Happy Easter!

A most blessed and Happy Easter to all my stitching friends. It's been rather cold here today but a fairly pleasant day nonetheless. I spent the day at work as did my DH so our Easter meal will be celebrated tomorrow. I'm still working tomorrow but Bob will be home all day and is currently planning our Easter meal. A leg of lamb on the barbecue is in the works. Mmmm! My son Daniel and some friends will be joining us so I'm really looking forward to that. Chris is working and Jeff and family are never able to join us due to the lack of a road worthy car. If I hadn't been working I would have picked them up for the weekend. Perhaps next year.

I have an Easter basket filled with some decorative eggs on my coffee table and Clarisse has spent the day retrieving the eggs from the basket and batting them around on the livingroom carpet. The basket has now been retired to higher ground!

Speaking of Easter, my Mirabilia Easter Fairy came close to being finished, but no cigar! I managed to complete everything except for the beading surrounding the fairy. I just haven't had enough time lately to devote to her. Can't say as I like the backstitching around her. The colour of choice in the pattern just doesn't agree with me. I find it's a little on the dark side especially around the legs, but at this point I have no intention on redoing it. I thought I'd never finish her wings! You'd think I'd never worked with Kreinik before what with all the trouble I had. I finally found my Thread Heaven a few weeks ago and that made the going a bit easier. At least it got me to the finish line. There's quite a bit of beading remaining which I'll work at over the course of the next couple of weeks. I could get it done a lot sooner if I wasn't spending so much time on other projects. It's hard to tell in the picture but the fabric is a lovely opalescent. The picture doesn't do it justice at all.

I'm also coming very close to doing another happy dance. This one might even be a whopping jig! You guessed it, Cirque des Cercles is nearing the finish line. I'm working on the interior of the last circle now. On Tuesday night I joined the ladies from my former LNS for a group stitch and put in some serious time on this one. The evening was a lot of fun and I hope to join them again if not every week then every other week. Below is a photo of my progress. The next pic I post will be the finish, I promise.

We have some major renovations that need completing around here in the near future. I suspect that the roof is going to need replacing either this summer or next since it's now 19 yrs old. The carpets and flooring are the originals (19 yrs) and are showing significant wear. They're fraying around the edges and lifting in places. Next on the list is painting. We last had most of the indoors painted just before we married 8 yrs ago. In addition to all this, our kitchen cabinets have lost the finish on most of the doors. The cabinets are oak but from the very beginning I spotted problems with them and knew that they wouldn't last as long as they should. I don't think the original finishing was done properly. Now that the finish is worn, the wood is drying out and splinters are appearing especially around the door edges. We know that the flooring was never laid properly either. I'm not impressed with the contractor's work on this house and would definitely not buy another of his. There was a big difference in quality between this house and my last.

All of this has necessitated a visit to my friendly neighbourhood banker to see if we can get any help. I'm very fortunate that being in the health care field my job is fairly recession proof. Add to that the fact that I've been in this job for 32 yrs now.In fact we're still advertising postions for techs. If all is a go with the bank then I suspect we will be in a mess around here for awhile especially since we will be doing as much of this as we can ourselves. So much for getting my craft room up and running! Maybe all this will force us to do a major cleanup around here!

Clarisse is doing well and growing very quickly. I'm trying to decide what to do about her claws. I bought a product called Soft Paws to try. However she's not co-operating. Why does this not surprise me?! I can't even get her to sit long enough to clip her nails. These Soft Paws are a soft pliable material and are like putting on false nails. They completely cover the cat's nails and are applied with an adhesive. I read the directions today and the adhesive can bond skin like Crazy Glue can. I have visions of trying to put these things on and gluing my fingers together in the process! I think the cat will have to be restrained but Bob isn't much help. He's not comfortable holding on to her and ends up in fits of laughter every time he imagines me trying this. She doesn't like me playing with her claws so I'm spending 5-10 min every night for the next few days massaging her paws until she gets used to me handling them. I'm also bribing her with treats! Any suggestions ladies?

Bob has just brought down some coffee and Easter treats for me. Now that Lent is over I can have some but I'm trying to eat very little in the way of sweets. Don't want to get back into a bad habit!

Have a great week and I'll check in with all of you again soon.