Here are the pictures I promised.

First my Mike Vickery Sapphire Celtic Cross that I finished on 2/17



It will be a gift for my MIL for Christmas. I hope she likes it!! A friend is going to help me frame it myself so it shouldn't be too expensive to do. I'm kind of mad at myself for letting this sit so long because once I sat down to finish it, it only took a couple of weeks. There is one of my stitching goals for the year done!

Here is my finished Patricia Ann Designs called Twilight Star:



I finished it on Feb. 25. I did this as part of a SAL with my Michigan Stitching friends. I got so much of it done the first week of the SAL that I was able to finish it up this time around. Since the SAL was supposed to last all year I'm going to modify it and work on a band sampler since all her designs tend to be band samplers. I have two more of her patterns in my stash but not the supplies to complete them, I do however have several band samplers I could do so I'm going to pull from my stash. I think I will start Lesa Steele's Lavender Myst in March.

Here is my almost completed Mirabilia Christmas Elf Fairy:



I love this piece and have had such a blast stitching on her!! I'm hoping the extra beads will arrive today so I can finish her in "finish it February" but she's pretty darn close.

The kids went back to school yesterday after being home on mid winter break and I know it's horrible to say but I was glad to send them back. They were really starting to get on each others nerves by the end of the week and it was really too cold to go outside. There are only so many video games they can play...I really enjoyed my nice quiet afternoon and started in on Mira's Forest Goddess. So far she looks just like a blob but the colors in this piece are amazing, so pretty!!

We got a bit of a shock over the weekend. In October of 2004 we had a small power outage in the neighborhood. When the power came on, the furnance didn't. DH was able to get it started again but it was very noisy so we had someone in too look at it. He said we could spend about $500 to have it cleaned and oiled etc and it still might be loud or we could buy a new furnance. He estimated that our furnance was well past the age limit and really we would be better with a new furnance. We suspected this since we knew the furnance was old when we bought the house. We got a couple of quotes and started to put money away for it. One quote was really high(like 5K for our little 1,000sq ft house). We got a name from Dh's aunt of the person who put the furnance in her house and he was much lower but we needed to save the money first. We were probably a good 1/2 way to having the money when DH got laid off in June and the furnance fund went for more important things like food.

Last month DH's Uncle died. He was living with this aunt(his sister) and she was caring for him since this uncle never married. DH would often go over there to help with his computer or to help his aunt move something. He wasn't there a lot but enough. He also took the day off of work for the Uncle's funeral and I know she was very thankful of that.

She called on Saturday and asked DH if we were going to have the new furnance put into because she ran into the person who gave us the quote. Dh explained that while we really needed to do it we just couldn't afford it at this time. His Aunt then said she would pay for it, no strings attatched, no need to pay her back, she would just give our number to the furnance guy, have him call us, set something up, and send her the bill. We were speechless. We were amazed she would offer such a thing! DH talked to his mom and his aunt got a fair amount of money when the uncle died and she wanted to do something nice and that we should let her. The furnance guy called yesterday, he'll be here tonight for some measuring and to talk to us about the furnance he will put in(top of the line from the sounds of it) and then he will be back here on Saturday morning to put the new one in.

I'm relieved. I worried every time the furnance kicked on because it was so loud and I know it was very inefficient. This winter we've turned the thermostat way down and have been quite chilly at times. The thought that we could be warm and not pay an arm and a leg for it is awesome!!

Still it's was hard to say yes. You don't want to be seen as a charity case or as someone who needs a hand out but I really saw no way of doing this on our own for awhile at least. We pondered taking some equity out of the house be with the bill problems we've had in the last year we weren't sure if we would be able to.

Not only will this help in the winter but will help this summer with the air conditioning as well. The air conditioner is newer(probably 10-12 years old) and when we had them quote the furnance they looked at it and said it will do it's job awhile longer. With a more efficient furnance it more circulate the air more.

The only down side to the whole thing is I will have to move all of my craft stuff by Saturday. Our furnance is in a "room" off of our finished basement. The room is pretty big, with good lighting, a work bench and lots of shelving. I put all my XS stuff in there awhile ago and I use that room for all my ornament finishing. I suspect replacing a furnance is messy work so to be safe I'm going to relocate while the work is being done.

I have to say February was not the best of months. It started out stressful and continued through most of it. I had a couple of rough days but it's ending nicely. Except for the cold sore I've developed in the last day. It's not surprising with the month I had but it's still no fun. Not only does it look icky I don't think people who don't get them realize how painful they can be. I'll have a headache for probably the next couple of days not to mention all the lymph nodes are slightly swollen. The sore itself is incredibly painful and it will make it difficult to eat. The worse is it means no kissing until it's completely gone. No kissing Dh and no kissing the boys. Hopefully it will be a quick one....