HELLO, OLD FRIEND.

Much like the swallows to Capistrano, the stitchy bug has returned to the spinster.

Dinner with my guild sisters and the trip to House of Stitches was filled with love, laughter, and (I'm mortified to confess) no less than four ugly cries right there in front of God and everybody.

It all started when we walked in and Miss Linda and Miss Nancy and Miss Cherry handed me my kit for Red Velvet Cake and I discovered that it had been paid for by an angel.  Then, as I was checking out, I handed over what I thought was a gift certificate from another angel, but it turns out that there were TWO gift certificates in the envelope from TWO angels.

Oey...puddles and puddles of tears.  My guild sisters were kind enough to pat me gently while I wept, and I kept having to run to the bathroom to try to get it together.

I never did.  Last night after Miss Charlene dropped me off and I had crawled into the Happy Chair with the heating pad and Tylenol and my meds, I cried and cried and cried over the overwhelming love and kindness that has surrounded me these last many months.

You know that expression "The kindness of strangers?"  Well, I somehow think it should be modified to say something about the fact that once a kindness is given, the person giving it is no longer a stranger. They are now your family.

And I am blessed, gobsmacked, and humbled to count as my family the most lovely, kind, generous, decent, and wonderful people on this crazy planet of ours.  Thank you, dear friends.  As long as I live, I will never figure out how I got so incredibly lucky to count myself part of this community.

Many of you have commented on my sister's absence from my life, but rather than mourn it, I think I'm going to start saying a silent prayer of gratitude that she was the one that taught me to stitch.  I do miss her terribly, but her gift to me was opening this door to all of you, so for that I am very very thankful.

So on to the goodies.  It's 10:30 in the morning here in Hoosierville, and I have read the paper, had my coffee, and taken my meds.  Know what I'm going to do today?

I'm going to stitch.

Right there in the Happy Chair with my jammies on and Stewey in his little box on the back of the couch for company.

Here's the haul from last night:

This is the linen and threads for Red Velvet Cake.  Now I just need to find the chart!

I think this is what I'm going to play with today as a reminder to do just that:

And once I get my groove back, I thought this might be wonderful.  The threads are Weeks Dye Werks Julian and the linen is Picture Thus Plus Fog.

So that's the Futzingday report, my dearies.  Now it's time...to...stitch!