Category Archives: Friends

Back in the saddle

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Terri | 1 comment

If anyone is still reading, I apologize for not posting anything of substance lately. I have been a bit busy.

I traveled to Nashville to enjoy the company of some wonderful needlework friends, many of whom I’ve only known from “online” for 12+ years. Finally getting to hug them in real life was such a wonderful thing and from all of the conversations we had you would never have known that we had never met face-to-face before then. I had a blast and was worn out when I got home from all the talking, shopping, eating, humidity, and lack of sleep from some very late-night conversations with my roommate. It’s an annual event, next year will be hosted in Arizona, and I’m already counting down the days.

I had been in a stitching slump prior to my trip, and being with those women took care of it. I have been making great progress on And They Sinned. I managed to put in about 12 hours in 3 days, which is more than I stitched in 3 months prior to that. Last night was open stitch night at my LNS and there was a wonderful group there. I started a new reproduction sampler, Elizabeth Sheffield, and will be stitching it in 6 parts with 3-4 other ladies. Stitching slump over! Hoorah!

I also managed to stitch all of my squares from JMLW Caramel Corn that I had glue-basted prior to my trip. I am putting off piecing them together for a bit since it’s not due until October, and I have a couple of other things I need to get finished before then. One of them being my signature blocks for the Small Quilts yahoo group I belong to.

I’ve also been spending a little more time on home “renovations.” Plus I’ve gotten to go to work a couple of times and play with the fabric at the store.

And last but not least, since I’ve been spending so much time in my stitching room, I have been thinking about how to wrangle my crafting life back into a somewhat less-scarey monster — but that’s for a separate post 😉

Mister has been working furiously rebuilding the underside of his Jeep Wrangler. It looks so good! I doubt there’s very little there that hasn’t been pulled apart and either replaced, or refurbbed by him. I can attest that, due to the amount of laundry I’ve been doing, it is a very messy job. Living oceanside for 10 years, plus having his surfboards dripping salt water, did a bit of a number on it. He’s moving on to the interior today. My living room has become the storage spot for huge boxes, one of which is a new back seat that he’s starting to install today. He has yet to start working on switching his office with the guestroom, and the cabinet boxes are in the living room too. He is headed back surfing next week, and classes start back the day after he gets back, so those boxes will stay there for a bit. I’m finding that they aren’t upsetting me, like they would have in the past. I just vacuum around them. LOL

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Posted in Elizabeth Sheffield, Friends, Life, Quilting, Samplers - Repro, Stitching

Hello there!

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Terri | 26 comments

Hello to everyone who came here through Grow Your Blog!

This blog post is coming to you from … Las Vegas! Woohoo! I’m sitting in a beautiful 3 bedroom condo on the 5th floor of the Wyndham Grand Desert with 6 wonderful women – 5 of whom I met on the internet over the past 13 years. We had a conversation over dinner last night about how wonderful the internet is and how grateful we were that we were able to find each other. We all share a love of needlework in several different forms. That love of needlework is what caused me to start my blog in the first place, many, many years ago.

So, who am I?

I’m a California girl raised in the south. I was born in California while my father was stationed at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base. I was raised in Texas and Louisiana, but lived the majority of my adult life in California.

In 1981 I took a leap of faith and married a man who promised to love and cherish me for the rest of our lives. Two months later he signed his name on the dotted line and in January 1982 he found himself standing on the yellow footsteps of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego and me becoming a Marine Corps Wife. In 1984 God blessed us with a son.

I’ve lived in California, Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina and Japan. I “retired” October 2011, and moved to San Tan Valley, Arizona in November. February 2012 found my Marine finally retired after 30 years of service and is currently taking advantage of the VA program and majoring in Art History at Arizona State University.

While I call myself a “cross-stitcher,” I love various forms of needlework; miniature quilts; cooking; reading; and playing the piano. Late 2012 found me learning to bead and make chain maille, and finding myself devouring decorating blogs that focus on personal creation and repurposing.

I have two Italian Greyhounds that I consider my children and am a huge supporter of Italian Greyhound Rescue. I hope to someday parent a retired racing greyhound.

I’m beginning to think being a grandmother might not be such a bad thing.

So, that’s pretty much me in a nutshell!

THE GIFT AWAY IS CLOSED

As a thank you for those participating in the Grow Your Blog hop I’ll be offering a chain maille bracelet in the gift away on February 1. Just leave a comment with a link to your blog. Thanks 😀

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Posted in Friends, Giveaway

Oops, where did it go?

Posted on August 3, 2009 by Terri | Comments Off

I swear I wrote up a post a week ago! I even agonized over what author to share. Of course other than that I can’t remember a single thing I wrote about since my life has been so boring lately. However, that has changed a teensy bit.

I have stitched! and played in my stash! and cleaned up my dungeon some! and bought stash!

This past Thursday and Friday were vacation days for me. I had a week of use it or lose it vacation and am taking a day here and there for some long weekends. (I am keeping a week saved for Christmas) I thought I was going to be spending them with Kahuna but he got called into work and while I was fairly lazy those two days I did get all my laundry done and I played in the dungeon for a bit.

Friday night I did some major damage in the dungeon. I had thought to start a new project on Saturday but the one I wanted to stitch, believe it or not, I didn’t have fibers for! 😆 I didn’t feel like fondling my fabric either.

Saturday I drove up to the all day stitch in at Melissa and Darla‘s LNS — Needlepoints, Ltd. Darla had no clue I was coming and it was wonderful to see her bright face when I rounded the corner. I brought FAS, Justine, and Hannah Beeby with me but ended up just stitching on Hannah. I started her in Hawaii and haven’t touched her since. I was stitching on FAS when Bandit died and I haven’t stitched at all since then. I can honestly swear that stitching on Saturday, after playing in the dungeon on Friday, my stitching mojo is back! I had a very good time and stitched until my butt went numb – 3 times 😉 Anyway, I’m planning on attending all the other stitch ins through the rest of the year. I’m also going to be taking my Mary Wigham chart up (and the pillow from my stitching chair) and pull fibers on the 29th.

Sunday, I watched baseball, and I stitched! Didn’t even feel guilty about it either. Nope, no guilt.

As soon as I hit “post” I’m off to sit and stitch some before heading to bed…after I sort out the dungeon some more. Believe me this dungeon sorting is going to take some time….I’m hunting for my thingy that goes to my camera so I can upload some pictures. I don’t want to have to climb the mountain in the dungeon that’s between me and the cord whatsit to connect my camera to the computer since that will take me in the opposite direction I’m already sorting. How’s that for logic?

My author for this post is Leah Brooke.

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Posted in FAS, Friends, Hannah Beeby, Justine, Mary Wigham, Reading, Stitching

A weekend well spent

Posted on February 11, 2008 by Terri | Comments Off

Thank you all so much for your comments on the bourse. It was surprisinly easy to make and I’ll definitely being making more of them and it has given me the confidence to try other things.

Needless to say my visit with Melissa was as wonderful as it always is. Probably better since we finally got to have our Christmas and then I got to share her birthday with her. She arrived around 11 and after exchanging gifts we went to lunch at a local Greek café. I love their food and if Kahuna and I move away from here, we’re going to miss this place. Their soups are to die for and I’m always tempted to lick the bowl! LOL I ended up getting soup to go for Melissa and I to have for supper that evening.

After we got home she helped me work on the photo program that’s attached to my webpage. I have a lot of uploading to do still, but it will be located (for now) at trixsterri.com/photos

Believe it or not, we stitched! I even have a happy dance from it. I finished stitching Atelier de brodeuse, which I neglected to take a photo of last night. I’ll remedy that and provide the promised hula girl lamp photo 😉 hopefully later today. I plan on finishing it into a wall hanging using some of the tons of fabric I already have.

While we were gone Kahuna was out on a 3 ½ hour bike ride. My behind hurts just thinking about it. He wasn’t home for very long (and he was resting during that) before he left again to attend the monthly networking meeting at our tri-club. I opted to stay home and visit with Melissa and I’m so glad we did because we were together for practically the whole day. We were still talking away when he got home from his meeting and had been in bed asleep for quite some time by the time Melissa left. We had so much catching up to do!

Sunday morning while Kahuna was out surfing I got some organization done. I cleaned out the refrigerator and made a grocery list to restock it with healthy food. I don’t know how it happens, but that refrigerator was crammed full of stuff and it was hard to tell what was in there, and a lot of it was stuff we shouldn’t be eating. I still need to tackle the pantry. Sometime during all this Kahuna also went on a 9 mile run. After I got groceries put away I worked in my office some. I took photos of what I need to work on so I can decide what to do each time I get in there. I feel so overwhelmed by the clutter that sometimes it’s hard for me to tell that I’ve made any progress. I know taking photos of my stitching shows me progress, so I figure doing the same in my office will help.

I never did get around to stitching any yesterday. Later in the afternoon Kahuna decided he was too tired to clean our cars and God bless him he paid to have them both detailed out in town. My little bumble-Z is so pretty when she’s clean. After that we went and had a coffee and just sat and talked, which we haven’t done this weekend with us both sort of going in opposite directions. I made sure we had a sit-down meal for supper and I felt when the day ended that we were somewhat back into a normal routine.

So here it is Monday again. The weekend went by too quickly and the alarm sounded too early. Today, I return to the gym. I thought to do it last week as soon as the doctor told me I could, but since I wasn’t expecting the doctor to “release” me, I had planned so much to do during my early time home from work. My gym bag is currently sitting at my feet under my desk and I have a phone call in to my trainer to discuss a few things with her. Even though I’m not going to be able to retain her services right now, she wanted me to call her when I was able to return so she could give me some things to do that wouldn’t put too much stress on my foot.

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Posted in Finishes, Friends, Life

Tag – I'm it

Posted on February 7, 2008 by Terri | Comments Off

I got tagged by Melissa. Here’s the good, bad, and ugly.

1. I do not like children

2. I am strongly against illegal immigrants and a lot of my job deals with them.

3. I have been stitching for more than 30 years.

4. I could probably go the rest of my life without leaving my house and be perfectly happy.

5. I’m probably the most judgmental person I know.

6. I know karate.

7. I love to drive very fast

8. People don’t know me as well as they think they do.

9. I’m happily married to someone who doesn’t say “I love you.”

10. I love coconut cake.

Now, I thought about not tagging anyone else, because I really don’t like these things. They put too much pressure on me because I feel like all the randomness in my life is not nice stuff, but I figured what the heck…I’ll just be not nice and put the pressure on someone else! 😆 Of course this probably means they’ll never comment on my blog again…Sue and Karin…tag, you’re it!

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Posted in Friends

Sunday morning musings

Posted on September 9, 2007 by Terri | Comments Off

So far my weekend has been almost perfect! The weather could not be any better right at this moment and I’ve almost been able to forget how miserable we were just a week ago.

Yesterday Melissa came down and we went shopping, again! I don’t know about her but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I managed to buy 2 new outfits for work, and a few other things. We also went and found Coldwater Creek, and I was very impressed with the store. I think between the two of us we managed to touch every single item in there, at least once. My main goal was to try on a pair of pants, since I can order my size from them online, and they have several things online that they don’t carry in their small store. They didn’t have my size, but I was able to gauge what size I need from the pair they did have. When we got home the 2 suits I had ordered from them last week were waiting on me. I cannot wear the pants, just yet, but the blouses and jackets fit nicely and I have other pants that will go with them for now.

Weigh in this morning was a bit of a surprise. I was originally told that I had lost NINE pounds, and I cried a bit, but once my head cleared and our meeting was over I got to thinking how it just didn’t sound right. I talked to Melissa after the meeting and figured out during that conversation that the lady had seen a zero and thought it was a 6. Quite frankly I’m rather glad that I only lost 3 pounds instead of 9 because I tend to do really well once week and really low the next and I was kind of scared (for wont of a better word) what the scale would do next week with such a large loss this week. So, I’m really thrilled with this week’s WI.

Kahuna has figured out that I want to do a triathlon. I don’t know why I think I can keep anything from him. He knows me to well. I’m trying to figure out what the main clue was though. Do you think it was my asking him to show me what a cassette and Derailleur is, or do you think it was my asking him what the difference was between 2-bolt and 3-bolt cleat compatibility. Who knows.

Right now there’s a wonderful group of people who are attempting their first Ironman in Wisconsin today and I wish them all lots of luck and can’t wait to read their race reports.

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Posted in Friends, Weight

Weekend recap

Posted on August 19, 2007 by Terri | Comments Off

Melissa came to visit yesterday and we shopped until I had a blister on my foot. I can honestly say I was home for about an hour and a half from the time I got out of bed, until she left. I had a mani/pedicure appointment first thing and was home less than 30 minutes when she came driving up. We went to lunch and then headed to Barnes and Nobles, Ulta, Avenue, Henry’s (I’m in love!), came home ate some supper and then headed back out to Sports Authority and Bed, Bath and Beyond. I slept great last night.

I had my first weigh-in after returning to WW this morning. Down .6# While a lot of people may be discouraged by this small amount I was fine with it. I never worry too much about how many points I’m eating the first week since I’m really just getting myself in the habit of being accountable. I also use the first week to gauge if how I’m eating is going to work for me. I managed to have 10 weekly points left over, but there were a couple of days I felt like I was starving and wanted to eat everything in sight.

Since my meeting is at 9 a.m. I’m making sure my grocery list is ready the night before so I can hit the Commissary as soon as I leave the meeting. This will help keep me motivated to stay with my grocery list and not pick up something that I probably really don’t need. I have noticed over the past month or so that I’m more and more shopping from the perimeter of the store. I would guess 90%. I’m also buying pre-cut fruits and veggies since that seems to be the biggest deterent to me, the chopping.

I’m stalking the postman right now for the cast-iron bra and wicking top I ordered. As soon as they arrive I will have the perfect ensemble to start my Couch to 5K program. One of my purchases yesterday was a watch to help me track laps – and yes, Melissa Husband set it up for me last night 🙂 A little off the subject, but still in the way of fitness, is the current book I’m reading. I picked it up before my surgery because on some blog (which I cannot remember) I read before my surgery it received high reviews. It’s called Slow Fat Triathlete by Jayne Willams, and I highly recommend it as one of the funniest books I’ve ever read in my life. I’ve gleaned information from it too since she is a “fat” triathlete and gives great references on where we big girls can buy perfect exercise clothing.

I sat and paid bills today since Friday was payday. I’ve been working on paying off my CCs and currently have 4. None are maxed out, but they’re all higher than the zero balance I want on them. I’m focusing on my WaMu card right now and I’ve put another $159 toward it.