Noel, III

Whew!  Today, I finally found a tech support person at Earthlink who could tell me my wifi password.  While trying to locate it for myself, I managed to not be able to gain access to the internet at all.  GRRR.  So, once again, I called Earthlink, resigned to spending lots of quality time on hold.  I talked to five different technicians, 4 of whom, after seeing my abysmal record, kept tossing me forward.  Finally, I reached Ronald.  While waiting on hold, I worked on this week's daily receipts.
After 2 1/4 hours, I not only had wifi again, but had a file where I could actually see my password.  And just in case you think I am a total idiot, it is obviously a machine-generated password.  Nothing like that has ever emerged from my brain!  This little battle has been going on for 6 weeks since my internet went out for 2 1/2 days. Earthlink doesn't want to talk about that little episode.  Anyway, I have had trouble every time I have tried to download books to my kindle since that time.  But no more, I'm free at last!

Now that I can read again, on to my stitching.  Stuart came in this week and chastised me for not showing enough respect for the new version of Silent Night that Macy just completed stitching. He forced me to acknowledge that it was a simple, but elegant design.  Mea culpa!  Here it is before going to the pillow finisher.

When it returns from the finisher, I will take its photograph along with its 10-mesh version and the 13-mesh and 10-mesh versions of Merry Christmas.  All examples of how timeless good designs are.

Peeking out of the ribbons, you can see the lime green ornament that I stitched in diagonal mosaic, using a Kreinik metallic.  I have been continuing the mosaic stitch in very velvet for the ribbon and the woven stitch in the background using Stardust from silk 'n ivory.  This past week was truly the beginning of the season--that means that when I return home, I am wiped out.  My husband is very understanding and tries to find easy meals so I don't spend lots of time prepping and cooking.  Thursday and Friday I had Maryland steamed crabs from the Crab Stop, a new business in Vero.  They were yummy with a side of home-made hash browns (Trubey's recipe).  Of course, someone might wonder about the wounds on my fingers from trying to break open the shells.  My husband is allergic to crab, so he scrambled out a dinner for himself both nights.