It’s Not Black Friday at Our House

Posted: November 29, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: , | 2 Comments

 

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The only good news about not being at the farm for Thanksgiving is that I was able to spend today getting Christmas thrown up at my house today.  It actually is a great thing since the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a week shorter this year.

 

I’m a Christmas nut.  All the public rooms of our house get decorated.  Every year I add something major to the decorating.  I spent the whole year making needlepoint Christmas ornaments.  My goal was to make a dozen.  I slightly exceeded my own self-imposed target by just a little.  When the last of them get back from the fabricator I will have made 32, only a 266% increase.  Don’t let anyone ever tell you I am not an over achiever.  Let’s not talk about what I did not get done this year because I was needle pointing.

 

Since I have a fourteen foot Christmas tree with ornaments in the multi thousands I decided that my needlepoint needed it’s own tree.  The problem is that I really do not have a place for another tree.  So I decided to run garland around the entrance to the living room and hang the needlepoint there.  I like it, but I certainly have a lot more space to fill since I did garland on both sides of the entrance.  I guess that I need to keep up my stitching pace if I am going to be satisfied with that décor next Christmas.

 

Russ felt well enough today to help take the boxes and the tree out of the attic.  I have created a child who says she hates Christmas because she dislikes helping get all the decorations out of its off-season storage.  Not that she has to do any of the decorating work with the exception of helping put the tree together.  Yes, we have an artificial tree.   It became mandatory when our real fourteen-foot tree fell over one year and crushed many of my beloved ornaments.

 

I stayed holed up in my sweats hanging stockings and creating Christmas villages under glass.  The tree is up with all its 30,000 lights and the red cranberry garland.  Tomorrow I will decorate the tree and the house will be done.  It was no black Friday for me.  It is red and green Friday at our house!

Needlepoint Treadmill

Posted: August 13, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments

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Today was a red-letter day in my small world.  I got back four ornaments from the fabricators.  Not just any ornaments, but two were three-dimensional ones and one was a fairly big Santa.  The HOHO Jack-in-the-box was probably the biggest ornament I have made so far so seeing it finished and ready to go on the Christmas tree was very exciting to me.

What, its only August — aren’t you thinking about Christmas too?  I dream about Christmas all year long.  This year especially since I set a goal to make a dozen needlepoint ornaments.  See, if you want to make an ornament and have it on your tree this year you have to finish stitching the canvas by September 10th so that the saints who take them from that point into the beautiful ornament with braid on the edges and a nice cloth backing have time to do their magic.

True to form I way surpassed my dozen-ornament goal long ago.  I am going to have to keep my actual number to myself so that I appear less obsessed.   I can justify doing all this needlepoint because it was a goal I set, but I think it has been at the expense of my weight loss goal.  I certainly do spend more time sitting than I do working out.  I am able to needlepoint standing up and have been known to do it while standing in the parking lot at school while waiting for Carter.

I think that what I need is to start to do needlepoint on the stationary bike at the gym, or on the treadmill.  I’m not sure how fast I can walk and needlepoint, but since I have already surpassed my ornament goal I need to add exercise to the equation.

One of my favorite parts of this needlepoint life is going to Chapel Hill Needlepoint, by local store owned by Nancy McGuffin.  Not only is Nancy’s a place to buy canvases and threads and all the do-dads needed for needlepoint, but also she has a big round community stitcher’s table.  Sitting around with Anne, Kate, Mary, Vickie, Elizabeth and any number of other enthusiasts is great fun.  I have learned from them all and they kindly listen to my stories.

I’m not sure there is room, but if Nancy were to replace the round table with a circle of stationary bikes I think she could charge us gym memberships and we could still stitch and talk while we worked out.  My other idea to keep me moving while still needle pointing is that maybe I have my strong light source powered by a treadmill and unless I am making enough energy from walking I won’t have the light I need to see.  I’m not sure what the answer is, but I do know that working out just to loose weight is not enough for me, I like to have a finished product for all my hard work other than my body.