It's breakfast time!

Friday's Feast:

Feast One Hundred & Seventy Six

Appetizer: What is your favorite beverage?
Coffee.

Soup: Name 3 things that are on your computer desk at home or work.

1. Cell phone (Nokia 3100, pink).
2. Old (from seventies or so) Donald Ducks.
3. Cross stitch project.

Salad: On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), how honest do you think you are?
9½. I am honest to a fault in general.

Main Course: If you could change the name of one city in the world, what would you rename it and why?
No comments.

Dessert: What stresses you out? What calms you down?
I find insecurity stressful. Calming effect... cross stitching, good conversations (I have had those quite much recently ^^ - good flirting counts for good conversation too... *cough*), music.

Things really change...

While doing a slight inventory of stuff to get rid of I had a thought to browse through all my cross stitch magazines and sell the ones which have nothing of interest in them... I think I am sick.
But then, I see no point in having loads of useless magazines hanging around if I could make some money and acquire some more free space by selling them...

I think I finally found some use for my eBay account...

SBQ: A Good Companion

Today’s absolutely magnificent

Stitching Bloggers' Question

was suggested by yours truly and is:

What is your favorite past time while stitching? Do you just enjoy silence, listen to music/audiobooks or do you “watch” TV/ movies? Do you have specific favorites you listen to/ watch while stitching?

I came up with this question while watching The Negotiator for the dozenth time while stitching as I find the movie absolutely wonderful stitching companion.

I prefer music, movies and TV series as a stitching companion because silence has the bad habit to distract me (you can easily deduce my current health from my Last.FM profile: if I don't listen music I am probably quite sick).

Lately I have noticed that movies/ TV series provide me with better level of concentration because they have the noise and the motion, which keeps my brains nicely distracted (no, I don't watch them in terms of watching, but I see the movement on the upper part of my field of vision).
I do also love to listen audiobooks or music, either from my desktop computer (which is at the moment out of order as its power went while I was at my mother's - note: it was turned off when that happened), laptop or from Last.FM (my profile for curious, you can also find my personal radio station from there *wink, wink*. I actually also have stitching tunes tag in there..).

In general my favourite stitching companions are House M.D, The Negotiator, Dexter, Black Adders (I, II, III, IV season), Exorcist: The Beginning (I honestly do think that that is the best of the Exorcist movies) and various Last.FM's tag radios.

By the way, The Competition is open only until 1st of February so remember to take part. *wink*

Images from the stay-over

Kitty-Get-Together tag at my Twango.
By clicking the images of individual cats you get to their tag page (though Twango arranges the images from oldest to newest, which is a bit of a PITA with my cats).

  
  
  

Quotes and NHNTDWIs (Need-Has-Nothing-To-Do-With-Its)

"Laughter is the closest distance between two people."
-- Victor Borge

"Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose."
-- Evan Esar

"The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses."
-- Edith Södergran

"Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence."
-- Sholem Asch

Pretty!

"Le Jardin de Plaisir" by the Long Dog Samplers. (I also like "Wachet Auf", though I would change the colour scheme.)

Why aren't we surprised?

Snatched from Jenna

Which Beautiful Vampiress Am I?

The Temptress

You are the one who comes into people's dreams at night to drive them mad with desire.
You are sultry, sexy, and passionate. Others find you hypnotic.

You have the sort of smoldering eyes and bedroom glances that are the stuff of legend.

What's so scary about you: Like sweet poison, you are addictive and deadly.

Your gemstone: Garnet.

Your moon: Rose Moon (July)

Click-y.

Ask from my victims, they might agree with this... at least I do. *evil laughter*

Evil Enabling

By the way, are you aware that Ellen Maurer-Stroh is having a sampler SAL during 2008 and provides the pattern for free, as monthly installments?
You aren't? Then click here and start collecting. ^^

And while you are there, try to crack the safe. If you get the combination right your stash will benefit from it.

Garçon, Double Memesy, s’il vous plaît

The Plan

I do love the strong euro as it makes shopping so much cheaper.
Last night I finally got fed up with the continuous sinus problems and as I have heard good things about Neti pots I decided to give it a try.

I chose stainless steel after reading Jalanetipot.com's material comparison and ordered this baby:

It's interesting really: every time when I have had a flu, and nowadays just sinus problems, I have wanted to wash the sinus blockage away with salt water... I just hadn't heard about Neti pots and saline baths for sinuses before this year.
Human body seems to know what's good for it, hopefully. At least I am really waiting to give the Neti a try.

Another Happy Dance - and some gorgeous mail!

I was kindly enabled by a co-staff member at EMS Cross Stitch Forum and I just had to participate the January Biscornu Exchange (you can't miss a chance to stitch a biscornu, can you?) with a theme of blue.
I am happy to announce that it's now stitched, and will be assembled when I get these bandaids off (within few fays, I think). The design is one of my own and I chose blue linen for it, but that's all I am going to tell before it arrives to its new home.
But, here's a tiny teaser...

Surprise Stash Attack!

Stash fairy surprised me and sent some lovely stashy mail!

Thank you! secret stash fairy!

And the next project...

...is Valentine's Exchange item, which is also a model for the forthcoming launch.
I had to tweak the colours I originally designed for the design, but I am very pleased how it's coming out. I can reveal that it is stitched on black linen with lovely springy colours and it does have hearts to justify becoming the Valentine's Exchange item.

It's actually odd that I have stitched quite much during last few days, noticing that I have spent most of my time sleeping...

A Happy Dance!

Spite of certain insane myself mutilating three fingers from my left hand with a kitchen knife while trying to slice a sweet potato I actually managed to have first happy dance of this year just now!
As it is a model I just show you a tiny teaser...

Honestly speaking I could have had this HD days before now, but it has been a bit hectic for most of days, I have been quite tired lately and I have also stitched three different projects on the same time which delays the individual happy dance.
Admittedly it still lacks finishing, but with a bandaided left hand it have to wait for few days...

A sad, sad thing...

I have suffered from bouts of sinusitis symptoms few times after The Flu (took two weeks) and I finally managed to deduce the cause of it: chocolate!
Milk chocolate to be precise, as milk increases the mucus production (asthmatics should avoid dairy in all its forms) and in my current state it seems to be enough to block my right maxillary sinus. (Though I am dead sure that part of this is caused by the dust from the pistachios my mother and bits_2_whole ate last night.)
Now I just need to wait few days and eat some dark chocolate and hope it won't cause similar symptoms... (As I have used chocolate as a sleeping draft lately.)

And Masa has recovered well from his tiny operation, though he's still a bit sleepier than normally (but isn't that how castrated toms should be: lazy asses? *grin*).

Acchoo

Well, I didn't get the position in $COMPANY, neither in the other company where I applied to and was invited for an interview - though noticing that the other interview in the other company stopped when the interviewer heard that I actually have plans for future (I, the one who dares! O_o) I wouldn't have wanted to work there anyway -, but my former supervisor promised that I can use her as my referrer when I apply for work, so my situation has improved.
And now I think I will only apply for jobs which last couple of months, or are very flexible with the needs of their employees.

My saving project also confronted another setback in form of Masa: he's going to be, he has to be, castrated today as day before yesterday he actually marked me... He has never marked anything before, but for some reason his hormones have become overactive during the visit to my mother's, and that was enough for me.
Eventually he also gains from the castration because he's not tortured by his unsatisfied desires - maybe he will even gain some weight and starts to look like a cat who's not starving.

Meet Your Daemon

Click for a readable picture.

Meet Your Daemon - The Golden Compass Movie Test

Unconscious Mutterings

Week 257

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Mist :: Blue
2. Eating :: /me wants breakfast
3. Beacon :: Yuck!
4. Speaker :: Phone
5. Episodes :: Parts
6. Conference :: Call
7. Sneak attack :: Hmmm.
8. Medic :: Para-
9. Web :: This
10. 2008 :: Now

SBQ: Guilt Free January

This week's

Stitching Bloggers' Question

is:

Are you starting something new to celebrate the New Year or participating in "Guilt Free January?" If so, what are you planning on starting?

I am not planning to start anything I have already planned to start (i.e. new models) and I try to attain guilt-free attitude considering my lousy progress in Virtual RR.

Nuts hunt the squirrel

 

ETA: Regarding the latter picture... Lady turned 14 years young in 26th and still she looks rather, should I say, lively. *grin*

Je ne regrette rien/ Car ma vie, car mes joies...

As seen last year: yet another meme!

And the finishes for year 2007...

The beginning and the end

It is few seconds past 2008...

As seen last year firsts of firsts' and lasts of lasts'.

Firsts

January: As it is few seconds past 2007...
February: 1. Dye fabric for Loy Krathong, Seasonal Dragons RR and for the Hand-dyed Fabric Exchange.
March: Yes, it's official now!
April: Testing my tolerance for mushrooms with a hearty midnight snack.
May: 1. ... you get extreme high from just launching designs?
June: Appetizer: Name something you think is “the best.”
July: Three out of four (I'll reveal the secret of fourth design soon...):
August: Kristine Herber from Dragonfly Stitches is apparently having a hardanger bookmark Stitch-A-Long in her Yahoo group and guess who has expressed her willingess to join?
September: I say ... and you think ... ?
October: Sometimes you get the best of ideas when you are in fever delirium... like this one:
November: It's November already...! O_o
December:Ladies, gentlemen, goats and lifeforms from another planets, let me to introduce you a herd of homing dragons!

Lasts

January: Do I need to explain why my goaling failed this badly? *grin*
February: 7 hours, 46 minutes.
March: (It has been odd piece in a sense. I never have had a need to modify the chart while stitching (other than fix drawing errors - I do those),but I spent last night stitching it and redrawing parts of it.)
April: And all the sudden I notice that I remind myself of someone by quoting this... but I do it just because it fits.
May: It seems to me that good things are beginning to happen in certain areas of my life, and, some parts of me don't think it's a coincidence as good things began to happen after I made the decision (maybe I should begin to refer to it as The Decision...) to take a break and concentrate on important things.
June: I think it's there... now, off to make my morning coffee! (I have been up for hours, but I got this stupid idea to finish designing T3h B1g S3kr1t Pr0j3ct...it's almost done, I just need to decide between two little details and two layouts - and, of course, the floss (I'm quite sure that it will be stitched on 36 count Edinburgh flax linen).)
July: (And of course I forgot to call and book new call for another day...)
August: (Cross post from Tales from Periphaeria... I am sick so I hope you bear with me.)
September: I had some manic tootbrush fun while cleaning (i.e. all the tiny places have not just been wiped and rinsed, they have been toothbrushed),which means that I am not only getting better, but that my ADD symptoms are decreasing (- or getting worse, who knows).
October: That is why I posted about the Fang as I knew some people may miss it otherwise - I have been waiting for this design since she launched her new site so I was well prepared.
November: 0.
December: I keep it short and sweet, just to give me less space to stitch what I really want to.

It has been hell of a year: the birth of Periphaeria Designs, health issues with Neko and Ronja and my own health failing worse than ever... it has been very difficult year and I could have survived without certain parts of it, but everything happens for a reason: I am just not ready yet to understand why.

I have also learnt what real friends are and managed to let go those who just don't fill the requirements. I have learnt to stand on my own more, and I have had to learn to be less harsh for myself.
I want to specially thank Jenna (and Terry) for helping me to make Periphaeria Designs to come true faster than I anticipated, and I like to specially thank Jenna, Leena and Linda for their continuous support at the right times as I have had my share of self doubt during these months, even I haven't admitted it.
And thank you all who have been supportive on my quest, even the smallest words of support have meant and mean the world to me.

I would also like to thank the man who once was my sunshine because of the long chat we had only couple of days before the year changed.
Yes, those dreams about Sol saying that he is sorry were messages from him... saying that he is sorry for hurting me.
Sol, if you read this: thank you for everything you said. I really appreciate it.

I realised today that for a first time in ages I have the feeling of having a future, that life is not just concentrating on this moment because I can't think of the future.
I have goals, I am in process of acquiring tools to achieve my goals (I have 2nd interview for the $COMPANY in Thursday and an interview in another place in... Thursday. *grin* And the goal is clear, to add yer another continent to my Visited continents count - and acquire at least an experience, if nothing else.)

Happy New Year to you all!

May this year be prosperous in every possible way - and may stash fairies grow your stash!