4 day weekend -- woohoo!!

It's been a busy and stressful week so I'm really looking forward to the 4 day weekend. But more about that later.

Last weekend, I spent Saturday packing up my cq stuff for my presentation at the Guild on Wednesday evening.

Sunday was spent in preparation for the family Chanuka get-together at our place. It was a very nice evening. Menachem made delicous sufganiyot (jam filled fried yeast doughnuts) and latkes (fried potato pancakes) -- two kinds, regular and sweet potatoes. Add to that sour cream and Savta's homemade applesauce and that's a meal in itself. But Penina brought two salads and chumus, I put out a bean salad and some tomatoes and pickles. Yunkie and Mindy brought the drinks. And Sari and David brought cookies.

Who came? Savta and Ethel, Devora and Noam, Yunkie and Mindy and kids, Penina and Alain and boys, Alissa, Sari and David and Jojo. Shloimeh and Zena had a previous engagement. Mel is finally allowed back on his feet after having been off them since the wedding but was exhausted and feeling a little under the weather so stayed home. And Matty had just finished his third long shift in three days at the Hockey Hall of Fame so he also stayed home to recuperate.

So we had a lovely time, sitting around, talking and eating. I rarely use paper plates but I decided that since I was working the next day, I wanted to be able to finish the cleanup the same night.

This week was very stressful at work. A transaction which was supposed to close the previous Thursday kept getting extended and finally on Tuesday fell through. And we had another transaction which had been ongoing since the summer and kept getting extended and was scheduled for a final closing on Thursday. It entailed several mortgages and a ton of paperwork. So I stayed late Wednesday and Thursday and it finally closed yesterday at noon. And although the office officially closed at 3 p.m., we had a client who didn't come in until 3. I stayed until 5 because we went out to Boujadi with Joann last night and I figured that if I took the bus home, I wouldn't get home until I had to leave anyways. Menachem picked me up, we drove down Yonge -- it was totally not busy, picked up Joann and had a pleasant dinner at Boujadi. Then we went back to Joann's for coffee and dessert. Didn't stay too late though because I was falling asleep sitting up.

Wednesday evening was my presentation at the Pomegranate Guild. And either it went well or everyone lied to me... I had done a fair amount of preparation, making samples to show the methods I use, brought in my supplies to show how I lay out my stuff to choose from, and I brought in some finished pieces and works in progress. So I felt good afterwards and relieved that it was behind me!

Now everything is back in its place in my workroom and I can set about stitching again.

And that brings me back to the start of my post -- the 4 day weekend in which I plan to do very little other than stitch.

Now that I've finished the presentation, I can complete the fuschia, purple and pink blocks for shadow boxes. And I want to try my hand at making some cq postcards. And maybe even cq fridge magnets.

I have a few WIPs to work on and Gwen, my stair-climbing buddy, gave me an empty shadow box for Christmas -- I made her a cq tree ornament.

Sunday morning early Menachem leaves for winter camp for 5 days and I'm on my own. I'm invited for brunch at Shloimeh and Zena's on Sunday and then nothing for the rest of the weekend.

And Rotem and Efrat are coming on Thursday so we're really looking forward to that.

And now, I'm off to stitch.