Finally Finished - Millennium Sampler

This is a stitching project that I began & basically finished in 2000. I bought this beautiful project, called the Millennium Sampler by Shepherds Bush. It's absolutely beautiful. Issue being that all the stitching is one over one - which is fine for everything in my book but the actual stitching of words. So, I finished all the delicate stitching in the year 2000, and thought I'd finish the writing "one" day.

Well, when all that snow fell a few weeks ago, I got a HUGE stitching bug. It had been so long since I've stitched, that I've forgotten where ALL of my stitching projects are. I don't know if my stitching stash is as big as my quilting stash - but I've got at least 10 unfinished samplers in my possession.

When Rod and I "went away" for our weekend last week, I grabbed a few to put in my "to do" bag. Out of all the things that I did, I Started a brand new project! What was I thinking? Instead of finish something, I began something new. It's called Rise & Shine and it's completely cross stitch (which I basically never do). I like specialty stitching, not cross stitching. Anyway, simple weekend and basic stitching. On our weekend, I got less than half of it done.

Feeling like I should have done something (sometimes basic guilt is good) to finish one that I've almost gotten done, I pulled out my Millennium Sampler a day or so after we got home. It's taken me a few tv shows/movies to finish, but I did FIVE line of text, one over one... and it's FINISHED. I wanna sing & dance. It's been on the books for over 8 years!

Now........ I just need to get Rod to use his framing equipment to frame it :)

Insight Tech Ed Review

Advanced Complete-A-Sketch is a technical sketching program made by Insight Tech Ed. It is a program that introduces students to technical sketching/drafting step by step. It's an easy to use, easy to follow program.

My son, Josiah (right), age 10 absolutely LOVED this program! Using a ruler, pencil, french curves and a circle template, Josiah worked on the variety of projects that are included on the CD.

He would sit down and do pages at a time with NO prompting from me. This alone made me love this program! He has completely finished all of the worksheets that are at his skill level on his own at his own pace. Each technical sketch is a bit harder than the one before, so the degree of difficulty grows incrementally.

Josiah learned some very practical things: how to focus on a project, how to be specific, how to use a ruler to draw lines, how to use french curves, and how to put together a paper model.

Technical Sketching thorough Insight Tech Ed is something that I will use will all of my children to enrich their schooling. This is a subject that isn't traditionally taught in homeschooling, but it should be! I would definitely recommend Advanced Complete-A-Sketch to mothers of boys and to mothers of struggling homeschoolers.

While not all homeschoolers at age 10 are great readers, this is something that is tangible that struggling kids can do. The emphasis isn’t on reading, but on drawing with lines and curves. When they are done with the sketch, they see it and can see a job well done! It’s a self confidence builder.

On a technical note: Projects are easy to print as PDFs. You only need the free downloadable Adobe reader to print from the CD. The link to Adobe reader is available on the Insight Tech Ed website.

What’s on the CD? There are plenty of technical sketching worksheets and 3D Models to build.

What's the goal for the student? To have the student learn technical sketching by completing a variety of technical sketches.

Who’s it for? It’s for ages 10 an up.

How much does it cost? It’s a terrific price of $28.00.

Is there any extra expense? Ink an an investment of $10-$15 in tools, such as French curves and a circle template.

Does InSight Tech Ed have other subjects? They have a variety of subjects including: Accounting, Drafting, Graphic Design and Technical Sketching (Orthographic, Isometric, Perspective, Advanced and Professional).

To see Samples click here and visit their website.

First weekend of 2009

Welcome to 2009!
At Christmas time, Rod was talking with a friend who asked us how we are doing. Rod said things are great, but Zindra and I could really use some alone time. I guess a few days later Rod & our friend made arrangements to stay at a friends house shortly after the new year for a couple of nights. Rod surprised me with it... and needless to say I was SO incredibly excited about it.

Rod's been home, unemployed, going to school, for about 6 months. We've had some good times, some stressful times, yet no alone times. I had been craving a quite house, cooking for 2, watching movies, and snuggling on a couch without distractions.

I love our kids... Next to Rod, they are the best thing I've ever done. Yet, when you have somewhere like a grandparents house where they can go, and you don't have to worry or even think of them... it's nice to take advantage of it occasionally.

Pre-unemployment, Rod used to get business trips through Verizon, that we turned into vacations. Once a year, or once every other year we would go to some extravagent place. Florida is one of my favorite places of all time because of the fantastic memories that I have from there. Since he hasn't been at Verizon, we haven't been able to travel.

This weekend we were able to take our trip to Alger for some "alone" time.

Leaving and coming home is usually stressful. Trying to get all of our quackers in a row so that we can go... is usually a bit of work. It was worth it though.

Friday we thought we'd get out of the house early to take a test for the Census, but missed the test b'c we didn't have the right start time. Then Rod called to find out about unemployment extention (something he has to do before the Workforce unemployment will kick in, supposedly for the remainder of his school time) which turned out to be incredibly stressful. Finally we were able to leave.

We had to borrow our friends truck because the roads in Alger are like ours were a couple of weeks ago, still partly covered with snow. The house is up & down quite a few different hills & we didn't think we should do it without chains...

We went to Bellingham, thinking that I could go to the stitching store there. Apparently, it's been closed. So we went to the scrapbooking store instead. Bought a cute little project to do for my mom for Mother's Day. Yes, I'm always thinking ahead! Then we went to the local store and bought groceries for a few meals.

We hung out, watched movies, I stitched, ate and really did as little as possible. We got dinner Saturday night from Alger Bar & Grille. I took my laptop, but you'd be proud, I did nothing on it for the whole trip!

We watched a couple of movies that i've wanted to see, but had no desire to rent (ie: The Mummy, The Mummy 2), watched The Dark Knight, so that we could be caught up culturally, and watched one that I wouldn't have laid a hand on normally, but thought it was quite funny (ie: John Tucker Must Die).

And then coming home, I was in such a great mood, only to have my emotional feet swept out from underneath me by a family member grumbling about something. So I spent the afternoon, feeling unappreciated. I just couldn't get my feet under me. Finally I took a nap and woke up feeling somewhat refreshed and able to cope. A good nap usually does that!

Rod and I hung out after the kids went to bed, not wanting "our" weekend to end. Love you Rod!

Christmas Letter via Blog

This year, we have SO many people that I wanted to send a Christmas card to. I could probably send out 200 if I really wanted to. That's just not fiscally possible. SO, I sent out about 40 to the people that I knew would enjoy getting them. Handmade and cute! Then I typed out an insertion letter. The same one basically that's on my blog.

Then I got a cute letter from the St. Johns via email. I thought i'd try putting up the note I mailed out via email. I put out newsletters, I could put a pdf out on the Nelsons for sure!

Well, it was just too big. It was bouncing back! I decided to try putting the letter up on my blog and then emailing the link out. Then everyone could read it! So, it seems that I put quite a bit of time into transforming a note to a cool letter & then uploading it and emailing.

But I learned something, and that was what is the most important thing, sending out a link is much easier than attachments! The recipients had NO downloading to do. Which just in and of itself has to make life easier!

So, next year, i'm sure you'll get a link from the Nelsons about Christmas time again! Merry Christmas!!

The Day After Christmas

It seems like preparing for Christmas takes SO much work, that they day after I don't know what to do with myself. I noticed this a couple of years ago. So, since i've worked so hard the last few months on planning and preparing, I decided to give myself the day off. It was mostly a leisurely day.

Rod and Dad and Zane and Josiah drove Garrett down to visit his dad. He was supposed to go about a week ago, but the weather has been preventing that. Zane came to town with Shannon on Christmas Eve. We spent a few hours Christmas Day with them. On Christmas, Dad called Thea, and they all gave the green light for Garrett to visit. It's a good thing, Garrett's been chomping at the bit on this visit. He doesn't like to get stuck at home in the first place, and the only day he left home during this bad weather was when Rod & Garrett went to the movies for Garrett's birthday.

I spent quite a bit of time today working on my laptop with my new external hard drive. It's a 250G drive that's USB powered. I found out quickly with my other external hard drives that they don't travel well and they don't move from my desk to the couch without a hassel. I requested a USB harddrive for scrapbooking for Christmas. First, my computer didn't like it. It took like 2 hours to get it to transfer my photos over. And, cough, I have 47,000 photos. So, I transfer them a year at a time. It takes about an hour per year. I've been transferring pix for the last four hours and I only have ONE more to go! Woohooooo!

My "goal" is to be able to sit on the couch with my feet on the coffee table and scrapbook. It feels like this has been in the works FOREVER, but it looks like i'll finally be getting there.

Josiah got Call of Duty for the 360 for Christmas and he's been itching to play it. So him & dad are doing that now. We let him stay up sometimes and play games that aren't as appropriate for the younger kids to play. Funny, Rod's actually taking a nap while Josiah plays!

With us being home so much the last 14 days of snow (today being the first sort of normal day) that I would have blogged more. The kids have had some great fun.. i'll have to post the pictures. I put a bunch on our facebook. For the first time I remember we actually had a white Christmas. It actually snowed on Christmas Day 2008. This december will definately be one that we rememeber!