What a Month!

On the stitching front I have another finish.  It seems appropriate for Memorial Day, which in Ukraine was May 8.  My local Daiso had 11 ct aida that I bought a bunch of because it was $1, and I really enjoy the hugeness of the holes! The cat has darker blue and yellow stripes but they don't really show up:  

"Glory to Ukraine" by CuteFoxyShop (Etsy)

In news about the rest of my life,

DH's uncle died and it's been a whirlwind for the last month.  Uncle had 3 phones and chargers because he was the kind of guy who liked to keep old technology around even if he wasn't using it.  All the phones were dead and only one of them had service, and Auntie couldn't figure out which phone was active and which phone went to which charger, so she was just sitting there with Uncle's body for a few days before a neighbor found them.  The Sheriff sent her to the hospital because she was incoherent and dehydrated, and then we went to war with the hospital to get her back home - they wanted her in a nursing facility but she wanted to be on the homestead, and we were on her side all the way.  So she's back home and the we've been staying with her and it's been wild.  She's having a lot of memory problems and it turns out her liver is failing. 

Sooo...it's been a process to figure out what she could do and if she really could stay in her home, and then deciding yes, and then getting everything cleaned up and cleared out and more safe for someone her age. The great news is that day to day she's fine - she's very mobile and can clean the house and putter in the garden and watch her game shows without any help from us, which is exactly what we thought and why we fought the hospital.  She just can't pay her bills or cook or get groceries, which is kind of a lot, but it's also stuff the family can do.  We've settled into a routine a little bit and are starting to kind of catch our breath, but yowza! We've been too busy to really even care that Uncle died - it seems awful, but the mindset is we'll be sad later, we just have too much to do. 

A howdy from Kuna from her first Memorial Day with us - her first trip to the park after being in the shelter:  

She's gotten a few gray hairs but she's still a great lady!

3 Finishes!

DH went hiking in Zion so  I had a lovely hermit and stitch weekend, even though it was a week late. His hikes are always my big chance to eat Chinese food and watch old movies while I stitch my heart out!  Our assistant at the restaurant is quitting so I may not have a weekend off for a while, but I watched Royal Wedding and the Shirley Temple version of Heidi and then Roman Holiday - heaven!  

My finishes are the rest of the Art Card series from Durene Jones in Cross Stitcher magazine. I'm throwing in the paintings that I think they're based on because until I checked I didn't realize that she was interpreting the artists style but not actually replicating their work.   There's Mondrian:

Inspired by this:

Warhol:

inspired by (?):

and Kandinsky:

based I think on this:

This is all four of them together: 

I loved stitching these because they were so bright!

I figured out that I need to have a finish every 11 days until I'm 100 in order to be done with everything. It's the first time I've ever thought that I really might not make it, haha.  I'd better get cracking, wish me luck!

This is Kuna in Flagstaff last month - that part of Arizona is so beautiful! My prayers for everyone affected by the fires.

One down!

 I got a lot of stitching on my cards while I was travelling, and I finished Picasso!

The design is by Durene Jones:

I had assumed this whole time that this pattern was based on a real painting, but I couldn't find one that really matched.  You can tell he had problems with women though, ha ha.  

This is Jacqueline au Bandeau de Face (Grande Tete de Femme):

Head of a Woman, 1961:

Head of a Woman:

Woman's Head:

and Face of Woman:

I guess Picasso used his creative energy on the painting, not on the names of the paintings, haha.  

I'm going to Poland!

 I can't just sit here watching the news; I'll go crazy.  I'm heading to a kitchen on the Polish border to cook for refugees, and then there's a shopping mall they've converted into a shelter where I'll be helping out.   If you pray, please add me to your list, and if you don't, I'll take your good thoughts!

The kitchen when they first set it up - the number of meals they've been preparing has really exploded so I don't know what it's looking like now, I just know it's outdoors and we're boxing up most of the meals to send to different churches and halls that are housing refugees, and also passing out to people as they cross the border.  

I have actually gotten some stitching done, but it's packed up and ready to see the world with me!

Ukraine Solidarity SAL

 One Point Mind has designed a square to stitch in solidarity with Ukraine.  He's a Buddhist monk so each color offers a different reflection.  It's designed to stitch slowly and be a sort of hands-on meditation.

Woo woo another finish!

I've got a big stack of almost finishes that I thought I'd blaze through last week, but I got one of those coloring apps and I got lost in the wonderland; I just couldn't stop - oops! So the bookmark took like ten days, and then I craved some Hello Kitty and I stitched a bunch of the pink background in her with 2 strands instead of 1, so I had to frog it, and then I had an embarrassing and baffling number of problems with her whiskers; they may still be wrong, but I've lost interest and don't care anymore. I think my cross stitch was trying to get back at me for spending so much time coloring, haha!

This is another design from Lit Stitch.  I changed the colors to reflect the Packers (700 and 742) - Go Pack Go!  

...and this is Vervaco kit of Hello Kitty baking:

 I'm so excited to be doing a proper IHSW - DH is going on a hiking trip to the desert and by some miracle I have Saturday off, so I'm looking forward to a cozy weekend of stitching in my pajamas!  I've got a stack of Inspector Morse DVD's, 122 Midsomer Murders in my queue, and the Packers are in the playoffs, so I'm set!

In fun random local news, this little guy was crossing the freeway.  Bless the people who just randomly stood in traffic trying to keep him from getting hit by a car:

(pictures from KNSD news 7)

Sea World came out and caught him.  He's a repeat offender  (they think he's the same one they caught by the airport and in the parking lot by my restaurant) so he may have to stay at Sea World and not get back out to nature. Sorry buddy!  

Friday Night Finishes!

I got my booster shot this week and it wiped me out! But it gave me a great reason stay in and stitch for a couple of days once I started feeling a little better.  I participated in my first Friday Night with Friends, hosted by Gone Stitchin', way across the ocean in Australia.  

I got some stitchy books for Christmas and one of them is called Lit Stitch, the designs are from here:

This is Rainbow Bookmark.  I added the rainbow striped book at the beginning because the design looked too short on the bookmark:

This is Read a F@#$ing Book.  The original design is black with a yellow stripe, I changed it to this rainbow thread remnant to make it more festive.  I did spell out the rude words but the internet has enough filth so I tried to censor it for my sweet innocent blog, but I think I just highlighted it instead:

This week I also worked on Land of Paradise.  My stitchy spot is also Kuna's bark at the mailman spot, next to our living room window, and I thought Saturday was Sunday so when the mail came I was unprepared, and Kuna lept on and over me to tell the mailman just what she thinks of him.  In the process she stepped on Land of Paradise and left a paw print, spilled my soda on it, and dribbled half of her stuffed toy on it.  Thanks pup!  On the plus side, the mailman did NOT come inside our house, he walked clean away, so Kuna's mission was accomplished, haha.  

Kuna looking pensive and demure:

The suspense of waiting for our restaurant to close because of another lockdown is killing me; even if we don't go into a government lockdown so many people have been sick we might need to close anyway - we only had two healthy cooks last week and we can't operate like that! I've started the classes you need in order to get a permit to sell food from home - hopefully it won't come to that but if we have another shutdown I'll be ready!