Cirque Update

Julie nagged me today and made me leave my comfy sofa to go get Cirque and finish up my 10 hours on it, so I could show her a pic lol. So off I went to do my last half hour and then I've had to put it away til next time round.... Yes, you read right, I can't leave it out of my new rotation, I love stitching on it too much. The colours are just so cheerful, it's so relaxing not to be changing colours every two minutes and finishing off each circle is like a mini happy dance and so satisfying. This 10 hours has finished up round 1 of my new rotation and I have to say I have loved every minute of it, and have achieved more progress in the last 40 hours than I have in a long time. And the 40 hours seem to have gone so quickly, it's great!
So if you look in my sidebar you'll see the set up for round 2. Not much has changed except I've given Cirque it's own slot, so I now have 5 slots instead of 4. I think I will probably be sticking with it this way for some time, just replacing one project with another when it's finished.
So I'm now back to the beginning and Eeyore! If I can make progress with it this time around like I did last I'm hopeful I might actually be able to finish it, so watch this space.....!
Onto other things, work hasn't been as bad as I expected actually. It has been very very busy and I haven't had chance to stop for a minute most days. Last night I went to bed at about 10.30pm and slept for 12 hours straight! I think it had caught up with me lol Here's hoping the 4 days next week go as well and I'll be a very happy bunny.
It was Erin's last day at nursery yesterday and although she thought it was very exciting I had a few tears. We went school shoe shopping today and it was remarkably pain free. We had her feet measured, picked three pairs between us to try on and all agreed on the pair to get! She looked so smart in them.... She starts full-time school in less than two weeks and I can't believe where the time has gone. I don't know when she went from being a baby to such a grown up girl... But she'll always be my baby and no-one is going to tell me otherwise lol.
I promised myself a reward if I got through the week at work without crying as usually I get so stressed I end up a blubbering wreck when a client has a go at me, so earlier I ordered a chart I've been wanting forever, Chatelaine Taj Mahal Garden. I keep looking at wip pics of it and loving it all the more, but Helen's pic of it this last week tipped me over the edge lol. It was in my inbox within the hour and I've already drooled and panicked in equal amounts. Now don't ask me when I'm going to start it, it's taken me this long to get the chart, but I'm hoping to persuade DH to get me the fabbie for it for our wedding anniversary next month, and then I might see if I can get DH, my mum and aunt to all share and get me the kit from European Cross Stitch for xmas, or give me some money towards it.
In the meantime I've decided my reward for getting through next week will be to order the threads and beads for the Chatelaine freebie Xmas Mandala so I can stitch that and get some practice in hehe.
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend, an extra long one for us UK'ers!

Back From Hols And Updates

Well we're back from another week away in the caravan and although the weather was poor we had a good time and I'm sad to be home. Seems like the laundry is never ending and the house is a tip with emptying everything out of the caravan, but we'll get there. The next two weeks are going to be awful as my boss is in holiday from work and so I'm doing the work of two people or trying to lol. So if you hear screaming from West Yorkshire or see in the news of someone found hiding under their desk don't worry, it's only me....
Stitching wise the 10 hour rotation has been going fabulously, and I'm back to really enjoying my stitching again. I started the Shepherd's Bush Welcome Baby Needleroll before we went away, carried on with it when we got there, then moved onto Tomboy QS and finished my 10 hours on that last night. I'm really pleased with the progress I've made on both, only need to add the beads/charm and make the needleroll up next time round, and Tomboy now has a shoulder and I got a load more of the dreaded blending filament in the background done.
I've decided that for now I'm going to keep the rotation small. If you look in the sidebar you'll see I've just got the rug, needleroll, Tomboy and then a random UFO. The random one is chosen using a random number generator I've got and it picks one of my other ufo's to work on until there's space in the rotation to add it permanently. Once the rug is finished I'll be adding one of my other non-HAED UFO's and when the needleroll is finished I'll start another small/medium project, and so on. I seem to be working through it pretty quick right now, so I might add another slot in soon, but for now I'm just enjoying it and making the most of it. The number generator chose Cirque Des Cercles for this round, so I'll be picking that up later today, can't wait!
Off now to try to catch up on the boards and blogs a bit.... Thanks to all who visit here and comment, I love knowing people are interested in what I'm doing and it's not just me rambling to myself lol. Have a great week everyone (hugs)

Fingers Crossed

I think my stitching slump might be over!
Whilst I wasn't doing any stitching instead I was reading blogs, message boards etc about rotations and kept coming across people doing rotations by hours, eg 10 hours on each slot. I've always thought there was no way I could work like that, but the idea was bugging me.
So last weekend even though I didn't think I could concentrate on any cross stitch, I decided to pull out my Eeyore Latch Hook Rug as it doesn't take a lot of thinking about, and thought I'd try timing myself just out of curiousity.
What a revelation! Because I was timing myself I made sure that I was actually working on the rug rather than going off and doing other things, or surfing at the same time, and I made so much more progress. So over the last week or so I've worked on the rug for 10 hours as of last night and here he is, peeking out and with the butterfly emerging!
Now it might just be a fluke and when I try doing it on something else it will fail miserably, but it's got me feeling better about my stitching etc again which is the main thing, and I can really see progress in the last week.
Tonight I'm going to start on a Shepherd's Bush Needleroll Kit called Welcome Baby that I've had since Erin was born, and see how it works for that. I'm not saying that I've got a new rotation AGAIN lol, don't want to tempt fate, but I'm just going to see how I go with timing this and take it from there, so watch this space.

Still Here & Some Pics

First of all I want to thank everyone who commented on my last post. You will all never know how much your kind words, hugs, and advice mean to me. I count myself very lucky to have such wonderful stitching friends who are always there to support eachother during good times and bad. (Hugs)
I've now been back in the increased dose of my tablets for almost a week and I think there has been a little improvement. I'm sleeping better on a night which I desparately needed, and I don't seem to be as tearful as I was, so let's hope the worst is over. I went for the ECG on Monday and the result did show that my heart rate is a bit high, but again they stressed that it is probably due to recent happenings etc. I've to see my doctor again next week and we'll take it from there. They have said that it may be that they will just leave it at that, they may redo the ECG in a few weeks once I've settled down a bit, or they may take it further and send me for blood tests etc. So we'll see.
On the stitching front I've not done any actual stitching in about 10 days, but the last couple of days I have managed to do a little bit on my Eeyore Latch Hook Rug as it doesn't take much thinking about. Hopefully now the worst is over the bug might bite me again soon. Before the slump hit I had stitched a few small things. First was a San Man Tuck kit which I did when we were away on holiday called Time To Flutter. Then I stitched a secret pressie for Julie's Birthday, a scissor fob using a Papillon freebie called Tiny Quaker in Julie's favourite colours using Vicki Clayton silk in Meadow, which was my first fob. And finally I stitched my mini mystery for an exchange on Tranquil Stitches. I'm really not happy with how the mini turned out, I just couldn't get it centred no matter what I did and was getting really upset with myself. I had to get it off by the deadline so I just hope my partner likes it as it is. I received my mini yesterday from Amy which is gorgeous, I love the design, the colours and her stitching is perfect. I've put it on my stitching cupboard with my other items to display.
I've also added an updated pic of Tomboy showing the next column stitched, which I did during and just after our hols, but never took a pic of til now.