Dogs -- Yesterday we took pictures of Cain and Abel. They should be full grown now since they will be 2 years old in August. They are Sharpei/Lab mixes. Cain is our blond Sharbador. He is my 70 pound lap dog. Abel is our Labrapei, he is larger than Cain and more like a lab. He fetches and is obsessed with birds. They are brothers from the same litter.

I have been doing a lot of stitching lately and finishing some very old UFOs. This includes a Bent Creek counting book started when my children where young enough to be interested in one:

I also finished a counted needlepoint design that I started as a present for my father. Water is Life has waves in it, perfect for a man who studies turbulent flow patterns.

I worked on some newer patterns too. I finished an Easter design -- Candy is Dandy by Val's Stitching Stuff. The bunny looks so happy in the design that he makes me smile to look at him.

Although there has been lots of stitching, there has not been as much reading going on. I finished The Rings of Saturn by Sebold and listened to The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox all the way through.

In between basketball games and karate tournaments, I have finished some stitching projects including a pinball for the Quacker Quarterly Exchange on the Legacy Board and a Silver Needle Secret Needle Night project from last year. The front and back of the AY's Necessities Quaker Pinball are shown in this post. It was stitched on 40 count linen over two threads using Madeira Silk.

I have done better on the reading front finishing Guns, Germs and Steel and A World Lit Only by Fire. I am fascinated by the reasons why some animals were domesticated and others were not from Guns, Germs and Steel. I also wonder how William Manchester would rewrite his text about Magellan in light of the infromation about the Chinese Treasure Ships that circumnavigated the globe and discovered the Americas in 1421. Magellan probably heard of their journey while he was in the far east and may have had access to some oftheir maps and log books. This weekend, I have been reading of West with the Night, whether Beryl Marckham wrote the book or not, she was a remarkable woman and the stories told in the book are magical and romantic.

I have not posted in a while but now that I have my very own wireless lap top, I should be able to keep up with a blog on a semi-regular basis. Right now, I am playing with the computer while I download music into iTunes so I can have my complete and very eclectic music collection on my iPod. The picture of the cats is an experiment -- I need to spend some itme organizing the pictures on the lap top, then I should be able to post pictures that actually go with my text.





Since it is the last day of the year, I have been thinking about goals for 2007. I posted my stitching goals on the Legacy UFO/WIP board and have been thinking about other goals for the year. Looking back on 2006, I have accomplished quite a bit -- I have a new job, I read 60 books (that is physical books -- I didn't keep very good track of the ones that I listened to) and I finished a number of needlework projects. In 2007, I will keep better track.

The last two books that I finished in 2006 were Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham's The Hours. I read Mrs. Dalloway before but did not remember much about it --I may have to read it again. My general impression was that it was not as interesting as The Voyage Out, or The Waves. I enjoyed The Hours more, now I want to watch the movie again.