Lions and Tapirs and Bears, Oh My!

Two weekends ago, Noel and I decided to go somewhere. Anywhere! Must get out of town! Must embrace the open road! Etc!

So we google mapped to see where was a decent destination that (1) was within easy driving distance, and (2) was a place we haven't visited yet. Jacksonville jumped out as a good choice, because we'd only passed through on the drive to Orlando in April, and didn't spend any time there.

So! We planned out a very short trip - one overnight stay, see some fun stuff, come back and pet the kittens. Well-rounded and thorough plan!

We started by going on priceline.com and finding a hotel. We found an AWESOME hotel - the Hyatt Regency Waterfront (right on the St. John's River). The staff was so friendly, and gave us a 14th floor waterfront view. Gorgeous! And it only cost $65 a night, plus incidentals. Thank you, Priceline Negotiator! (Judo chop!)

Pretty Room:

Fancy Pants Bathroom:

Lovely view of the city:

Rooftop Pool and Hot Tub: (swanky!)

Requisite Thing In Sky (a chandelier in one of the hotel's ballrooms):

There was much luggage (for an overnight stay - NOTE: Much of this was yarn):

The hotel even had a bar with cool wavy glasses, I guess so you could feel drunken vertigo before you start drinking! Saves time and money!:

We went to a really nice Irish pub called O'Brothers. Fantastic service, phenomenal food. The waitress even gave Noel a shirt for free because they had sold out of the one he wanted. They had some different ones and gave it to him! Cool.

I had one of my very favorites, Bangers and Mash. They even wrote the name of the pub in mustard. High falutin'!:

We found a dive rockabilly bar with a cheap pooltable, so we stopped for a drink there. (Noel skunked me soundly in pool that night!):

We also went to the Jacksonville Zoo while we were there. I hadn't been to this zoo, and am a professed zoo snob - I only go to ones with big enclosures and happy animals, because if I see unhappy animals I spend the next few months having Dora the Explorer animal release fantasies (except without the talking backpack). So! Anyway. We spent a nice afternoon at the Zoo, which was very nice! I really liked the way it's set up (by region), and is easily walkable (unlike the San Diego Zoo, which is so hilly in parts you feel like you need oxygen tanks and a sherpa).

I had fun taking pictures of the various wildlife we saw there.

Lions!! 3 of them, 2 females and 1 male. Lounging. In the sun. Like 2 other cats I know. Ahem.

In the Asian section (gorgeous gardens and a neat Zen bridge & pond), they had some impressive komodo dragons: (This guy was at least 6 feet long!)

Some cute little monkey whose name/species I don't remember. Let's call him Walt:

Flamingos! So happy! So fabulously pink!:

Ooohh, next up, the rare Homo Sapiens. This particular example seems to both fear and enjoy water. Note the umbrella for rain, but close proximity to the fountain...curious.

Just for you, Rachel, a tapir!:

This is one of my favorite pics from this trip. This is a Capybara, a very large rodent. This guy was about 5 feet long and came up right in front of me and posed for the camera. (singing) Faaabulous!:

OH OH! Here's another of my favorites!!! JAGUARS!!! They had an awesome exhibit that looked like a South American temple (as in, Aztec or Mayan) and a viewing window where 2 of them were napping. HOW CUTE ARE THESE GUYS!?!:

Silverback gorilla. This guy was huge. And fuzzy! But possibly mean, so I'm not going to tell him how fuzzy and pettable he looks:

They had a giraffe feeding station, and a baby giraffe that was only about 7 days old (this isn't him, he was segregated in another pen). Aren't these guys sweet?

Oooh...alligator hiding in the plants! (It isn't algae, it's a small aquatic plant according to the signs). He's in stealth mode I think:

A sleeping black bear. Isn't he almost huggable (but not quite)?:

HUGE owl that reminds me of Sam the Eagle from the Muppets:

This was some little exotic bird that....I don't know what it is, but isn't it cute too? LOVE the green head:

A bobcat!:

Ralph always hated his annual trip to the proctologist:

All in all, a wonderful trip and a great 1.5 day getaway!

It's Official.

I am divorced. It was finalized today.

Just so you know....

Goin' thru the Big D and don't mean Dallas...

It's been over a week since I posted, and honestly I had no idea time was passing so fast! For shame.

Life here has been a bit stressful and emotional lately. I'm going through the Big D and have my divorce final court date thing on Monday morning. This has been very difficult, dealing with the emotions and hurt and tears that come from separating. It's not fun. But it is something that I'll get through, I am already stronger because of it, and life goes on. And really, that's all I have control over - my own emotions and reactions, and that's where I have to start.

I'm also having a hard time controlling my emotions lately because of a new medicine my doctor has put me on for various...lady issues, let's call them. Which means the level of hormones floating around my bloodstream is enough to make a crocodile cry REAL tears. Or kill someone. Or both. I certainly have been extremely moody, and am so thankful to my friends who have been so tremendously supportive to me throughout all of this. Thanks, y'all!

Sigh. On to other things.

So the organizer of my knitting circle is leaving us! (She also just got divorced) and is starting a new life. In Asheville! Small world! So I told her about the fun things to do there, good restaurants, yarn shops, etc. If you see Amy around town, tell her Hello! We will miss her tremendously.

Our knitting group is meeting on Monday and I'm glad - it'll be good to get out and see some friends on The Day Of My Divorce, and also maybe drink something and knit a bit. I now have a ton more yarn, because Amy is destashing in preparation for her move. I'll have to take a picture of my new yarn - she has excellent taste in quality yarn, so I walked away with some gorgeous wools and ribbon yarns and such. Some even especially for Project X! Lovely lovely stuff! Also enough sock yarn to make about 4-6 pairs of socks!! Because you need wool socks in southern Georgia! But they're stripey!

Right now though, my interests seem to fall along crocheting lines. I've been so busy with the crochet hook, it's kinda ridiculous. I made a shawl for my grandmother and shipped it off to her (she loves it). I have a photo here somewhere and will post it. I also made myself a newsboy cap (very fun! But sweaty because it's wool and hello, it's hot here, but I wore it anyway).

Here's Grandmother's wrap:

Light and airy, so she can wear it/use it during all different seasons. It gives me so much joy to send something to someone who is also a crafty type, and knows the time & energy that goes into it, and shares her appreciation. I love that. :)

And in my designing efforts, I'm finding crochet to be an interesting medium, namely because for indecisive crafters like myself, it's easier to rip back crochet and redo it, without feeling you just wasted 9 gazillion hours of your life and then dropped a stitch when you're trying to pick up all of the live stitches that are there waiting to commit little knit stitch suicide by unraveling themselves. Oh no. Crochet is sturdy! And only has 1 live stitch at a time!

So I designed a soap holder/scrubber thingie and whipped it up in less than an hour. People might be getting these for the holidays, because (1) they're fast, (2) they're practical, and (3) they're super cute! So act surprised, people.

I'm also designing a sweater for myself in crochet. It's a wine color and will be a v-neck that's basically a short-sleeved cardigan that only has a button below the bust line, so it'll be a bit flowy. I'm intrigued by the idea of crocheted garments that aren't super-stiff and that also don't look like something someone would hide toilet paper under. I'm using pretty yarn and a huge hook, so it's soft and flowy so far, and fitted. I'm very pleased so far, and am taking careful notes so that when I'm finished, I can submit the pattern to the yarn company and see if they want to publish it!! I feel there's a dearth of pretty, modern crochet patterns that don't make a person look like a potholder. Or an afghan zombie.

I will take pictures of all of my projects at some point soon!!

Oh, and on another cool note, a friend of mine chatted with me online the other day from Algeria! ALGERIA! (Hey Christy!). She looked at this blog, loved the blue hat, and commissioned me to make one for her. Hee hee. I love making those hats - they're so fun. Also I love it when people like my stuff enough to purchase it. Makes my fingers feel smiley. :)

It's very dark and overcast here, and we've had rain for a few days now. Fits my mood for the most part - rather dour and gray, but knowing that there's sun behind it, just waiting to peek through.

Turks and Knitting

Hello everyone (All none of you who read this blog anymore - oh well).

Today I finally have some project photos to post. Hurrah! But not a lot. Because I still haven't taken dress photos, but sersely? It's about 300 degrees outside, and the following photos were all I could muster.

Ok! First off, some of you might remember this hat from several years ago. I'm entering in to that book thingie I mentioned the other day, and had to get some artsy shots of it. I'll lighten this up later so you can see the cypress trees behind it, but here it is....Hat In Swamp:


Heh. I also had Noel take a few pics of me wearing it:



This is as close to my face as I'm willing to put here, because I was super shiny because of bug spray. Also? The other people at the end of the dock were really confused as to why I'd be wearing a big wool hat in 100 degree heat. Always keep 'em guessing!

(Also, you'll notice my hair is extremely red. I colored it last weekend, and it came out a LOT redder than I was planning. It's fading a smidge but WOW. My head looks like it's on fire.)

So next! A finished object! Yay! This is my Textured Circle Shrug, designed by Stefanie Japel. I'm pleased with it, except the arms need to be taken in a bit so they're not so bell-ish. I don't need the extra width on my arms/shoulders/chest/torso area. The yarn is gorgeous, and you can't really see it here (I'll try to lighten the pic later on and repost it) - but it has little metallic flecks in it. It's a wool/mohair blend and is SOOOO soft. And also teal. Which I love. And always reminds me of my Makita drill. Anyway.





All I can say is, after wearing that for about 1 minute, I was hot. It works. Now to pack it away until January. Bye, shrug!

On to other things now. Very exciting things.

First, a little background. If you've ever read the Chronicles of Narnia (which I have, many times in my life) you may recall that Edmund is seduced as it were to come to the White Witch's side of the battle/power play by a never-empty plate of Turkish Delight. Ever since reading that as a kid, I wanted to try some. I, for some unknown reason, always had it in my head that Turkish Delight must be some fanciful and delectable turkey dish with gravy. I am perhaps a comfort-food carb ho. Anyway. Imagine my surprise when in Scotland many moons ago, I was walking through the grocery store and stumbled upon...Turkish Delight! In a small plastic package, in the candy aisle. Huh. Candied turkey. Interesting. I was intrigued. Must try. So I purchased it, and instead of finding one of my favorite winged food products, I found instead a jello-type substance wrapped in chocolate. The jello-stuff was flavored like fruit, and it was...ok. Not superb. Not enough to betray your siblings to the wiles of an evil tyrant who wants to ice over the planet. I had basically given up on understanding the yearning for Turkish Delight (much like I just didn't get Prawn Cocktail flavored potato chips).

While my family came to visit me in Scotland, we met up with some people my BIL & sis knew from the BBC (love you, BBC and Top Gear and Miss Marple!). I told them the story of the sucky Turkish Delight, and the lady (whose name escapes me at this point) decided to call in the cavalry. The Turkish Delight cavalry. In the form of her aged and absolutely ADORABLE father, this little Scottish man with cane and tweed cap and little sweater OMG I could've eaten him he was so cute. Anyway. We arrived at the train station to leave Glasgow, and this little man shows up with a small bag from a confectioner's shop, full of REAL Turkish Delight, not the cheapo mass-produced stuff I had tried before. It was little inch-size cubes of the firm jelly, flavored like lemons, other fruits, and some like rose essence (Rachel thought these were like chewing bubble bath balls - I liked them). It was such a sweet gesture and one that has stayed with me through the years. And can I just say, that real Turkish Delight is AWESOME.

So I ate it all.

And lived years of my life with no Turkish Delight.

So Noel and I were discussing this a few months ago, how yummy it is and you just can't find it here and sigh....

And Noel being Noel, took it upon himself to procure me some Turkish Delight. He talked to one of his coworkers who is originally FROM Turkey, and found out that his nephew was planning to travel there. So he requested a box of Turkish Delight from this guy we've never met, traveling halfway around the world. I arrived at work yesterday and found this on my desk:



A box of REAL Turkish Delight! From Turkey! Sersely! Genuine stuff. See?

It's even written in Turkish! And it's from Istanbul. How freaking cool is that?

And in case you were curious, this is what Turkish Delight looks like (thankfully I took this pic before digging in!):

YUM.

Cranking and Coughing

Hello all.

Much going on here lately in the craftiness world! But alas I have no photos. I'm planning on taking some tonight!

Here's a quick rundown:

(1) First, and most exciting, I finished my Textured Circle Shrug on the Lion Brand knit-along. Very lovely pattern and it turned out quite well, if not a little big. I think I'll take in the arms a bit, since they're a bit bell-ish for my taste.

(2) Entry into a hat competition for a knitted hats book. Need some nice photos of the hat. Funny, to take pics of a winter hat when it's hotter than Dante's oven out there, but hey.

(3) I started last night on a crocheted wrap for my darling Grandmother. It's a nice sage green color and is open and airy, so she can wear it now if she feels like it, or throughout cooler weather. I love crochet because it goes SO FAST. Mom's wrap took 2 months or so to finish. This wrap might be done by tomorrow. Depending on how much I do tonight. But I already have about 2 feet of it done. Wow!

(4) Mystery Project X, which I want to keep secret for now because I don't know how it will turn out! It's a freeform crochet garment for myself. Check out what freeform crochet is at: http://www.freeformcrochet.com/

(No, I'm not making a wearable coral reef, but that would be an AWESOME halloween costume for Neptune? SCHWEET.)

(5) Slipcovers for the living room furniture, which are in stylin' fabrics. Woo hoo, let's here it for purple!

(6) Sundresses for myself. I still have the 6' 3" dress that needs to be shortened dramatically. I also have enough fabric for about 5 more dresses, and want to get going on those.

(7) Amigurumi project for the kitties - a family of crocheted octopi. Fun stuff!

Speaking of the kitties, I had to take Loki to the vet this morning because he's been sniffling a lot lately and has runny eyes and nose and sneezing fits. So apparently he has a respiratory infection (and a fever) but they hopped him up on antibiotics, so he'll be back to his playful self soon.

Interesting note though - we thought Loki was either trying to throw up or cough up a hairball. You know, that sorta painful looking neck-out body spasm thing that cats do? Except nothing ever came up and he was making kind of a weird sound with it. Apparently that's how cats cough as well. Huh.

Anyway, after his trip to the vet, I got him some new toys (since that's exactly what the cats need) and some Greenie treats, which he loves. Recovery is assured!

(2)

R.I.P. Ivy

My sister's beloved calico cat, Ivy, died yesterday. She was a beautiful, loving kitty cat and will be sorely missed.

I forgot to take pics of my dresses again. Oops. I will! I promise! And I will upload them too. I still need to do some readjustments to the long one, since I'm not 6'3" but apparently sew as if I am. Whoopsie!

Good news! I got an article published on www.savannahbest.com, but it's not posted yet. I wrote it about our trip to Boone Hall Plantation. Cima, the editor, gave me a really nice compliment. I had said that I was trying to get back into writing more, she said "Do keep writing! You owe it to yourself." I thought that was a nice thing to say, and very motivating to have someone who thinks you have a talent for something.

Yesterday I finished a great book called I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It, by Barbara Sher. VERY interesting book. She had some really good insights into Scanners like myself, and it made me feel like maybe there isn't anything wrong with me after all, for wanting to skip from one project to the next. (It's something I've always beat myself up about, that I can't just Buckle Down and Focus and so on.) She recommends a 30 day Very Small Commitment, where you choose 1 project you want to work on and spend 30 minutes on it for 30 days. I chose crochet, because I've been working on some projects and designs for crochet and feel I need to expand my skills there, and why not work on my skills in a conscious way?

She also made an interesting point about people who always got things very quickly (as in learned things without really realizing they were learning) and how challenging that can be later in life, to realize that mastery of something (which generally Scanner types don't have - they flit from one thing to the next) can take time to learn and perfect. I know I tend to do this - I get mad at myself if I don't get something right away, or get impatient and then feel like I'm a total loser because I need to practice at it. I expect that I will be the be-all-end-all right away at something, instead of giving myself time to learn how to do it.

She also talks about the all-or-nothing mentality that some of us fall into, how we think we have to be able to dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to 1 thing in life, and until we have the right circumstances, we can't do anything toward that goal. She used the example of a man who wanted to write poetry, and also do several other random things in life, but he couldn't do any of it because he couldn't just quit his job and "go off and write poetry". And the author asked why he had to "go off" to do it - you don't! You can do it every day, in your own life, in little snippets. That's a nice feeling!

Anyway. Great book, and I think It was one of the reasons I was able to finally sit down and finish that article & submit it. I can be a freelance writer, even by only writing for an hour a week. That still qualifies me as a writer, and it's better than doing NO writing because I can't dedicate 60 hours a week to it (which I don't think I want to do anyway!).

I have another of her books, this one called Live the Life You Love, and am going to start reading that one now. She has another that I might buy (the library doesn't have it). But I also don't want to overwhelm myself with books about living the life I want, and put off ACTUALLY living the life I want because I'm so busy reading about it!

On to other things - it's HOT here. Brutal. This weekend will be even worse. They're saying that Friday and Saturday's high temps will be 100. That's without the heat index added on, y'all. That's MISERABLE. I really sometimes wish that I lived someplace that wasn't so unbearable in summer. It really takes the fun out of this time of year, because you can't do anything outside at all.

Of course, that means I can stay inside and work on my crafty stuff! So things could be worse. :)