Getting back to normal

    I have spent the majority of the day trying to get my house put back together after the Christmas festivities.  Both of my boys managed to make it home although Son1 didn't get here until noon on Christmas day.  Son2 spent Christmas morning with his girlfriend's family so our gift opening extravaganza didn't happen until late afternoon.  It felt weird at first since this is not our tradition but the Hubs and I spent a leisurely morning, just the 2 of us, and that was kind of  nice after the craziness of the last few weeks.
   The boys are gone now, back to their normal lives. And although the Hubs is off work until after the first of the year, he and his buddies are out fishing today so I have the house to myself again.  Bliss!  Laundry is almost finished and as soon as I post this, I am going to stitch until I can't see anymore!!
   I am still trying to finish up a couple of Christmas samplers that time just ran out on this year.  I took some grief yesterday in my weekly stitch group for 'stitching out of season' but I didn't want to add to my already rediculously large pile of WIP's so I'll just keep working on them until they are done.  I admit I am having a bit of a hard time focusing with all the lovely Scarlet Letter samplers being worked on over at Nicola's but I will do the best I can to finish up by the new year because I have big plans in the works!
  On one final note, my birthday was on the 21st.  When I lived in the Atlanta area there was a group of 8 of us that got together on a weekly basis to stitch and we all stitched for each others birthdays.  Time has passed and many of us have scattered or just moved on but there are still a few of us stitching for each other's birthdays.  My very good friend Tommye  stitched this beautiful sampler for me for my birthday this year.


 
   She knows I have a thing for house samplers and this one is a historic home in Southport, NC just a couple of houses down from where her parents used to live.  How cool is that!! 

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that you have tons of stitching time into the new year!  Laura