May is gone already

I can't believe that the month of May is gone already. So much has happened this month, but not much at all depending on which way you think about it. Olivia finished her first year of college. She's sitting at a 3.4 GPA. She came home from Ohio for the summer.

Shawn and I went to a CMA rally in Western Maryland where we met a great young couple who needed prayer. We prayed with them and can see the immediate results of that prayer. We now have more people in our circle.

Olivia and I started attending a stitching group and love the ladies we stitch with.

Zura is more than 3 months old already and getting so big. I took her to the vet the other day and she's already 21.5 lbs.

Nathaniel drove to Philly and asked Naina's parents for thier blessing to marry Naina. He's now ring shopping. Naina also started a new job with a large law firm in Pittsburgh and she and Nate got an apartment in downtown Pittsburgh together.

Tommy is graduating today. I was in the delivery room when he was born and now he's graduating. I can't believe my nephew is 18 and out of school.

Nicholas started working at a Harley Davidson dealership with a full time job. He's learning so much about motorcycles and will get his license soon.

Our CMA chapter is getting more and more opportunities to serve. We were asked to assist a local motorcycle shop with thier 1 year anniversary celebration tomorrow. We will be cooking on the grill and anything else they need done.

I guess looking at this list, there really was a lot going on.

Well, May, I will see you next year. Hello June - What do you have in store for my family?

Memorial Day Photo

I was going through some things this week and came across some photos of when I was in Basic Training in the US Army. I just had to post it. It reminds me that Memorial Day is not celebrated to kick off the start of summer, just a day off to have a Bar-B-Que or a reason to get drunk. It is meant to recognize the brave men and women who served in the US Military and especially those who made the ultimate sacrafice to keep America free.

This picture was taken such a long time ago. I am a Disabled American Veteran and served my country honorably and proudly.

Shopsmit Lathe

Shawn bought a Shopsmith Lathe about a month ago. We didn't have the space prepared for it when it came in the door so it's been sitting in our gym. Tomorrow, we are going to clean out the space and get the lathe set up. I can't wait to see what this machine can really do. It came with a jigsaw and a table saw.
The thing was made in like 1952 and is in perfect shape. Just needs a good cleaning and some oil. Not sure what we are going to use it for, but I'm excited that we have it.

Just got new shuttles in the mail

I just got two packages of shuttles in the mail that I purchased from eBay. One had a Susan Bates metal shuttle and the elusive black Aero shuttle made in Germany. The other had two tan plastic shuttles and one Abalon shuttle. Here are pix of the two that I am crazy about.

The colors of this one are amazing.

 
One day I will take pictures of my shuttle collection. It's extensive and it will take a while, but I will do it. I have some great "go to" shuttles that I use a lot. Some I've only used a few times and then some I have never used - like my grandmother's two shuttles. I mounted some of them in a shadow box to display the ones I feel are either special to me or more expensive. I usually carry all of my shuttles around with me and didn't want to lose or damage them.

Maryland Tri-State Rally

This past weekend, Shawn and I went to the Christian Motorcyclist Associations Tri-State Rally. The purpose of the rally is to get motivated for the riding season and prepare to do our ministry work for the year. Now usually each state has it's own rally, but because Maryland, Deleware and New Jersey are smaller, we join together to have ours. We rotate states and this year it was held in Maryland. We went to the Western part of the state.

We had a wonderful time. There were about 250 people who registered and attended. That's a lot of Christian bikers all in one place.

Our Regional Evangelist, Rick Steffy, held services each day. What a blessing he is. He and his wife travel the NE - 15 states - supporting and lifting us all up.

We arrived on Friday and stayed until Sunday. Saturday was the big day and a ride to the Flight 93 Memorial in PA. Over 100 bikes rode together. What a sight we were. Can you imagine 100 + motorcycles riding down the back roads? We were given permission to block the intersections so we didn't get seperated and had some police assistance. We always take turns blocking and Shawn and I got to block one road because we were riding close to each other.

The ride went great except I got stung by a bee on my jawline while riding. I guess the bee was mad that I got in it's flight path. It still hurts.

When we got to the memorial site, it was very somber. I was emotional and moved by what I saw.

We came back to Western Maryland and stopped at a Harley Davidson dealership and met a couple who asked us for prayer for their daughter who was scheduled to have surgery on Monday morning for an issue with her kidneys. We brought them back to the rally and we all prayed for them.

God is so good. He answered our prayers and the little one came through the operation fine.

We had such a great time catching up with old friends and meeting some new ones.

So we are home and ready to get our riding season going.

Progress of Daisy Tablecloth

Here is a picture of my progress with my daisy tablecloth. I just used it as a design for a daisy challenge for a tatting forum that I belong to.

Progress is slow, but I am not really concentrating on getting it done any time soon. I've been working on a doily and since the daisy tablecloth with be an ongoing project, I will work on it when I have no other project or just have too many shuttles with extra thread.

I am still going to make a bunch of doodles and frame them.

I have so many projects that I want to do, not just tatting. I have several quilts in various stages of completion, I have knitting and crochet projects to complete and so much more. I need to schedule my craft time. I guess I could have worse problems in life. HA HA

Stitching group

So tonight I had the pleasure of meeting up with a group of ladies to stitch. We met at a Panera Bread restaurant. My daughter, Olivia, came with me. There were 4 other ladies there and 2 young ladies. Olivia was immediately snatched up by one girl to sit with. She's a kid magnet.

The group consisted of 3 tatters, 1 knitter, 1 cross-stitcher, 2 crocheters and 1 playing on an iPad. We had such a good time. We met at 7pm and before we knew it, it was 9:50 and we had to leave. The restaurant closed at 9 and they were so gracious to let us stay while they cleaned up.

This group meets once a month on the 2nd Friday evening. I am definately going back. It was so nice to find a group of ladies that I could enjoy and talk to. It was also nice that my daughter was there with me. I suffer from depression and have anxiety when I am in a group. I didn't feel any anxiety tonight. I feel so blessed to find this group. I already told them that they are stuck with me.

Just rambling

I have been so busy that I haven't posted in a while. I've been getting ready for riding season and waiting for my baby girl to come home from college. She'll be home on Friday. I can't wait til she gets here. She's my running buddy and my craft buddy. I have been trying to talk her into tatting again, but she's just not into tatting. She'd rather knit and crochet, so I bought her a full set of crochet hooks with a case from eBay. After I bought them, she informed me that she's lost most of her crochet hooks, so I guess I was right on time getting them.

The puppy is getting so big. She's so smart, but a handful. She likes to pester my older dog and my cat. She's still a pup and I know that she'll calm down soon.

Well, off to clean and run errands.

My Etsy shop is open

I am so excited that I have opened my Etsy shop. I only have 7 skeins of thread and 1 shuttle listed so far, but more are to come.
My shop name is NAGStudio. NAG stands for Needle Arts Goddess. I don't consider myself a goddess, but when I worked at a fabric and crafts store, my employees nicknamed me the Goddess because I could help any customer with any project. The name stuck but I didn't like being called Goddess, so I changed it to the Needle Arts Goddess.
So anyway, I am excited to see if I will sell anything.
Life is good right now.