Holiday Hours

We have decided to close for the Holidays on the 18th of December and will reopen December 28th.  We will also be closed January 1st.  and then will reopen on the 5th of January.  So hopefully you are all set for the holidays.  I'm certainly not.  I'm done stitching for the holidays and as usual I didn't get anything major stitched for Sara.  I was  working on the special Blue Ribbon Tree Etui, but like everything else it just fell by the wayside yet again.  However, I'm keeping it right beside my stitching chair and hopefully will finish it after Christmas so I'll be early for Christmas 2018...wouldn't that be a nice surprise.  It's been a busy week this past week.  Monday I had my surgery and did very well so now it's been wound care all week.  Of course when I got out of the shower at 5:30 a.m. today, didn't feel it was appropriate to call Mary to ask her to come take care of the wound, which has been her daily regimen since Monday so I decided I would handle it myself.  The wound is in the middle of my back, from about 2" down from my neck and is about 3-4 inches.  I didn't realize until 5:35 a.m. today that there was no way on God' s green earth I could possible put gauze pads and a huge surgical bandage on my myself and part of the wound is still seeping a bit so I do need something over it.    So after trying and failing miserably, I had to come up with a solution to get to church.  If this was any other month it would be simple, I wouldn't go to church I'd wait for Mary to get up and then let her do it, and skip church.  But with altar duty in December I had no choice.  So I took a maxi pad (didn't have any smaller) and taped that sucker to my back and put on a long sleeve shirt over it and I went on to church.  I didn't take my coat off so you wouldn't be able to see it, but when I got to the shop I asked Sara to change to the surgical bandage, since it created a real hump back there.  When I lifted my shirt so she could do it she starting laughing and asked if she could take a picture, but don't start searching for it because I wouldn't let her.  I mean I had to cover it and the only thing I had was the pad.  A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.  I thought it was a great hack.    Anyway, that was this mornings little drama.  On Friday Home Depot was suppose to deliver my new dishwasher and on Tuesday the plumber was coming to hook it up.  So when the plumber arrived on Friday I thought oh, oh...but when I opened the door and said, you guys weren't suppose to be here until Tuesday, I don't even have the dishwasher yet, he said, we have it with us and we're installing it now.  YEAH!!! They did a fabulous job and even swept out the space where the old dishwasher was (apparently I was on the phone at the time).  So Sara can stop bitching about having to wash the pots and pans (she made me go to plastic everything so she wouldn't have to wash dishes or pans.  I'm even thinking about going back to my Dickens china....oh, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas to me.  Wanted to show you a couple model finishes I had this month.  I know I talked about the Jingle All The Way box by Brenda Gervais.  She used the Antique Lace mini pom pom but I wanted to go more Christmas so I used Dames of the Needle "TexArkana" to match the green garland.  Then I had a Christmas plaid scrapbooking paper to line the inside, lined the top edge with green silk ribbon which I antiqued to match the rest of the box which had trees and Happy Holidays on it.    I also used red petite beads for the berries.  Fun stitch and fun finish.  

Getting prepared for summer I stitched "Take it E-Sea" by Silver Creek Samplers.  Then I finished it in a white frame and added shells and a white starfish to the frame to carry on the beach theme.  Another fun stitch.  

I guess that's it for today....got to get some stuff done before we leave the shop for the day.  So I doubt I'll be talking to you before Christmas so let me say Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah to you all.  May you find the peace, joy and love we all need over the holidays.  While I'm sure there will be drama if you are celebrating with family, just keep your head down and reach for the goal...December 26th.