What a busy week!

Last Wednesday night began one of my favorite holidays, Sukkot, the third and final installment of the Jewish "Holiday Season". The holiday lasts for 8 days, and the first and final 2 days have virtually all the restrictions of a typical Saturday. However, on years such as this year, when the holiday falls begins Wednesday night, the Thursday and Friday holidays roll right into Shabbat, creating a 3-day holiday. Now not only does this mean no crafting, TV, internet, turning on or off lights, or other modern electricity-based comforts, but my relatives that normally spend this 2 day holiday at our house each year were also restricted from traveling home until Saturday night. Three whole days of non-stop family time, without the TV to distract anyone, is pretty intense. But I think everyone enjoyed it, and it was really quality time. Hey, after the holiday ended it took 2 hours to get everyone out of the house, so they must've not hated it or they'd have been packed and ready to go, right?

Saturday night was a marathon stitching session since I was too mentally tired and it was too late to start making plans to go out at 10 when they left. Plus my DVR was full of 3 nights worth of season and series premieres, so I had my work cut out for me! I made some headway on a bunch of cross stitch projects, getting a lot done but finishing nothing. I did however find out what happened to Chloe on Smallville (I was worried), watched them catch the miniature killer and search for Sara on CSI, make my peace with Colby on Numb3rs, and made sure that Sam was okay on Las Vegas - no thanks to the crack security team at the Montecito for once.

I had to work again Sunday in order to not lose all my vacation for the holidays, as I mentioned in a previous post. I worked in an afternoon excursion to Michaels, Staples, and LNT though, and picked up some stitching supplies, stitching organizational supplies, and some storage bins. My cross stitch charts used to be in piles all over the place - I now have a lovely, drab grey binder for unstarted charts, one for some works in progress, and a tangerine binder to organize the freebie charts I've started printing from this great blog. Now if I could only find someplace that sells Rainbow threads I'm set for the next 8 trillion birthdays =)

Yesterday I took care of some painful-but-necessary errands that I won't get into. The evening was much better. My friend Aj had another yoga class last night, and it was even better than the first! We did the Crow again which was so fun! and partner stretching! and you know it was a great workout when body parts don't move or work the day or two after =) Plus yoga was just the thing to clear my head from earlier in the day.

I finished my Fair + Square block last night (of course staying up til 3am to do so was stupid stupid stupid!) Now I need to design my name and town on a block, figure out what small treats to include, and mail the darn thing. Tomorrow. I'd rather not wait until after the holiday to send it Monday, but we'll see how far I get on my name block tonight. I need some sleep!

Oh, yesterday also brought some great news in the form on an email from a former coworker, who quit and moved home to Uruguay recently because she is about to have her first baby. I really like her and was seriously disappointed to learn only 2 days in advance of her leaving the country and the company - I definitely would've crocheted her a baby blanket if I'd known. Anyways, she sent a lovely picture of herself and a little message about what she's up to. Today I even got to Google-chat with her, and she sounds like she is doing very well. She's due in a week! I hope everything goes well for her, her husband and the baby.

I also spoke to an old, old friend from London who's currently living in Paris today. She's invited me to visit and stay by her, and I think I might take her up on it for Thanksgiving week. I might even be able to work in the Paris office a couple of days, which is great because I get to meet people I'd normally only email with, but more importantly, the building that houses the Paris office is the world headquarters for DMC! No kidding. I think I have a picture from the last time I was there, I'll have to post it sometime.

Okay enough blogging, I'd better go start my square if I want to mail it off tomorrow. I have an idea of what to put in the package as extras but I'll need to hit a few stores during lunch. I hope I'll be able to pull it off!

K

Falafel finds and finishing fiends

Today's adventure was trying a new restaurant for lunch. To preface this: usually I work in the HQ of my company, which is a sprawling building about 15 minutes (by car) from my home, but every so often I get very bored of my suburb and schlep into the Manhattan office. Lucky me - my boss doesn't care where I work as long as the work gets done. Today one of my coworkers happened to also be working from the NYC office, and he suggested trying this new vegetarian falafel place by Union Square. Sometimes fried foods aren't kosher-friendly since they could be friend in animal-based products, but I figured a vegetarian place wouldn't use animal products so I'd be safe. Happily when we got there, a framed Teudat Kashrut was prominently displayed beside the door. I was so happy that I could order whatever I wanted guilt free! Cheap falafel has the potential to be either amazing or terrible, but luckily this place makes delicious, and really good side salads too. So now I have my new go-to lunch spot in the city - yay!

I got a lot of stitching done over the weekend - well Sunday really - as there was a Kim Possible marathon... I'm working on Fat Cat by Ewe & Eye & Friends, and I've finished the whole top alphabet part, and now just have to finish up the cat that takes up the bottom half. I'm not sure why I got this pattern in the first place, since I'm such a dog person. Also I'm using the recommended DMC colors and in bad lighting (well the lighting I stitch under) it looks like lots of different browns - and I hate brown. One of the two bulbs in my light fixture burned out, and I've been meaning to replace them both with the new CFL bulbs I bought, so I wonder if that added light will be enough to improve the color quality. If not I'll find someone with a cat to gift it to :)

Next up will probably be Bent Creek's month snappers, I've done most of them on Aida but after seeing them stitched on one long piece of Linen at The Lazy Daisy Stitchery, my LNS, I ordered a large piece of Linen and plan to do them again. What the heck, they were quick the first time around! I figure if I switch between that and the JBW pumpkin and pear designs I'm stitching, the sense of accomplishment from the smaller finishes will keep be from giving up on the big project. Plus the JBW ones are very season appropriate, especially for Sukkot. Actually, it would be really good if I could finish the JBW by Sukkot - my grandma's coming to stay by us for the first days of the holiday, and she's seen me stitching the pear over the summer so she'd probably enjoy seeing me finish it finally.