In which we have a terrible week

This week started off badly.  At 7:30 pm on Sunday night, I commenced throwing up.  At 4:00 am Monday morning, Shawn joined me.  It was like a reverse colon cleanse.  It was gnarly and nasty and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.  

Tuesday, we had to put Mac down.  After 15 years, he developed kidney disease leading to kidney failure.  Though we didn't have him long, he made his mark.  For one he was the longest, tallest cat I have ever seen.  

For the most part he was quietly in the background.  We'll miss him.

Shazam!

I betcha you didn’t believe me when I said I was working to overcome a very serious desire to lay down the stitching and maybe let it drift into obscurity for a while.  I really want to take a break from this.  I got a bunch of new books, patterns, and supplies over Christmas and they are calling the siren song of destruction—destruction of the will to finish.  And I know what will happen if I put it down.  I think we all know what will happen if I put it down.  Should I let it rest for a while (a cooling off period if you will), it would likely join the ranks of the teddy bear (which need limbs knitted), the baby blanket (only 8 more rows required to complete, 8!), and a host of few other projects that are getting a bit long in the tooth. 

But I’m not going to lie.  I found an adorable cross stitch growth chart.  And I’m going to make it, as soon as I buy it, which I’m trying to hold off doing, and I might be able to hold out--until at least this afternoon.  

Cold Moon rising

Solstice has come and gone.  Technically the days are getting longer.  My Farmer’s Almanac says we’ll have an extra hour of daylight by the end of January.  Two minutes a day doesn’t really feel like an increase.  The full moon is tomorrow.  There was a time when everyone would have known the name of the full moon and what it meant for your garden, your live stock, and your hearth and home.  We don’t really need to know that now for obvious reasons.  But moon watching is one of my winter time ways to keep in touch with nature.  Our skies are sharp and clear but more importantly, there are no mosquitoes.

Farmer’s Almanac calls the January Moon the Wolf Moon, as in there is less food and the wolves can be heard howling closer to the villages.  I did a smidge of research on the January Full Moon.  There are several other names for it—Old Moon, Ice Moon, and Cold Moon just to name a few.  On the Wikipedia page, the Wolf Moon is designated as the Algonquian name.  Since that name only sounded vaguely familiar, I had to look it up. (sorry, it’s been a long time since 5^th grade).  The Algonquians are Native American tribes from the Northeastern US and Canada.  Since the names I found seem to be culturally and therefore location driven, I decided to see what the name would have been for the Native Americans in our area, the Cherokee.  For southeast TN, this is the month of the Cold Moon.  So come tomorrow night, I will be outside checking out our Cold Moon and watching for Orion rising (mostly b/c it is one of the few constellations I can find.  I even have problems with the Big Dipper).

Scents of the season

I love kitchen smells.  Show me a cinnamon candle and I'll have it burning before you say pyromaniac.  And this is the perfect time of year for kitchen smells.  When it is cold and crummy (or weirdly tepid and humid as it has been this year), I love the suggestion of warm and cozy comfort provided by all the good kitchen smells.  I simmer spices on the stove, which not only smells nice but adds some mositure to the air in the house.  Inside air can be very drying in the winter.  My favorite spice combo is cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, and whole allspice with an orange peel. 

This also the time of year I like to pull out coconut scented body wash.  This is the only time of year I really like coconut scented stuff and I think it is because it reminds me of suntan lotion and summer.  Not a bad association when it is dark by 5:30 pm.  Some of my favorites and Bath and Body works Coconut Lime Verbena but this year I found something new at Earth Fare, EO's Coconut, Vanilla and Tangerine.  It wasn't bad.  I could do with a little less Tangerine.  For whatever reason I love the orange smell mixed in with the kitchen smells in candles and such but don't particulary enjoy walking around smelling like an orange.  But the EO product does have the added distinction of being free of a lot of the chemical addivites in other body washes.  

Do you have particular scents you like at different times of the year?

Dipping a toe into 2012

It's 2012, has been for nearly 24 hours.  I thought about resolution post but was bored by the concept before I even typed the first word.  So instead I'll give you a hint at what I didn't do for the last week.  Stitch.  I set Vi's stocking down Christmas Eve with a slightly white chocolate flavored taste of defeat in my mouth.  I thought I was going to make it until the evil cold knocked me flat.  No stitching for 3 days.  I don't think I have to tell you that was a game changer killer.  Let's face it, this project and I were barely on speaking terms to start with.  The sting of failure didn't help and well, we need some time apart.  But I've picked it back up.  I wouldn't say we're reconciling, but we're tolerating each other--for the kid's sake.

Happy New Year!

I’m sitting here on my last day of vacation in 2011.  Vi is playing (somewhat) quietly on her own.  There is a fire in the fireplace.  No cats are fighting.  For a moment anyway, all is calm.  And while it won't last, the chaos makes these moments better, sweeter.  In looking at my list of gardening, reading and crafting for the year, there is no getting around it.  It’s been a sorry year for all 3.  But it is been a great year for family.  And I wouldn’t swap it for the world.

Wishing you and yours a Happy New Year!

A little late but

Merry Christmas from Little Bit and us other two (hey, we know who the cute one is!)

 Click to embiggen

Thwarted

You win this round, Time.  But next year...game on.

Eat your heart out Stephen Hawking

I stitched over the weekend.  I stitched a lot over the weekend, maybe to the point where one eye was twitching slightly and Shawn started using that tone of voice.  The soothing one you use on crazy irrational people.  The one that by the way husbands of crafters at Christmas time all over the world, tends to incite aforementioned crafter to even more fury and crazed eye twitching.  If the soothing tone is accompanied by suggestions that it would be ok if such handcrafted acts of love were not completed on time and that (brace yourselves) a substitute stand in of a store bought (insert crafted item here) were to be purchased it would be ok, then may God have mercy on your soul because your crafter will likely rise up and smite you.  Christmas is not the time for the bitter gall of failure.  Christmas is the time for hope.  Hope that I will master the time continuum and worm holes and all that.  That's right.  It's not going to be Stephen Hawking or some such smarty pants physicists that masters that stuff.  It's going to be a crafter with a Christmas deadline.

Yeah, it's totally going to be fine.

I have been stitching in a caffeine induced frenzy.  Every night, after Vi goes to bed, I have about 1 hour of free time before I fall asleep on the couch with my mouth hanging open go to bed.  So I stitch.  I also stitched in the car on the way to Oak Ridge for Thanksgiving (which was lovely.  Vi got to meet her great-grandmother for whom she is named for the very first time) and on the way back.  I was didn’t think I could make the cross stitch in the car thing work being that cross stitch is so pattern intensive and thread heavy.  It certainly isn’t knitting portable where you can memorize a 16 row repeat in no time and as long as you have a fresh ball, it is have needles will travel.  This is where I’m at.  

This is what completed will look like.  I am totally screwed can totally do this.