Wish Me Luck!

Well...it's been a while. Again. This time I have a real reason though. I've been so sick, and in so much pain for the past 2 weeks...have been to the doctor and he made me an appoitment for more tests to be done...but not until June 14th. That's a long wait. I know, that's how it goes. But it's horrible to not know what's wrong with you, and as you get progressively sicker wonder if you'll even be alive on June 14th! Alright, that might be a little dramatic, but it's been a rough 2 weeks. I even called in sick to work. I have never, not once in the almost 4 years I've worked there called in sick. My Dad is sick as well...they found something in his lung so he's been off work for a month while they try to figure out what it is. They thought it was cancer but now test results are coming back negative for that, thank goodness. He's been a welder for the last 25 years, so they're thinking his lungs have been infected with something toxic over the years. What's important is that they fix him.....ahhh STRESS! That being said, I feel quite a bit better this afternoon! I don't want to jinx myself, but maybe whatever's wrong is going away :-)

Tomorrow is my race in Ottawa. I'm supposed to be running 5k tomorrow at 5pm. I HOPE I can run. If I feel like I do now, I will. If I feel like I have for the past 2 weeks, there's no way. So wish me luck! Please :-)

Shantal is running 25k on Sunday morning...or maybe it's like 22.4k or something like that that I can't remember, so I'll be all set up with my camera cheering her on. We're driving up tomorrow morning and spending the night...yay! I'll post pictures when I get back...and results! Although they won't be impressive...it's going to be a tough run, I haven't trained at all this week and am feeling quite weak as well. I just want to finish it!

And on a side note, I finished 2 courses this week, and the Leukemia fundraising campaign I was involved with ended on the weekend so now I'll have time to actually stitch!

I Stitched!

Yahoo! I did it! I actually worked on some cross stitch today! I was working in the museum gift shop this afternoon, which, all winter, has been my weekly cross stitch time (its pretty slow in there), but since my friend got back from school about a month ago, she's been back in the gift shop with me, so we just chat all day...hence, no stitching.

I thought I was more of a focussed stitcher...I can't carry on a conversation and count stitches at the same time...I'm a little challenged that way :-) But I tried it out today, stitching while we talked, and I got 3 whole sunflowers finished on Earl Grey! Ya!!!!

We usually read from a German textbook someone keeps leaving behind our desk, and goof around with that, but today there was an old issue of the New Yorker there instead. Let me tell ya...that was FUN! At first my friend picked it up, skimmed through it, and decided it was a bit too serious for Tuesday afternoon museum reading. She must have gotten bored of watching me stitch because she then decided to read one of the articles out loud in a "fake pretentious voice" and that's when we discovered how hysterical the New Yorker is! We had a blast...but more about that another time.

The highlight of my day today was that the garden center at the store I work in got this new kind of grass called Twister. It is SO cool!! Here's a pic...

It's kind of hard to see because it was so sunny, but it's so curly! I'm going to plant 2 in the ground and one of them will go into a planter, along with this Gerber Daisy I also bought today, as well as some trailing Lobelia. Exciting!

Well, that's all for now, I have to go, Lost is gonna start soon :-)

Rose's Quilt!

Heloooo out there! It's been a while eh?

I have a friend, Rose, who is an amazing quilter. She taught me how to quilt just about a year ago now, and although I'm nowhere near where she is, she did a great job at teaching me the basics. So I was over at her house a few days ago to visit her latest finished quilt!

I thought I'd share this with you guys since I have no crafty news of my own to share :-(

Here's a picture of the quilt, and Jake the dog.

In non-crafty news, I've been very busy! I have two big final essays due for school at the end of the month, which have been taking up most of my off-work time. I finished one of them today...yahoo!!

Also, a friend of mine is doing a leukemia research fundraiser for two weeks...he's halfway through now. This year he's going door to door asking for donations. In the past he's camped on the roof of the store we worked at, and has walked from Ottawa to Toronto. This year he's knocking on doors! So I've been spending time driving the big truck with all of his logos and sponsors printed on it behind him as he walks the streets. Now...this truck is BIG! I hate that stupid thing! LOL! I've ran over more curbs than I can count, nearly hit people, and backed into someone's garbage can, and once, Holly even almost drove off a "cliff!" and this truck is difficult! Haha! So keep your fingers crossed that we make it through the next week without any accidents!

I have a race coming up in just under two weeks as well. I started running 5 months ago, and have just graduated from the 5 kilometer clinic. The 10k clinic starts tomorrow night! So I'm running 5k at Ottawa Race Weekend! I'm getting excited, and also nervous! My friend Shantal who I'll be going with (who talked me into starting running in the first place) is running a half marathon that weekend. WOOOHOOO!!! It'll be a big accomplishment for her, she's been working up to this point for a while!

Well, I think that's all for now, because I really, really have to go to bed :-)

Earl Grey Progress

Hey everyone...I hope you're all enjoying this half sunny, half rainy Saturday evening!

I haven't been stitching as much as I'd like to, like most of you out there can relate to, I'm sure. I have to work 6 days/week from now until August with the exception of 2 weekends that I've booked off, and it seems to be taking a toll on me. I also volunteer at the Canadian Canoe Museum, so between that, work, running, doing errand-y things, school work, and trying to see my friends and family, I have almost no time left for stitching :-( Although, when I'm stuck running the museum gift shop, I usually get to stitch for a straight 4 hours because it's pretty slow, and that's how I've accomplished this much of my beloved Earl Grey.....

I decided to stitch all of the sunflowers first because I knew once I stitched the donkey I wouldn't want to do anymore. This way I have motivation to keep going through these flowers...I'm so excited to be able to stitch Earl one day (hopefully soon!) I can't decide whether to do a little bit of orange on the inside of the flower, and black (or maybe brown?) in the middle, or just skip the orange all together and just do the black (or brown). Any thoughts?

How are all of your gardens doing? I just spend my whole afternoon outside getting a new bed ready. I live in the basement of an older couple's house. They're sort of like having grandparents, they treat me like family. This year they asked me if it would be okay for them to get a backhoe in to dig some new beds in the front and back, and if I would be willing to take care of them. I already take care of all of the garden-y things here so I figured a few new ones wouldn't be a big deal...and I love gardening, so I'm kind of excited too! I went over to Holly's last night and dug up a bunch of perennials, got my bed ready and planted them today. It's still very empty and needs to be filled in, but it's still SO early for planting here, there will still be frost so I'm holding off a little. The edging was killer, but it turned out pretty well! The only thing I left for another day was that big clump of grass as this end. By the time I relized it was there (I was in a zone-not paying attention), I was too tired and had a major "screw this" moment. I'll dig it out tomorrow. Here it is so far:

This is the first one of 4- there are 3 more in the back yard that are roughly the same size. I haven't even touched them yet. There are lots of perennials at my parents house for me to go dig up, and I have a little bit of flower money saved up. I worked in the garden center that's attached to the store I work at for 2 summers, and Holly is working out there now- it's my favourite place to hang out...I get us coffee and we just sit. Well....I sit, and she works near me LOL. So I've been scoping things out this week and have several ideas....exciting! One thing I'm going to do for sure is grow Morning Glories up the fence...I LOVE them.

Anyways, I guess that's all for now!! I'm trying to get caught up on all of your blogs, but I seem to be about a week and a half behind....I'm slowly working my way through...everyone is making such cool things, good inspiration!

Until next time.........