The Phoenix

Dracolair's The Phoenix
All stitching complete
All backstitching unstarted

I can't wait until it's completely finished! The weather yesterday was a complete bust, as expected, so I spent it all inside and most of it stitching. Rob and Michelle came over in the afternoon for a few hours to visit. It was nice to just sit around and talk with people. And to get the update on their wedding plans and fun like that. Between Friday night, most of Saturday and about 4 hours today, I've finished all the regular stitching on Phoenix. I soooo want to start on the backstitch, but we've got a birthday party for a friend this afternoon. At a restaurant in the same mall as IKEA. Therefore, it's a moral imperative that I arrive early and can make a stop at IKEA! I've been really good and haven't bought anything there in months! Well, except for the nice wooden hangers for the coat closet, now that we actually have a coat closet, but they were a necesity and a quick in-grab-out. Not a wonder through.

Maize Maze

As promised, here are photos from our day out at the corn maze last weekend. Was it really only last weekend?! Man time flies!

Ummm... which way from here?


Zee bunny makes a break for freeeeeeeeeedommmmmmmm!!!!!!!! He had escaped his cage and tried to blend in and hide with his friends the Roosters


The roosters were actually quite beautiful, something I had never expected. They weren't hiding the escapee though, and ran the other way from him.


There was this beautiful flower on a weed. No idea what it actually was, but it was present in several places, and stunningly beautiful.


We had great weather for the day. It was partly cloudy, and mostly just a murky overcast. It gave great ambience to the fields and you weren't quite sure if it was going to turn to a damp mist, adding to the impetus to find your way out.


As we were getting close to getting all our map pieces, the sun came out from behind the clouds. Because it was quite late in the afternoon, it was coming down at a significant angle, mostly illuminating the corn stalks but not the sky. It was a very intriguing light effect. I never managed to capture it exactly, but this was the closest I got.



All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend and afternoon and I highly recommend it!

RAK!

I've been RAK'd! Heather in England sent me a gorgeous stitching magazine (with a project I'm itching to start...) and some wonderful chocolate. Including the new mint Cadbury bars. Yum! Thank you so much Heather for sending me such a wonderful surprise! It really brightened my day.

In other news, my treadmill was delivered yesterday! I've been wanting to buy one since before we moved into this apartment, so I'm happy to finally have it. Here's to a big increase in my mileage! On the Walk to Rivendell front, I really need to update my ticker. I made it to Rivendell (458 miles) on Tuesday morning! Now I'm headed out again on the next portion of the journey, and should see much quicker progress now that I can get some in in the mornings before work.

We have no special plans for this weekend. I still want to get out on a good leaf walk, but we're running out of time on that. There is a furious wind storm expected here all weekend (gusts up to 60 mph (95 km/h)) and I suspect by the time it's done late Sunday there might not be that many beautiful leaves left. We had planned to do it last weekend, but went to the corn maze instead. And had so much fun doing it that I won't mind too badly if we don't make a leaf walk this year. I might invite the regular group to come over for a game night and home made lasagna Saturday night, or I might just decide to have a quiet weekend in with Brian. I've certainly got lots of stitching to work on, and need to break in the new treadmill.

On the stitching front, I've been a bad girl. A very bad girl. I think I might have to go "on the wagon". I couldn't resist buying one of the fabrics at Stab and Stash and have a project in mind for it. I also broke down and purchased one from Silkweaver. As it turns out I didn't remotely like the colour when it arrived, so I went to their website to see what would have to be done to return it (if possible). Great, easy return instructions! And they've got Hallowe'en trick-or-treat bags. So I broke down and bought one. I'll have 5 random hand dyed fabrics coming my way shortly. I can't wait to see what I've got! Add to that that I broke down and bought Mirabilia's Autumn in my Garden when I had to call CrossStitch Unlimited for the Kreiniks for Phoenix, and, well... I've been a very bad girl. But in my own defense, I've still managed to remain not signed up to Silkweaver's "Fabric of the Month" club! That's something, isn't it?

And the best news of all is something I haven't really mentioned much about on my blog. My sister has spent the last three years in an UGLY custody battle, which is now settled. In Bonnie's words "I got everything I wanted and then some". I am so happy for her now that this is fully done. No more appeals, no more attempts to change the agreement. Go Bonnie and Madison!

Corn Mazes rock!

On the recommendation of a friend, we went out and toured a corn maze yesterday afternoon. (Thanks Matt!) It was an absolute blast, and a great way to spend a fall afternoon. If there's one near you I whole heartedly recommend it. Ours was in a two acre corn field and had a really cool setup. The maze itself was designed to look like a three masted schooner from above, and you had to find 9 mailboxes while going through the maze to get your map to get out of the maze. Along the way there were a lot of dead ends, and a bunch of them had clues to a crossword puzzle. The crossword puzzle in turn had a bunch of shaded letters that were a word jumble for the final clue for how to get out of the maze. The weather was beautiful (cool enough that you wanted a jacket, but not cold) and the sky was mostly cloudy, so I'm hoping some of the photos turned out as cool as they looked when I took them.

This week's SBQ

I've been answering these lately on one of my mailing lists, and figured I should paste a copy here too!

Which way do you stitch, i.e. do you stitch /// followed by \\\ on top, or the other way around \\\ followed by ///? Are you left- or right-handed and do you think that this affects the way that you stitch?

For me it depends entirely on the piece, and on where I'm starting it. I can stitch either way, and will often rotate a piece in 90 degree increments to get it into a comfortable working position for the section I'm working on. By default, I'd guess I'm a /// then \\\ stitcher. I know once when I offered to teach a beginner's class at my old guild some of the ladies were horrified (and actually filed a protest) because I had the students starting out going \\\ because it was the easiest way to show them where to start stitching on that little piece. I was asked to provide references that either way was acceptable so long as they all went the same way (which I did, out of the guild's own library) and still had people complain. I was so ashamed to be part of that guild and never offered to teach again.

Because I rotate as I go and don't have a presumed preferred orientation, handedness really doesn't seem to apply to me. It's where I start a piece that will have the biggest effect on stitch direction. I never seem to start in the very center of a piece, but where I do start depends on the design itself. I like to start with a little bit of a single colour stitching to set up a 'reference point'. Sometimes this is in the middle of the fabric, since that's *really* easy to find, and sometimes it's along one edge/corner of the design. Then I usually measure out my border allowance (and then measure again..) then start along a corner or the middle of an edge. On Fantasy Triptych I actually did the border itself first because there *was* no other solid section to do! Which direction the stitches are formed in seems to depend on the shape of the area I'm starting stitching with. I'm rather (ahem) uptight about trying to make sure stitches are formed so the needle is coming up into empty fabric and the needle is going down into the holes that already have stitching through them. It's not always possible, but as much as it is I try to follow this. I think it makes the stitches look better and I seem to have less problems with fuzzies on the top of the piece.

Phew! Was that a long enough answer?

Quick Photo Update

I finally got a photo of the finished first panel of Fantasy Triptych uploaded! She's now been put away until I finish Phoenix, and I should have a significant update photo on that soon. I've ordered the last of the specialties I need for it, and will be finished the majority of the regular stitching this weekend ('though I'm not sure about all those feathers!).



My Percy before he went to the groomers last week...


And after...



And this time he was used as a "training cat". I know the poor cat has to be "not quite right" to have lived happily with us for all these years, but the dude is so okay with being shaved he is now being used for training! Percy-dude, have some cat dignity!

Playtests are fun

especially when they involve some interesting moral decisions for the players, but when they make Sam take 4 hrs to run a mod, wow!  I'm looking forward to the mod coming out and seeing other's reactions to it.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  
And I threw 41 pennies at Helen!  {giggle, giggle}  She ordered something online for me and their tax estimater was off by a bit, so when she emailed me to let me know, she said I owed her 41 cents and she wanted it all in bright shiny new pennies.  The best part was her laugh when she finally realized why I was throwing pennies at her.  She's had a very bad week and it was good to see her just release some of it by laughing like that.
Nothing exciting planned for today.  Jen's coming over with her computer for us to attempt to de-virus (have I mentioned I love my macs?), then we're going to go out for a nice walk to see the fall leaves.

I have a new toy

Courtesy of some expiring stock options at work. I forsee a large number of changes to my blog in the future, including probably a move since I should be able to use iWeb to produce my own blog and host it on my website. Who knows, maybe even the website will get updated once in a while that way! Nothing much else happening though. Work is insane, and I've only had a little time to play with the new toy. I'd say I'll dig into it this weekend, but I know I won't have time then either. On the fun front, I have a date tonight with Brian, and he has no clue what we'll be doing. Other than that the date will start with me in physiotherapy for 45 minutes! Ah the joys of a one car household!

Stitching Update

Hello, hello! Well, I've managed to actually get all three of my stitching goals accomplished, and it's not even the middle of the month! I finished the first section of Fantasy Triptych, I've put the tail on the Phoenix, and I've managed to work some more on Frog Prince. I was very good and put FT away once I was done with it and photographed it. I then spent the rest of the evening getting ready to work on Phoenix, and tonight I stitched. And boy did I stitch! No photo yet because I want to stun everyone with the amount I got done tomorrow night for stitch-n-bitch tomorrow night. Apparently, my computer and camera don't want to get along, so I don't have a photo to show. I PROMISE to upload it as soon as I can convince the things to talk to each other!

Nothing exciting happened over the weekend. I did go to NJ for a game, but it was pretty bad, and then we spent Sunday at home and quiet and got caught up on TV. I still haven't made up my mind about the new Dr. Who. But it's early yet, so I'll give it a while.

Now, if only I could get my walking jump started!

Oh My!

And I won't even get to see her in person until Christmas at the earliest! Becky and Sue did a phenomenal job choosing the framing, and the mat work is why I'm more than happy to send my pieces home to Canada to my old framer and let them do what they want!

Droooooooolllllll.......

Busy fun, quiet weekend!

Stitching Goals

September recap:
Finished all of Maiden panel except face (over 1)
Didn't work on the Phoenix
Did work on Frog Prince


October Goals:
Finish maiden panel including backstitch
Work on Frog Prince
Work on Phoenix
Don't start anything new!



Saturday was wonderful. We hosted a birthday bbq for our friend Gabe, and got a chance to better get to know his new boyfriend David. It was a wonderful quiet evening spent playing cards, eating good food and talking with fun people. I need to do things like that more often! So Gabe, when are you coming out again!

Sunday we went to the Yankees-Blue Jays game in the city. We had a blast! The photos below show the progress of the afternoon!

Okay, so blogger won't co-operate and post my photos, but the Jays won! The game didn't matter in regards to the post season so everyone was just out to have a good time. Then we followed it up with dinner at Bubba Gump's before catching the train home.

We even made it home in time for me to watch my Formula One race. It was quite a race and I'm glad I watched it before picking up my news headlines this morning which would have ruined it for me!

Lots of stuff...

First:
Cute Quiz...







What type of Fae are you?


Second:
Updated Stitching Photos:

Frog Prince before Wednesday night's stichalong:



Frog Prince after:


Fantasy Triptych update:




Third:
Monday night was a little interesting for us as evidenced by this photo:

We came home from the YMCA after our workout Monday night to find 5 police cars, an ambulance and the Crime Scene van parked in our corner of the lot. They were here for the apartment two down from us, but I still don't know why! And yes, it is killing me with curiosity. Especially since I saw an official vehicle with a Caduceus on it leaving at about 1am. The flashing lights stopped by about 3am, and I called in sick on Tuesday so I could sleep! We've seen the neighbours who live there since with no visible trauma, and I haven't had a chance to see our property manager to find out what happened! Maybe Saturday I'll go pay the rent in person.


And finally, a photo from Tom and Teresa's wedding...

Wohoo!!!

You Are Cookie Monster

Misunderstood as a primal monster, you're a true hedonist with a huge sweet tooth. You are usually feeling: Hungry. Cookies are preferred, but you'll eat anything if cookies aren't around. You are famous for: Your slightly crazy eyes and usual way of speaking How you life your life: In the moment. "Me want COOKIE!"

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

Silly Quiz with no real surprise :)

You Are Incredibly Logical

Move over Spock - you're the new master of logic You think rationally, clearly, and quickly. A seasoned problem solver, your mind is like a computer!

How Logical Are You?

Madison's First Day at School

Photo shamelessly stolen from my sister's blog.
Go Madison!

Yet another catch-up post

So...
life still hasn't slowed down for us one bit. I have taken next weekend to stay at home and loaf around. Brian keeps trying to plan stuff for the weekend, but I'm putting my foot down! Photos will come, but not tonight.

We went down to NJ to the shore one a few weekends back to see our friends Bob and Sue and their family. We had a great time even if I forgot my camera. The shore was gorgeous and soothing. I think I might want to see about getting reservations at a B&B there for a weekend next summer. My back, however, was not up for it. Between the 6+ hr car drive (don't you love traffic!?!) and the strange bed, my back locked up pretty badly.

Labour Day weekend we were gaming all day Saturday and then on Monday Jeff was in to visit. He's Brian's best friend's older brother and someone I only knew a little bit back in Cambridge. We had a great day out though. We finally went and did the Staten Island ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. Then we took our time and walked back up town. I finally went to Ground Zero. For the longest time I just wasn't ready to go and see it. Brian still isn't and waited in a nearby park for us. Then we kept walking, straight up Broadway. It's really a neat way to see the city. We eventually gave into one person's tired feet and hailed a cab up the last 25 blocks to Time's Square. And it wasn't even my feet! I've gotten really god and enjoy walking so much now when I have good shoes. We had dinner at Bubba Gump's. Brian and I both love that place too much!

The weekend after that we went home to Canada for Tom and Teresa's wedding. We had an absolutely great time, the wedding went off with a hitch, and the day was wonderful. It was really neat to get to meet Tish's sons (and someday I'll have to learn to spell her name right). I haven't seen her since well before we left Sudbury. Brian was a big hit with the kids at the reception as usual! Tish wanted us to move home so he could be their babysitter!

Then this past weekend, we had a wonderful day on Saturday at Derek's place for his going away BBQ. He's moving to Arkansas and it should be good for him, but we'll all miss him. Brian and I finally got to play in "Derek's World". It certainly was a unique experience, and one I'd love to have again. Partway through the drive there our "check engine" light came on in the car. It was also on for the whole drive back from Westchester County. Because of this, we decided to cancel our plans on Sunday. We had planned to go to the Rennaissance Faire in South Jersey to see the jousting and it would have been a great day, the weather was lovely. We did go out to the grocery store in the afternoon, and on the way back (part way home), the light went out. It hasn't come back on with my drive to work today, so I have no idea what's going on with it. We'll have them take a look the next time it's in for regular service.

I finally got a little more stitching done on Sunday and would be stitching now, but I'm writing this instead! I NEED to make more time for myself to do my 'recharge' activities. I also need to get back into the Y habit. Hopefully now that it's fall and there are things slightly more interesting on the boob tube I'll find it less of a chore. I need to find something to keep my brain occupied while walking on the treadmill or I just won't do it. It's too easy to find excuses not to go.

Work has exploded in ways I can't talk about online, but lets just say that I'm working a lot of long hours at the microscope, which my back isn't liking, but physiotherapy is helping. It just takes more time out from what little "me' time I had.

Oh! And on a side note, I've passed 1000 visitors since I set up the tracker! Thanks folks! I never would have believed my ramblings would be of interest to anywhere this many people.

Stitching Goals

For September:
Finish Dragoncow for Gill
Finish panel in TW Fantasy Triptych
Don't start on new panel of TW-FT
Work on Phoenix
Not buy any more eBay patterns...

Lets see if I can make Blogger Choke Again...

Well, we've been swamped! We haven't had just a quiet weekend at home since June. Most recently, Becky came to visit, the next weekend I had to make a presentation to FDNY in Harlem, and then we were invited to friends' place down at the Jersey shore. This weekend we've got a friend coming in from the UK, and the weekend after that we'll be in Ottawa for Tom's wedding. In the meantime, my back has gotten significantly worse from when we were home, but I am in physiotherapy for it. Work has gone insane (ie my "6" samples for microscopy this week have blosssomed to 168. UGH!!

The following photos are all out of order in the random-Blogger-upload fashion, but I'll put what they are beneath each one.




Becky and I in Fort Tyron Park outside the Cloisters (a beautiful Medieval museum in the Bronx)




Lemon Lips! (AKA Jen playing pool)




Johnny as we were all out at Applebys while Becky was here.




Brian where he belongs.




There were a lot of beautiful flowers in the gardens at the Cloisters so I played with my macro setting on the new camera.




More flowers (I'd love to know what they are if anyone reading can identify them).




Inside a courtyard at the Cloisters.




Naughty Monkey!




Brian relax and happy. Nice to see that!




The nave (?) at the Cloisters.




We had gorgeous weather the day we went up to the Cloisters. Shhh... don't tell Becky's mom, but we even took the subway! :)




Brian, Becky and Heather!





A typical photo of Becky.




The entrance to the Cloisters




Absolutely gorgeous weather.




Brian managed this incredible photograph of the lightning during a storm recently.




The Killer Bunny shown at Spamalot during intermission. We went for our wedding anniversary and had a blast.




Brian and Madison from our trip home (and my dad hiding in the back).




When we get a storm, it REALLY rains!




Presenting the Firehouse Angel. This was an internet RoundRobin project of a design done to commemorate the events of 9/11. It was stitched by over 20 stitchers in (at least) 3 countries, each working on a section at a time. I worked on the purple of the skirt when I had her. Since I live so close, I got to be the one to go in and present her to the FDNY. It was done at a firehouse in Harlem (I took Brian to Harlem!) and we were given two incredible honours by the firefighters. Firstly, we were treated to lunch at the firehouse (which is something few outsiders are invited to do), and secondly, they put the firehouse on diversion while we were there. This means that another firehouse had to cover all their calls as well as their own. I couldn't believe they would do that for us. I was astounded by the honour of it.



Well... did it choke yet????

Stitching photo update

I'm not sure if I ever posted a finished Flosstitute photo:



This is the stocking for (shockingly) Brian:



And here's progress to date on TW's Fantasy Triptych:


The lose threads at the top are my gridding threads as they've been pulled up out of the way. I tried using DMC's new light effects thread (in flourescent green) to do the gridding as I figured it would stand out. It really doesn't, and it's been really irritating in terms of not staying in place. I'd really NOT recommend it!


And finally another photo from our trip home. I was playing around with my new camera's black and white function trying to get some good shots of the dino tracks at the museum in Connecticut.

Lots of little bits

Becky will be here in less than a week!

I stole this from Suz's blog... Which I absolutely love and recommend to anyone with a great sense of humour!


Well, that was no surprise!

Hi Heather (waving madly) I got the card, and thank you. I just saw a way to cheer up your day and went for it. Now you have me dying of curiosity!

Becky will be here in less than a week!

I haven't posted about our going ons lately, but I've been busy and hurt/sick. I'll try to get it all done sometime, but it's all kind of backlogged right now. It's also after midnight, and I can't sleep, so I thought I could at least attempt something constructive!

Jan&Mike: I've been meaning to get around to leaving a comment or three million. I love all the posts Jan! Keep them coming, especially all the photos. It was great to see Chris back and looking happy. He's had a hard go finding his peace, but it seems like he may be there at last. Congrats to Brian and Debbie! Give them hugs for us, please? Wohoo Lauren on the PT!

Becky will be here in less than a week!

Life here has been TOO HOT!!!!!!!!! We broke 105F (40C) here this week, in the shade, and before the humidex. Just plain wrong! With the humidex, it was getting close to 120F. Not okay by me! And my lab is still kept at 65F. So I still have to dress in a sweater for work. But they're trying to conserve energy, so they've turned up the thermostat in the cubicle area. Without warning us so we could dress appropriately (in layers). Ugh! And just who is it that doesn't believe in global warming any more? Brian's been helping out a friend with home renovation work on the parsonage lately, and got himself pretty heat-sick last night. He's much better now, but i was NOT IMPRESSED.

Did I mention Becky will be here in less than a week?

I hurt my knee pretty badly while we were home at the start of the month, so my WTR progress has slowed to a crawl. I start physio on Saturday, so keep your fingers crossed for me that it goes well! (And quickly! $20/visit can add up to ouch pretty quickly all on its own!) It'll be worth it though if it works. Especially since my Dr. is having them see if they can do anything for my neck problems at the same time.

The apartment complex put new decking up for our balcony, which was pretty neat. I like living in a place that is actually actively trying to improve living conditions instead of just trying to grub all the $$ they can from us! And for over $1300/month, they can certainly afford to! The only bad thing was that we had to get everything off the deck first (duh!) and I think my tomatoes may have suffered too much for it. We'll see if they survive, but I'm currently not hopeful. The peas were mostly done, and the flowers are all in separate pots so they were fine. Percy was pretty confused by it all! He's pretty peeved we won't let him out right now, but it's just been too hot.

Did I mention Becky gets here next Thursday? And her flight is landing at about 7:20am. Yep, AM. So I'll be on the train at 5:30 to go meet her, and she'll have to be at the airport for 5am. But it's all absolutely worth it! If her flight was coming in at a better time I'd go drive and pick her up, but if you think I'm heading into and half way across NYC on a weekday at peak rush hour, think again! Her flight home isn't until 7:30pm on Sunday so we'll be able to drive that one. And we both owe my friend Sharon for my new favourite place to book hotels, priceline.com. Becky's staying in the Ultra-Swanky Sheraton by us for $95 less/night than list price. Works for me! We'll probably be spending a lot of our down time at the hotel with her (she's too allergic to Percy to spend much time here) so don't expect to get a hold of us by phone that weekend. We're going to spend a day at Coney Island, and make a run to the stitching store in Jersey, but don't have any specific plans beyond that. We've been invited to a BBQ in Jersey too that sounds fun, so I'd like to try to fit that in.


Tomorrow (Saturday) will be the second anniversary of this blog. More importantly, it'll also be our 11th wedding anniversary. I have been so blessed to have had Brian in my life. He makes me smile no matter how bad the day and helps me always keep a positive outlook. No matter what goes wrong, he still loves and supports me. We've been through some major life-altering changes, and come out the stronger for them. I love you Brian! Earlier in July we also had the 10th anniversary of my brain surgery. Wohoo! There were deffinately times when I wondered if I'd make it through that, but I did, I'm still here, and my annual checkup went great. One more hungry vampire test left to go and I'll get to start just having simple bloodwork every two years from now on.


To celebrate, we went into the city last weekend to see Spamalot. We had an absolute blast! Dinner was rather a bust (the computers went down in between us getting our appetizers and our actual meals... which didn't arrive until 80 minutes after we'd sat down, and mine wasn't cooked right!) but the show made up for it. If a travelling production is coming your way (and you find Monty Python funny), run, don't walk, especially don't silly walk to get tickets. If you've never seen MP, go get your hands on the DVDs now. Stop reading. Go rent the DVD's. Check your library, they'll probably even be free!


I'm off to try and sleep now....
Wish me luck!