Stuff on my Table

A snapshot of my life, via a snapshot of my table, or "Why I Haven't Turned In My Hand Knitting Masters Level I Yet":


I certainly had time (with all the snow) to be working on my Masters - and I do have something to report, but later.

Avatar Soundtrack. You either love James Horner & his music, or you hate him. I'm firmly in the "love" camp. I could've done without the Leona Lewis song, but there's a rule that every soundtrack must have a song that Just Doesn't Go. An example: the Iron Man soundtrack has "Iron Man (2008 Version)", the second track. It's really, really jarring compared to the rest of the soundtrack. Like Lewis's song on Avatar, it's a nice piece of music, but it Just Doesn't Go.

Cross-stitch kit. This is The Stitcher's 12 Days of Christmas, and when I saw it, I knew I was going to get it. The box arrived just after the storm of December, 2009, and the kit is just waiting for me to finish 100 other things before I get to it. The words, if you're interested, are: "On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Twelve pairs of Ginghers, Eleven golden needles, Ten cuts of linen, Nine bags of buttons, Eight silver thimbles, Seven fine new patters, Six Chatelaines, Five Skeins of Silk; Four hours free to stitch, Three stitching Frames, Two sewing birds, and a hatbox full of overdyed threads."

Perforated Paper kit. In the same box as the cross-stitch kit, I got the lovely Spirit of Christmas - Snow Angel kit. I have the Angel of Knitting, Angel of Cross Stitch, Angel of Quilting and Angel of Crochet, plus the Angel of Liberty that was in an issue of a magazine (carefully tucked in with my other chartpacks). These kits contain the chart, the perforated paper (including the metallic paper for the wings!), beads, and needles - I just have to add the floss.

Knitting Pattern. Well, that's the Happy Star I designed for my Hello Kitty Scarf, which, at present, is fully 50% completed. If I just wanted a one-sided scarf, I could call it done, but I want two sides.

Christmas Cards. Because, in theory, I'm eventually going to record the addresses of folks we forgot to send cards to (luckily, we only missed two). The idea was going to be to send a Groundhog Day card, but that didn't happen. (Did design it, though, over on the Writing Blog. I really should've put it on the Art Blog, now that I think about it, but more people will see it on the Writing Blog. Or here, thus the link, even if it's weeks past Groundhog Day now. Does that mean there's only three or four weeks of winter left now? )

Giant Ball of Yarn. You saw parts of that for five weeks earlier this year; don't worry, it'll return once I finish YoT:SE - Stripe Two, which should be shortly. But it's one big, giant ball of yarn!

Regency Romance. I can't even tell you which one, because in between my "Things I Read Last Week", there's usually at least one Regency Romance. I have a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf full of them; my mother's entire upstairs hall is full of bookshelves full of Regencies. Requirements of the genre are a setting during (or slightly before) the Regency of HRH the Prince of Wales during the reign of his father, His Majesty George the Third, and a happy ending. Happy Brain Candy.

New Cookbook. I can't even see the cookbook in this picture. I'm pretty sure, however, that it was "fast & healthy" oriented. I also found a copy of "Cooking for One" at my favorite used bookstore, Hole in the Wall in Falls Church. (It's easy to double recipes; it's not so much fun to cut them by quarters - or worse, sixths.) For a bit there, we were cooking healthy meals nightly, and both feeling better. We've moved back to more processed home meals (at least it's not fast food?), so need to start cooking again. Which means I need to have another "THIS is what I mean by 'clean kitchen' " talk with my husband; things that don't bother him drive me nuts, and vice versa.

But that's my excuse for not working on my Masters the last month or so. Because, you know, I was so busy when I was trapped in my house for ten days with nothing to do.

And, just because, here's a shot of a very, very young Ronald Regan with Bette Davis in "Dark Victory":


Yeah, yeah, yeah.