Kom Ombo and a birthday celebration

Okay, I want to share some more layouts from my Egyptian vacation that I finished in August, but hadn't gotten around to posting.


After leaving Edfu, we continued our journey south on the Nile, and, late in the afternoon, we docked at a temple called Kom Ombo. This temple is dedicated to the crocodile god, Sobek, and I thought the carvings here were pretty cool. As we left the temple, we took a few minutes to pause and watch the sun set over the Nile. Kind of an awesome thing to see.

The layout pictured above is one of two double paged layouts that I finished in my QuickQuotes class at CKC Charlotte in August. I thought the colors on the paper were perfect to match the dreamy feel of the Nile River, with the mist rising low over the horizon. And believe me, this layout had tons of room for sticking extra photos on it. Here's a few that I tucked into a pocket we created on the layout:

That evening, as our boat headed for Aswan, everyone on the tour prepared for that night's "Galabea Party." We all bought galabeas... some had more elaborate garments than others, and a few of us bought scarves or headdresses to finish our ensembles. In full regalia, we paraded down to the dining room:

Ahem, you may have noticed that there was one person who chose not to dress in costume. What can I say? My man is certainly not a follower. At any rate, we all got a good laugh out of admiring one another's outfits. During dinner, Mohammed stopped by our table and asked a question. I forget exactly what the question was, but I knew what it meant. See, when we first boarded the boat, we had to provide a copy of our passport. And our passport contains things like... our date of birth. And the boat crew uses that information against you in the most nefarious of manners:

Yep, my birthday just conveniently happened to take place on the night of the galabea party! As dinner was wrapping up, the dining room and kitchen staff would come out beating on pots and pans and singing in Arabic. The maitre d' walked around the room, showing the birthday cake with a lit candle to each table, until he finally came to a stop in front of me. Then he drug me to the front of the room where everyone sang Happy Birthday to me and who knows what else, and one of the staff danced me around a little bit. I have to admit that, while it was a little embarassing, it was certainly the most memorable birthday celebration I think that I will ever have. Please excuse the craptastic photo. It was very dark in the dining room, we were moving around a lot, and poor Alton was trying to cope with my camera.

After dinner, we headed up to the lounge area and hung around for a while, dancing and just having a good time. All in all, a pretty awesome birthday! And on that note, I think I'll call this post complete. Still lots more finished layouts to share, and more silly stories from my journey down the Nile. Til next time, stay safe, stay creative!

Things I learned about my cats this weekend

I learned a few things about a couple of my cats this weekend:

1. Do not try to make Spike look girlie by putting a pretty pink ribbon around her neck. She will cut you. Seriously.

2. When you are on the phone with your father, and Spike pounces your upper thigh in an act of retaliation (see 1 above), do not ignore her because...

3. Spike is not above attacking from behind and sinking claws into both of your butt cheeks. Seriously. Ow.

4. It does not improve Spike's mood when you try to put the pink princess cone on her head. It does, however, impede her eyesight, making it harder for her to leap on your unsuspecting legs.

5. Princess DOES like having a pretty pink ribbon tied about her neck, and will purr with pleasure about it.

6. When you try to remove said pretty pink ribbon from Princess's neck (because, after all, it is kind of a choking hazard), she will cut you. Seriously.

7. People who like to mess with their cats should invest in neosporin and bandaids.

Moving forward

Well, it's been a while. I'd like to start by thanking those of you who expressed your condolences over the past month or so, whether it was here on my blog, on Facebook, by email, or by phone. Your thoughts and prayers meant a lot to me. My grandmother's passing was a completely unexpected shock. But I know she is in a better place, and I know that she would have chosen to pass at her home without a drawn out illness or stay in the hospital if she'd had a say in the matter, so I am happy for her, even as I miss her so terribly.

When I left home to join my family, I knew I might want some stitching to occupy my hands and mind, but I couldn't stomach the thought of stitching something cheery. Fortunately I had just barely begun The Primitive Needle's "Black'd Skie" earlier in the year. Since it is basically a mourning sampler, it was a perfect match to my mood. Two blocks down, four more to go. I'm using a piece of hand dyed linen from Stitches and Spice, called, appropriately, "gravestone". Over about 3 week's stitching, here's what I accomplished:

About 2 weeks ago, I felt like I was ready to return to the model that I've been stitching for Mom. And I've been stitching like mad ever since, trying to finish it in time for the on-line show next week! I put the last stitches in on Friday evening, and delivered the finished piece to my dad a few hours ago. I have a photo of it, but it is super-low resolution. Hopefully, you can still get a good idea of what it looks like. I think it is quite pretty, and that black linen just makes it pop!

After finishing on Friday, I pulled out all the Halloween projects I have in my stash, and went a little crazy. I finished stitching two little smalls, both of which I will probably turn into little pin pillows. Both are stitched on 36 count Legacy linen from Picture This Plus using overdyed cotton threads. The first one is "Waiting for the Harvest" from Blackbird Designs:

The second one is a freebie design from Primitive Bettys. This photo gives you a better idea of the yummy mottled-ness of the fabric I used.

I don't know when I'm going to actually finish them. Maybe I'll get a chance to do some shopping for fabric to back them with next weekend. But maybe not. We'll see.

So what shall I work on next? I'm thinking that I am going finish another pin pillow for which I do have the finishing materials. After that, maybe a Halloween ornament, maybe back to the mourning sampler. I'm not sure yet.

As far as scrapping goes, I've done a grand total of one layout since the beginning of September. I still have several layouts from my Egypt vacation that I haven't shared yet. I'll do that soon. And, although I didn't quite get motivated enough to scrap today, I think it's coming soon. Maybe even later this week. Until then, I hope everyone is enjoying the change in the weather. Stay safe, and give your loved ones an extra hug or a surprise phone call.

I Miss You MawMaw

Suddenly, the world is an emptier place. She has left us for her place in heaven today.

Irene passes me by and my scrap mojo goes mad

Hullo, strangers! I know, I know, it's been a while. And there are so many things that I could talk about from this past month or so. Instead, I think for now, I'll bypass the road trip to Massachusetts, skip right over the B-52's concert, avoid talking about what I'm stitching (it's a model for Mom so I can't show a picture just now anyway) and go straight to this past weekend. Well, straight there after I mention that I'm super excited about Mom's new design. It's an Adam and Eve on a gorgeous milk chocolate colored linen. It's yummy. You're gonna love it. Moving on...

This weekend in a word? Scrapbooking. In a whole bunch of words? I spent the weekend at CKC-Charlotte, and have returned with a super hyper desire to create pages and pages of layouts. I took Friday off, and headed out early, early in the morning to check into my hotel and do some shopping at the vendor fair before my first class. Actually, I had been anxiously watching the track for Irene all week, hoping that it wouldn't track too close to my home and necessitate a complicated evacuation of the cats prior to my leaving for Charlotte. Happily (or relatively so), we weren't predicted to be in the flood zone, so I cleaned everything off the porch, said a little prayer and headed west.

I don't want to bore you with too many class-related details. So, um, my first class was with Studio Calico. I like their spray mists, and the wood veneers. And I thought the layout they taught was perfect to showcase Spike and Tigger when they were itty bitty:

The layout looks better in person, but it is a little jacked up due to some minor complications with the spray mist (including my color choice, ha ha).

Anyhoozles, I spent a big chunk of the day hanging out with my Aunt Teresa, who showed up with the ugliest black eye I have ever seen in my life. Seriously. It was BAD. But she was handling it like a trooper, and said it was itching more than anything else (and that no, poor Uncle Chris, who was enduring endless teasing, did not hit her, she fell in the parking lot of Jo-Ans and was attacked by her glasses). We shopped, ate dinner at Five Guys, and shopped some more. Angela finally met up with me late that evening, ready to jump into a nice long day of classes on Saturday.

I made some great layouts in the QuickQuotes class that you will see when I get back to my Egypt album. I worked on a mixed media mini album that may or may not ever get finished. I have no clue what I would put in the album right now.

I learned how to make some fabulous handmade flowers from Technique Tuesday. Here's a couple of them:


And finally, I justified taking an extra class because I needed to make sure I had to drive through as few rain bands as possible on my way home. Here are the three layouts from that class:



The picture in that first layout was taken a couple of years ago on a mountain top, at sunset, looking out over Death Valley. Sigh. I really need to work on scrapbooking that trip, too.

I am happy to say that I made it home with only 2 rain bands under my belt, and neither one contained any heavy rains or high winds. There were a few small limbs down across town, but happily, my home and cats were none the worse. I didn't even think my power had gone out, although I realized that it actually had when I went to turn my alarm on Sunday evening. So all is well in my world, and my thoughts are with those who were not so fortunate.

Since coming back from the convention, I've made A TON of progress on my Egypt album... another 10 pages have been finished! But I'll save those for another post. This one's getting long already.

But I can't leave you without sharing some pictures of the cats. Scout had his stitches removed, and I am happy to report that the surgery was successful. He has a little bit of a sag to his lower lip on the right side, and at least one of his teeth is coming in crooked, but he can live a full, happy life (if he'd stop doing things like trying to climb inside the folding bed inside the couch, that is) and he doesn't look too funny, does he?

You know, except when he's being weird and sleeping in odd positions:

I hope I've found a home for him with a friend whose home is currently cat-free. Fingers crossed that this works out, cuz I'm gonna have a hard time giving this little accident-prone sweetie to a total stranger!

Cruising South on the Nile

Hello everyone! Time for another story from my Egyptian adventures. After leaving the Valley of the Kings and the alabaster store, our tour group made its way to the reconstructed temple of Hatshepsut, the queen who would be Pharoah.

My first, most striking impression of the temple is that it was a long, long walk from where the bus dropped us off to the temple itself. And hot. Really hot. Thankfully, there was a little trolly that we could ride for most of the distance. But I could really feel the heat as we climbed up the steps of the temple.

Our guide told us to pronounce the queen's name "hat cheap suit." Alton and I both thought that was pretty funny, especially since pronouncing her name didn't seem all that difficult to either of us. But the funny pronunciation stuck with us, which is why I chose to title my layout with the odd pronunciation:

There isn't too much else to say about our visit to this temple. It was interesting to see images of the queen portrayed as a man. And I was grateful to Alton for buying me a hat at one of the ever-present kiosks at the exit to the temple. The temple is stunning to see.

When we returned to our boat, we set sail south, towards Aswan. As evening approached, our boat slowed on the approach to the Esna Lock. I was looking forward to watching the process of moving through a lock, something I'd read about in history books, but never seen myself. But the real show happened before we entered the lock. We had to wait our turn to enter the lock, so we slowed down a good deal. Still, we were moving much faster than a little row boat could move. Which is why it was simply stunning to watch these brave merchants in their little boats push off from shore and rope themselves to the side of our boat. As the sailors on our boat caught the ropes from the merchants and tied them down, the little rowboats would jerk around as the rope drew taught and they were drug up to our speed. They would then attach to one another, creating a tail of rowboats, weaving alongside our cruise boat. The merchants would then throw plastic bags with scarves or caftans or other merchandise at those of us on the upper deck (or occasionally, people with open windows). Sometimes, they threw their product up even when no one had asked for it, causing some rather hilarious moments as people were assaulted by flying bags. If anyone reached a shouted bargain with them, they put their money in the plastic bag and threw it back down. Otherwise, we returned the unwanted merchandise. The men in the rowboats were very good at catching the bags. And when they missed, the bag would float long enough for them to retrieve it. It was truly a stunning thing to watch.

The next morning began with a trip to Edfu Temple. This is supposed to be the best preserved temple in Egypt. I really liked the bird statues guarding the entrance to the temple (which is why I posed for a picture with one). We wandered all over the site, and even got to see a hint of what the 'holy of holies' would have looked like in ancient times... a darkened room in the innermost part of the temple, with a golden statue inside that would have shined at certain times of day when a shaft of light shone through.
The temple was begun by one of the Ptolemies, and continued to be worked on up through the time of Cleopatra. Our guide pointed out Cleopatra's cartouche on one of the temple walls, and went through the symbols phonetically with us. I've used that cartouche as an embellishment next to the title on my layout:

The little guy went to the vet's this afternoon for an unscheduled checkup. His little mouth had a funny bulge on one side, and I wanted to be sure that there wasn't an infection or something going on. The vet took a quick look, even gave it a little squeeze, and pronounced the little guy to be in fine shape. Turns out, the funny bulge is just a callous, which could or could not be a result of the injury, could or could not go away, but was DEFINITELY not anything to worry about. The little guy showed his appreciation of my care and concern for my well being by helping me snap a photo of my most recent layout:

Sigh, he's cute, but he has so much energy! I hope everyone else has plenty of energy as well, whether it's for stitching, scrapping, or just plain living. Have a great rest of the week!

Some stitching and "the little guy"

Some time ago, I finished stitching "Getting Away" by the Sampler Girl. I stitched it on hand dyed fabric from Picture This Plus (I forget the name of the fabric, maybe doubloon?) with overdyed floss. But it's taken me FOREVER to get around to finishing it into a pin pillow.

I have such a love of traveling, that I knew I had to stitch this pattern as soon as I saw it!

I have also found the time to stitch up a little patriotic freebie, also from The Sampler Girl. I pulled from my stash of overdyed threads, and stitched it up on the same Picture This Plus fabric that I used for the travel pillow above. I was going to wait til I got to Mom's house and raid her fabric stash for a backing, but then I found this little stall at the flea market at the State Fairgrounds two weekends ago. She had such beautiful fabrics! I picked up 3 that I thought might work for this design, but I still need some trim. Guess I'll be pouncing on Mom's stash after all! Anyway, here's the three backing options along with the stitching. Which one do you like?

That same weekend we visited the flea market, A and I also browsed the Antiques show. There were several samplers there, but a lot of them were a bit pricey for me. But this Spanish sampler was in my price range, and I think it's rather pretty (if you can tell from the crapola picture). It's kind of cool, she names her teacher and the school!


In baby kitty news, Scout is doing well as best I can tell. He certainly has settled right in, and he has soooo much energy! I woke up this morning because he was gnawing on my toes, and I came home from work to find him sitting on the kitchen table. Grrrr. He doesn't need to be right on top of me all of the time (just half the time), but I am required to stay in eyesight. He was helping with this post a minute ago. Thankfully, he got bored with that pretty quickly, because he was just typing a bunch of gobbledy gook! Here's hoping that recovery continues to go well with no complications. It scares me to be responsible for such a little guy after such a big injury.

Next post, I'll be sharing some of the layouts I've finished in the past few weeks, and, of course, blabbing on about my Egyptian adventures. Til then, try to stay cool everyone. This is one of those rare times when I actually dread my walks back and forth to work... especially in a suit! Hope everyone's a/c is at least coming close to keeping up!