If you take a Heather to the Cities

She will probably have an adventure. C and I went to the Cycle World Motorcycle show over the weekend and did we have an awesome time. We saw some beautiful bikes . . .

And sat on a lot of them!

In an amazing turn of events we met Gandalf.

After three hours we decided we ought to have a pint, so down to Brit's Pub we went. While we were enjoying our pints and scotch eggs we spotted a new art exhibit in the City Pages. The gallery happened to be only two blocks away. So we decided to go!

We met the artist and bought a print (of the painting behind me in the photo). An exhibit all about fairytale princesses behaving badly. The artist is Kate Renee (www.katerenee.com).

And finally, we went back to our hotel and had a glass of wine next to the fireplace in the lobby. All in all, a pretty fantastic weekend. 

Oh, and C woke me up with fresh, French pastries. He got up early, snuck out of the hotel and visited a bakery down the street. Damn am I lucky.

-h

a blizard you say

Well now that is very interesting as it is not currently snowing. Still, my son will be very happy to come home early today.

This week has been used for sleeping for the most part as well as some minimal crafting. I am nearly finished with Mr. Fox.

                

The pattern is from Sublime Stitching. As per usual, I've been working on it for quite some time. (Maybe I should just start using that as an abbreviation or QST). I have ripped this out twice, but it finally looks right. I wanted the fur to look as real as possible so I layered colors next to each other with long stitches. Now, on to the corduroy suit jacket and the chenille shirt!

arctic extreme cold edition

When your brother-in-law mentions that it is as cold out side here as it is on Hoth, you might happen to live in Minnesota. Yes, it is really, really, absurdly cold outside.

We are on day two of no school due to extreme cold, which means the amount of work I have been able to get done is close to nil. When the LM is ensconced in Mario videos I start thinking . . . this is it, I *might* have found a window to respond to some emails. I quietly sneak upstairs, open my mail program, start to read . . . and then I hear *thump, thump, thump* of pajama covered feet coming up the stairs.
“Mom! Let’s have a Mario battle! I’ll be this guy and you can be all of these guys!”
“Okay, sweetie, just give mommy a minute here. I need to send these emails to work.”
“Okay, I'll get the other guys ready!”
He goes back downstairs.
I’m halfway through a response when: *thump, thump, thump*
“Mom, are you ready? Hey, we can pretend these guys shoot ice cream from their hands!”
“Okay, yes, I’m almost done, can you give me a few more minutes?”
“Mooooom!”
“I know, but you were home all day yesterday, too and I haven’t been able to get much done.”
“But we’re going to have a Mario battle and you get all of the good guys!”
“Okay, okay. I’ll just send this and then we’ll have our Mario battle.”
He goes back downstairs. Again.

Just feel free to repeat the above conversation at least two to three times. This is why no work gets done on stay-at-home days.

And now I have to go see how many ‘final’ bosses there are before I can win the Mario battle. Then we’ll go back to reading a pirate story.

So the past week was up and down.

I had a large headache start on Monday while at work and just get progressively worse. Knitting was fun, though it was a real struggle to make myself leave the house and go into the cold weather to drive there. There were also quite a few new people their, which while nice, was also a terrible thing to put to a headache. There was so much chattering and intermittent noise that I left early; my headache had mainly gotten worse.

I've been gone from work a lot lately, so I was really trying to stick it out this week, I worked almost 10 hours on Monday, a bit over 9 hours on Tuesday. By Thursday my headache, which had been coming and going, had gotten pretty bad. I did manage to stay the entire day though. Friday I woke up and wanted to push my eye out of my head; it hurt to open it. I slept most of the day and spent the rest watching mysteries (or rather, listening to them). I finally went in to the clinic and was diagnosed with a tension headache. They gave me a shot, recommended some neck stretches (which I had been doing throughout the week already) and sent me home for rest.

I really do love the job that I do, but as responsibilities and the amount of work has gone up, my ability to deal with the stress and my depression, has gone down. I did the right thing, by making an appointment with my doctor for next week to discuss coping mechanisms.

Not really an inspiring post, but more of a catalog of how I get to these points.

Also, Terry pratchett is damn funny.

Restart

I am restarting this blog. Precautionary alert: I have never been good at putting up regular blog posts. I am hoping that this project will propel me into posting regularly.

My new goal for this blog is to help raise awareness about depression and mental illness. The majority of the time that mental illness makes the news is when there is a negative problem with it (i.e. school shootings, stand-offs, etc.). Depression affects 5–8 percent of adults in the U.S. (NAMI.org). It affects women more than men. It can be debilitating.

Please do not think I am doing this for sympathy. I have seen people around me suffer, I have suffered, and it is time to bring this issue out into the light. Once upon a time breast cancer was something to hide, but that is no longer the case. Look at how many people are helped each year by breast cancer awareness. My goal is to bring that type of awareness to mental illness.

thanks.

-h

embroider much

While I don't often embroider on the facts, I DO embroider on cloth!

I've been busy working on fairytale characters and the like for a baby blanket. Said baby is due in January and I need to work on a few more characters/scenes before moving into Phase 2—putting blanket together.

Enjoy!

This last one is not going on the blanket. : )

Sweater Sleeve

I started the sleeve.

That is all. : )