HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

It's that time again. To all of you: have a great day- and night. Stay safe, enjoy all the treats and give all the little witches and ghosties a hug.

May all your treats by chocolate- or in my case, vanilla or lemon.

SATURDAY

Having your own blog has advantages. Grandmothers like me have a chance to show off kids and grandkids.

Saturday everyone was here: John, Michael, Laura, Bradley, Grace and Ann. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and watched the LSU game (oops!).

It was wonderful and growing old does have compensations.....

NEW (TO ME) BLOG

Just stopping by quickly with this blog link. One of the ladies in the Jane Austen Stitching Group gave us all the site. It is beautiful and came at a time when I needed something like this.

The Button Willow Chronicles: http://buttonwillowchronicles.typepad.com/
There are some recipes, too. The gingerbread cupcakes sound yummy.

My kids and grandkids are coming from Houston tomorrow and it will be great to see them. Went out and bought Halloween goodies for them. And I ran into son Michael at WalMart. It ended a better day than it began.

And to Jo: again, glad you're home and doing great.

Back to my surfing........

UGH!

I'm sitting here in bed with my wonderful laptop sitting on a pillow in front of me and feeling really LOUSY. I've had a weight problem for quite awhile. A little over a year ago I had lap band surgery and lost 50 pounds. And it still does a pretty good job. I still "revisit" a lot of things that won't go through it-mostly sandwiches, donuts, steak, etc. And it cured my acid reflux. But it really didn't do all it should.

So my cardiologist (I'm a great spokesperson for the AHA) suggested that I try Byetta. It's a diabetic drug (I'm not one yet but am doing my best to become one!) but researchers discovered that it kills the appetite. It does. When Gustav hit I kinda got off it. Then decided to go back on it.

Well, my prescription was for the large dose-1omcg. I should have started with the "starter" dose of 5mcg. The larger dose sometimes causes nausea when one first begins it. Imagine, if you will, beginning with the larger measure. I just thought I felt bad a few months ago when I started the maximum dose. Now I'm walking around very green and with a large rock in my belly......BUT......very little appetite. It will go away soon-I think- and life will return to normal. Right now the only thing that agrees with me is yogurt.

Such is the life of a thin-want-to-be.

The good news in all of this is that, for all practical purposes, I'm a vegetarian. Not a bad thing.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRACE!

Today is my grandaughter Grace's eighth birthday. She's a true princess and the light of my life. So is Ann! And Bradley!

Happy Birthday to her and I hope we see you soon. She and her family live in Houston.

I've also joined two new groups, both related to quaker stitching. On one of them we'll be stitching along together on a project and the other is for those of us who like quakers, period.

http://quakerinspired.blogspot.com/

http://nbpq.blogspot.com/

BUSY, BUSY

I got real busy during the LSU game Saturday night, pulled out my acorn ornaments and decorated my fall tree. They were really the first thing I did on linen-a long time ago. I put them down many a time, swearing never to pick them up again. Thank goodness I did because I really like them. I used all the fabby, threads and felt that the directions called for. And Robin at my LNS helped me make my first cording. Now I have one of those little gizmos and it's so easy to do.

I also finished my Quaker Sampler this morning. It is a SAL and now 2 of us have finished. You can see the blog by clicking on the site to the right of my blog. Now I may take on the Beatrix Potter sampler. There's a new blog for it, too. It's a lot more fun having friends stitch along and share ideas.

But in the meantime I'm going to start Rhapsody in Blue. My finger have just been itching to get started!

FINISHES-SORT OF!

In spite of it being such a sad week, I did get some stitching done.

I finally finished "A Love Song" by Fouroaks designs. I've been working on it for several years. I recently bought "Rhapsody In Blue", it's companion piece. Unfortunately, the fabric I used was no longer available. I chose the next best thing. And instead of using Anchor thread, which is my favorite and what I used on "Love Song", I chose a DMC color: 3842. I don't plan to begin Rhapsody until I finish Bygone's "Quaker Christmas"( I'm going to show a picture of it on the Quaker SAL site later today) . No plans to frame them until both are done. I want them framed alike.

I also finished "Home Is Where You Hang Your Needlework". The sampler was done weeks ago. I just had to finish the pin keep and pincushion. This was my first BIG experience with crushed walnut shells. Now I'm hooked!! Hopefully I'll get the sampler to the framer's this week.

Alabama is not playing this week so I'm sitting here pulling for Tennessee to beat Georgia (won't happen). Later tonight I will yell really loudly for LSU, who is playing Florida. Texas just beat Oklahoma. I was pulling really hard for OU. A really good friend of mine graduated from there.

Hopefully Arkansas will CRUSH Auburn.

Enough of that stuff. Time to stitch and watch. Oh, Tanya Anderson has started a yahoo group for those who follow Stacy Nash. She's one of my favorite designers and I just bought another one of her designs last week. Great idea, a stitching group.