Friday's Stitching Ground 🍂

This past week I've been at my parents helping out while my Dad recovers from his stent placements. He's not supposed to lift any more than 10lbs, so that makes it difficult to take care of my Mom.

The colours are starting to show up here in western Maryland, but they sure are slow!

This was this morning while taking Addie for a walk.

Lots of yellow, I'd like more orange and red!

I was able to stitch a little in the Gartenhaus this afternoon, with a break in between taking care of Mom. With some pumpkin beer to wet my whistle!

On Wednesday, Dad celebrated his 81st birthday and requested a tiramisu cake. 'Tis the season, I made a pumpkin one! Not quite sweet enough for me, but better for them with less sugar and they liked it. Mom was able to enjoy the cake part since it had been soaked and was so soft.

So far I've enjoyed pumpkin coffee, donuts, and tiramisu. I have pumpkin ice cream waiting at home for me, I'm loving it! Do you enjoy anything pumpkin?

Friday's Stitching Ground 🪡

I hope you are having a wonderful Friday, I'm about to get my weekend started the perfect way... stitching!

Karen and I are in New Jersey getting a head start on our stitching before the Needlefest retreat we’ll be attending tomorrow.

This is my quenching my thirst tonight, it's delicious! You can't go wrong with a mermaid and cranberries.

This little guy will be keeping  us company tonight, I hope he's quiet.

Friday's Stitching Ground 🍕

Friday night at our house means homemade pizza night! And the best part (besides being delicious), I'm only responsible for cooking the sausage. Normally DH makes the dough and the Gmen help put them together. Nathan's job? Cleanup!

Tonight we had our friend, John, join us. Friends are always welcome, it makes it more fun!

I decided to start this one while watching them. They've been doing it long enough that they don't need any supervision!

My drink for this evening was what Gman1 brought home tonight. A nice change from beer and/or sours.

After dinner, they guys played Catan and I pulled out Gathering Honey to stitch since I had more room. Although I didn't sit with them very long, they were getting rather loud and very involved in the game!

Now they're ready to play corn hole outside and I know I won't be stitching out there.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow evening when my gf comes over for dinner, drinks (I'll tell you about that next time), and crafting. She'll be sleeping over, so we'll see how long we last!

Do you have a weekly/monthly ritual with your family and/or friends?

Friday's Stitching Ground 🧜‍♀️

Part of this past week, Nathan and I went to visit with my parents. I stitched in the evenings, but I did get to do some stitching before we left on Friday.

I'm getting close to finishing her, pretty much just bits and pieces to add.

Here was my view in the living room, with Mom to my left reading her bible, and Dad having a rest on the sofa with Addie trying to get him to play with her. 

No babies here, the pack and play is Addie's "crate" at night and where she stays if they leave the house, which is very rare.

I'm not quite sure why it looks so green at the window, it might be dirty, but not green!

This is what their pool looked like years ago, before the summer house was added.

 Sadly, this is what it looks like now. Since Mom is no longer able to swim, they haven't opened it in a couple of years and it was getting rather nasty. So they decided to break it up and fill it in. Not sure how long it will take, but it's sad to see it like this. I think Dad wants to put in some type of small pond when it's all filled in.

Surprise, Dad took pictures before we left!

And one with Miss Addie too.

As if my Mom didn't have enough health issues, she now has to have cataract surgery on both of her eyes. I'll be taking her next week for the first one since it has to be done about 1.5hrs away.

My Dad is still having trouble sleeping and feeling tired all the time. It's a lot to take care of Mom, but I know he wouldn't have it any other way. I also know that my Mom is tired and ready to go, which I understand, but selfishly don't want to think about that happening.

It's hard with them being two hours away and not being able to help out as often as I'd like, but I try.

On a brighter note, I do enjoy spending time with them and even though my Dad can be overly camera happy, it's nice to have as many photos as we do with them. Are you the photo taker in your family, or are you the in the photos?! I'm definitely the photo taker in my family. 

Friday's Stitching Ground 🎅

 I know it's been a long while posting for Friday's Stitching Ground, but this one's for you, Linda @Stitchin with my Furbabies!

 Today was a beautiful day to sit outside in the enclosed porch to stitch, with company of course! Chewie tried to tell Santa that he's been a good boy... um, okay.

My stitching view. DH joined me after he mowed the lawn.

 I'm almost finished with him, just some more beads and then backstitching. This was great for car stitching while waiting to pick up Nathan from school, but then I wanted to stitch him at home too.

This is what I was drinking this evening, nice, light, and refreshing.

So have you found anything new to drink? Not necessarily alcoholic, I also like trying new flavoured seltzers.

Friday's Stitching Ground 🍁

This afternoon I headed to my parents for a short visit. Dad asked me when I was coming next and I had already thought that I would come by this weekend, so that worked out for us all!

There's still a little bit of colour in the trees there, that's always nice to see.

Well this worked out perfectly, I went to get the mail with Addie soon after I arrived, and waiting inside the mailbox was a card for Dad. Cathy @The Stitching Grandma was so sweet and stitched this mug card for my Dad's birthday. Needless to say, he was thrilled and I think he might even get a frame for it. Thank you so much, Cathy, for making him such a special card! 🥰

As for stitching, I picked this up again and I am determined to finish this in time for Thanksgiving. I'm outlining the Indians and then really need to figure out what colour I'm using for the leaves.

I'm stitching in the basement this evening, and keeping my legs warm with a blanket my Momma made years ago. She made this when she was still able to use her hands. Luckily, I have a couple at home, and all the boys have one too. Those are all coloured themed, but I like the mismatched ones the best. And I am actually lucky enough to have one of those too!

Do you have any treasured blankets like this in your house? 

Friday's Stitching Ground 🍁

Today was much nicer than yesterday's rain, although a bit colder.

DH and I took Chewie for a short walk this afternoon. I love walking through the leaves. They were still damp so I missed hearing the crunching!

Love in the leaves.

So I think I finished with Mr. Zombie, but I think I need to do some outlining on him. It's a little hard to see his decayed body since it sort of blends in with the fabric. I don't think he's too gory?

We watched the 2nd season of The Mandalorian tonight, it was good! I think this will be our new Friday night thing, when Gman1 gets home from work after 9pm. It's worth the wait!

I know it's on Disney+, but has anyone watched any of it yet? We had a free year, but looks like we'll have to pay so we can continue watching it. Goodbye HBO, we don't need you both.

Thanks to Mary @ Stitching Friends Forever, for suggesting this one. It definitely has a grapefruit flavour, which I love!

Friday's Stitching Ground... a little late 🧟‍♂️

Oh my, seems like my Friday went until today!

Friday was a quiet one, I was working on other things (you'll see another time) but I did pick up The Haunted Mansion again and worked on finishing the door, lights, and back stitching the steps.

I decided on adding a zombie at the door instead of the skeleton, but I think it needs more gore! I'm going to try and dangle an eyeball, we'll see. Any other suggestions? Are you a zombie "fan"?

I also spent some time outside with Chewie, he loved running through the leaves and being chased.

The update on him is that he's not throwing up anymore, but now has issues at the other end. In the middle of the night last night, he cried four times to go outside. I think that's worse than any of the boys were as babies!

Tonight's dinner was rice and pumpkin, I read that was a good thing to try. Poor pup can't catch a break.

And then before I knew it, it was Saturday evening and I got a few more stitches in before the festivities began.

It was finally ghoulfriend time and Kerri made a Hello Kitty Zombie cake for Cori, I think I suggested the zombie knowing how much Cori "loves" them... not! 

We enjoyed grilled cheese sandwiches on the fire, some s'mores, and even some toasted Peeps, delicious. And don't forget the wine!

Luckily it wasn't too cold and we had was a lovely evening together.

Unlike Sunday morning, which became cold and rainy.

Baseball hadn't been cancelled yet, so we went to the field early since DH is the coach and the boys were supposed to arrive before the game. Just after we parked, the email came to notify that all games were cancelled, go figure. The empty parking lot should have been a big clue!

This evening I had Ming with me since Chewie was in the basement with the guys. I started the zombie, but only one shoe so far!

Well shoot, that didn't last long.

Friday's Stitching Ground 🦌

Thankfully we didn't get the rain like we were supposed to today, instead it was a beautiful cool day with stunning colours in the evening.

Even though I still have Halloween pieces to get back to, I though I would put a few more stitches in this one. I have a tiny bit of frogging to do, which is a super PITA since I'm doing this over one.

I thought I would give you a view of what's behind me this time, just a little something new.

In Chewie news, things could be better. Earlier in the week, he got sick and included in the disgusting mess were a few small pieces of chewed hard plastic. They might have been Legos, I'm not quite sure. He got sick again the next afternoon, and I noticed it was after he drank water. I ended up taking him to the er-vet, since our vet wasn't in, and his vitals were fine and nothing was showing in the xray. They gave him some anti-nausea medication and also a couple cans of wet food to hopefully help his stomach. Yesterday he ate and then had some water with ice cubes and promptly got sick again! Back to the vet to get some anti-nausea pills, and then only let him have a little bit of water at a time. He did well today, although he only drank a tiny bit of water until this evening when DH gave him a couple ice cubes. That was a mistake, he got sick again, but not as much this time. So maybe it's the ice? How weird is that?! Any dog lovers out there with any idea what's going on? I will be calling the vet again tomorrow, but even they are stumped. This stinks, I feel so bad for him.

Friday's Stitching Ground 🚗

 Waiting to pick up Nathan at school has some stitching benefits, but unfortunately I didn't finish this for my Dad on his birthday. Although I did show him what he what he would be getting. And it's a good thing I asked him about how he'd like it finished, he said a gold frame which I hadn't even though of. It shouldn't take me that much longer, I didn't add as many beads as the pattern calls for.

His birthday mini celebration will be coming up in the next post.

I've been decorating outside a little and had some more spiders help me, how nice!

I added this guy to our Weeping Cherry, it looks like he fits right in!

His eyes were a little dark so I used some glow in the dark spray paint to try and brighten them up, but it didn't work well at all. Next try will be using some glow in the dark paint.

I found another pumpkin beer, or rather Paul or Gman1 did!

Yum, just the right amount of pumpkin and spices.

I'm still enjoying my pumpkin coffee and today treated myself to a pumpkin donut after taking Nathan for an orthodontist appointment. He chose a strawberry and a chocolate, he doesn't take after me in the pumpkin loving! I then made a pumpkin cheesecake this evening for tomorrow's dessert with friends coming over.

Have you gotten in the pumpkin kick yet?