I had intended to post more often this week but things just kept getting in the way.

I had to make sure to get to my Wednesday stitching.  I needed to follow up on my fellow stitcher who discovered cancer why I was on vacation and then I wanted to check in on another friend who lost a cousin while on duty in Afgahnistan (those 9-11 killings tht the president doesn't think was a terrorist attack).  I'm crossing my fingers that this is it for tragedy with my stitching friends and yet, usually things come in threes.  So part of me is waiting for the other thing to occur.

Meanwhile on the home front, my husband finally admitted right before vacation that he has a knee problem (from his fall in February) and so we have seen the Dr and surgery is scheduled.  It should be a short recovery (hopefully).

I'm late again with my TUSAL.  THis time I have a special edition - the vacation TUSAL.

This is my travel ort container.  The ortshave now been transferred to my regualar ort collection.

And now for my actual vacation stitching:

The actual sttiching

The stitching with the charts.  This will is the 12 months Snaps from Bent Creek.  I decided to do a short and very wide piece.  I have a place where this will fit into the house and look good.  This was also a gift from a dear friend (thanks Marilyn).  All I need to do was supply floss. 

I took 3 projects on vaction and this is what won out.  Obviously I didn't do a lot of stitching but enough to keep me sane.   I did stitch on this twice since I've been home and another project (canvas).  This may turn out to be a travel piece since I have two more trips scheduled this year yet.

For two and half of the past three weeks we have been on a cruise ship, crossing the Atlantic, starting in Harwich, England and arriving in Boston.  The initial time was spent in London having a great time.

During the cruise, I read (8 books), stitched (a little), beaded (an on-board activity), did a folded paper card (another ship activity), walked, toured, and definitely relaxed.  And of course we ate well (usually).  There were a few weird meals which I found alternatives for.  I ate a lot of fish (which I Love) and far too many desserts.

Our cruise had some strange highlights.   When we went to dock at the Faroe Islands  (above Scotland and below Iceland), the ship hit a power line (dead, thank heavens) that wasn't supoosed to be there.  It sent a crew member to the hospital  but he was on his way home for recupation after a few days.  But the line broke the mast. Yes, it broke the mast!

You can see it dangling by the wires that were inside the mast.  It also broke the funnel (not seen here).  In the background you can see part of the Faroe Islands.  They are mostly mountainous - great for raising sheep - and originally shaped by volcanoes.   When we arrived in Iceland is when the ship got the mast repaired - we had a two day stay there (this was part of the schedule).   Someone actually asked the Captain if the ship carried a spare mast in the hold. 

Then there were the hurricanes or should I say the hurricane.  It seems that hurricanes Leslie and Michael decided to merge as they went further north and headed straight for Newfunderland (?sp?).  So well ahead of time the ship plotted a new course so we could come in around and below the hurricane.  As a result we only had one rocky night and that wasn't even too bad.  But we had to miss our stop in St. John's.

The last incident was the crew member that got sick and need to be med-evacted  (sp??)  We never did hear for sure what was wrong but the ship wanted a helicopter to come in and the Canadian coast guard couldn't do it.  So suddenly we are literally full steam ahead and headed for Halifax to meet a cutter from the coast guard.   We were almost ontop of Peggy's cove when we met up with the cutter.  The cutter's pilot was quite skillful in getting his ship beside ours to transfer the patient in about a 5 second time frame.  The cruise ship needed to list by at least two degrees in order to do the transfer.  we were amazed by the skills invovlved and the engineering that allowed all this to happen.

After that it was full steam ahead again to get to Boston in time.  We made it to Boston on time but then Immigration was late in arriving to clear the ship.  We had planned ahead and had an afternoon flight so we were fine.

Tomorrow, more on the fun stuff.

Home again

We've been on vacation for the last three weeks and are now home again.

It appears that all the post I set up for when I was gone never quite appeared.  I saw a lot of blank areaswhere the photos were supposed to be.  Sorry folks.

Instead I'll bore you with vacation photos after I get them onto the computer.

Now back to the overwhelming stack of Laundy!!!!

WATERMELON AGAIN

WATERMELON FESTIVAL