A sad but busy weekend

I had the house to myself this weekend....in fact I still do, for a few more hours...because DH's grandfather passed away unexpectedly last week. It really was rather mysterious, as he only went to see his doctor for some stomach pains about a week and a half ago...from there he had some scans done, was diagnosed with some kind of "atypical" gastric cancer, and died within a few days. As far as I know, the family still hasn't gotten much of an explanation. Anyway, the funeral was today, and DH left in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Sadly, I could not go with him -- I don't have quite enough vacation time accumulated yet at my new job. So I stayed home, built a shoe rack for the entryway, watched movies I've seen a zillion times (Harry Potter! Pirates!), and stitched.

Here's my progress on Cathy's neighborhood (again from Flickr, Blogger wants to rotate this one, too. Grrrr):

And here's my new Halloween-y start, Plum Street Samplers' "Bugs & Hisses."

I really think this is just the cutest little piece. I didn't have all the colors the pattern called for, so I improvised a bit -- I think my pumpkins might be a bit brighter than the model picture. But I still like it! There is a border that is supposed to stitched in GAST Dark Chocolate, but I don't have any of that, either. I used WDW Onyx for the cats, which were also supposed to be done in Dark Chocolate...I don't think I have enough of that for the whole border, though. Hmmm. I suppose I could go with the DMC substitute...3371.....eh. We'll see!

Yesterday my mom came out to visit, and we went out to lunch and shopping together. It was a fun couple hours...plus, Mom paid for some non-standard groceries for me, since she loves shopping at Wegman's (a regional grocery store here, for my non-local readers)!