Something else from my vacation

After the better part of a year collecting flosses, fabrics, and patterns but not actually stitching anything, I *finally* got my stitching mojo back! All it took was a request for help from a pen pal in Mexico. She wanted some hand dyed floss that was prohibitably expensive for her needlework shop to order for her, so she asked if I could help her get them. I could have ordered them online, but decided it was way past time to visit the Needle Nest again.

Well, not only did I walk out with Stella's floss, I left with a bag of goodies for myself. And when I went back a week later to pick up the flosses that Miss Harriet was out of & ordered for me, I left with another bag of stash. However, THIS time I went home and started stitching again!

Here's the result:

Lizzie Kate's I Can Drive A Stick, done on a random piece of Aida in Sullivan's black & Presencia 1152. The pattern calls for all black, but I liked the idea of a pop of color & orange seemed the most fitting!

Then I started this:

Art House's Chat Noir. Despite the fact that this looks suspiciously like Zuul from Ghostbusters, this *will* be a cat when I'm done. 😉

Then I lost my mind and signed up for a fall themed stichalong to start next weekend. Pictures will appear as I progress...I hope!

What I did on my vacation

As usual, finances & health issues conspired against me for my vacation this year. At least I got to spend 2 weeks away from the snake pit office!

I spent a lot of my time sleeping, reading, and binge watching Luther using my mother's OnDemand service. If you haven't seen Luther, you really should. It's a great British detective series, starring the devilishly sexy Idris Elba, and it is twisted and wonderful.

The last weekend, I decided to go up to Cincinnati. My parents chose to join me. Amazingly, it wasn't our usual road-trip disaster! First stop was IKEA. I've been wanting to go for years, and now I can cross that off my Bucket List. It wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The place is huge, and we walked our feet off. Well, Mom & I did. Dad opted for a wheelchair. (He's getting increasingly frail and it breaks my heart) The furniture is all neat looking, and I picked up a small end table kit for $8. Hey, it was all I could afford, and besides, we didn't have room in the car for a whole lot of stuff! We ate lunch in their cafeteria. THAT was good. Mom had their specialty- Swedish meatballs with potatoes and lingonberry sauce. Daddy had a plate of ribs that he'd devoured and sucked the bones clean before I could get a picture of them, and I had the salmon you see pictured below. It came with a delicious lemon-dill sauce, 2 spinach-potato cakes, and a piece of garlic bread. I also tried their chocolate cake, which was to die for! Mom was kind enough to let me include her lingonberry drink and the candy bar she bought in the picture of my lunch.

Besides the table, which I have yet to assemble & photograph, I picked up some things in the housewares section as you see. The cross stitched looking thing is a cushion cover. (need to buy a cushion to fill it) The striped package is a new shower curtain. Being a candle junkie, I couldn't resist the tea light lantern. Then there's cookies (raspberry & chocolate filled), a can of sparkling apple cider, and a tea infuser that Mom bought for me. And one ginormous shopping bag!

I had hoped to get to Keepsakes, the cross stitch shop, while we were up there, but it didn't happen, yet again. They close at 4. We left IKEA at 3:30. So we went to Jungle Jim's instead!

Daddy was thrilled- They have the motorized scooters for disabled shoppers, so he got to do his best Mario Andretti performance and took off. Mom stuck with me for a while before wandering off on her own, and I was left to shop in peace. Sort of. You know my thing about hating crowds? Kicked in big time. Every aisle I tried to browse suddenly filled up as soon as I got to it. I finally got to my Grail- the British food section!- only to find it half empty of product and completely filled with rabid assholes. The MAIN thing I wanted was dark chocolate covered Hobnobs, and they didn't have them. (Going to have to hit up some of my British penpals for those! Bexy owes me for the Oreos I sent her. *grin* )

Anyway, I picked up some odds & ends throughout the store, and we got checked out and made the drive home with very little trouble. The 3 best things I bought were an eclair from the bakery, 4 garlic dill pickles from the deli (HUGE!), and a can of Tiki Cat Ahi Tuna & Mackerel for Nightshade. The way she wolfed it down and licked her bowl clean tells me that I need to try to find that somewhere around here or online for her!

I'm On Vacation!

This illustrates what I hope to be doing for a good bit of my time off. Blog posts will be even more erratic than usual, if anything is posted at all. Foodie Friday will resume on the 28th.