Sharing my life and love of cross stitch. Thoughts about this and that.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Itty Bitty Back Stitch Alphabets/Numbers Freebies

Although I haven't been able to edit my old Webring site for years, I find that the contents are still accessible. Here are some 2 and 3 backstitch high alphabets/numbers I created a long time ago - very useful for adding name and date to small cross stitch / needlework projects.  These are .jpgs so do a copy/paste.





The LMc Designs Webring Site can be found at http://webspace.webring.com/people/fl/llmcm/index.html If Webring rolls you over to their Home Page, reload and hit Stop or X on your browser Tool Bar, which kept them from doing that to me a few minutes ago. Come to think of it, actually the pages were originally created and posted to Yahoo's old, free up to a point, webpage site using it's affiliated online webpage editor. It was shut down years ago. Have to admit I've forgotten the name but many of you may have also have created a website using that program.  I also had a WebRing page where I linked in the Yahoo webpages.  I'm really surprised they are still accessible!

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Walk to End Alzheimers

Had to be in Fort Worth at 6:00 am this morning to help with radio communications for the Walk to End Alzheimers. It was bad enough having to set the alarm for 4:45. It was worse when I realized I'd already been up 30 minutes and it was really only 4:15. Really nice cloudy and cool weather for the participants, staff and volunteers. The Walk started at 9:00 a.m. The last walker had finished, the course had been cleared of supplies and signs, all the participants and almost all volunteers had already left, and we shut down the radios at 10:40.  I was at the super Walmart by 11, wandering up and down aisles telling myself I really did NOT actually need this or that while looking for a new can opener, managing to spend an hour in the process. But I did myself proud. I came home with only the new can opener and a ream of 24lb paper. :D

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Nov 22, 1963 - Has It Really Been 50 Years?

Because someone asked on the 123MB and since I took the time to put my memories together, I thought I'd go ahead and post this. Some are still very precise and distinct (I think anyway), some are a bit muddled due to the impact of the Kennedy Assignation, but probably no more so than they when this happened.

Memory of a local teenager:

I was a sophomore in high school in Arlington, Texas - Fort Worth 10 minutes to the west, Dallas 15 minutes to the east. It was Home Coming Friday with our short but enthusiastic Parade with floats made out of chicken wire, tissues and crepe paper to start at 4:00 or  maybe 4:30, the game and a dance scheduled later that evening. We were waiting in the choir room for our after-lunch choir class to begin. There was a Pep Rally scheduled for sometime that day but I frankly have no memory of when it was or was supposed to be. Some of our classmates skipped school and had been in Fort Worth earlier to see Kennedy live and had just returned or hadn't arrived back yet. Some played hookey to go to Dallas to watch the Presidential parade. At 12:35 the bells rang but our always waiting teacher still hadn't appeared. Some students were missing as well. After a few minutes it was obvious something was definitely wrong but no one knew what. This was the era of the cold war and only 13 months after the Cuban Missile crisis. Speculative murmurs of possible nuclear war could be heard and we were getting really nervous. No portable transistor radios were allowed in class. No cell phones, no nothings back in 1963. I think last period had already been cut for early Parade dismissal.  It was already 10 or 15 minutes into the class period (it seemed a lot longer) and some people were talking about just leaving when finally a classmate who had been in the office ran in crying and told us Kennedy had been shot. Utter shock and disbelief. A moment later Miss Ellis came in, about the same time as the principal Mr. Webb came on the intercom to announce what had happened. The lights were never turned on. I remember on a clear bright Autumn day how dark the classrooms, the entire school felt. Hardly anyone said a word. There were a lot of silent tears or quiet sobbing. The principal left the radio and intercom on so we could hear what was happening. Role was quickly taken then the bell rang early for next period.

Everything was cancelled. School was dismissed even earlier than originally scheduled but students couldn't leave unless a parent arrived or they had a car. Bus students had to wait until the buses could get there. I don't remember the next teacher even coming to the class room, or maybe she just took role. We either left the classroom or she let us go before the dismissal bell even rang. Some parents were already waiting. We rushed home to watch our local reporters (Dan Rather for one) become instantaneous national correspondents. We were home to watch the confusion and speculation, both live and immediately aired unedited 8mm or 16mm rushes, the first interviews with witnesses in Dealey Plaza or on the Grassy Knoll, and then to hear Walter Cronkite and the others formally announce Kennedy was dead. At some point we learned Officer Tibbets had been killed and it might be related to the assassination, then that someone had been captured in a Theater not far from downtown Dallas. About the time the Homecoming Queen would have been crowned, President Johnson was taking his Oath of Office on Air Force One.  We watched into the night to see the plane land in DC,  Jacqueline come down the steps in her blood-spattered suit, the casket being removed and placed in the hearse.

We were driving home from church on Sunday listening to a live radio broadcast from the basement of the Dallas Jail and heard Oswell get shot. School was dismissed the day of the Funeral. Whose heart didn't break when John John saluted the caisson?  I think most everyone in the nation and perhaps the world, watched it on TV.

I don't recall whether our high school ever had another Homecoming Parade or not.

Fast forward 8 years. My Ex and I were living in a rent house a block from Rose Hill Cemetery (where Lee Harvey Oswald is buried) and both worked in the Dallas County Records Building which is catty-cornered across the intersection from the Texas School Book Depository. Every day I walked in front of it past tens of gawking but usually quiet tourists in Dealy Plaza to get to my car parked just behind the Grassy Knoll. I drove under the Triple Underpass twice each day, on the way home directly over the X on the street which still marks the spot Kennedy and Gov. Connolly were shot. It always seemed surreal, and I still think about it every time I go to downtown Dallas and pass by and over those same locations these 50 years later. It's all still there. Except for the Texas School Book Depository, since spruced up and now home to The Sixth Floor Museum, it all still looks the same. I think somewhere I still have the yellowed copy of the Extra Edition of the FW Star Telegram.





Saturday, October 19, 2013

Updated my EMVolunteer Blog

Way past due as I haven't posted there since May. You might find it interesting.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

In a Stitching & Blogging Funk

But I've read 13 novels in the past 2 months, all but 1 a cozy mystery. I go in spurts: either stitch or read. I logged in this morning to update my Reading List but instead inadvertently managed to delete the entire contents going back to 2009 or 2010. I'm naturally upset. I MAY try to reconstruct a partial list based on the "Reading History"  from my Library Account, but that only goes back to November 2011.   Few people even visited that Page, The only comments I've received, those from author Lea Wait, did not disappear. That, at least, is a relief!

I THINK about stitching and I've gone through some of the gallon plastic bags I keep WIP's in, but that's pretty much as far as it's gotten in the past 6 or 8 weeks. I haven't touched the Welcome Friends grapevine project since June or July, even though it's probably 80% complete. The only recent finish was the small PS halloween freebie - in July. I need to turn that into something to send to my DD before Halloween. I've still a few stitches left on the 3rd Patriotic Santa, also not touched in maybe 6 months. In early September I did briefly pick up my Lizzie Kate ABC's of Aging that I started in May or June of LAST year and has been sitting for almost a year.  Does just one wrong color just completely stop you in your tracks? I thought I'd FINALLY found a workable substitute. Did maybe 10 or 20 stitches recently- BUT NO, that won't work either. I could probably finish the stitching in less than a week, but I'm stuck! And then there are multiple-year's worth of WIP's still waiting for renewed attention.

There is a North Texas GTG scheduled for November 1 & 2nd in north Dallas.  Many out of area stitchers are coming and rooms are or were available at very reasonable rates. But since it's less than a hour's drive, I'll probably just drive over for one of those days - most likely Saturday. Looks like it will be fun, and it'll be good to get to put some faces with stitchers from the 123MB. The cost is $20 to offset meeting room rental fees. If anyone is interested, let me know IMMEDIATELY and I'll direct you to the organizers. Lots of goodies and some designer freebies to be passed around.

Found out last week that Henna, my 17-year-old ginger cat, probably has Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy - an incurable heart problem that involves thickening of the heart muscle thus a "gallop" rhythm and restricted blood flow and all that eventually portends. In fact, the vet now tells me she had the same "gallop" issues last year but I understood the rapid rate to be related to anxiety about the visit to the vet - who certainly didn't make a big deal over it at the time. The other possibility is pericardial effusion, excess fluid in the sac around the heart. For treatment either has to be formally diagnosed, which requires an echocardiogram thus a veterinary cardiologist, which I'm sure is very expensive.  She also has peridontal disease, but at her age the risk of anesthesia is too high. Otherwise she is in remarkably good health for a cat of any age. For now the doctor suggested a baby-aspirin therapy to help with blood flow, and antibiotics for her dental issues. Something I can do.

Like Dixieland jazz? Here's something UPBEAT. My brother's Dixieland Band recently played at what is the new incarnation of the former Crystal Cathedral congregation.  Here's the current link. At the bottom of the video player, move your pointer to 29:29. The tune is "Washington and Lee" and he has no idea how it fit into the theme of the sermon either. But it's GREAT Dixieland jazz!

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