Incoherent Scribblings

Turkey Day Meme

1. What are you thankful for this year?

I am thankful that in a little over a month I am going home to see my family for the first time in three and a half years.

2. Does your family eat turkey or ham for the Thanksgiving meal? Or do you do both? Or do you do something completely different?

Traditionally, my dad’s family eats fried bread dough for Thanksgiving. (I wrote about this last year. You can read more about our fried bread tradition here.) My mom’s side of the family is more traditional and serves a good old turkey.

3. What’s your favorite Thanksgiving side dish?

No question about it… stuffing! (I also wrote about this last year and even included a recipe!)

4. What’s your favorite Thanksgiving dessert?

My favorite dessert is one that is always served on Mom’s side of the family and is a Norwegian dessert called lefsa/lefse. It is essentially a fried potato pancake with a butter and brown sugar mixture stuffed inside. When my great-grandma and grandma were still alive they made it for all our holidays. Now that they are both gone my mom makes it… I really need to have her show me how to make it when I am home in January.

5. Are you going out shopping on Black Friday? If not, what are you going to do on the day after Thanksgiving?

Since A. and I don’t celebrate Christmas I don’t have to do any shopping tomorrow (Thank God!) and because it is not a holiday weekend here in Germany, I will just be doing the same things that I do every day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Please Sign Here

Today’s SBQ was suggested by Kimberly and is:

Do you always sign your projects? If not, why? If so, do you use your first name, initials or what?

I haven’t always signed my stitching because the idea didn’t come to me until I had been stitching for awhile and started looking at my projects as personal works of art. At first I just added my initials and the year the piece was stitched, but my signature has evolved to the point where it now includes my first name, the month, and the year that the piece was finished.

Results of a Two-Day Rotation System

First off, Happy Thanksgiving to those of you celebrating it tomorrow. Personally, I have something to be thankful for… a plane ticket to the USA!

After living in Germany for three and a half years, I am finally going to go back to the US to visit my family in January! I am so excited! Not only will I get to see everyone for the first time since I got married, I will be there when my nephew is born. Woo Hoo!

Now, on to the stitching stuff…

I have stitched on a whole bunch of pieces in the past ten days or so because even though I want to stitch, none of my projects have really been screaming at me that loudly. In addition to that, I have been trying out a new two-day rotation system in which I work on a piece for two days and then move onto the next one. Even though I have almost completed my November goals using this rotation system, I don’t really think I like it very much because I feel that I lack concentration.

During this experimental two-day rotation system I have done the following:

I have stitched on “Stitcher’s Sampler” and as you can see, I have finally made enough visible progress to show a picture. The main problem that I have with this piece right now is that I have a huge chunk of 746 to fill in and it is kind of boring. However, I have remedied this by stitching through a length of floss with 746 and then moving on and stitching a completely different area that calls for another color. I still have quite a way to go on this project, but after I have stitched on it for 6 more hours I will allow myself to start “Catch the Wind.”

Even though I didn’t get it finished by our first snowfall I have also worked on Margaret Sherry’s “Snowman” a little bit. I haven’t worked on it too much since I posted the picture of it about a week ago, but that is because I started my next round of robins.

This time around I have Vash’s robin for the SBRR and her theme is Pam Kellogg’s “Cats in Floral Hats.” I have chosen to do the “Cat in the Big Pink Hat” and have the cat’s face about half done. I would estimate I have about 20-25% of my square complete.

This is my first time stitching on opalescent fabric and sadly the scan doesn’t do justice to the sparkliness of the fabric at all, but it is there. I like this fabric quite a lot… even though I have found that when the sun catches the fabric just right it can be difficult to stitch with all of those sparkles shining in your eye!

Last Friday I also received Nicki’s robin for the SBSRR. Her theme is Bent Creek’s “Seasonal Arches” and though it was a tough decision between “Spring” and “Summer,” I finally decided to do “Summer.” The summer arches are quite patriotic (American) and since I am getting really excited about my trip to the US in a little over a month, I finally decided those were the arches for me. I just started them today so they don’t warrant a progress scan quite yet, but as soon as they do I will post one.

Finally, I am still thinking about my Garden Exchange for the SBEBB. I know how I am going to finish it and have bought the materials for the finishing… now I just need to choose a pattern. I really need to get working on this because even though the post date isn’t until January 9, I am leaving for the US on January 10 so I better get it done ASAP so that I am not worrying about it and trying to get ready to pack at the same time.

That’s it for now. If you are celebrating tomorrow, have a stitchy Thanksgiving; if you aren’t celebrating it… have a great stitching day anyway!

Time Stands Still

When we first moved to Germany, one of my first purchases was two battery-powered wooden wall clocks at IKEA. I labeled one clock “Munich,” and the other “Small Town, Iowa.” I set them to their appropriate times (Small Town, Iowa being seven hours behind Munich) and hung them on the kitchen wall.

One reason that I did this was because I had seen it in the movies and thought it looked cool. More importantly though, I also thought that the clocks would be a useful way to check and make sure I wasn’t waking anyone up in the middle of the night when I had the urge to phone home.

And so my clocks hung on the wall, merrily ticking away, faithfully tracking the time difference between Munich and Small Town, Iowa.

Fast forward to the first time that I attempted to spontaneously pick up the phone for a chat with Mom: A glance at the clock made it crystal clear that a seven-hour time difference is really most inconvenient. For example, morning in Munich is the middle of the night in my home town and the work day is in full swing in Iowa anytime before midnight in Germany. Typically once evening reaches Iowa, I am in a deep sleep because it is the middle of the night here and though I could receive calls from America during the afternoon in Germany, it is morning there and everyone is undoubtedly getting ready for work.

Therefore even though the clock in the kitchen helpfully pointed out the time in my home town, its function was quickly demoted to merely decorative. For you see, spur-of-the-moment phone calls were a thing of the past: My friends and family back home set up weekend phone appointments with me via email in order to work around the time difference and to confirm that they would indeed be home when I called.

However, today I really needed to talk with my mom concerning my flight home: Before I make the final commitment and actually pay for my plane tickets I want to make sure that someone can come pick me up at the airport. So at about 8:30 pm this evening, I decided it was time to take a chance and make an impromptu phone call. Mom used to only work half-days in the fall and winter, so I thought I might be in luck and get her on the phone. I knew it should be about 1:30 pm there, but I went into the kitchen to verify what time it was in Iowa anyway.

I thought it should be 1:30, but the “Small Town, Iowa” clock read 12:30. Because of this discrepancy, I counted back the hours on my fingers and realized it should indeed be 1:30 in Iowa. My “Small Town, Iowa” kitchen clock was apparently an hour off. Since I haven’t paid much attention to that clock for quite a while, I though maybe I had forgotten to reset it when Daylight Savings Time ended a month ago, so I twirled the minute hand around and brought the clock to its proper time. However, over two hours have passed and the clock still reads the same time as it did when I reset it.

I assume that the battery is dead, but when I lived in Small Town, Iowa, I always joked that time stood still there. Now, thanks to my clock, I guess it really does!

Mama, I’m Coming Home

Now, I will be the first to admit that in January and February Iowa isn’t the most inviting place in the world. What little tourist trade that my home state enjoys definitely does not come from the fact that in deep winter Iowa is cold: Damn cold. Minus five degrees Fahrenheit and three feet deep of snow cold.

However, late January is when my soon-to-be nephew has chosen to join this world, so January is when I will hop onto a plane and after more than three and a half years set foot on American soil again.

Yes, you read right: Break out the Ozzy CD, because… Mama, I’m coming home!