A Slippery Slope

I'm on a slippery slope.  Here is a photo of my progress thus far with Along for the Ride.

My plan was to stitch all the cross stitches, then the back stitches, & then hunker down for a few days of colonial knot torture. However, I discovered something while stitching the last of my cross stitches ... the plume of smoke coming out of the chimney on the right.  I started stitching the plume from the top down, right there to the side of Dancer's nose (or Piglet's nose ... someone told me when they look at this design they do not see a reindeer, but a pig, & I must admit I see her point).  When I got to what was supposed to be the last 2 stitches, the ones connected to the chimney, they weren't connecting.  I was off by one.  ???  I looked & looked & counted & counted & finally found the problem.  I have an extra stitch right at the beginning of the reindeer, where his tail is.  There should be 1 stitch between the tail & the snowman's back, but I've got 2.  I also noticed that I didn't leave off a stitch on the bottom right of the reindeer's body where the front leg drops down.  As a result of these errors, the right plume of smoke needed to be fudged a bit, & I did that, & it looks okay, but darn it, that extra stitch behind the snowman's back means Dancer is one stitch longer than he should be & it's driving me crazy!!!  What can I tell you ... it's an OCD thing.  I decided I just need to put this project on the back burner (at this point I truly would consider putting it directly on the back burner of a gas stove, if you catch my drift) & ponder it for a while.  I don't normally do this ... not finish stitching something I start before moving on to something else.  In fact, I have never done this unless you count the baby sampler I started stitching for my son 30+ years ago & stopped after 2 lines.  Not lines of letters or words, mind you ... 2 lines of stitches making part of the border across the top.  I may need counseling to work my way through this.

Having found myself projectless, I scurried around last night looking for a replacement project & settled on something from my recently acquired Stacy Nash booklet, A Simply Early Christmas.  I chose to stitch the bell ornament.

Just imagine this in the shape of a bell.  It's pretty cool!  Unfortunately, in my rush to start stitching something, I neglected to read the directions carefully & I stitched it on 32 count linen, over 2, using 2 strands of floss. After finishing it I discovered I should have stitched over 2 using 1 strand of floss.  That's okay though ... it's a little larger than I prefer it to be so I'm going to stitch it again, this time on my beloved osnaburg.  I was astute enough to see a flaw in the chart.  All of the holly berries were left off the chart on the left side.  If I didn't think it was odd that there were berries on the right & not on the left, I never would've noticed this.  I took a look at the model photo & worked the berries from that.

I don't know if I'll start another bell tonight, or maybe stitch the stocking that prompted me to buy the booklet in the first place, or go on to something else.  I'll let you know   : )

Our bird visitors were rather plentiful this morning so I got a couple snaps.  Not real good ones but I'll share them anyway.  The first is a male cardinal who was pecking around the frosty ground to find some seeds. He wasn't disappointed   : )

Up on the feeder, a house finch & a chickadee were sharing a suet cake.

And here are a few photos of hawk taken a couple days ago.  He/she flew low over the back yard & then perched in one of the trees beyond the back fence.  The zoom on my camera allowed me to get a good look at this beautiful, majestic bird.

My surgery site is healing nicely at this stage but now I've got a big yellow lump in my eye ... lol!  I'm going to apply for a spot on that new reality show, How Many Things Can Go Wrong With A Person?  But seriously, the yellow lump is a mystery.  Guess I'll call the eye doctor tomorrow & schedule an appointment.  Maybe I'll get to add it to the other 3 I've got this week.  Tomorrow is a brain MRI, with & without contrast.  Tuesday is a followup with the rheumatologist. Thursday is a meeting with someone to discuss my options regarding the "very, very, very bad thing."  Please do keep me in your prayers regarding that last one.  Medical stuff is one thing ... the "very, very, very bad thing" is a totally different & scarier animal.