Contest winner and ballerina update

Wow! What a week! First thing first...say congratulations to Julie and Yes dear! They are the winner of my blog contest. Thursday night Mark picked he number 8 as the winner. Julie you will need to email me your addre
I am 1/2 way finished with this section of ballerina. My plan is too work on her all weekend. I hope to finish this page by Sunday night( a girl can dream). Happy stitching everyone!

Huge Update and a Contest

I swear that when I start a new page of Ballerina I forget how to count.  I had to frog the first part of this again just like I had to do the last page!  I have 60% of her finished and I am ready to say she is finished!!  Look what I brought back in to the rotation!!  YOGA!!  I haven't worked on this since then end of July.  I am working on her 4 days a week and then she is also my car project.  This bottom part is all basically the same color so I can work on it while sitting at a stoplight or waiting for something.

 

Christmas in July Exchange:

Judith sent me this lovely package in July....it arrived on Saturday.  Just a few months late but so worth it.  She sent me Christmas stickers, two types of floss, a gold heart and a beautifully finished ornament.

 Weight:
I lost 1.2 pounds this week which brings me to 138.6!!  Yea!!  I did work out everyday but Saturday.  I blame my not reaching my goal on the fact Mark took me to dinner and movie.  I had popcorn at the Movies (it was so good!) and then we went to dinner. This is where I had fried calamari and pizza.  Not good but so worth it!!!  We went and saw THE HELP....I highly recommend it!!! It is almost as good as the book!!!! 

Contest:
I told you a while back I did some ebay shopping.  One of the items I bought was an envelope full of British magazine patterns that have been torn out.  There are about 30 patterns or more. There is a huge variety of kids, alphabets, flowers, buildings and just a hodgepodge of things. I will send them to someone who leaves a comment on this post. I will have Mark pick a number on Thursday evening.     

UFO Challenge Blog

I decided to start a UFO Blog....I am hoping to get 100 stitchers who would like to join so they can post their UFO progress!!!  We can share with each others progress and dance a little for those who finish a UFO!!! 

If you would like to join ...please leave me a comment here or on this blog with your email address and I will send you a link to join!  You can then post your progress, pictures and if needed stitching woes if that dreaded frog visits!!!

Ballerina update and a future contest

WHO-HOOOO!!  I finished another page on Ballerina!!!!  Actually, Mary helped me a bit.  She finished some coloring in the lines for me.  Ballerina is looking great!!! I may have her finished soon!!!  I am going back to my rotation this week.  I just have to do some backstitching on her and I will be ready to work on Yoga!!!

Mark worked out with me today!!!!  I have been trying to get him to do my circuit workout with me since I started back on my workouts (a week!). He agreed today and now he is so sore!!!   He couldn't believe how hard he worked.  So now he plans on working out with me every other morning. Just on this routine.  I get to do cardio by myself.

I now have 96 followers!!!! When I reach 100, I am going to hold a contest!  Not sure of the prize yet...but it will be a good one!!!! Off to backstitch...

The Most Hated Word

I do believe the most hated word in any females world is the word D I E T!   I know it is mine because right now I am on one!  I know I have posted before that I had this big plan to lose all this weight and somehow I just didn't follow through.  I think if you want to lose weight you really have to WANT to lose it.  You have really work at it.  I have thought for the last 2 years that I want to lose weight and I have actually tried a few times but after a couple of days I get frustrated and hungry so I eat and eat!!!  My downfall is late night snacks. There is something about popcorn with extra butter late at night is just YUMMMMM. 

If you are wondering what brought on this sudden desire to lose weight?  You won't believe but it was cat pee.  Shaking your head???  I smelled cat pee somewhere in my guest room and it seems that Jag was made a me for some reason and he PEED on my wedding dress bag!!!  The dress is fine and hanging on the bookshelf waiting for me to get a new bag.  If you know anything about cat pee...once it is on something it doesn't come out.  I had to throw away my dress bag (picking a new one up this week). I was looking at my wedding dress (size 6) and I got mad at myself.  I realized that when I met Mark I weighed about 35 lbs less than I do now. 

I will tell you when I weighed on Sunday (9-11-11) I actually cried.  This is the heaviest I have EVER been and I weighed in at 142.2.  I couldn't believe it.  When I met Mark I weighed 105 lbs.  I can't believe how much I have gained.  

I made a decision then that I was going to lose this weight!  I started that day and have done a 30 to 40 minute workout each day.  I am working out 6 days and resting on the 7th (Saturday).  I write down on a calender which workouts I do and I can see my progress. 

I am not following any special diet because I hate to measure, count and I like to eat real food.  So, I am just cutting back on what I eat.  I am not denying myself anything. If  I want it ..I eat a very small portion of it.   I do not eat 3 hours before bedtime.  So If I eat dinner at 7:30 pm...I can't go to bed until 10:30.  I am also drinking 64 ounces of water a day.  I carry around a huge jug of water every day at school but it makes drinking water easier. Since I know how much I have to drink to reach my goal. I have however, not had a coke in over a week so that is one thing I have cut out of my diet.  I don't like diet drinks so if I can't have a real coke....I won't drink them.

I am giving myself a prize if I meet my goal of 2 lbs per week. Just something small such as a new book or magazine.  

I weighed this morning and weighed in at 140.0!!!!  I lost 2.2 lbs by just cutting back on my food!!!  So I bought myself a new book today.  I bought  The Diva Haunts the House by Krista Davis. Tomorrow is another week. 

Diva Takes the Cake

I just finished the 2nd book in the Diva series written by Krista Davis.  If you haven't read this series and you love to laugh, I suggest you start with the first one. The first one is "The Diva Runs our of Thyme". This is a decorating, cooking type of cozy mystery.  Sophie's family is just crazy!  You feel like you are part of the story!!  Sophie's sister Hannah is getting married for the 3rd time and NO ONE likes the groom!!!  This wedding has so many hiccups that you just sit there and shake your head wondering what else could go wrong???

Her ex-husband lives down the road with his new girlfriend, Natasha, who by the way is the one person Sophie has competed with her entire life. This Natasha character is one I would love to slap.  She would get on my nerves and she treats the dog that Sophie and Mars share custody. 

I do recommend this series. One of my wedding tips made it into the book!!!!  The author, Krista Davis had a contest to enter wedding tips.  I think she only picked 5.  My tip was to have a bucket of toys, coloring books etc. for each child so they aren't running around the reception driving people crazy!!!  So I won my copy and she even autographed it!!!  
I am reading the 3rd one now "The Diva Takes the Town"....halfway through it on the first day and I am loving it!!!!!

Finish and New STASH!!!

 I finished Vicki L's RR from the ILCS group.  She sent several patterns and I chose Snow Bunnies from the 2007 Just Cross stitch Christmas issue. It turned out so cute!!!
I do not have an update on Ballerina because all the stitching I did this week had to be frogged and now I am restarting this section!

I have been very busy on Ebay.  I need to stop but I just couldn't!  I found these three kits that I just had to have!!!

 

The first one is from the Art of Disney called Puppy Love.  I am trying to complete my collections of these patterns. I think this is just too adorable.

 

 The next one is Mickey and Minnies Wedding. This is another Art of Disney pattern.  I love the castle in the background.

The last one is from Bucilla Heirloom Collection titled Southern Belles.  I love this scene!!!
If you are wondering about Gibbs...he is fine and we are going to the Doctor tomorrow to remove our stitches!!!

Poor Gibbs

Gibbs had surgery this week!  He is home and doing well however, he has staples holding his tummy together.  It seems he dug in the trash and found a corn cob.  He ate  it and about 2 inches of this corn cob got stuck in his small intestines.  We did not know this of course, however, he started throwing up on Wednesday night. He threw up all night. It was like having a sick child.  Mark took him to the vet in the morning and they did 2 sets of x-rays, some other things and then we got the call.  They were going to do surgery on Friday morning because they weren't sure what was wrong with him.  He stayed at the vet until Sunday when we were finally able to bring him home.  He has to be on very wet food and has to take 5 pills each morning and evening.  We are very happy to have him home and he was so happy to be home.  He is doing well and is snuggles up in between Mark and I each night. We are aren't sure if it is because he wants to be in the bed or he just feels that he needs to be next to us.

On the stitching note, I have finished the entire top portion of the ballerina.  Since I last posted I have put in 6,396 stitches and have completed 47.6% of her.  I have also been shopping on ebay...someone stop me!!!  I have bought several kits. Once I get them all in  I will post a picture of them for everyone to see.
We had a very sad day on Friday at school. Thursday night, one our students was in a car crash and was killed.  She had just found out she had been nominated for the homecoming court.  It was just a very sad, emotional day for the students.