Good news for readers who like my designs - Tor Rhuann now has a Facebook page! Check it out over at
I admit, I'm not the world's best housekeeper. I'm probably somewhere between mediocre and adequate. I'm fairly good at keeping up with the essentials like laundry and general decluttering, but I can't remember the last time I scrubbed my bathrooms.
Now, probably a large part of that is inertia. I'd really rather spend what free time I have doing things worthy of such - I doubt I'll be lying on my deathbed wishing I'd spent more time cleaning. But another part is that after a while, the chemical smells get to me. And if they get to *me*, they're worse on my family.
Quite by accident a few weeks ago, I stumbled on a site that had various 'homemade' cleaning solution recipes, using very basic, inexpensive pantry items. Poking further, I found other sites as well, with similar recipes.
It all sounded intriguing. Frugal, non-chemical...could be a good thing. So I've started out trying a few of them.
This is my second week test-driving a laundry solution - I have a bottle of liquid castile soap (short squirt per load) and a dry-powder mix of baking soda, oxi-clean, and borax (1/4 c per load). I'm testing on my whites, since they're often more soiled (kid socks - nuff said) and they'd be more obvious about showing up any issues. So far so good, the whites even seem a little brighter perhaps. And it's certainly gotten blood out of the whites without any real pretreatment. I'm also starting to try the vinegar/water (1:1) solution for basic cleanup.
So we'll see how this little experiment goes. I think I want to try to use up all the remaining commercial products by the end of the calendar year, and try using just homemade solutions for a while after that and see how it goes. Have any of my readers ever tried any of these? What are your thoughts?
Vinegar + baking soda - not just for volcanoes anymore!
A few weeks ago, my voice teacher* asked if I thought I might be able to reproduce a baby sampler that she'd received when her daughter was a baby, so that she'd have a gift for her new grandson's upcoming baptism. I took a look at the piece, probably 30 years old, maybe stamped cross-stitch, and thought I would give it a try.
So I took a picture with my cellphone camera (amazing resolution on those things nowadays!)
I charted it out and made a few minor tweaks. Most notably, brightening up a few of the colors, but also converting most of the satin-stitch ribbons to cross-stitch.
Just over a week after I first put needle to fabric:
I used 25-ct cream lugana, so it's larger than the stitch count would normally be, but still a little smaller than the original. It stitched up pretty quickly, especially since it's football season and I wasn't timing my hours on this.
I pinned it last night and will lace it tonight, and will be able to get it to my teacher before she leaves town for her grandson's baptism this weekend.
I'm pretty happy with the reproduction, and it was fun working with all the bold colors that I'd likely never use otherwise.
I still have my chart in PatternMaker for it, but I don't know anything about the original designer, so I'm reluctant to put it up over on Tor Rhuann. If you do recognize it, please drop me a line!
Well, there are many reasons, too numerous to list here.
So I will simply present Reason N+1. I had to upgrade from Office 2003 to Office 2007 for work. I've had it on my machine for maybe 20 minutes, and already I hate it.
Why?
Note the menu area. Note the huge clunky menu boxes.
I can't find a way to make them go away, other than an add-on I could get from Microsoft to revert to "Classic" toolbars. For $16.
So basically, huge bulky toolbox area with no way to revert to a more streamlined classic feel without paying more $$.
Microsoft FTL.
Edit, 9/18: Just found out I can make the bulky menu (aka "menu ribbon") go away - right-click on one of the ribbon tabs and select "Minimize This Ribbon". Much better! Thank you to those who pointed this out to me.
I got three pieces back from my framer today, adding to the number of reasons I think she is the best framer ever.
First up is TW Fortunate Traveler. Some may remember that I finished this one on New Years Day...2008. Finally got the dragon on his merry way, and when he came back:
(Click for larger picture)
The detail inset below was an unexpected but beautiful touch, and I think it adds so much to this piece:
(Click for larger picture)
Next up was JN Amethyst Snowflake, which was 2009's New Years Day finish:
(Click for larger picture)
The last thing I had was to take several of my smalls and my logo for Tor Rhuann Designs and ask what she could do with them. Here is the result:
(Click for larger picture)
A little closer pic of the logo area:
(Click for larger picture)
I am still in awe...
I'm taking a hiatus from World of Warcraft - not sure how long, at least a month, could be permanently.
In the meantime, I've actually been doing some stitching, and in the past week I've almost doubled my progress on Mirabilia's _Madonna of the Garden_. With a few color conversions. Here she is at 50 hours.
I hadn't touched her in nearly 2 years, so it's good to get back to it.
...at CSS. I probably should have put 'learn CSS' on my 101List.
Anyway, I've been playing around with getting past and present travel journals online in a single format. My latest attempt is at http://www.clioratha.net/travel/UK2009blog.html.
Let me know what you think....
London, Gatwick airport, 5 July 2009
Today we checked out of our hotel in Hastings, to stay at an airport hotel since we have an early flight tomorrow.
On the way to London, we stopped at Bayham Abbey, a small but picturesque ruin along the Kent/Sussex border. There's a somewhat ancient beech tree overgrowing some of the ruins, which gives a bit of an idea of just how long it had been that way. An 18th century house also stands on the grounds, with two rooms accessible to visitors that talked about the Premonstratensians, the monastic order whose abbey it was.
After spending an hour or so exploring on a pleasant sunny day, we continued on toward Gatwick, opting to take the scenic route (in this case, the A264) instead of heading all the way up the A21 to the London ring road and back down. As it turns out, this was a wise move on multiple counts - an accident had traffic stalled for hours on the M25 clockwise, which is the way we would have gone.
The downside of the scenic route is that DD is prone to carsickness, and even with the ginger beer that we'd been using to stave that off the past few days, we needed to stop again. This time, for lunch at a pub in Crawley called The Duke's Head. The food was quite good, and they offered a rather nice cider (Aspall) that was new to me.
Back on the road, we arrived safely at Gatwick and are preparing for tomorrow's flight home.
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That concludes my journal - hope you enjoyed it! More pictures can be found at http://www.clioratha.net/galleries.
Hastings, 4 July 2009
Today we drove up to Battle Abbey, and spent most of the day there. The original abbey was built on the site of the Battle of Hastings, with the high altar on the place where Harold Godwinson was killed. Like most other abbeys in England, it underwent several renovations before falling into ruin after the Dissolution. One of its main buildings is now a private school, though, and seemed in good repair from the outside. The main feature of the grounds is, of course, the battlefield itself. Now it's a peaceful place for a pleasant walk, with wild roses and other flora. Quite different than over 900 years ago.
There were two activities being held at the Abbey today which held our interest.
The first was a 'have-a-go' archery session, teaching people a quick basic archery lesson and letting them fire a set of blunted arrows. We all had a turn at it, and DD had three turns over the course of the day, getting a bullseye and several close ones. DH got two through himself, and alas, I was the worst archer of the three. It was fun, though, and DD wishes to explore archery more at home.
The other activity, which was quite fascinating, was a series of falconry sessions by Raphael Falconry. We learned about the history of falconry, especially around the Norman Conquest, and over the course of the day we saw a variety of different birds of prey - Harris hawks, peregrines, lanners, kestrels, and even an owl. During one of the demonstrations, DD was selected to be a "stunt partridge" by pulling the lure for a Harris hawk.
It was really rather informative, learning how the different birds were used in falconry, how they attacked their prey, what their flight styles are. It was very different from any other bird of prey exhibit I'd ever seen.
After the last falconry session, we came back to our room, then went to Mass at nearby Holy Redeemer since we're headed back to London tomorrow.
Hastings, 3 July 2009
We got a somewhat early start today and drove up to Canterbury. Our first stop was St. Augustine's Abbey. Or rather, the ruins thereof. The original monastery dates back to the 7th century (when St. Augustine of Canterbury founded it) but very little is left besides the tombs of several of the archbishops and a few Saxon kings. The Normans built a larger church there, and improvements were made until Henry VIII dissolved that one too, built a palace with some of the stone and carted off much of the rest. Seems to be a common theme. Like so many other places, I wonder what it must have been like back in its prime.
After seeing the vestiges of what once was, we went to Canterbury Cathedral. For a cathedral it's a bit small, but still very richly decorated. There is a small shrine set up to commemorate where Thomas Becket was martyred, and a lit candle at the place where the shrine used to be - back when Canterbury was a famous place of pilgrimage and before Henry VIII destroyed the shrine (and Becket's bones). The marble floor has worn down in places from the many people that have visited over time, including a noticeable groove in the floor near Becket's old shrine.
In the undercroft were several small chapels, including one with the remnants of medieval frescoes (St. Gabriel's chapel, I think).
After a takeaway lunch, we drove to Dover. We stopped and walked along the White Cliffs for a short while, and looked out over the harbor (and a busy harbor it is!) We then went to Dover Castle. Unfortunately the keep itself was closed, and since we weren't much interested in WWII uses of Dover, we just looked around the outside, then left.
DD had really been looking forward to Dover, and when we discovered two other castles in the area, she cheered up. The first was Walmer Castle, which was a Tudor fortress that had been heavily renovated over the years, so much so that we didn't stay long.
The other was Deal Castle. This was also Tudor, and it turns out that it was one of three castles (with Walmer and one other) built by Henry VIII to defend the coast after he ticked off Charles V (who was Henry's first wife's nephew). This castle was mostly as originally designed, and was purely defensive with artillery in mind. It was quite impressive, though, with the engineering and strategy involved. I enjoyed Deal more than I thought I might, though I do have to wonder how much of the stone was pilfered from monasteries.
We took the scenic route back to Hastings, and I think we saw all of the original Cinque Ports except Sandwich.
Current mood: 
Italy 2004
Germany 2005
