The Joys of Sonoma part 2

So let's see, where did we leave off? Ahh, the B&B -- it was The Sonoma Chalet. Joe, the owner, has a series of cottages all decorated in period style that are lovely and homey. Don't come if you "need" to watch TV or if Junior can't live without video games. If you want to be entertained, I'd suggest Laura's Cottage -- you can spend some quality time telling stories about "The Lamp."

My stories revolved around a gay Vulcan minstrel. ;-)

The view from our chalet's porch included much wildlife --
Deer who liked the plants around the Chalets:

A frog who liked our front step:

Turkey vultures and the occasional Golden Eagle and hawk who, in groups as large as 12, surfed the air currents off the hill behind our chalet:

A crazy woodpecker who guarded his telephone pole very zealously:

And my very favorite -- California Quails who came out in a covey of 15 our last morning looking for breakfast:



Part three, Adventures in Viticulture, tomorrow.

Napa joys part 1

Ah, wine can be a wonderful thing. I've never been a huge fan. What can I say, I'm a sweet-wine girl in a dry-wine world. But I'm just back from a weekend in Napa and I'm a happy girl.

My purpose in Napa was to cheer my sister and brother-in-law on in their half-marathon and 10k race walk (respectively) efforts. I sucked as a cheerleader, but they did so well, they didn't really need me. Check out the happy couple post race:

And here's my sister holding court on the hill of Sonoma's Train Depot Park waiting for Tom to come in from his extra mileage:


Allow me to introduce Paula, family friend and fellow victorious race walker:



Sonoma was wonderful, beautiful, lovely. We stayed in a quiet B&B at the base of a wooded hill which was home to quail, deer, wild turkeys, turkey buzzards, and possibly some golden eagles. Get this, I survived a whole weekend in a cottage with no TV! No TV!!! Honest to pete -- no CSI, no NCIS, no Bones, no FoodTV, no Girls Next Door. It was amazing although disconcerting at first. lol But more on that and the pics tomorrow :)

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Recently finished: Charlaine Harris' Definitely Dead -- it's been a long time since I've read someone new and simply couldn't wait to find out what would happen next. Bravo Charlaine! It was so fun I went right out and booked myself a membership to CopperCon in September where she's writer guest of honor! I can hardly wait.
Currently reading with enthusiasm: Simon Green's The Man with the Golden Torc. It's about time it was out. :-)

Here I am

Jeez nearly an month. And what a month it's been. I know, I know. I owe updates, but I don't have all that much to show because what I've been working on is.... ... shhhhh.. a secret. So, you don't get to see much yet. Sorry. You'll live, trust me.

What I can share is my pathetic progress on:
Midsummer Nights Designs' "Quaker Meeting House"
and I simply must say that working with the Silk n Colors blue is WONDERFUL !!!!

Then we have a little progress on Mirabilia's "Halloween Fairy"


And a bit of progress on a Dutch motif I'm going to make into a Christmas ornie. I'm doing it in Carrie's Creation "Highland Hills" and DMC blanc -- that Highland Hills is so perfect for Christmas!!! The picture just doesn't even coe close to showing the vibrancy and inner glow of the color.


On other fronts, The Yellow Tree is in its shedding-fuzzy-pod stage (its most unattractive period). But the patio is gracing us with The Lavender Tree. I don't know what it's called either, but it sure is pretty. It got passed over in the smell category though -- no scent at all.

If you really want to know what I've been up to for a month, allow me to introduce my desk. I leave tomorrow afternoon for Napa. When I leave this needs to have a certain amount of respectability...... yeah, I'm accepting all prayers! lol It's slightly better than these pics since I sent 13 hours at the office yesterday and made a tiny dent in the desktop-- it would have been a bigger dent if I hadn't been tagged to hunt down a zoo where we could sponsor a capybara (that's the world's largest rodent, and an amphibious one at that, in case you were wondering). To balance the 13 hours, the pictures don't show you the floor. Honest to pete, I'm doomed.

It's done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

The Beau Geste/Radko needlepoint ornie is done! Only took 3 years. lol

I'll have it finished as a flat-back ornie, but I'm not sure what cording I'll pick. I'd like to go with the gold, but what I used in the stitching is ribbon and that won't cord very well.

I also had a Christmas stitching fetish of sorts this weekend. Check this out....

The birds in baskets are part of the big sampler pattern in this month's Gift of Stitching. They are done in whatever it is that Needle Necessities calls their Christmasy green and Cristmasy red, and the multi-colored one is in Six Strand Sweets "Rhubarb" (appropos of nothing... my favorite kind of pie).



The one on the gold mushroom lugana is in DMC and Carrie's Creations "emerald" (at least I think it's emerald). The dark motif is part of a pattern whose name escapes me at the moment and is done in a Kreinik braid and a Needle Necessities which in hank form clearly switches from green to red, but doesn't translate that so clearly in stitched form.
Sigh.

Back to work...... so many annoyances, so little time.

Out of sorts and covered in dust

Sigh. I've spent two days going book-by-book through a 15+ book donation to my campus library. It's cool. There's really great stuff for us to add, but man I'm coated in dust, and I wish I had my camera to take a picture of my "desk" and floor. Sheesh. i may spend the next two weeks digging out of this collection.

I have no stitching pics and I don't know why. I seem to have lost a couple of theme somewhere. I did start something new -- a baby piece, but right at the moment it's a nebulous blob of white on mushroom evenweave so there's nothing too intersting about it. And I couldn't show you if it did look neat because you never know when a parent might get nosey and come looking at my pics. They will just have to wait!

I can show you a little of the "neighborhood." First an update on the infamous "yellow tree." It's not in the "green fuzzy pod" stage:



We have a new building readying to open soon. It's supposed to be a nanotech enclave, btu frankly all it makes me think of is Metropolis and/or Blade Runner. I should really take a shot at night; it's even weirder then.


Off to clean the hovel......
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Quotes of the day/last week:

Never enter an ass-kicking contest with a porcupine.
The wisdom of Cohen the Barbarian -- Terry Pratchett -- Sourcery

Rincewind: “Danger has stared me in the back of the head... oh... hundreds of times.”
The Archchancellor’s Hat: “I don’t want you to go into danger.”
R: “Good.”
A: “I want you to stay out of danger.”
R: “Why me?!”
A: “For the good of the university, for the honor of wizardry, for the sake of the world, for your heart’s desire, and I’ll freeze you alive if you don’t.”
Terry Pratchett – Sourcery

…. As cold-blooded as a dead penguin.
On the Patrician – Terry Pratchett -- Sourcery

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Currently reading: Pratchett's Sourcery, Hammett's The Thin Man, and Butcher's Storm Front
Dang where could it have gone??!!: Zelazny's This Immortal

The world and updates

I'm tired of the heiresses named after cities. Global warming, Darfur, Afghanistan, general ignorance -- haveth we not enough to worry about without squabbles between sheriffs and judges? Just wondering in an annoyed sort of way.

I finally picked up a needlepoint WIP (BeauGeste/Radko red, white, and blue star ornie in Petite Sparkle Rays and Treasure Braid) and got from:


all the way to here as of last weekend:

Now I only have a little bit left! It's a miracle.

I also made progress on Mirabilia's Halloween Fairy:


And I finally got some of my previously stitched ornies semi-finished. Somehow the whole ribbon-hanger-thingy was just too much for me that night.

Oh and I did an ornie this week -- The motif is from the Beatrix Potter Quaker. I did it in Carrie's Creations Threads "Olde World Red." You know, when I got that color in I was disappointed -- it seemed to varigate suddenly from red to purple, but I have to say I think it stitches up wonderfully :)



And there's been some stash arrivals. Why I thought I needed these I do not know. I mean, seriously, when do I think I'm going to have time for these?




Despite the look of the above, it's been a mopey sort of week. My uncle passed away last weekend. He was always quite the dynamo and it certainly was hard to watch him lose to Alzheimers. I finished Pratchett's The Wintersmith recently and in the process of entertaining me immensely, it summed up how hateful the condition is -- "When you take away memories, you take away the person – everything they are." I'll have a picture to share as soon as I find it. Uncle Wendy deserves it.


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Currently reading: Terry Pratchett's Sourcery (lovely) and Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man (this is a classic? -- I mean I have a respectable collection of single malts and I like a gin an tonic as well as the next barfly, but could it be possibly to have more than two sentences in a row that don't involve drinking, being druck, or suffering from acute hangover?)
Recently finished: Pratchett's The Wintersmith ... yeah, I'm up to date on the Tiffany series

Lookie what I got!

I finally got to the bottom of the mail bin -- to Tuesday's mail and lookie what lucky ole me got from Charlotte in Kent. She was my surprise partner in the Wiehenburg biscornu exchange. She did an absolutely marvelous job and has made my entire weekend!!! Bless you Charlotte!!!!!!!!!!!




I'll bask in the happy glow and share my "accomplishment." So far this is how far I've made it on Beatrix Potter's Quaker Sampler--

Great progress, eh? lol

On that note I'll go back to work now.

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Just finished reading: Tony Hillerman's The Wailing Wind -- outstanding!
Currently reading: Pratchett's The Wintersmith
Found!!!: Jim Butcher's Storm Front
Still MIA: Zelazny's This Immortal
Think I'd like to start: One of Simon Green's Nightside books or Glen Cook's Garrett volumes

quick pics

Pam from the Wiehenburg sampler group has confirmed that she received my biscornu so it's safe for me to post. This was my very first one ever and it was quite fun-- well, all save for the threading of the beading needle! :)

Wanna know what I'm doing?

.... to recover from the first ever coffee drink I've had.....


The women from my church's quilting group very kindly volunteered to make quilts for my sister and I from mom's fabrics. My beloved, anal sister spent 2+ weeks cutting squares every day. I have put it off.... until yesterday. The above is the tailings pile. Here's work central
And here's what I still have to go
The gap in the box was made by cutting two squares from every fabric from midnight until 7am. Think it might take a while to finish the bin? lol

I'M DONE I'M DONE I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woo hoo. Definitely extra hoo!!!!!!!!!!



I'm done I'm done I'm done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

I finished while sitting at Union Station waiting for my train. To celebrate, I went back to working on Mirabilia's Halloween Fairy and got this far:


Oh and I finally uploaded pics of the needlepoint stash I got on bday stitching night . A Susan Treglown quilt: I'll probably do it in Silk and Ivory for a pillow top maybe.

and a Melissa Shirley hair band that I'm either beading or doing all in Kreinik. The pattern is called "Golden Klimt" -- she also makes bracelet canvases that match her hair piece patterns:


Hey, did I mention I was D-O-N-E!!!!???!!!??!?!!??!!??!!!!!??!!!