SAL – Fraktur Hex #4

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Happy New Year! I am working on two large projects simultaneously which is good because I might go blind doing one of them because it’s on a dark charcoal 20 ct fabric. It’s really hard!

Fraktur Hex from Modern Folk Embroidery is the SAL project I am working on for this group.

Here is where I left off last time:

And here is where I am now:

One entire corner is complete. And no ripping out this time!

We have added a new member to the group! Welcome AJ! Can’t wait to see what you are up too. 🙂

Please go check out the other bloggers to see what they are working on. Links are below.

Here’s to another great year!

MM

SAL – Fraktur Hex #3

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Good Morning!

It’s been three weeks since our last update and 2 of those weeks were pretty miserable as I slowly ripped out all of the stitching that was off. But I did have some forward progress.

Here is where I ended yesterday.

No sense in showing the before!

I won’t even mention that I had to rip out another line in the border. Grrr…

I should be back on track (hopefully).

Please do some blog hopping and visit the other wonderful bloggers in this group.

Thank you Avis for your organization of this group. We appreciate you so much!

Hope you all have a Happy Christmas and a wonderful start to your new year.

See you in 3 weeks! -MM

SAL -Project Fraktur Hex #2

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I spent so much time the last three weeks working on Fraktur Hex and I was so excited to show my progress but I realized late last night that I had made a mistake that had devastating consequences.

That may seem overly dramatic but as many of you know having to rip out two weeks worth of work is definitely devastating. And a real pain in the ass for lack of a better phrase.

Here is where I left off last time:

And here is where I got all the way up to:

I looked at the pattern wrong on the scroll work in the border which set the center part off by about 6 stitches.

My husband said just go with it and not rip it out but that would throw the entire project off because it is symmetrical. I can’t hide that big of a mistake.

I am so upset! Ugh…

I may not get a whole lot of progress done for next time but it will be correct and that’s the most important thing.

Please do go and check out the other bloggers and see what their projects look like. Hopefully they did better than I did this time! -MM

Not Impressed With Our Debt Week #69

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I apologize for not giving you an end of month update for October. When I ran the numbers I was disappointed in myself and couldn’t figure out why the numbers were not adding up correctly. So I just let October go.

Let’s see instead where we are at week 69.

I wanted to pay off the Bank of America Credit Card in October. That didn’t happen for a couple of reasons. One: we overspent and Two: I paid $500 towards the medical bill instead, because they were breathing down my neck.

I have managed though to get $700 paid off on the BOA Credit card so that’s not so bad. It’s not $2000 paid off but hey…..

How did I get $1200 paid off between the two when it wasn’t in the budget this month? I was blessed enough to receive a bonus and a raise at one of my jobs and unbeknownst to me I still had a whopping 70+ hours of vacation time that was just sitting there for me to cash in at my other job. So I had my manager each week for three weeks use that vacation time and add it to my check. That was definitely a blessing to me!

Those two blessings added up to 1200 extra dollars which I plowed into our debt.

Right now the Bank of America is at $1392.00 from approximately $2000 and the Medical bill is at $2500 from $3000.

This next week I will be paying another $500 towards the medical. I finally signed up for a payment plan. I said I would pay $500 each month which is pretty steep but it will get it paid by March.

The total for all of the debt I am talking about on this blog still doesn’t add up to what I want again because clearly we have added debt in other areas so I will just concentrate on the BOA credit card and the Medical and then I can tackle the rest of the stuff.

In closing this post I want to put a question out to all of you. Why are we so uncomfortable with talking about our money?

The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 40 million Americans suffer from anxiety and that financial worries are a massive trigger for this.

So why don’t we talk about money more? Couldn’t we help each other? Couldn’t we learn real information from each other? I don’t get it. We are comfortable about talking about the most intimate parts of ourselves but not about money. Makes no sense to me.

I’ll leave you with that thought. Until next time. -MM

 

 

20 for ’20 Challenge – October Update

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October has been a busy month and with a wedding, three funerals, a sinus infection and 2 colds, Scott, Doug and I are glad October is over.

Despite all of that I did get a ton accomplished. Here is an update on my goals.

1. Build a new garage – Nothing going at the moment

2 – Major cross-stitch projects completed.

I started the HUGE Modern Folkart, Fraktur Hex project and just the one single outside border I stitched was 1073 stitches. yikes!

3 – Projects completed in our house (not to include windows).

Did not have any time this month to work on these.

4 – Books read a month.

I only got two books read, the fourth installment of Factory Girl, by Stephanie Bond and Virgins, by Diana Gabaldon.

Virgins is an Outlander Novella which was kind of fun to read. If you are an Outlander fan it tells the story between the time Jamie was so severely flogged and when he met Claire gor the first time. It was pretty good. Nice short read!

5 – Windows replaced in our house.

Waiting until Spring on this one.

6 – Blog posts a month.

I got 7 blog posts done yippee!

7 – Movies at the theater with my family.

Nothing new on this one.

8 – Hours a month studying herbal medicine and/or herbology a month.

It’s been an interesting month for number 8. I only got about 4 hours in but what I have learned so far has been amazing.

I signed up for a free course with Herb Mentor and then I liked it so much that I decided to subscribe to the whole shebang.

It’s a monthly fee for 12 months but I will always have access to it and the information they provide is well,…overwhelming at first but as I start to implement what I have learned I think it will be less overwhelming.

Rosalee Delforte is the herbal teacher and I am really enjoying her style. One thing I am concerned about though is that there are multiple mini classes you can take which are not included in the subscription price and they tend to push that a bit.

I want to see first if that information is already in what I am currently subscribed to or if that information is in addition.

The cold and flu section is of course something we should all be interested in learning about right now.

I’ll keep you updated on my experience and progress.

9 – Birthday cards sent out to 9 friends. Nada so far.

I really have to do better on this.

10 – Small cross-stitch projects done for the year.

Nothing new

11 – New herb varieties planted for the year.

This again is for a Spring project but I have been doing some research on what I want to plant and how I will use the herbs. The above course I am taking will help determine the varieties I choose.

12 – Recipes I teach to my son.

I have been spending more time engaging my son in at least helping me cook but I did teach him how to make homemade teriyaki sauce. He seemed to enjoy doing that so I will keep at it with him.

13 – Minutes of exercise a day.

I know in my heart I am just not going to do anything with this goal. I am not a traditional exercise kind of gal so I am going to think on a different goal to do for #13. I’ll update you next time.

14 – Walks a month.

I got 10 wonderful walks in! What a lovely time of year for walking.

15 – $15,000 in debt paid off.

I got $1000 paid down on our debt this month. Check out my update tomorrow.

16 – Proper dates with my husband (planned).

My hubby loved the musical we went to last month so much that he wanted to see another this month. We saw The Book of Mormon at our local Broadway Theater. We had a good time. The music and costumes and dancing were wonderful but I thought at times the story was a bit disrespectful but what else can you expect from the writers of South Park. Lol

17 – Etsy Listings posted a month.

I got 29 listings done! On one of my sick days home I laid in bed and got 25 listings up and I already sold one of them 🙂

18 – Books of the Bible read.

Still working on this.

19 – New Recipes tried.

I posted about the recipe I tried in this previous post Butternut Squash Green Curry rice noodle bowl

20 – Visits with people.

See my post – 20 for ’20 Visits Update

Well that’s it for now. As always I will keep you updated! -MM

SAL – Project Fraktur Hex #1

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This is my first post on my newest project, Modern Folk Embroidery’s Fraktur Hex.

The original design photo showed the entire project stitched in blue.

I knew I would get bored only stitching the same color so I have switched up the color scheme.

Just the single outside border was 1072 stitches! It’s a very big project.

I have gotten a lot done in 3 weeks. Here is where I ended last night.

I can’t wait to watch this project develop and so far I am really liking the colors. Though I am still not sure of the pink.

Please visit the other members’ blogs to see what they are working on. I am going to check them out now!

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Sue, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Linda, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Jenny, Carmela, Jocelyn, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie

We welcome back Connie to the group but hope that Helen will be back soon. We will miss you Clare it was fun seeing your projects!

See you in three weeks! -MM

Decorated Halloween Layer Cake

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My sister and her husband had their annual, epic, Halloween party this past weekend and for the dessert contest I brought a Halloween themed cake.

I used a 10″ double layer chocolate cake and split each layer which gave me room for 3 layers of different colored filling.

The first layer I split with a knife and filled with a green buttercream layer of frosting.

Then I did an orange layer of buttercream which I forgot to take a picture of but you’ll see that later.

Then I split the second layer of cake and filled it with purple buttercream frosting.

Then I decided to frosted the whole thing with a rich layer of chocolate ganache frosting.

Chocolate ganache frosting is just cooled and whipped ganache. I doubled the recipe to fully frost this cake.

Then I made another batch of ganache to drizzle down the sides.

Next I piped a spider web and cute purple spiders out of buttercream.

Lastly I used the leftover whipped ganache and piped a ring of chocolate swirls on top.

How fun is this cake?! Plus here is a look at the inside colors including the orange layer

It was delicious!

It didn’t win the best dessert…that was reserved for my friend Lonnie’s very realistic litter box cake complete with pooper scooper lol!

Hope you have a fun, safe Halloween! -MM