Rant and Cross Stitch Progress

Thanks to the current run of disgustingly hot days, I've done some work on my Old School Is Cool cross stitch from CloudsFactory. As I mentioned in my previous post, I didn't have all the floss colours required for this project, so I purchased the ones required online. Now, this isn't a whinge about paying for postage because I have no issue whatsoever with that, it's a bit of a whinge about the size of the parcel!

So I purchased nine skeins of floss from Spotlight. Now unless you're ordering a huge amount of floss, it pretty much weighs nothing, however, it arrived in a 3kg bag!!!! Not only did the postage cost almost as much as the contents, but nine skeins could have been posted in a much, much smaller bag. Apart from the ridiculous price of postage, imagine how many people aside from myself are purchasing floss online from Spotlight and are being posted this size bag, which is then thrown into general rubbish and goes into landfill! In the future, I'll no longer be ordering floss from Spotlight unless I'm purchasing other items which require a box that can be recycled.

Rant over, onto my progress. I've finished one out of five cassette tapes and started a second. I still haven't decided what titles I'll put on them as yet, but as those are backstitch and I leave that until the very end, I've still got plenty of time to think about it.

This is my first-time stitching on opalescent aida and I'm not sure I'll stitch on it again. You can't see the sparkles in the photo, but they're there. Some of the sparkles are also over the holes and create some resistance on the needle and to the floss. The aida itself also has a sticky feeling, liked it's coated with hairspray... Who knows? Maybe by the time I finish, the feeling will no longer be an issue for me.

Our new Annette Sym - Symply Too Good To Be True recipe books arrived as well, we also ordered the Healthy Snack Bible and for some reason, it was missing from the order, so I've emailed them about this. Apart from this book being missing, the newly revised editions are great! Both the photos and instructions are clearer, and the nutritional information tables have extra information as well. So if you're wanting to change your diet as well as controlling your portion sizes, I can't recommend these books enough! 

I Said I'd Be Back!

Just as the title says! Wow, so far I've posted twice as many times as I did last year lol Given I only posted once last year, I'm not going to rehash everything that's happened from March 2017 to now.... That would just be silly! I may write about certain things, but only those that stood out.

So what's happened recently? I finished a cross stitch that I started sometime last year. It's called Primitive Ouija Board and it's from CloudsFactory. I love their designs, you can choose something as for a quick weekend stitch or something that will take a bit longer. Plus they're downloadable. This one's stitched on 16 count "Ancient" aida from Picture This Plus. I was really happy with the end result. I did take the picture above before washing and ironing it, which I'm yet to do.

I looked for an Ouija board design for ages until I discovered this one. As soon as I saw it, there was no hesitation lol

Since finishing the Ouija board I've purchased another design from them called Old School Is Cool, I love the "rewind" pencil lol

It also comes with an alphabet chart so that you can create your own cassette labels.

I wanted to add an extra bit of 80's daggyiness to this piece, so instead of stitching on the grey coloured aida, I purchased "Ballerina" Opalescent from Sew It All Australia. It's a fluro pink colour with silver opalescent sparkles through it.

I started it last weekend. I have about half the floss colours required, I could've exchanged some of the colours for ones I already own, but it just wouldn't have looked the same, so I've ordered the floss I need which should arrive this week. 

It's currently summer here in Australia, so why am I inside stitching and not outside in the sun? Because it's too damn hot! We've had a run of days from the high 30's to mid 40's. Thank god for air conditioners!

Catch you next time!

Neglect!

This poor blog has been neglected. There just isn't enough hours in the day to keep up with everything I want to do! I've got a bit of spare time today for the simple reason that we have some tree people in to rip out our garden.... I mean jungle. Plus I have I.T people working on my store computer system. 

I've finished my black and pink cat cross stitch, although I haven't had time to wash and iron it. So I'll leave it for another day. I've started work on a linen piece! My first ever cross stitch on linen!

It's Flip - It Halloween by Lizzie Kate, I started it about 3-4 weeks ago and haven't had a chance to touch it since lol I'll probably forget how to stitch on linen by the time I get back to it! When it's finished, hopefully it will look like the one pictured on the chart.

A while back I bought a Johanna Basford colouring book - Another thing I haven't had time to do anything with lol While the workers were cutting and grinding I decided to pull it out and have a look. I decide on one picture to start on.

I didn't buy the pencils especially for this book, I already had some and I'm not all that happy with them. They don't blend smoothly, they're just too hard. So I found that I was pressing down to get any kind of decent shading out of them. If I continue colouring I will have to purchase some others. I don't know if it's the brand that I have or maybe I've had them too long?

We had some nasty storms here a while back and our fences took a bit of a beating. We wanted new fences when we first moved in as the pickets continually fall off as the timber is rotten, but the neighbours wanted to wait a while. So considering that we were new to the neighbourhood and not wanting to upset anyone, we decided to wait. So 6-7 years on, the neighbours now want new fences. 

We wanted to plant a garden in our backyard when we first moved here, but we knew that would be a total waste of time and money as they would just get trampled when a new fence went in, so we left the plants that we already there in place. This kind of drove us nuts because the plants are near the pool and aren't pool friendly, they constantly drop leaves, seeds, berries and sticks into the pool.

We kept cutting this jungle back and it seemed that as quick as we cut it down it would grow back twice as fast. It was a nightmare and an eyesore! So have a look at the difference:-

Before and After

Now we just have to have the fences ripped out and replaced and we can finally start work on having a garden in our backyard that isn't a total embarrassment. We've waited for so long to be able to do something to our yard it isn't funny. I know it seems like a first world problem, but looking out the windows everyday and seeing this out of control mess of a jungle was awful. They were just overgrown weeds. 

I'm crossing my fingers that we can get the new fences up soon, so that come summer when we look out towards the pool we have something nice to look at.

The Kindness Of People

Something truly amazing happened 2 nights ago on Facebook (of all places lol)!!! But before I go into it, I will tell you what happened that led up to the event. As you know, at the end of last week we had to put our poor old boy Binx to sleep. Well at the start of the week I saw a free cross stitch chart on Facebook, it was of a brown cat sitting on a fence. It was just a simple chart, but when I saw it I thought to myself that I should get it and re-colour it to make it look like Binx, because straightaway it reminded me of him. Little did I know that later in the week we would lose him. :( 

By now you probably know where this story is going.... When I first saw the chart I didn't click on it, I was busy doing something else. I was going to come back to it, I didn't - I completely forgot. It wasn't until the night that we had Binx put to sleep that I remembered the chart, by now about 4 days had passed since I saw it and I now wanted it more than ever. I didn't just want it now because it had initially reminded me of Binx, I wanted it because the cat in the chart was sitting facing away so you could only see its back. It made me think that the cat in the picture was looking off into the distance, into the unknown, into its future... 

So I began scrolling backwards through my timeline hunting for this chart. I couldn't find it. I contacted a couple cross stitching friends to ask if they had shared or liked it and none of them had. I Googled everything I could think of to try and find this chart, I had no idea what the title was or who created it. I used every keyword related to cats and fences I could think of and I came up with nothing. 

So 2 nights ago I joined a couple of Facebook cross stitch groups. I introduced myself and I explained to the group members of the chart I was looking for and why I wanted it so badly. I asked that if anyone had seen it, or knew the title or designer I would be so appreciative. 

Bang! 92 people commented on my post! 3 people sent me charts asking 'Is this the one you're looking for?' I could not believe it! All 3 charts were it! 1 woman who's a cross stitch designer in America, even sent me a message asking me to send her a photo of Binx, and she would make a chart of him for free! I was so blown away!! Seriously, honestly..... I did not expect this response! I am still getting messages today from people who I do not know, expressing their condolences for Binx and telling me how happy they are that I was able to find this chart. I spent the entire night talking and thanking people online for their kindness.

Part of my introduction to the groups was explaining that although the cat in the chart was brown and Binx was black, I had planned on re-colouring it so it resembled him. I also mentioned that since he had to be put to sleep I wanted to stitch it in his memory. As the night went on and people saw my post and saw that the chart had been found and sent to me, they've sent more messages saying that they want to see the finished piece, re-coloured and in memory of Binx.

This is the chart, like I said it's just a simple one but for some reason when I saw it I thought of Binx. All I have to do now is find the time to re-colour it before stitching it. It's strange that I saw this chart of a cat looking off into the distance, facing away, and then what followed. I wonder what this cat is looking at or where it's looking or what it can see? The Rainbow Bridge perhaps?

If anyone else is interested in stitching this piece it's called 'On The Fence' and was designed by Durene Jones. She has the full chart available for free on her her Facebook page along with other charts that she has designed. You can find it here.

As I sit here writing this blog post, I still cannot believe how many people responded to my post on Facebook. These people didn't have to reply or send me the chart. The people who didn't know of the chart didn't have to reply to a complete stranger who just joined their group, and pass on their condolences - but they did. We live in a world that can be a bit crappy sometimes, but every now and then something happens and you really see the good in people.

We Always Want What We Can't Have

About a month ago we went out with some friends for a day of kayaking and laser tag. While we were waiting for our guide/instructor I noticed a small room and so of course I had to poke my head in lol The room only had a coke machine and fireplace. . . . I've lived in houses with fireplaces and the size of them generally reflects the size of the room that needs to be heated. Well this fireplace was waaaay toooo big for such a small room!

It was so big I had to take a photo lol, then it got me thinking.... When I was a kid I preferred the American TV shows to the Australian ones. I loved everything about them, I loved that they celebrated Halloween and we didn't, I loved their houses so much! I loved that they had attics and basements and we didn't. I loved their fireplaces, they seemed so ornate and were built as a feature, not just something to serve a purpose. In the houses I've lived in that had fireplaces, they were so dull and boring - seriously! No thought had ever gone into the actual presentation of how it looked. It was almost like the house plans had 'fireplace marked on the plans' so the builders just whacked one up.

If you google American fireplaces, OMG. Some of them are pure works of art. Some are so fancy you wouldn't want to burn anything in them. This is one I found that kind of looked like the ones I saw in TV shows as a kid, nothing too fancy - but they were so much nicer than the ones built here.

Then just the other week my sister and I were talking about American homes, and she commented that we should be making better use of our land i.e basements and attics, I agreed. A few years back I did some research online trying to find out why Australian homes didn't have basements. Now I'm not a geologist lol but the information that I found basically stated that the ground water level in Australia is too high for us to have basements. That no amount of waterproofing would prevent water constantly seeping into the area. This made sense.... Case closed. 

So why don't we have attics? Have you ever been in the roof of an Australian house? I have lol This pic above is the roof framework, now there is no squeezing an attic in there. We have rather low roofs here, I don't know why, we just do. I have crawled around in the roof of a number of homes and you literally have to wriggle around like a worm to get between the beams, wiring, insulation etc.

There's a suburb about 50 mins from where we live and one day when my wife was driving I got to have a good look around and I saw that a number of homes in this area had attics! None of these homes were new or clustered together, which may suggest the same developer built them all. So straight away I was like "I want to move here! These houses have attics!" lol. 

So like the title says:- We always want what we can't have lol

Anyway, here's another pic of my progress on my Tribal Cat cross stitch. Can you see the sugar skull magnetic needle holder in the corner? My sister sent my wife and I one each in the mail the other day :) We had no idea that she had done this, so it was a huge surprise and we both love the choices she made :)    

Brrrrrrr!!!

For those of you who don't know, it's Autumn in Australia right now. We don't get snow in Autumn.... Well apparently that's the rule! Anyway, the rule was broken yesterday and it snowed in Australia! It didn't snow where we live now, but it did snow where we used to live. In any case it was quite cold - snow or no snow at home yesterday. It's quite cold again today. Over the past few years the seasons in Australia seem to be a little out of whack...

So what do you do when it's cold? You move around! LOL! Call me insane, but I refuse to put the heater on in Autumn!!!! It's crazy!! Autumn in Australia 'should be' warm - not hot, sunny - no snow, a little cool in the evenings - not bloody freezing! Naturally it gets colder the closer you get to Winter, but Winter doesn't strike until June. So I decided to have a cleaning day today. I started with the pool filter, I was then going to wash the car, but the wind was soooo cold I didn't want to go and play in the water so I decided some inside cleaning would suffice lol

I pulled the vacuum cleaner apart and washed the filters, I cleaned the range hood...... Then the wind outside picked up and started howling..... So what did I clean next? The gas heater filters! Let me just say, that I did not turn the heater on! lol I just cleaned the lint filters. I did some other bits and pieces, all of which are rather boring, but kept me moving lol.

So apart from cleaning, here's an update on my Tribal Cat cross stitch. I haven't had a chance to do any for a few days, but I will say that I don't think I will ever stitch on black aida again lol It's killing my eyes!

Okie dokie! I'll catch you again soon! I hope you all had a great Easter!    

Long Time. No Write.

Okay I hope the format of this post isn't all over the place as I'm writing it on my tablet, not my pc (my tablet never seems to keep the right format for some reason?). It's been quite awhile since I last wrote. I don't have the usual "I didn't have time or I've been busy working" excuse. I was actually sick, the sickest I've ever been in my whole life! 

Almost two months ago I felt a bit yuck like I was catching a cold, so I went to the Drs and got checked over. The conclusion was that I had a bit of a chest infection, so my Dr gave me a script for some antibiotics and I was on my way. I was a good patient and took the medication as prescribed for a week. In the meantime my wife was working nightshift, so we weren't seeing much of each other so she wasn't seeing how ill I was. Anyway on the morning that my wife finished her last shift she was still awake when I dragged my backside out of bed to get a drink. I actually hadn't heard her come home. My wife took one look at me and started taking my observations and asking me a bunch of questions. After she had finished being a Registered Nurse with me, we had a backward and forward conversation where she told me I was going to hospital and I kept saying no. 

So why wouldn't I go to hospital? Well my temperature was so high that I was delirious! Yep! I was off with the pixies lol! Finally I was convinced that I needed to go to hospital so off we went. My wife was still wearing her uniform lol When we got there, I couldn't believe it but the first nurse that I saw on entering the emergency department was one of my customers lol Anyway after having more observations taken, blood and xrays done I was hooked up to a drip and spent 3 days and 2 nights in a 4 bedded ward with 3 old codgers lol.

It turned out I had septic pneumonia and if I had put off going to hospital longer than I had, they would have had to knock me out for 2 days while a machine did my breathing for me. When the Dr's agreed that I could go home they told me that for 2 weeks I was to do nothing and that the following weeks I would slowly start to feel better but would be quite tired. Yeah they weren't wrong about the whole tired thing! I pretty much slept for the first 2 weeks. Since then I feel ok, but get tired soo quickly! It's so frustrating! I wake up feeling okay but between 11am - 12pm I seriously run out of energy. If it wasn't for my android tablet I would have gone crazy! I was too tired to do anything. 

One thing I did do just recently is finish a small cross stitch pattern that I had started a while ago. It's called "Queen Rock Band" from Clouds Factory.

Queen Rock Band.

Sorry about the crease, I'm yet to wash and iron it lol I've just started another one called "Tribal Cat", it's supposed to be stitched in black floss on white 14 count aida. I've decided to stitch it in pink floss on black 14 count aida...... Yeah, I'm just trying to my life easy lol I've never stitched on black aida before lol It's a wee bit hard on the eyes, especially without one of those lap light thingamajigs. Here's my progress over the past two days. 

First day.      Second day.  

The pink (DMC 3608) is actually much darker/brighter in real life, for some reason is photographs quite pale :/  

DMC 3608

Tribal Cat - White Willow Stitching

This is what is will look like (hopefully lol) once it's finished. :)

Okay, well I'll be off now! I hope you all have a great Easter and get lots of nice chocies and have a bit of a rest! 

That Green Bird & A Bit Of Stitching

Some of you might remember around the start of the year we bought a bird. He was supposed to be my bird...... I could hold him and pat him on the back, he would 'share' my breakfast with me etc. Well when I bought the store I was up and out the door 7 days a week lol as a result Tango and I are no longer the best of friends lol He is now my wife's bird. She can do what ever she likes with him, and he's okay with that. She even kisses his beak!! Personally I wouldn't dare put my face near that beak.... Unless I wanted my nose or lip pierced! lol

I can't even get him out of the cage! I actually left the door open one day and walked away in the hope he would come out.... But nope! He just sat there looking at me through the bars. However, here's the kicker!! The first two sounds he made were whistles - which I taught him! Then he copied the sound of the microwave - which I use. Then he mimicked the sound of my mobile phone. After that was his name, followed by pretty boy, who's a pretty boy, Tango Tango, and birdie birdie birdie. All of which I taught him! This bird has double standards! He doesn't like me and wont come near me, yet mimic's what I say! Go figure! Geez and they say cats are finicky! lol

So here is an update of my Queen cross stitch - even though two of the boys are done I still have the backstitching to do on them. I'm hopeful that I will get more done on this pattern this weekend, as it's a long weekend and my store isn't opening on Monday. I have opened in the past on Public Holidays and it just isn't worth it, so I'm closing the store on Monday.... Which means I get a day off! Woo Hoo! :) I know that most people would love their long weekend to be nice and sunny (which it's going to be) but I would really love it if it was cold, miserable and rainy! lol 

When we lived in the mountains it was either rainy, cold, snowing, misty, foggy or all of those combined lol Sunny days just weren't that frequent, and it was something you simply lived with - without giving it a second thought really. Now that we live in a coastal area it's always sunny, and I have a hard time stitching when the weather's nice. I don't know why, I guess it's because I feel that I should be doing something (constructive lol) outside, rather than sitting on my butt inside stitching lol First world problems huh? Anyway, enough weather waffling. If you live in Australia, have a great long weekend!! :)

A Bit Of A Catch Up

Well I said I'd be back lol and here I am! (I'm typing this post on a tablet via an app, so I hope the format is the same as typing it on a PC lol) It's amazing, since I bought the store, I pretty much stopped reading and I completely stopped cross stitching. I was either too tired, couldn't be bothered or spent my time after work looking at new products to sell. But last week on my 'day off' (lol) I started working on a cross stitch pattern that I purchased months ago. It's from Clouds Factory and it's the band Queen.

I should also mention that Queen was in Australia recently and we went with some friends to see them! OMG - Amazing! That is all I can say! lol Anyway, back to the cross stitch :) I've done 2.5 of the boys. I love Clouds Factory stuff as they are just quick, small and simple patterns. I also have a Halloween themed one and a Beetlejuice one as well (I can watch Beetlejuice again and again! lol) I will probably do Beetlejuice after this Queen one.

I've also started reading again, I used to read most nights before bed but then I stopped. I just couldn't focus on what I was reading, my brain wouldn't switch off, I had constant thoughts of what I had to do the next day or what I had forgotten to do that day etc...... But for some reason, since I have stepped back a bit, my brain has eased up and allowed me to read and actually take in what I'm reading, rather than scanning the words and not remembering a word I had just read! Very frustrating!

Apart from getting back to reading and cross stitching, I actually cooked dinner the other night! lol Now this might not sound like much, but prior to buying the store I used to do the majority of the cooking for three reasons: 1. I like to cook 2. My wife doesn't lol and 3. My wife prefers my cooking over hers. Because my wife is a shift worker she needs to have dinner fairly early and I'm never home in time to cook, so she has been doing the cooking. But now that I am taking the odd day off here and there, I'm back online searching for new recipes to try :) :) :)

Okay I'm off! I'll catch you all again soon!

P.S I Hope This Makes Sense LOL!

P.S Yes I'm putting the P.S at the top for a reason lol. This is my second attempt to get this blog post written today, as I'm still taking pain killers my brain just doesn't want to link words in the order that they should normally be found lol Due to this reason, I took a break from writing today as I was constantly correcting mistake after mistake.... So I do hope that the rest of this post makes some sense and is readable :o)

The Original Start:- I haven't got much to blog about on the parrot front, as I've had the the first part of my dental implants inserted this week.... So I've been off with the fairies, thanks to the painkillers. Don't worry, I'm not going to show you a photo lol. So most of Tango's time has been spent with my wife, as I was either asleep or just not feeling well enough to cope with his antics lol. I go back next week for a check up on the stitches and the posts/screws that were implanted, then after three months I go back and the crowns are put into place.

A couple of days before I had the implants done, I went to see an optometrist as I have started cross stitching again, and I've found that my old glasses aren't quite doing the trick...... They are seven years old lol Anyway, as I expected, I needed new glasses. So I asked if I could keep my old frames as 1. I like them, 2. They're really lightweight, and 3. They cost me a small fortune! I was told that it would cost me more to keep my old frames and it would be much cheaper to get new frames with new lenses!?!!? The girl that I was talking to looked at the figures of what my health insurance company covers, and it would have cost me a minimum of $150 just to send my old frames off! That's not including the price of the lenses. 

So then she looked at the figures of what it would cost me to get new frames and lenses and the total gap I would have to pay was $139.50. This cost was for two pairs of glasses.... mind you, I only wanted one pair.... But the deal that was running was 2 pairs for the price of one. It's just crazy! So in the end, it was cheaper to get two pairs of glasses, instead of just changing the lenses in my old frames. So next week I will go and pick up both pairs of my new glasses lol

Anyway, as I said, I have started cross stitching again. I used to cross stitch all the time when we lived in the Mountains. As it was so cold there, having an indoor hobby was a must. But since we've moved to The Central Coast and it's so hot, I've found it very hard to get interested in it again. The photo above is of a witch, I have actually done more than this, and I thought I had taken a more recent photo.... But I can't find one and to be honest I couldn't be bothered right now digging it out and taking another photo lol I will post a photo when it's completed :o)

                             

I also discovered an online store called 123stitch.com, wow, what a dangerous website! They sell everything that you could ever want! I have already made a number of purchases from them lol Even though they're located in the USA, their prices are so much cheaper than Australian prices. Plus they stock so many things that you just can't buy here.

My Sister recently found a website called Clouds Factory, and they have some brilliant patterns. They're all small patterns that you could stitch up as they are designed, or you could turn the characters into cards - I've purchased a couple of the patterns and I also have a 'wish list' going there lol. I'm also back on Chatter Fox, which is an online cross stitch/crafting community.

Anyway, I'm outta here and back to the lounge room. :)