic is not my first love and not where I see myself headed. Because we are planning on moving, hopefully in the next six months, I have also decided to apply to defer for six months. I didn't realise that working two days a week would take so much away from my study, but I just seemed to be getting further and further behind. Joel will start school next year, so hopefully that will enable me to have more study time. In this six months I am going to concentrate my efforts on changing my course from an Arts degree to a Science degree. My real desire is to study Psychology and while psych is a more demanding course, I find it much more interesting and stimulating. I fee relieved now that I have made this decision and it is now time to move on.

As for stitching. I am enjoying Joel's birth sampler and have made some progress. The rotation finishes tonight and I hope to post progress pictures on Tuesday. Next in my rotation is Shepherds Bush Reed's Stocking, looking forward to this one, it seemed to stitch up really quickly last time.

My clicky finger has been at it again. Can't it show any control at all!!!! LOL. I will not put my new stash away until I can post some pictures. This lot came from a new ONS, for me, called Stitching Obsession, here is a link, http://stitchingobsession.com.au/index.php Mandy was lovely to deal with and I was pleased with how my order was posted. My order from Jenna has been shipped and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

That is all for now, take care everyone and happy stitching.

What a week!!!

First of all I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to read my news and for commenting, it is wonderful to hear from you all.

Our week started in relative calm, barring my assignment being due on Monday and it is still not finished. I have been in touch with my lecturer for this subject and she has been great, but I have yet to notify her of our new developments. She has granted me an extension as long as I am making progress and letting her know where I am at. I am seriously in two minds regarding study at the moment, I don't know if it is just the topic I am doing this semester or whether I am burnt out. I would really like to transfer my degree to a psychology degree, find psychology more stimulating and interesting even if the demands of the course are higher. Some of my study time has been gobbled up due to returning to work, I will have to see what strategies hubby and I can work out.

Next lot of drama, our daughter Caitlyn made a comment on Tueday night, late, that it won't come out. I asked what wouldn't come out and she said the ball from my ear. It was around midnight and you might ask what was she doing up at midnight. The answer is easy; her and Joel have both had colds, which they have kindly shared with me, and stayed home from pre-school on Monday and I stayed home from work to care for them. So Tuesday came and I let Caitlyn have an afternoon sleep, and when this happens she wakes later on, even if she only sleeps for half an hour, and turns into a party animal and won't sleep until we go to bed.

Back to the story, I take her to our local hospitals emergency department. The doctor on duty that night didn't want to come in for this and instucted the nurse to attempt removal via suction, which was not successful. We went back Wednesday morning and our GP was at the hospital doing his rounds and he had a go but it was too painful for Caitlyn so he said that he would put Caitlyn under a general anaesthetic on Thursday morning, which is when he did his theatre work, and get it out then.

Thursday morning arrives and as happens when anyone close to you has surgery of any kind the levels of anxiety are pretty high. I nursed her while she went under and then went out and sat in the waiting room. Another doctor came to get me and told me that herself and our GP had tried to remove the ball, but they weren't successful, only managed to push the ball further down my little girls ear canal. I could hear her crying out in pain and that was all it took for me to start crying also. They had caused some trauma to her canal and there was a bit of blood coming from her ear. They decided that the best thing for us to do was to take her two and half hours away to Albury, where they have specialists and a much bigger hospital. So we got organised, picked Luke up from school, Joel was with hubby anyway, and we arrived in Albury at about 3 in the afternoon. Caitlyn was operated on again at 8pm that evening. They managed to remove the foreign body as they called it, and she was fast asleep back on the ward by 9pm.

Thankfully we have friends who live about half an hour from Albury and hubby, Luke and Joel stayed there while I stayed with Caitlyn in the hospital.

The next day she was made a huge fuss of as the local radio station was holding a promotion in the childrens ward. They were raising funds for new furniture for a parents accommadation room, and new cardiac machines. Two of the girls kept on taking photos of her to be placed on their web site and she was also chosen to be in the local paper which covers a huge area. At least we were able to have this bit of fun on top of all the stress that we had been through. We are all home safe and Caitlyn has not once complained about being in pain, she has been so good offering her ear for anyone to look in and doing whatever the nurses wanted her to do during her observations.

Stitching, what is that - I have managed a little bit during all the dramas, will have to post Mondays update photos another time, want to spend some time with hubby and just relax and unwind.

Bye for now.

Joanne

Our lives are about to change.

For the past five years I have been a SAHM. When I finished work before DS J was born, I applied for a 'career break' for the sole purpose of being able to stay at home with him for longer that 12 months, which is what was allowed for maternity leave. So that meant that all up I was to have four year holiday from my job. Which, by the way is a customer service officer with one of the major Australian banks.
While I was still strictly on maternity leave I discover that I am pregnant again, this time with DD C. So when my four years was up and I was due to return to work, I asked for an additional year in lieu of the maternity leave that I would have received for DD, which the bank very kindly approved.
So after having five years away from work, I start work again for the bank on Monday. At this stage they have been able to fit my hours around pre-school hours, as they have to re-train me as all of their systems have changes. So I am going to be working on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9-30 until 3-00. This arrangement will last until I am conversant with changes and until they have a more permanent position for me.
I am largely looking forward to it, as it is a break from the kids. I love them dearly but having 3 kids, 2 under five, can be trying at times.
As for stitching, I have been working on And A Forest Grew. I am really enjoying this and will post a WIP picture in the next few day. Next in my rotation is a new start, a HAED, Bubbles, will also post a link when I do the picture for And A Forest Grew.

Wip Pic and Stash

Thank you to everyone who has visited my blog and left comments, it is wonderful to know that I can share my stitching with so many others.

This is a wip picture of Gypsy Rose. It is the bottom left of the design, which is where I prefer to begin stitching from. I am enjoying working on her and this is the first time that I have stitched 1 over 1. I finished my rotation with her on Sunday night, and have now moved onto And A Forest Grew. If you would like to see what she will look like when finished here is a link; http://www.heavenandearthdesigns.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=637

Thank you to everyone who has read my blog and left comments. We had a lovely time away and the Easter Bunny was quite generous this year. My two younger children had quite a feast on Easter Sunday morning before we went to church. During the children's address the minister had a hard time trying to talk over DS aged five, who would just keep on talking and talking. Hubby and I could not stop laughing. Eventually the minister whispered something in his ear, we don't know what he said but DS was quiet after that. We blamed his behaviour on all of the chocolate that he had consumed, and promised to take a gag with us the next time we visited this church.

As for stitching, well I did some, and will have to share photos and more details later on. Right now the kids and I are getting ready to go to Bendigo so that DS aged 12 can get a new game for his game boy, and I might even get to a cross stitch shop.

Bye for now, WIP pics to follow soon.

My First Post

I have been fiddling around with this template for a few days now, still lots of work to do though.
This blog will be mainly about my stitching, with snippets about my family and other goings on. I hope that you enjoy sharing in this journey with me.