So I figured I’d go a bit springy on the layout.

Although it really wasn’t that bad of a winter here – since New England apparently is now the warm, calm-weather spot of the United States for winter weather – I’m relieved to see spring arriving. I’m getting an itch about planting and prepping the garden for the summer. The official date for the URI Spring Fair hasn’t been announced on the university website yet, although I’m seeing May 8th on other sites. I cannot wait for the fair – I plan on raiding the heirloom tomato varieties this year to experiment with tastes and colors.

Nevermind… I just found the actual website. May 9th. I will be there, hopefully with some sort of a wagon in tow. We’re planning on putting in a real garden this year (as opposed to my Earthbox garden from last spring), and tomatoes are primary on my list so I can make lots of sauce and lots of salsa.

This past weekend I started the spring cleaning in the house. I’ve been meaning to tackle our bedroom for a while, and finally got to it on Sunday. With six cats and two thickly-haired humans, the dust behind the bed and side tables was… scary. But it has all been scrubbed, and already there’s a dramatic improvement in my morning allergies and Erich’s snoring. Needless to say… I’m going to be making sure I keep up on the heavy cleaning up there now, and not just do a quick tidy.

I’ve decided to just do the big cleaning room by room – pick one a week so I can still enjoy my weekend. This weekend I’m focusing on my office. It’ll be a warm but rainy weekend, so it’s good cleaning weather.

Tomorrow night we’re going to one of the local Catholic high schools for a production of “Bye Bye Birdie.” Our best man is directing it, so it’s the whole show of support thing. We’ve been to a few of the productions over the past couple years – the drama club is strong at the school. I’ve been impressed!

Off to bed… stitching and other updates sometime this weekend.

(oh yeah… I spent them in front of the TV watching the Olympics and stitching…)

Ready for a long post? I haven’t done one of these in a LONG time. It feels good, actually.

I started this post on March 2nd, by the way, but saved it before heading to lunch and forgot about it.  Since I’m still not as familiar with how WordPress will post things, I’m curious whether it will show up before or after the photo I just posted.

Anyway…

Crazy, crazy month. It flew by entirely too fast. BUT – it was productive, in many ways. I’ll talk about stitching in a sec – but I’ll start with the general life stuff.

Erich and I have *gasp* finally gone bowling. It’s a bit of an in-joke, really. I mean, we’ve been together for nine years this May, and we’d never gone bowling. We’d talked about it – and we live within a mile of three separate bowling alleys (although one’s duck pin only, so that may not count), but we’d never gone.

Our best man and his wife thankfully changed that when they invited us to the Sunday morning bowling hangout they’re doing up in Brockton. So… 9:30 on Sunday morning, we’re now hanging out with them at the lanes, bowling a few games since there’s a special to rent lanes by the hour and bowl as many games as you can. Cheap morning – gets us up and moving (and getting some slight exercise, at least!)

We’ve also decided to start doing one other night of bowling per week down by us – the lane in Cranston just down Rt. 1 from us does dollar per game nights on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after 8 p.m., which works perfectly for us. So tonight we’ll go after we eat dinner at home and bowl 4 or 5 games.

I’m still playing pretty badly – the last time I’d been bowling was at the end of high school, and 17 years and about 140 pounds more weight (yeah… seriously *hangs head in shame) have completely thrown off my approach in every way. I’m rebuilding it from basics – right now focusing on the swing itself to get my accuracy, and then I’ll add steps into it. Right now if I do a step-approach, my swing gets thrown off because of the width of my hip, and I swing my arm diagonally across my body just as I do while walking. If I do a stand and swing, I have far better accuracy.

The plan next paycheck is to buy our own bowling shoes – just a few times at the lanes will pay them off (and they’ll be ours, not the worn out rental ones that god knows who has used). I’m seriously debating buying a pair of tri-color bowling shoes… because they’re bowling shoes - it seems like it’s a requirement! I’ve honestly always thought the rental shoes at the lanes were cute in a ugly rebellious sort of way.

So… hooray for hobbies as a couple!

Other stuff… Doctor Who is back on air in the UK on Easter weekend, staring here in the States on Apr. 17th. So my weekends will now be full of geekery again. I’m nervous but excited about the new Doctor. I will miss Tennant a lot in the role, but hopefully Matt Smith is fantastic, too. Steven Moffat is amazing, so if nothing else – I know I’ll enjoy the storylines.

Work’s been busy – quite a bit of overtime lately. Some parts of it are still annoying as hell, but meh, that’s work.  I have a job and for the most part, I enjoy it.  I work for a good company.  The things I do in my job are enjoyable, and most of the people I work with are, too.

Oh… and since I’m in New England, I saw no snow in February. No. Really. All of that crap that dumped on the Mid-Atlantic? Never saw it. We had a decent amount of rain, but that’s all. The first storm that gave Washington almost 30 inches or whatever? The weather forecasters up here actually apologized on air for their bad forecasts because they wound up being absolute duds. Everyone called off school and declared snow emergencies, and we barely got anything that day. Boston even offered to reimburse fines and towing fees for cars that had parked on the street – THAT was how badly off they were!

Stitching Stuff

I’ll get my final Stitching Olympics photos up late this week once I know what our weekend schedule is. The final tally, however – 10 projects worked. I managed to put stitches into all but two of my UFO projects (which I define as anything that has sat untouched for 6 months or more), plus a couple WIPs, plus started a piece for an exchange for the Life’s A Stitch board called “Hush Hush.” That’s due to be mailed out on the 15th, so I’ll be focusing on that piece until it’s done and ready to go.

Two projects are now within a couple hours of finishing – Home is Where the Cat Is (finally!) and Elemental Dragon:Spirit. Both essentially have maybe 90 minutes to two hours of backstitching each. They’re both on my radar for March.

So I’m very pleased… even if my goal list for February went extremely askew:

For February, my goals were

1) Rotate through all of my WIPs and UFOs at least once  No.  I was a few projects short.  But I DID get through 10 projects last month, so I’m very happy with the progress I made.
2) Finish Home is Where the Cat Is  So close – I just ran out of time at the end of the month.  I’m 4 hours away from finishing, max.
3) Finish Spirit  All but the backstitching.  So I’m about 90 minuts max on this one from finishing.
4) Put together the individual progress pages on my website  One of these months, maybe I’ll get to this.  But it hasn’t happened for 3 now.  So… yeah.  I’ll just focus on some stitching and call a mulligan on this.
5) Finalize my rotation that will start in March  Yep.
6) Remember to photograph the TUSAL this month.  OMG I finished one of my goals this month!

Seriously though, I’m pleased with what I did this month, even if it didn’t match the goals.

For March, I want to…

1) Finish Home is Where the Cat Is
2) Finish Spirit
3) Get my Hush Hush exchange out on time
4) Get my UFO RR mailing out on time
5) Rotate through my new rotation once by the end of March

Rotation for this month will be:

Hush Hush project (finish and mail by 3/15)
Cats on a Staircase (for Yoyo’s Christmas SAL)
Elemental Dragons: Spirit (will finish)
Egyptian Sampler
Apache Wedding Blessing
Home is Where the Cat is (will finish)
Legends of the Dragons (for the TW board SAL)
UFO Round Robin – Round #1

Ah yes… the UFO Round Robin. I’m seriously excited. Our first mailing date is on March 15th, and it’s looking like it’ll be a fantastic robin. Lots of diverse projects that are going around. We’re stitching as one group of eight, and the robin will take nearly a year before it’s over.

And I’m modding this shindig. Heh. I never thought experience with modding friendship book and slam swaps would come in handy!

I’m sending my Magical Night piece, which I adopted from (I believe) Annette back in 2005 or 2006. Due to the proximity to my wedding, it didn’t get the work hours I’d hoped it would. And since I have a glut of Teresa Wentzler pieces (being insane as I am), I decided sending one of them around was probably the best choice. This one’s probably the least far along – so sending it for a robin will give it a very nice push.

Here’s where it currently stands:

Like I said… it’s not far along. But next year, hopefully it will return with a nice amount of forward progress!

Until next time…

- Mel.

Even though the snow is blowing today, I have proof that springtime is, in fact, right around the corner. I found these little pop-ups in the beds of the new parkland that divides Atlantic Avenue.

For those who’ve been to Boston, but not for a few years… this park is where the elevated portion of I-93 used to be downtown… the highway was put underground during the Big Dig, and a long stretch of parkland now runs the city from North Station/Hanover Street all the way to South Station. It’s fantastic.

Anyway… I’m thrilled. They’re only about an inch tall so far, but there are tons of them – and since Mother Nature knows best, I know that warmer weather is only a few short weeks away.

Over on The Wagon, however, I’ve been making some great progress. The competition I’m entered in is the Rotation Relay. Basically… work a minimum of 2 hours on a piece, and move on to the next in your personal rotation. So far I’ve worked on a LOT of pieces, as you’ll see. I’ve intentionally started with pieces that hadn’t been touched since I picked up stitching again back in October.

“Before” photos are on the left (most taken on January 28th to document the challenge). “Afters” are on the right. (photos pop)

Noah’s Ark

Hours: 3
Round finished on: 7 February 2010
It may be tricky to see, but all of my work on this piece were done on the ostrich panel at bottom center. It’s all over-one stitching and most was off-white on white (ick!).

Magical Night

Hours: 2
Round finished on: 8 February 2010
I would have done more on this piece, but I’m oddly missing a LOT of colors that I could have sworn I had. As of now, I’m planning on sending this piece around for the UFO Round Robin that’s kicking off on March 15th.

Elemental Dragon: Spirit

Hours: 4
Round finished on: 15 February 2010
Hooray! This piece is now finished aside from backstitching. I’ll be tackling that the first week of March once this competition’s over to get it done.

Smoky Mountain Cats

Hours: 5
Round finished on: 13 Feb 2010
I wound up spending more time on this than expected because it was in my bag for an extra-long commute. But hey, it’s more done in a very large field of blue.

Garden Sampler

Hours: 2.5
Round finished on: 11 February 2010
I’m working the piece on the left. I’ve discovered the piece on the right was simply some motif experimentation, so I’ll probably keep it for similar practice. This was a piece that I got out of Erich’s mom’s stash as we cleaned through her belongings about 18 months ago. She started it in colors that don’t match the pattern – I didn’t bother switching the green, as they’re only about a shade off from each other. I did, however, pick the flower out so I could match it to the rest of the pattern. It’s not my general stitching style, but it stitches fast – I expect I’ll enjoy it a lot.

Walk in the Woods

Hours: 2.5
Round finished on: 12 February 2010
This is another piece found in Erich’s mom’s stash. Again, not my normal style, but I do plan on finishing it. It’s stitching pretty quickly. I’m missing a couple colors. I do admit that I adore the top border.

So not bad so far!

Up this week in my list:
The “Hush Hush” piece for Life’s a Stitch
Home is Where the Cat Is
Legends of the Dragons
Spring Queen

I’m seriously considering rotating somewhat like this for the rest of the year – it definitely seems to be a fun way to rotate, essentially picking up a different piece every night.

A huge stitching update is coming within the next hour or so… I just need to write it up and link all of my photos.

So far, it’s been a good weekend all around. I did a bunch of stitching yesterday – working through three projects on my rotation for 2 hrs each. Spring Queen continues to be the very doomed piece – I had to give it a preliminary bath already for some dirt on the stitches. I must have had a loose pencil in my backpack, and on very light yellow… yeah, instant dinge. Ick. Thankfully all came out. The piece is dry, and I can start stitching on it again next time it comes up in the rotation. I’ll get photos up when I update for the Olympics tomorrow evening.

On other news that I’ve been chomping on all week (and panicking about) – it’s probably one of the few times in my life that I was very, very happy to see my period arrive. Erich and I had a bit too much fun about 2 weeks ago, and yes – while married, no… we’re not in a situation where we really are set for kids. That night, however – well… yeah. So anyway, my brain the next day started doing some math, and then I started swearing profusely. It’s not been a good couple weeks of worry. I’m very relieved that we’re not looking at a baby in 9 months. SO GLAD.

Not that the biological clock isn’t still ticking, mind – but Erich and I need to take care of a couple of things right now that really, really would cause problems had we been pregnant. And I sure as hell was not thrilled with the idea of handling a pregnancy whilst this obese.

I could do without the cramps today, though. ;P

Anyway… break over. Off to get some more work done.

It’s odd to know that there’s a raging snowstorm coming up the East Coast that’s going to absolutely bury some places in 20-30 inches of snow, yet in Rhode Island there isn’t even a flake in the forecast. Amazing how these systems work. I’m so used to hearing the Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore-Washington, DC announcement on Amtrak as if the megalopolis is this continual, reasonably small area of land that sometimes it’s easy to forget that no, it really isn’t.

In any case, my mom will be in this storm, though not in the worst of it. I’ll give her a call at some point to check in tomorrow.

My weekend should be fairly tame – I’m going to stitch all day tomorrow. Literally. Erich and Matt are off to play Dungeons & Dragons (well… a Star Wars campaign actually, but it’s tabletop roleplaying…) all day. They’ll probably leave sometime around 10 a.m., and I expect them home pretty late (10 or 11 p.m.). I’ll have the house to myself.

So stitching’s the plan – and lots of it. I’m going to be working on my Stitching Olympics rotation for The Wagon tomorrow. Unsure how many projects I’ll actually stitch. The official turnaround is at 2 hours. I am going to stick to that as best I can, but I do tend to be a slow stitcher. 2 hours may not give me a lot of progress. Still, it will be good to put stitches in a bunch of things. I have UFOs that literally have not been touched since before my wedding. I’m using the Olympic challenges to form my rotations for the rest of the year, too. I want to figure out which projects are strongly appealing right now and which projects I have a reasonable chance at finishing at some point this year. As far as I’m concerned, the more I can clean off my list, the more new projects I can start. But now I have a healthy group of projects to choose from, so no more from me until a couple others are completed, I think.

I also became the moderator for the new 2010 UFO Round Robin over on The Worldwide Round Robins board today. Susan’s a bit busy with work and other projects, and I was happy to jump in with the experience I have from years past in non-stitching exchanges. The RR’s scheduled to have its first mailing on March 15th, so if anyone’s interested in participating, pop over there, look for the 2010 UFO RR board (bottom of the page, currently) and drop me the info required. The more the merrier!

Time to go home soon, so I’m going to start tidying up around here before heading to the boat. (I drove to Hingham and took the ferry today)

Happy Friday!

The relay guidelines are to work two hours on each piece, then move on. I’ve decided to include ALL of my current WIPS and UFOs in my rotation for the month, and I’ll see where it goes from there. I’m going to do this in a screaming order. I’ll return to my normal style of rotating in March.

Project list:

Spring Queen (Mirabilia) – currently stitching
Home is Where the Cat Is (Dimensions)
Cats on a Staircase (Bucilla)
Elemental Dragons: Spirit (DD)
Apache Wedding Blessing (Kooler Design)
Egyptian Sampler (TW)
Floral Bellpull (TW)
Astrology Sampler (Witches Stitches)
Legends of the Dragons (TW, DD, BS)
Smoky Mountain Cats (Pegasus Designs)
Fantasy Triptych (TW)
Magical Night (TW)
Noah’s Ark (TW)
Millennium (TW)
Walk in the Woods (Cricket Collection)
Garden Samplers (Prairie Schooler)

I think it will be a good way for me to really take a look at what I want to do for a rotation, too. I have plenty of projects kitted up now, and there’s a nice mix of diversity in them. Hopefully that will help me progress on things – particularly those TW patterns which I love, but can’t always focus on stitching.

—

So onto my January goals…

1) Work on many new starts as I wish for guilt-free January YES – I started three projects.
2) Finish kitting any projects I’d like to start in 2010 YES. I may have overlooked a thread here or there, but I can start on any of the pieces I wanted to kit.
3) Sort any old WIP photos and redo my progress pages online ALMOST- everything’s been photographed, and I’ve updated my main page, but I still need to build the individual progress pages.
4) Have an uninterrupted 6 hours of stitching time YES – had a wonderful one two weeks ago.
5) Figure out which piece I’d like to send around for the UFO RR that will hopefully kick up over on the TWWRR board. YES – have this solved too.

So yes, a very productive month. I’m pleased.

So for February, my goals are:

1) Rotate through all of my WIPs and UFOs at least once
2) Finish Home is Where the Cat Is
3) Finish Spirit
4) Put together the individual progress pages on my website
5) Finalize my rotation that will start in March
6) Remember to photograph the TUSAL this month.

Off to get some work done. I’ll post thoughts on individual projects this week.

[Charlie Brown] I got a rock… [/Charlie Brown]

On Saturday, I met up with for a day of S.E.X. (Stash Enhancement eXperience) in Plymouth, Mass (approx. 50 minutes drive from my house). Lots of stitchy stash was had, as well as a short experience in a scary towny bar, followed by a much nicer experience in a better bar. It was a good, relaxing afternoon. Only thing we didn’t manage to do was fit in high tea and scones (with real clotted cream!!!) at the tea room on Court Street.

On my way out of town, since it’s not tourist season, plus it was dark and quiet and cold and a perfect solitary time, I swung around the corner to go look at the rock.

Yeah… THAT rock.

So here ya go… here’s Plymouth Rock, in the… quartz… as it were.

It’s really nothing exciting, sadly. It’s a big ol’ rock with 1620 stamped into it, and a repaired crack running through it. It’s on the beach, covered with a nicely lit little stone pavillion thingy.

I think the glorified American history I was taught as a child made it feel like it was supposed to be a cliff or something. It’s funny how those far-away places we’re taught about as children seem so much smaller and tangible when you see them up close. Sometimes the illusion is a far better picture.

But still – it does exist, which is kinda cool when you think about it.

I’m a bit late starting mine due to some work craziness, but this was a project kalleah suggested. I think I’ll do mine on Friday nights, just to make it a bit easier on myself. Starting next week, I’ll be doing new photos.

Galilee, Rhode Island is a teeny little village within the town of Narrangansett. It’s a very active fishing port with boats coming in and out of the harbor all of the time. As you’d expect – great, fresh seafood restaurants – and foodstores.

During the first weekend of May 2009, Rhode Island was having an absolutely perfect spring stretch. We were craving fried clams (of which there is in abundance in RI… but not all are worthy of long drives!), and decided to head down to Champlin’s Seafood for a good feast. Afterward, we wandered down onto the beach for a bit – even daring to wade a bit into the water (which was numbingly cold).

We watched many fishing boats like this one leave the harbor, heading out into Long Island Sound – or, in some cases, out into the open Atlantic. It was a picture perfect day at the seashore – and I’m looking forward to springtime when we can go back there without freezing.