Getting there.........

I did not get to stitch much on the JE SAL this week. Whatever time I had, I spent part of it frogging coz I kinda got the colours mixed up - the shades of blue and yellow, since they are so close to each other. It is one of those weeks where you simply just can't progress much on anything. *sigh*

Here is a progress photo anyway. I did not post a photo last week since I was away for work for most part of last week, and when I came back, I was down with the flu. I still have not fully recovered, but I am definitely feeling much better! *smile*

I managed to put in about 2 - 3 hours of stitching time today, so that quite kind of made up for the lost stitching time during the last two days. *grin*

I hope to put in more progress by the week's end. I have to catch up, considering Barbara is way ahead of me on this one. I guess it's hard to `compete' when your work tends to take you away from town most part of the month, not that I am complaining. LOL! *wink* I love my work, but, sometimes, it just stresses me out when I have too many things to do, but so little time to do them all!

Am I giving up on this SAL? Me? Give up? Certainly not! *grin* Although Barbara said that she is already starting to see the beginning of the end, slow as I may be, I'll get there! LOL! I might not get to the finishing line 1st, but I am definitely finishing it, one way or another! *wink* You can count me on that one! I am certainly not going to let this piece become a UFO! LOL!

What a week!

I am zonked out tired this week and it is only Wednesday!

I haven't had time to recuperate properly from my flu last week. It had been a hectic week last week. In fact, it has been a hectic month this month of August. I felt like I did not have time to catch my breadth properly after completing one task, before the next task at hand has to be handled or taken care of, so that they can be settled before new tasks arrive.

I was working in Penang last week starting from Sunday, 20th August, and didn't get back to KL until Wednesday, 23rd August. Without taking a break from my travels, I was back at the office on Thursday, 24th, to catch up on paperwork left untouched during my 3 day absence. I think my body retaliated. I am not as young nor as strong as I thought I am, although my spirits are high. Came Thursday evening, after work, my whole body suddenly started to ache all over. I could not even pour a glass of water without aching some parts of my body. By 10 pm that nite, I started to run a temperature, my throat hurts that even swallowing my saliva was too painful, my nose started to run, and my body ached so much that even stirring in my sleep hurts.

My body just told me to take the much needed break! I slept all day Friday. Woke up only for a quick shower and a quick breakfast which I could hardly swallow. Took a slow drive to the clinic, fell asleep at the clinic while waiting for my turn to be called in. Went home, slept again. Woke up when my hubby came home with lunch. Hardly eat it, and was back in bed till past 7.00 pm!

I could not remember a time in the last 10 years that I had it this bad where I practically slept all day, oblivious to the happenings around me. All this while, as I slept to regain strength, my son played all day in the room, only once waking me up to ask permission to watch the TV. Usually, when I am at home with my son, he would be calling out to me for attention every 10 - 20 minutes, wanting to show me this and that. I think kids understand when a situation calls for them to be behave, not that my son hasn't been a good boy before this. I thank God for his good behaviour.

I thought I had fully recuperated after a rested weekend from my sleeping `overdose' on Friday, but I soon realised that I haven't fully recovered when I had to attend meetings back to back all day since Monday, and today, my body is starting to ache again. My throat hurts, and my eyes are watery. I need a break! I hope I can recover fully with a break coming up tommorrow, it being a holiday in celebration of our National Day. I need to. I have a very important meeting coming up on Friday.

My leave for Friday got cancelled for this meeting. My plans for a 4 day weekend just got thrown out the window for this meeting, so, I'd better be well for the meeting. I need to get better. I hate feeling sick. Not much gets done when you are not in the best of health.

I am not making any plans for tomorrow. Except for the usual household chores that needs to be done, I intend to take it easy. Hopefully spend some time stitching, clean up the house a bit..at my own pace. The house sure needs cleaning up! I think I have neglected it for far too long! LOL!

To all Malaysians, SELAMAT MENYAMBUT HARI MERDEKA!

Art Work Progress

The mummy reports on her stitching, and the son reports on his artwork..... what would the daddy be reporting on? The weight he has lost in the last 6 months? *wink* I'd get envious that I he has managed to lose weight since joining the gym way back in 2004 or something like that, but I have lost none, not even 500 gms, LOL! even though I am always totally zonked out by the time I get home from work and run around getting the household chores done! *grin* But, of course, my hubby helps me out too with some of the chores. I wouldn't have been able to do everything myself. Thanks, hubby! Muahhhh!

But, the point here is that household chores DO NOT make you lose weight! LOL!

Anyway, back to why I am posting this post in the 1st place is to report on the progress of my son's art class. Typical of me to digress too far off topic! LOL!

It has been almost more than a month since I last reported on my son's art work progress. I wasn't too happy with some of his work and complained to the taecher since I did not see any progress in the last three classes that he attended.

I was assured that I will see some progress in d next few classes. Her explanation? They had just taught him water colour painting and that takes time - you know the colour mixing and all. I suppose I hv to agree with the teacher since I did notice that his crayon pieces are nice, but his pieces in water colour needs a lot of work on it. Oh well.....patience..patience.... patience.....*grin*

Anyway here's some progress for the record.

Slow, but, making progress....

After almost two weeks of no stitching, I finally picked up my stitching again on Monday nite. Felt the needle funny between my fingers! LOL!

Anyway, I managed a little bit of stitching on my Joan Elliot's Stitch-A-Long (JE SAL) piece on Tuesday nite and last nite spent close to two hours working on it. I am feeling a little bit frustrated that my progress is a little slow. Guess I need to get back into the swing! *grin*

I also did some stitching on my frog project. I want to finish this off so that I can mail it out to Tammy's in Penang to have it framed. I haven't actually decided how am I going to transport back the framed piece to Kuala Lumpur, since most of the time I fly to Penang for work. I dn't know about restrictions in bringing a framed piece of art work on board the plane, especially with the latest developments with regards to the bomb threats on board flights into the United States from the UK.

I am thinking of trying to get some mail delivery service like DHL or something do the packing for me and transporting it back to KL. That way, I am assured of my framed pieces arriving intact, and I can safely send all my exclusive stitched pieces for framing, without having to bother either Niza or Zarina too much to bring them back for me each time they come to KL.

Exams and a bookmark

I took a 2 weeks break from my stitching to prepare for my exams. How did I fare? Hmmm.....I hope I did ok. No, make that, I hope I did great! *wink*

Well, I am just glad that the exams are over. It had been a really long two weeks, especially the few days before the first part of the exams. My son got sick 4 days prior to the exams, running a fever up to 40 degrees, compounded with a bad cough that affected his sleeping. All this despite taking medicines prescribed my the GP.

It was only after the 3rd visit and a change of medicine did the fever and cough subsided, but it was not after I had to go through a night of anxiousness when at 2.00 am he ran a temperature of 39 degrees. I had to bath and sponge him for close to an hour before the temperature finally went down, and my exams were to be at 8.00 am!

I hardly slept a wink after sponging him. I was now anxious about the exams, and worried that I might not be able to drive the 1 hour distance to the exam center in Bangi, due to extreme exhaustion from lack of sleep. Also, I was worried that I might ran into panic attack and not be able to remember what I had studied due to sleepiness. *gulp* I prayed that everything will be fine.

I made the drive, albeit slowly and sometimes, I cud feel my eyes shutting, but, thank God, I arrived safely, and my son is back to his chatty self since last Friday. *grin* I sat for the 2nd part of my exams without any unexpected events today, except for the fact that I wasn't sure if I had answered correctly! LOL!

Now that the exams are over, I can now go back to the normal routine of work, not that I haven't been busy with never ending metings and discussions during those times, only I took some time off to do some group studying in between my hectice schedule. I can also go back to my stitching which I have missed so terribly......*wink*

As a comeback from my 2 week absence, I thought I'd put a photo of a hardanger bookmark I made for Ee Koon as an appreciation for her time and patience in teaching and opening up a whole new world for me in the art of hardanger. I mailed it out by registered mail and it arrived the next day, just in time before she departed for Hong Kong.

It is an amaturish start and finishing work, but I hope Ee Koon wudn't be too critical about it. It is a simple piece, though I couldn't make out how to do the square edging that it called for. Instead, I got creative and did the buttonhole edging instead. Not too bad for an amature, huh? What do U think? LOL! *wink*