Nora Corbett's 12 Days of Christmas

There are so many 12 Days of Christmas patterns out there, but Nora has come up with a style all her own. I saw days 1 and 2 on the home page of www.abcstitch.com and I'm really interested in knowing how big they're going to be before I get too excited about them.

I'd really like to have a Christmas tree one year decorated only in 12 Days of Christmas ornaments. I'm working on Prairie Schooler's and just started Jim Shore's. Somewhere I have the funny ones from Cross Stitcher magazine to stitch. I know that's not all of them, but it's all I can think of at the moment!

Books read in 2009

Books Read in 2009

• *A Mountain of Crumbs by Elena Gorokhova finished Dec 27 2009
• *Cowboy and Wills by Monica Holloway finished Nov 2009
• *Breaking the Bank by Yona Zeldis McDonough finished Nov 2009
• *Cream Puff Murder by Joanne Fluke finished Nov 8 2009
• *Daughter of Kura by Debra Austin finished Aug 2009
• *Dog On It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery by Spencer Quinn finished 2/21/09
• *East of the Sun by Julia Gregson finished July 2009
• *Fed Up by Conant-Park and Conant finished March 8 2009
• *Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovick finished Aug 31 2009
• *Fleece Navidad by Maggie Sefton
• *Foreign Body by Robin Cook
• *Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Wells Nov 2009
• *The Castle by Jeanette Wells Dec 2009
• *Julie & Julia by Julie Powell
• *Knit Two by Kate Jacobs
• *Lost Lake by Phillip Margolin finished Feb 2009
• *Marker by Robin Cook finished Mar 6 2009
• *Promise of the Wolves by Dorothy Hearst (if you liked Watership Downs, you'll probably like this) finished July 2009
• *State of Fear by Michael Creighton finished January 10, 2009
• *Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley Finished Feb 28 2009 funny!
• *The Book of Unholy Mischief by Elle Newmark finished 2/21/09
• *The Devlin Diary finished Aug 30 2009
• *The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
• *The Promised World by Lisa Tucker finished Aug 2009
• *The Water Giver by Joan Ryan finished 9/23/09

Nuno Felt Scarf class tomorrow

I'm so tickled to be taking this class tomorrow. It looked beautiful in the accompanying picture, but I didn't know what nuno felting was. So I googled it! Turns out it's a Japanese technique of felting wool to a gauze (like the silk scarf we'll be using) using "wet felting" techniques. Yep, I had to google wet felting and found that means using a screen or netting and a sponge dipped in hot water.

Apparently you place natural fibers at 90 degree angles along the scarf, put the screen on top, wet it while pressing down with the sponge. Voila! One scarf.

Parking garage fiasco continues

I'd not mentioned this before, but the company I work for is fixing its parking garage. This means 80 carpools have had to relocate to one of several locations up to 7 blocks away from the building. I thought I'd heard there were 300 carpools so the odds were that any one carpool would not get chosen. Lucky us. The union picked the carpools (not that I trust them an inch) and sure enough, we hear that union leader carpools that got picked "some how" are now back in the building. Could be a vicious rumor, but I find it telling that everyone (and I mean everyone) is quick to believe it.

The transition from company garage to the relocation sites has been poorly run since the beginning: no instructions of how to enter the garages, not enough passes for all carpool drivers, delays in responses to questions, and NO PLANNED ROTATION. If your carpool was picked to leave the building during construction, then your carpool stays out of the building for the FULL YEAR that construction will take.

There are approximately 20 company carpools in the garage I'm assigned to. The company has a "contrator" agreement and we have stickers for the cars that indicate we're contractors using the garage which is located under a college building. Other than the hike at night up to the garage can be interesting (and you don't want interesting) there have been no problems. Until last Thursday: Christmas Eve.

My company was kind enough to let us go early and I was at the garage just after Noon. Could I get in? Treat that as a rhetorical question. Of course not! The college is on winter break and the building was totally locked! With all the tall buildings my cell phone couldn't get a signal and who would I call anyway especially with the school closed? Fortunately (praise God!) a campus police office came by within a few minutes and let me in after I explained how I happened to not be a student or faculty and have my car locked in their garage. He escorted me to my car.

Once I got home I emailed the coordinators of this parking fiasco wanting to know how am I supposed to get to my car on Monday evening when it's dark, school is out of session and the building is locked down. Much later that night I got a read-receipt from the head coordinator.

Public parking garages are $18 a day. Non realistic and cost prohibitive for A YEAR. I'm hoping against logical hope that I'll have a resolution email before I go to bed tonight. I won't go to work tomorrow without knowing their plan for me to get my car daily. If I need to call the campus police every day that school is out to gain access to the building, I will. And what will happen at Spring Break and Summer Break?

My Plan B hope is that I get a response tomorrow (Monday) to my email detailing the expected procedure if/when this happens again. On Tuesday I'll drive to work, park in the garage (entry is not a problem) and see what happens in the evening. "Hello? Campus Police? I have a problem."

GRRRRR. I work with idiots.

Book: A Mountain of Crumbs by Elena Gorokhova

I don't usually read memoirs, but this is a nice one. She remembers well what it was like to grow up in Russia. She writes well and tells a good story. I learned a lot about personal interactions in Russia. I must look up the New Year Tree. I'd not heard of that tradition before.

Recommended.

30% off Heaven and Earth Designs

I'm about to start my perusing of the HAED website and mark my choices. At 30% off I can get all the ones I like and not have to make decisions! LOL Sale ends 12/21 at midnight.

17" of snow today and still falling

It's after 6 pm and we've gotten a "historic" snow today. 17" at the house. This in an area where 1/4" will shut the city down!

I finished stitching a Shepherd's Bush piece: Ho Ho Ho. I'll finish it as an ornament. I then started SB's Christmas Pin Cushion. It will also be finished as an ornament.

I was lucky that the birthday present I bought for myself arrived yesterday: Mary Englebreit Christmas ornaments by Bucilla. It'd be better to do them on linen. I'll have to look around and see what I have. Aida came with the kit. I plan to finish a bunch of them while I'm snowbound.

I wrapped the last of the Xmas presents today! HOORAY! I like using as much variety as possible in wrapping paper and opened 3 new rolls today. Bliss.