activities

spent yesterday shopping. Got to stand in line at LL Bean to exchange DH's pants. Expanding waistline, shortening legs??? Sounds like a strange video title.
Then ran around looking for things to improve our pool table experiences. Bought a much, much better troubleshooter stick. We do have some size issues in the pool room. Bought a new mahogany rack. And bought a brass bridge. Will continue to look for more bargains on cues.

Realized the first scarf I made last year with Fun Fur really needs to washed. I see the packaging says machine washable. But as I don't currently have a lingerie bag, I think I'll hand wash it.


Than today. Went to see DH's office. Very quiet. Few people around. Ah the cubicle life.

Continued on into DC and went to the National Geographic building to see the Napoleon exhibit in its final days.

This exhibit had some amazing textiles. Fabric samples. Uniforms. A piece of curtaining made specifically for Napoleon's coronation that was red velvet with gold. A beautiful embroidered piece of roses in a vase given to Josephine by the City of Lyon. This was silk threads. They didn't identify the material stitched on. It looked like paper, but I'm wondering now if it was parchment. Only because of the amount of stitching and the tiny, tiny holes without any tearing. A empire era bed - belonging to one of his brothers - with new bedding woven to the specs of the day. A very interesting orange color.

A Tip

Last year I crocheted 4 scarves out of Fun Fur. This year I decided to do one for my MIL - who doesn't want it as long and skinny as the ones I did previously. So I was expirementing. Then decided to do it differently and needed to pull out about 10 inches of crocheting. Wow. Those little fibers really like to hang on to each other. Finally decided to use my laying tool to unpick whenever the fibers were too wound together. Of course, this might work best with vareigated Fun Fur
'cause you can see the different colored little pieces that are wrapped too tight for you to just pull the yarn apart.

Fortunately I did get it unpicked and was able to reuse the entire skein. Now I have to go find where the other skein is...

one more thing

I think I'm down to needing to purchase one more thing. Hopefully, it will be there tomorrow. Then on to the next wrapping frenzy. I'm still not sure how this happens every year...

Need a good sleep tonight. Having a college student at home makes for not great sleeping as she keeps way different hours from me. Still love having her here though.

Johnny Damon

Now the Red Sox nation knows why Theo Epstein resigned. He didn't want to be in charge when Johnny Damon took the Yankee money and left a legion of fans who adore him.

slippery, eh?

We don't have it as bad as the folks west of us, but it was rather slippery out there this morning. I brought DH to Kiss N Ride so we wouldn't end up with 2 cars at the airport this evening when we pick up DD. School has a 2 hour delay - good call. Next time make it sooner! I'm up at 6 - no delays. DS gets up. At 6:15 they finally call a delay. This is how we managed to bring DD to school a few times in this district only to be surprised.

Freaking lights went out on top of the tree this morning. Severe flashbacks to my youth. Not looking forward to playing find the broken bulbs...

Meep

Life getting in the way of posting...sorry!

DD is coming home from first semester away at college on Friday! Yippee!
Can hardly believe it's been 4 months since we've seen her.

Her room in nearly ready. I hung curtains - old ones, but I think I could use another panel or two. I'll try to locate some today. Need to buy some under the bed storage boxes - I figure if we can put her summer clothes under there, she'll stand a better chance at keeping the room neat.
Need to finish hanging shelves and pictures. I want her to feel like this is home, even though she's only ever been in this house for 2 weeks. Being a military brat, she's got a headstart on feeling like home is where her family is.

stitching blogger's question 12/9

Have you done any charity stitching, been in one, or would like to organize one?

Oh yes. Started way back when in the 80s. We stitched Merry Mouse designs to brighten up the pediatric area at the clinic in Germany. Wish I had gotten a picture of that piece. I still volunteer for this type of thing. But don't want to be the one organizing it.

Let the Fun Begin

Yeah! a new season of Project Runway!

Let's hear it for guilty pleasures.

DH does not understand this show. Okay. I don't want to watch MCX on Spike. Takes all kinds...

forget the stitching

I went shopping. Let the festival of wrapping begin. I've got a pile of bags waiting to be sorted in the bedroom. My goal is to start taking things to the P.O. early next week. Which means I've still got some shopping to do.

Any family member who thinks I'm posting details here, forget about it!

snow

Two hour delay today. And it certainly looks pretty out there. This was wet snow so it's sticking to everything. Instead of calling for a ride home yesterday, DS walked home in the snow and came in the door bouncing around like Tigger. Nice to see him so excited and happy about something. I guess I should go wake him up.

There. Woke him up and got myself some breakfast. Back definitely feels better today.

While putting up the Christmas tree, I, of course, rearranged the living room furniture. I don't have too many options for doing this, but my chair has somehow gotten placed near the windows. Maybe I'll even try it out for stitching today!

waaahhhhhhh

Woke up at 3:00 a.m. yesterday morning in so much pain that I couldn't sleep or find a position that wasn't painful. Stupid back. Argh. Just when I'm starting to make progress on things around here. Sigh.

Finally around 3:00 p.m. the pain part let up some and finally found a position with no pain.
This morning, it's not great, but it's manageable. Now the trick is not to do anything stupid.

stitching blogger's question 12/1

Do you have rules in the way you stitch? (i.e., Do you start in the middle? Do you determine which blocks to stitch first? Do you always start from the top or the bottom? Do you have special paths to prevent wasting thread?)

Hmm. I'm reminded of a song by Jem -

Who made up all the rules
We follow them like fools
Believe them to be true
Don't care to think them through
I'm sorry so sorry
I'm sorry it's like this
I'm sorry so sorry
I'm sorry we do this
And it's ironic too
Cos what we tend to do
Is act on what they say
And then it is that way

And rules are meant to be broken would be a major philosophical tenet for me. But even then, sometimes those OCD tendencies come creeping out. So though I like to consider myself a rulerbreaker, I'm more of a careful considerer of rules. Do I always start at the top right of a pattern? Nearly almost always. But not always. That comes from stitching in hand so if I'm not stitching in hand, I may still start at the top right. Or the top left. But hardly ever the middle unless it's some concentric pattern. And never start at the bottom.

What other rules do I follow? Do I always park needles in the same place. Nope. I prefer to play the great needle hunt game. LOL Do I always end my stitching time with an empty needle, i.e. have to finish the thread I'm working on? Yup. You betcha. Very rarely leave a threaded needle.
Any other rules - not that I can think of. May have to read other replies to this question.