Not a happy dance, but a bunch of progress on Song of the Dead. I was enjoying working on this so much I kept on it a couple of days longer than I was "supposed" to. Once I got started I simply had to keep going until I had the bird's head stitched.

In the interest of not falling too far behind, here is a quick update on my most recent projects.

Once again, at the top of my rotation, is Victory. For some reason, this was not the pleasant stitch I have become accustom to with her. The threads seemed to be bunching up in a bulky and unattractive fashion. Probably because of the #4 braid. I was too far into this design before I realized that it was really too thick and mucked up the rest of the stitching.

And I have finished page 7 of Tower of Stony Wood. That makes the whole top row of pages done. Woo hoo!

I still can't quite believe it. I went with my daughter and she bought a car. Is she really that old? Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and she wouldn't let me borrow hers so I could take some lame (her word) pictures of her driving it off the lot. She is very excited and I've noticed a bit of a boost in her self esteem since she knows that she's doing this herself. It's all in my name, of course, since she's only 17, but she's the one who is going to be paying for all of it. And I realized today that I'm not at all worried she won't be able to handle it and I'll end up having to take over the payments. I am so very proud of her. And this time it's not just because she's beautiful!

I made great progress on A Rose Among Thorns. Over 4000 stitches in four days (plus a bit Tuesday morning)! I so wanted to start working on the horse and I was able to get a wee bit of his forelock done.

I've now made it through this rotation 3 times. A bit modified from when I first started, though. Next time around, I plan to space the non-HAED projects evenly among the HAEDs. And in order to get the numbers to work out right, I'll have to add three more HAEDs to the mix. Well, okay, I want to add them. I'm also going to try switching projects on Tuesdays and Saturdays, so projects on the weekends will only get 3 days. And finally, I'm debating whether or not I want a focus piece that I'll work on the beginning of every month.

I've now got cold water. And hopefully I'll have a new water heater by the end of the day. It's going to cost me every single cent I have. Lovely, huh? I guess I'm stuck here for a while longer.

Okay, my life isn't so bad. Probably the worst thing that ever happened to me was being separated from my son when he was born. Personally, that was pretty bad, but compared to what other people have to go through it was a walk in the park. But it's all the little stuff that seems to keep me from ever getting ahead.

I came home from work today to discover my hot water heater had sprung a serious leak. Water was just gushing out of it. I've had to turn the water completely off and now I'm waiting for my gas company to get back to me to talk about getting a new one.

But, once again, the timing of my misfortune is quite fortunate. I've probably got enough money saved to pay for it. I just hate to have to buy a new one since I want to be out of here by December and I'll have to use my moving money. Maybe I can return it when I move? Plus I bought a whole bunch of bottled water to take on my trip last week and only drank about 1/3 of it. So we won't go thirsty.

So, not a disaster, not the end of the world, just one of those annoying bumps. But it seems like I'm always hitting them just when things are starting to get better.

And maybe it's a good thing -- I got the USDA loan application and they have raised their minimum credit score 20 points. So maybe by the time I'm ready to apply again, my score will have gone up some more.

And I'm not exactly looking forward to it! It seems like I haven't been there forever. Fortunately, it's not the type of job where things will have piled up while I was gone.

Here's a picture of Babysitting. I finished working on her the day before we left. I've made it past the half-way point! She should progress fairly quickly now since I'm not stitching the background and there will be less and less to stitch as I work my way down. I was a bit dismayed over the uneven edge on the right. But then I took a look at the original artwork and the circle is a bit wonky anyway so I feel better. I still may go back and try to even it out, but I'll decide whether or not to do that when I've got more done and can see how it affects the whole piece.

We had a great time at Knoebels. The trip up was happily uneventful and I got really good gas mileage so I was quite pleased with that. It had started to rain right before we got there, so my daughter was concerned that we wouldn't be able to go down to the park and ride the Phoenix. But the rain only lasted long enough for me to unpack the car and get settled in the cabin. So we headed down to the park and here is a picture of her waiting to ride. The line wasn't too bad (the rain had a good side effect!) so we decided to ride in the front car. As always, it was great fun!

The second picture is of her at the start of our second day. You can see the Phoenix behind her. The next picture is her on one of our favorite rides. She went on with my niece, but they weren't able to sit together. Although we discovered later that the ride staff would have asked every one to move over a seat so they could have (the staff at this park are so incredibly nice that people actually comment on it). This is the only thrill ride other than the two coasters that I rode. I have a problem with motion sickness which seems to be getting worse as I get older. But this ride is so much fun I was willing to risk it (with a liberal splash of Motion-Ease behind each ear, that is). If you're interested in seeing it in action, check out the video I took while the girls were riding. Not the best quality, but you get the idea. If you look closely, you can see my daughter waving at me at the beginning of the ride. After that I pretty much lost sight of her!


And finally, here is a rare picture of me. When I first saw it I was puzzled. I couldn't quite understand why I'd taken it and I certainly didn't recall doing it. Then I remembered I had given my sister my camera when we went on this ride and I was actually on it! This ride is also a lot of fun but only if you want to get soaked. I was quite wet when I got off the ride and got even wetter since I caught some of the wave when the next car hit. My nephews were trying to evade my efforts to get them off the observation platform before that happened and so we didn't quite make it. It was a horribly humid day, so the water did feel pretty good!

The one bad thing was I finished the day off with huge blisters on the balls of my feet. Which made it difficult to walk the next day when we went to the pool. My sister and I are now trying to convince the others we should do the pool the first day and the park the second. In addition to being worn out from the day before, Wednesday night is bargain night so after 6 the lines get really long. My daughter even refused to wait in line for the Phoenix after that. If we went to the pool on Wednesday, we would be able to take advantage of bargain night ourselves and maybe wouldn't feel so compelled to squeeze everything in on that one day.

All in all, a wonderful relaxing vacation.

I start Phase II of my vacation tomorrow! Woo hoo! Phase I was the traditional visit from my mother and two sisters. They have been coming down for the last eight or so years and we go to the beach. Sad that it is generally the only time I get to the beach, but I just get so annoyed with the traffic and the crowds. I probably should try to go more often -- once I get there it is so relaxing, but then of course I have to drive home and get agitated all over again.

Tomorrow we leave for Knoebels, another family tradition. We've gone every year for the last 15 years. I missed last year, though. For 12 of them, we did a day trip in September. After we moved down here we'd stay at my sisters. Three years ago, my mother decided to rent a cabin at the campground and we liked that so much we decided to start going in the summer so we could spend a couple of days. We do the rides one day and the pool another. I bought an extra set of batteries and another memory card so I'll be taking LOTS of pictures. I should be able to get some really good shots with that 12x zoom I have.


Once again, I have to do some catching up on posting my stitching progress. I worked on Broken Angel, The Big Zipper, and Ballet Pigs.

Fortunately, the plague of frogs seems to have subsided and I made fairly good progress on each of these.

And on a final note, I wanted to ask for some luck. I've decided I'm ready to try to buy a house. I checked my credit report yesterday and while it's still not very good, my score is a wee bit over the number I've heard I need without "additional explanation" for a USDA direct loan. I take that with a grain of salt, since I got it off the internet. But I have seen it in more than one place. Even if I can get the loan, there are other things that might trip me up. Like what to do with this falling apart trailer. I'd give it away, but I don't think the park management will even allow me to do that. So I need to check into how much it will cost to demolish the thing. And if that's more than I have, well... I'm hoping that the aluminum siding is worth enough to cover the cost of demolition. So, wish me luck, I am very nervous and scared.