A Little Yarn On The Side

Theo can pee!!!!  Day two of my vacation WAS going to consist of cramming him into the cat carrier and dropping him off at the vet's while I went to my appointment with the physiatrist.  It would probably be more of a vacation if MY appointment got cancelled as well, but as only one of us was facing a rather unfortunate episode involving a thermometer, I can cope my own appointment.   And in the I-can't-believe-I've-made-it-this-far category, I'm starting day two of my vacation with 321 ornaments done for the year so far and 44 to go.  I think making Christmas ornaments is actually going to continue as a regular part of my hobbies, but I do have to admit that the idea of making something slightly larger than 6 inches is alluring as well.  Guess size DOES matter.  :) I finished one of the blue kitty ornaments, which is cute, if not very Christmas-y, and the ski boot is stuffed and sewn up, but looks a little bit boring.  Maybe this is why I ...

And because this is what we do when Andy is gone, Theo is having trouble peeing again.  I've been a bit more lax on his supplements as we ran out and I ended up having to order some, and I'd relaxed on the de-stress capsules a bit because he seemed so much happier when I didn't give them to him.  But, now we know better, and if he's still having trouble in the morning, I'll drop him off at the vet on the way to my appointment with the physiatrist (do I know how to vacation or what?), and we'll get a pain shot for him and he can sleep the next 3 days.  Meanwhile, Calisto enjoyed some time in the sewing room this morning watching the snow.  which is really hard to photograph, but here you can see it collecting on roofs  across the street.  Of course, it's pretty well melted off by now--without killing the zinnias or tomatoes, by the way--but it does set the right tone for making ornaments.  I finally finished off the acrylic colorwork ornament, ...

As it turns out, even those who have been having a bad back week CAN jump out of bed in the morning with the proper motivation.  This turns out to be the noises of a cat scuffling with a "gift" it just caught for you.  And being the first day off a year-long spending ban didn't hurt either......... Luckily, Theo's gift was dead so I didn't have to practice my mousing this morning, and once I had coffee going I could tear into this: I had no idea how excited one could be about thread!  By 6:01 I had taken care of my "gift," poured coffee, and purchased my new lace ornaments, gotten them downloaded and saved,  then transferred to my embroidery card.  The last two are actually not new designs--they're from the ornament collection Andy gave me for Christmas last year, but I haven't made them yet because of the shortage of white thread.  So, they're "like new."  I'm rather proud of myself, as there was moment when I looked th...

.....and don't think the thought of staying up until midnight hasn't crossed my mind.  But it's been a bad back week, and where willpower gives up, Valium takes over......... I'm not sure exactly what I did, but the therapist thought that after the last couple weeks plus the don't-sit-like-this episode on Saturday, I might just need to let things calm down a bit.  We had a busy weekend, then Monday I literally spent all day canning 18 pints of tomato soup.  After a late dinner party on Sunday involving a little too much sitting, this was probably a factor.  However, I felt pretty good when I woke up on Tuesday, ran a couple errands, then was at the very back of a huge store when my back suddenly just HURT.  Literally, out of nowhere I could barely move--it was like being mugged by my own backside.  And, of course, because walking is so important to my therapy and general health, I had parked my blasted car in the farthest space in the parking lot....

Jeeves is busy making icicle ornaments while I'm writing this, so I'm hoping to be at 298 ornaments any moment now and at 300 by the time I head downstairs to tackle the last of the tomato harvest. And not to get ahead of ourselves, meet ornaments 296 and 297,  which I just love.  The one on the right has a little too much stuffing so he's got a bit less neck than he should, but maybe he's a football-playing kitty ornament.  One of the "immediate need" things in those Joanns' boxes is some black embroidery floss, so on Friday they'll get hangers.  And sometime during that week, they'll probably get a few friends as I just love these little guys. I thought I would have another ornament done this weekend,  but I decided this still needs a little something in the center of that white--perhaps more stitching?  Right after getting this far, I discovered another item for the "never, ever do this again" list: sitting in a chair wi...

Last fall, I thought I was being quite clever by sorting all the yarn I thought I would use this year into one large bin, which looks like this as of today.  To be fair, I think it might be 5 or 6 balls of yarn lighter than it was at the beginning of the year, but obviously my optimism runneth over just as much as the bin does.  Of course, my favorite "preparation error" for the year is probably this: Last year, after getting so tired of using up an entire bag of stuffing per project, I finally decided to buy in bulk, and since it was on sale and I was going to make 365 ornaments, I bought THREE of them.  Now in my defense, I had no idea they more than doubled in size when the box is opened, but it's almost November and I haven't even used half of the first box.  Perhaps by this time next year..............?