Flowers, bees (or wasps), and water

My Sunday was lovely. After feeling like crud last week, I think I am finally turning the corner. Today I felt more like "myself" than I have in weeks.
My husband took me to the arboretum and to the lake for a lovely drive. Yesterday was cloudy and rainy most of the day, but today was beautiful.
I know this is supposed to be a stitching blog and I have done a little stitching (I will show later), but lately "spring fever" has caught me and I have loved seeing all the wonderful flowers and taking pictures of everything.
First, here is a lovely peach colored rose. The wasp was enjoying it as much as I.

And then I saw these beautiful tiny purple flowers among these pink roses.

Then we drove by the lake. The water was choppy due to the wind, but there were some boaters and one brave skier (the temp outside was only in the 70's). We also saw this cute family that was fishing. They had a little 2 year old girl that was so precious. She ran up and down the hill with her father in pursuit of her. If you look closely you can see the whole family by the lake fishing.

All in all it was a wonderful day. My husband and I had some quiet time just the two of us, away from everything. I got some fresh air, as well as a fresh perspective on life.
I promise I will have more stitching soon. But spring and those wonderful spring flowers just last a little while, so we have to enjoy them while we can!

A challenge

For those of you who follow both my blogs, please excuse me but I will have the same message on both blogs.
Most of you know I am working on a project for American Cancer Society. We are stitching Christmas ornaments for a tree that will be raffled off and the money given to American Cancer Society.
My friend Mary and I were talking last night. I have been focused on getting enough ornaments for the tree. But I forgot one very important part of the tree: THE TOPPER!
I am thinking an angel would look great on top.
So here is my question to you: Do you know of a pattern for an angel to go on the top of the tree? Do you have any ideas on how I can make one? I would hate to have a store bought angel on top of this beautifully hand stitched decorated tree.
Any suggestions would be welcome! You can leave me a msg. here or an e-mail at dwooleybooger@yahoo.com
So put your thinking caps on and help me! Thanks.

No Easter Eggs, but lots of flowers

I want to wish each of you a Happy Easter. My grandkids are not here, so I have no Easter eggs or baskets to show. But I do have lots of flowers.
First, can anyone tell me what this flower is? The past several weeks I have noticed what I thought was a weed taking over our arboretum. It looked like a weed. Then this week these beautiful red flowers popped out of them. They are gorgeous!

I love spring and this spring has proven to be one of the most beautiful. Even the cacti are blooming!




Now I have a confession to make. My dad loved flowers. We have many, many videos of flowers from him. And even when we went to Disney World, we didn't have video of Mickey or Goofy. Nope. We had video of all the beautiful flowers there. I didn't understand it at the time.
But now, I see a little of my dad peeking through. I have come to LOVE flowers. And I LOVE taking pictures of them and boring people with my pictures of flowers.
I even had my DH out in the rain today, picking out a beautiful pink rosebush for me for our yard. He loves me and he loves gardening. I just love looking at the garden and telling him where things should go.
Speaking of rosebushes, here are some red and pink roses I saw at the arboretum today:


Here is a pink rose, very full:

And a pink bud:

And now, how about a full pink rose and a bud, together!

I just love spring! And Easter is the best part of spring!
Now later, when I post about my allergies, remind me of all of these flowers! Achoo!
Have a happy, hoppy Easter!

Panic attack/hissy fit over

Ok, I am in a better frame of mind today. I think part of the reason I was so frustrated is that I am so freakin' (excuse my language) tired.
My iron level is still really low and all I want to do is sleep. And I am sleeping well at night. But after working all day or even yesterday doing 5 loads of laundry just exhausts me.
James and I have been eating much better and trying to take better care of ourselves. We are eliminating "white" foods, white potatoes, white pasta, white rice. We have switched to brown rice and sweet potatoes when we have them. We have wheat pasta and even wheat, low fat biscuits when I make breakfast on Sunday morning. We have added oats to our diet, oatmeal for breakfast and adding oats in things like turkey meatloaf (made with white meat turkey). While I am not a big bread eater, James eats sandwiches while he is on the road. They are just more convenient to carry when he goes out. He has switched to a 35 calorie bread. I am proud of him.
We have started growing our own vegetables. So far, the lettuce, tarragon, mint (oh my do we have mint), sage and parsley are the only thing that we have been able to harvest. So we supplement with plenty of fresh veggies to make salads with.
I know it is going to take a long time to turn us around, but it is time. I have two grandsons that love me as well as a daughter and son in law that love me also. And I have a mom that is dependent upon me to take care of her. Not to mention, my husband is my life & my love and he needs me.
But mostly I have gotten to a point with my health that I HAVE to take better care of me. My health issues are such that I have to eat better and exercise more to feel better. It won't make me well, but it will make me feel better.
I want to thank all those who left me messages. It is strange. Having people I consider to be friends that I have never met. When I was a teenager I had a pen pal in another state. I never met this person, but for two years we were extremely close (then we found BOYS and drifted apart). Having friends online is like having many, many pen pals! I delight in reading everyone's blogs and messages on my Yahoo groups. I love and applaud for you when things are going well or you finish a piece of needlework! And I have cried many many tears for those of you who have lost friends and families or who have been hurt by others. You are my friends away from home. Thank you for reading this blog and thank you for being here for me.

Allow me to vent

Lately all of my stitching or at least the biggest portion of it has been to support my Stitching for a Cure project (if you don't know what this is, please check out my other blog, http://stitchingforacure.blogspot.com)
It seems to have taken over my life to a certain extent. I am passionate about this project, but I do spend a great deal of time worrying that I either won't have enough ornaments to make the tree "sellable" or we won't be able to sell enough tickets for the tree to get what I want to get for the American Cancer Society.
The latter of the two I haven't spent quite so much time obsessing over as I have the first one.
We have a little over 29 weeks (nearly 30 weeks) before this project has to be done. My goal is 200 ornaments. Right now we have 30. If I stitch an ornament a week, that will give us 60. But that is 140 ornaments short of the goal.
I realize that November is still a long way away (29 week, 6 days, 1 hour and 45 minutes) and I also realize I have many people who have promised ornaments and who are working on the ornaments.
But it is truly keeping me up at night. Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Is this just a pipe dream of mine? Am I asking too much of my friends, many of whom I have never met in person or even spoken to on the phone?
Am I driving my friends here and everywhere crazy with this obsession? Everyone at work knows about the project and sees every ornament I make. I am using every PR resource I have to help sell this tree.
I will keep on stitching and if we have to do a smaller tree and bring in less money than I hoped for, I will have to live with that.
But I really hope and pray we can pull this off.
I started this project because I wanted to make a difference. God gave me a talent, the talent of stitching. I would like to use that talent to help people. It is a one year commitment. I started in November 2008 and by the end of November 2009, it will be over.
Everyday, I hear about or see or meet someone with cancer. And I get so frustrated. I feel, even though I work in a field where we help cancer patients everyday, so helpless to be able to make a REAL difference. Last year at Relay For Life, I made myself a promise. The promise was that in 2009 this would be my year that I would stand up and try to help.
I guess I need to just stay focused on what I am doing and let everything fall into place. I do know that God's hand is upon this project. I need to let him guide me through it.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for being my friend.
Donna