Belated Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope everyone’s New Year is off to a good beginning!  

We had a bit of a scary New Year’s as my Dad ended up in the hospital on the 30th of December with severe congestive heart failure!  It was a long week but he’s ok now and home.  And two days after he got home this was the scene at our house. . .

Liann’s former cello teacher, Parker, was visiting from grad school in Iowa so dinner was at our house and a cello quartet as well.  Ok, three cellos and a bassoon.  Sitting across from Liann is her current cello teacher and a cellist with Wichita Symphony.  My hubby is “conducting”.   What a fun evening!  I made broccoli and rigatoni and my meat stuffed shells in red wine sauce.  I also baked a foccacia bread to serve along with it.  Susan brought a veggie casserole that was really yummy and Parker brought the best part of the whole meal. . . dessert.  They rehearsed Bald Mountain and are thinking of performing it next month for Cello Day.

And speaking of Liann and her cello.  Last Saturday was State auditions.  Five minutes before her audition someone accidently kicked her cello and as it rolled over she said the whole room got quiet as you heard all the splintering.  Sure enough, her cello was broken, the back partially off.  We found out later there was more damage to it inside. ACKKKK!  Susan, her cello teacher, was there and quickly gave Liann her cello to use for the audition.  Like anything else, each instrument feels different from tension, strings, neck, sound, bowing, etc and she had no time to warm up on it.  She took her audition and was pretty distraught between her’s being broken and feeling she had a terrible audition.  Remember she took second seat in District last month.  We got results yesterday and despite everything she made first alternate for State.  Of course she might not make it there because someone would have to be sick or not want to be part of the state concert (what are the chances of that!) but at least she made it.  Woohoooo Li!!

Liann had Youth Symphony the next day (Sunday) and would you believe Simon, of McHugh Violin (he is just the greatest) worked into the night and Sunday morning to have Liann’s cello fixed and ready for her for Youth Symphony!!! He did an incredible job on it. It’ll take a little bit of time and playing on the cello for the sound to come back and it still maybe be different than it was before but he went above and beyond to help us out. Thank you Simon! If anyone has anything to do with strings McHugh Violin in Wichita is very well known in the country and I highly recommend him.

This is my snowflake block for last month.  It was a cool piece to work on, no pun intended.  Stitched a good deal of it sitting in the hospital with Dad.  Yes, it is a sparkly fabric.  Just didn’t show up too well and neither did the snowflake.

January’s block theme is dessert and I guess I’m going to have to dig through and see what some of my old stash has. Anyone have any ideas? I’m currently stitching on my models hoping to make the Market deadlines. Keep your fingers crossed for me, I can’t do that, have to use them to stitch. hehehe Last couple of days I’ve been pretty sick so with this being the third day of antibiotics I hope I can really concentrate on this piece.

I’ve watched the temps drop 13 degrees within a couple of hours. It’s going to be a cold day with a forecast of snow tonight. I feel for everyone up north that’s had the really harsh weather but sure didn’t want it to come back here. I’m tired of single digits and below zero wind chills. Here’s a shot of last month’s storm that I never managed to share with you. My birds are munching and crunching on their birdseed in the snowstorm.

Everyone stay warm and have a stitchy kind of day. I need to go work diligently on my models so I can release them at Nashville. Hopefully later this week I’ll have time to update the gallery. Have so many wonderful finishes that have been shared with me. Thanks for stopping by!!!