WHEW! ON TO THE ORANGE BOWL!

This is Fr Nate, the Chaplain of the Notre Dame football team:

Before every game Fr Nate gives each player a medal with a Saint on it. Each game has a different Saint, and after everything has been played on the field, Fr Nate posts all of the details about that week's medal, along with a photo of a player showing his medal:

For the Sugar Bowl, the Saint was St Sebastian. I have particular fondness for him, since I attended St Sebastian Grade School in Pittsburgh for a few years back in the 1970's.

Thank you, St Sebastian!

 

OK BOYS....LET'S GO!

 

QUIET, BUT LOVELY

I had a wonderful dinner, did some stitching and diamond painting, watched a couple of movies last night, and was in bed by 11:30.

(My better angels sent me to the big girl sleigh bed at a reasonable hour because I had to make an early morning trip to the train station to collect my Jersey Boy. Otherwise I would have donned my festive apparel and whooped it up like the crazy party animal I am and stayed up until 12:15.)

Dinner was a real treat...crab cakes, garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, and an amazing chopped salad, followed by a white chocolate/cranberry cookie from Bonefish Grill. I allowed myself the indulgence, both spendy-wise and calorie-wise because I behaved myself over Christmas, as well as did a nice job cleaning and tidying during the day.

Totally worth it!

I watched The Other Boleyn Girl while stitching Carolyn Manning's Starstruck:

And then re-visited The Tudors while starting a new diamond painting of a village scene:

Tonight, my Irish will take on the Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl down in New Orleans, but the fun of it has been marred by a madman. Notre Dame, Our Mother....pray for us.

So that's the report for the first day of 2025, Dearies! I'm going to settle in with some damn good and a little scroll this morning, and hope to grab a nice long nap before the game tonight. Happy New Year to you and yours...what's on your agenda for the day?

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR, DEARIES!

 

SUNDAY NIGHT SPINSTER BLISS

 

IN MY DEFENSE, I WAS LEFT UNSUPERVISED.

I'm trying to break bad patterns and establish good ones before the old year ends and the new one begins, so today finds me knee-deep in AREA NUMBER ONE...my stitching WiPs and stash. I have been terribly lax in my "just try to keep everything together in tidy categories" efforts, so as soon as I finished my third big cup of damn good this morning (*), I went head-first into the fray to try to distract myself from not feeling good.

After only two hours of sorting and futzing and futzing and sorting and belting out Elton John tunes with Alexa, I ended up with nicely separated piles that then fit very nicely into baskets and bins I already had on hand.

(Note to self: empty the damn amazon cart that you filled with baskets and bins last night.)

I sorted into three piles of WiPs: canvas, cross stitch, and Christmas, and then put all of my charts and things I've kitted up into three baskets for the cube room studio. I'll need to go through those and sort into seasons and misc, but for now they're put away:

Then, since I was already in there, I gathered and piled all of my project bags and Bitsy Bobs:

And after a LOT of grunting and sweating and sweating and swearing, I stuck all of my WiPs and all of Christmas behind my chair:

(Yes, Betty, I absolutely positively cannot stand how cluttered that looks, but unless you can make this apartment grow another ten feet of storage space, you're just gonna have to ZIP IT and learn to live with it.)

So now it's 4:00, and after I take a nice hot scrubby shower and eat some chicken and rice (**), I'm going to see what trouble I can get into with some Wintery-themed charts and Mill Hill kits that I found during my adventures today:

I hope you had a wonderful day, Dearies! Are you all blissfully unaware of what day it is like I am, or are you really good and keeping to your routines? Come tell me all about it!

(*) I'm trying to get my sleep/wake cycle back on a healthier schedule...in other words, getting out of bed at 8 or 9 am instead of 2 or 3 pm, so additional damn good has been necessary.

(**) On the tummy front, I'm sad to report that today was NOT a good day at all. The two biggest problems I'm having are awful screaming mimis that are keeping me very close to the powder room, and a painfully distended/bloated abdomen that feels like I've swallowed a beach ball full of thumb tacks and cement. Ugh. So baked chicken and a little rice for dinner it is.

SPINSTER CHRISTMAS BLISS 2024

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS, DEARIES!

WOULD IT BE WEIRD TO DO THIS ALL YEAR?

 

MAKING A LITTLE PROGRESS

 

I suppose if we compare my stitching progress to last year's output, I am failing miserably.

But you know what?

I'm not going to do that. 

My gift to myself this year is to just STOP the nonsense in my head and just...enjoy. I have somehow managed to get up each day and let the hours unfold as they will. I am, unfortunately, still not feeling well, but instead of worrying about it I'm trying to just do what I can do, sleep when I need to, and learn how to be...quiet. A trip to IU or Cleveland Clinic or Mayo Clinic in the new year will figure this out, I'm sure, and then I can get back to running around like a crazy person.

But for now, I am really enjoying stitching in the daylight hours and then diamond painting at night. This seems to work pretty well, since I can concentrate on the stitching...which is necessary with that Santa beard (*)...and then I can watch the Yellowstones all night and drool over Kevin Costner and Rip to my heart's content.

Hubba hubba.

(*) The Santa is from Janet Zickler Casey. The outline of his head is pencil-drawn onto a piece of 18ct mono canvas, and then you fill in all of the various parts according to her instructions. The beard on this on is stitched with a really cool pattern that looks like a cable-knit sweater, but for the life of me I can't get my head into a rhythm with it and need to really really concentrate.

After the stitching is completed, two different types of beads will be added into the pattern for some sparkle! I can't wait to see it finished!

So that's it, Dearies. Absolutely nothing at all going on here. Alexa and I are loving the Christmas Instrumentals channel that she found. She was belting out Frank Sinatra and Co, but quiet piano carols are much more in keeping with our laid-back vibe this year.

What's new in your corner of the world? If you're in the thick of it, take a minute to breathe. And if you need an excuse to do so, tell everybody you're visiting a friend and head to the Starbucks and have a big fat damn good (or tea. tea is good too) and look at pretty pictures of stitching for a minute.

Come tell me all about you...

CHEERS TO THE FRIDAY THAT FELT LIKE A SATURDAY!

 

THIS IS A TOUGH ONE FOR YOURS TRULY

 

Tonight, the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish take on the Hoosiers of Indiana University in the first round of the College Football Playoffs. The winner will advance with an opportunity to vie for the National Championship.

Notre Dame is my Alma Mater, as well it was for my dear departed Dad. I bleed Blue and Gold and live under the protection of the BVM and pray for my ND Family daily.

But my BellyBean...my most sacred gift of a new life...came from IU and the amazing team of doctors, nurses, and staff there. I never really thought about the school that's just a few hours down the road, but in 2021 I vowed to also bleed Crimson and Cream for the Hoosiers.

So, good luck, boys. Play well, be safe, have fun, and make a memory to last a lifetime! 

AMEN

 

 

A DP FINISH, A NEW DP START...AND A LITTLE MORE STITCHING

 

TUESDAY NIGHT...APRES' DINNER

 

TRUE STORY

 

 

IN WHICH WATCHING A BAKING PIE MAKES ME INSANELY HAPPY

On YouTube TV they play these lovely videos of various things along with the note to "Enjoy the zen". Most are of nature scenes or of the ASMR variety...this one is of a beautiful pie baking in an oven.

Aaaaaahhhhhhh.

Cold and snowy in these here parts, so I am under the Snoopy blanket happily stitching away. 

Progress is super slow, but I'm sure it will speed up if I stick with it. I might switch to the Mirabilia Santa later, but for now I'm enjoying playing with this one.

Happy Thursday, Dearies! 

WEDNESDAY

Good morning, Dearies. Short and sweet today...

First up, the latest diamond painting finish. I got this one on the amazons and it's from Diamond Art Club:

This is the one that I'm working on now...also from the amazons:

And yes, Betty...I still stitch. I'm sorry that it's not up to your standards, but this is what I'm enjoying at the moment. This is a downloaded .pdf chart from the etsy shop NARAxstitch.

Enjoy your day today, Dearies! 

 

 

TUESDAY