Sleep = Blog

Well, I think we all knew that furious spate of blogging wouldn't last. The next week I didn't get a lot of sleep, which left me without those crucial 5 minutes in the morning when I'd upload pictures.

Now, I am off to Florida tomorrow for a Disney cruise, visit to the Space Center, and to Disney for my birthday. We're even coming home Saturday, so I won't have to go to work the day after getting home. Of course, my manager decided the best day for his baby shower was Monday after I get back, so I will spend Sunday looking for punch recipes, ordering a cake, shopping, and assembling a gift basket. Le sigh.

I'd show you some stitching pictures, but since I just started an ornament, they'd be pretty boring:

Even the Crack scarf is way further than this now...

You'll just have to hold out for after my trip!

Orchid Daze

Click now for JiffNotes

The weather was sooo nice this weekend (I think it made it to 70 F today!) that we decided to head to the Botanical Gardens for an hour or so. However, Orchid Daze had just started, so we spent most of the time indoors. The Fuqua Orchid Center is beautiful at any time of the year, but right now they've upped the color a bit and added in some neat glass sculptures. For the most part, they're quite different from the Chihuly ones we had a few years ago. I found them less abstract and more concentrated on finer-grained decorative aspects than gross form and lines. Although, the lines on these are great. Can't you just see these as some kind of big cranes? The sculptures ranged from the simple and elegant... ...to the humorous. These were amongst the carnivorous pitcher plants. But none of the glass sculptures can upstage the real orchids...

There were even orchids scattered throughout the other greenhouses, like in the African section, where we hunted for dart frogs amonst the foliage.

JiffNotes
If you're in the Atlanta area, head to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens for Orchid Daze. If you go next weekend, you can even purchase orchids for your very own! And I overheard the vendor say that they do free repotting....

Mail Call

Click now for JiffNotes

Look what the mailman stuffed through our slot Monday (and I do mean stuffed): This is my first order ever from Dizzy Sheep (woot for knitters). I ordered it Friday, and it looks like they're in NY, but that's still fast (even for Priority Mail). The yarn is Jasper from Berrocco in Mochica Blue...I am knitting a scarf with it (in a different color), and it is wonderful, squishy stuff. I'm totally in love with the colors, and there was enough of this one to knit Aamu, which I already have the pattern for (I was doing a rather desperate media/Ravelry search when I saw this yarn up). I was sorely tempted to also get more of the color of the scarf...but I resisted. At least there was some self-restraint! When I told Michael I ordered yarn, he said something about the stash diet. Dude, that was for a YEAR! I'm not made of asbestos, LOL!

Our Christmas present from the in-laws also came (our fault for ordering late; not theirs). These are Motawi tiles. We saw them when we were in Chicago, and fell in love. The colors are way richer than they look here. We still have to decide exactly where they'll hang.

And finally, this little gem showed up in a wee brown paper envelope... How cute! And from my favorite store (Anthropologie). 15% ain't much, but at that store it's probably the difference between "WHOAHHHH!" and "OK, it's my birthday after all...." =)

JiffNotes
...more to come...says my credit card...

Puzzling

Click now for JiffNotes

On New Year's Eve, we had some friends over for a fun night of board games. We brought up the table that normally sits in the Craft Cabana, because our coffee table is not rated for Dutch Blitz. After New Year's, Michael suggested we keep the table upstairs and do a puzzle! I was all for it, since this was a tradition in my house during the Christmas holidays when I was growing up. We'd set up a puzzle, and people would work on it as they walked by. One person working on the puzzle tended to draw others in, and a group would grow and then wane as people lost interest (or got hungry). So the puzzle would grow by fits and starts. Michael's not so much for the pausing in the process, though! Friday night, after a couple weeks of putting together around 800 pieces, the fun was just starting, since he had chosen the Puzz3D Millennium Falcon... Thank goodness they provide a guide... It's a little disheartening when you see that that one section that took you so long and was so annoying to put together is just a structural support and will be totally hidden in the finished model. Michael applies the all-important satellite dish...

And here it is, in all of its geeky glory! And the most hilarious detail...the glowing propulsion strip!
Someone asked if we were going to glue it together. Nope, it'll go back in the box for another ?? years until we get the urge to put it together again!! I am hankering to do a "normal" puzzle now, though....

JiffNotes
Bet you thought this post was going to be about my BA, didn't you?

Somthing Old, Something New

Click now for JiffNotes

It was awfully, dreadfully cold Friday, but it was lots of fun seeing DF Teresa and the rest of the gang for the terra cotta warriors at the High Museum. No pictures allowed in the exhibit, but you may eventually be able to visit Jean or Jill's blog to see shots of us in front of the fakey warrior in the gift shop. Instead, I give you the better-looking of the two pieces of squirrel art at the High:

Of course, I have no pictures of the Tut exhibit, either, since you couldn't take pictures in the exhibit, and it seemed pointless to haul out my camera to add to the pile that Michael was using to photograph the group in front of the Tut banner outside. Except, of course, then I would have had a photo to show you. After Tut, we ate and went by Knitch, where I succumbed to the fate of the masses, and purchased yarn to make the ubiquitous Jared Flood Noro striped scarf. One of the colors is Silk Garden (as called for), and the other is Yuzen, which has less silk and kid and more merino than Silk Garden. It comes in a skein rather than a ball and has to be wound (which is fun...you get to watch the colors change slowly as it winds). This is so not me...I am not one to see a bandwagon and jump on it, nor am I one to sign up to stitch/knit so many boring stitches in a row, nor am I one to purchase something and immediately start on it. I started it that night. Watching the colors change is addicting. Like chocolate-covered crack cookies, I tell you.

Teresa gave Jill and I our Christmas presents that night. I thought she was still on amnesty from a wonderful wrap she made me a few years ago, but I wasn't going to give up this wonderful bag she made: And look at the cute stitch markers!!

Sunday after church we went back by Knitch to pick up some yarn being wound and the weather was so beautiful we were able to get this picture:

And, since I sadly have not worn my finished Tubey since the Lottlympiad, I made Michael do a mini photo shoot of me. Here's the best of the bunch:

JiffNotes

This is not a wedding post! Unless you're talking about the mystic marriage of Noro Silk Garden and Yuzen that is my lovely scarf. Oh, wait...you probably weren't. That's just me. I did get pictures uploaded Sunday afternoon after the festivities were over, and before the Super Crafting Bowl started, but I didn't get this written 'til today. No pictures of the Tut exhibit or the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit...I recommend Tut wholeheartedly, and make sure you set aside $7 for the audio tour...totally worth it.