Cross stitch and coffee

My little place to chat about stitching and other things.

Name:
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

I am a mother of three great kids,3 cats and a Fox Terrier.I own an Embroidery store, and my DH owns a Foundry.We live in house that is over a hundred years old and have a large unruly garden.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Everything is ticking along

Hello I'm back , for the last two days blogger has not wanted to let me post anything ahhh.,but things seem back to normal now.Firstly thanks Margret for your comments I really appreciate them ,its a great comfort to know your not alone when dealing with these kinds of things.
Our weekend away was wonderful and the "peace and pleanty Inn ' was amazing the rooms are beautiful and the breakfasts they serve are so amazing, there was an interesting mix of people staying there , a couple from Canada , a woman from Scotland ,several couples from other places in New Zealand and a lovely man from Kentucky USA.All in all it was a restful weekend and I hope to go back again some time.
It was just as well I had ,had such a peaceful weekend as on Monday I enjoyed the company of my darling little nephews for the day while thier mum and dad were at work ,It is amazing how quickly you forget what it is like to live with little children ,they had me on my toes all day lol and I got to enjoy the pleasure all over again on Thursday I remember now why I never needed to go to the gym when my kids were little lol.Friday is little Ethans birthday and he will be three years old ,he is so like my son Joseph was at that age ,so cute and able to get away with murder because he does everything with the biggest smile.
Things have been so busy here in the last week that I actually have done next to no stitching (I know this is amazing to me to as I cant remember the last time that happened).I did buy a few new books ,one is a quilting book from piece of cake designs and is of santas village ,and I have made one block out of it, however I still cant find the camera cable so no pictures today I'm sorry.
Today Wills mum is to have surgery on her neck ,they are placing pins in it to strenghen or support the bones ,she was suppose to have this last week but they cancelled it and sent her home still wearing the halo they had placed on her for the surgery, so it has been a very uncomfortable few days for her and we can only pray things go better today.
It was really nice to catch up on reading blogs yesterday and made me feel like things were getting back to normal around here ,I'm always inspired by what everyone else is up too ,you all stich the most amazing things and I am now itching to get back into some serious stitching ,so today I have set aside to work on my quilts 4 kids piece which has been sittting untouched for a couple of weeks and is due on the 30th of September ,so this is my priority this week ,and hopefully I can find the camera and show you my progress tomorrow.
Well thats about it for now so Take Care .

Thursday, August 17, 2006

If You Can Spare A Thought.

This week has certainly been one I don't hope to repeat, after all the events I wrote about last time we found out that DD1's boyfriends , mother has cancer .She had breast cancer a few years ago and and now has cancer in her hip ,neck and lungs, she had an operation yesterday to place pins her neck as the bones are likely to break without extra support .William has two brothers ,one younger 17 and one older 21, they are needless to say devastated.If you could spare a prayer for this family today they could really use it.
With all the goings on this week I haven't been able to sit and concentrate on stitching so I have nothing to update, I've also misplaced the link cable for the camera to plug into the computer !! I have no idea where I left it.I will be taking the camera with me this weekend and wil try and get some nice photos to show you all .Well with that in mind I better go and pack a few things to take ,at the moment all I have backed is the book I intend to take and The Coffee Menu (LHN) which I hope to finish this weekend lol I guess I may need a bit more than this in my bag.Take care and have a great weekend.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

A roller coaster week.

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while but things have been crazy here for the last couple of weeks and so while I have been reading posts I have not been able to bring myself to write anything.Today however I finally feel like myself again and things around here are back on track yay.
You may remember I was on loan to DD1 company to sort out thier accounts and to set them up on a new accounting programme ,well I did this and at the same time found some irregularities in thier accounts ,which appear to date back to when the business was set up about a year ago ,to start with they just seemed like maybe they hadn't been careful about keeping invoices etc but the more I looked the more it seems that someone had deliberatley removed these things!So last week I arranged to talk with the boss (she lives in USA ) which lead to an all day session with her ,her father and myself going through the accounts ,it seems for what ever reason she has no idea about how the accounts have been managed here ,even though it is her company and she alone has ploughed money into it .Any way the story gets worse they had been spending money on some strange things like running broadband internet off two phone lines (in a two person office) and they were paying a much higher than average price on both lines and a whole pile of other expenses that in them selves may not seem much but were all adding up to a large expense each month, but here is were things turn bad , the person responsible for this is the marketing manager (who also now lives in the USA) who used to be married to DHs neice .Anyway to cut a long story short things became pretty tense between everyone and on Thursday( a day I wasnt in the office) they decided to take it out on Mical (DD1) ,who promtly resigned then they decided they no longer needed me there ,so Mical has to work out the next four weeks and then I guess they will close the office down ,in the meantime it dosent look very promising that I will be paid for my time there , talk about shooting the messanger LOL .On the upside Mical is feeling much happier and is pleased to be looking for a new job .
On top of this DD1 boyfriend broke his finger at work the other day so he cant work for the next couple of weeks, and his mum who several years ago had breast cancer has now developed a secondary cancer in her hip and has been having tests and she should know the out come by the end of the week ,so this has been a pretty bad week all round.
Needless to say I have not managed to get any stitching done this week but hopefully I will today as I am getting really behind in things and the charts to stitch are piling up LOL.
On a brighter note tomorrow is our wedding anniversary ,we will have been married twenty one years ,so this weekend we are booked into a lovely Bed and Breakfast Inn which is actually not all that far from where we live but we have always talked about staying there and so decided this was the time to do it, it is called The Peace and Plenty Inn and if your interested you can check it out on the net at www.peaceandplenty.co.nz.I'm really looking forward to this ,I am of course already trying to decide what stitching to take with me .
Well thats about it for now take care .

Monday, August 07, 2006

The Gate Guy Has Been.

I was going to show my new stash today but someone has taken the camera cable!! my lastest purchases from Stitching Bits and Bobs which include B and C CHS alphabet ,The Token and Wise and Foolish by Long Dog Samplers they are all so amazing I can hardly wait to start stitching all of them LOL.It is really fraustrating that I have so little time to stitch at the moment (if only we could we could have more hours in the day).Anyway I decided since I do have less stitching time that this month I would concentrate on finish the Coffee Menu (LHN) and the Quaker Mystery sampler and if I have time my Quilts 4 Kids block ,this way I can feel like I'm still getting something done .
Now we get to some exciting news (well exciting for me) at last they have approved our insurance claim and today the gate guy was here to measure up for the new gates and fences yay.I thought you might also like to know how justice works in New Zealand ,the guy who did all this damage was sentenced two weeks ago and What was his punishment I here you ask? Well he has to pay us $600 dollars (which is the excess on our insurance policy) and he is going to pay it off at $30.00 a week (here is where I remind you he did $20,000 dollars worth of damage and was well over the legal alcohol limit ) he has also missed the first payment!!!
Well thats about it for now ,since I'm at home today I thought I might makes the kids some hot cakes for thier after school snack and who knows I might sneak in a few minutes stitching ,so take care.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

I'm still here

I am still here!!! it feels like ages since I've managed to sit down at the computer (well my computer actually since I spent all week on someone elses ) I've really missed reading what everyone has been up to this week and so this morning after enjoying reading my book in bed with a lovely cup of coffee until late, I have wandered downstairs and caught up with a wonderful collection of blogs ,nice to see the weather has been a little cooler for some , it was mild here this week (which made getting up earlier easier) ,but yesterday and today it has been pelting down .My week did improve after the little phone incident lol, but it was hectic to say the least , Wednesday DD1 and I left work at 5.00 on the dot ,knowing that we had our first nightclass at 7.00 ,it it usally an hour drive home but for some reason traffic was extra heavy and we didnt get home till 6.15 which meant I had just enough time to cook a quick meal for DS and DD2 and make Paninis for DD1 and I to eat on the way .We actually made it with five minutes to spare but ended up at the wrong class room and in the end we were fifteen minutes late (this wouldn't be so bad except both of us went to this high school so we really should have knowen better lol).The class is quite small there are only seven of us and all the other people are very quite (unlike DD1 and myself) ,the teacher is lovely and on this first night she only covered very basic things that I already knew so I didn't feel like a complete idot !!however she did ask one questioin about the set up organisation and guess who she asked yep thats right ME unfortunately I hadn't really been listening and had to quickly read the page we were working on and manage to get the question right !!! It may not have been a good idea to take a class with DD1 as when we left she was laughing fit to kill herself and said she could see now why I had always been made to sit at the front of the class.
Thursday night we had a birthday dinner for DD1 ex boss Mark ,he is an American so has no family here , it was really nice to just relax and enjoy a great dinner and conversation .
On a less happy note my Neice was here yesterday and said she had spent a night in hospital on Thursday night because she was bleeding ,she is only 31 weeks so this is pretty worrying ,she is fine at the moment but she has to go back to the doctor on Tuesday so if any of you could spare a prayer for her I would appreciate it ,as I think I've said before my own third child was born at 33 weeks ,so I know how scary this can be.
Well thats about it from me I did manage a tiny bit of stitching yesterday but nothing worth taking a photo of ,hopefully this week might be a bit quieter and I will get a bit more time to stitch Take care .