Why Is Exercise So Hard?

Okay this is a totally non-stitching post but I need to get this out of my head.

Once I start exercising I have very little trouble with doing it and getting it done. My biggest downfall... I talk myself out of doing it!

"Oh I'm too tired tonight..."
"I've got a headache..."
"I'm not feeling well..."
"I've got to go to..."
"I'd rather be stitching..."

Yes, I've got a nice long list of reasons to talk myself out of getting started! I really have little excuse, I bought a treadmill about two years ago and it sits here in the living room ( did use it daily for about a year!). So its not as if I don't have the equipment... not that you really need any.

During the spring I would take a 25 minute walk at lunch time but then during the summer with 30c + temperatures and high humidity I used that as another excuse. Some days it wasn't so much of an excuse as the air quality was really bad and there were advisories. But I could of used the treadmill at home where I have central AC.

Then there's TKD, I always make it out to teach my classes... I have to be there but for the last month I've barely gone to my own classes. Why... see my reasons above. I do have the added excuse, on Monday night my class is at 8:30 at night and when you get home from work at 4pm I'm just so settled in at home I don't want to leave. I really am going to try to train two times a week. So that leaves Wednesday and Thursday this week.

Now a new way of "forced exercise" for me this fall is indoor soccer on Sunday nights. Boy am I ever enjoying that!!! It also gets a good sweat going... but my feet don't love me for it, its tough on my poor tootsies.

I really admire people like my friend Marj who has the dedication to go to the gym 5-6 days a week!

So tonight I did it, I got home from work and got on the treadmill. I was going to walk for 15 minutes but I felt like jogging. Boy, was I impressed with myself I jogged for 12 minutes and walked for 3! I think playing soccer has really improved my cardio because before this I could never jog for more than 5 minutes! Yeee hawww! Now hopefully tomorrow night after I get home from teaching my TKD classes I won't talk myself out of going for a jog. Unless I stay for my class at 8:30pm and that will be my exercise for the day.

So is anyone else out there as good as I am at talking themselves out of the things they should be doing?

Stitching Progress

Well its been awhile since I've shown off any stitching.

I've had one partial HD... I've just finished part 5 of Chatelaine's Midi Mystery 1, its coming along beautifully!


And as I have been saying I've been working along diligently on my nephew's stocking. Its starting to come together.


Now, my next stitching goal is to get my November ornament stitched up. I should also finish... the finishing on those ornaments I started completing. Its time to start getting organized for the exchanges I'm in.

Its Been Awhile

Hi Blogger readers, its been awhile! I should be in bed right now but I'm still too wound up to go to sleep!

Its been a busy week! When I've not been running around on Guild business, Taekwon-Do, or other things I've been working away like mad on Black Swan's stocking! I'm trying to get it finished for Christmas. Also I got part 5 of Chatelaine's Midi Mystery 1 earlier this week. So its also been a scramble to get that stitched so I can get right back to my stocking. There's also that Ornament RR waiting to be done! Oh la la! I have no time!!!!

Okay time to dry my hair and go to sleep.

November Goals & SBQ

Well, well, well its November already! Where has the year gone?

Its time for November goals and my October re-cap!

October Recap
Stitch Midi Mystery part 4 - YES
Work on Stocking - YES
Work on Noah's Sub - NO
Stitch One ornament - YES

November Goals
Stitch Midi Mystery part 5
Work on Dragon By The Fireside Stocking
Stitch one ornament

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week

Q : If you have stitched for a while, can you usually pick out the DMC colors you need from memory when you go to your LNS? (For example, you know that 610 is a brown.)

A: Well I can't do it for all colours but I can do it for a lot of the colours I commonly use! I know that 666 is Christmas Red, 498 is a deep red, and so on. It just comes with time.

Tonight I'm going to start part 5 of Mid Mystery 1 by Chatelaine.

Happy Halloween

Well we had about 12 trick-or-treaters tonight. For a small village, that's a lot! I was a nice treat-er and got mini chocolate bars and chips for the kids. No crappy cheap candy from this house!

This past weekend was another lovely weekend on the road. Saturday morning Christin and I drove out to Brighton to meet up with some stitching friends for ornament finishing. I got all my ornaments to the stage of needing cord/trim. I'll have to finish them this weekend as I ran out of glue. I also helped Marj make three cushions, and mounted two pictures for her into the mats I cut.

I also got to give Beth her bellpull. She just loved it and kept trying to give it back! LOL. Now that's giving it back in a good way, she thought it was too nice for me to give it away. But that's just the sort of thing you do for your friends.

The stocking has seen quite a bit of stitching time over the last week! Its slowly coming along.

Here's a photo from our ornament finishing day... Ann, Christine, and I can't remember the third lady's name (left to right) are pouring over Christin's Cross Stitch Bible.


This up coming weekend is a weekend at home. I'm looking forward to that.

Finishing, Ormentifying and SBQ

Hello Blog readers first I'll start with the boring stuff, the Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week.

Q: Have you ever stitched something as a gift and later realized that receiver doesn't respect your stitched gift a bit (for example it's never on show, or you have other reason to suspect that it may even be nonexistent or at least placed in some dark storage room corner)? If so, what have you done? If you've been lucky enough to avoid such people what would you do if it'd happen to you?

A : I'm usually a pretty good judge of who is deserving of needlework and who is not. I'm not too concerned about what happens to small things such as ornaments, most are not a lot of work, nor are they finished to last a couple of hundred years (lots of glue!). As for the large pieces I've only stitched those for special people who would appreciate it. What if a piece wasn't treated appropriately, I'd flat out ask for it back simple as that. I'd right out tell the person that if it was going to hide in a closet I'd rather put it on my wall. What kind of reception that accusation would get I don't know.

Last night I spent my evening getting ready for Ormentification at Ann's on Saturday. I went through my stitched ornaments and quilting fabrics to match things up. Its fun picking just the right fabric for just the right ornament. I also cut my mat board backings for each one.



It also gave me a chance to go through my fabrics and pick a backing fabric for Chatelaine's Mini Mystery J... which I did!

I've been sitting at home today, waiting for Bell Canada to show you (you guys suck!). For the last week and a half I'm intermittently loosing my dial tone. When you live out in the country this is not a good thing! So much is dependent on a land line out here... phone (I get a poor cell signal), internet, even television (satellite). Anyhow this is my third request for repair. The last two calls I've told them they could not access my home until after I got home from work. I figured this time I'll stay home and see if they actually turn up!

Sooo while I've been home waiting I've pulled together everything I need to take to Ann's. I also did the finishing on the bellpull for Mini Mystery J. I'll be able to give that to Beth tomorrow!



While I was at it... I finished a couple of ornaments using the sewing machine...







Now I'm off to work on that stocking!

I Love Retreat! And HD!

Well I'm home and for another year the Cross Stitch Cupboard's Fall Retreat is over. I had a fantastic weekend!

I want to start with some of my favorite pictures from this weekend!

This first one gives you an idea of exactly how short I am and how tall Jennifer Aikman-Smith of dragon dreams is! I'm 5ft 2in! Its when you get cozy with The Dragon you realized just how tall she is!


And here Jennifer and I are having some fun!


If you notice on the wall behind us are the models for two of Jennifer's newest designs, Dragon of the Deeps, and To Trim of Tree which I had stitched the model for her. So it was nice to visit one of my old stitched pieces!

Here's me and To Trim A Tree - a model I stitched for Jennifer


And here I am with Magic In My Needle - A model I stitched for Jennifer


Okay, now that I've shared some pictures with you let's go back to Saturday morning. The morning's breakfast was buffet style from scrambled eggs to fruit and cereal! It was a moody morning on the St. Lawrence River.


Fall was certainly in the air...


But everyone was warm and cozy inside the Ganenoque Inn


Our full day Saturday class was with Jennifer Aikman-Smith of Dragon Dreams, she had designed for us a lovely little sampler called "The Time I spend Stitching"


Here's Jennifer teaching us the Crown Stitch - which was a new stitch for me!


Chrisanne and I are madly stitching away seeing who can finish it first (Chrisanne aka : Pennygwen was way a head of me!)


Jennifer was kind enough to sign the mat on my framed Blackwork Princess! She even drew me a little draggie!


Then the charts for sale came out... and it was like vultures descending!!! As you can tell we're all stash-o-holics! I was good, I'm "trying" to stay on The Wagon. The only thing I bought was a box of Girl Guide mint cookies from Maria (foreground of this photo)


Lunch on Saturday was just as excellent as Friday's Dinner

Appetizers : Potato and Leek Soup (yummy!), Mixed Green Salad, Pasta Salad, and Greek Salad
Main Dishes : BLT Wrap and fries (yummy! minus the T of course!), Chicken Stir-Fry with basmati rice, Fish & Chips
Desserts : Chocolate mousse (yummy!), Fresh Fruit, Vanilla and Strawberry Mousse Cake (yummy!)


Our class continued all afternoon then we all went off to our rooms to get ready for Saturday night's formal dinner! Now this is a sight to behold as we rarely get dressed to the nines!

left me, center Christin, right Chrisanne

Of course in the process, the room kinda blew up! (we had a lovely suite)


Dinner was another to die-for menu!

Appetizers : Wild Mushroom Soup, Mixed Green Salad with toasted almonds and citrus dressing (this was the most amazing combination in a salad I had ever tasted!!!)
Main Entrees : Rack of Lamb, Grilled Salmon, Vegetable Lasagna (yum!!!), Prime Rib au Jus or Grilled Chicken Breast with orange champagne sauce
Desserts : Pecan flan, chocolate Cheesecake, Warm Peach Cobbler

Dinner was a long affair with goodie bags and door prizes! We didn't get back to our room until after 10:30pm. So off came the fancy duds, on went the jammies, and out came the stitcing. Chrisanne and I kept working on our class pieces. She kicked my butt and finished hers Saturday night. I kept working until 1:30am but I just couldn't get it finished. I had to go to bed.

Sunday Morning was much the same as Saturday cool and wet. Breakfast was the same buffet we had the day before (still just as tasty!).

Today we had a 1/2 day class, of course I took another of Jennifer's classes! This was one of her illustrated blackwork pieces, a princess, unicorn and a castle. I meant to get a picture of it for you folks, but I forgot. I was so focused on finishing yesterday's class piece (especially since Chrisanne totally beat me!). I sat in Jennifer's class in my little "nest" as I listened to today's class but continued to work on yesterday's piece(the chairs were killing my back by the second day). I was surrounded by everything a girl needs to stitch!


Chrisanne of course was the evil instigator....


Just as this morning's class wrapped up I celebrated my HD with the designer!!!


Then it was time to wrap up the weekend for those of us who can't/don't stay the extra day. Everyone congregated for lunch, Jennifer asked us if she may have lunch with us today. That is so cool! Of course I said yes!

Now I wasn't able to keep my menu from lunch so let's see if I can remember our choices...

Appetizers : Beef and Barley Soup, Cesar Salad, Pasta Salad
Main Entrees : Turkey and pesto on a roll, Bowtie Pasta with Shrimp, Beef Dip Sandwitch with fries (yum!!!)
Dessert : Assorted fruit pies and squares.

After lunch a couple of more prizes were given out, including a free retreat for next year. I sadly didn't win any of them. Next year.... next year....

We met up with Christin's parents for half an hour after lunch, they drove up from Kingston which is nearby and had a nice visit. Then it was time for hugs and goodbyes.

Until next year....