Monday Musings

With President's Day giving me an extra day of leisure this week, I have had some more stitching and reading time.

I finished up J.D. Robb's Obsession in Death.  I have read the In Death series from the very beginning.  This last entry was not the best in the series but it did have some amusing vignettes.  My favorite being the brief scene in which the none too maternal heroine, Dallas, ends up holding a bauble coveting toddler, Bella, who stakes a claim to Dallas' diamond pendant.  I also began Monica Ferris' Darned If You Do.  The Ferris book is  much lighter fare than the Robb book but both rely on the appeal of an ensemble of characters.  Sci-fi, fantasy and mystery novels tend to be my escapist reading.  All of this light reading has been needed to compensate for the serious research I have been doing for the Family Catechesis program on the Via Dolorosa, the Stations of the Cross and it's origin in pilgrimage.

The temperatures have continued to hover in the single digits or low teens with wind chill factors making it feel anywhere from 6 to 20 below 0.  I have been hermitting all weekend, amusing myself with stitching, reading and a Babylon 5 DVD marathon with occasional excursions into housekeeping.  I will be glad when Spring finally makes its appearance.  I find I feel the cold more intensely as I grow older.  Suddenly, long underwear doesn't seem a ludicrous vestige of a long ago past prior to central heating.  It seems a quite practical solution to problems here and now!

On the stitching front, I have made considerable progress on Workbasket's Quaker Owl.  You can clearly see the difference in the dye lots of GAST Maple Syrup used for the Quaker motifs that make up the chest and for the more solid stitching that makes up the head, wings and claws.  I had hoped to have enough of the lighter toned dye lot for the eyes as well but I will have to go with a third dye lot from my stash.  I'd forgotten just how much fiber these Workbasket animals eat up.  In future I shall have to make sure I have at least two skeins, possibly three, on hand before I start a piece from the series.  I guess fiber purchases will play a big part in the 2015 budget.