Turkey

Whoa! What is this? An alien life form?

Don't worry, Peaches, I'll have a little talk with this guy.

I don't like his attitude; I'm going to take him out.

He is a little dry.

Oh, brother.

Happy Thanksgiving from our house to yours!!!!!!

Satisfying Sunday

I finished up my homework early, and with the day ahead of me, weighed my choices: cook something elaborate, clean house and stitch or go shopping for the few odds and ends we didn't pick up last night when we went shopping for Thanksgiving provisions (AFTER DINNER so hardly a soul in the store) and go to the library. What I chose: a nap, snuggled in the blankets (it's cold here!) with a cat or two or three. The perfect choice--I've been so tired that I didn't hear the doorbell or the phone or anything else. Alas, I didn't get a lot of stitching done, but here's a little more of Dorothy's Garden.

These guys had a nice snuggle as well--they were asleep at one point, and everyone was cuddled into Elvis' fur.

Some of us contemplated the Christmas catalogs that have been arriving and piling up on the kitchen table.

Sunday Samplers

It was an especially nice Sunday; I finished my homework early and took the afternoon off. We went to Target and bought new bath rugs for the bunnies, then on to Petsmart for cat litter, then to Booth Feeds for timothy hay. We drove through the bright chilly afternoon into Fredericksburg to check out the LNS, purchase a book at the used book store and look at Christmas decor (doesn't it seem EARLY? And yet, I'm somehow ready to decorate even though I'm generally a bah-humbug kind of person about the Christmas season). Then out to eat in a nice seafood restaurant with a real wood-burning fireplace. I ate the shrimp sampler, and now my fingers, despite several washings, smell shrimpy. (I want to do the "six things" meme, but haven't had a chance. Here would be one of the items, though: I hate eating food with my fingers, so I eat fried chicken with a fork and knife, which makes BF laugh. I also eat messy sandwiches with utensils. My shrimp came in their shells, so I had to grasp them to pull them out--worth it, even with the sticky fingers that resulted. The worst meal for that ever was a lovely and very fancy white-tablecloth Chinese restaurant in Vancouver where I ordered some sort of crab claws. You had to break the claw to get at the meat, but the claws were covered in some sort of sticky, slippery buttery sauce. Awful, and while the meat inside was great, it just wasn't worth it, in spite of the nice warm finger bowl.)
Here's some progress on Dot's Garden. Michelle, I'm doing it over two; I think the days of doing an over-one project of this magnitude are over. I'd love to see her new design--I don't think I've seen it anywhere. And when you see her, would you please tell her that her charts are literally the best and clearest charts I've ever worked with. Such a pleasure to see what you're doing!

Here's a sampler I bought on ebay. It's from The Essamplaire, and it's a reproduction of an antique. It's to be stitched on 35 or 40 count with AVAS silk or DMC. Stop me before I do this again. I saw the picture and loved it (sorry for the funny angle; it's the best I could do with evening and the flash) but several things make it more of a challenge (the Essamplaire is similar to Scarlet Letter, if you haven't seen their designs): first, the fact that it's an antique repro. means that the charting and stitches are somewhat more random than precise. There are a lot of stitches other than cross, some of which--herringbone and queen stitch--are a royal pain. Some of the architecture and the animals are in a style that might be considered "naive." And it's hand-charted and therefor a tad more difficult to read. It's the same problem I'm having with the Pets sampler that I started last summer--a beautiful design but harder work than a contemporary interpretation of an historic sampler might have been.

Here are the bunnies playing around the dresser. They like to get under there and tear at the carpet, so we try to block it off and it's great bunny fun to pull back the covers (or in Peaches' case, to zip around the side because she's so small).

I've been so busy that I neglected to thank each of you who gave me an award or tagged me for a meme. I haven't had a chance to follow the directions yet, but I will someday soon--the semester's over in three weeks, and there's the long Thanksgiving weekend also. Happy week, all!

Elvis and Warren Buffet

I finally had a little time for stitching this week. Dorothy's Garden. Sorry about the lighting--photo taken under lamplight tonight. I need to get moving on this, as there are a raft of new designs that I want to get and work on. This was a quiet weekend full of homework as usual--counting down these last few weeks until the final exams on the 6th and 13th, and then school doesn't start again until mid-January.

Today the boys visited Peaches in her room. She's very dainty and tidy, unlike the two rabbit guys, and no doubt she was appalled at the mess they made.
Here's Elvis, contemplating the help-wanted section of the newspaper.

"Hmmm--executives wanted. I'd be a good executive. I'm well-groomed."

"I have a keen mind."

"I have the same expression as Warren Buffet. (picture borrowed from Forbes.com) Warren and I spoke by phone last week; I suggested to him that perhaps he should buy stock. Now's the time, I said. Did you know that Warren comes from the same place that Oxbow Timothy does?"


"I'm an excellent public speaker."

"Here I am with my trusted advisor, Mr. Pink."

Monday Bunday

It's been a busy week, and this one is shaping up the same way--lots of homework. But I finished Wendy's RR and have posted it off to Canada. The design originally called for an American-looking flag, but I found a Canadian flag online that Lizzie Kate had charted for "Land that I Love."

We celebrated Peaches' being able to come home last week after five days at the vet. He wanted to keep her a bit longer because she'd gotten a GI stasis after the anesthesia. For the first few days she had to stay by herself in her room, and she seemed lonely.
"Hi! I feel better!"

Now that there isn't any danger of tearing her stitches, she can play with the boys again. They took turns grooming her face and ears and then all dashed around.

Pink, enjoying himself after a game of toss the running shoe in the closet. "Mom! Someone dooted here!"

Not With a Bang

It has been an odd and not entirely enjoyable vacation. A quick summary: First day home from the Cape, the automatic lawn sprinkler sprang a leak (bad valve). We watered the neighbor's driveway liberally until we figured out what was going on. Called the repairman. We accidentally broke a large mirror; called the glass guy. The nearly new refrigerator gave up the ghost and killed an entire load of food--fridge and freezer--before we discovered that it was no longer cooling. Called the repair guy. I went for a physical exam on Friday, and received a booster for tetanus/pertussis (did you know they did pertussis shots for adults?) I've felt seriously crappy ever since, although it may just mean I'm coming down with the cold that BF is getting. I can no longer upload photos for any reason (not even to Flickr) despite working for hours at it. I've cleared my cache, temp files and cookies. I disabled all my add-ons and took down my firewall. Nothing. So frustrating. Anyone got any ideas? (I've loaded my photos today at BF's computer.)

Worst of all, I took little Peaches to be spayed, and she did fine with the spay but isn't home yet; the medications they gave her for the pain (including morphine) gave her a GI stasis, so they're curing that up now. She's given them hell, tough little girl that she is. Her first action out of anesthesia was to thump at the vet. I went to visit her yesterday--poor sad little scrap. I wanted to scoop her up and take her home--I felt like she just needs her own bed and food and litter box (she doesn't like to doot in her own cage, so she may be holding it!), but I didn't want to have something bad happen by taking her prematurely--sigh.

I did a lot more school work than I wanted, and a lot less needlework. Here's some, though. Patricia at In Stitches aided and abetted the purchase of another project on Friday:

It's called the Product of My Needle Sampler, and it's by The Scarlet Letter. Sorry it's so blurry. This has a 1988 copyright on it, and is still sold on SL's website. I love the black. I'm using a 34 count gray Legacy linen from my stash, which I got on sale once upon a time. It doesn't matter what color the fabric is, because it will be filled in with black. I love the colors of the AVAS silks; neither photo does justice to the design.

I spent time working on Wendy's RR.

Until I got the SL design, I couldn't settle. I picked up Dorothy's garden and worked a bit. Then I worked on Over the Hills. Then this--looks like golden retrievers but it's not; does anyone recognize the design?

Here's Pink and Peaches having a little fun with Yazziebear. Yazziebear is the toughest pet in the house. She's completely devoted to us, but has absolutly no sense of humor, and all of the pets are afraid of her. Pink: "(I don't want YB to catch me sneaking around her. Is she awake?) Peaches, go say hello to Yazziebear; she's very friendly! (hee)"

Peaches: "hmmmm."

"Hi, Yazziebear!"

Yazziebear, hardly looking, gives a whack of her paw in Peaches' direction.

Well, back to work tomorrow. Think I'll go upstairs and have a little nap. Happy week, all!

Monday Bunday

I spent the past few days doing homework--a particularly difficult project for my statistics class and the midterm for my accounting class, so there hasn't been time for much. I realized today that the first week of my vacation is gone already--poof. It has run off, quick as a bunny... But! I have one more week for frolic-ing and merriment!

As you can see, we have a new toy in the rabbit room. Pink is checking it out.

And pronounces it adequate.

A scene from Friday or Saturday--surrounded by cats (from left clockwise: Scratchy, Chester, Yazziebear and Buckaroo) and needlework and my homework. I have a desk, but I prefer working cross-legged on the bed, as I did in high school. Maybe I'll even get to stitch tomorrow.

Come along with me this week:
A trip to Vienna to see the exotic vet, where Peaches will be spayed and the boys are scheduled for mani-pedis.
A trip to Wegmans to shop for food.
A possible trip to the heart of Baltimore to scout for 50s furniture.
Richmond? Culpeper? Staunton? Catonsville? Stay tuned....

Bun to the Third (Bun Cubed)

I took just two projects with me on my trip: Wendy's RR (yes, I'm late!) and Dorothy's Garden. I've been trying to stick with just one project at a time, hoping to get a finish, but you know--working on one big project gets kind of tedious. I'll show Wendy's in a few days, before I mail it off (I had to start out by frogging something I'd done--I was three whole columns off....three!) Here's Dot's Garden. It's hard to believe I put so many hours in on it...

The buns were mad at me for being gone, and I got the cold shoulder on the first night. Pink actually turned his back on me ("I'm not looking at you. Perhaps you could go get Dad, WHO LOVES US, and I will look at him.")
Then I got the slow thaw.
Pink: "Hmmph." Elvis: "Yeah."

But by last night Pink was ready for games with Peaches. Peaches arrived with two big bags of toys, including this nice cube/tube affair.
Pink: "Hmmmm."

Peaches: "You get inside it."

"Like this."

"See?"

Indian Summa

It was Indian Summer in New England this past weekend, a wonderful time to be on Cape Cod. Here's a little tour of my old neighborhood:
Menauhant Beach:

Digging quahogs in Bourne's Pond. Now frankly, I'm not sure I'd dig for anything there. There are a lot of houses built around the pond (which is salt/brackish) and not all of that part of town has a sewer system--yeesh. The authorities check the bacteria levels of the beds though.

Falmouth Heights. If you're a marathoner, and you've run the Falmouth Road Race, you'd recognize the view.

Unloading a fresh catch. There were big bags of shellfish on this boat, probably scallops. I'm not sure why, but I really don't like scallops. I did have some good seafood, though: scrod (twice); a huge stuffed quahog; and some great clam chowder.
My favorite seafood shack had a meal called a cod dog: a long piece of fried cod in a top-load hotdog bun, but I wasn't there long enough to try it.

I really missed BF and the bunnies, but I got a nice chance to see my parents and sister. I did a lot of needlework, which I'll show you tomorrow--I've got a couple of homework assignments to complete by midnight--yikes.
Sue, this is for you:

Everyone is Scared of Something

I went shopping for a baby shower gift today; I never finished the baby blanket I was knitting. I found some cute things including a book called "Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears" by Emily Gravett. Here's Little Mouse confronting his fear of having an accident because he can't build a toilet paper tower in time to climb up to the toilet. Fear of having an accident is "dystychiphobia." This book is hysterical--look for it for your kids--or for yourself. There are a rather dark couple of pages covering Little Mouse's Fear of Knives (there are three blind mice wearing dark glasses and without their tails). Note that the mouse has had an accident and is blushing.

Since the toy store is next door to my LNS, I stopped by to chat and see what's new. I bought this little chart, because while I don't have time to finish the baby blanket before the baby's birth, this looks quite do-able for my vacation--maybe. And the baby isn't due until November. It's by Willow Hill Samplings, a designer I really like, and it's stitched with Crescent Colors on 32 ct Lakeside Linen in navy bean, because the called-for color (spring meadow green) was too green.

Peaches is adjusting well to her new home. Here Elvis is showing her the ropes. We were surprised to discover that perhaps because of her sex, she was easily accepted by the other rabbits, and the three hang out together.

In fact, Elvis seems quite smitten with her, and he follows her everywhere. Pink is more ambivalent; he likes to run into her cage and play with her toys and scatter doots on her towel.

Elvis has a phobia of bare floors, so he doesn't follow Peaches down the hall when she goes back to her room, having had enough of the boys. Elvis: "Come back! Where are you going?" (Isolophobia--fear of solitude.)

Elvis: "I do not have philophobia--fear of falling in love." Edited to add: and it is a platonic love only; both boys have been snipped, and Peaches will be spayed while I'm on vacation. Although she can't get pregnant by our neutered boys, she needs to be spayed to prevent uterine cancer.

More Peaches!