Communicating at Work

As a follow up to my post about how to run a meeting, I point you in the direction of 10 Tools to Rev Up Your Business and Personal Communication. I found it very interesting.

Happy Easter

Wishing you all a Happy Easter!

When will the TV schedule be back on track?

All fall, I was glued to my TV. I usually don't get sucked into new series until they're at least a season or two old. This year was the exception. We were watching many a new show in the fall line up. There was something on just about every night that we wanted to watch. Granted a lot of these were in the science fiction and fantasy category, shows that often don't make it past a season or two anyway, but still...

All I wanted for Christmas this year was a DVR, which I received. The poor thing has barely been used.

I've not seen a new episode of any of our favorites from the fall yet. We've half-heartedly watched both episodes of Canterbury Law so far, only because they're new and there's nothing else on. I've seen all of the movies I'm interested in that are being offered on cable this month. I've been sick for over a week now. My head hurts too much for reading or stitching for any length of time. All I want to do is veg on my couch in front of the TV with 500 channels AND THERE'S NOTHING ON!!!!

When, oh when, will my TV be normal again? Please, oh please, let it be soon.

My Niece's Sampler

After posting last night, I realized that I hadn't seen my younger niece's birth sampler in a while and that I probably hadn't worked on it since November. This made me curious, and I went looking for it. I found it tucked in a bag on top of the dresser in my craft room. Along with it were the Raspberry Parfait and Old Brick sampler threads I'd been missing when I wanted to stitch my heart ornament for February.

I was right in guessing that I was about 2/3 of the way done. When I pulled it out last night, everything but the two hearts had been stitched. Now I just need to add my niece's details and it will be done. Yea!

A Child was Born by Lizzie-Kate
on 32 ct. Mist. Blue Belfast
with GAST threads, but not the ones recommended

A New Project

I started a new project while I was sick the last few days. Being home during the daylight is conducive to stitching, although I did spend a lot of time napping too.

I'm working on the North Star Sampler from the Sweetheart Tree as a birth sampler for one of my nephews. Right now, I only have some of the viney parts at the top done, and it's not much to see.

Eventually, I'm going to stitch the Bluebells Sampler for another nephew, brother to the first. In both cases, I'm going to replace the recommended charm with a baby bootie charm.

I know, I know. This violates the Selfish Stitching in 2008 mantra. With the ornaments, I've made a good start on the S.S., and I needed a bigger project. Since I didn't have any bigger projects for myself calling loudly, I decided to work on these.

Also, I'm way, way behind on the birth samplers. At the moment, I have 6 niephlets -- 2 nieces and 4 nephews. All of them are under the age of 10. I have completed exactly two birth samplers, one for my older niece and one for my youngest nephew. Since all the niephlets except my youngest nephew belong to my sister's blended family, my sister has been bugging me about doing the rest of them.

I have the sampler for my younger niece about 2/3 of the way done. If I'm a very dedicated stitcher, I will be able to finish stitching the remaining four this year. (I even have the pattern for the last one chosen.) So that's my goal as of now. Wish me luck.

Sick Day and a Photo

I was so excited about Daylight Savings Time starting on Sunday. Yes, I hate to lose the hour, but I love having the daylight in the evenings. This was mitigated by the fact, unfortunately, that I was coming down with something. I stayed home sick from work today as I have a head cold and a horrible sore throat.

In the afternoon, my energy finally popped up a level, and I decided I could work on stitching something. I knew that if I pulled out the flower basket ornament I'm working on, I'd flub it up, as it requires lots of color changes. Instead I went looking through the other SAL ornaments that I needed. I still haven't found a bunny I like, but I found a bird pattern (May's category) that I liked and that I couldn't mess up too badly. I have other bird patterns I like, so this may or may not be my official May ornament.

It's from the 2004 Better Homes and Gardens Cross-Stitch Christmas magazine, designed by Lynda Orme and Wendy Peatross. I stitched it on a scrap piece of linen with threads leftover from a kit. It's about 1.5" square. I almost stitched it over one instead of over two, and I'm really glad that I went over two. Otherwise, it would have been miniscule.

It's going into the pile of things that need to be "ornamentified" for now. I was fortunate enough, though, to score some scrap archival (acid- and lignon- free) mounting board from my office. I'm running out of excuses for not making these projects up into ornaments.

Another Book Meme

This time, I know where the list originated: Poppy Buxom. (And I was reminded of it by Anna.)

Books I'm Amazed Nobody Ever Made Me Read
Anything by... Dickens, Austen, Joyce, the Brontes, Faulkner
Any of those dark, depressing Russian books
(If it's a classic, I probably haven't read it.)

Books I've Never Been Interested in Reading
Anything highbrow. If it's Literature, I'm not terribly interested.
Anything having to do with abusive relationships.
I'll read most genre fiction, although I'm not keen on western, military, or historical novels.
I don't read a lot of nonfiction for pleasure, either, except travel memoirs.

Books I Never Managed to Finish
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury -- It's the first book I didn't finish reading. There have been others since then, including some of the books on the previous book list, but it's the first. Since I'm a compulsive reader, it was very difficult to give myself permission not to finish it. It's still on my bookshelf however, so ...

Books I Finished and Liked Quite a Bit, Although Going Into It, I Felt Extremely Wary
I haven't been able to think of any in this category, but I suppose I started out wary of anything that I was required to read in school. The only book I read for school that I ended up liking was To Kill a Mockingbird.

Books for which the quip "Kill me. Now." was invented
1,000 Acres by Jane Smiley
The Two Towers by J.R.R.Tolkien (all that walking and bad poetry; I thought it would never end)

Books they made me read so often I hated both the books and them
The only book I was made to read more than once, that I can recall, is the aforementioned Gabriela, which I actually like.

One of those weird things about me: Because I grew up in a rural place, the nearest public library wasn't real near by. As a result, I was stuck mostly re-reading whatever books I owned or could borrow from neighbors over the summer, when I couldn't borrow books from the school library. We didn't own a lot of books. I can't tell you how many times I re-read the Little House and Nancy Drew books. One consequence of this is that I tend to forget the details of what I've read, particularly in novels, fairly quickly. To this day, I re-read a lot of books, which some of my friends think is completely bizarre. On the other hand, I can usually remember where I've read something and go back to it fairly quickly.