January happenings...

 We have had lots of snow the past two days and for the first time my son was happy with school - because it was called off. He could stay home.

The past few weeks I have gone through a block of schooling, add to that a late sign-in for a university course and getting bumped up to third semester, which means I have to catch up a bit on the subject side, if not on the ‘how to study at university’ or ‘how to write a research paper’ or ‘how to give a successful presentation’ side. In between I went to Aachen to bury a dear friend of mine, a year younger than I am, and a week later took another train trip to the northwest for a two-day-meeting of the German Patchwork Guild’s ‘extended Board Meeting’. 

And then I also had to struggle against one of my biggest weaknesses. I do have a few, but this one is so difficult to overcome… I hate doing bookkeeping, even if it would be to my own benefit. Because quite a bit of the things I do for ther guild (such as shipping 70,273-Project-Quilts around, or going to Birmingham for the EQA meeting) I do get recompensation for. So if I managed to keep the bookkeeping in order it would all be easy every few months. The way I do it it turns into a hassle and a nightmare toward the end of the fiscal year (or even after the cashier has closed shop and only grudgingly takes my papers) – and then I get a whole bunch of money at once. That’s what I did this past Saturday and Sunday, besides baking two different cakes for two different types of fund-raising cake sales. One of which turned out a failure and could not be sold but tastes really good when eaten at home.

In any case – I have been stitching some. The “Daily Somethings” are easily packed when going out of town, and I am almost on time, too. On the last day of working on the ward early January I had picked up a piece of round plastic somewhere along the day and had wanted to put it into the wrapping organza for that day. Of course, I left it in the pocket of my uniform when putting that into the washing bin and thought it lost for good. When I picked up my uniforms today exactly that piece of plastic was carefully folded into the uniform top. 

So that will be today’ Daily Something to be added. 

 I have taken the chance, too, to finally learn myself a stitch from my Encyclopedia of Embroidery Stitches that I had not been able to incorporate into the A Scrap a Day. It's called Insertion Stitch - Buttonhole. Only the simple one, so far, but I think I might try the knotted one, too, eventually.