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Getting my Rambo on

Yup, you guessed it.  I couldn't resist Susan Rambo's charms.  I kept seeing Tamami's gorgeous progress pics of her Susan and I had to start her. Susan Rambo Sampler
from SANQ Spring 2011
40ct Meadow Rue
NPI fibers with 1 or 2 substitutions
She's so pretty -- again, the colors called to me. In other news, the boy child had last week off for spring break, so not as much stitching done.  He had his rehearsal with his accompanist for his NYSSMA audition last Monday.  (This is the audition that determines whether one goes to All State or Area All State or nothing.)  The boy child is not as well prepared this year as he was last year -- I think the hs musical took away from his practice too much.  :(
Some of you have asked me to post a video of the boy child playing his classical pieces.  Well, the boy child refuses to let me do so with this piece since he's not as ready as he'd like to be.  But I thought in case you were curious as to what he's playing for his NYSSMA piece, I'd post this -- a youtube video of the piece.  The boy child will only have piano accompaniment, not an orchestra as in the video.  And he won't be playing the piece as fast either!  But you'll get an idea of what he's playing at least.

Hope that works!
We had a nice, quiet Easter.  The father type is on antibiotics -- he was forced to go to the doctor kicking and screaming on Friday after resisting the idea all week and was diagnosed with bronchitis and possibly walking pneumonia.  Silly boy would have recovered much more quickly if he'd gone sooner!  But the father type was up to cooking the ham for Easter, and I did the various side dishes to go with it.  The boy child had lots of Easter candy, as did the grownups.  :D
Here's Mia looking wary at the foot of the table all set up with Easter dinner.  She seemed a bit flustered by all the Easter activity going on. I hope everyone had a good Easter or passover.  Happy Anzac Day (is that what you say?) to those of you on the other side of the world.  Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  It's wonderful to be part of our community of stitchers and bloggers!
Posted by Margaret at 5:46 AM 53 comments: Labels: family, Susan Rambo


Waiting for the other shoe to drop.....

Before I get to the title of this post, I have to say TA DAH!!! Ann Grant by Shakespeare's Peddler
40ct. Vintage Sand Dune
mix of AVAS, NPI, Gloriana, Threadgatherer, and Belle Soie
(all called for fibers)
Isn't she pretty? I did use AVAS 3745 for the dark areas of grass instead of Belle Soie Chocolat -- just because they're similar in color anyway, and I hate the striping effect overdyeds give. And I used Gloriana pecan for the dog and bunny since the Belle Soie Baguette was too close in color to the AVAS 3431 that was used for the pathways.  (Also didn't fill in the windows for the same reason.)
But isn't it pretty?   :D I do love her!  But I'm also glad to be done with her!  She was a big one!
Ok, now to the title of this post.  Seems this year has been one thing after another -- power outages, flooding, propane tank problems, -- there must be something I'm forgetting.  Well, add this weekend to the list.  First off, poor father type is sick.  One of his periodic mysterious fevers, along with bad cold symptoms.  Ugh.
But then the doozy.  We had strong winds and rain on Saturday and overnight into Sunday.  After one big gust of wind Saturday, we heard a very very loud crash outside and knew it wasn't a good thing.  Well, it turns out one of our neighbor's pines that borders our properties lost a huge part of itself, and the branches/trunks fell directly toward our house.  We were extremely lucky -- we only lost a windowsill off one window and the gutter got a bit damaged on the house.  We're hoping the AC unit is ok.  But the fencing around our old swimming pool and the swimming pool itself are destroyed. Hard to tell from the pic, but the pool is totally squished.   And the fence that the pic is taken through -- well, it's squished too. See how lucky we were?  It could have been a lot worse!  So anyway, I have a feeling this whole year I'm going to be holding my breath, waiting for the next thing to happen, whatever it may be.  Sigh.
Oh, I forgot to mention -- we were also under a flood warning this weekend.  lol!  Thank goodness the basement stayed dry.  Knock on wood, we won't have anymore flooding down there!!!
In other news, yes, the boy child is still busy.  He has his trial run -- or practice session -- with his piano accompanist for his NYSSMA audition later today.  I'm hoping it goes well.  The boy child isn't as ready as I'd like him to be (his audition is on April 29), but hopefully he's ready enough for the accompanist to be able to rehearse with him!   It's spring break this week, but the boy child has to practice, practice, practice!  Plus he needs to work on his SAT prep, and study for upcoming AP exams.  Argh!  His orchestra concert in NYC is the same weekend as his NYYSMA auditions as well.  College searches?  Visiting colleges?  What's that?  lol!  No time!
Here is the boy child in a contemplative moment with his favorite companion.  (Mia is sitting on his leg.) Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I love to read your comments and visit with you!  I'll leave you with another pic of Mia. 
Addendum:  Forgot to say -- it's a fairly safe bet that you'll need two skeins of AVAS 3745 if you're stitching this project.
Posted by Margaret at 6:49 AM 84 comments: Labels: Ann Grant, family, tree


One down, 5 million more to go.....

Yes, life continues to be busy here.  The high school musical is out of the way with great success, but everything else still to come.  And I forgot to add AP tests to the list.  Sigh.

Anyway, stitching first.  Here's Ann Grant. Here's another reason I find over dyed silks like Belle Soie frustrating.  See the bird below the house and the path from the right door?  They're different colors.  They're supposed to be very obvious different colors since I'm supposed to fill in the windows with the lighter of the two colors with the darker of the two being the window surround.  But my Belle Soie is obviously not different enough from the other (an AVAS) color.  Sigh.  Well, it saves me having to fill in the windows I guess.  The two colors of pink in the large star are different colors too.  Hard to tell, huh?  These two pinks are Threadgatherer Silk 'n Colors though.  Oh well.  There's also two different browns in that diamond, one a Belle Soie, one an AVAS.  Hard to tell, huh?  Sigh. Whatever.  I still love the piece.  And I got all the over one words done!  Yay!

As I said, the boy child had his musical this past weekend.  It was a great success, and left the boy child yearning to do more.  Fingers crossed he succeeds in landing a part next year!  Here's a picture of the boy child on stage. The show they did was Anything Goes.  They did a great job!  The boy child just had a bit part, but he was also in the ensemble singing and  -- gulp! -- dancing.  He wasn't happy about the dancing part, but I guess he must have been a better dancer than a lot of the boys in the cast since he was chosen to dance as opposed to just waving his arms on the upper deck.

Mia will be happy the boy child is through with the musical.  She missed him while he was gone so much.  Here she is doing one of those things she does to look out the window.  When she was a tiny kitten, she had to leap over to the windowsill -- and it was a loooong leap!  Now look at what she does instead. Pretty cute, huh?  She also likes to sit on the windowsill.  The good news is she's still nice and petite.  I'm hoping she's stopped growing now.  She's ten months old!!!

Well, the boy child still has tons to do.  Hopefully by mid-May, things will start easing up a bit.  I hope!

Oh!  I forgot to tell everyone what Mia's new toy was in this post.  There were a few who guessed it.  It's a bra insert from one of the girl child's swim suits!  lol!  Mia loves it!

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi!  One more week to spring break for the boy child!  Yay!  Have a great week, everyone!
Posted by Margaret at 7:10 AM 55 comments: Labels: Ann Grant, family, Mia


One day at a time

That's how I'm feeling.  With my stitching and with the boy child's activities.  Stitching-wise, I have to say I'm quite enamored with Ann Grant -- despite my mind also dreaming about other projects I want to get to. Here she is so far. I even did one verse of over one stitching, and it wasn't that painful either!  (One more verse plus the attribution to go.  Sigh.) The motifs on Ann are so much fun.  Too bad the birds are such dull colors. Here's my TUSAL report for April's new moon.  I do love seeing all the colors inside! (Background provided courtesy of Kleenex (registered trademark).)

The boy child has been so busy with hs musical rehearsals that he's hardly been home.  And last week, the father type was away all week on a business trip too.   So poor Mia was quite forlorn, missing her menfolk.  She was always so happy when the boy child came home late at night.  I grabbed some pics of the boy child doing one of his favorite things with Mia.  (Note the expression on Mia's face in the first pic.  lol!) I'm not sure this is one of Mia's favorite things to do with the boy child, but the boy child loves it.  lol! Just one more week for the hs musical!  Shows are Friday and Saturday.  Then the boy child will just have NYSSMA audition preparation, SAT prep, his orchestra rehearsals and concert, jazz (they're going to a festival this Friday, day of the first musical show too), and other things I'm probably forgetting.  lol!  Argh!  Somehow I don't think college visits are going to happen till the summer.
Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I hope you have a great week!
Posted by Margaret at 5:59 AM 48 comments: Labels: Ann Grant, family, TUSAL
