Alternate Dementia sweepstakes?

I've seen this on a number of blogs now, which means I'm probably overdue for jumping on the bandwagon. It is sort of a neat idea....

The first five people to respond to this post (via the comments section) will get some form of "art" made by me. An original hand crafted item, made with one of the many mediums I use - stitching, crochet, etc. I will work to fit this to you and your likes. After you comment, please email me your snail mail address (click on the button in my sidebar). Think of it as something to look forward to getting in the mail.

My addenda:

My free time is not exactly abundant, so please be patient with me. I will get them out, but it might take a few months...

Not all of my readers are crafters - so I'm certainly willing to consider alternate prizes (books, music, immortality in a blog entry...)

Shoveling the civic doody....

Well, I have been a good citizen and done my civic duty. If you have an election coming up and have not already done so - vote! I personally think that if you don't vote you shouldn't gripe about the results since you didn't put in your 2c (or 2p).

Although I admit, doing one's civic duty is more like shoveling civic doody - so often most of the races are a matter of choosing the least of the available evils. I try to be an informed voter, and I make use of the sample ballots to do research on the presented candidates and issues as best I can, winnowing down the choices until only one remains. Sometimes, though, the choice can only be made by some arbitrary mechanism if all other qualifiers are exhausted. Often, this involves voting against the candidate whose smear ads I saw first, or against those who have left 'vote for me!' messages on my answering machine. Or in the case of a city council race this ballot, the candidate for whom I saw fewer roadside signs.

I will be glad when today is over. I am heartily sick of the campaign ads on television, in my mailbox, and on my answering machine. It's even more annoying that so many of the candidates don't even address their issues, but fill up the airways with "Don't vote for Candidate N"! They sound so much like a group of preschoolers calling each other "poopyhead!".

Although I did see one interesting roadside campaign sign yesterday: "Vote for Joe Schmoe...for the hell of it!". Definitely a different take on things. Joe Schmoe wasn't on my ballot...although I might *almost* have been tempted to vote for him if he were.

For the hell of it.

Why I don't read romance novels....

In the past, I have gone on the record to state that while my taste in books is rather eclectic, I don't read romance novels. And last week I was reminded why.

Earlier this year, my favorite local used bookstore closed up shop, and at the final sale I picked up a number of books. I've been on a historical fiction kick lately, so among the books I bought were a couple by a prolific historical romance author (who shall remain nameless, but feel free to guess or email me to ask...). I'd forgotten about them until shortly before my trip, when I rediscovered them while organizing my paperback bookshelves. I had already started rereading Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman, and since one of the books dealt with roughly the same time and place (13th century England and Wales) I thought I'd give one of the romances a try. After all, everyone needs a little brain candy once in a while. So I packed it for my trip to Albuquerque.

As it happens, I finished Here Be Dragons on the flight over, so that evening I picked up the romance novel, intending to perhaps enjoy some lighter fare set in the same time and place...

And it was clear to me from chapter 1 that I wasn't going to be able to finish the book. While some of the names used were historical figures, it was obvious that the author had not done much research into the actual culture at the time. Perhaps I'd been spoiled by having just read Penman, but the romance author was so far off on the Welsh views of illegitimacy, relations with the English, religion, and even just simple character development that it was absurd. I can suspend disbelief in many instances, but this was just beyond unreal.

And then there were the salacious bits. When I was a teen, some friends had gotten ahold of a romance novel, and one could tell from the well-thumbed pages where the naughty parts were. Back then, it was a thrill reading the steamy scenes. Not so this time. The repeated hackneyed cutesy euphemisms for genitalia and such coupled (npi) with the otherwise graphic depictions was practically nauseating. "Love juice"? Ew.

Needless to say, that book did not make the return trip from Albuquerque.

...that right turn at Albuquerque....

I think I know why Southwestern American art uses such vibrant colors...the sunsets are spectacular!

I flew into Albuquerque on Monday, and as the plane was making its descent, I figured the trip would be boring from a scenic perspective - all I could see was a flat brown expanse, cut by a narrow ribbon of green and gold around the Rio Grande. My initial frustration was reinforced by my getting lost between the airport and the hotel, despite the fact that I could see the hotel from the road. By overshooting my turn slightly, I ended up on the Interstate and had to circle back around. Twice. (I'm not bad with directions...really!)

After getting settled in, however, I began to enjoy the cooler temperatures and lower humidity. I also noticed some mountains off to the east, soft purples and roses in the coming dusk.

On Wednesday, my coworker and I drove out to those mountains, taking the Sandia Peak Tramway up to the peak, an elevation of 10,378 feet. The tram moved at a slow and steady pace, allowing us to survey the mountains from above. It's definitely not a trip for those with fear of heights, though - when the tram operator was asked at mid-span how far down it was, his reply was "about 7 seconds". Once at the top, we were rewarded with some rather breathtaking views. To the east, over some ski runs, we could see further mountains in the distance. To the south, the mountains were covered in a grey-green blanket of evergreens, with dusky purples and brilliant turquoises in the distance. And to the west, over the sprawl of Albuquerque, the fiery blaze of the sunset illuminating the clouds. I hadn't brought my own camera, but my coworker took the following picture:

That sight alone makes the trip worthwhile. And I'm definitely willing to travel out there again.

---

Other notes about the trip:

We went into Old Town (by way of the famous Route 66). Lots of shops, including a store specializing in hot sauces, and a church, San Felipe de Neri, that I'd like to go in if I get out there again.

There were a number of restaurants, including a great BBQ place called County Line, right off the road to the aforementioned tramway. I was so full afterward that I didn't even have breakfast the next day! Definitely a must-visit if you find yourself in the area.

Who knew there were so many types of chiles?

South by Southwest....

Once in a great while I get to travel for business. Tomorrow I'm bound for Albuquerque for the rest of the week - the temperatures should promise to be a nice respite from the heat here, and I'm hoping to perhaps explore some of the hiking trails in the afternoons after work.

Thank you for all the kind comments on my Autumn bookmark. I think I have pretty well been convinced to do up bookmarks for the remaining seasons, and I do have a few ideas knocking about. Hopefully I'll at least get Winter designed and stitched sometime before Christmas!

If any of you stitch any of the bookmarks, I'd LOVE to see your finishes! Shannon has a very lovely one already!

To answer Jennifer's question, I use PatternMaker. DH got this for me a few years ago, and he's thrilled that I'm finally using it. Although if I have too many more ideas, I may need to come up with a name for my design collection....

A touch of autumn...

Lightning, or in this case inspiration, really can strike twice. I have another freebie for my stitching readers!

Since I've been missing autumn leaves, I decided to look for a small design to stitch. Unfortunately, there aren't many small ones with autumn leaves - most autumn freebies seem to include pumpkins. Not that I have anything against pumpkins, but I wanted leaves. So I decided to design my own:

After sketching it up, I thought about Christine's comment on my Assisi knot and got to wondering how it would look in an overdye. Rummaging in my stash, I found a skein of Gloriana "Fall Foliage", which I think worked rather well for this, and I used several different Petite Treasure Braids to add some sparkle.

I'm so pleased with this that I actually had the brief insane thought of doing an Assisi-style design for all four seasons, and I might if there is interest. Although I really have no clue what I'd do for summer, it being my least favorite season...

Living vicariously...

There's been just enough of a drop in temperature here to make me really miss autumn, especially the changing leaves.

As somewhat of a remedy, a friend of mine up north sent me a link to a webcam in Duluth, MN, which remedies the longing a bit. And today, he emailed me that there was snow on the ground...

Thanks, D!

The jukebox in my head...

I've seen this song meme floating around, but having 'officially' been tagged by WhizGidget, I really ought to answer it myself.

Here are the rules:
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether or not they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

Oh, let's see. Hard to pick just 7, since I'm not much given to overwhelming favorites, but I'll at least try to limit it to one per artist, and give a representative selection of my musical tastes. (Although I wouldn't want to speculate what pop psychology would say about me for the following...)

1. "Time Stand Still" - Rush
   
2. "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" - Blue Öyster Cult
   
3. "Crazy Train" - Ozzy Osbourne
   
4. "Good Times Bad Times" - Led Zeppelin
   
5. "Summer of '69" - Bryan Adams (my mobile ringtone for calls from DH)
   
6. "Whiskey In the Jar" (A fun staple in Irish pubs. I especially like the Wyndbreakers and Clancy Brothers renditions, but dislike the Metallica version.)
   
7. "French Perfume" - Great Big Sea (Sounds traditional, but it's not quite.)
   

I could have done this any number of ways, and it took some thought to settle on my Rush and GBS inputs. I couldn't nail down a particular classical piece to put in, and it really would have been just too weird to have, say, "Salve Regina" up there with Ozzy or BÖC...

As for the tag, I'll defer to my usual - if you want to play along, consider yourself tagged!

A fair trade...

It's always good to broaden one's horizons a bit, and with that (and my 101 List) in mind, I decided to join my first ever stitched item exchange. (I've been in Secret Stitcher exchanges before, but never have I actually made an item to be sent off.) The item in question is a biscornu - an 8-sided pin-pillow type thing. It's something a little different.

I decided to create my own design for this, since I have been wanting to try my hand at that anyway, but I was at a loss until I found some neat little knotwork buttons at the store. Inspired, and fresh off an Assisi-style finish, I came up with the following:

I'm pretty proud of it, so I've decided to make it available as a freebie. It can be done in any colorway you choose - you just need a medium and a dark shade each of two different colors. I used blue and purple since those are my victim's favorites. It's probably not well-suited to an overdye, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong!

I may have gotten a little ambitious in what I thought I could accomplish in a month, though, and indeed it was the night before final mailing day by the time I'd finished the stitching on it. Fashioning it into a biscornu wasn't as difficult as I'd feared, and the finished result looks like this:

Off into the mail it went! I was very proud of how it turned out.

Until the next day, when I got this lovely biscornu from Annette:

At that point I was feeling a bit insecure about my own, since the one I received was so beautiful.

But Annette seems pretty happy with the one I sent, and I'm thrilled with hers, so all is well. And I had fun, so I may do this again sometime.

Seasons change...

...except down here. We did have a slight 'cool front' come through last week, actually getting the temperature down to the upper 70Fs, heralding what passes for autumn in Florida.

With so little variation in seasons, I am finding it's often difficult to gauge the passage of time or even to accurately place memories in time without the aid of any sort of contextual seasonal marker. I sort of feel a little lost in time and space, if that makes any sense.

Today at lunch, it was overcast with a slight breeze, not too hot, and it has made me miss autumn something fierce.