a working girl's diary

2009-06-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

Lady of Shalot update

As promised, here are some pics!

This is how she looked when I picked her up in January:

This is her in February:

And this is how she looks now!

Quite some progress, don´t you think? :-)

Oh, and by the way, that vase with flowers was a real pain! Hopefully that is done and over with!

2009-05-30T02:26:00.000-07:00

Framed happy dances

I realized I never ever showed the pics of my 2007 happy dances framed! So, here they go!

Madonna of the Garden by Mirabilia:

This piece was stitched for my home church as a gift to the Lord. I think it now hangs in the parish building, but haven´t seen it.

Angel of the Sea by Lavender and Lace:

stitched as birth announcement for a dear friend and displayed with pride in their bedroom :-)

and the Maidens of Seasons I by Mirabilia

which I did for myself, and used to have them in the living room before we moved, but now they are still packed - haven´t hanged them since!

2009-05-22T05:40:00.000-07:00

Lots of updates!

I recently realized that I used to have a blog, and that is has probably been ages since I posted anything!

Yeap, November 2007, that is some 18 months ago!

Lots has happened since. Around Christmas 2007, I got hooked up on some computer games and pretty much lost interest in cross stich because of that. I hardly touched it for almost a year!

Then, there was the house. Shortly after we got married back in summer 2006, we signed a reservation contract for a house to be constructed as per our request. It took some time - the construction did not begin till late 2007 and we got the keys in October 2008 (concrete and bricks - that takes time to build!) Also, the house needed a lot of finishings - we had to lay carpets, paint the walls (they were boring white before), have kitchen installed, blinds, lights, furniture, you get the story. We are still not there - now that most of the inside is done, we are slowly moving to the outside - we will have a pool installed, then we need to do the fence, the patio, plant the trees and the bushes and the whole thing. I don't actually think we will ever be done with the whole place, it will always be a work in progress, but that's life :-)

On top of that, I changed job last summer. After a not-exactly-fair thing that my ex boss did to me, I decided it was time to leave behind 5 years of my life and move on. I work in real estate investment - not the best career right now - but I was lucky to have started looking just before the crisis hit here in Europe. I found a nice, safe position in a major bank and looking at what is going on in the company I used to work for, the nasty thing my ex-boss did was actually the best that could ever happen to me as I wouldn't have left otherwise!

But this is a stitching blog, so back to stitching :-)

In my last post, I wrote about starting on Angel of Grace by Lavender&Lace. I finished her right after New Year 2009 (I reinvented my interest in stitching this last Christmas). I don't have a photo, but I promise to make one and post it here!

Haven't started anything new - instead I work on the old UFOs. I got out the Portrait of Elegance by Dimensions, and did a good progress on her, and also the Lady of Shalott by Teresa Wentzler. LoS is a pleasure to work on - well, mostly. The border certainly is. I have her on the hoop right now and am working in the left lower part. The left upper part was not too much fun to do - loads and loads of confetti stitching in the flower vase and on the curtains, but I have only some of the flowers left and the rest seems easier. I think I could have the entire left half done by end of June, but will see.

The plan for this year is to finish the Lady and also the Portrait of Elegance. Don't know if it is feasible, but hey, if not, they can be finished next year. Or the year after that :-)

2007-11-10T02:15:00.000-08:00

Happy November!

I can't believe it's over a month that I posted the last time! I got busy with the charity stitching (which turned out to be more time-consumming than I thought) and I managed to get two pictures done.

This one is for a children hospital:

Precious moments - Loads of Love

and this one is for the Pink charity (against breast cancer)

Precious moments - Lollipop (OK, it's not called lollipop, but I can't find the name!).

I finished those two late October and went back to stitching on the Enchanter, where I finally completed all the stitching and now I am left with the oh-so-funny backstitching. And since I have been so good with finishes this year, I allowed myself a new start - on the Angel of Grace by Lavender & Lace. Not much to show right now, as all there is is a white blob of her skirt. I mean, what else can you expect after 2.5 hours of work, right?

I went ahead and had my three August/September happy dances framed, but I don't have the pics of the framing yet, but will post them soon!

2007-09-30T09:35:00.000-07:00

Two September happy dances!

Since I started a lot of pieces in 2005 and 2006, it's time to reap the happy dances!

Here are two lovelies I finished during September:

Mirabilia - Maidens of Seasons I

and

Lavender & Lace - Angel of the Sea

I am currently working on Passione Ricamo Spring Fairy spirit (not close to finishing, but the piece that is - TW's Enchanter - was driving me crazy with all that confetti stitching - I've had enough of that on Maidens!)

Anyway I’ll put her aside for a month tonight – I am involved in two charity stitching projects and I want to dedicate October to charity only – and will see if I will pick her up after that. Just today I heard the news that a very dear friend is expecting her second baby in March, and I want to stitch her another baby guardian angel, and this time I want to have it done on time!

2007-09-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

So it is a week...

that I said goodbye to my furry baby. I wasn't in the mood to write about it earlier, and I didn't even have the time, so here it goes.

Last week, when it seemed that our cat was getting better, I arranged for another rentgen to be done. That was on Wednesday evening and the results were not good - her lungs were filling up with water again. Yet then it still seemed that she would last at least through the weekend (we were scheduled to visit my grandma that weekend).

On Thursday, when I came home from a work gala dinner, I noticed immediatelly that things were bad... the cat was apatic, not moving, and breathing very hardly. I knew it was time... so all in tears I send a text message to our vet (who is my close friend) asking her to come the following day.

It was very tough for me. I did make it through, though, and I held the cat all the time, while the vet gave her a sleeping shot and then the lethal one. I then had the other cat sniff the body so that she would understand, and packed the body in a box (out vet knows better - she brought a box of kleenex and a transportation box for the body), and somehow I was even able to drive 200 miles to my grandma's house.

We buried the cat on my grandma's garden, where all the family pets are. I am actually in a way glad that it turned out like this, because otherwise we wouldn't have a decent place to bury the cat - here we live in an apartment house with no garden. I think the burial was harder for me than what I had to do the day before - I had to ask DH to take the body out of the box, because I just couldn't stand touching the cold and stiff thing that was all that was left from my beloved cat.

I miss her a lot. I don't cry the way I did the weekend after we received the diagnosis, when every look at the cat reminded me of what was to come. I just don't think about it and then it doesn't hurt. And when I do think about her, I try to remember only the good things... but of course, now that I am writing this, I can hardly see the screen through tears.

But I just have to get this out somehow.... you can't really talk about grieving a loss of an animal to people at work or to friends, because they wouldn't understand and they would think you are crazy, and DH just doesn't want to talk about it at all. Wonder if he'd be the same if it was his parents... or me.

Better don't want to know.

2007-09-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

A happy dance!

Well actually this happy dance is from end of August, but I never got around to put it up here.

I finished Madonna of the Garden! Go me!

This is her:

Madonna of the Garden by Mirabilia

I really like the way she turned out, and the beading was well worth the effect. I still need to wash her and take her for framing - I am thinking a massive golden frame, no matting, to give her the look of old rennaisance paintings - then she will be a great addition to the style of my 12th century church building (did I ever mention that I did this piece as offering to church? Two years ago, when I was getting ready for my legal finals, and scared to death that I wouldn't pass them, I went to church, prayed hard and promised to finish the piece and give it to church if I made it through the finals. It took me some time, but now it is done! In the medieval ages, people would offer to build a church building, I am not that rich, but I put a lot of work in that to please the Lord, so I think that counts as well). Probably will take her to framer's next week, along with Angel of the Sea, which is now also finished (but no picture yet).

I am now working on the Seasonal Maidens, and they are mostly done as well, so wait for some more pictures!

2007-09-05T12:05:00.000-07:00

Not all the days are sunny and bright...

After the euphoria of last week, things are much different today. On Thursday evening I realized that one of our beloved cats had breathing problems. Not something that you would notice easily, because felines never let you know they don’t feel well, but it was suspicious. We arranged for an appointment at our vet immediately for Friday morning. It wasn’t until the vet did an X-ray that she realized that our poor cat’s lungs were full of water. She sent us immediately to a specialized veterinary clinic, where they extracted the water and performed all kinds of tests to see what was wrong.

Turns out our kitty has FIP, which is an uncurable feline illness, always fatal. It actually is a mutation of a common feline virus, that most cats have been exposed to, only some end up with the virus taking an ugly turn in their bodies. The form our kitty has is likely to kill her within 2-4 weeks from the start – so by the judgement of the vet in the clinic it would have been wise to put her to sleep right on Friday evening when we picked her up from the clinic.

No way I could have done that – I needed to say my goodbye to the cat, because my furry babies are just my babies, and I love them dearly. So we took DCat home with the anticipation that on the following day, there would be one last trip to the vet clinic.

Well our cat is a real fighter! If we didn’t know she was dying, I’d say she was getting better! She is eating well (something the vet said she wouldn’t do at all), she was even begging scraps of meat as I was cooking yesterday! She of course can’t perform physically straining things, but she will jump on the sofa to be with us, or run for the sound of the food bowl being filled up. I am proud of her.

I spent Friday and Saturday crying my eyes out, can’t really say I am fine today, but at least better. I don’t know how many days more we have, and since there is no hope for a permanent cure, we will not have the cat be operated again (it is likely that her lungs will fill up with water again and that will kill her), buying her a couple more days. Once her health will start failing her again, we will have her put to sleep. Our vet is willing to do that at our home, so it will be peaceful for her.... just like laying down for a long, eternal sleep.

You will always be in our hearts, Miriam...

2007-08-31T12:38:00.000-07:00

So, this is it?

Yes, this is it! After 20 years in the educational process (started on September 1, 1987 in elementary school), I have finally completed my last exam and earned my MBA!

I am happy about that, really happy, and the stress being lifted is a great thing – this stress of “I should” and “I must” has been ever present for the last 8 years in university (it just always was the way that the exam period of one semester rolled into the next semester and there already would be new assignments...) and now it is gone!

Of course, I will still be going to work, so it is not like I’d have loads of free time to do whatever I like, but I can dispose with my free time after work any way I want! (well, it still would be a good idea to do some cleaning around our home, as there are piles of papers, books and stuff everywhere from me trying to frantically prepare for my finals). I haven’t really picked up my stitching since I passed the finals on Monday – I was out for a celebration dinner with my parents on Monday, and a party with friends on Tuesday, but I sure plan to do that tonight!

I will post my progress tomorrow, today I just wanted to share my biggest happy dance!

Ok, so I wrote that on Tuesday, but since blogger was down again, it is a little late :-)

2007-08-11T05:11:00.000-07:00

Finally some progress!

Yesterday evening, I finished all the beading and backstitching in Angel of the Sea! I happily took her off the hoop... only to remember later on that in order to be truly finished, she really needs the name and the date of birth of the little girl I stitched this piece for!

But I will post a pic nevertheless:

Angel of the Sea by Lavender & Lace

And I picked up Maddie in the meantime and started on the beading and backstitching (did I say I didn’t like beading?) and this is how she looks now:

Madonna of the Garden by Mirabilia

2007-08-08T13:18:00.001-07:00

Just when you would think everything is OK,

something major backfires. This time, “something major” means my final thesis. Yes, the final thesis the formal presentation of which is part of my final exams at economy college 19 days from today. Without going into too much of a detail, it is possible that it will not be accepted and therefore I will not be able to take my finals and graduate, which is really stupid, as it took me 8 years to get there and losing everything over administrative procedures AFTER I’d passed all the exams and written that bloody thing (95 pages of analysis on certain holding company and possible improvements in its organizational structure) will kind of upset me.

Of course that will not be the end of the world. My family will not love me any less over not getting an MBA (I, after all, do hold a degree in law, so I did fulfill the family tradition of us being an educated lot). I will not be paid any less in my job – I will not even be missing on a payraise, as I am being paid based on my skills and not education. I don’t think it will be a hindrance in any future job interviews – nobody seemed to even notice the lack of the degree when I was looking around for a new job this year. So, no big deal really. I did learn my lessons at school, and I have the skills and knowledge associated with the degree without the degree. But it would be nice to have the degree as well.

On a lighter note – we’ve seen the movie “Next” yesterday for our date night, and it was a great movie. And as it was pretty short, we got home early and watched some TV and I work on the Angel of the Sea. I must say I don’t really care for beading. Worked on it for over 2 hours and am almost done with the beading on her skirt, but it goes sooo slow! And the idea of switching over to Madonna, which happens to also need lots of beading, seems less than appealing. I want to have a 5-hour rotation now, and am thinking of making the Enchanter the next piece. He still needs some stitching before I will get to the beading and backstitching...

Oh, and I realized I am actually missing 1 color of DMC to finish Angel and 1 color of DMC to finish Madonna. That sucks, as the closest needlework shop is pretty far away... I am thinking about ordering it online, but the shipping will cost a fortune. I need to go thoroughly through my stash, maybe I have a little bit somewhere? (of course, I only need about 7 stitches altogether in both colors)

Talking of stash, that is another think I should deal with – especially since I am longing to order something new and also to do a new start!

In the last couple years, I have accumulated the following:

Celtic Spring (Lavender&Lace): pattern, fabric, floss, beads
Angel of Grace (Lavender&Lace): pattern, fabric, floss
Guardian (Teresa Wentzler): kit
Storyteller (Teresa Wentzler): pattern only
Merrick (Black Swan): pattern, fabric, beads
The Best of Teresa Wentzler fantasy I: pattern book
Cattitudes: pattern book
Precious moments (Gloria&Pat) : pattern book
Just cross stitch magazine: 17 issues with about 30 designs I’d love to do
And of course wide assortment of local fabrics.

If I started something new tonight, what would it be? Something easy and quick (there are several lovely designs in the magazines, especially a “Ladies fashion” collection of about 6 designs with old sewing patterns tops), or something elaborate, like Celtic spring, which I bought 3 years ago?

2007-08-06T08:13:00.000-07:00

Monday update

As promised, I stitched like crazy over the weekend. Don’t have picture yet, but the lower border of Madonna is almost finished, and next I will pick her up I think I will do the beading in the whole lower half of the picture. It will really lighten her up and since I have a smaller hoop, I will not even squish the beads once I start on the upper part again!

But first, I need to finish the beading on Angel. I plan to take two or three days off work for studying for my finals, but I can squeeze in some stitching – all work no play would drive poor trissie away! :-) So hopefully by Sunday she will be finished, ready to go to the framers. I also have Celtic Christmas, which I have started back in 1999, finally finished and ready to be framed, but I am not sure if I can afford getting so many pieced framed.

Dollar rate is dropping big time, so I am really tempted to buy something from abcstitch.com before the rates pick up again, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t be buying anything as my stash is rather large and my stitching time limited!

Currently, my WIPs include:
1. Angel of the Sea (Lavender&Lace) – 95% finished, missing beading
2. Madonna of the Garden (Mirabilia) – 90% finished, missing beading and upper border
3. Enchanter (Teresa Wentzler) – 85% finished, missing part of border and back-stitching (there is a lot of that there)
4. Maidens of Season I (Mirabilia) – 85% finished, missing part of border and beading
5. Mother (Dimensions) – 90% finished, missing back-stitching and couching (I don’t like their BS and can’t force myself to finish it!
6. Spring Fairy Spirit (Passione Ricamo) – 25% finished, I think it must be 2 years since I last worked on her!
7. Portrait of Elegance (Dimensions) – 75% finished, the dress is almost done, missing head, bouquet and a part of the border. (I don’t like color charts and this one drives me mad, so again haven’t touched her for 2 years)
8. Rose of Sharon (Mirabilia) – 5% finished, I couldn’t resist starting her, but then returned to older designs
9. Lady of Shalot (Teresa Wentzler) – 1% finished, dtto as Rose of Sharon
10. Wedding (Lavender&Lace) – needs to be ripped out completely as I had two different shades of white and it shows. Still thinking if I will or not buy new fabric altogether.

I want to finish the first two on my list, and then maybe think about a new start? I haven’t done a new start in 2007, but I had 4 new starts in 2006 and I told myself that I would only do a new start after 2 finishes – and I’ve so far had 6 of those in 2006 and 2007... so maybe it will be the silly Mother cup and the Seasonal maidens before I start something new. And there is a lot in my stash to choose from, so I definitely have something to look forward to!

2007-08-04T05:43:00.000-07:00

Blogging again!
It's over a year since my last post, a busy year indeed. M. and I got married last June, which was the highlight of last year, at least in my eyes.
This year, I changed jobs - I stayed in the same company, but now I am an investment fund manager (previously worked as financial specialist) and that means a lot more work and travelling, so I have far less time for anything.
As for school, I did graduate from the law school last spring, and now am about to take finals in my economy school, which is of course a stressor.

Stitching is still my beloved hobby and I work my way through my WIPs as fast as time permits (of course, with the occasional new starts, but they do not count, do they?). This is what I have on the hoop at the moment:

Mirabilia, Madonna of the Garden

and this beauty is almost done as well, only missing beading and some of that golden thread - I took her off the hoop to wash her before the beading:

Lavender&Lace, Angel of the Sea.

I hope that with 1st and 2nd part of Lord of the Rings on TV tonight, I will finish the lower boarder of Madonna (that picture is a week old and I do have some progress since) and then switch over to Angel of the Sea again. That one being a birth announcement, it would be lovely to have her finished before the baby turns 1 this coming September :-)

2006-04-23T05:13:00.000-07:00

A weird day indeed...

I am feeling really weird today. I sort of knew it the whole day, but it wasn't untill I was standing at the check-out counter at the grocery store reaching out for a pack of cigarettes that I fully realized that something is going on. You see, I do not smoke anymore, I've never really decided to completelly quit, but I didn't have any since November and didn't even feel the need to smoke. So, there is something going on.

I used to smoke a lot couple years ago, because it was a rebellion of mine (against a too orderly life I lived then) and because my best friend of that time was a heavy smoker. I quit even before meeting my fiance (who hates it when I smoke), when I stopped seeing that friend (let's call him J).

My relationship to J was very complicated (a mutual thing), because we met only couple weeks before my first wedding and we instantly became best friends. Unfortunatelly, the reason was that he fell in love with me right then and there. Never told me anything, but a woman can tell... at least after some time. By then, my marriage was already falling apart without me really noticing anything (my DH of that time started having an affair with his colleague) and I sort of started having a crush on J. I also never told him anything, because I am and never was the type of person to break marriage wows because of another man, but when exhusband and I agreed on divorce, I did expect that J and I could be together. Boy was I wrong about that...

J is ill, rather seriously, but not necessarilly terminally - at least if he sticks to what the doctors tell him. If he doesn't (and he never did), chances are he will not live to be forty. He has known that ever since he was diagnosed at the age of 17 and it heavily affected him. Knowing what I know now, I think he is afraid to really love anybody, afraid of any responsibilities, and the only reason he fell in love with me was that he knew he couldn't have me. But I didn't see it then and I tried to convince him that he doesn't have to be afraid to just try it... and I did all sorts of really stupid things (because of the way he treated me - one minute telling me he loves me still and the next telling me that it is not worth trying for us to be anything more than friends) and also things I still regret doing and it all ended very badly. I haven't really spoken with J since New Year three years ago (and the things said then still hurt). We have mutual friends, but they take great care of us never being at the same place at the same time - so I didn't even see him for 2 years now.

I haven't even though of J for quite some time yet, lots of things were never resolved, but no need to think about them if they can't be resolved anyway, but then I had this dream last night. In that dream, I was at the airport and I met J, who was leaving for a distant country. We talked, just as we did when we were close, and he told me that he was dying. When we spoke, he decided to stay here and he asked me to be with in the last moments, because he didn't want to die alone.

I woke up from this dream and I felt very tired and bad, but soon forgot about it, only to remember it when I bought the cigarettes, which reminded me of him. I don't really know what to do. Is this dream just a combination of what I read last week, rough family situation and the stress I had been under the last couple weeks? Or is it a sign, is something wrong with him, should I try to get in contact with him? And would he want me to? I do not love him anymore, but I did love him once and I can not completelly erase him from my life and from my memories...

2006-01-17T08:39:00.000-08:00

January's update

I survived the Christmas time! Actually it went pretty fine, I tried to start early, exclude last moment's shoppping, so I was even able to do things like bake Christmas bread for every member of the family, go to Christmas mass and enjoy peacefull stitching by TV.

I finished the veggetable sampler (late for Christmas, but it is framed now so I can take it to in-laws-to-be this weekend) and now I am trying to finish the Baby in the Basket (a very late gift, too) and simultaneously working on Guardian angel, which is coming out really nice.

Regarding school stuff, I have been a very lazy bum. Did not do anything so far (other than a little reading) for my economy school. Formal defense of my legal final thesis is scheduled tomorrow and I am very nervous about it. My friend O. (top of my class, graduated in June), who read my thesis and both formal opinions on it from the committee members, says I will do just fine and from all that he knows, given the opinions I received, I will be able to defend it, but that doesn't stop me from having a very bad feeling in my stomach every time I think about it.

Plus work is crazy right now and I could spend here 24/7 just to get all done and on the top of that I am off for a week's skiing vacation this Friday! Now I really don't know how I will manage... wish me luck.

2005-12-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

Oh no, it's Christmas time!

It's Tuesday, the Christmas Eve (when we celebrate Christmas) is just 4 days away, and I don't even count the fact that we are doing pre-Christmas Christmas Eve with my fiance on the 23 (he's off for his parents' on the morning of 24, so we have to celebrate Christmas a day earlier).

Taken into consideration that tomorrow is my company's Christmas party and on Thursday I have a Christmas party with my class members from highschool (I look much more forward to that one), I only have this evening to finish all preparations. And here I am, on the computer again. Oh well...

Most of the preparations are done, I am missing one me-present and have to buy 3 presents on behalf of my fiance. Now not only am I buying presents from him for my side of family, but also for his side of the family too! Now talk about equal opportunities :-)

And work is at its usual crazy peek. I will try to take a half day off on Friday, but somehow I just don't see that happening, as usually. And I so need some quite and piecefull rest... maybe next life? And my stitching is so neglected!

Right now, i am working on a sampler that should have been finished weeks ago - it is a present for in-laws-to-be and while I will be able to finish the stitching, there is no time to have it framed. Guess I will just give it unframed and either take it home for framing or leave it for them to frame it... I will post the picture once I will get to scan it, it is really pretty.

Next in line is the Guardian angel, got the pattern and fabric last week from DH2B as present to my nameday, I want to stitch it for a friend who is expecting a baby in March. maybe it will be done just in time for their daughter's (it should be a girl) first birthday! :-)

gotta run now, the shopping is calling for me.

2005-12-15T09:13:00.000-08:00

I am alive and kicking!

Well anyway, sort of. After passing my finals, I had to concentrate on writing and finishing my final thesis on the law school in two months, and trust me, these two months were hell for me. I would write and write and write, untill my fingers went sore and blistery, carry my notebook to work and from the work go to the library (lots of resources, wifi internet connection for online researches and opened till 10 pm) and write there, not getting much sleep and certainly not getting much life.

But I survived, handed in my thesis on November 30 and now I am waiting for the opinions on that. Hopefully, the defence will be scheduled for January, so I could graduate (of course, if I will sustain the defence) in March. Now that would be great, because I don't really think I am ready for re-writing that bloody thing. 83 pages of unfair competitions was more than enough for me.

Now I should be concentrating on the economy school (which I don't, haven't touched a textbook ever since the thesis was handed in) and of course, there is the Christmas thing. I am semi-prepared, I mean, the tree is up, missing only a couple ornies, most cookies are baked, cards sent, presents mostly bought (still missing present for my mom's boyfriend, and mum as yet gave me no hint as to what that should be. Considering they might be getting married next year I really should not leave him out!). But I just don't know how to squeeze in the remaining preparations, especially since i am so busy with work these days (as every Christmas, I should know better).

One thing I am looking forward is the Christmas party I am throwing tomorrow night. Every year, I have a small Christmas party/celebration of my name-day, where I invite friends and we just have fun. I have prepared most things, now I just need to tidy-up the whole place, which will take some time. And time is a problem right now.

You see, I feel very guilty, because tonight my department has a farewell/welcome party. There is 7 people in the department, but I don't really feel like being a part of the team and quite frankly do not want to be a part of the team (for various reasons, one of them being that I was employed for a different position, financial one, and being put in the office with the lawyers after two years of sitting with the financial people, on the grounds that "it is a temporary solution and we need your old table for someone else" is something that I still resent). Moreover, the party takes place at a very expensive club. It is paid for by the management, but I am not a party-type, dislike clubs, don´t feel like getting drunk and since I was not told it would take place in a club, I am not dressed for it. Now if I left for home right now, I might just about make it, but I have a terrible headache and I wanted to be home early tonight because I have a lot of preparations for tomorrow evening. You see, what I was told was that it will be a dinner party so I though a) I could go straight from the office and b) be at home by 9 pm. So it looks I am not going anywhere and I know I will be talked about badly because "I do not make efforts to be a team player".

Why do I have to be such a try-to-please-them-all? I should just say "I am not a club person and it doesn't suit me to go to yet another party right before Christmas" and leave it at that. I guess some more assertivity would really do me good...

2005-10-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

Updating after a long time silence

It's been really a while since I last wrote something. Been too busy with life, work and school, I guess.

The big news is I PASSED MY LAW FINALS! Now that's a great feeling that doesn't go away, eventhough I took the exam on September 26, which is 2 weeks ago. I did study hard for those (though I believe I studied more and harder the first time around, which was in May, and I failed anyway), but I didn't have much time this time - the exam were Monday morning and I was only able to get out of work starting Wednesday, so I only had 5 days to study properly. But it is over! I prayed to Mother Mary (my local church is in the name of Birth of Virgin Mary) to be lucky when drawing the questions (there were 4 subjects - civil law, commercial law, criminal law and administrative law, 60 questions from each field divided in two categories, and I would draw 1 question from each category, so a total of 8 questions - some of them really big topics) and help me she did, because I had such great questions that eventhough the examinators were very detailed and not too friendly, I passed.

I am not a proper lawyer yet, because my final thesis is still not handed in (and not written, as a matter of fact), but this was a great leap towards getting my masters degree. I still somehow can't get it in my head that there are no more legal exams to be taken, no more studying of useless stuff (well, there will be one more exam if I decide to go for my doctor's degree. but that will probably be just civil law).

There is still some studying to be done on my economy degree (and the final thesis there, too - I hate creative writing!), but hopefully most of it should be done by the end of March next year, so I will be able to concentrate on getting everything ready for our wedding.

Hm, seems like the real life stuff has really taken over this time, because there is nothing about stitching here. But quite frankly I have not done much stitching lately. With all that tidying up and cleaning I have done lately (I have fired our cleaning lady and had to address the problem myself, but that's a long talk which I will keep for some other day), there has been hardly any time to really do anything crafty. But Enchanter is on the hoop at the moment and he is not going away before I finish that silly right part of the border. I so want to have him done by Christmas, but we will see.

Till then, have fun!

2005-08-15T03:38:00.000-07:00

Miserable weather!

After the high temperatures in July, Prague seems to be hit by a series of really miserable rainy days. At the moment, it about 12 degrees Celsius outside and heavy rain. And it is not gonna get better soon.

I mean, in a way, it is good, because the hot weather was killing. But, I have asked my sister to sew me some summer clothes (I did put on some weight over the two years I am working full time, especially from last summer I went almost two dress sizes up - all the stress with doing exams at two universities and working does require some chocolate!), which are almost finished now and I won't be able to wear them! And come next summer, I do not intend to be size 42, no way. I need to go back to my original 38 :-)

I took last Friday off work, stayed home, did a lot of studying and some stitching, and on Saturday I went to see a friend whom I have met over a stiching BB. Other than having to get up at 5:30 in the morning (on workdays, I get up at 7:50 and weekends usually 10:00 at the earliest) to catch a 7:10 train, it was a fabulous day. J. has also invited another stitcher, who lives nearby, so we spent the day going through stash and chatting.

J.'s husband is well-off, so she is not limited in financing her hobby as much as I am and she is investing heavily in getting every pattern (and corresponding fabric and goodies) from Mirabilia, Lavender and some others she like. So it was a real pleasure to go through them. Unfortunatelly, as we were visiting her at her summer house, not the regular, two bags of stash were left behind, so I didn't get to see all the patterns and her finished works, which I really regret. But it's not as if this was the last opportunity to meet :-)

On the 3 hrs train ride there and 3 hrs back I did do a lot of stitching - I finished backstitching "No other eggs-actly like my charming mother" from Precious moments (though I never call her anything but "Omelette"), the picture I have posted last time. She now only needs to be washed, then I will take a picture and post it here. I also worked a little on Above the Clouds, and finished the dragon's upper wings. Now I can really see him.

Which brings me to maybe preparing an overview of all the stitching projects I have, something I could look at and maybe think of a good rotation? I do admit my last rotation got totally out of hand, with me travelling and doing two obligation projects :-( but I'll leave that for another day.

2005-08-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

Friday update

Fridays seem like a good day to post updates. Work is keeping me busy lately, though I remember times when it was much worse. Must be the summer, everyone’s out of Prague and the business is slow.

Tomorrow’s my stepdad’s birthday party, he’s 50, so it will be a big time. He invited his family from England to come, his daughter, his sister and her daugter. I have never met them before, so I am kind of anxious.

You see, he is not really my stepdad, cause he and my mum are not married, but since my biological father doesn’t really count as dad, I prefer to refer to Alan as to my stepdad.
So anyway, this will be kind of a rehearsal to my wedding next year, where I plan to invite them too.

But with all of this going on (I also need to attend dress rehearsal tomorrow morning), I will have only very little spare time. In the 2nd week of my preparation for the legal finals, I am already 1000 pages late (out of the 1800 I wanted to have done as of today). I want to cut this down a little so I have taken the harsh decision not to do any stitching this coming weekend unless I catch up completely. Right now, I am thinking if Friday counts, too :-)

The thing is, just today I have received the fabric and floss for the charity project that is due September 30. It is the Precious moments theme, and I have selected to stich this pattern:

I think she is a cutey, and I don’t know if I can stay awy from her the whole weekend. Maybe if I manage to read some 200 pages tonight?

2005-07-29T09:16:00.000-07:00

A little introduction never hurts

I do admit having blogged before at livejournal, but I think blogger will offer me better service etc., so I will move on.

Anyway, to introduce myself, I am a 24 year old hip-Czech (as an old friend once called me) and I come from a little country in the heart of Europe called Czech Republic. English is not my native language, so I appologize for any grammatical errors I might make. I am, as the title suggests, a working girl, though I am still fighting to finish my university education (my majors are law, at Charles University in Prague, where I only have to pass the finals - this September - and hand in my final thesis, and Economy at the Mechanical engineering faculty of the Czech Technical Institute, where I am missing a couple exams, the finals and of course the final thesis - all to be done by end of January 2006).

In the little free time I have, I love to read, play with my two cats (Miriam and Brioni, two female beasties), cross-stitch (a great obsession of mine), play role-playing games, and, of course, spend some quality time with my boyfriend Michael, who has finally proposed this year and whom I will marry next July.

So much for introduction, the next posts will be hopefully more funny (for I prefer to make fun of life, especially when things go wrong) and more on the subject!