So Much For Every Week

The weekend before last was the monthly theme SAL on the HAED board. The theme this month was "maidens," meaning girls without wings and/or tails. So no mermaids, fairies, or angels. So I picked up Dorothy And Toto. The picture on the left is how it looked when I picked it up. The last time I worked on it was February 2008.
The picture on the right is how it looked after the SAL. I got a good bit done. I'm satisfied with it. I met my goal for this one for the year. I wanted to put at least 200 stitches in, and I put in more like 400.
Last weekend was the UFO/SWIP SAL. So I pulled out Angel Of Capricorn. The picture on the right is the before picture. The one on the left is the after. I got all the way across the first row of the first page! I managed to get most of the second row done, too.

For some reason, I got very irritated with this one right after I started it in September 2007. This was the first time I'd worked on it since then. Now, I can't for the life of me remember why it bugged me so much. I really enjoyed working on it this weekend. I was thinking it had alot of confetti, but that wasn't it. It went pretty smoothly. It's also small for an HAED; only eighteen pages. My goal for this one was 200 hundred stitches, too, but I got at least 500 in.

I get the next part of Citrine QS tomorrow for the freebie SAL. I've been so excited all week!

I finished the first part in early February. It's the first full page of any HAED that I've ever finished. It was kinda weird. But it was also a very easy page. There were maybe 200 confetti stitches in the thumb. The rest, though, was big blobs of pink and purple.

The next page is going to be the hardest. This one has the butterfly, which I'm sure will be alot of confetti. It's also got a few more fingertips, too. The next page will probably take until the next page comes out in May, or later. Then that page will have the most of the hand and the arm. That will take a while. But the fourth page will be mostly background again, which will go quick. And the last two are two stitches tall. So I'll probably use that time to catch up. Because it will probably take all summer for me to get through the next two pages.

Not that I'll get to work on it much this weekend. Thursday, when it comes out, I'll be at school. Thursday is my usual day to make copies for the first grade, and then help out in the library.

Friday is spring picture day. I found out the people who helped with fall pictures got theirs for free. I'm hoping they do that again this time. Those pictures are expensive, and even more so when you have to get two sets. If they give us the full sets, that's $80 or more that we save. Heck, I'd be happy with a sheet of wallets and an 8x10 or two 5x7s or something. Last time we bought one sheet of wallets each, because that was all we could afford. So we had to limit who we could give them to. I'll be at school all day that day. We also go down the street to play with friends Friday afternoons, since they don't have homework. So we'll get home in time to have dinner, and then I'll put the boys to bed. Jymi's got drill this weekend, so I'll have to help him get all his stuff together Friday night. We also promised Darin if he could get smiley faces for two weeks (ten days) in a row, we would buy him the Word World Dog toy he's been wanting. The way he's going, he'll have earned it Friday, so I'll have to go get that for him. Friday is going to be very busy, but I hadn't realized how busy until I listed it all. Crap.

Saturday is AR Saturday at the school. Tobi's teacher enrolled him in AR early in the year, because he was such a good reader. So when the librarian has AR Saturdays, we usually go. Then Tobi can read a book, take the test, read another book, take the test, etc.

They also have themes, and if they read and pass the test on a book that fits within the theme, they earn book fair dollars for their class. One dollar for every test passed. The librarian has a graph up to show how much each class has earned. Tobi's class has $1. The last one we went to had a theme of nutrition, and most of the books were over Tobi's level. But he read one, and earned that one dollar. This time the theme is fitness. I think most of the books will be over Tobi's level again, but he can read some picture books.

The pictures are from the last one. The librarian always takes lots of pictures. A few weeks ago, he told me he was going to use one of Tobi in a Power Point presentation he was making for the district. I asked if him would email them to me, since a class was about to come in. So he sent me that one, and the others of us he had take. The one on the right is the one he's using. He's so cute and so into his book. I forwarded them to my family, and my mom said, "He looks like a red-headed Harry Potter!"

Last Sunday, he read me a whole Magic Treehouse book in one night. Darin went to bed, so he didn't have anyone to play with. And there were no cartoons on. So Tobi asked if he could read. An hour and a half later, we were taking the quiz on the Magic Treehouse website. Tobi got his stamp for his passport.

He's read alot the last couple days. He's been home sick, and when they stay home from school, they don't get to watch tv or play games. So Tobi laid in bed and read almost every picture we have. He probably would've read them even if he had been allowed to watch tv. It's not unusual for him to turn on the tv, then sit in front of it and read. I've been trying to teach him to turn the tv off if he's not watching it, though.

He brought home a book order form last week. I ordered some for them. They had a Ready Freddy Easter book for $1, and Tobi's been bringing them home from school. His teacher lets each child pick two books a week to take home and read. At first, Tobi brought home one chapter book and one picture book. About a month ago, she told Tobi he couldn't get picture books anymore. He has to get two chapter books. He usually gets a Ready Freddy and a Magic Treehouse. So I thought it might be nice if the Easter Bunny brought him one.

I also ordered a new Big Chickens book they'd like, one about a duck, and one called Charlie Cook's Favorite Book. At the last book fair, that was on every teacher's wish list, from the kindergarten teachers up to fifth grade. I bought it for Tobi's class, and flipped through it while I was working there. It's about a little boy who reads a book, about a book, about a book, about a book, and so on. When I go in tomorrow, I'm gonna have to remember to ask Tobi's teacher if, instead of sending them home with Tobi, she'd hold them until the next time I came in, so they could be surprised when the Easter Bunny.

I have almost caught up with the bills. Next week, I'll pay the cable bill, and that's the last one for the month! That will be a big deal for us. Jymi's also got the outage at work, so that will be some extra money to help. It means instead of four ten-hour days, he works six twelve-hour days. It's hard on him though. It's hard on me and the boys, too.

The first outage after Darin was born, Darin was about six months old, and Tobi was two. Darin was just getting big enough to start getting into things. And suddenly Jymi wasn't there to help me. One day he came home, and I was in the kitchen making dinner. He made a joke, and I turned to say something smart-assed back, and my mind was blank. And I started bawling! Not being able to think of anything was the straw that broke the camel's back. With the boys being so little, it was really hard. It's not so bad now. They are much better at playing by themselves or together without getting into trouble or hurting themselves or each other. And they're at school all day. That helps too.