As Deep Cries Out to Deep

My sister wove this piece based on a song they sing at church. I don't remember all the details but this relates to the imagery in the song about a waterfall and deep crying out to deep. Although this took her only three months to weave, I am told typically a piece this size should take closer to a year to complete. She spent many, many weeks weaving twelve hours a day, every day. I wish I could tell you what kind of lace technique this is but alas, I am ignorant of the fibre arts. I suppose she will fill us in when I link her and she posts a comment (hint, hint Melanie).

I spent the afternoon yesterday trying to really capture the beauty of the piece and yet still I don't think I quite got it right. Anyway, here are the photos.

This one was my favorite shot of the piece:



Detail shot:


Direct shot of full piece:

Don't Ask Me

I have no idea why they do these things. I think they get it from their father.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

My sister and I like to get our kids' pictures taken for our mother's birthday. We don't make it every year but we try to make it fairly often. Here are the results from this years' efforts. I also had the photographer take individual pictures of my kids for my living room.

Click for the full size.

Retro Day

The kids' school had a "Spirit Week" two weeks ago (it's taken me forever to upload pics from my camera). Every day had a different theme such as Hobo Day, Color Day, and Retro Day. It took a lot of talking to convince Ty that Retro Day didn't necessarily mean G had to dress in 50's or 60's like he and S3 did. She went as a flapper. S3 said they practically had the cast of Grease in his 7th grade class. He wore a leather jacket over his "costume."

Jewelry, Stitching and Cakes

I've finally organized my pictures somewhat and have made my creative album accessable by the public. It's kinda like my cross stitch gallery except everything else is in there too. Enjoy

Merry Christmas

I meant to post this the other day but didn't get a chance and I've been pretty sick since Christmas day. I hope you all had a blessed holiday!

School Pictures, Part Deux

Since all the other kids had a portrait done at school and E did not, I took her to Sears. Why I went to Sears I don't know. It's not that they're unfriendly but I usually prefer the Picture People. They tend to take more natural pictures which I guess I prefer but in this case I wanted E's picture to match the other three kids' school shot. My only real complaint is that I wanted a bright background like the others had (remember G's hot pink?) and the photographer put her on blue. Why didn't I say anything? I don't know. I hate to rock the boat even with little things like this but I was kicking myself the minute we walked out of the studio. Anyway, the picture we bought came out really cute and will match well enough with the others.


Here are the rest that we didn't purchase - not because they aren't wonderful but because I think the kids might wonder if I had pictures of the baby all over the place and none of the rest of the gang LOL!


























































And here is S3's retake. It's much, much better and we got them back just in time!

Idiot Mom Strikes Again

Ah it's been a while since I've seen Idiot Mom (a.k.a. I-Mom). She used to make lots of appearances but I really thought I had managed to banish her. Apparently she's stronger than I thought.

I-Mom is infamous for her idiocy. She forgets school activites. She burns dinner. She has poor judgement (sure you can drive the van!). She gets lost driving a block away. She messes up appointments. Yes, somehow I managed to royally screw up the kids' dentist appointments. In my defense it was really only half my fault this time.

I made the appointments last week for this morning and I even made all the arrangements for the kids' school activities that they'd miss while they were out this morning. So we all piled in the van and took off for the office which is right around the corner. There was a sign in the door that our dentist has retired and the doctor who is taking over his patients should go to a building one block down for their appointments. Well even though it's only a block away I got stinkin' lost so I called the office and told them I was their 8:45 appointment but I was lost.

Turns out there was some issue with our insurance and I had to check into our coverage for the cleanings vs. our coverage for cavities and they were expecting me to call back to confirm that I wanted the appointments. I thought I had the appointments and I would call back if our insurance would not cover the fees and I needed to cancel. They had cancelled our appointments and didn't have a hygenist in the office so basically I kept the kids home for nothing. If only there were snow on the ground. I could have called it a two-hour delay.

The good news is, I had a thought this morning so I threw my camera in the van on the way to take the kids to school and sure enough my feathered friend was hanging out on the side of the road again. He had his girlfriends with him today and either he is a chicken or they are birdbrains because when I pulled up next to him, he dashed into the weeds but the girls hung around wondering what the heck I was doing.

Impromptu Country Drive

A little while ago I got a call to work tonight and while I was checking my schedule to see if it would be feasible I noticed one of the kids has their Christmas shop at school today. I happen to know for a fact that none of the kids took money with them to school today and I know for a fact that that kid would be terribly upset. So I called the school and it turned out I had just enough time to run money over to the school before the scheduled time (btw, it was G that forgot her money).

On the way there I was cruising down this little back road that twists and turns around a creek when up ahead on the road I could see flares and flashing lights. I know because of the windy road that people tend to have lots of accidents and I was worried the road would be closed (I only know one way to school really well. The others I tend to get a teeny-weenie bit lost sometimes).

As it turns out there had been a water main break and around one of the turns the road had frozen and turned into a pure sheet of ice. Some guys had gone out to set up flares until PennDOT could come and salt. I asked the guy if I could still drive through, explaining my direction predicament and he said I could give it a shot so I slowly started up the twisted incline. There was a guy standing just off to the side of the bend in the road and I thought, "Boy that guy is brave," and I started going around the bend. I wasn't near him but he jumped out of the way anyway and I laughed. Brilliant!

On the way home I spotted a couple of interesting birds on the roadside and grabbed a pic with my phone. It's hard to see them but they're pretty little Ring-Neck Pheasants.

Soccer Pictures

School Pictures

They started using these fancy colored backgrounds sometime around when S3 was in second grade. I think they got a new photographer in this year because these are the most colored backgrounds I've ever seen. Yikes!

S3 chose the plain grey backdrop but he wants to do retakes. His hair was wet so it looks greasy and he's got a little bit of a zombie look on his face. It's not bad but I don't blame him for wanting retakes.



Ty's came out pretty well.



G's made me burst out laughing when I saw it. That's the last time I let the kids pick their own backdrop. Could this picture be any brighter? I think I need sunglasses. Good thing she looks cute. It could have been really bad.