ON A MISSION

I can hear you chanting "GO....GO....GO....GO!". Methinks the second season of Mistresses will get me through to the finish on this one, don't you? Have a great weekend, everybody! Woo Hoo!

THE BIG WHITE WALL OF NOTHINGNESS GOT A LITTLE WINTER MAKEOVER (AND AUNT CHRISSY APPROVES!)***EDITED***

Please please please forgive the very dreary pictures today, my sweets. It is a gloomy day here in North Hoosierville, and despite my very best attempts to find the camera book that would tell me how to fix this issue, I cannot.

'Member this one? It's Snowflake Serenade from Country Cottage Needleworks. The mat is actually a lovely mossy green, and the frame is a nice warm barn wood, but alas, it looks rather muddled. (And crooked. Hmm. Just noticed that. Looks like I'll have to do some fixing today.)

I put Lizzie Kate's Winter Alphabet above that damn shelf that I don't really like anymore, but it's bolted to the big white wall of nothingness in such a way that I can't get it down! The long pieces above and below the shelf are from Bent Creek, the far left piece is Shepherd's Bush, and the bird is (I believe, anyway) Twisted Thread? ***Nope! It's from Heart in Hand! Thanks, Wendy! Woo Hoo!***This angle is looking toward the front of the house.
And this is looking toward the back of the house.
Progress continues very nicely on Dust of Snow. I finished two of the trees last night and am headed to the Happy Chair to finish the other two today!

Hope your skies are considerably brighter wherever you are! Woo Hoo!

PLEASE PASS THE JUICE BOX

My mom can't come to the blog right now. She's standing in the middle of her closet trying to find a new "outside" getup. The previous "outside" getup of eighteen year old sweatpants and old man slippers from the Kmarts isn't cutting it anymore, and the recent arrival of a restraining order from our municipality has finally prodded the old lady into action.

After all of the nature around here, last night's trip for a final potty included a) me on a leash, b) a huge black and white golf umbrella with a Viagra logo that can be seen from space, c) a straw hat, and d) a pair of rubber rain boots that were probably fished out of a clearance bin at the Tractor Farm and Fleet about a billion years ago.

My stupid mo-ther read every single one of your comments and immediately decided that in the unlikely event that we were confronted by an angry mob of suburban wildlife, she wanted to be prepared. For most people this would mean the addition of a sharp stick, a cell phone, and a whistle to one's sensible "outside" getup of proper underpants, a well-fitted brassiere, slacks, a suitably patterned sweater, a coat, hat, gloves, scarf, and a smart pair of all-weather loafers, but this is my mo-ther we're talking about.

So, as I'm sure you can imagine, we made quite a pair out there in the driveway in front of God and everybody, with me in my handsome little Burberry and Mo-ther looking like an escapee from the nearest mental health inpatient facility.

Needless to say, she takes every single thing you say to heart and promises me that we will be ever vigilant for vultures, man-eating deer, and any other crazy thing that decides to drop by for a snack in the wee hours of the night.

The title of this post comes from a conversation I heard (OK, monitored) between my mo-ther and my Aunt Chrissy last evening. I had been watching the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills marathon, but one glimpse of Lisa Vanderpump's tiara and I was so disgusted I had to retch into my handkerchief. So when I heard Mo-ther dialing the telephone, I figured that a little listen-in would be considerably more entertaining:

MO-THER: Chellooooo, Aunt Chrissy! What did you have for dinner tonight?

AUNT CHIRSSY: I had oven baked potatoes, a boneless skinless chicken breast, and some green beans.

MO-THER: Wow. That sounds really good. And healthy. Don't you want to know what I had for dinner tonight?

AUNT CHRISSY: Not particularly, no.

MO-THER: I'm glad you asked. I had ham and cheese crescent roll ups, potato chips, and Rice Krispie treats. All I needed was a juice box and I could have been a six year old.

AUNT CHRISSY: Six year olds don't eat like that anymore. They have apple slices and low fat milk.

MO-THER: They do? When did this happen?

AUNT CHRISSY: Right about the time they got trapped behind you at the Targets and had to watch your ample rump waddle its way down the candy bar aisle in your eighteen year old sweatpants. Haven't you heard? You've become a cautionary tale.

MO-THER: I thought that was Paula Deen's gig.

AUNT CHRISSY: Nope. She's a well-paid spokesperson. You're just a chronic condition waiting to happen.

(Perhaps I exaggerate the EXACT wording for effect, but suffice it to say that there was a very long conversation in which my mo-ther tries to convince my Aunt Chrissy that ham and cheese crescent rolls ups and potato chips can be technically considered to be a protein, a carb, and a vegetable and that all meet the USDA requirements for a perfectly balanced meal.)

(As for me, I had a lovely piece of steamed fish, some quinoa, wilted Kale, and an impertinent little Merlot.)

We'll return to our regularly scheduled programming soon, I promise. For some reason, the battery on the camera didn't make it into the charger yesterday, so alas, no stitching picture updates.

Happy Tuesday, my very dear and loyal friends! Until we meet again, I remain your devoted pal,
Stewey

STUPID NATURE

From what I hear on the TeeVee, there's some fancypants video game that all the kids are playing these days called "Angry Birds". I'm not sure what it is, exactly, since I am not allowed to use anything electronic without adult supervision, and I don't own one of those cell phone gizmos.

Anywhoo, on Friday afternoon I was in the kitchen minding my own business (OK, if you must know, I was making Rice Krispie Treats), when I heard a very loud BANG coming from the general direction of the back patio window.

A bird had apparently decided to conduct a suicide mission, had flown directly into said back patio window, and was laying deader than a doornail in the pee snow that Stewey created that very morning during his constitutional.

I kept checking on the bird to see if it was moving, and since it wasn't and since I am also a nutjob of the highest order, I decided to take the snow shovel and gently lift the carcass out of the pee snow and give it a proper burial under a nice tree in a meadow. (Or, failing that, I figured I'd scoop it up and fling it into the middle of the big ass field behind the house and be done with it.)

As almost everybody on the planet (except me, apparently) knows, when birds fly into stuff they stun themselves senseless and fall to the ground in a lifeless heap so that they can get their wits about them. (Much like I used to do in my 20's after a night of drinking Long Island iced teas.)

But I digress.

The very moment I got the shovel under that bird, it decided to come back to life and FLY FLY AWAY as I screamed bloody murder and then wondered how long it would be before the neighborhood association served me with eviction papers.

Damn birds.

So as I was standing out there in the back forty trying not to have a heart attack, I catch something moving out of the corner of my eye. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a 42 pound meatball wearing feathers, perched about thirty feet up in a tree. Wanna know how BIG this damn thing was? Let's just say that if it would have turned around, I would have pondered the fact that it had the strength capability of carrying me (and my little dog too) several thousand feet up into the air before dropping us off the edge of a cliff to our early (and somewhat disappointing) demise(es).I know, I know, this fantastic photo makes it look like it's just a bird in a tree. But can I just point out that I used the magnify thingie on the camera and that the branch upon which that thing is sitting is about three stories up in the freakin air?!!

I emailed my friend Kavanaugh under the guise that he knows a lot about birds and would probably be able to tell me what the heck this thing is, but the truth of the matter is that my friend Kavanaugh is a police officer and has a weapon that I am sure he uses with deadly accuracy. Or, if he wasn't willing to come over here and shoot the damn thing in the head (which I want to be very clear he would in NO WAY ever consider), I guess I was hoping that he would instead bring his bagpipes and scare the living beejeesus out of this and and every other living creature within an eight mile radius of Chez Spinster.

Fast forward to last night when I was in the kitchen again (OK. So. I have a Rice Krispie addiction problem), when I spy SOMETHING moving the bushes immediately adjacent to the patio. (What IS it about this darn patio?)

Stewey fired off a few snaps with his cell phone camera, but didn't manage to focus them very well:
So now we know that the sounds I hear while fretting in the big girl sleigh bed at night are not, in fact, thieves and vagabonds trying to break into the house. They are (instead) the din of Happy Hour at what constitutes a TGI Friday's for the Marlin Perkins set.

I hate nature.

I did get quite a bit done on the Plum Street piece this weekend, and I also started a counted canvas piece from Threedles yesterday, but all of this nature photography has depleted the battery on the camera. As soon as it recharges, I'll post some updates.

Happy Monday! Hope your weekend was a bit more....civilized.

AHEM. BY MASTER STEWEY ANGUS WILLOWSWAMP HIS VERY LITTLE SELF

My mo-ther can't come to the blog right now. I've sent her away on a fool's errand to the PetSmart looking for potty pants. She thinks that if she brings them home I will gladly slip them on to help alleviate the urine elimination situation we're having. I'm sure she'll also buy a Potty Patch, a Belly Band, vitamins, and any other stupid thing she can think of to keep me from watering the furniture.

In the spirit of full disclosure, however, I feel that I must reveal:

1) I was fully housebroken on day TWO of my life here in Crazyville. Mo-ther and Aunt Chrissy were sitting in the living room, and when I went to the back door and indicated that I'd like to go outside to urinate, they both hollered and shrieked and danced around so much that I thought they had won the Publisher's Clearing House.

2) I remained fully housebroken until a) the "special surgery" that Mo-ther insisted would be better for my overall health and would help curtail the shorty Jack Russell terrier population, and b) the arrival of my pesky little cousin Bosco.

3) I pee not so much out of need to do so, but rather as an indictment of the filth that I'm forced to live in with a deranged spinster. I feel that the house should be cleaned at least four times a week and that Mo-ther should channel her inner Amish woman and wash walls, etc., but she seems to think that a bi-annual pass with the Swiffer qualifies as appropriate homekeeping. It does not.

4) The Christmas tree ornaments were not wired onto said Christmas tree due to MY failure to leave the tree alone, but rather, they were wired onto said Christmas tree because my mo-ther insists on sitting on the floor each evening after dinner to "play", and she cannot throw anything with any degree of accuracy whatsoever. During the holiday season she typically knocks at least four or five dozen ornaments from the tree's branches when she misses the dining room completely and launches the tennis ball deep into the recesses of said tree. This, of course, is followed by more curse words that I am allowed to hear.

So before you decide to type "Oh, you poor Spinster Stitcher. How terrible that you have to live with a snarky little dog that pees, I ask you....

Would YOU like to come over here and massage her back fat?

Would YOU like to watch Jeffrey Dean Morgan movies on an endless loop until you think your eyes will bleed?

Would YOU like to listen to her blather on endlessly to my Aunt Chrissy about whatever the obsession du jour happens to be?

Would YOU like to explain to the neighbors that the sounds they hear escaping up the chimney on a cold winter's night are due to my stupid mo-ther's lack of planning and that she has probably realized that she will be short one strand of thread to finish her latest project and that the Michael's and the Hobby Lobby and the JoAnn's are all closed and won't be open for another twelve hours and why oh why can't she just get organized and plan her projects out better so that she's not having to sneak into Aunt Chrissy's studio in the dead of the night like some 300-pound stitching ninja that really should be locked up but who remains free because nobody will have her anyway?

So please, my very dear friends. Don't encourage her further with any kind words, kudos, or praise. That will only result in her prancing around the house chanting "They LIKE me! They really really LIKE me!", and nobody needs to see that more than once in their lifetime. Trust me.

I hope that you remain warm and safe and dry this weekend and that you do whatever it is that your stitchy heart desires. As for me, I will be supervising this, Miss Paulette's Dust of Snow:And THIS beauty:
This is the latest Laura J. Perin that Mo-ther has been chomping at the bit to start, called Stained Glass Windows. I suspect that she will hit the studio the moment she returns from the PetSmart to paw through threads and canvas. Stay tuned for updates. I bet this one gets started before you can say "obsessive compulsive".

So that's it for now, my dear friends. As soon as I water the drapes I'm off to my patch of sunlight for a little snooze. We're supposed to get a winter's storm today, so I guess I better get snuggled in and ready for the flakes to start falling!

With love from your pal,
Stewey

I'LL TAKE "SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME" FOR TWO HUNDRED, ALEX

Note to self: If you decide to wire seventeen thousand ornaments to the tree next year because "Surely, that's the way Martha does it", you need to be taken out to the back yard and smacked about the face repeatedly with a two by four.

I've been un-wiring ornaments from the *@#()&% Christmas tree for the last nine hours and I'm not even half way through yet.

(And yes, in the event you were wondering....I exaggerate for effect, people. It's how I roll.)

WINTER ALPHABETS FEE NEE

Lizzie Kate
Winter Alphabet
32ct Wichelt Natural Light linen
Weeks Dye Werks, Crescent Colours, DMC floss

SO CLOSE, AND YET SO FAR

I'm blaming this one on the dog. I was all settled in to the Happy Chair last night, happily watching the Golden Globes and stitching away. You know...la la la la la...all is well with the world...I'm happy and content and haven't a care in my little brain. There was a cheery fire in the fireplace, my toes were cozy with some fabulous new socks Aunt Chrissy got me at the Targets, and I figured within a matter of an hour or two I would have my second FeeNee of the new year.

Alas, it was not to be.

At 11:01 exactly, Little Lord Fauntleroy decided that it was time to go to bed. First he whined at the back door. (I let him out promptly, just in case you were wondering if THAT might be the reason why he pees on anything and everything that isn't moving.) Then I went to the cookie jar to get him a tiny bone because he did, in fact, pee on the outside of the house and not on the inside as is his usual custom. Usually he stands right beside me as I reach into the jar, so when I looked down and didn't see him, I panicked a little.

"Stewey! Where are you, my Baby Dear? Come get your tiny bone!"

The reply came from the doorway to the bedroom. (It is here that you should note that he was not IN said bedroom because we now have a lovely baby gate that prevents him from going in there without express permission from moi.)

"Mo-ther. I'm standing here like patience on a monument waiting for you to open this ridiculous contraption so that I might go to bed."

(At this point he turned and gestured dramatically in the general direction of the baby gate.)

"Stewey, Mommie had to put the baby gate there so that you wouldn't go into the bedroom and decide to water my closet, my bathroom cabinets, and the big girl sleigh bed."

"How do you know it was me? Have you been trained in the scientific arts that would conclusively determine that I am the sole source of the problem? How do you know that you aren't waking up in the middle of the night and lifting your very own leg on your clothes, the bathroom cabinets, and the big girl sleigh bed, hmmm?"

(This is when the dumbfounded look came across my face as I contemplated the possibility.)

(And then I realized that I was getting gaslighted by a nine pound dog.)

"You know damn well that it wasn't me, Mister, and if you don't stop with this whole marking thing I'm going to take you back to the swamp where I found you. Enough already. I'm 45 years old and deserve to live in a house that doesn't qualify as a "before" situation on TLC. Now come over here and get this damn tiny bone so I can finish my stitching and then go post about it on my blog."

(With that, he peed on the baby gate.)

So that's why I didn't get the piece finished last night. I am determined to do so this afternoon, though. Right after I take down the Christmas decorations, do the laundry, clean the house, solve world peace, and finally determine why hot dogs come in packages of ten and buns come in packages of eight. If there's any time left over, I promise to go upstairs to fetch the eleventy-billion projects that I've started, organize every scrap of thread in my stash, and separate the ice cubes into categories according to size, texture, clarity, and shape. Finally, I'll watch all of the crap I've taped on the recording thingie, write pertinent and smart essays about each, and then, once and for all try to figure out why Jeffrey Dean Morgan hasn't returned any of my invitations to come over for meatloaf and Merlot.

Stay tuned, kids! I'm feeling inspired!