October 21st

Here is "MY" bucket of stuff! It's full of shirts and such that I've bought for my kids. They are patiently awaiting their turn! Sadly, Garrison has about 7 more in his closet I'm supposed to do! Some of it is also awaiting a monogram removal. We're going to the beach this weekend so I may take them and "pick" at them on the way to and fro. Other than that I hope to spend 2 days not thinking of embroidery! (or kids - no kids beach trip!!)
Here is my shelf. It's lookin pretty good? Some of this wasn't included in my pre-Oct 19 stuff, but some was/is. The bottom bin is stuff I'm holding and don't have instructions for yet. Middle row is Christmas (3 things) and a couple of things for my sister in law. The top shelf is 3 Christmas, 2 Thanksgiving and other stuff. Not too bad, but I would love to get some of this done by tomorrow. I emphasize the word "some".

And..... here is all the stuff that is accumulating from my Oct 19 cutoff which is all supposed to be "in line" for this past Monday! As you can see, I didn't get caught up completely by Monday. I stayed up til 2:30 Friday night, and again on Monday night (actually 2:15). I did pretty well but am still a few days behind on starting all the stuff below.

I finally stitched the Embroidery Boutique raggy angel! LOVE IT! I think I have officially sewn all the EB raggy designs and love them all! I also did the angel with blond hair and blue eyes for chapel's sister!

A lot of people who read my blog are fellow embroidery moms. I LOVE LOVE LOVE sharing info, advice and resources! I'm sure we would all agree that there should be an embroidery support group out there somewhere! While I love embroidery, it is also super time consuming and tedious work. I am so thankful and feel so blessed to have found this "hobby" after quitting work a couple of years ago. At the same time, I struggle daily with being overwhelmed with the above photos of gobs and gobs of other people's clothes stacked up all over my dining room awaiting my attention! (I have used the word awaiting 3 times already in this post?) I want more than anything to sew for everyone who calls or e-mails me, but just can't! With 3 kids 6 and under, soccer games, bible studies, class parties, laundry, keeping my house in order-HA, oh and Jeff, church activities, errands... can I keep going?... the stress of it all has gotten out of hand! I'm working on finding some people who I can refer people to. I've starting NOT accepting some work from people from out of town that I don't know. I will also be instituting the deadlines and cut-offs like I did the past few weeks. This is a crazy busy time of year too so at some point I will have to cut off all orders so I can get everything done by Christmas! I want to be able to ENJOY doing this for my friends and family and the people I've been doing stuff for over the past couple of years. From now on I'll try to post a message up top about how busy I am, taking orders, not taking orders, etc. and will hopefully survive til Christmas! I know things will then slow down for a while til Spring!

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This morning I dropped all the kids off and then flew to Hancocks to get more Heat N Bond Lite (LOVE this stuff - now dislike Wonder Under) and I got a few fabrics - the white w/ red dots on the angel, and also a blue fabric w/ white dots JUST LIKE the green w/ white dots that I used on the snowman patch. I then flew across town to my dental appt, then flew back to Hobby Lobby which is right next door to Hancocks and got B a red bandana for Rodeo Day Friday. I ran out the door of HL trying to get to Jim N Nicks to meet a friend for lunch. I ran to my car, opened the door completely, then realized IT WAS NOT MY CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tan Yukon XL, not a tan Suburban. I froze!! What do you do? Was anyone watching as I then shut the door and found my way to MY car? Why did they leave their door unlocked? Should I have gone back in the store, asked to page the person to tell them? I left and went to lunch. Hopefully all is well with the tan Yukon!