Why it's a problem if you get all your news from Instagram

Well, another Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders issue.  One of the candidates was "released" after seven weeks of training camp, for utterly failing the mock interview with a TV reporter.  The reporter asked her about the "me too movement," and the candidate had to admit she had never heard of it.  In a follow-up meeting, the Director asked her how she got her news - did she watch TV or listen to the radio.  Well, no, she got her news from Instagram.  Hopefully she took some time after she left training camp to catch up on some news and check out the "me too movement."

And lest you think the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader candidates are the only people with an intelligence deficit - one of the members of one of my stitching groups on Facebook asked this morning that, if she bought a yard of fabric that was 60 inches wide, how long a piece would she get?  Duh...  This reminds me of something Dr. Seuss might say: "A yard's a yard, no matter how wide."

What we learned in high school

I belong to a mystery book club, and this month's book was set in Quebec.  The author had tossed in a bunch of French words, which some readers had trouble with.  One member mentioned that she had taken Latin in school, as her foreign language, and often regretted that decision, but she found her Latin knowledge useful in figuring out the French words.

That led another member to ask "what two classes did you take in High School that you use most every day?"  He identified Latin and typing.  And many of us agreed with typing class (though I learned typing in junior high).  Another member mentioned band.

I thought this was a very interesting question, and am not sure what my second class choice would be.  Physics? No.  Geometry?  No.  Chemistry?  No.  French?  No.  Hmmm.  English grammar would be an easy choice, but we learned grammar in grade school and by the time we reached high school, we were into literature.

And on to the subject of needlework, our ANG Blue Ribbon Chapter set up an exhibit of some of our work, at a local library.  I had a number of pieces in the exhibit.

My two pieces here are the ghosts and the fancy pumpkin, done on perforated paper

My pieces here are the Jazz Square hanging on the back wall, and the Patriotic Sparklers in the blue vase

On one group, a member posted that she was in "ahh" of the wonderful work others were doing.  It seemed clear she didn't know the word "awe," and was writing what she thought she had heard people saying.  I got a kick out of this because I'm thinking that when people are in awe, they often say "ahh.

FBI, uh...Federal...uh...

One of my guilty pleasures is watching the reality series of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.  We get to see the three-part audition process to identify candidates for training camp and then follow training camp.

The funniest part, to me, is the panel interview during the final auditions.  Each year, there's someone (or several someones) completely out of touch.  The stand-out this year was the candidate who didn't know what the initials CIA stood for and could only come up with "Federal" for the FBI initials.

And later in training camp, there is an "etiquette" lesson where the candidates are served a meal in a fancy restaurant and learn proper table manners.  This is purposefully difficult, as the candidates are served food that is not easy to eat. This year, the group was served quail, and one candidate said she'd never eaten quail before, but she knew it was a kind of fish.  (Reminiscent of Jessica Simpson and her Chicken of the Sea conundrum?) On the opposite side of the spectrum, another candidate readily identified quail as a game bird, relaying that she regularly went quail hunting.

Frustration Galore

Metalforms, ANG Project designed by Jeff Kulick

Tah dah!!! Drum roll please!   My local Blue Ribbon Chapter of the American Needlepoint Guild has a chapter project that a number of us are participating in this year.  We are stitching "Metalforms," designed by Jeff Kulick.  The instructions were printed in five parts in issues of the ANG magazine.  People are picking a variety of color ways.  I picked the blue colorway, and initially thought I would stitch on black canvas, though I was sort of dreading that because it is very difficult to stitch on black.  Then, at a chapter meeting, another member, sitting at the other end of the table, made a comment about, "of course, no one would want to stitch blue on green," and I had an "aha" moment.

As to the frustration part, this project was obviously designed for the designer's own stitching and not planned as a teaching project.  The instructions were not only incomplete, but there were a number of errors, and instances in which the instructions didn't match the photograph of the project.  And one of the threads chosen was virtually impossible to work with.  But, I made it!  I'm the second person in our chapter to complete this project.

Unfortunately, this project was not the end of my frustration.  When I finally finished this, I decided I would turn next to cross-stitching a winter garden design, something much simpler, with clear instructions.  Uh oh...

First off, the design was 16" by 16", so I started stitching only to discover that by the time I got to the middle of the right hand side, I was at 9", making the piece 18" so it didn't fit  correctly on the fabric.  So, should I rip out what I had already stitched and start over on this piece of fabric?  Or just start over on a new piece of fabric.  I chose the latter.  Next issue: after I had stitched some pink sections, I decided the shade of pink the designer used didn't work with my new fabric.  So I chose another pink, which I decided, after I'd stitched some, was too light.  On to stitching another pink, which I decided was too bright.  Finally, fourth time was the charm.  Third issue: the design called for bright white floss, which I had on hand and started using.  The design called for three skeins, so I went to Joann's Fabric and Craft Store to pick up some more.  When I came to the end of the skein I had been using and turned to one of the new skeins I had purchased, I discovered that the bright white floss I had on hand had turned a bit yellow in the drawer so did not match the new bright white floss.  So, I had to rip out the white I had stitched.

But after all that, I am finally making good progress on my winter garden.

Update:  I spoke too soon about finally making good progress.  One evening as I surveying how much thread I had used and how much I had left, I realized I  had mistakenly used the wrong color pink in several sections.  So, once more I had to rip out and re-stitch.

The Best Laid Plans, or What's In a Name?

Our local Blue Ribbon ANG chapter has planned an exhibit for an area library, showing examples of a wide variety of types of stitching.  We headed to the library this afternoon, with tote bags and roller bags loaded with stitched examples to choose from, and planning to spend several hours putting together our display.  Only to find out that the person in charge of library displays had neglected to tell the staff on site that we had permission to install our exhibit.  So, back home we went with our tote bags and roller bags.  We'll try again in October.

Here are a couple of examples of the things I will be contributing.

Jazz Square, a Blue Ribbon Chapter project, each of us selecting different colors

Winter Snowflakes, a free pattern from Caron Threads that was a project for CyberStitchers

As for what's in a name.  Our ANG area representative came from Chicago to give us our official charter as an ANG chapter.  Only trouble was, the charter listed us as the Bluebonnet Chapter, not the Blue Ribbon Chapter!

Adventures in Dying Thread

A number of years ago, at one of the annual stitching festivals, I took a class in hand dying fabric and thread.  I have started stitching on one of my dyed fabric pieces, and I still have the other examples tucked away for future use.

My most recent experience with thread dying, however, was unplanned.  Here's my new recipe:

1) Pour some red fruit punch and put the glass on the side table.
2) Stitch some snow on a winter scene using off-white "parchment" colored thread
3) Add the thread to the side table.
4) Mix in one cat.

Here's the result:

Hand (er "paw") dyed thread using spilled fruit punch

Christmas at Easter

We had a belated Christmas at Easter time as I finally had some finished (completely finished!) ornaments to give.  These ornaments are in memory of Mom.  Grammy was committed to (passionate about, obsessed with) the AOPi sorority.  She served as National President at one point and attended national meetings into her 90's.  That meant, perforce, that even though Mom was never really interested in AOPi on her own, she nevertheless had to be as the daughter of her mother.

I found the AOPi ornaments on line.  A company called Kangaroo Paw Designs, is licensed to design sorority and fraternity needlepoint canvasses.

Heart ornaments for my brothers

The plaid ornament is based on Mom's birthday (11/25/24).  Since AOPi's colors are red and white, that limited the plaid a bit.  If you look closely, you'll see the plaid is composed of: 1 row of shiny white, 1 row of shiny red, 2 rows of matte white, 5 rows of matte red, 2 rows of  matte white, 4 rows of matte red.

Angel ornament for Dad

The ornaments were finished by Connie Finck, a local finisher.

How Many Boards Can a Board Member Serve...

if a board member could serve boards?

I seem to keep getting busier and busier in my retirement days.  I first joined the Stewardship Committee at my church; that was before retirement.  And then I joined my Women's Circle at church, serving as lesson leader a couple of times a year.

Next came serving on the board of my condo owners association.  I knew they were having trouble attracting members, so I volunteered to serve on the board.  They led, at the second meeting I attended, to my becoming President by default.

I volunteered to be Outreach Coordinator for my online ANG Chapter, CyberPointers.  And I'm serving as Vice President for Membership for my face-to-face ANG Chapter, Blue Ribbon.

The latest, which is the most difficult piece, is serving as Vice President and Internet Vice President of my online EGA Chapter, CyberStitchers.  And when the WebMaster quit, I became Webmaster by default.  I'm spending a lot of time trying to figure things out.

Uff dah!

Of course, Miss Molly has been around to help.  I finally purchased a desk-top organizer to try to keep my various board papers organized.  Miss Molly has decided it's a great place to curl up and supervise my work.

Lest you think I don't have time to stitch, here is my latest endeavor.

Designed by Marie Driskill, Blackberry Lane Designs

Christmas 2017

A trip to Dubuque for Christmas dinner and gift exchange.  Now that gifts have been given, I can share photos.

On our cruise, one of the channels on the TV was Disney Junior.  Periodically between cartoons, the channel featured "Muffalo Potato," who was a sock puppet.  With his human companion, John, they taught kids how to draw using just numbers and letters.  Being the cruise channel, the drawing lessons encompassed a dolphin, a whale, a sea turtle, and an octopus.  I found this octopus online and stitched him up as a cruise memory for Dennis.

One of my online classes this past year was "Autumn Crackers," designed and taught by Marilyn Owen.  I have stitched two of the four so far, and finished them into ornaments rather than crackers.  I gave the pumpkin ornament to my sister-in-law and the owl to my Dad.

My major Christmas-gift stitching will wait until Easter.  My brother in Germany will be back for a visit then.  He usually comes in the fall, and we have Christmas early.  This year, we're having Christmas at Easter time, which works out well since I would not have had time to finish the items for giving at Christmas.   The stitching is now done, and the pieces are soon off to the finisher.

The finish I am most proud of this year was "Elegance Cubed" by Kurdy Biggs.  I switched  the background color to blue.  This was my first 3-D endeavor, and the first project I've done that was so heavily beaded (beads upon beads upon beads).  It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.

A lot of small projects

For some reason, I've been working on small projects lately.  I just sent off in the mail three Christmas ornaments which I stitched as a member of the CyberStitchers Chapter of the EGA.  These are going to an auction to support the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

And, enough of Christmas.  I found two ornament kits on Ebay, with threads in an autumn color palette.  Here's the first one.  I have also ordered threads to stitch this in a Christmas color palette.

"Framed: Sisley" from Kick Back & Stitch

And in amongst the stitching projects, we went to see "The King and I."

Daisies and Nitclubs

I purchased a new receiver for my TV/stereo system several months ago, and it and I are not getting along.  For some reason, on some channels or some shows, the background music overwhelms the dialogue. I've tried all the adjustments I can find, to no avail.  I finally decided to turn on my closed captioning so I could watch those programs when I could not clearly hear the dialogue.  I've discovered that some closed captioning is better than others.

My father mentioned once that he doesn't really care for closed captioning because it moves so quickly that it's hard to keep up.  Another problem, I've discovered, is that the captioning can be quite garbled and nonsensical.  Case in point: a character says, "These days he's..."  The captioning reads, "These daisies..."  So not only do you have to read quickly, you have to try to decipher what was really meant.  The one captioning flub that made me laugh was when a character talked about a nightclub, and the captioning read "nitclub."  I wonder if nitclubs are where lice go to unwind after a hard day.

I got a lot of stitching done following the cruise.  I had taken stitching along, but never got it out, just dragged it along.  This Curly Girl Design kit by Mill Hill was one of the pieces that went halfway across the world before I finally started it back home.

"Someday is made up of a thousand tiny nows"

Another piece is Patriotic Heart by Gay Ann Rogers.

Stitched piece

Piece finished into an ornament

And while I was on a Gay Ann Rogers kick, I also did this two-sided ornament/banner, "Joy to the World."

Stitched front and back

Finished banner ornament

And speaking of Christmas, I dug out a piece I had started many months (years?) ago but never finished.  Finally, it's done!

Nature's Joy, from Treasury of Cross-Stitch Ornaments

The Iowa/Denmark/Nigeria Connection

There were so many people needing a wheelchair to get to the gate that we ended up on one of those motorized carts.  Another woman in the business lounge and I hopped on the back seat, while her husband and Dennis headed to the gate on foot.  While I chatted with her, learning that they lived in Copenhagen and were flying to the US to see the eclipse, visit friends in Minnesota, and visit New Orleans, Dennis was learning that the husband had done mission work in Nigeria.

When we all got back together at the gate, I mentioned that my parents had been missionaries in Nigeria.  The husband asked where, and I responded Bukuru, and went on to explain since I was sure he would never have heard of the tiny village of Bukuru, with Jos as the nearest town of any size. But the husband got a big smile on his face, nodded, and responded, "TCNN?"  So, not only did he know of Bukuru, he knew of the Theological College of Northern Nigeria.

What a small world!

And the cruise ends in Copenhagen

By this point in the cruise, I am feeling lousy.  For some reason, my normal seasonal allergies which are controlled with antihistamine, were running amok.  Non-stop running nose, post-nasal drop clogging up my throat, lots of coughing to clear my throat, and no stamina.  As in walking half a block, stopping to rest, walking a bit more, stopping to rest.

Our arrival at Fredericia, Denmark was greeted by pretty much the whole town.  There was a cannon salute (with the tiniest miniature cannons I have ever seen).  Apparently we were around the fourth cruise ship to dock there this year.  At most of our other stops, we were among 4 to 8 cruise ships docking per day.

At the end of the day, the town, including local dignataries, turned out to give us a band concert, with people in historical native attire, waving flags and waving at us.  It was great!

I decided to skip the shore excursion to Copenhagen, and thus missed the statue of the Little Mermaid. And I ended up having to resort to a wheelchair at the airports.  We had paid for a shuttle bus from the ship to the airport, but it was ahike to the bus, and then the bus dropped us off at terminal 1 and we needed to be at terminal 2.  By the time we got to the ticket counter, I was done in.

Since we had "premium economy" tickets, we had access to the business lounge, which included comfortable waiting, soup and a variety of snacks, and assorted beverages.

Family Reunion in Germany

Our next stop was Warnemunde in Germany, where we met brother Robert.  There was a cruise center (read "tourist-trap") with a gift shop and little restaurant.  We found seats in the restaurant area, had some pop, and caught up with a nice chat. Then Dennis and I headed back to the ship, while John and Renee headed with Robert to a tour of the city.

View of our ship from the pier in Wurnemunde

View of Wernemunde from the ship

Latvia and Lithuania.

Next stop on our cruise was Riga, Latvia.  Unfortunately, it was too windy.  There is a narrow channel into Riga Bay, and the wind was just at the point of being too strong to safely traverse the channel. And, the winds were forecast to get stronger in the afternoon. Sooo, assuming the harbot pilot decided it was safe to enter the harbor, it was iffy whether we would be able to get back out.  So, we waved at Riga as we turned and spent the day at sea.

Next stop was Lithuania, where we had a shore excursion of touring an amber factory.  The amber factory was way too hot and stuffy, and lots of standing, so I opted for sitting on a bench outside in the cool shade and light breeze.

Then on to, guess where - the amber factory's gift shop outlet, where we had some amber tea and amber cake, then "got" to spend time looking at all the amber jewelry and other giftware.  I bought a pair of earrings, Dennis bought some amber dust and raw amber.

What I found very interesting on our tours, was the disparity with which the individual Scandinavian and Baltic countries saw Russia.   Some countries were proud of their past and current relationship with Russia, others were quite disparaging of how they were treated by Russia during World War II.

For example, the following joke was told by our tour guide in Lithuania, as we drove past obvious Soviet-era apartment complexes that all looked the same.  There is the story of the man who went home from work and went to the wrong apartment.  He didn't notice because they all look the same. His key worked, because there were only a few different keys.  And his furniture was what he was used to seeing, since there were only three choices in furniture.  And so the story goes on.

Pictures of Klaipeda from the ship

United States? Um, Where is that?

Our shore excursion to Helsinki was "by land and by sea."  We started out with a boat trip around the many islands that make up the city.  Then we landed at, guess where, a flea market with lots of vendors selling lots of souvenirs.  With a quick trip to the restrooms in City Hall, which actually functioned like a city hall, with an internet area where people were using computers and a very nice art exhibit.


As we walked the several blocks to our bus for the land portion of our tour, we met a young man who asked where we were from.  We tour participants stand out like sore thumbs, with colored stickers on our lapels denoting which tour group we're with - so it wasn't hard for him to peg us as tourists.  When we responded, "the United States," he got a confused look on his face and responded  that he'd never heard of that.  As we clarified, "The United States of America," he then understood and said that he'd heard of "America." 

Lutheran Cathedrals

In our bus trip around St. Petersburg, our tour guide pointed out what she called a "Lutheran Cathedral."  It was tucked away behind and between two other buildings and we were by it so fast I couldn't get a picture.  But I wondered about her word choice.  Lutherans have churches, not cathedrals.  Catholics have cathedrals.   But as I learned later from our tour guide in Helsinki, there are Lutheran Cathedrals in Europe.

Statue of Alexander II in Market Square in Helsinki

Lutheran Cathedral in Market Square, with only 350 steps up to the door

The 12 apostles, in zinc, around the roof

But Cairo is in Egypt

One of the things we like to do on cruises is participate in the trivia contests, which are held a couple of times a day.  Most of the time we just listen and don't try to compete for prizes.  But one day another couple and we were the only people interested, so the four of us decided to work together rather than compete. That day, the contest was to identify, from photos, the movie character's name. That was harder than it sounded.  We could usually identify the actor, or the show, but couldn't always come up with the character's name.  But, since we were the only people participating, all four of us received a prize - a Royal Caribbean pen!  Whoo-hoo

Well, the next day, we headed to the trivia contest, not expecting to participate, but we ran into the same couple and decided to join with them again.  There were a lot of people participating that day, and some of the questions were pretty obscure.

Anyway, one of the questions was, "What city in Africa has the largest population?" The other couple were guessing Johannesburg, and I said what about Cairo, is Cairo bigger than Johannesburg?  The woman looked at me like I was nuts and said, "But Cairo is in Egypt!"  To which I responded, well, yes, but Egypt is in Africa.  It turns out I was right, Cairo is the biggest city in Africa.

Some animals and a shirt

One fun thing about cruising is that we get treated to a variety of towel animals.  This trip, in addition to animals, we had a towel folded like a shirt.

Paint the Shell First

I spent Day 2 on board ship, and then on Day 3 in St. Petersburg, attended a Nesting Doll Painting workshop.  The group that puts on the workshops is geared toward teaching arts and crafts to local Russian citizens, which meant only one of the group really spoke any English.  But, with the use of hand signals and blank looks, we were able to get the help we needed, or should I say the help I needed. Some of the participants were quite artistic and started right in.  I was at the stage of, "please help - how do I draw the face...please help, where do the hands go?"

Once we got the drawing done, then it was time to paint.  One woman asked where should we start with the painting, should we do the clothes first, or start with the detail of the face first.  The leader said, "Do the shell first."  Well, yes, we understood we were to paint the shell of the nesting doll, but should we start with the face or with the clothes?  After going back and forth and back and forth, we finally realized the leader was trying to say, "Paint the shawl first."

As we departed St. Petersburg, Dennis mentioned he'd learned that there was an under-sea highway. We were fortunate to see the entrance from our balcony.  It's part of their flood protection system and dam.

Entrance to under-sea highway outside St. Petersburg