A start, and a finish, etc.

I have been meaning to post on my blog of my latest finish and such but so much has been going on that has kept me from doing what I need to do and want to do and instead I put many things on the back burner this week but am slowly climbing back up and getting everything done. On Monday I had finished a piece for my dad for his Birthday called "Thank You For Serving" by The Sunflower Seed. I have way too many birthdays in the summer and they trickle down to November and then in between that I have Christmas shopping to do so this year I put on my thinking cap and decided that for the adults for Christmas I am making everyone something and I decided to make my dad's birthday gift as well. That was where I ran into a few snags at first only because he is very hard to shop for and he has a hard time with manners at times and instead of biting his tongue when he gets something he does not like and lie he will be blunt and tell you he does not like it. So I was shopping online for quite some time looking at possible patterns that I may like that pertain to him and FINALLY I found this pattern that best describes my father. He dropped out of school to join the army and served in Vietnam from 1966 to 1969. Through the years even though he was not overseas he still remained active with the United States Army and was gone a lot. I hate to say this but I am not sure what it was he did all those years in the Army forgive me if this sounds bad! He more than liked it when I gave this to him on Monday evening. When he looked at this he actually cried and told me this means a lot coming from me and this is better than any gift I could have bought. All that caught me by surprise but I am thrilled he loved it so much now my only problem is how do I top this for Christmas? I hope I find a winner of a pattern like I did for his birthday! I also have been working off and on on another Halloween piece that is called Happy Hauntings. This is a pattern I got from a book that I checked out at my local library the book is called Happy Holidays in cross stitch. Last but not least I am also putting the finishing touches on another Lizzy Kate piece that I am mailing out to friend. It is called If the Broom Fits I had done this one for myself earlier in the month so it was an easy stitch. I want to finish Happy Hauntings because I need to start on another piece that I want to have done for next weekend. It is my 12th wedding anniversary on the 25th so I found a little something I want to make and give to my husband as well as a gift card to gamestop of course. Then there are a few small Halloween pieces I want to do before it is time to start Christmas stitching! Can you believe it?