Staycations

Staycations

I’m a fan of staycations.  I like enjoying the comforts of my home while benefiting from the down time from work.  I can choose to catch up on sleep, enjoy a good recreational read while sitting poolside, or visit the zoos and museums that I don’t have the chance to visit while putting in 50 hours a week at the office.

I’m fortunate to live in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Within reasonable driving distances, I can find myself on a beach or in the mountains, enjoying whatever weather or scenery might strike my fancy on a given day of vacation.  I can explore a world-class city or enjoy the serenity of nature preserves.  There is no shortage of fabulous food to eat, music to listen to, or culture to absorb.

As part of my last two week staycation I decided to go explore the (relatively) local brick and mortar stitching stores, visiting a different one each day.   This resulted in many day trips for all of us to enjoy.  I am blessed with a husband who supports my stitching habit and doesn’t mind going along when I want to go visit a needlework store, so we piled the dogs into the car, armed with the Garmin to steer us towards our various destinations.

We saw beautiful scenery on the drive to the stores.  We walked the dogs at various parks we discovered along the way.  We tried new restaurants.  And of course, there was the bliss of being in a needlework store, enjoying the threads hanging on the wall, organized according to the hues of the color wheel.  Gorgeous hand-painted canvases sparked my creative juices as I imagined what stitches and fibers I might use to embellish the canvases.  I chatted with the proprietor and customers about the projects they were currently stitching.  Often times, my husband would take the dogs for a walk while I would sit and stitch at the table in the store.

And like any vacation, you can’t leave without finding a memento to bring home!  I delighted in selecting a project that would remind me of our wonderful day trip while I was stitching away on it.  No wonder I have so many works in progress! 

Don’t get me wrong, I also enjoy traveling and visiting new cities and seeing other parts of the country and beyond.  It’s just that there is so much to see and experience right here at home, and staycations can be an affordable and enjoyable alternative.   Give one a try!

Rushing To Get Ready

Rushing To Get Ready

I’m up early on my day off because I have a lot to do before I’m ready to head out for my stitching retreat.  This always seems to happen.  Despite plenty of planning, it often comes down to the final hours before departure before I pull together all the things I want to take.

Clothes:  I had to wait for the latest weather report to decide what clothes to bring.  It sounds like we’re going to have fabulously warm and sunny days with cool and probably foggy evenings and mornings.  So suddenly, I need to dig out a tank top and pair of shorts for their first use of the year, while remembering to pack the long sleeve shirt and warm sweater.  Not unusual for the San Francisco Bay Area, the best clothing strategy is to layer, layer, layer.

Downsizing my purse:  I don’t need to take along all the stuff I usually carry in my purse so I have to dump out the contents and think about what to include in the re-pack.  A small flashlight (it’s going to be dark out there at night); a tube of sunscreen; lotion to counterattack the drying effects of country water.  I can’t believe I almost forgot to pack the camera!  And while I’m thinking of it, I should dig out the small binoculars.  With a lake, a creek, and miles of hiking trails on the retreat property I expect to see plenty of wildlife.

Stitching project:  this has been the most difficult of decisions to make.  I have plenty of WIPs (works in progress) so deciding which one(s) to bring along has been surprisingly hard.  I also want to learn the technique of Hardanger so I’m pulling together the fabric, thread, needles, sharp scissors, and tweezers I will need.  Oh yes, don’t forget the small light and magnifiers!

Last but not least, prep for the A-Z letters that will come up while I’m gone.  I’ll be unplugged for a few days—no cell phone service or online access.  So there’s still a couple of blogs to write and schedule for release.   I’m looking forward to immersing myself into nature and stitching, and getting away from the noise and bustle of urban life. 

But first I have to finish getting ready to go!  I’ll catch back up with you in a few days!

Quizzical Looks

Quizzical Looks

One of the most endearing quizzical looks I’ve seen is the head tilt of a dog.  This seems to be quite prevalent in the German Shepherd Dog, though certainly not unique to the breed.

Folks offer all kinds of explanations for why their dog tilts their head.  Many attribute it to a state of semi-confusion—that the dog is really trying to understand what you are saying to or about them.  An unusual noise such as whistling can often elicit the head tilt.  Another explanation is that the dog is changing the angle of his or her hearing in order to be sure they aren’t missing some important sensory information. 

Something everyone agrees upon is that it’s adorable and You Tube is filled with video clips of dogs doing head tilts.  Check it out!

Patience

Patience

Wikipedia defines patience as “level of endurance one can take before negativity”.   Hoo boy, ain’t that the truth?!

A key component of this definition is the absence of negativity during the wait.  Patience is not solely about the ability to wait or delay gratification, but the ability to maintain a good attitude while waiting.  In this age of ever increasing internet speeds, we are all moving towards an expectation of instant gratification, and become annoyed or frustrated when that gratification is delayed.

From a scientific perspective all animals, including humans, are inclined to choose small rewards in the short term over larger rewards in the long term.  However, if you can wait for that longer term delivery, the rewards will be greater.

I believe patience is a trait that can be cultivated.  When non-stitchers look at my needlework a common comment is “I’d never have the patience to do that!”  From my perspective, though, stitching teaches me patience.  It takes a long time to stitch up a large or complex cross stitch project, and if I weren’t patient with the process I’d never reach the goal of a completed and beautiful work of art.

Another way in which I cultivate patience is to couple it with anticipation.  Every quarter, I like to have something on my calendar to look forward to.  It might be a weekend trip to visit a place I’ve wanted to go.  I know it’s out there, and I savor the anticipation of planning and preparing for the event.

That’s not to say that I’m always a patient person (see my blog for the letter “I”—Impatience), but I do find it less stressful to relax and go with the flow of things than to get all worked up about something I can’t control or influence.  Even the trick of counting to ten before reacting to something that provokes you gives you a little edge on developing patience….and the long term rewards may well be worth the effort.

Owls

Owls

I am an owl fan.  One of my favorite books as a child was Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat, a Canadian author, sent as a Christmas gift from Canadian friends.  It was the story of two horned owls named Wol and Weeps who experience some adversity along the way, but the story does end with the owls enjoying a happy life.  I read that book over and over as a kid, and it remains on my bookshelf to this date.

Part of the enjoyment from the book was looking at the illustrations of the owls.  Horned owls in particular have very expressive faces, kind of like they’re always mad, and the illustrator in the book managed to capture that expression on every page.  With a little imagination, those “horns”—they’re really just tufts of feathers—also look like incredibly bushy eyebrows, which usually bring a smile to my face.  I am also impressed with the owl’s ability to rotate its head 270 degrees.  The owl does this because its eyes are immobile in its eye sockets, but it looks totally cool to watch them do this!

I don’t get many opportunities to see a live owl, so I have to be content with images.  Lucky are the folks who see owls on a regular basis!

Needlework

Needlework

For me, needlework would have to be my topic for the letter “N”!  I’ve done a variety of types of needlework ever since I was a little girl, and today it is indeed the therapy that helps me relax after a hectic day and helps to satisfy the desire to create something artistic.

Like many, I learned needlework from my mom.  Throughout my childhood, she created incredible clothing for my Barbie and other dolls, as well as amazing sweaters and clothing for me.  She shared with me her talent for needlework, beginning with stamped designs on aprons, pillow cases, and dresser doilies, teaching me the basic embroidering stitches of cross stitch, lazy daisies (great for flower petals), and stem stitch.  Next she taught me machine and hand sewing, knitting, and crocheting.  As a young teenager, she supported my venture into needlepoint where I learned to experiment with different stitches and techniques on detailed hand painted canvases.  I am eternally grateful to her for showing me the world of needlework.

When I went to college and became self-sufficient, I moved on to counted cross stitch as the patterns and materials were more affordable than hand painted canvases and special fibers.  It was with counted cross stitch that I truly appreciated the therapeutic value of repeating the rhythm of poking the fabric and pulling the thread with the needle while I decompressed from my ever increasingly complicated life.  I spent years stitching counted cross stitch patterns, experimenting with the gauge of the fabric and a variety of fibers to enhance details of the design.  I remember the pieces that I worked on as I worked through a divorce, the death of my parents, the loss of many animal companions, and other life traumas.  Needlework would help me work through my issues and feelings as I stitched away most evenings.

Within the last decade I’ve expanded my needlework skills by learning beading, ethnic embroidery styles, and canvas embellishment techniques.  There is still so much to learn!  This weekend I’m headed to a needlework retreat—48 hours of unstructured stitching time with 31 other like-minded women who are more than willing to share their knowledge and love of needlework.  I’m going to learn how to stitch Hardanger and enjoy being immersed in the celebration of needlework, in a rustic retreat environment.  I can’t wait!

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Monterey Bay Aquarium

We recently spent a long weekend in Monterey, California celebrating my 25^th anniversary with the company for which I work.  One of the highlights of the trip was our visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

I hadn’t visited for a few years, so there were a few exhibits I was looking forward to seeing.  The Jellies Experience was a lot of fun, as the curators played on the similarities of jellyfish movement and the lava lamps of the 60s and 70s, and the exhibit definitely had a psychedelic feel to it.  These invertebrates were mesmerizing in form and motion.

The Secret Lives of Seahorses was another fascinating exhibit.  What amazing creatures these are, with their prehensile tails wrapping around the vegetation in their niches.  Did you know it’s the males of the species that give birth and raise the young?  Pictured below is the leafy seahorse, well camouflaged by its anatomy.

Alas, no sightings of my favorite seabird, the pelican, however we enjoyed the sights and sounds of plenty of other seabirds, including a seagull who came and perched itself on the balcony railing while we sat watching the sun set over the Monterey Bay.  All in all, a wonderful time in a wonderful place!