On Saturday, January 31st, at 10:00 am, DH and I will be
picking my Mom up from the Rehab facility where she's
been recovering from multiple illnesses since the beginning
of November and we'll be returning her to her home at the
Mountainview Residence to pick up her life again. She's
been in either hospital or rehab for five very long and grueling
months! In all honesty I often wondered if we'd ever see the
day when she would be well enough to go back there. But
she's fought her way through illness and considerable pain
to get back on her feet and self sufficient again. She's a
real tough cookie. I am so proud of her!!

Thank you to all of you who have offered prayers, words of
encouragement and moral support over these past five months.
It's really helped us to keep going and keep our spirits up.



I have a confession to make. I've been keeping a secret. A
deep dark secret. Something I feared to share with anyone.
For the past month or two I've been saying that I've had three
X-stitch projects on the go, more or less simultaneously.
This is a highly unusual situation because I'm a slow stitcher
so working on one project at a time is usually best for me.
But then I got carried away with two Fall projects that I
could not resist starting, plus my usual every day travel
project, so I suddenly had three projects to tell you about.

Er.... well.... would you believe there are four projects??
Because some time early last year I lost my mind and I
started a project that was way beyond anything that I've
ever attempted before. But it was such a gorgeous design
and I saw it being stitched on a few other blogs and loved
it, so ignoring the voice in the back of my mind that kept
saying "Are you nuts??? You'll never be able to stitch this
thing, never mind finish it" I ordered the chart and the
materials. And one day soon after that I made a small start.

I stitched a bit and then left it thinking that I'd certainly
bitten off more then I could chew. Several months later I
pulled it out one day and stitched a bit more on it. And then
put it away again. And that was that. Until last week.

It was calling to me. Loudly. I had to pull it out of the
cupboard, if only to see what it wanted. It wanted some
attention. It wanted to feel loved and wanted. It wanted
to grow and be beautiful.... I wondered if I should mail
it to Staci or Dani or Kathy or.... well, they'd be able to
stitch this thing no problem. While I was deciding what
to do I picked up needle and thread and stitched a bit.
You know, just to help me clear my mind. And kept
going. And loved it.

So what's this project that I've lost my mind over???


Ta da!!!! Drawn Thread's The Wayward Garden. GULP!!!


And here's what I've stitched so far. Well, I did mention that
I'm a slow stitcher, didn't I?? At the rate I'm going I figure
that I should finish this sucker sometime around the year
2050. Give or take a decade. Unless I loose my nerve.

This is definitely an at home piece. It's on 32 count linen
over two with a single strand of silk thread. I need my
magnifier and Ott light to work on this one.

So there you have it. Either I'm going to have one magnificent
finish on my hands someday... or I'm going to have one
mother of a UFO in the back of my stitching cupboard. Only
time will tell.

I think I need to go lay down now.


Meanwhile, back in the real world, I have made some progress
with My Needle's Work. And today I discovered that a nasty
amphibian has been lurking over my shoulder while I stitched.
I messed up the apron. I'm so annoyed with myself for not
catching this, but it's going to have to stay the way it is because
to fix it I'd have to rip the whole apron out, and there's no way
on earth that I'm gonna do that.

We shall speak of this no more.

********************************************************

I am pleased to announce that once more we have a working
furnace in the house. The repairman came on Wednesday
morning (after I'd posted the previous entry here) and after
much banging and thumping came upstairs to tell me that
the heat exchanger was gone, as well as the fan and the ...um,
well, a whole bunch of stuff.

Because he needed some major parts that are not normally
carried in his truck to fix the thing he had to order those
parts from their supplier. So the furnace would be out of
commission until those parts arrived.

WHAT????

So the guy left us two more heaters, to add to the heater
and the fireplace that we already had running and promised
to get the parts order in right away. Fine. So we waited.
DH was off work the next day anyways to run some errands
so we were hoping the repairs would be done sometime
that day. Nope. Thursday night DH was on the phone to
the service provider exchanging "pleasantries" with a
bored and decidedly unhelpful person in the parts department.
Eventually he got a hold of someone else in the customer
service department who was more helpful and let us know
that the part was most assuredly on order.

The parts, in two large boxes, were delivered on Friday
and the repairman came on Saturday to install them and
get things going again. After four hours of labour the
furnace was running again.

In spite of temperatures outside that rose to a comfortable
-2 on Friday, and then plunged down again to -26 on
Saturday, we were able to keep the house around 18 to 19
degrees. DH and I wore several layers to keep ourselves
warm and managed to survive the ordeal without catching
our deaths of pneumonia or anything like that.

Phoebe was definitely not impressed that the heating vents
that she loves to tea cozy on were putting out cold air
instead of the usual hot air that she loves. You know cats.

Do you like a good mystery story?? Do you like Vampires??
Do you like Wizards and magic?? Do you like stories that
take history and shake it up, mix it up and turn it upside
down?? Do you like the thrill of politics and the underhanded
dealings of Princes and Kings as they fight for power, and
sometimes for their lives??? Well then, you might find this
book of some interest to you.

Detective Crown Inspector Abigail Irene Garrett is in charge
of murder investigations in the city of New Amsterdam in
British North America. The year is 1901 and Abigail Irene
uses her skills as a wizard to solve crime. She must also
use all her wit and intelligence to work under the mayor of
the city, an ardent proponent of the self rule of the colonies
while remaining true to her oath of loyalty to the King of
England.

Sebastien de Ulloa is a Wampyr, one of the oldest of his kind.
Seeking to escape his past and it's painful memories in Europe
and find a place to settle and a purpose to his existence in the
New World. He has often taken part in criminal investigations,
using his talents and experiences to find the answers to crimes
both arcane and mundane within the mortal world.

New Amsterdam is a series of short stories, each of which
features a murder mystery. These stories are used to introduce
us to the main characters of the book, and give us some of their
back story, while also building up events that lead to the
climactic final chapters of the book.

I found this an interesting read, with great characters, especially
Sebastien. I loved discovering this world that the author created,
which was in some parts familiar but wholly original at the same
time. This is the first time that I've read anything by this author
and I enjoyed it well enough to see what else she's written.



I got some lovely books from the Folio Society when I
rejoined this year. These arrived on Friday. The book
on Michelangelo is full of gorgeous pictures of his
paintings, sculptures and so on, and the book on Pompeii
is equally fabulous and positively fascinating to read. I'm
really happy with all of these, and there's still one more to
come that was out of stock.



Here you can see the covers for Kidnapped and A Wonder Book
For Boys and Girls, which is mostly stories from Greek mythology.
These books have wonderful, full colour illustrations as well.



But for Rupert the best part about an order of books is
the box that they come in. He's claimed this one since
his last box got confiscated and used to hold books
that I was giving to someone for Christmas.

If you've read everything in this post you deserve a
medal I think. Sorry for the long winded post. Hope
I haven't bored you to tears.

Thanks for dropping by. Have a great week.

Cheers!