Hello, and Happy Tuesday, friends! How was your week? Mine was a bit crazy. I wanted to work on the quilt, but most of my time ended up being centered around the kids. Josh celebrated his 18th birthday (I am so proud of him!) in the middle of the week. Callie and I are still doing drivers training, and she did some job hunting as well. She dropped off an application today, got an impromptu interview and landed a job! The kids’ school also had a verified threat on Thursday night and I kept them home from school on Friday. There wasn’t much information being shared by the school or the local police department, but rumors were rampant on social media. I erred on the side of caution, as did at least 60% of the other parents. There was an arrest of a student made at 2:00am on Friday morning, but I had woken the kids up at 1:00am and told them no school. I am still confident my decision was the right one, and I am so glad no students were harmed. I am grateful of the diligence of students reporting issues to their parents, the parents reporting them to the police department, and the police department following through on those reports!
The week started to feel quite stressful, so instead of quilting, I turned to my stitching. I started the border of the Prickly But Cute Stitch-A-Long from Fuzzy Fox Designs. Because I started on the bottom corner, I ended up stitching the 5th release in the series, Gabriel The Christmas Cactus. He’s so cute and cheery, I just love him! I used beads instead of french knots for him.
After finishing Gabriel, I loaded up my fabric for my Poison Garden piece by Chatelaine Designs and finally started stitching on that one! It took me quite a while to put the first stitch in. This one is going to be slow going, but I have a feeling I am going to enjoy every stitch, as well as learn a lot!! I only got one evening of stitching in on this one so far, but it will be my focus piece for this year. I’ll still work on my other stitch along pieces, but I hope to do the majority of stitching on this project.
I can’t wait to see what you’ve all been up to this week! Are you ready for spring where you live? The weather has felt cold here, but “cold” is probably mild weather for most of the country! If you were on the east coast during this recent storm, I hope you are well!
This week’s To-Do list:
- Paradiso Quilt
- Keep working on Poison Garden Châtelaine
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Stitch ALL The Things 
That cactus is too cute. Love the feature project, it will be gorgeous.
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Thank you!!
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I think you made the right decision keeping the kids home – I would hate to have children in school in this day and age with all these school shootings going on. My grandchildren are around the age of yours and live in a different state then I do my daughter usually lets me know after a threat that all is clear – it is a fact of life now and so sad that this happens. Love that stitchery pattern
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I don’t think our school was really prepared for how, or what, to communicate to the parents. With the way social media is, their few, and meager, messages weren’t enough for me in the moment. I think they learned a lot about how to better handle any such future situations. There was a very real sense of trying to minimize, or hide what was happening, and that’s just not an acceptable course of action any longer. Sadly, no one can ever think “it can’t/won’t happen here” any longer.
I had a blast stitching the cactus, and I’m super happy to have started the long-term chart now too!
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I hate when we get those horrible phone calls and text messages from the schools! Childhood for our kids is drastically different from our childhoods and our parents’ childhoods. We felt safe every day, especially in school. 😦 I’m glad you had some soothing stitching to keep you sane. That cactus is adorable!
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It’s just crazy that these things have almost gotten a “commonplace” feel for our kids. My kids weren’t even really affected by it. That is just so sad that this is how they experience school. Fire drills and lock down drills. Thank you so much for your comment on the cactus! I just love that little guy, he is too cute!
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The cactus stitching is adorable! The stitching on the Poison Garden Châtelaine is so intricate! Wow!
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Thank you! I just love that little Cactus. Who knows how long it’s going to take me to finish Poison Garden, but I hope to enjoy the process along the way!
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Gabriel is absolutely adorable!
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Thank you!! I just love him!
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There are weeks when my main focus is about getting to my fiber work. Other weeks my work is what keeps me sane from the rest of life. I keep saying routine is what we look for when life doesn’t make much sense. That’s my world right now, and yours, too. Threats of violence are insidious. I would always err on the side of caution. Nothing is so important as to take that chance. Sometime in the last year I learned after the fact that my young daughter had holed up in a locker room with a group of young men when there was a valid threat on her campus from one student to another. No one was hurt, thankfully. Do we feel less anxious at this end knowing no one was harmed or from the beginning thinking we have kept them from it? Neither, I believe. Getting a text from the said locker room was unnerving, but this is not my first as a parent. I take this stress to my stitching too. Quietly I work, and roll all these things over in my mind to make sense of them. Most often there is no logic, but God is good.
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I hate that I’m not the only one who has these feelings, but there is comfort in knowing that there are others who understand and can empathize with me. I am so sorry your daughter had to go through that experience. I am so sorry that it is the expected “norm” for our children nowadays. The constant texts of lockdown drill notifications doesn’t even faze me anymore, and that’s sad. You are so right. Our comfort and peace is in that God is good. ALL the time. Many hugs and quilty love to you!
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That stitchery looked like a Christmas Cactus to me, so I was happy to learn I was right when I actually took the time to read your post! My real life Christmas Cactus has not bloomed for several years. It might be root bound. I DO NOT have a green thumb!
So sorry about the threat at your school. Hopefully this safe ending will become the norm in our nation as people become diligent in reporting questionable activity.
Congrats to your two kiddos with birthday celebration, and new job!
Have a Happy Stitching week, Christine!
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I killed the one Christmas Cactus shoot my SIL gave me from her plant. I felt awful!! She hasn’t offered to give me another shoot, and I don’t blame her! I’ll just leave the plant care to her…LOL!!!
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Wow – you did have a stressful week! When did all this violence in schools happen? Yuck. I turn to crochet when I’m stressed out – just really soothes my nerves. Your cactus made me laugh out loud – such a cute project! How I enjoy your stitching!
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The violence has just gotten worse and worse. We never had these concerns I was going to school. We had earthquake and fire drills, but never lockdown drills and that’s what my kids are growing up with. The last one graduates next year, so I will be happy that they will be out of school soon!
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