The Qi of SE

There’s a kitten in my soup!

admin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:04:59 +0000

And on my keyboard. And in my stitching. And in my tree. And licking my face at o’dark hours of the night/morning. And stitcking his face into my glass of water. And… well, you get the idea. Maestro is everywhere! This is a common sight and picture of the energetic bundle. He’s into everything! He’s also chasing our other three cats around with glee. The two oldest cats are ten and just not much fun. But Nikki is three and she’s quite up to the challenge. They chase, wrestle and hey, how come he’s getting some cool new toys that SHE never got? Here’s a shot of them playing in a cabinet. Her favorite thing to do is to pin Maestro down and nip at his back toes and belly. He flops around and jumps at her with all his might. All five pounds of it. It’s quite the sight to see. When he was smaller and they played chase, she’d dash ahead and wait for him to catch up. No longer. She runs full out and occasionally jumps up to places where he can’t (yet) jump to so she can get a bit of rest. He plays until he’s exhausted and then he’s sound asleep. You can pick him up and move him and he’ll shift a little and lick your nose all without opening his eyes. Here he is after just waking up. That’s Princess Poogle he’s snuggling with. She’s a pink google. When he’s not napping, chasing Nikki or exploring his new kingdom, he likes to chase mouse cursors. He does this by sitting on our laptop keyboards and completely blocking our view. That is he used to until we put up The TREE! The Tree has sparkly things on it. The Tree has things he can romp in. The Tree is a playground meant for diving into. The Tree is likely not going to make it through his kitten-hood. (The Tree is artificial and 11 years old.) There is only one distraction from The Tree and that’s GerbilVision! Every once and a while we open the door to the Gerbil room and the cats can, under supervision, go in and watch Marshmallow and Cookie romp around in their habitat.

Because of our darling new addition, I’ve not gotten as much stitching in as I’d have liked. He loves it when I stitch. So much so that it becomes impossible for me to stitch. So I either have to try to time it while he’s napping or retreat across the street to Kat’s house to stitch. Of course, while I’m there I’m giving Max and Pete the adoration they muchly deserve! I’ve been working on Hubble Bubble, but right now it’s a blob of light blues moving into some light green.When I get to the tip of the sail I’ll post a picture. Thanks to a sweet lady in Tasmania I was able to start Starry Pooka Cat by Elaine Cox. This chart has few colors but they are all gorgeous terra cotta shades. All the “white”you see is sparkle. I decided to keep it in for this piece and I am using two strands of Glissengloss 000 and I am very pleased with the result! I am also pleased with Scott’s camera as it captured the sparkle wonderfully! The other WIP I have to show you is Spanish Rouge from Sampler Cove. I’ve completed 1 1/2 pages.

My final words are a bit of a rant about how annoying the systems architect who designed xbox live is. Thanks to him/her/them my xbox login is unable to communicate with xbox live thereby requiring me to create a new login and losing all my achievements (granted, I only had 3K points worth). So two nights ago I started over. It seems rather odd that I had to do this being as my friends actually DID see me login to xbox live. Oh well… I was planning on being evil in Fable II anyway. Now I have a place to take out my frustrations.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Darth Maestro

admin — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:53:30 +0000

A bit over two weeks ago, a member of the Labrador Retriever Rescue rescued a sick feral kitten. He had a terrible cold that had his eyes swollen shut and his ears and nose covered in the normal joy that comes with a horrendous head cold. She promptly took him to the vet where he was put on antibiotics for his cold as well as other medicines for ear mites and worms in his tummy. He responded within a matter of days to the antibiotics and proved to be quite social. Learning this, she put out notice to the other LRR members looking to see if they knew anyone who was interested in adopting this kitten. Kat sent the mail to me and for some reason, even having never seen the little boy, I said, “YES!” He was taken back to the vet for testing for FIV and feline leukemia and with those tests being negative, a meeting place, date and time was made for the exchange. Kat and I came up with the same name for him on the drive home… “Maestro” as he looks like he’s wearing a tuxedo and we’re a musical family. As she has pointed out to me, it was love at first site and he is NOT going anywhere. MY baby boy… MINE! He snuggled with me all the way home from the exchange and hasn’t stopped snuggling yet! He’s incredibly social and loves people. He is still in isolation in our guest room until his cold and the worms are clear. I dubbed him “Darth Maestro” this past Wednesday as he had been off of antibiotics for several days but his cold had decided to relapse. So, off we went back to Dr. Rice where Maestro refused to allow any writing on his chart until he recieved the attention from the doc he wanted! Now we’re back on antibiotics (which we love the taste of), some really yummy Purina re-Flora’ing powder to help our tummies and yup, still on the deworming meds. I have had cats all of my life but never one with worms. It is disconcertingly gross. We also had our first ever distemper shot. We’re not going to like our four month visit… that’s when the snips come out. (Uhoh!)

Maestro adores everyone in our family… and everyone in our family adores him. Our daughters read in the evenings with him and he scampers all over them and their books. He loves their long hair and never stops purring. Weighing in at a manly two pounds, he packs a lot of purr for his weight! His favorite toy — FEATHERS! What’s even better than feathers? His people moving the feathers for him. He’s also a rub-my-belly baby. I hope he keeps that as he grows up. Scott wears cargo pants and Maestro loves ‘em! He climbs all over them and uses them as his personal jungle gym. As for me, I’m Mommy. I play, I feed, I clean the litter box, I shove yucky stuff in his face and I’m his favorite place to sleep. When I nap with him or even spend the night, he’s either curled up on my shoulder or stretched out across my neck. At this current weight, he’s not a problem across my neck. However, it may be an issue at ten pounds. But that’s ok. And, like my other baby boy, Ziggy, he likes to lick my face. None of my female cats do it, just my boys.

Maestro also loves any toys my daughters have. He loves all the little fiddly bit parts and things that make up eight year old toys. (Think Barbie shoe sizes and smaller.) His little head and feet fit right in there to “help” and they have quite the time with him. Today I took him into their bedroom to have him “help” them excavate out the stuff under their beds. I don’t think any kitten could have been happier. He was scampering all over the place diving from under one bedskirt to another discovering all sorts of cool girlie things to play with.

When he’s not doing that, he looooooves his whale. It’s a great place to play chase with his human-driven feathers, too!

I know there’s only one picture… he’s hard to take pictures of! I mean, good pictures of. We have lots of blurry pictures… and pictures of his fuzzy butt… and the back of his head… and of him jumping at the strap on the camera. The picture up there is of Scott holding him above his head so he would hold still! What about while he’s sleeping? Urm, well, he’s a kitten. He wakes up the instant you walk into the room and starts zooming around all over the place!

He is SUCH a sweetie — thanks Alesha and Kat for our new baby boy!

1 PhD and 376,425 Xs

admin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:04:29 +0000

Ciro Marchetti’s artwork, “Hubble Bubble” has been charted and released today! While I’m not a fan of all steampunk-like art, I really love this one. My question to myself is this… can I complete 376,425 Xs before a certain physicist-o-mine adds “PhD” to his name?

Some restrictions do apply. As in he has to decide to if he will be going ahead with PhD work AND in astrophysics. If it’s not in astrophysics, then a telescope, as cool as this one is, just won’t be as applicable. I also wouldn’t start stitching until he officially starts working on this particular degree.

So can I do 376,425 Xs in the time it takes a 40-something year old to earn his PhD in astrophysics? *nibbles on her fingernails and nervously eyes the pages of the chart* I just thought I would mention that “Marchetti” and “confetti” rhyme and it’s quite applicable for most of the pages.

Stay tuned to see how things turn out! (10 skeins of 310…that’s what happens when it’s something in SPACE, Sue. DUH!)

Summer Laziness

admin — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:26:40 +0000

I’m lazy in posting, but I have been stitching! My sweetie got a new camera for his birthday, so we’ve been working on getting the right settings for taking stitchy pictures. I think it’s worth the wait because the new ones are so much better! That said, here’s page umm… oh, I forget. It’s the middle page of Jasmine Becket-Griffith’s “A Pale Comparison.” Since I took this picture hmmm… a week or two ago, I’ve started the page below and added 700 or so stitches to it which has rounded out the dragon’s cheek and added some more to that black space between the elf maiden’s face and shoulder. You can see a picture of Jasmine’s original work here. Aside from the color in the eyes of the elf and the dragon, the rest of the chart is all neutral colors. I’m not a fan of neutral color charts, but this one I adore and can’t seem to stop working on!

Next up is Tribute to the Old Masters by Nouveau Encore. This is stitched on my favorite fabric - 36 count Lakeside Linen. I’m using Belle Soie’s Elegant Eggplant silk which is absolutely divine to stitch with. I highly recommend it! It’s always nice to spend time working on a single color sampler as there’s only one floss color to worry about. To see what the whole piece looks like, you can see it here. It’s just a little big. *grins*

I’ve got about a quarter of part 2 of Oriental Harem Garden done. I’ll be taking it with me on vacation along with another piece… I think. I’ve still not decided. I’d better figure it out soon as we’re leaving on Sunday! We’re taking our girls on a Disney Land/Sea vacation and then spending a week visiting our friend of over 20 years in Tampa. The girls have no idea where we’re going aside from on a plane. They will, of course, figure it out, but we’re enjoying their not knowing and looking forward to their surprise as they realize that we’re staying at a Disney resort for four days (all of their previous visits have been day trips) and then three days on the Disney Wonder, one of their Cruise liners (they have no idea that Disney even HAS boats) and then we’ll be going to the airport and instead of getting on a plane, we’ll be picking up a rental car and heading to Tampa for another week. It’s going to be quite the adventure!

Oriental Harem - Part 1

admin — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:51:24 +0000

Believe it or not, I finished part 1 of a Chatelaine the month it came out! I did I did! Remember the over 2 piece I mentioned that I had been working intensively on in my last blog post? That was it! It took me less than a week to finish and here it is! I am sooooo in love with this piece that I had finish-itis when I got to the end. So-much-so that Kat had to prod me to actually finish it before July 1st when part 2 would come out. I know it sounds silly, but I really really love this one… more than any of the others. Oh yeah… details… it’s being stitched on 28 count “Romantic Interlude” linen from Silkweaver although I don’t think it’s 28 count anymore due to the dyeing process. I think it’s more like 30 count. I’m also using all the called for silks and beads. The empty spots are for the crystals and the central treasure which I won’t put on until the end.

Let’s see if I can keep up with this and have part 2 done before August 1st!

And finally… Happy Birthday, love! *SMOOCHIES!!*

Note to self…

admin — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:36:03 +0000

… when you’ve just spent an intense week stitching 2 over 2 and move back to a 1 over 1 project make sure you’re using the right number of strands before you spend 90 minutes stitching.

Duh.

Pictures coming soon! (after I chase the frogs away)

Chocolate!

admin — Sat, 31 May 2008 20:47:32 +0000

White chocolate is my favorite chocolate in the whole world. Or at least it was. Kat and Mike went away for a long weekend of riding roller coasters and asked us to babysit their little boy, Pete. He fit in right away winding himself around our feet and making himself at home! He meandered around the house looking for any crumbs we may have left around for him to snack on. He wasn’t used to the 4pm walk to the bus stop, but hey, walkies at anytime had him quite giddy with excitement! Scott taught him a new game involving fetching a tennis ball and exploring the outside yard around our house. He was hip to the adventure! He got quite tuckered out his first night and did some snoozing on the couch like the prince he is! After Scott and I went to bed, Pete went upstairs and hopped on Maggie’s bed and slept with her which had her totally delighted! With him here being totally sweet and part of the family I couldn’t forget him when I did the grocery shopping. So I came home with a tug-of-war toy that we’ve all been having fun playing with him with. He likes it too! Here he is taking a break under our kitchen table with his toy. He’s also dumped it in the laundry basket and then rooted around in the basket snuffling to get it out! We’ve had a fun time Petey-sitting and will miss him when Mommy and Daddy come to get him!

It is clear that he’s homesick, though. He always goes right for the car when we go into the garage, making us think that he wants to go home, even though his house is right across the street. Silly, Pete!

The terrible, awful, no-good, totally unforgiveable thing I did…

admin — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:46:18 +0000

… to myself. And here it is. Looks pretty cool, doesn’t it? It’s Bernadette Lusk’s Serenity Fairy from Heaven and Earth Designs; the chart I was practically singing about in my previous post from ages ago. Two weeks ago, I found some fabric that I had page gridded for another project. It’s perfect for this chart. The same number of pages in width and there’s more than enough height to accommodate it too. I adore the colors and watching the Klimt-like background appear. This chart, for lack of a better word, ROCKS! So what’s with the subject of my post? Today, while being a ballet mom, I recalled just what I had originally gridded this fabric for. It wasn’t for a HAED chart. It was for a Character Creations chart and Kerry’s pages are a wee bit smaller than Michele and Bob’s. (Ok, quite a bit smaller.) I came in the door, rushed to my stand, popped the fabric out of my hoop, laid it out flat on the floor, fended off the cats and measured. Then I looked at the chart again. I measured again. I cried. I have never made this mistake before.

So now I have to decide if I want to stitch this. I think I’ll stay away from it for a while and spend some quality time with the xbox and my DS for a bit. *whimperwhinesob*

The princess of the house has/is (hard to know exactly when as she’s a shelter baby) turning three this month. One look at this picture and you can see why she’s the princess, empress, resident goddess, supreme being, one-to-be-reckoned-with and lady in charge!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Nikki!

Happy 10th Birthday to you too, Fluffernutter, you scared ball of fluff!

The lure of Serenity…

admin — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:52:17 +0000

Not the Serenity you may be thinking of, although you will hear things like, “I can kill you with my brain.” being stuck into conversations in this house more often than not being as there are Firefly fans around here. However, it’s Bernadette Lusk’s Serenity Fairy that’s been poking at me for a really really really long time. I positively love this background and know that I would never get bored with this. *sigh*

I believe I whimpered about needing some silk for Lady P’s Spanish Mystery Sampler. I have quite a bit more done, but that would require me to get up out of my chair and take another picture and I don’t have quite that level of energy yet this morning, so here’s my first picture for you to look at. It’s stitched 1 over 2 on 40 count Picture this Plus Thistle Linen with HDF’s Exemplar White Chocolate Silk. I am stitching the monochrome version of the chart. So when Lady P was talking about there being birds in this section of the chart I had no clue what she was talking about until I saw one of Nance’s WIPs. Then I got my clue. Thanks, Nance!

A month ago, I was a judge for the Northern VA Regional Odyssey of the Mind tournament. In summary, a team of 7-8 students, ranging from kindergarden up to college, get together to solve one of the six problems CCI has published for that year. My problem was #3, The Wonderful Muses. For regionals, we saw divisions I, II and III, which means Kindergarten through High School. These children were amazing! They sang, they danced, they acted, they built incredibly creative sets, they played musical instruments, one team had a victorian dress made from a plastic trash bag and another team engineered a rig that made their muse fly!

This past weekend, I had the honor of being asked to judge at the State tournament. This time, I only did division III, the high school level, as there were quite a few more entries and more than one set of judges were needed. Two of the teams we saw this day would make it to the World Finals. (No pressure on the judges at all… *gulp!*) The performances were spectacular… as a technical judge, it was hard to deduct points when we knew the teams had worked so hard to get where they were. After each performance, we talked to each team about their costumes, sets and performances and all the children were high on adrenaline and very willing to talk about what they had done. It was great to see that the arts are still alive in our children. I’ll be going back next year and years after. It was exciting to see and very rewarding!

I’m not posting, nope nope nope!

admin — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:24:38 +0000

I’m not going to post until I have a picture of part one of Periphaeria Design’s Spanish Mystery Sampler. My silk is due to arrive tomorrow or the day after and the mailman is being stalked! I’ve had quite the time getting my silk fiasco straightened out, but all is well and I hope to soon be stitching and will have a picture for you.

In the meantime, I’ve been stitching Mystery X and something I can’t blog about yet because it’s a birthday present for someone very sweet. It won’t be done in time for her birthday, but it will be done soonish.

So… I’m going to go back to my stalking of the mailman and working on a secret.