Measi's Musings

Archive for the ‘Geeky Stuff’ Category

I hope everyone in the USA had a lovely Labor Day weekend with fun activities (or productive ones, if you did some catch up work).  Mine was good – some relaxing, some actual project work.  I managed to do a nice amount of stitching thanks to episodes of Torchwood, Doctor Who, and Battlestar Galactica.  Ye Olde Coffee House by Little House Needleworks got a much added boost, as you can see in the photo.  I also put a few hours into a piece I’m stitching as a gift, but can’t post photos of it until it’s finished and sent off.

I’m only working two days this week – I have Thursday, Friday, and next Monday as vacation days, so while I didn’t get the usual house chores for the weekend done, I’ll do them later this week.

I did, however, get a lot of progress done on a massive project – organizing my stash.  I last did this back in late 2010 – if you’re reading my blog on its actual page, you might notice that “stash” tab at the top of the page.  Yeah… that’s about when I last looked at the list.  Unfortunately, that was done shortly after I returned from my first Stitchers Hideaway retreat last October.  Since then, I went to another Stitchers Hideaway retreat, the Celebrations of Needlework show in Nashua, and a new LNS (Bush Mountain Stitchery) opened up a mere 2 hours from my house.

My stash intake has been a bit out of control this year – and I jokingly blame Lisa – who has been my partner in crime for all of these adventures.  Not really, of course.  What’s actually happened is that over the past year, I’ve had one of those lucky times in my life where my knowledge of my own hobby expanded greatly.  I’ve been stitching for many, many years (25-ish), but my knowledge of different designers and fabrics and fibers really only started to expand about six years ago, and common in-person connection with other stitchers honestly didn’t start much before last September, when the Rhode Island Stitchers group first started getting together.  Once those pieces started falling into place, I began learning from other people rather than just the self-taught things that I’d picked up along the way.  I’m no longer just admiring things over the internet but completely intimidated by them – I’m finally feeling some confidence that I could actually delve into those crazy projects by Heaven and Earth Designs or Chatelaine.

It’s glorious, really… but also a bit dangerous on the wallet!

With Lisa’s help, I sorted through 99% of my charts, and she was kind enogh to organize them in piles by designer before putting them back in the magazine holders from IKEA that I keep them in.  I’d already made a good dent in my magazines several months ago, and I also did an inventory of my spare specialty flosses.  I’m not going to bother with DMC or Sullivans floss – Lisa had a good point when she reminded me how often that inventory’s going to change, and it’s too much of a headache.

Among my stash I did find duplicates of a couple patterns (apparently I really, really like them) – so two items are already reserved for the WIPocalypse stash box!

Erich and I got together with the guys on Monday and played a session of his long-standing (and long on hold) Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I have to admit, I just don’t have the mental stamina for it anymore.  Maybe it’s because I’m out of practice with the mental focus required for gaming for many hours on end, but after three hours or so, my brain just starts to wander.  I seem to always leave the games these days feeling guilty because I’m just not able to “stay on task” such as it is, despite the fact that for quite a bit of the time, there’s simply not much for me to do.  And yesterday was one of those days where I really should have paid attention better – the module Erich incorporated into his campaign was a bit overpowered for our group.  We struggled through it with a lot of trouble.

Ah well… it’s only a game, right?

But still – a good weekend, with decent weather that defied the rainy forecast.  The rain arrived this morning rather assertively, and it’s been cool and damp all day and will likely stay that way until sometime Thursday.  It’s actually cool enough that we almost – almost – have all of the windows closed.

Tonight I’m already in bed before 11 pm, which is highly unusual for me.  I had a cup of Sleepytime tea about an hour ago, hoping I can catch a bit more sleep than last night because I was dragging all day.  Hopefully tomorrow won’t be too insane and I can enjoy my second long weekend.  :)

According to NPR’s summer reader survey, these are the top 100 Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels.  My biggest issue here is that they call some of these novels, but they’re actually multiple books in a series.  So… there’s a bit of fudging here.  I may lose some serious geek cred on this list.  I’ll admit that I don’t particularly like true, straight forward sci-fi.  I find it a bit dry and difficult to deal with.

Bold = ones I’ve completed
Italics = ones I’ve attempted/partially finished

More than 60,000 ballots were cast in our annual summer reader’s survey — click here to see the full list of 100 books, complete with links and descriptions. Below is a printable list of the top 100 winners. And for even more great reads, check out the complete list of 237 finalists.

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card

4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert

5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin – I’m on book 5 now.  Counting this as a yes.

6. 1984, by George Orwell

7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan – I gave up in book 8, when I couldn’t recall anything of importance after book 5.

13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell

14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson

15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore

16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov

17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein

18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss

19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley

21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick

22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King

24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke

25. The Stand, by Stephen King

26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman

30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein

32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams

33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey

34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein

35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller

36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne

38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys

39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells

40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny

41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings

42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson

44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven

45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin

46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien

47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White

48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke

50. Contact, by Carl Sagan

51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons

52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

54. World War Z, by Max Brooks

55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle

56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman

57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett

58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson

59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold

60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett

61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind

63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson

66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist

67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks

68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard

69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb

70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson

72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne

73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore

74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi

75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson

76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke

77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey

78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin

79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire

81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson

82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks

84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart

85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson

86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher

87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe

88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn

89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan

90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock

91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury

92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley

93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge

94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov

95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson

96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis

98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville

99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony

100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

Yeah, I have quite a bit of reading I should be doing.  o.O

So far, it’s been a busy but fun weekend. Erich is working all weekend thanks to a huge personnel move to new quarters (hooray, OT!), so our schedules are a little weird.

Yesterday morning I had a great time stitching with the other members of the Rhode Island Stitchers group, including a couple of new women who I hope will return. The library is much quieter in the summer, but it’s been a boon to our group – we were sitting at only 4-6 members for quite a while, and the last three months have been great with upwards of 12-15 every time.  It’s wonderful to see all of the different projects everyone’s working – we all have different interests and tastes, even though there’s also quite a bit of overlap.

Afterwards, I drove Matt to work at Battleground in Plainville.  Since Erich and I had evening tickets for the final Harry Potter movie at Patriot’s Place in Foxboro, I decided to stay at the store and relax rather than drive back home.  I’m about a week late in sending off Linda’s piece for the 2010 RR, and so I’m frantically trying to get the final stitches in before I mail off on Monday.  Catherine, who I send to for this robin, has been out of state on vacation, and if I mail it to her on Monday, it should arrive shortly after she returns home.  So really, it’s not a huge deal that I’m late, but it’s still annoying me.

Anyway, I got some good stitching in on the piece yesterday.  I have perhaps another 100 stitches to go, and then I can package Linda’s up for the mail.  Photos will come later today.  :)  I’m also going to get some work done on the 2011 round robin piece for Tali – which is Mirabilia’s Sleeping Beauty.  That’s due to be mailed on Friday, and I think I’ll be in good shape to plunk my hours in before then.

Erich and I decided to treat ourselves to the fancy seats at the theater for Harry Potter.  The Showcase cinema at Patriot Place has a Lux Level, which is a 21+ seating area with very comfy leather seats, in-seat dining and a full bar.  The tickets themselves are a bit outrageous, but the food is priced reasonably – especially for a movie theater, and the drinks are good.  The seats in particular are great – they’re wide (great for my plus-sized butt), with a small swing-arm table for your drinks and food, and there is a center elbow rest between each set of two seats that goes up, so Erich and I were able to cuddle on our own little loveseat in the theater.  The only thing missing is an elevated foot rest.

The movie was… okay.  I don’t know.  My feelings on it are really mixed.  I think if I’d never read the books, I’d be very pleased, but I admit to being disappointed.  I don’t like all of the scene rewrites made for the movie (especially after part 1, where the movie did stick quite well to the book), and I felt the pace was really, really rushed for absolutely no reason.  It’s the shortest Harry Potter movie, and frankly it shows – it felt flat and rushed and almost like a checklist of scenes with no depth in the vast majority of them.  I haven’t liked Yates’ style since he took over the franchise – it’s really just a shame that he’s on record as stating he doesn’t like long movies – it’s pretty clear he’s more interested in time than quality.  Huge plot holes everywhere, including items that WERE brought up in book one that just get erased in book 2.  I expected to be emotional, as it’s a very emotional story.  I was crying when I read the book.  I just sat there in stunned silence during the latter half of the movie, and was honestly rather angry when I left, especially by the last ten minutes or so.   Maybe that will change when I see parts 1 and 2 together – but yeah, I thought the final movie was such a huge letdown.  It didn’t need to be – if it had actually stuck to the book, it would have been fantastic.

So today while Erich’s at work I’m doing some projects around the house.  I’m about to get the first loads of laundry in.  I have some cleaning to do, and then I’ll get to work on some stitching.

Hope you’re having a good weekend.  Stay tuned for another entry this evening, including a new stitchy giveaway!  :)

Warning – really, really long rambly entry ahead…

I seriously can’t believe the year is half over already. Granted – 2011 has been a very bad one for me so far, and part of me is wishing it would move its butt out of the way so I can get to (hopefully) a brighter 2012, but at the same time, I feel like time is flying past me in a crazy, out-of-control sort of way that leaves me feeling like I need to get my own butt in gear and catch up.

I hope my fellow Americans had a relaxing, fun 4th of July – and that Canadian readers had a fun Canada Day. Ours was filled with activities over the weekend, but the 4th was intentionally quiet for us. Erich’s going to be working the majority of July on big projects for his company, and so his fun and relaxation was really the important thing, since he’s not going to have full weekends for many weeks.

We went to an impromptu BBQ on Saturday afternoon hosted by our friends Marc and Erin (and their adorable baby boy, Jack). It was a small affair with only six of us – honestly a perfect size. I brought my mom’s BBQ Beanpot recipe that is stupid easy and so, so good. I should post that tonight, actually…

On Sunday Erich and Matt went off to play a Star Wars d20 game with the guys (translation for the non-geek readers: think Dungeons & Dragons, but with the Star Wars universe as the setting), which means I had the house to myself for many, many hours. I spent virtually the entire day in my stitching chair working on round robin stitching and watching episodes of the X-Files that I hadn’t seen in years.

By Monday I’d developed a weird cough that had me feeling a bit off. We spent most of the day relaxing in the house due to the heat, nibbling on burgers and dogs all day, playing games and watching episodes of Dexter. The cats, as you can see in the photo at the top of this entry, had wonderfully lazy afternoons cuddling up together in our sunroom. At night our neighborhood exploded with fireworks, as they’re now legal here in Rhode Island, and we watched our next door neighbor’s rather impressive display. The bugs finally drove us inside. The night ended with a slight scramble when I heard a HUGE buzzing near our family room light. I thought it might be one of those big bumblebees that I refer to as “drunken bumbles” because they seem to crash into everything. Anyway… the bug was bouncing furiously around the light, then careened under the dining room table, where I managed to get to it before Noby and Gus did anything to it. It turned out to be a Junebug. It was promptly scooped up and dumped outside.

My cough then decided it really wanted to make me miserable by preventing me from getting any form of sleep that night, so yesterday’s return to work was impressively zombified. I couldn’t tell you what I actually did yesterday, but apparently I did do quite a bit because I have several “finished” checkmarks in my planner list. All I know is that I crawled into bed promptly upon arriving home last night in the 7 pm hour, napped fitfully until after midnight, when Erich found some nighttime cold meds, was up from about 12:30-2 am, took the nighttime meds once my previous round had “expired,” and those finally conked me out for the rest of the night.

I’m feeling a bit better today, although I’m a bit out of it from the weird sleep schedule last night. The cough is still here, although not as bad as yesterday. I have no other symptoms, which is very, very weird. Allergies, perhaps? Or maybe a cold that’s so light that I don’t notice it over my normal allergies? Who knows. Whatever it is, it’s annoying.

In other news, I keep watching what’s happening at home and groaning. Montana is not having a good year. In early June, they had massive storms that flooded virtually every river in the state. The larger problem was that it had been so cold this spring that most of the snowpack was still there – and now it’s melting off, keeping the floodwaters active. And then on Friday, an oil pipeline near the refinery in Laurel (about 16 miles up river from my hometown of Billings) ruptured, sending oil down the Yellowstone River for upwards of – at last check – 125 miles. They’re now testing soil in North Dakota, fearing that the oil could reach where the Yellowstone meets the Missouri. Seriously, it’s like they can’t win recently. Last year, a tornado took out METRA (aka Rimrock Auto Park Arena, as I think it’s lamely named now), which is the state’s largest indoor arena. And now all of this. It’s just a horrid turn of events in a state that was already poorer than most of the country. *sigh*

Anyway. God, this is becoming a depressing entry, isn’t it? It’s not intentional – blame it on my weird cough. Onward to happier things!

It’s July, which means that there are some lovely stitchers doing midsummer giveaways.

Parsley has a fabulous Christmas in July giveaway full of ornament stitching goodness.

Debbie is giving away an amazing die-cutter machine that’s great for quilters and crafty finishers alike. I haven’t joined this one because I know I don’t have the time for another hobby, but still – this machine looks awesome.

I’m itching to do a new giveaway soon. Maybe I’ll put something together on my next wandering up to the stitchy store.

If you haven’t yet, please pop back two entries and give me opinions on what I should stitch for the next square in the Mirabilia round robin!

I hope everyone who celebrates Easter had a lovely holiday.  Erich and I had a quiet Sunday, mostly spent at home.  The weather was gorgeous for most of the day.  More on what we did late in the afternoon in a bit though…

I updated my status on Rachel’s round robin earlier this week.  Kris’ piece for the 2011 edition of the UFO round robin is now ready to travel again.  :)  This piece is quite busy, but it has adorable colors in it – and was a perfect springtime stitch.  It’s the Spring Sampler from Kooler Design studios.  When Kris sent it, she’d just started it:

And here’s how it’s being sent to Blu tomorrow:

I got to cross stitch a peep!  The little spots are jelly beans.  Once there’s some backstitching in here, it’s really going pop.  :)

My next project is the Mirabilia RR, which I have a comfortable start on.  Hopefully I’ll have it done by the weekend, although this is my busiest week of the year at work, so I may not get it done until next week.  Regardless – it’s my go-everywhere piece until it’s done!

So early this afternoon, I got our laundry done and finished my hours on Kris’ piece.  Erich was playing Dead Space 2 on the Xbox.  I swear half of my stitching is done to the sounds of violence in some form.  It’s really odd.  But anyway… it was absolutely gorgeous outside, and I told Erich that as soon as the laundry was done, I really wanted to go somewhere so we could enjoy the day a bit (mostly so we didn’t spend the entire weekend in front of the TV).  Saturday had been a wash-out, and I definitely had a case of cabin fever.

We headed out around 3 to head up to Battleground.  Matt was working today, and he had told us he was pretty sure it would be dead due to the holiday.  We figured we’d take advantage of the quiet time to geek with him.  I’ve been itching to do some Warhammer painting, but it’s not really something I can do easily here at home – so it’s really a Battleground-specific project.

We headed north, and pop! goes Erich’s left front tire about 4 miles from home in Pawtucket.  Now… this was not unexpected.  When Erich had the massive car repair last month, we were told that there was a bubble on his tire and that the rim looked cracked.  Thankfully it happened in such a way that Erich was able to maintain control easily and pull over – and into a relatively good location to swap out the tire.  Donut was switched out on the axle, and we continued on our way.  I’m very happy that this didn’t happen during a commute or during bad weather, though!

We got up to Battleground, and found only my car in the parking lot (Matt’s been driving it lately).  For the next hour or so, the three of us were the only ones at the store.  All of the doors were open, giving the place a nice, fresh breeze.  It was great. I got to work painting.  Erich decided he wasn’t in the mood and curled up with a good game of Civilization 4.

About three hours later, I’d put some serious work into my figurines, and managed to finish my first two:

Erich put these two together and primed them, but I did all of the painting, very slowly by hand.  For perspective, the taller one is probably about 3 inches tall.  The smaller one is, obviously, half that.  So the details on these things are insanely tiny.  My painting skill is not great, but I’d say they’re pretty good for my first model finishes ever! (now I just have about 50 more to do…)

I know they’re not exactly the girliest thing out there.  I do have a batch of completely over the top girly ones in store – intentionally so to annoy all of the guys.

For those who aren’t familiar with these figurines, they’re Orks (yes… spelled that way) from a tabletop game called Warhammer 40K.  It’s a futuristic war strategy game where players battle each other with squads of different races of figures. Different types of figures are worth different point totals and have different abilities.  It’s quite complex.  I haven’t played yet beyond an intro game, but I wanted to try my hand at creating the figures.  :)

So overall, a very productive crafty weekend here!

I’m finding myself, as many other bloggers did after 9-11, having difficulty trying to write about normal everyday things when the news coming out of Japan is so horrible.  The situation is so incredibly unreal and gigantic that I cannot comprehend it enough to form any practical thoughts beyond horror and sadness.   Anything I could say would sound so shallow and trite.  It makes my life seem shallow and trite.

But that is what I have to write about.  I have no first-hand knowledge of Japan, nor would I claim to.  I just hope that the determination I’ve learned and read about the Japanese people shines through and gets them through this tragedy.

So forgive this entry, which probably sounds completely flippant in light of things…

The past week or so has been pretty wild in Measi land.  I swear that St. Patrick’s Day/Evacuation Day is the only reason I know what day it is.  To sum up my week:

• Friday afternoon through Sunday:  Attended PAX East in Boston with Erich (I’ll be putting my recap entry together this weekend.  It definitely deserves its own entry)
  Also during the weekend… 
  • Friday night – severely bruised my right pinky to the point that rubbing nail polish remover hurts like hell… over fake nails.  I’m still worried I may lose my nail completely, but I have hope it’s going to heal.
  • Saturday morning – got the other 9 nails done anyway.  In a pretty green for the holiday.
  • Also Saturday morning – monthly stitch-in with the Rhode Island Stitchers (in which I got virtually nothing done other than drool over the hooked rugs that the Little Rhody Thrummers group had set up in one of the other rooms)
• Sunday night – start the post-con laundry catchup, and suddenly I hear Erich yelling “we got a problem!” from the basement.  Our water heater and storage tank had ruptured, sending water everywhere across the floor.  Thankfully we caught it early, and aside from possibly a couple things at the bottom of a single paper box that was in the water flow, I don’t think we’ve lost anything of value.  Hopefully.
• Monday – Erich stayed home, called the oil company, and they came out to replace the heater.  So much for our tax refund.  *groan*
• Later in the day, he got slammed with a nasty stomach bug that we’re thinking was a case of food poisoning with how it came on.  He couldn’t pick me up from the train, so I ended up on an adventure to get home from downtown Providence (finally ending in a taxi home because there was weird stuff happening at the bus depot)
• Yesterday – Erich’s PT Cruiser starts really making a loud, grinding noise.  Like… really loud.  And today it’s worse.  Bad enough that it’s  now officially at rest until it goes to the shop.  I’m thinking it’s something to do with the wheel bearings.  Hopefully it’s not an expensive fix.
• That, of course, means that we have three people who need to go to work in different places tomorrow – and we have one car.  So it’ll be another fun trek through Massachusetts tomorrow morning – first to drop Matt off in Plainville, then Erich in Dorchester, and finally landing in downtown Boston.

So yeah – it’s been an expensive week and a crazy one.  I seriously can’t wait for the weekend.  I dream of sleeping with no alarm clock.  It will be done on Sunday.  Oh yes – it will.

On the plus side, today was absolutely gorgeous – the first real day of spring (yeah, yeah… Ostara’s a couple days away still, I know…).  Everything just smelled good – nice and clean and earthy.  I love it.  My daffodils, hyacinths, and day lilies are all coming up through the ground.  My mums are already making an effort, too, even though they won’t bloom until August.  I’ve seen a few forsythia bushes in the city heat islands starting to bloom.  During our drive through Milton, MA this morning, I noticed that the yards are starting to green up, too.  I cannot wait for the first night we can keep the windows open.

Needless to say, it’s been quite the unusual week.  I’ve managed to get several hours of stitching in, too – all on Annette’s Mira RR.  My progress is coming along well.  I’m hoping to have all of the cross stitches done so I can add kreinik and the beads starting late this weekend and have it ready to go within the week.  I really don’t want to be stitching up to the last minute on it.  I’ll post a pic once my square is done.  I will say – I’m quite happy with my stitching so far.

I’ll end on a few randoms…

There’s still time to enter my Blogoversary giveaway, too!  Just look at my sidebar for the link.  :)

Also – Rhode Island Stitchers (my local stitch ‘n bitch group) is hosting a Spring Giveaway with some fun stash, if you want to try your chances!

Sue, the organizer of Stitcher’s Hideaway, posted her blog report on the Alumni Retreat (what happens in Mystic stays in Mystic…).  I think the photo of me worshipping my Saturday morning coffee may be about as truthful a photo as you’ll ever see of me.

I’ll write more this weekend, hopefully over a calm cuppa on Sunday morning.  :)

Has it seriously been almost a month since I updated?!?  The time is flying!  I suppose this will be another huge catch-up post, then.

Announcements first:

One of my friends and fellow local stitchers (HeraChronicles) is having a Christmas Giveaway on her blog.  Go over HERE to check it out!

The Rhode Island Stitchers group now has a BLOG.  :)  We decided that while being on Facebook is great, we also want something a bit more flexible to share info about the group, what we’ve been doing, what we’re planning, and what we’ve discovered.  Stop on by, say hi – and if you’re in the area, please stop in at one of our events.  :)

Signups for a new round of the Unfinished Object (UFO) Round Robin is starting over on the yuku boards HERE.  Right now the planned start date is in late February.  So if you have a stalled project that you’d like to have help with (and in return, help others with theirs), pop on by.  :)

Random life news:

Thanksgiving weekend was fun, albeit all over the place.  We went to Erich’s dad’s house up in New Hampshire for Thanksgiving Day and had a nice, quiet day with them.  Erich had to work Friday, so it was only a single-day visit.  Friday evening we headed out to Brewster, Mass. on Cape Cod for our annual weekend with friends.  This used to be a LAN party, but along the way a lot of us got married.  We bought houses.  Kids are starting to come into the picture.  All of those events means that there isn’t the money to blow on upgrading computers anymore.  So for the last three years, it’s been a bit more free-form.  We do a full Thanksgiving dinner (I cook, because I do make the best turkey around), which is a welcome change from the weekend full of Bagel Bites, taquitos, and oreos of younger years.   This year Erich ran a weekend-long session of his Saga-edition Star Wars d20 campaign.  I take advantage of the weekend to catch up on some stitching amid the cooking.  It was a good time, although next year I’ve asked that I’m not the sole cook.  I’d like to enjoy a bit more of the weekend.

Work’s been pretty good.  I had a great yearly review, and I’m finally settled into somewhat of a routine with my workload, even if it is still a ton of work.  I’m crossing my fingers that the week between Christmas and New Years is quiet so I can do some serious file clean-out for storage and start the new year feeling like files are under control.

Erich’s also enjoying his new job so far, which is great.  I think after being stuck on a phone all day at his last job, being able to get up and go around the building on tech requests is a welcome change.  He definitely seems much happier these days (which also helps me feel better).

Colley’s slowly getting better after the bout of fatty liver disease/hepititis this autumn.  He’s now finally off the meds, and his weight has stabilized at about 10 pounds – which is a full six pounds lighter than he was in July this year.  He has to go back for a blood test to make sure his liver chemicals are back to normal, but overall he just has more energy and is more responsive than he was around Labor Day.  I’m relieved because it was so serious.  The only downside is now he’s having a heavy shed due to the stress and illness – he’s blown almost his entire undercoat, which makes him look even thinner and a bit scraggly.  A new undercoat is growing in thankfully – so I’m not concerned.   He’s going to be really cold this winter, though.  Perhaps this will be the year he finally snuggles under the covers!

Stitching:

I’m in over my head.  What else is new?  :)

I’ve been doing an insane amount of stitching in the last month.  Three ornament finishes (Yes!  Three!), one UFO RR round done, and the other is almost ready to mail home.  I still have a couple more ornaments to do for the holidays, but they’re not quite as stressful now.

So here are the ornaments: (click for a larger photo)

Left to Right, they are:

Teresa Wentzler Beginner Whitework Ornament.  I made this for the annual Teresa Wentzler Christmas Ornament Exchange (TWCOE).  It’s currently en-route to its recipient.
Square from Pocketful of Peppermints by Blue Ribbon Designs.  This was for an exchange with the Rhode Island Stitchers group.
Frosty Blue by Blackberry Lane Designs (from the 2010 Just Cross Stitch Ornie issue).  I made this for the Life’s a Stitch exchange.  It’s also currently en-route to its recipient.

Frosty Blue was a case of not reading directions well – it was supposed to be stitched over one, and by instinct I started stitching over two.  So what was originally to be a 3-inch ornie is now a 6-inch “oh, we have a big gap in the tree here, honey” ornament (blush).  I’m happy with the results, even if it came out HUGE.

I’ll talk about UFO RR stitching in my next post.  Quite a bit going on there!

Hope everyone’s having a good weekend!

- Mel.

So that episode happened.

Meh.

(sigh)

Most definitely spoilers ahead… and yes, feedback and "nonono, Mel… you’ve missed something…" is definitely appreciated here.

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So then…

(spoilers for both episodes below the cut)

Read the rest of this entry »

Non-spoilery… liked the ep, warming to Eleven.

Spoilery thoughts under the cut…

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Haven’t posted in a couple weeks even though I’ve been meaning to. Nothing’s wrong – I’m just busy with a bunch of little things now that the new year has started.

Another birthday has come and gone – I’m 35. Oddly, this one does feel different, although I’m not quite sure how to describe it.

Work’s fine. The pace has been uneven, but that’s to be expected in the new year. I’m still stressed about the things that normally stress me, but overall… work’s just fine.

I started on some fanfic early in the month, but I’ve been distracted by all of the other stuff going on in my life. Erich has some gaming dates with the guys in the next few weeks, though – so I may reserve some of my time to just tinker. No idea where it will lead. I’m not putting any expectations on myself other than to scribble some scenes and see if anything takes me anywhere. I’m debating posting draft scenes under a friends’ lock on LiveJournal for feedback… any thoughts?

I’ve been doing a decent amount of stitching, too. As part of “Guilt Free January” over on The Wagon, I’ve started two pieces so far this month: Legends of the Dragons and Astrology Sampler. I’ll post pics this weekend on them. I’ve debated starting one more piece for Guilt Free January to throw some variety into my rotations the rest of this year… I’m mulling over starting Spring Queen by Mirabilia or Witchy Washy by Raise the Roof. Not sure yet… but I probably will get something else underway in the next week or so.

I haven’t, to my surprise, been playing a lot of World of Warcraft. Erich tossed the Guild Leader tag on me earlier this month, and I need to start doing something to salvage the guild in some way. Not sure what yet – it will be a casual setup, but I need to get on the polls I took earlier this month.

That’s it for now – new work just came in, so I need to get offline.

Haven’t posted in a couple weeks even though I’ve been meaning to. Nothing’s wrong – I’m just busy with a bunch of little things now that the new year has started.

Another birthday has come and gone – I’m 35. Oddly, this one does feel different, although I’m not quite sure how to describe it.

Work’s fine. The pace has been uneven, but that’s to be expected in the new year. I’m still stressed about the things that normally stress me, but overall… work’s just fine.

I started on some fanfic early in the month, but I’ve been distracted by all of the other stuff going on in my life. Erich has some gaming dates with the guys in the next few weeks, though – so I may reserve some of my time to just tinker. No idea where it will lead. I’m not putting any expectations on myself other than to scribble some scenes and see if anything takes me anywhere. I’m debating posting draft scenes under a friends’ lock on LiveJournal for feedback… any thoughts?

I’ve been doing a decent amount of stitching, too. As part of “Guilt Free January” over on The Wagon, I’ve started two pieces so far this month: Legends of the Dragons and Astrology Sampler. I’ll post pics this weekend on them. I’ve debated starting one more piece for Guilt Free January to throw some variety into my rotations the rest of this year… I’m mulling over starting Spring Queen by Mirabilia or Witchy Washy by Raise the Roof. Not sure yet… but I probably will get something else underway in the next week or so.

I haven’t, to my surprise, been playing a lot of World of Warcraft. Erich tossed the Guild Leader tag on me earlier this month, and I need to start doing something to salvage the guild in some way. Not sure what yet – it will be a casual setup, but I need to get on the polls I took earlier this month.

That’s it for now – new work just came in, so I need to get offline.

So far, I’m doing very well on my stitching since I picked it back up in early October. I’ve made great progress on a few projects, I’ve finished a couple little projects, learned how to bead and how to do several specialty stitches… so yeah, I’m very pleased.

Of course, the big looming issue is that I do have quite a few projects that are in UFO land (Unfinished Object, for the non-stitchers who read). Many of them are large projects that will take me literally hundreds of hours to finish.

I’ve already become active again on the discussion boards I used to frequent a few years ago… one of them specifically for UFO’s has died off to almost no people posting. Other boards, though, are strong and active.

I’ve also joined a few SAL’s (Stitch-a-Longs) to push projects that I currently have along, and between that and the forums (and the blog here), I think I’ll have a good community to get stuff done.

So the SALs I’ve either joined or will shortly start stitching for are:

Christmas Design SAL being hosted by Yoyo.

For this one, I’m going to continue on my Cats on a Staircase stocking, which I really, REALLY want to get finished for Christmas next year – partially so I can justify starting some of my other holiday patterns.

Cross Stitch SAL on Facebook (not visible unless you’re logged in to Facebook)

This SAL has a monthly stitching weekend where people post their beginning and ending progress of whatever they feel like working on. They also encourage weekly update photos (although I haven’t been doing that). It’s a good random SAL that I can adapt to whichever project I’m focusing on in my current rotation. This month’s SAL is Dec. 26-31st. I guess they’re dragging it through the week due to the holidays.

The Totally Useless SAL hosted by Yoyo

About 6 weeks ago I posted a picture of a jar with a bunch of threads and DMC labels. That would be this – it’s just a keep jar of all of the stray threads as I work through projects. The funny thing is that in my house, it actually is a useful thing – as it forced me to get a container to toss threads in so the cats don’t get to them.

I’ve Started so I’ll Finish… Eventually

If there ever were a SAL for me to join, it’s this one. Basically a cheerleader-format community blog for those projects that have stalled. I’m in very good Teresa Wentzler-lover company over there. For now, I’ve selected Egyptian Sampler and Floral Bellpull as my two UFO projects to push through on this.

Teresa Wentzler SAL – Facebook

This one I’m running, although so far it’s just me and a friend of mine. It’s exactly what it says on the tin – pick a TW project, join up and stitch with us.

I’ve also placed my name in for a round robin for 2010. I haven’t decided which of my projects will go into that one yet, but I still have a few weeks to decide. Maybe I should make a poll on it and see what others think…

Onto non-stitching stuff… it was a fairly uneventful weekend. We had our first sticking snowfall – about an inch fell on the ground for us. It’s stayed cold, so it’s not going anywhere soon. I’ve heard rumors of both rain and snow for midweek, so that will be the deciding factor, I suppose.

I managed to get a good chunk of my holiday cards done yesterday. I still have cards to address, but I’d say all but the personal family and a few close friends’ cards are done and in the mail. I’ll get the rest done by Saturday. The most important thing to me was to make sure that the international cards went out early this week to give them time to arrive at their destinations.

We haven’t bought our tree yet – that’s in the plan for later this week. As always, we’ll get a real tree. The cats are going to eat it one way or the other, so I’d rather they nibble on a real one than a fake one. Plus they smell so nice in the house. So this weekend will be decorating time.

Erich just IMed me that there’s going to be a Doctor Who marathon on BBC America this Sunday virtually all afternoon – including the uncut versions of some of the episodes (hooray!). I’m already so happy with how BBCA has grabbed back control of Doctor Who airings here in the States. SciFi (or SyFy… whatever the hell it’s calling itself these days) was so awful to it with the delay in broadcasts. BBCA is broadcasting the final 10th Doctor 2-parters only one DAY after the airings in the UK later this month (as opposed to the 4 or more month delays on SciFi).

So I guess this Sunday will be “Whomas” at our house. Hooray!

Okay, back to work. More later!

One year ago today at about this time (factoring in time differences), I was in England and just arriving into Stratford-upon-Avon.  A few hours from now (then) I’d be curled up in awesome front-center balcony seats to watch David Tennant and Patrick Stewart in Hamlet.

Man, how time flies.  I still remember most of our vacation last year as if it were yesterday.  Since it’s as good a time as any, I’m going to type all of my travel entries into my blog over the next couple weeks.  Might as well relive it through my own words. 

So a few little things to ramble about this morning.  The bad thing of the week is that our furnace is being pissy and won’t kick on.  Erich called our oil company (who does a service contract for us), and they were able to come out right away.  The service guy found a nozzle that sprays oil into the burner was all gunked up and replaced it for us.  Matt then ran the furnace for about an hour, and it was doing fine.

Then last night, it decided not to kick again.  So with a low of 35 degrees last night, we had no heat.  It was a very painful morning to be walking on wood floorboards today.

Erich’s calling the company back today to see what the next avenue is.  We are due for a standard cleaning – maybe that will help the problem.  The good thing about it is that we do have hot water.  And the furnace definitely is able to kick over, per Matt’s test yesterday.  Something’s just getting gunked up along the line.  Hopefully it’s just that the filter needs to be replaced so badly that it’s not catching stuff.

The other good thing – it’s October, and not January.

So hopefully that little problem will be solved soon.

King Richard’s was a lot of fun on Sunday.  Weather was perfect – sunny, but somewhat cool.  That always makes wearing full period dress a bit easier due to the layers.  I forgot to take pictures (d’oh!), but one of the folks in our group did… so hopefully I can get a copy from her.  The faire was absolutely PACKED on Sunday.  I’ve never seen it so busy.  So people either are doing better financially around here, or they just saved up any of their spending money to go to the faire.  It’s not a cheap day by any means.

Stitching updates…

I did do quite a bit of stitching this weekend on Cats on a Staircase - only to discover I did all of it in the wrong color, and it’s not something I can work around.  Grrrrr.  So a-frogging I’m now going.  Five hours of work, all being picked out. 

I’ve also been doing some stitching on my evening commute on Spirit Dragon.  She’s coming along nicely – I may have her done in a week or so of train stitching!  I’ll post update photos either tonight or tomorrow, I think.

Still fighting my cough – I’m now on three weeks and it’s incredibly annoying.  The cold is not helping it at all.  Nor did Faire dust.  Since I don’t have any signs of infection, I’m hesitant to go in to the doctor on it, though. Past experiences have been a waste of my time – they just tell me to drink fluids and be careful about over-exertion and wait for it to run its course.  So… that’s what I’ve been doing this time anyway.  It’s not a particularly bad cough, as far as my experiences go.  It’s dry, and I’m averaging a single violent coughing fit every day that makes me sick to my stomach.  But compared to what I normally go through?  Not even close to worrisome.  It’s just annoying.

 Not to mention that I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the GP I went to this year.  I’m going to keep my appointment with him next year since it may have just been a bad first-impression, but he didn’t seem particularly interested in the concerns I brought with me on my physical.  He wanted to focus entirely on my weight… which yes, is an important issue – but so are my concerns about my dermatographia and digestion problems.  Grrr…

We’ll see. 

So that’s my thoughts in a nutshell today… more later once I get some projects cleaned off my desk.