Misfortunes and Charity Stitching

During the last year, my family has really been through a lot with my mom. After she moved from the mobile home to an apartment, she had a very bad car accident - her fault. She was not hurt too bad and my sister had some nerve damage to her face, but luckily, it doesn't show. Then a few months later my mom fell going down the walk at her apartment and broke several bones in her wrist. She had to go to the hospital and have surgery on her hand and wrist. She is still working on getting all the use back in her hand and it's her right hand! Then a few months ago she found a knot in one of her breasts. When she went to the oncologist, he actually found 2 knots. He did a biopsy. I was scared to death! But she was very fortunate, there was no cancer. THEN, on July 5th, her apartment building caught on fire and half of the apartment building burned down. Again, luckily, Mom's apartment wasn't burned, but she did have severe smoke and water damage. Everyone got out of the apartments safely. They determined that a man fell asleep smoking in bed! Twelve apartments were destroyed!! It was terrible!

A cleaning company picked up ALL of Mom's belongings and cleaned it all! They got rid of all of the smoke and water damage! They also stored all her possessions until we could get her into another place and delivered it to her new apartment. They were truly great!

The first night, she stayed with me, but I have 3 inside dogs (she hates dogs!) and am not the clean freak that she is! We almost drove each other crazy! The second day, she went to my sister's and stayed 1 night. My sister also has 3 inside dogs and her father-in-law had died 2 weeks before and she had a lot of his stuff at her house. Therefore, her house was a big mess!
My brother didn't even offer to let her stay with him; he took her to a very nice motel. Luckily, the apartment complex will not rent to anyone that does not get renters' insurance, so Mom had insurance that paid for everything! Then we went through weeks of trying to find a new apartment for Mom. She went back and forth between getting another trailer and going to a new apartment!! We (her kids) almost went crazy!! Finally, another apartment came available in the complex she was in originally, so we moved her in it last week! She was in the suite at the motel for 5 weeks! Of course, she's still not happy with this apartment. She's never been happy any place she and my dad lived! But, being the oldest, I have told her she is there to stay (barring another act of God!), and she needs to learn to be content!! SO - that's a big part of the reason I've had trouble blogging! I have been so stressed out! We all need to HIBERATE for a long time! But I have been able to cross stitch as much as I could! It's the only thing that has kept me sane!!

So, I'm really into charity stitching lately. I had gotten burned out on charity stitching last year and had to stop for a while. I have finished a lot of squares since I started up again and will show a few at a time. The 2 ornaments above (not FINSHED finished yet) are for a lady in one of the stitching groups I am in. She is collecting ornaments and she's going to put up and decorate a Christmas tree for the soldiers at Fort Bragg this Christmas. I was really excited about this. I have also finished a 3rd ornie for this but haven't had DD to take it's picture yet. I enjoyed doing these and plan to do several more
The square above is for Love Quilts. It is a theme quilt for any child. I'm sure you've figured out the theme is teapots, teacups, or tea parties. I really enjoyed stitching this. It came from 1000 Great Cross Stitch Designs. DD's picture makes it look smaller at the top than the bottom, but it's really square!

The square above is for Kole M. at Love Quilts. It also came from the 1000 Designs book. I combined 2 patterns to make a picture of 3 balloons. I am very happy with the results.

The square above is the first I stitched after getting the charity stitching bug again. This is for Emily F.'s quilt at Love Quilts. I'm also stitching a sleeping kitten for this quilt. I ran out of the gold thread I'm using on it and haven't gotten to the LNS to get some more yet! I'll show a pic later. But it's really adorable.

Well, I'd better get to work on the square I'm working on right now. It's another teapot. I'll show a progress photo later. It's hard to pin DD down long enough to get her to take the digital pictures for me. (Of course, she won't trust me with her camera!) I'm so glad some of my dear friends on the NET have not given up on me and read my blog yesterday! Thanks, Felicity, and Chiloe! Got to go! Have a day full of happy moments, and may God bless you!