catching up

I have a few things to catch up on, I was tagged for a meme as well as given an award, so this post is about those...




First off Evi tagged me, what seems forever ago with a book meme.


I'm to list off 5 books that I read last year... I've been putting this one off, as I did read quite a bit last year but it was more in the beginning of the year and I don't have a list of books that I finished, so trying to find which ones I read was a bit difficult... However here are 5:

1.Innocent Traitor - Allison Weir
2.Kathy Reichs - Bones to Ashes
3.Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
4.Empress Orchid - Anchee Min
5.The Last Empress - A Novel - Anchee Min


It seems that last year I swayed from my typical murder mystery/crime scene investigation books that are a staple on my book shelf and went more with historical fiction - another of my loves. Hopefully this year I'll keep a better record of what I read.


Next up, Jucus gave me an award. She thinks my blog is fabulous - not a word that I would normally associate with my blog but it is greatly appreciated, and does make a person feel good. So thank-you for thinking of me and awarding this to me, from the bottom of my heart! It really made my day.








With this award I'm supposed to list off 5 things I am addicted to... hmmm only 5 - figuring out which 5 to list will be interesting! These of course are in no particular order:

1. Starbucks and Tim Hortons - Starbucks all year long, not for the coffee as I don't really drink the stuff but for their wonderful vanilla steamers and hot chocolate, Tim's in the summer for the awesome iced cappuccino's. I try not to go very often, but more of a treat.

2. Oreo cookies - I can't seem to stop at one. A bag of these things doesn't usually last very long in our house (and I'm the only one that likes them!) so we don't usually get them.

3. Cross Stitch - literally anything to do with it. I have several projects on the go, I try and stitch every day, I love to browse the online stores (as well as the real ones) as well as read about it and learn new things about it.

4. internet and email - though I don't get a lot of emails, I do tend to check all the time if at all possible.

5. books - you just have to look at my overflowing bookshelf to know that one


I'm not going to tag anyone else for these, since I'm fairly late in the game and I'm sure these two memes have already done the rounds on the blogs.


I also want to add a great big thank-you to everyone for letting me vent the other day. Though not much has changed with the situation, it seems that letting things out, even if only on the blog, has helped tremendously. Since that whiney post I have felt so much better, still blue, but not that down and out with no hope in the world blue. I can see more positive things and that is always a good thing alround. So again thank-you for listening/reading/commenting.

while we were away

While on vacation I managed to actually get some reading done. It was quite nice! I haven't read in such a long time that it was nice to actually go through a couple of books.

I took four with me and actually went through them quite quickly. I did read the fourth one slowly compared to the other three so that I would have something to read on the plane home!

Anyways, here are the books I read, and I do recommend them if you like those sorts of books.

Now to just get back into the routine of reading here at home, as my "to be read" pile is quite tall!

Book Meme

I've seen this meme on several blogs and since I do love to read thought I would grab it and post it as well...

Look at the list of (100) books below. Bold the ones you’ve read.Italicize the ones you want to read. Leave blank the ones that you aren’tinterested in. (Movies don’t count.)

1.The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible -children's version
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

As I was going through the list I was quite surprised at how few books on the list I've actually read or even plan to read. I've read so many other books not on the list, and so many more in my to read pile that aren't there either...

Where does the time go???

I swear the days are just flying by! First July just started, and I turn around and its already almost the middle of the month! Stampede is almost over, and other than going for a bit during sneek-a-peek we haven't gone, and it doesn't look like we will be going again!

Anyways, last week was my niece and her husband's first wedding anniversary, and we finally were able to give them their wedding sampler I stitched for them! Here is a picture of the finished project, the colours in the picture are a bit off, as the outside mat is more grey than it looks, and its also not the greatest picture, it was quite difficult to get one without any reflection! I also took a close up of the frame (I really like the frame, and need to get something for myself done with it!)

I haven't had much stitching time in the last little while, and when I did stitch I was working on Sonata, and I'm almost at the finish line with it. I'm stitching it over 1 on 25ct pearl linen with Gloriana silk in sage.

Please ignore all the little dots/knots all over the place, as they are my waste knots and I'll be getting rid of all of those once I'm finished.

Onto other stuff, we haven't seen the new Harry Potter movie, but you can bet that we will be going sometime soon. I really want to see it, but I'll wait a bit for the crowds to go down a bit. I'm also looking forward to next weekend, when the new book comes out. I've preordered it and got the special delivery for it to get here on the Saturday it comes out. Right now I have started re-reading the rest of the books, till it gets here, but I'll have to hurry up if I want to finish them in time for the new books arrival!

And one last picture just becuase. I took this just over a month ago, while downtown and thought it looked neat...

Enjoying the view

I thought I would share the view that we had when a few of us went out to the mountains for the day. (may 6th) We had fantastic weather, and we had a wonderful time. We went to Banff and Lake Louise and though there were quite a few people, it wasn't so many that it wasn't enjoyable.

We didn't do too much, just walked around a bit at Lake Louise, had a snowball fight or two, and then in Banff we did pretty much the same, walked around a bit, had a late lunch, and then instead of the snowball fight, we hit the hot springs and went for a dip. I have to admit, I haven't been in the hot pool forever (since I was little) and I enjoyed it tremendously! We will definitely have to go back and do it again.

The first set of pictures are of Lake Lousie, including a close up of the glacier. It was weird walking around with all that snow on the ground in sneakers with no socks on! But the snowball fights were fun! The second set are what we took in Banff -sadly, we didn't take too many pictures other than a few at Bow Falls.

On other news, I still haven't picked up a a book since getting back from our trip, so I'm starting to fall behind on the reading challenge. Hopefully thought that will change soon, and I'll get out of my reading slump! I'm actually starting to miss it!

In stitching news, I'm diligently working on my SAL with the Hungarian blogging ladies, but I have to admit that its been a while since I've stitched over one, and its taking much longer than I thought it would! All last week all I did was work on the outer border for it! But I did manage to finish it, and this week so far I've been working on the actual design for this month. Hopefully I'll have it done in the next couple of nights - it will help that we have a long weekend coming up, and maybe that will mean I'll have more stitching time!!! I promise I'll post pictures soon! I really want to get this done so I can start working on those peonies again! That one is what I was planning on entering into the Stampede needlework exhibition this year, but at this rate, its beginning to look doubtful!

Shopping, stash and happy dances

Well I survived my last day of work before our vacation... what a hectic day it was, I'm glad to say it is over and that I don't have to look back at that place for a few weeks now! I do love what I do, but some of the changes that they are brining in to "simplify thing and ease the work load" are just plain stupid and makes it seem as if they are dumbing down the job (at least to me)... and plus in general it was just a busy day!

Anyways enough of that!! We went out shopping last night to start/finish up what we need to get before heading off to Hungary - my brother sent his list late, meaning I only got it yesterday but that is okay, its not a big list, and we managed to get most of it already last night so that is a good thing... just a few more stops today and then packing!

It was so funny last night while shopping, we went to Chapters - the local bookstore, and the books just kept jumping off the shelves at me to take them home! Its been a very long time that that has happened! So I managed to pick up a few (plus some extras) for my trip and with these, my empty spots on my reading challenge have been filled plus, some extra credit ones to boot! I just may take the "Thirteenth Tale" off my original list and add it to the extra credit one as I still need to purchase that one...

Here is what I got last night:
-18 Seconds by George D. Shuman
-Zodiak Unmasked by Robert Graysmith
-In the Name of Honor by Mukhtar Mai
-The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillippa Greggory
-Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir
-One More Day by Mitch Albom

Not a bad haul if I say so myself... but I know if I would have been in the store longer more would have jumped out!

Stashwise I got my automatic for the LNH & Crescent Colors Collaboration of the Fruit ones, and my automatic for the Bent Creek Red Thread series... all are very cute, now to just sit down and stitch them all up! Becuase they (Silver Needle) were a bit late on sending things out I was sent two limited editon skeins fo GAST colours - very pretty! One is called Deadwood and is beige in colour and the other is Zinnia and is purple. As per the note, these are so "Limited" that they won't be joining their regular line of colours, which is too bad, as both are quite lovely.

And on to another "mini happy dance" Everything on the wedding piece is done except the beading!!! Whoo hoo! I do have to admit, that I totally messed up the veil - don't as how as I'm not too sure myself, so I sort of just winged it, and it looks a little off to me, so I may still tweak that before posting a picture... hopefully I will be able to post one tomorrow before we leave with the beading all done! I'm still hoping to get a little stitching time in tonight, so keep your fingers crossed!!!

Happy 1st Day of Spring

Wow, I didn't realize its been so long since I updated! Time flies when you are busy!!

Anyways, here are some stitching updates for the last little while, a couple of "mini-happy dances". Mini in that the project itself isn't done, but I've reached/finished certain parts that bring me that much closer to actually finishing them!!!

First off my canvas/beadwork class project... not long after I posted that progress picture in my last post, I actually finished off all the borders that needed to get done by the next class, so here it is:

I'm actually quite enjoying this, even though while working on some of the inside boxes the frog did visit, and I had to redo them. I'm really looking forward to working on the various stitches in the insides next... there will be some actual cutwork as well in the top two boxes and I'm already a bit on the nervous side with those... somehow cutting the fabric threads is a bit nerve wracking, but we'll tackle that when we get to those blocks...

So that was mini happy dance #1

On to dance #2 - I finally finished the dress on the wedding piece - at least the filling in part! I still have her veil to do and the beading on the dress, but that will be a piece of cake compared to the miles and miles of endless stitching of just white!!!

As you can see I started working on the flowers that decroate the "U" in "United" I desperately needed some colour after all that white!!!

And now for some pictures of what spring in our fair city looks like - or at least what today was like, the "official" first day of spring.

The pictures are from this morning, this afternoon (when the sun came out) and this evening

On to other things, like the reading challenge, I finished Abundance last night, and I loved it! It was a really good read, I'm definitley going to check out the other books by this same author! Now to figure out what to read next, but that will more than likely involve a stop at Chapters as I need paperbacks right now and most of the books on my to be read list are hard covers...

We are going on vacation for a whole 17 days leaving on Sunday (yes this Sunday coming up!!!) So I will need the books for reading on the plane and while we are gone etc!! We are going to Budapest to visit our family... we haven't been for 2 years and are so excited in going! It was a very last minute decision, we weren't going to go due to certain circumstances, but those have changed and we decided to go anyways! Its definitley going to be a whirlwind of a trip, and I'll need a vacation to recover once we're back, but it will all be worth it!

Quick kitty update, she is doing wonderfully, the fuzz is coming in nicely on her tummy - its still a long way off from the rest of her coat, but slowly but surely we'll get there! The scare with the recalled pet food scared us too, as we have a bunch of it, but she isn't showing any symptoms that they said to look for, so we are carefully breathing sigh of relief.... As soon as I read about it we checked the website and started feeding her other kinds instead... the good thing is that for her "wet" food she gets a couple of different kinds depending on her mood (yes her mood) so even though we had a bunch of the recalled stuff, she didn't necessarily eat really too much of it lately...

Anyways, that is it for now, and I'll try and post before we leave... no guarantees that I will blog while I"m gone - not really any time for it, but when I get home a definite update will be on its way!!!

Till then everyone have a wonderful Easter!!!

Kitty and Stitching Update

I haven't posted any progress pictures for awhile so here we go!

E and I signed up for a canvas and beading class at our LNS and here is my progress so far - we need to get all the borders for each square done first and then next class (next month) we will start working on the specialty stitches inside the boxes, doing one box at a time...

Here are my peonies, I worked on them a bit this past week, and I'm just loving the way they are turning out!

Here is my progress on the wedding piece, on the home stretch with filling in her dress! Sorry for the quality of the picture, but you can see my progress better on this one than the more focused one...

And last but not least, my kitty and her white tummy! You can't see the whole shaved area but you get the idea. Her incision is healing nicely and hopefully on Wednesday we will be able to go and get her stitches removed...

On the reading challenge, I'm doing fairly well I think, I'm on book 4 from my list and its only the 3rd month! I really enjoyed both Bare Bones, and The Last Wife of Henery VIII. I'm only a small ways into Abundance, but so far so good. I just haven't had time to read the last few nights, though hopefully that will recitify itself in the next few days!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well the day is almost over, but Happy Valentine's day to you all! Hope you all had a wonderful day however you spent it! Laci and I had a nice quiet evening at home just the two of us, and it was nice... Dad surprised me by getting me a beautiful orchid plant - I hope I don't kill the poor thing and a beautiful card that made me cry! All in all it was a great evening... the day wasn't too bad, but can't say it was fun, as I spent it at work!



Last Friday we had a guest performer from Hungary here, Berecz Andras (folklorist, storyteller and singer) and the show he did was great, it was just too bad that not more people showed up... more people came than I originally expected, but still there wasn't that many, and its sad that someone of his calibre comes here and can only get such a small crowd, while he is sold out each and every weekend in Hungary. Oh well, those of us who were there enjoyed ourselves, and it was wonderful seeing him again! He is going to be having a special show for his 50th birthday this year in June, I so wish we could go and see it - I'm sure its going to be fantastic!!!




In other news, I finished off another project for my challenge - can't show you a progress pictures, as it is a gift for someone who reads my blog! Now just to finish it into what it is supposed to be! Hopefully with it being a long weekend this weekend, I'll be able to get some finishing in, or I should say hubby maybe able to get some in! LOL Don't worry once recieved, I'll post pictures, so you can see I'm not just bluffing! This week, I've pulled out the wedding piece for my niece again, and so far so good, I'm making good progress! So at least next week, I'll be able to show off a progress picture!


Other stitching news, the Nashville Market just ended, and there are a few things that just came out that are definite additions to the wish list... I haven't actually added them, but I will. Stitching Bits and Bobs has a pretty good list of what came out, and I'm not sure why, as they are not the normal style of design that I would stitch, but the four girls by Carriage House Samplings - Elizabeth, Mary Margaret, Molly, and Suzannah really caught my eye. As I said they are not the normal style that I usually stitch, but still, I can see them finished as throw pillows or something to that effect, if I had more wall space, I would even say framed! Weird!! I think its time to go through the ole' stash and thin it out a bit, and make some serious decisions as to whether or not I'm going to ever stitch some of the stuff I have in there!


On my reading challenge, I finished Da Vinci Code quite sometime ago, I just keep forgetting to change the picture to what I'm reading now! I've got Kathy Reichs' Bare Bones going right now. I tried to read "The Secret History of Lucifer" and it is interesting, just a little dry for bedtime reading, so I'm going to switch that one out, and maybe if I can finish reading it later as an extra credit book! So with that switch, I'm down to only 9 books, but I went shopping and picked up a new one, which I will add to my list - "Abundance" by Sena Jeter Naslund - its another one on Mari Antoinette - I seem to be stuck in the historical fiction genre right now, which is weird for me, as normally I don't read these kinds of books... Go figure!