Ending 2023 and beginning 2024.....

 

~ Greetings and Warm Welcome to you, my friend! ~ 

I once again have been gone too long from this space.

So I will do my best to update you on the happenings *briefly* of what went on at the end of 2023.

~ October 4, 2023 ~

Ian married Kamdyn in a beautiful ceremony on their property in Bloomfield, Indiana:

It was a beautiful day, a little windy, a little chilly but my heart was full and we gained a wonderful new daughter to welcome into our family!

They honeymooned in Arizona and Utah...and at one point we had Pfeiffer's across the USA

Utah: 

Keith in California: 

Katie in Washington, DC

and Ellie and I was keeping the home fires burning in the Heartland :)

~ During all this going on this fall ~

Ellie met, and I am just telling you all straight up what I believe to be, her life partner - Joseph.

He's 22 (Ellie is 18), out of college, established in a career (Computer Network Engineer), CATHOLIC (!), his family and ours share the same values, traditions and he loves cats! 

Does that not sound like God's perfect choice? 

 

 

and best of all...he's fits in perfectly, I really love him already too...and he's just the bees knees! His Mom and I (never met in person yet - they live about 1 1/2 hours from us) but I can already tell she will be a dear friend to me as we text all the time. You can really get to know someone through their words and actions toward your child. She is a loving and caring person. His Dad the same way...and obviously a wonderful example of how to treat a lady because his son treats my daughter like a queen. Just a wonderful, beautiful thing that has happened for Ellie! Keith and I could not be more pleased. 

~ Here is the one photo I got of us at Christmas ~

I'm always too busy flapping my jaw and playing games. 

~ We found out before Thanksgiving ~

and I kept my jaw unflapped until their big announcement when they were firmly in the 2nd trimester! (what a feat for me, right?!)

Our little blueberry (that's what we have been calling the baby) because one day early in the pregnancy Katie said, "it's the size of a blueberry" so "Little Blueberry" it became 💓

I am slowing down my business in 2024, not going to be finishing as much as I have been the past 10 years. (This year I finished over 500 pieces) One of the reasons I will be slowing down is because I will be the Granny Nanny for little blueberry. Lil' Blueberry is due here in July! We do not know the sex yet and I won't be sharing it once we do know it. 

~ Now we are in 2024 ~

and it's been nothing but GRAY all year so far. I am sort of depressed (to be completely honest)....

I typically don't get this way, as I just love hearth and home, but the sun hasn't shown in like 3 weeks and I'm tired of rain....and the gray.

~ Red ~ 

had his first health crisis of his life. He has had this cyst under his arm pit for most of his life. We have kept check on it at all his yearly vet check-ups....but shortly after New Years, we found the cyst had grown to the size of a golf ball...was hard and stunk because it had burst. YUCK!

He had been acting oddly and I smelled something got to checking him all over and then ! found it. 

Called the doctor, couldn't get in for 3 weeks. They gave me an antibiotic to give him orally and it got worse. I thought he was likely septic. He was like not acting right mentally, had zero balance and I felt it didn't look good for him. 

Finally got him into the doctor - they took him as a "work in" one day. 

He was septic, they clipped, trimmed and cleaned the wound as best they could....I had to do hydrotherapy with him for a full week (yeah, just like what it sounds like - a cat in the water....yeah it was everything you are thinking right now). They gave him 2 shots of antibiotics and a round of injected anti-inflammatory drugs and.... here is a shot of him this week: 

Looking just as handsome and healthy as ever!

Red will turn 15 on April 23. 

(since we just lost Chatty last March...I was afraid we'd lose Red) 

Sophie (Ellie's girl) and Augie (my other boy) are playing nice together finally...

Augie is the guy everyone likes to beat up on (I mean it's a thing in the animal kingdom you have an Alpha and you have the low man on the totem pole)

Red is the top, Sophie likes to think she's the top and Augie is clearly the bottom....

Sophie is 3 and Augie is 8 (I can't personally believe that) but those two have the best time running around and fighting, pouncing, attacking (playfully) each other. Even old man Red has gotten into the play. It's good to have a mix of ages of cats, I think. 

~Stitching, finally ~

I have basically done zero stitching since July....one of my intentions for 2024? Get back to stitching every day...I had never NOT stitched for days on end from the beginning I started stitching. Heck, as a break in college I stitched every day, when I had little babies I stitched every day...I have ALWAYS stitched since I began stitching in my early childhood. Not doing so for weeks, months...was frankly a little awful, but for some reason I could not bring myself to do it. 

~ This January ~

I set out to restitch some Santa Faces from Mill Hill. Now I've stitched all of these before, but I had given them away as Christmas gifts to people I love. So here they are:

All four are from:

Mill Hill - Charmed Santa Faces

Two are from Series I and Two are from Series II

I still do not have 

Santa of the Forest - Marilyn Leavitt Imblum

finished...but here is a photo from this morning...and I have made significant progress from the last time...(check out my last post)

I started stitching the Wolf the first week in January...

I'm going to stitch on him all day today...and tomorrow...maybe I'll close in on a finish!

I've been collecting a lot of Mill Hill kits and I have a master box of Mill Hill beads that as I get done stitching a kit I will add into my master box. Here is my system. I get the handled double stack box  (see the trays the little boxes fit into - well there are two layers of them) and then I buy the "Tic Tac" boxes both sold at Michael's in the storage container aisle. 

I cut out the Mill Hill number from the bead package (or write one on paper) and tape it to the Tic Tac boxes, then fill them and put them in numerical order. I like organized and I like to know what I have and do not have so when I am kitting a pattern I can go to my master box of beads and see if I need to order or not. Also the Mill Hill kits come with a LOT of beads left over and if you save them...you can likely re-stitch the piece again. That's what I did with the ornaments...I didn't need to buy any beads because they had enough already left over and saved from the kits. So inquiring minds - this is how I do my beads. 

~ Finishing 2024 ~

I am still finishing, just not going breakneck speed. I'm doing only 1 large order per week or 1-2 orders if they are smaller. That's all I'm going to do from here on out. Boundaries...I'm learning is good for the soul and the mind and body too!

But here is some of my January finishing for my clients:

Thank you my friends for hanging with me!

I truly am going to try to swing in here once a month - if not more...

And I am trying to do one video per month as well...so if you want to actually see and hear my hillbilly voice go on over to my YouTube Channel @vonnapfeiffer and sit with your beverage of choice and have a chat with me :) 

All my love in stitches, 

Vonna xxxx