Halfway Through

At the mid-point of a week that I am really not enjoying too much. I am 'subbing' again tonight at the gym for the coach who is supposed to have the Level 5 group. She has already ditched me with the Level 4 group and now I can see she wants out of the 5s also. What a shame the boss chose her as the "reliable one" to take my job at Level 5. I am not the only one who sees this mistake, but since the boss won't admit it it's like it never really happened. What is that expression about "If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one around, does it actually make a noise?". If the boss does not admit her mistake then it wasn't really wrong. Anyway, those extra hours combined with the two annoying meetings mentioned in my previous post will certainly not skyrocket me to millionaire status, but the little bit of extra money will help.

Thanks to everyone for their kind thoughts about our dog, Bud. He is doing much better and had the drain removed from the largest wound this morning. The staples come out next Wednesday. So he is still a "cone-head" for another week, with that big plastic collar on. We took him for a walk last night and his energy seemed 100% to me.

Finished stitching on "Olde Burial Ground" from Village of Hawk Run Hollow last night. Not the most cheerful of designs but it is perfect for the person who is going to get the finished product. It is going to be made into a photo album cover for my neighbor. I am going to fill the album with sepia-tone photos of old tombstones from the local pioneer cemeteries. Some date back to the 1700s. Now I need to figure out how I am going to make the album. A store-bought one won't do, as I want a square album nearly the exact size of the finished design. I also want the pages to have a very antique look to them. Well, that is a project for another day. Now I must get started on my first exchange item, "Quaker Animals" from The Workbasket. This is part of an exchange at Quaker Inspired blog. I really am kind of nervous about this project because it is my first exchange. I see such lovely work out there on the 10-15 blogs that I read regularly. All the finishes are so nice and everything arrives on time. I have until some time in June. No firm date has been set yet and I do not know who my exchange partner is either. A big thank-you goes out to the wonderful Edgar for helping me get started on this exchange. The kindness and generosity of the many stitchers I have met on-line never ceases to amaze me!

I am also thinking about new gymnast designs. For those of you who don't already know, I design my own charts of gymnasts. Yes, a very tiny special interest group with that topic! I don't market them in any way because they are simply my own drawings donedirectly on to 20 grid graph paper. No symbols of any kind, and all the notations as to color choice, shading, etc., are made in Russian. A total mess to anyone else who tries to decipher them. You can view the finished works at my gallery on Cyberstitchers. Look under 'Jennifer/OH' in the gallery search section. The European Championships just finished up on Sunday so I have a whole new batch of inspiration to work with. Here is the new Junior European Champion, Tatiana Nabieva of Russia. This lovely photo is from Volker Minkus' website. I work from photos as the basis for my designs to choose interesting poses and colorful leotards. Here are a few of my favorites that will someday become cross-stitch works.

Pet snap of the day is Elliot in his new favorite napping spot...a pile of flannel fabrics.