on frogs and quilting

A lot has been going on, but nothing I can show pictures of… I’m doing some exchange stitching and working of several special orders for my Studio Twenty shop. Speaking of, if there’s ever a design you’d like to see on a threadholder, feel free to ask. I’ve done sets for shop stitching camps, several personalized threadholders, and so on. It’s fun to do special things for people :)

These froggies sure are cute! Hubby was getting ready to cut the grass and found this little guy. He brought it in the house to show me, and it jumped down onto the carpet…it’s a good thing Katie (the cat) is on the fat and slow side or that frog would be toast.

I discovered a neat quilting-related website yesterday, Quilting Gallery. I haven’t had a lot of time to explore, but I did see that they are also the hub for quilting bloggers, and there are currently 700-something blogs listed. I clicked on a few and nearly fell out of my chair when I saw that one of the bloggers lived here… there’s only like 12 people in this town! What are the odds?!

It’s time again for the Fab Shop Hop, which is an internet-based shop hop. There’s a long list of sites to visit… you look around each site for a few minutes and find the bunny logo. The more bunnies you find, the better prizes you qualify for. I think it takes 130 shops visited to have a chance for the big prize, which is one of those computerized sewing machines. (you know-the kind I’d buy if I had an extra couple thousand $ laying around) I never visit anywhere near that many, but the hop is a fun time filler while I’m doing a printing task or eating my lunch.

Here’s our own Penelope, the African Clawed frog. We didn’t know he was a boy until long after we had been calling him Penelope! He started to croak (sounds like loud metallic crickets) and grew nuptial pads (black streaks on his hands) which are signs of froggie puberty that only the boys get. He was unnamed for a long time… we had 2 frogs and didn’t want to name them until we could see their personalities. (We called them “the froggies” for so long– it apparently takes a while for frog personalities to show) When there was just one left, we figured we better name it anyway. Here’s his baby picture… he looked like a girl frog when he was little.

DH just found Mother Toad in the yard :)

 

this-n-that tuesday

I got the nicest Valentine’s surprise in yesterday’s mail… Ginny (no blog?) made this collage for me! She packed it with a pretty card and a tin of candy, and wrapped it all in red tissue paper. Very sweet! I think I’m going to fasten a ribbon to the back side and hang it in my studio. Thank you, Ginny :)

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Katie is still camping out in the frog’s room, and lately she has really been camping out in my daughter’s American Girl tent. Pretty cute, eh?

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I received a newsletter from a pretty large company last night, which unfortunately has offended my grammatical sensibilities… how hard is it, really, to employ proper homophone usage ?! I am certainly not perfect, I use way too many commas, and apparantly I frequently misspell apparently. But at least I promise never to offer you a peak at something I’m working on.

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I felt out of sorts all weekend. This was the first time in 4 years that I haven’t attended the Nashville needlework market. But while I missed seeing many friends, the break was kind of nice. (I just needed time off from the design biz for a wee bit… I plan to be back in full swing by the April online show.) I’ve been watching a few of the shop websites to see what they’ve brought home, and I’ve found a few “must haves”, which I added to my wish list page here. Thursday is Market Day at my LNS, but that’s also Valentines day… anyone planning on market day shopping at their LNS?

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Have a beautiful Tuesday, everyone!

 

the froggies

Remember the tadpoles we got a few months ago? Now we have frogs! Unfortunately they are not the same tads all grown up… the original three didn’t make it. GrowAFrog guarantees all their tads to morph and stay alive so I called to get replacements. We were offered a choice of froglets (which are newly morphed tads) or more tadpoles and I chose two froglets, thinking they’d be a bit heartier. So far so good… they are eating like teenage boys and keep growing!

“The froggies” still have no official names. We were waiting to see if they’d live & be healthy before we named them, but never got around to it… and now that we’ve been calling them “the froggies” for two months, any other name seems odd.

Our Katie loves to watch them swimming around. She spends hours each day on my daughter’s dresser next to the aquarium. She’s even been taking her afternoon naps on Elizabeth’s bed. I guess she wants to be nearby in case they do anything exciting. I’m thinking she’s going to have a long wait…they’re awfully cute, but not incredibly entertaining.

 

great mail and a giveaway

I got the sweetest package in the mail today. Andrea had stitched up a few BOAF designs and held a drawing over at her blog– and I won! Just look how she wrapped it… I had to take a picture first even though I was dying to rip into it. Here’s what what was inside:

Isn’t it awesome? I love how she used rick-rack for a hanger; adds a nice touch. I hung it from the shelf over my computer (er, didn’t think to take a pic of that) so now I’m feeling halloweeny in here. Thanks so much, Andrea!

I’ve got a few charts here to giveaway if anyone’s interested. They are Lizzie Kate’s “Fall Fanatic” and “The Needle’s Eye” by the Prairie Schooler. I’m offering the LK chart to celebrate Halloween and I’m offering the PS chart to celebrate my stitching-related friendships! If you would like one of these, please just tell me which one in the comments. If more than one person wants the same chart, I’ll do a drawing on Friday. I’m happy to mail these to anywhere, so please don’t be shy. Here’s a pic:

As I was sorting the laundry this afternoon, my sweet kitty decided to help me by making herself cozy next to the towel pile. Of course I had to take her picture and then sit down & pet her a bit; got completely sidetracked from the laundry task!

 

the triplets have arrived

Oh boy. We have 3 bouncing baby tadpoles on our kitchen table! They are so ugly that they’re kinda cute… they have teeny tiny back legs and their skin is transparent so you can see their hearts and veins and every other little part they have. Swimming guts is really what they are at this point. I’m looking forward to the actual froglet stage, I think. BTW, if you would like some for your own kitchen table, they can be ordered from Grow -A-Frog.

This cute little biodome thing was touted as “a complete system” to go from tadpole to frog, with nothing more to buy ever. But unless these are mini-frogs, they are going to need a new home. Assuming they live to actually become frogs, we will have to buy a tank for them. And then, what if they breed? Will we be overrun with frogs? What do people DO with these? Dissect them? Give them as Christmas gifts? Buy progressively larger tanks until you have a glass wall comparable to the ones found in fancy restaurants? Oh boy.

 

meet Wanetta the Third…

Just kidding! This one is actually named Berry. He’s a boy (we know this because his container said so) and he’s lovely. He’s a bit hammy for the camera, too. This picture shows Berry in his relaxed state, but when he gets all riled up his fins are so incredible! They fan out from his entire body in this gorgeous burst of colors ranging from pale peach to sunset orange-red. Oh– during Berry’s photo session this evening, I accidentally figured out that my digital camera has F-Stop controls… how is it that I’ve had the thing for almost 4 years and never knew that?

We found Poor Wanetta the Second belly up yesterday morning, and after a flush into fishy heaven we decided it might be time to begin killing off taking care of another type of fish. Those goldfish just weren’t lasting well for us. After a bit of research we settled on Bettas, due to their supposedly hardy nature and the fact that they are happy to live alone in a fishbowl. BTW, you might think Berry should be spelled Barry, but on the way home from the fish mart we were listening to Christmas carols (Christmas in July, you know) and DD felt it was important to spell the name the same as a holly berry :)

 

7 hours, 52 minutes, and 10 seconds left!

I really didn’t think I’d get so worked up, but I’m anxiously awaiting the stroke of midnight! I’ve cleared the decks at the old homestead here, and I’m not going to do anything until I’ve finished the book. I don’t even want to get online (although I will check my email) for fear of running into a spoiler. DH has been laughing at me and even the cat is starting to give me those sideways “she’s nuts” glances:

Ooooh, hey– almost forgot: had a nice mail day today :) I got 4 of the 6 charts that I just ordered; all patriotic because I decided to make a patriotic wall in our house but I only had 4 patriotic charts! (and 2 of them are My Mark designs, so I don’t think they count as stash):

I hope I can stay awake until midnight! DD & I have been practicing staying up late this week and so far we’ve made to 11:30… I’m just such an early-bird in the summer I can’t hardly sleep past 7 even if I really try. At least we will be at a release party, so there should be plenty of ruckus to keep us hopping. Have a happy weekend, everyone :)