If you're on my reads list and don't see yourself over there at the moment, don't freak... I ALMOST have the new template ready, and I've sorted my reads by daily, weekly, and stitching-related blogs.
Should have things fixed by this evening... hopefully.
31 July 2005
30 July 2005
Busy Friday
After weeks of trying to figure out how to do this, ugotnothin and I finally met yesterday. We were partnered together for a slam swap on one of our yahoolists, and she suggested that it might be the incentive we needed. I agreed.
I had a good time. I hope that she did, too. We chatted for a good portion of the afternoon and did some quick shopping in Downtown Crossing. Since I'm barely tapping into my penpalling and swapping supplies at this point, I just filled up my backpack with slams, and sorted through them to fill the swap I owed her at the table in Borders. That was partially due to the fact that I don't have a lot of address labels at the moment to sign slams, either. (one of those little purchases I need to do one of these days...)
She jumped on the T around 4 because she had evening plans to attend to. Erich wasn't out of work until 5, so I walked over to Chinatown to check my post office box (no mail today) and then walked over to the Boston Common to grab some lemonade and wait for him near the movie theater.
We saw "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" after he got out of work. I'm mixed about it. Some of the things were really good. Some of it were just... eh. Depp's Wonka came off as a bit too Michael Jackson-ish to me, which creeped me out and honestly made me instinctively detach from the movie. I loved the nut room and the great glass elevator. The chocolate river was cool. I guess I just wasn't convinced by a lot of the acting. Seeing the movie stoned might be a better option. From the reaction in the theater, it sounded like a lot of people were feeling the same way. There was a small smattering of applause, but a lot of uncomfortable whispers and mutterings as people left. I think I'd give it a 7 overall. As a Burton movie, it was beautiful to look at, and I honestly loved the background story of Wonka. The acting just.. *shrug*
We hustled over to the commuter rail to catch the 8:20 train back to Providence and got home just before 10. I played Sims. Erich played World of Warcraft.
And life is good.
I had a good time. I hope that she did, too. We chatted for a good portion of the afternoon and did some quick shopping in Downtown Crossing. Since I'm barely tapping into my penpalling and swapping supplies at this point, I just filled up my backpack with slams, and sorted through them to fill the swap I owed her at the table in Borders. That was partially due to the fact that I don't have a lot of address labels at the moment to sign slams, either. (one of those little purchases I need to do one of these days...)
She jumped on the T around 4 because she had evening plans to attend to. Erich wasn't out of work until 5, so I walked over to Chinatown to check my post office box (no mail today) and then walked over to the Boston Common to grab some lemonade and wait for him near the movie theater.
We saw "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" after he got out of work. I'm mixed about it. Some of the things were really good. Some of it were just... eh. Depp's Wonka came off as a bit too Michael Jackson-ish to me, which creeped me out and honestly made me instinctively detach from the movie. I loved the nut room and the great glass elevator. The chocolate river was cool. I guess I just wasn't convinced by a lot of the acting. Seeing the movie stoned might be a better option. From the reaction in the theater, it sounded like a lot of people were feeling the same way. There was a small smattering of applause, but a lot of uncomfortable whispers and mutterings as people left. I think I'd give it a 7 overall. As a Burton movie, it was beautiful to look at, and I honestly loved the background story of Wonka. The acting just.. *shrug*
We hustled over to the commuter rail to catch the 8:20 train back to Providence and got home just before 10. I played Sims. Erich played World of Warcraft.
And life is good.
28 July 2005
A plethora of stitching stuff...
Yay! I found my uploading cable for the camera. This is a good thing. :) So lots of updates tonight...
First off, I have two weeks of Stitchers Blog Questions to answer... for some reason, I'm not getting the questions in my mailbox, despite being set up for individual mail on the group. Gotta love free email sites. *sigh*
Anyway... July 20, '05: Have you ever done a color conversion? If so, what did you think about your results and would you do it again? If not, would you like to try
someday? I have not yet done one, but definitely want to. Being a bit isolated in my stitching hobby until this year, I didn't realize it really was possible to do them. But then I saw variants of The Castle by Teresa Wentzler, and absolutely loved them. While I doubt I'll get around to it for many years, I'd love to do a conversion copy of The Castle someday on a dark fabric. At some point, I'll definitely be trying it on some project.
July 27, '05: What is your most unique/interesting stitching quirk? (This could be
something concerning the way you stitch, how you organize your stash, etc.) Since I really have nothing to compare it to, I'm not quite sure what my most unique quirk is. I suppose in the age of q-snaps and scroll frames, my preference for old-fashioned hoop stitching, perhaps? Or maybe the fact that I almost always stitch patterns upside down, and then flip them right-side up to backstitch (out of instinct). I don't have a real method to my organization yet, given that we've only been in the house for a month. Perhaps I should readdress this question come December or so. :)
Okay... thus endeth the questions for this week... now onto photos of my last rotation, which lasted from March 1st until the end of May... and then I had a "floating" session on The Castle, which lasted all of June.
First off, I have two weeks of Stitchers Blog Questions to answer... for some reason, I'm not getting the questions in my mailbox, despite being set up for individual mail on the group. Gotta love free email sites. *sigh*
Anyway... July 20, '05: Have you ever done a color conversion? If so, what did you think about your results and would you do it again? If not, would you like to try
someday? I have not yet done one, but definitely want to. Being a bit isolated in my stitching hobby until this year, I didn't realize it really was possible to do them. But then I saw variants of The Castle by Teresa Wentzler, and absolutely loved them. While I doubt I'll get around to it for many years, I'd love to do a conversion copy of The Castle someday on a dark fabric. At some point, I'll definitely be trying it on some project.
July 27, '05: What is your most unique/interesting stitching quirk? (This could be
something concerning the way you stitch, how you organize your stash, etc.) Since I really have nothing to compare it to, I'm not quite sure what my most unique quirk is. I suppose in the age of q-snaps and scroll frames, my preference for old-fashioned hoop stitching, perhaps? Or maybe the fact that I almost always stitch patterns upside down, and then flip them right-side up to backstitch (out of instinct). I don't have a real method to my organization yet, given that we've only been in the house for a month. Perhaps I should readdress this question come December or so. :)
Okay... thus endeth the questions for this week... now onto photos of my last rotation, which lasted from March 1st until the end of May... and then I had a "floating" session on The Castle, which lasted all of June.
Egyptian Sampler restart after one rotation. The linen looks a lot better (and more authentic) than my original start. I'll be working on this again come next week. Stitching on extremely uneven linen is tricky, but this piece is going to be worth it when complete!
The Castle after my normal rotation in April, but before the June floating focus. I'm now working on the rocks at the bottom. They dragged on this rotation.
The Castle after the floating focus in June... which included a 10-hour backstitching stretch, plus a lot of little color fill-ins in the rocks. The rocks didn't seem quite as bad this time... but I didn't have a lot of stitching time, either. The rock line is now down to the spine of the dragon tail in a few spots. I'll be completing the rest of the rocks above the dragon tail in my next rotation round.
Cats on a Staircase after work in May. The stairs are the trickiest part, since it's stitching white-on-white. I've been having a ton of problems with miscounts on this piece, and spent a good portion of the last round frogging stitches that I did four years ago. *sigh* Thankfully it didn't destroy the whole piece, but it wasn't fun.
Smoky Mountain Cats after work in May. Stitching this project is easy-- it's large swaths of the same color. However, the thread is craptacular and keeps breaking. And unfortunately no DMC options were given with the kit. So this might wind up being one of those frustration pieces due to the materials.
That's the last rotation round. I started my new rotation on July 15th, and decided to get a couple small pieces into the rotation so I could perhaps see a finish sometime this year. It's a bit disheartening to be in July of these rotations without a complete project to show for it... particularly since I technically haven't had a finish since 1996 (eep!).
So this rotation, I'm doing this:
1) NEW: Elemental Dragons- Fire (Dragon Dreams)
2) Egyptian Sampler (Teresa Wentzler)
3) Cats on a Staircase (Bucilla)
4) NEW: Astrology Sampler (Witches Stitches)
5) The Castle (Teresa Wentzler)
6) Home is Where the Cat Is (Leisure Arts)
7) NEW: Apache Wedding Blessing (Kooler Design Studio)
The last piece is a wedding present for my friend (and sorority sister), Ivanna. It won't be done by her October wedding date... but I'm going to be working as fast as I can on it so she can hopefully have it sometime next spring.
The Elemental Dragons are a freebie set of patterns on Dragon Dreams' homepage (located under samples). I decided to work on the Fire dragon first, but have kitted all five. To my delight, it has stitched up extremely fast. This is eight hours of stitching, as of the end of my commute time tonight:
All of the cross-stitches are done. I'm now doing the backstitching, and should have my first finish by the end of the weekend. (yay!) I'm stitching this on Silkweaver's 28ct. Golden Promise cashel linen. The rest of the dragons will also be on 28 ct. fabric... some evenweave, some linen, but all are Silkweaver.
Onto the next rotation! :)
25 July 2005
Exploring the new home state
Things I learned this weekend--
1) Rhode Island really is a small state.
2) I need to spend time over in Roger Williams Park and take pictures.
3) I will not want for stitching supplies while living in Providence
4) Rhode Island drivers are worse... slightly... than Massholes.
5) Roof patching material stinks to high heaven
On the big news front-- our stove finally works (yay!). The electrician, after three weeks of phone tag, finally came over on Saturday morning to replace the plug, but discovered that the entire wire coming from the basement was in very bad shape (the casing was frayed to where we could see the copper... not good). So the wire and plug were completely replaced, and we're now in business in the kitchen. Mac & cheese became the first official cooked meal in the house. :)
With a working stove, we finally could justify doing the first official food shopping trip for the house. Stop & Shop was doing some 10 for $10 deals, so we stocked up on side dishes. We decided to do most of our meat purchases at BJ's Wholesale later this week. Since we have two freezers, we can save money by buying in bulk and freezing it. And since I could have pork chops for dinner half of the week in various styles, I want the ones from BJ's since they're very thick (and cook nice and juicy). It was one of those HUGE shopping trips, though. When the fridge in our apartment went dead, we were able to save some stuff, but some stuff didn't make it. We also just had been winding down food shopping, so while we did bring down a fair amount of groceries, a lot of it was dry, long-term stuff like spices and tea.
I seriously can't wait to have chicken, rice, and salad tonight for dinner. You have no idea. :)
After the electrician left, Erich left to play one of the rotating D&D games that he's involved in with the Boston-turned-Providence crew. I wound up with a long day to myself, but with very little fundage to support doing much of anything out of the house thanks to a huge bill-payment catchup and some splurges on unnecessary lunches at work. I'm currently at a position where if I take any money out of the bank, I'm going to screw myself. (sigh)
So, instead... I spent the majority of the day organizing my stitching stuff. I had (and still have) dozens of skeins of embroidery thread to wind on bobbins and put away. I got through about half of them-- I still probably have around 40 skeins to wind. In the early afternoon, I decided to do my one exploration of the day and search for the stitch shop in Cumberland that I'd found on Google months ago. When I mentioned it on a New England stitching group I joined on yahoo, I received some very positive feedback.
I found it fairly easily-- no wrong turns to get there following google maps. I clocked it at about 20 minutes from the house, and almost all of it was on a limited access highway. The first thing I noticed about the store was its size. Most supply stores (save a defunct one in Salem that was THE BEST I've ever been to) for stitching are very cramped quarters, due to their limited audience. Think front of a drycleaning shop, or maybe a baseball card store (that does not carry gaming/hobby supplies). Very cramped, stocked to the ceiling with stuff, usually with a table in the middle out of necessity... but it makes it difficult to get around. With Heart and Soul is not like that at all. The cash register is in the lobby room of the store, but there are three other rooms. One has gift stuff (Vera Bradley bags, stationery, candles, etc.). The back room is a framing and matting room. But the main room has tons of stitching supplies-- kits, leaflets, fabric (cut to order), fibers, beads, hoops and scroll rods, magazines, etc. And tons of finished works on the walls. It was a surprisingly large shop. Most of the patterns were samplers and traditional cross stitch.
I will not want for stitching supplies. At all.
Since I currently have enough patterns to keep me stitching for probably the next five to seven years (and possibly more), I honestly had no desire to buy more patterns on Saturday. I did get the skeins of thread that I was missing in my stash to prep Ivanna's wedding piece. (I'm shocked at the chart price at the site I linked, BTW... I bought it direct from the design studio last week, and it cost only $6.00). I was only missing a dozen skeins-- three of which were duplicates that I had some of in stock, but not enough for the two skeins called for (and to prevent dye lot issues, I just bought two new ones). Now I just need to match fabric from my current stash (which won't be hard to do), and that project's ready to start.
After I left the stitching store, I decided to drive back to where my path to Cumberland had veered off of Route 146. I remembered seeing that there was a drive-in theater in North Smithfield. Sara (our friend and real-estate agent) had mentioned that she and her husband had seen movies there, and that it was very close to the house.
Sure enough, just up Route 146, there was the Rustic Tri-View... in business nightly. $17.00 per car load. But it looks like they only do single-feature movies on each of their three screens. We'll have to give them a try. Mendon is a wonderful place to see movies, but it is one that's a double-feature theater... so it means it's a weekend or vacation theater. If Tri-View only has one showing, we can do that on any night of the week.
I headed home after finding the movie theater, spending the rest of the day hanging out on the couch, stitching, and getting a bit of laundry done. Erich finally came home from his game sometime around 4 a.m. I was very glad I decided to sack out sometime around 1.
Sunday morning's iced coffee run led to a forced round-about way to get home, thanks to a car accident. It turned out to be a pleasant little drive through Roger Williams Park-- (which will become a photo essay entry next weekend). Once the weather cools a bit in late summer, I plan on taking some walks over to the park. Until then, the humidity will force me to drive to the park, but then I'll walk around once inside. It's only a few blocks away to the entrance, and just so beautiful.
The rest of Sunday was errands and chores. Aside from the grocery and cat supply shopping, we got new keys cut for the house and both cars. Erich's original set of keys still has not turned up, so it was time to get that issue fixed. And for the first time since living with Erich, I have a key to his car (shocking). Erich patched the soffit over the Florida Room, which my phobia of heights would never allow me to do. We did laundry. We'll do more tonight.
Thus ends my weekend adventure.
1) Rhode Island really is a small state.
2) I need to spend time over in Roger Williams Park and take pictures.
3) I will not want for stitching supplies while living in Providence
4) Rhode Island drivers are worse... slightly... than Massholes.
5) Roof patching material stinks to high heaven
On the big news front-- our stove finally works (yay!). The electrician, after three weeks of phone tag, finally came over on Saturday morning to replace the plug, but discovered that the entire wire coming from the basement was in very bad shape (the casing was frayed to where we could see the copper... not good). So the wire and plug were completely replaced, and we're now in business in the kitchen. Mac & cheese became the first official cooked meal in the house. :)
With a working stove, we finally could justify doing the first official food shopping trip for the house. Stop & Shop was doing some 10 for $10 deals, so we stocked up on side dishes. We decided to do most of our meat purchases at BJ's Wholesale later this week. Since we have two freezers, we can save money by buying in bulk and freezing it. And since I could have pork chops for dinner half of the week in various styles, I want the ones from BJ's since they're very thick (and cook nice and juicy). It was one of those HUGE shopping trips, though. When the fridge in our apartment went dead, we were able to save some stuff, but some stuff didn't make it. We also just had been winding down food shopping, so while we did bring down a fair amount of groceries, a lot of it was dry, long-term stuff like spices and tea.
I seriously can't wait to have chicken, rice, and salad tonight for dinner. You have no idea. :)
After the electrician left, Erich left to play one of the rotating D&D games that he's involved in with the Boston-turned-Providence crew. I wound up with a long day to myself, but with very little fundage to support doing much of anything out of the house thanks to a huge bill-payment catchup and some splurges on unnecessary lunches at work. I'm currently at a position where if I take any money out of the bank, I'm going to screw myself. (sigh)
So, instead... I spent the majority of the day organizing my stitching stuff. I had (and still have) dozens of skeins of embroidery thread to wind on bobbins and put away. I got through about half of them-- I still probably have around 40 skeins to wind. In the early afternoon, I decided to do my one exploration of the day and search for the stitch shop in Cumberland that I'd found on Google months ago. When I mentioned it on a New England stitching group I joined on yahoo, I received some very positive feedback.
I found it fairly easily-- no wrong turns to get there following google maps. I clocked it at about 20 minutes from the house, and almost all of it was on a limited access highway. The first thing I noticed about the store was its size. Most supply stores (save a defunct one in Salem that was THE BEST I've ever been to) for stitching are very cramped quarters, due to their limited audience. Think front of a drycleaning shop, or maybe a baseball card store (that does not carry gaming/hobby supplies). Very cramped, stocked to the ceiling with stuff, usually with a table in the middle out of necessity... but it makes it difficult to get around. With Heart and Soul is not like that at all. The cash register is in the lobby room of the store, but there are three other rooms. One has gift stuff (Vera Bradley bags, stationery, candles, etc.). The back room is a framing and matting room. But the main room has tons of stitching supplies-- kits, leaflets, fabric (cut to order), fibers, beads, hoops and scroll rods, magazines, etc. And tons of finished works on the walls. It was a surprisingly large shop. Most of the patterns were samplers and traditional cross stitch.
I will not want for stitching supplies. At all.
Since I currently have enough patterns to keep me stitching for probably the next five to seven years (and possibly more), I honestly had no desire to buy more patterns on Saturday. I did get the skeins of thread that I was missing in my stash to prep Ivanna's wedding piece. (I'm shocked at the chart price at the site I linked, BTW... I bought it direct from the design studio last week, and it cost only $6.00). I was only missing a dozen skeins-- three of which were duplicates that I had some of in stock, but not enough for the two skeins called for (and to prevent dye lot issues, I just bought two new ones). Now I just need to match fabric from my current stash (which won't be hard to do), and that project's ready to start.
After I left the stitching store, I decided to drive back to where my path to Cumberland had veered off of Route 146. I remembered seeing that there was a drive-in theater in North Smithfield. Sara (our friend and real-estate agent) had mentioned that she and her husband had seen movies there, and that it was very close to the house.
Sure enough, just up Route 146, there was the Rustic Tri-View... in business nightly. $17.00 per car load. But it looks like they only do single-feature movies on each of their three screens. We'll have to give them a try. Mendon is a wonderful place to see movies, but it is one that's a double-feature theater... so it means it's a weekend or vacation theater. If Tri-View only has one showing, we can do that on any night of the week.
I headed home after finding the movie theater, spending the rest of the day hanging out on the couch, stitching, and getting a bit of laundry done. Erich finally came home from his game sometime around 4 a.m. I was very glad I decided to sack out sometime around 1.
Sunday morning's iced coffee run led to a forced round-about way to get home, thanks to a car accident. It turned out to be a pleasant little drive through Roger Williams Park-- (which will become a photo essay entry next weekend). Once the weather cools a bit in late summer, I plan on taking some walks over to the park. Until then, the humidity will force me to drive to the park, but then I'll walk around once inside. It's only a few blocks away to the entrance, and just so beautiful.
The rest of Sunday was errands and chores. Aside from the grocery and cat supply shopping, we got new keys cut for the house and both cars. Erich's original set of keys still has not turned up, so it was time to get that issue fixed. And for the first time since living with Erich, I have a key to his car (shocking). Erich patched the soffit over the Florida Room, which my phobia of heights would never allow me to do. We did laundry. We'll do more tonight.
Thus ends my weekend adventure.
19 July 2005
gah.... ;P
Days like today remind me why I occasionally.... rarely... hate New England. It's near 90 degrees, and the humidity is so bad that not only can I see a haze in the air, but I can feel it on my skin, going into my lungs... ugh. According to the Weather Channel, the dew point is at 74%, which means it's in the oppressive level.
No shit. I've taken two hits off my inhaler today thanks to this nastiness.
It's 88 degrees, with a heat index of 96 degrees, and peak temps aren't for another couple hours. And Providence isn't much better.
I want to go dance under the waterspouts in wading pool at the Christian Science center for a while... probably wouldn't go over well at the office for me to come back looking like a drowned rat, though...
*sigh*
No shit. I've taken two hits off my inhaler today thanks to this nastiness.
It's 88 degrees, with a heat index of 96 degrees, and peak temps aren't for another couple hours. And Providence isn't much better.
I want to go dance under the waterspouts in wading pool at the Christian Science center for a while... probably wouldn't go over well at the office for me to come back looking like a drowned rat, though...
*sigh*
18 July 2005
Summertime goals
Since my springtime goal list was fairly shot due to that unexpected OhMyGodWeBoughtAHouse event, I'm calling it a wash. Here's my goals for the rest of this month...
1) Buy some summer clothes for work.
2) Unpack the rest of my office
3) Clean out cabinets and put down fresh contact paper.
4) Write notecards to friends and family regarding move
5) Finish unpacking boxes in living room
6) Triple-check all credit cards, bank accounts, subscriptions, etc. to make sure address is correct
7) Gardening...
8) Clean out email
9) Finish Blogger template
10) Buy new T-pass on June 29th
11) Take photos of stitching and reformat stitching web pages
I think that's enough....
1) Buy some summer clothes for work.
- I'm late on this, I know, but everything else made me forget about my wardrobe. And now I'm stumped looking at my closet (which is fairly full) because everything I own is either for autumn and winter, or way too casual for work. I can wear jeans, which helps. But I need some nice summer blouses and maybe a flippy skirt or two.
2) Unpack the rest of my office
- It's almost done, but I have a lot of random little stuff to sort and store away.
3) Clean out cabinets and put down fresh contact paper.
- I rushed to put all of the fragile stuff away so it didn't get bumped, but I need to actually organize it now.
4) Write notecards to friends and family regarding move
- Some of my family probably doesn't know we're engaged. How fucked up is that? I have some cards to write..
5) Finish unpacking boxes in living room
- self explanatory.
6) Triple-check all credit cards, bank accounts, subscriptions, etc. to make sure address is correct
- And that I'm up to date on payments on everything.
7) Gardening...
- Plant lilies in front of house. Transplant little yellow flowers growing on our hell strip to somewhere else in the yard. Help Erich with some basic yard maintenance.
8) Clean out email
- Swap reports on yahoogroups, partner lists for ThemeFBs, reply to personal emails.
9) Finish Blogger template
10) Buy new T-pass on June 29th
- It's very odd to have one again. We'll ignore the fact that I've used them for a third of my life. Seeing a Zone 8 on it (as opposed to an S or a C for the city passes) is freaky.
11) Take photos of stitching and reformat stitching web pages
- Implement new template. Re-arrange historical photos for each project.
I think that's enough....
16 July 2005
Broken thoughts on a Saturday...
I finished Half-Blood Prince yesterday afternoon. Around 4 hours, which makes sense since OOtP took me a bit less than six. I enjoyed it. Still digesting it, since there are the plot turns like all of the other books that need to be thought about. I'll probably start putting some comments behind a spoiler filter on LiveJournal tomorrow (and can email discussions for anyone who isn't on LJ but wants my views...)
But without giving anything away-- I really did enjoy it, and so far, I like how the story is progressing.
(I can say safely, at least!)
+ + + + + + +
I did a bit of work last night on the revamp of my journal. Blogger's tags are a bit confusing to me, and my knowledge of CSS is at a "if I cut and paste this, it seems to work..." level, so it's going slowly. By no means is it finished, but here's my working copy at the moment. I have a lot of .div tags to add in there, as I improve the text colors and such.
Hopefully by next Friday, it'll be ready to go live.
+ + + + + + +
We have a D&D game starting around noon today. Erich's running his campaign. So while I'm not busy in combat, I have plenty of backstitching to do on The Castle. Once I get the backstitching rotation done (probably today... since the game will go for at least 10 hours), I'll start my new stitching rotation...
1) Egyptian Sampler (TW)
2) Cats on a Staircase (Bucilla OOP)
3) New start- Astrology Sampler (Witches Stitches)
4) The Castle
5) Smoky Mountain Cats (Pegasus)
6) Home is Where the Cat Is (Leisure Arts)
7) New Start- Elemental Dragons (Dragon Dreams)
*) Backstitching: The Castle (floating slot for whenever our next game is)
#6 should go quickly... I expect to get it nearly done in one rotation round. IT's very small. Once that's complete, I'll most likely start on the wedding sampler for Ivanna & Joe.
Oh... and I received my fabric-of-the-month from Silkweaver yesterday. My pieces were two of the new colors they're releasing in August: Poltergeist (a grey swirl, with just a hint of purple to my eyes...) and Coral Reef (which is, as it sounds, coral pink). I'm on the "random fabric" plan, so this month, I received 32 ct. fabrics... the Coral Reef is Lugana, and the Poltergeist is Belfast Linen.
Not sure what I'll use the Coral Reef for yet. Poltergeist I have a plan for-- that fits the season, of course.
+ + + + + + +
Thank Goddess for the inventor of portable air conditioners. I wouldn't be sleeping otherwise. It's rather muggy up here on the 2nd floor.
Off to game...
But without giving anything away-- I really did enjoy it, and so far, I like how the story is progressing.
(I can say safely, at least!)
+ + + + + + +
I did a bit of work last night on the revamp of my journal. Blogger's tags are a bit confusing to me, and my knowledge of CSS is at a "if I cut and paste this, it seems to work..." level, so it's going slowly. By no means is it finished, but here's my working copy at the moment. I have a lot of .div tags to add in there, as I improve the text colors and such.
Hopefully by next Friday, it'll be ready to go live.
+ + + + + + +
We have a D&D game starting around noon today. Erich's running his campaign. So while I'm not busy in combat, I have plenty of backstitching to do on The Castle. Once I get the backstitching rotation done (probably today... since the game will go for at least 10 hours), I'll start my new stitching rotation...
1) Egyptian Sampler (TW)
2) Cats on a Staircase (Bucilla OOP)
3) New start- Astrology Sampler (Witches Stitches)
4) The Castle
5) Smoky Mountain Cats (Pegasus)
6) Home is Where the Cat Is (Leisure Arts)
7) New Start- Elemental Dragons (Dragon Dreams)
*) Backstitching: The Castle (floating slot for whenever our next game is)
#6 should go quickly... I expect to get it nearly done in one rotation round. IT's very small. Once that's complete, I'll most likely start on the wedding sampler for Ivanna & Joe.
Oh... and I received my fabric-of-the-month from Silkweaver yesterday. My pieces were two of the new colors they're releasing in August: Poltergeist (a grey swirl, with just a hint of purple to my eyes...) and Coral Reef (which is, as it sounds, coral pink). I'm on the "random fabric" plan, so this month, I received 32 ct. fabrics... the Coral Reef is Lugana, and the Poltergeist is Belfast Linen.
Not sure what I'll use the Coral Reef for yet. Poltergeist I have a plan for-- that fits the season, of course.
+ + + + + + +
Thank Goddess for the inventor of portable air conditioners. I wouldn't be sleeping otherwise. It's rather muggy up here on the 2nd floor.
Off to game...
13 July 2005
Stitchers Blog Questions...
A few weeks back, I joined a yahoo group designed specifically for cross-stitch related blog questions, called SBQ. Since I was busy with "the moves", I wasn't participating... but now I can finally get to them. :) Questions are posted roughly every Wednesday.
Since there are many in the archives, I'll probably work backward through a couple of them every week. This week's question, "What do you do when you have some sort of obligation stitching to do, but don't want to do it?" doesn't apply to me, as I've never done any obligation stitching to date... so here are a few others from the archives...
7/6/05- Do you think that you stitch neater on Evenweave than you do on Aida cloth? If so, why?
My quarter stitches are definitely neater (for obvious reasons to anyone who's reading this that knows what Aida and Evenweave *are*), but otherwise I don't think my stitches are that much neater on Evenweave. If I have one strong fault with my stitching, it's that I'm not as adept at keeping my thread tension even, so my stitches often are uneven, no matter what I'm stitching on. Hopefully that will change with time and increased experience.
6/29/05 When starting a new project, do you start in the middle? If you do, once you've worked down to the bottom, do you turn your chart and fabric around so that you are stitching the top section downwards again or do you just stitch upwards from the middle?
I always start in the middle. I don't work to the bottom, though-- I honestly kind of go all directions from the middle when I work. I try to find identifyable forms to set stitching goals, and work that way.
As for turning my chart and fabric-- as odd as it sounds, I always work with my hoop upside down when I stitch (the chart stays upright), but turn it back upright when I am backstitching. It's really, really odd. But the artists and designers in my department at work have suggested that I do it because I'm focusing on the individual details of the stitches when I'm actually stitching crosses, rather than the finished image as a whole. When I'm backstitching, I'm finishing the image.
It's really screwed up, but if I turn my hoop upright, a lot of times I get completely messed up as I read charts. Clearly, my brain needs some rewiring.
6/22/05 Are there any types of designs that you won't stitch?
Unless it were for an obligation piece for a friend, I won't stitch Christian or Bible-related pieces. I'm not Christian, so I have no purpose for them.
The ONLY exception to this rule would be a stitching of the Footprints poem, which is Christian in origin, but has a bit more universal appeal. I find the poem inspirational. I expect to eventually have some form of this in my rotation, most likely as a gift to my mom (who really loves the poem).
Since there are many in the archives, I'll probably work backward through a couple of them every week. This week's question, "What do you do when you have some sort of obligation stitching to do, but don't want to do it?" doesn't apply to me, as I've never done any obligation stitching to date... so here are a few others from the archives...
7/6/05- Do you think that you stitch neater on Evenweave than you do on Aida cloth? If so, why?
My quarter stitches are definitely neater (for obvious reasons to anyone who's reading this that knows what Aida and Evenweave *are*), but otherwise I don't think my stitches are that much neater on Evenweave. If I have one strong fault with my stitching, it's that I'm not as adept at keeping my thread tension even, so my stitches often are uneven, no matter what I'm stitching on. Hopefully that will change with time and increased experience.
6/29/05 When starting a new project, do you start in the middle? If you do, once you've worked down to the bottom, do you turn your chart and fabric around so that you are stitching the top section downwards again or do you just stitch upwards from the middle?
I always start in the middle. I don't work to the bottom, though-- I honestly kind of go all directions from the middle when I work. I try to find identifyable forms to set stitching goals, and work that way.
As for turning my chart and fabric-- as odd as it sounds, I always work with my hoop upside down when I stitch (the chart stays upright), but turn it back upright when I am backstitching. It's really, really odd. But the artists and designers in my department at work have suggested that I do it because I'm focusing on the individual details of the stitches when I'm actually stitching crosses, rather than the finished image as a whole. When I'm backstitching, I'm finishing the image.
It's really screwed up, but if I turn my hoop upright, a lot of times I get completely messed up as I read charts. Clearly, my brain needs some rewiring.
6/22/05 Are there any types of designs that you won't stitch?
Unless it were for an obligation piece for a friend, I won't stitch Christian or Bible-related pieces. I'm not Christian, so I have no purpose for them.
The ONLY exception to this rule would be a stitching of the Footprints poem, which is Christian in origin, but has a bit more universal appeal. I find the poem inspirational. I expect to eventually have some form of this in my rotation, most likely as a gift to my mom (who really loves the poem).
12 July 2005
Website changes are a'happening...
Looky what I did in the last hour... :)
Eventually, I plan on having everything on my site switch over to the graphics... Stitching page, fanfic, faith ramblings, and yes, my journal. I'm not exactly looking forward to coding Blogger script into this layout, but hey... it works.
I'm too poor to go out and do anything else right now-- might as well work on the web pages.
Now if Globat wouldn't be completely fucked up when I save pages, I could actually do this faster. I guess I'll work out the pages in Notepad...
*sigh*
Eventually, I plan on having everything on my site switch over to the graphics... Stitching page, fanfic, faith ramblings, and yes, my journal. I'm not exactly looking forward to coding Blogger script into this layout, but hey... it works.
I'm too poor to go out and do anything else right now-- might as well work on the web pages.
Now if Globat wouldn't be completely fucked up when I save pages, I could actually do this faster. I guess I'll work out the pages in Notepad...
*sigh*
Needing a game plan
I'm really, really sick of my Keds sport shoes (they're those weird half clog/half tennis shoe things). They're really comfy... don't get me wrong. But in my brilliance of packing, they were the only shoes I kept out of boxes. And so I've been wearing the SAME pair of shoes everyday, for every purpose, for about three weeks straight now. This is complicated by the fact that I improperly labeled my shoe box, so right now, I honestly have no clue what still-taped box contains my shoes. I know the pile is in a larger box (I AM a girl, after all... regardless of my personal inability to be fashionable... I still have too many shoes).
But yeah-- I'm getting sick of wearing the same pair for everything. If they don't show up by payday on Friday, I think I'll hit Marshalls across the street from work immediately after my half-day of work, and buy a new pair of shoes.
Just 'cause.
***
Last night was the first attempt at our monthly Worlds Largest Dungeon excursion. It's in Abington, closer to where we used to live, and runs from around 7 p.m. to 11 or 11:30 (depending on interruptions during the game-- we have a stopwatched 4 hours of gaming time). The game went well. Lots of battling. Some plot development about our environment (if that makes sense). Pretty good treasure haul. We seem have been working through an area of the dungeon that better holds interest. Section A was very empty, and a lot of "oh, look... another empty room." Not so with the area we're in now.
Getting up this morning was a bit rough, but it was due as much to a lack of sleep the night before as it was the lessened hours last night. Erich and I stayed up a bit too early on Sunday night, so we were tired yesterday morning, too. I have a bit of a headache, but I'll manage. We're still partially adjusting to the new commute anyway, so everything compounds a bit.
Tonight WILL be an early bed night. I plan on being under the covers by 11. Preferrably 10:30.
But before I go to bed, I have a few things I want to do... like actually set up my desktop computer in my office (finally!). Erich helped me move the bookshelves and desks into place on Sunday so I can start unloading boxes. I seriously can't wait to have my office together. Hopefully I can have the majority of that accomplished by the end of the weekend.
Tonight, I focus only on the computer. Because I'm already tired and won't want to do much else... but I'm in desperate need of an escape into Sims 2 for a while.
And as a note to myself, for this week...
1) Last post-party cleanup in kitchen
2) Finish backlog of laundry, put away
3) Pay all bills
4) Double-check bill and subscription addresses, update where needed
5) Respond to emails (where needed)
Busy, busy, busy...
But yeah-- I'm getting sick of wearing the same pair for everything. If they don't show up by payday on Friday, I think I'll hit Marshalls across the street from work immediately after my half-day of work, and buy a new pair of shoes.
Just 'cause.
***
Last night was the first attempt at our monthly Worlds Largest Dungeon excursion. It's in Abington, closer to where we used to live, and runs from around 7 p.m. to 11 or 11:30 (depending on interruptions during the game-- we have a stopwatched 4 hours of gaming time). The game went well. Lots of battling. Some plot development about our environment (if that makes sense). Pretty good treasure haul. We seem have been working through an area of the dungeon that better holds interest. Section A was very empty, and a lot of "oh, look... another empty room." Not so with the area we're in now.
Getting up this morning was a bit rough, but it was due as much to a lack of sleep the night before as it was the lessened hours last night. Erich and I stayed up a bit too early on Sunday night, so we were tired yesterday morning, too. I have a bit of a headache, but I'll manage. We're still partially adjusting to the new commute anyway, so everything compounds a bit.
Tonight WILL be an early bed night. I plan on being under the covers by 11. Preferrably 10:30.
But before I go to bed, I have a few things I want to do... like actually set up my desktop computer in my office (finally!). Erich helped me move the bookshelves and desks into place on Sunday so I can start unloading boxes. I seriously can't wait to have my office together. Hopefully I can have the majority of that accomplished by the end of the weekend.
Tonight, I focus only on the computer. Because I'm already tired and won't want to do much else... but I'm in desperate need of an escape into Sims 2 for a while.
And as a note to myself, for this week...
1) Last post-party cleanup in kitchen
2) Finish backlog of laundry, put away
3) Pay all bills
4) Double-check bill and subscription addresses, update where needed
5) Respond to emails (where needed)
Busy, busy, busy...
08 July 2005
A Letter to the Terrorists, From London
Best. Letter. Ever.
Original link found here...
Original link found here...
- What the fuck do you think you're doing?
This is London. We've dealt with your sort before. You don't try and pull this on us.
Do you have any idea how many times our city has been attacked? Whatever you're trying to do, it's not going to work.
All you've done is end some of our lives, and ruin some more. How is that going to help you? You don't get rewarded for this kind of crap.
And if, as your MO indicates, you're an al-Qaeda group, then you're out of your tiny minds.
Because if this is a message to Tony Blair, we've got news for you. We don't much like our government ourselves, or what they do in our name. But, listen very clearly. We'll deal with that ourselves. We're London, and we've got our own way of doing things, and it doesn't involve tossing bombs around where innocent people are going about their lives.
And that's because we're better than you. Everyone is better than you. Our city works. We rather like it. And we're going to go about our lives. We're going to take care of the lives you ruined. And then we're going to work. And we're going down the pub.
So you can pack up your bombs, put them in your arseholes, and get the fuck out of our city.
Friday Five: World Events
1. How did you learn about yesterday's bombings in London? I found out when reading my friends page in my LJ. I wondered what Qelen was talking about... and then switched over to CNN.
2. Do you have any personal connections to the area? Some online bloggers, penpals, and a few work mates.
3. Do you use public transportation? Every workday, yes.
4. Have you ever let threats of terrorism change the way that you live each day? "Let" isn't a fair word to use, IMHO. My day to day life hasn't changed due to terrorism threats. But governmental laws and added security have altered things slightly-- not by my choice.
5. If you could say something directly to the person or group responsible for this tragedy, what would you say? I wouldn't, honestly. I imagine talking to them would be like my attempt to talk to someone who is an Evangical Christian on the far Republican Right-- if you don't agree with them, you're not really going to have any meaningful conversation. It would be a waste of my time.
Courtesy of Friday Fiver.
2. Do you have any personal connections to the area? Some online bloggers, penpals, and a few work mates.
3. Do you use public transportation? Every workday, yes.
4. Have you ever let threats of terrorism change the way that you live each day? "Let" isn't a fair word to use, IMHO. My day to day life hasn't changed due to terrorism threats. But governmental laws and added security have altered things slightly-- not by my choice.
5. If you could say something directly to the person or group responsible for this tragedy, what would you say? I wouldn't, honestly. I imagine talking to them would be like my attempt to talk to someone who is an Evangical Christian on the far Republican Right-- if you don't agree with them, you're not really going to have any meaningful conversation. It would be a waste of my time.
Courtesy of Friday Fiver.
07 July 2005
Dear Goddess...
I woke this morning, checked my email, and saw a post from FlyingBlogSpot regarding London. Did a WTF? and checked CNN.
So before I get into anything-- my thoughts are with those I know in Britain, and those I know who have friends and family in and around London who may be affected by the explosions this morning.
Since communication in and out of the U.K. seems to be nearly nil at the moment and both emails and phone messages aren't getting through... if you see this and are in and around London, please reply and let me know you're okay.
~ Mel.
So before I get into anything-- my thoughts are with those I know in Britain, and those I know who have friends and family in and around London who may be affected by the explosions this morning.
Since communication in and out of the U.K. seems to be nearly nil at the moment and both emails and phone messages aren't getting through... if you see this and are in and around London, please reply and let me know you're okay.
~ Mel.
05 July 2005
Weekend madness
I'm finding that living in a house for the first time since moving to college is a strange but comforting experience. It's definitely different than the apartment complex, where my front door merely led to a hallway for the better part of nine years. There's definitely something cozy about padding down to the kitchen to grab a glass of water in the middle of the night, or listening to the neighbors shooting off the holiday firecrackers down the block, or smelling the neighbors' bbq grills and mowed grass over the weekend.
They're all things that I forgot about once I moved to college. But they're very tangible parts of the neighborhood as a child, and ones I definitely have welcomed back itno my life quickly.
Today is my last full day of "vacation" before heading back to work, and so far, I'm feeling fairly in control of the unpacking. The kitchen is virtually done. Save the stove, which still needs an electrical socket repair to be plugged in, the kitchen functions just fine and is almost completely together. We have a grill in the backyard and the microwave for leftovers, so we can cook at the house (rather than run out for junk food, which we've done entirely too much of the past three weeks). I think I finally felt in control of the house once the kitchen was functioning. I can get dishes done. We have food in the fridge. No worries here.
One small frustration has revealed itself over the weekend-- somewhere in the mess, Erich has misplaced his ring of keys, which means that we're down to one car and one set of house keys. We're doing to do some lost and found calls to a couple stores that we've frequented in the past few days to make sure they weren't left there by accident (both of us have done to places together several times). We've managed to get into Erich's car and checked both the car and the trunk... no dice. And I've been looking everywhere as I've been unpacking, but nothing so far. Thankfully the trash hasn't gone out since we moved in-- and won't until Thursday, so if it needs to happen, we'll dig through the trash bags just in case they accidently got swept into a bag. We only have a small number of open but still semi-full boxes to check through-- most of the remaining boxes are still completely taped up (which eliminates them from the search).
But aside from that, it's been a smooth weekend. We had our first dinner party yesterday for the 4th. Erich's dad came over, as well as our friends Kevin, Tone, and Robin. We did lots of grilling, chatted, showed off the house, and just had a relaxing afternoon together. Next weekend will be the busy one with the official first house party. Hopefully the forecasted tropical storm will avoid us so we can have a sunny, dry day to party outside in the yard.
Before the party, I went into a patch of our yard that is really nothing but weeds (yay-- we get to do some tilling next year!) and dug up about three dozen day lillies that had propogated into the area of the yard. Despite it being weeds, Erich's mowing the area just to keep the height down right now, and I wanted to salvage the lillies if I could to transplant around the yard. They're all bright orange tiger lillies-- very pretty. I know that they'll spread quickly once I get them back into the ground, but for now they're all in my window boxes (that weren't planted this year since I knew we were moving). We have several bare spots around the yard, so these should definitely help to liven them up quickly.
Anyway... I need to get over to the train station to pick Erich up from the commuter rail. Back to real life tomorrow. (whee!)
They're all things that I forgot about once I moved to college. But they're very tangible parts of the neighborhood as a child, and ones I definitely have welcomed back itno my life quickly.
Today is my last full day of "vacation" before heading back to work, and so far, I'm feeling fairly in control of the unpacking. The kitchen is virtually done. Save the stove, which still needs an electrical socket repair to be plugged in, the kitchen functions just fine and is almost completely together. We have a grill in the backyard and the microwave for leftovers, so we can cook at the house (rather than run out for junk food, which we've done entirely too much of the past three weeks). I think I finally felt in control of the house once the kitchen was functioning. I can get dishes done. We have food in the fridge. No worries here.
One small frustration has revealed itself over the weekend-- somewhere in the mess, Erich has misplaced his ring of keys, which means that we're down to one car and one set of house keys. We're doing to do some lost and found calls to a couple stores that we've frequented in the past few days to make sure they weren't left there by accident (both of us have done to places together several times). We've managed to get into Erich's car and checked both the car and the trunk... no dice. And I've been looking everywhere as I've been unpacking, but nothing so far. Thankfully the trash hasn't gone out since we moved in-- and won't until Thursday, so if it needs to happen, we'll dig through the trash bags just in case they accidently got swept into a bag. We only have a small number of open but still semi-full boxes to check through-- most of the remaining boxes are still completely taped up (which eliminates them from the search).
But aside from that, it's been a smooth weekend. We had our first dinner party yesterday for the 4th. Erich's dad came over, as well as our friends Kevin, Tone, and Robin. We did lots of grilling, chatted, showed off the house, and just had a relaxing afternoon together. Next weekend will be the busy one with the official first house party. Hopefully the forecasted tropical storm will avoid us so we can have a sunny, dry day to party outside in the yard.
Before the party, I went into a patch of our yard that is really nothing but weeds (yay-- we get to do some tilling next year!) and dug up about three dozen day lillies that had propogated into the area of the yard. Despite it being weeds, Erich's mowing the area just to keep the height down right now, and I wanted to salvage the lillies if I could to transplant around the yard. They're all bright orange tiger lillies-- very pretty. I know that they'll spread quickly once I get them back into the ground, but for now they're all in my window boxes (that weren't planted this year since I knew we were moving). We have several bare spots around the yard, so these should definitely help to liven them up quickly.
Anyway... I need to get over to the train station to pick Erich up from the commuter rail. Back to real life tomorrow. (whee!)
01 July 2005
Lessons Learned in Moving (aka We're Here!)
I feel so weird. :) After a couple months of coming down here to do little maintenance and update projects on the house, we're living here. It's so strange. But oh so cool.
We spent the rest of yesterday doing very little due to exhaustion. We'd packed up any non-boxed stuff into our cars to haul down, and the trips up and down three flights of stairs killed both of us. Dinner (with celebratory margaritas) was spent at the Texas Roadhouse down the street. Bed arrived soon after. Both of us were out by around 10:30.
Things I've learned this move...
Getting movers was the best idea ever. They might be somewhat expensive ($1,200, in our case), but were worth every penny. They showed up at around 8:30 yesterday morning. They cleared the entire apartment out by noon. Had lunch, drove down, and had everything unpacked and into the house by around quarter past three. It saved our backs-- and our friendships with all of our friends. :)
Color-coded room tape from U-Haul rocks. Once we directed the movers for the individual pieces of furniture, they just moved all the boxes in by themselves. We just taped pieces of white paper with a slash of each individual room's tape on the doorways... they were able to do half of the unloading by themselves. The tape costs $25 for a 4-bedroom pack and saved tons of labelling and sorting time on both ends of the move.
Starting early to pack was key. Since my life had been enveloped by the office move until about mid-June, I hadn't had time or energy to focus on the apartment move. Taking two weeks off before moving was a lifesaver. Save a few hodge-podge items and the bathroom, we were completely done packing by around 8 p.m. the night before. We actually got a full night's sleep before moving. Which is nearly unheard of. The only thing I would have changed as far as our packing was concerned was start a bit earlier with items we didn't use as much-- cleaning through drawers, throwing junk out. It would have made the last two days much more relaxed as far as packing goes.
But we're here. And I've already managed to unpack most of the dish boxes. I'll be doing double the work in the kitchen-- I need to wipe out and re-paper the dish shelves, but we're doing so much furniture moving that I just wanted to put all of the dishes safely away in cabinets for peace of mind. If they need to be washed, no big deal-- we have a dishwasher for most of that. :)
The cats are doing okay. Gus is completely traumatized and spent most of yesterday in a fetal position in either the cat carrier or under hiding places. He's getting a little bit braver today, but his tail is firmly tucked between his legs, and he's slinking around very low to the ground when he actually goes anywhere. Colley's getting a bit more calmed down, after spending yesterday wedging himself into very good hiding places (as is his signature style in strange places). Fizz has been the brave one, being the first to really explore. She's completely on edge, though, and is hissing and growling if any other cat approaches her at all.
All three cats insisted on accompanying us to the bathroom in a pack this morning, and then back to the bedroom. I found that very amusing.
So today's going to be fairly laid back. A few boxes done, a few furniture placements, a little shopping. Nothing frantic, though. We got through the hard stuff. It can go slowly now. :)
It feels so good to actually be home.
We spent the rest of yesterday doing very little due to exhaustion. We'd packed up any non-boxed stuff into our cars to haul down, and the trips up and down three flights of stairs killed both of us. Dinner (with celebratory margaritas) was spent at the Texas Roadhouse down the street. Bed arrived soon after. Both of us were out by around 10:30.
Things I've learned this move...
Getting movers was the best idea ever. They might be somewhat expensive ($1,200, in our case), but were worth every penny. They showed up at around 8:30 yesterday morning. They cleared the entire apartment out by noon. Had lunch, drove down, and had everything unpacked and into the house by around quarter past three. It saved our backs-- and our friendships with all of our friends. :)
Color-coded room tape from U-Haul rocks. Once we directed the movers for the individual pieces of furniture, they just moved all the boxes in by themselves. We just taped pieces of white paper with a slash of each individual room's tape on the doorways... they were able to do half of the unloading by themselves. The tape costs $25 for a 4-bedroom pack and saved tons of labelling and sorting time on both ends of the move.
Starting early to pack was key. Since my life had been enveloped by the office move until about mid-June, I hadn't had time or energy to focus on the apartment move. Taking two weeks off before moving was a lifesaver. Save a few hodge-podge items and the bathroom, we were completely done packing by around 8 p.m. the night before. We actually got a full night's sleep before moving. Which is nearly unheard of. The only thing I would have changed as far as our packing was concerned was start a bit earlier with items we didn't use as much-- cleaning through drawers, throwing junk out. It would have made the last two days much more relaxed as far as packing goes.
But we're here. And I've already managed to unpack most of the dish boxes. I'll be doing double the work in the kitchen-- I need to wipe out and re-paper the dish shelves, but we're doing so much furniture moving that I just wanted to put all of the dishes safely away in cabinets for peace of mind. If they need to be washed, no big deal-- we have a dishwasher for most of that. :)
The cats are doing okay. Gus is completely traumatized and spent most of yesterday in a fetal position in either the cat carrier or under hiding places. He's getting a little bit braver today, but his tail is firmly tucked between his legs, and he's slinking around very low to the ground when he actually goes anywhere. Colley's getting a bit more calmed down, after spending yesterday wedging himself into very good hiding places (as is his signature style in strange places). Fizz has been the brave one, being the first to really explore. She's completely on edge, though, and is hissing and growling if any other cat approaches her at all.
All three cats insisted on accompanying us to the bathroom in a pack this morning, and then back to the bedroom. I found that very amusing.
So today's going to be fairly laid back. A few boxes done, a few furniture placements, a little shopping. Nothing frantic, though. We got through the hard stuff. It can go slowly now. :)
It feels so good to actually be home.
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