I lost that blogging feeling...

...although it appears to be making a comeback, helped along by learning how to use Google Reader and my very own iPad. To be honest, though, if Blogger continues to be so slow in uploading my pics, I may throw in the towel altogether. (Currently it has taken almost 5 minutes to upload one picture.)

It's really been a busy year. I have now been an ED nurse for over a year. It's hard to believe. I've learned a ton, but I've also realized how much more there is to know. I was able to attend the national Emergency Nursing conference this year in Tampa and have plans to go to next year's conference in San Diego. My boys are both in middle school and my oldest has grown 4 inches since July 2010. My husband and I will celebrate our 17th anniversary this month. Time just marches on, doesn't it.

Though I have not been blogging that much or really even reading anyone else's blogs this year, I have been stitching away. I had a very bad bout of startitis last month and now have a LARGE pile of WIPs. I can't even say I've been cured of the startitis, because my fingers are itching to start something new.
However, I have been trying hard to stay on task with "A Weary World Rejoices" by Shakespeare's Peddler because I went and stitched in the year 2011 already. I am stitching it with the special GAST colors and I really like it. I feel pretty confident that it will indeed be finished by the end of the year.

I've also been desperately trying to make a dent in my pile of stitched but hopelessly unfinished pile of shame. So far I've put a few pieces in small frames and whipstitched a couple together for little ornaments. I'll try to put pics together of those.

I set up my craft table and got out my wood pieces and fabric and paints and such with the hopes that at least a few pieces would be displayable by the end of the year. We will see. I am saving up some money for hopefully getting a few of my larger pieces nicely framed next year. We shall see.

I signed up for WIPocalypse, hoping both to motivate the finishing up of many of my WIPs and also to jumpstart my blogging. Since I am so out of touch with blogland, I'm probably the last to hear of it, but there's the link anyway. I also signed up for the TUSAL, which I had wanted to do last year, but heard of it too late. Oh yeah, and I also signed up for the Crazy January Challenge, which will really only exacerbate my startitis and increase my excessive WIP pile, but oh well.

Other things I've been working on include the 2009 Prairie Schooler limited edition Christmas pattern, CHS "Shores of Hawk Run Hollow", M Designs "Hope Tree" and a Holly Jolly humbug freebie from Kell Smurthwaite at http://kincavelkrosses.wordpress.com. (Note: Blogger failed to upload my pics after 25 minutes and then gave me an error message, so no more pics tonight.)

In holiday news, we have our trees up. I say "trees" because I have three of them. Two small ones and a larger one. My older son is 13 and has become a humbug when it comes to decorating the tree, but my 12 year old son is still game. Our big tree has all of our family ornaments including those from my and DH's childhood. One of the smaller ones is dedicated to fire, nursing and EMS ornaments. The other is decorated with ornaments that are special to me personally.

I have a jewelry tree on the coffee table that is currently displaying my small collection of stitched Christmas ornaments but eventually I hope to have so many of those that they will warrant a small tree of their own.

That's all for now. I must continue to update my google reader and do a little stitching before bed. Happy Stitching to all of you. See you next time.