Ohhhh the weather outside is frightful!

Gotcha! No, really, it is white stuff coming out of the sky but you can barely see it. It's more sleet than snow but hey, who cares! The kids and I just got back in from playing in it. There's nothing really on the ground that you can see unless you count the stuff that the tent collected. The girls had a mini snowball (ok, ice ball) fight. They grabbed the little bit of white stuff that had collected on the tent I threw outside the day before in a cleaning fit. I watched while they ran around the yard looking up at the sky. They had their mouths open trying to collect some white snow/sleet on their tongues. They are saying that this is supposed to stick around for another two hours but the temp is around 35 so I believe our chances of more snow are gone.

I didn't think to grab my camera to show you the tiny amount of white stuff that had accumulated. Sorry about that, now I guess it will be another 22 years before I get another chance to take a picture. lol By then, I'll hopefully have some grandkids and my kids will be the ones outside freezing their butts off in their jammies and slippers. Oh, I could go out back and take a picture of the slide so you can see I'm not telling a big whopper of a story but you will have to wait until I can get warm again. Sorry, this New England girl's blood has thinned out so much that I can't stand being in the 35 degree weather for very long anymore. Remember when we had a Christmas where the windchill was at -40????? I'd freeze instantly in that kind of weather now. lol I'll go out in a minute and get some pics of our "snow" and post them for you to laugh at with me.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Now that I have your attention, this post has nothing to do with the title but I wanted to see if you were paying attention. LOL

Okay, it's been a while since I've posted and I'd like to apologize. Life tends to get in the way more than not around here. I've been busy working, taking care of the kids, getting the house ready for Christmas (and the cleaning up from it) and getting the kids back to school. Not to mention a few of us have got some nasty little cold that just will not let go. To be totally honest, my head congestion has been around since I put the Christmas tree up. All that dust stirred up a nasty allergy attack that continued into a nasty bug. Now little Katie has it and can't go to school. They had two weeks off for their Christmas/winter break and she still can't go back. Poor little girl! She's so sad that she can't go see her friends but she sounds like a bullfrog when ever she coughs or tries to talk.

Our normal winter weather has flown the coop. We've had nasty cold for the past several days. We've also had windchill advisories for the past two days and it looks like they will be here for the next couple of mornings too. It's pretty sad when sunny Florida can't get past 50 during the day. I don't think we even got close to it on Sunday and Monday lol. They are saying we may make it there tomorrow or Thursday but by Friday and Saturday it's back down into the 40's again. Now, if we could just have some snow in the evening, after DH gets home from work so the kids could go out to play for about five minutes. I can't get Ryan to keep on a hat or mittens. Logan will wear the hat and mittens but the shoes and socks keep coming off. Katie and Marie are the only sane children in this house. lol If it snows, they are the only ones going out to play in it from the looks of it. I really have seen snow in Florida, but it's been about 20 plus years since I did. lol

Work was absolutely crazy for the last two weeks of the year and now it's slower than slow. I was hoping to get a nice rhythm going so I could put some money away for January Santa sales but..... Hopefully it will pick up again soon. Now I have the time to sit down and stitch or get the house cleaned, the laundry caught up and the dishes done. Yeah, I'd rather be stitching lol. If I could just get my finger healed completely then I could actually get some done. My one finger keeps splitting near the nail. First one side, then the other, then back to the first side. I can't stitch because it's so sore but it also bleeds and leaks too. Go figure! I've been trying to put neosporin on with a bandaid covering it each night just so I can work the next day. Now there's a thought, if I don't have work then maybe my finger will heal quicker. lol

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

Another great giveaway!

Check out Karyn's great giveaway on her blog, located here. Good luck everyone!!

It looks like such a great bunch of things, I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed that I win. lol

Black Friday

Since I don't have any stitchy pictures to show (not much stitching done this past week due to having the kids home, working and having a pulled muscle or pinched nerve in my back) I thought I'd tell you about our dealings with Black Friday.

I'd love to go out on Black Friday, I know, I know; most people think I'm nuts. The last time I got to go was when I was pregant with Kaitlyn and I had to drag Marie and Logan with me at 5:00 a.m. They weren't happy but then again, they weren't really awake. I don't do the whole day shopping thing. I decide what I want and go get it (or rather I send DH to go get it) so we were home by 8:30 that morning and that was after doing breakfast. The kids were still in their jammies and went back to bed when we got home.

This year we started planning on things we wanted to get a couple of weeks before and waited to get the circulars on Thanksgiving to see where he was going first. We did enough research (Hey, with four kids you really have to know how to shop so you can get the most for your money) to find out that we could order a couple of things at Walmart.com and avoid that area of the store all together. They had $.97 shipping on a couple of items we've been wanting to get so at midnight I tried to go online to purchase. Their circular said it was available on Friday so what the heck right?? I tried again around 1:00 a.m. and gave up and went to bed. At 3:30 a.m. my DH woke me up to find out whether or not I was able to get those items. I immediately jumped up and hit the computer and to my surprise, I was able to order them both with no problems!

By the time I was done ordering, I was wide awake and that was the extent of my sleeping and my Black Friday shopping. LOL The DH, however, had lots to do and still had to head out to WM, Target and Staples. He headed out the door around 4:05 and was back home by 7:10 with a nice hot cup of coffee for me!! I got my wireless keyboard and mouse for more than 50% off from Staples and I couldn't be happier. I had been pricing the wireless keyboards and found a cheap one for $29.95 at Target (and that was just the keyboard) but was hoping that something better would come along with Black Friday sales and I got lucky! Staples had a nice set from Microsoft for the same price. Normally this set costs $79.95, or so they say. lol I was also able to get some nice jammies and a couple of pairs of jeans too. Yeah, I know! Black Friday is supposed to be about shopping for other peoples Christmas presents but I needed these things and I wasn't about to walk away from a really good sale. (Okay, Okay, technically it was DH not walking away from them but still, you get my point right?!?!?! lol)

We were able to get the majority of what we had put on our list and that's a miracle. Most times you miss out on a lot because you can't be in two places at once. I think it was because most places weren't really having really good deals so that made the decision on where to go a whole lot easier. I have to say I was pretty much disappointed in Target this year. That is my favorite place to shop and they really didn't have good deals. WalMart beat them on everything. After Santa delivers all the goods we helped him find, I'll show you all the good deals we found for him. I bet you didn't know we shop for Santa and wrap presents to help him out. Yup, for a couple of years now I've been doing everything I can to help Santa out as he's such a busy guy. ;) After we get the stuff for him, he has breakfast with DH so he can take the bulk of it back to the North Pole with him. On Christmas Eve, if he's behind on his wrapping, I help him out and still leave the cookies and milk for him.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and lots of fun shopping on Black Friday!

A pic and a story or two

Happy Halloween Sampler from Oakhaven Designs

I finally finished the HH Sampler from Oakhaven Designs and posted a pic for you to see. Please ignore the wrinkles as I didn't iron it or anything just grabbed the camera and shot a pic. I did finish a small Christmas design be OHD but didn't like how it turned out so I am doing it again and will get a picture when it's completed.

So this weekend, my DH and I had a date afternoon on Sunday to go to the movies and head to dinner. I spent Saturday trying to get caught up on laundry, dishes and regular cleaning while keeping the children from killing each other. Logan had a meltdown each day but I think Saturday's was the worst. I'm still not sure what was bothering him but he was so mad he ripped his diaper apart. Now, thankfully, it wasn't a smelly diaper just the "wet" kind. I kept telling myself that I was very lucky. The whole time I'm wiping everything up and vacuuming all the lovely stuff they put in the diapers to pull the liquid away from baby/toddlers. Let me tell you that stuff is messy!! I was about to pull my hair out as I sat there cussing under my breath. Logan was in the bath soaking as he'd rubbed it all over himself. Yeah, that was lovely too but again, it could have been so much worse. I had an old can of carpet cleaner that I was trying to spray all over the carpet so I could scrub it. It wasn't spraying very well so me, being me a/k/a stupid as sh&* I had the sprayer up near my face as I tried to figure it out when I pushed the button. I'm still not sure what I was thinking (okay, I know I wasn't thinking at all) when I did that one but I did manage to close my eyes before I felt the foam hit my eyelids and face. Needless to say my face and hair were really clean and smelled like freshly scrubbed carpet. ROFLMBO! Lord I can do some pretty stupid things!!! Yes, I'm 41 and I still do incredibly stupid stuff.

I did manage to clean up the carpet without hurting myself any further and we made our date on Sunday. We had a great time, and as usual it was too short. We went to see A Christmas Carol in 3D and I have to say it was AWESOME!!! If you're going to go see this movie, play the extra $3.00 and go see it in 3D. I love Christmas movies and really enjoyed this one. It was neck and neck with Polar Express in my book. Today the kids and I are going to grab those 3D glasses I didn't turn in and watch PE in 3D. It's time for some popcorn and a nice sit down with the kids. They were very patient while I worked this morning so now it's time for a treat for everyone.

Hope you have a great week and a Happy Thanksgiving!

Work, work and more work!

I did finally get some time yesterday to get some stitching done. I have one more ghost to do on my Happy Halloween Sampler from Oakhaven Designs and it will be complete! Yeah!!!! I've been wanting to get this one done for a couple of weeks now but work has gotten in the way. lol

I thought I had posted about my new job but that's what I get for thinking. About six weeks ago now, I received an e-mail from the local Data Entry company saying they had openings in the Homeworker Division and was I still interested in a position. I filled out an application almost two years ago and hadn't heard a thing until recently. I jumped at the chance and am now working from home. I had training for four weeks, Friday and Saturdays and then was able to do some keying while we waited until the next weeks training. We deal with those little inserts in the magazines. Those are fun to read, let me tell you!

Now that the training is over we are allowed to order as much work as we can handle. I've been working from 10:00 every morning until at least 5:00. Granted, I do have to stop and start twice while going to pick up Katie and Ryan at school so I really only work about 5 hours each day. I'd love to work more but until I get a little more used to the work I'm afraid to order any more. On Friday, I worked until almost 10:00 p.m. What a day that was! lol I also have some issues with carpal tunnel that I completely forgot about. It's amazing what your brain will forget when it hasn't dealt with something in a long time. DH went and purchased some special gloves for me and they seem to be helping. Now if I can just do something about my back. I will be getting a wireless keyboard in a couple of weeks to try to alleviate some of the back issues from hunching over the keyboard at the desk. Oy! It's hell to get old. LOL

I hope to get the ghost done tonight and get a picture up here this week. I have two Christmas (or was it three) designs sitting here begging to get stitched. lol I'm not too sure how much stitching I will get done during the week because, after keying all day (even with the gloves on) my wrists get a little sore.

Hope everyone is having a great start to this week!!

Hanging in there

Just a quick post to let you all know that I'm still alive and kicking. I've not been stitching that much in the last week as I've been fighting a head/chest cold. I do hate the head colds as they make it nearly impossible to sit with glasses on your face so you can see to stitch. I'm about 2/3 done with my second Halloween SAL piece for the Oakhaven Designs group. Hopefully I can get that finished this week. Better late than never as they say!

The new job is going along smoothly for the most part. The training is officially over now and after Wednesday they won't be checking behind us anymore. I'm looking forward to being able to order as much work as I can get done every week day. I've decided, after dealing with it three out of the four Saturdays of training, that I can't order work for the weekends. It's really hard to work with the kids at home. I know, eventually I will need to figure something out as they will have vacations and summer break but I think I'll let that go until I'm more comfortable doing the work. It should be interesting the first week or so getting a routine/schedule as I run out several times a day to pick up or drop off the kids. Once I get the routine down, I should start to actually enjoy the work. You can't ask for a better job, work from home and you set your own hours. Perfect for those people that have really wonky schedules like me. lol

I hope everyone is having a great Monday and that the week is a good one.