Well hello to everyone and a very merry Christmas!!

Joe, congrads on your new bling bling (the Alberta Centennial Medal) and I am glad to hear you are feeling well. Well, from what I hear, it seems everyone is ready for Christmas. I'm happy for you all, but I am really not ready. I suck! I've barely decorated and wouldn't have at all if Mom wasn't coming over for a visit. I guess I have just been a bit stressed lately and it is hard to get in the Christmas spirit when other stuff is on your mind.

Which reminds me, Mom got her new glasses today and she says she can see a bit better. That is great news.At least she can see enough to get by until her surgery in the spring. She said we will have a little laugh though when I open my gifts because she really isn't sure what she bought me. All the more fun!

I took my christmas cross-stitch picture out to hang up about two weeks ago and it is still sitting in my hall. Here is a good tip for all you avid cross-stitchers out there--never trust that the woman working in the craft store will give you the right size adia cloth for your pattern. Just because she works there doesn't mean she knows what she is doing. I bought the pattern at the same time as I bought all the materials. I asked the lady who worked there to cut me the correct size cloth off the big roll that they had. She looked at the pattern and cut what she thought was correct. I never questioned it because it seemed to be fine. That is, until I got about half way done stitching the thing and realized that I was coming really close to the edges at the top and bottom of the fabric. Too late then to fix it and I sure wasn't going to start over. I just barely made it to the bottom of the fabric which wasn't enough to fill the frame I had already purchased. Since a standard frame wouldn't fit it and I couldn't afford to get it professionally framed, I thought I was out of luck. Then I came up with the idea of adding a piece of green ribbon across the bottom to hide the gap. It looks alright, but not really great. Next time I will count the entire thing out before I start stitching to make sure I have enough fabric. Lesson learned. I still love it though. It took me forever to complete and some day I will get it professionally framed.

Better go. I have a squash recipe to try.