May 7 2012

Metal Monster Monday {May 7}

Posted on 7 May, 2012 by TheDailyMel

Wow, I can’t believe another week has passed by already! I guess going back to work last Monday has certainly made time pass more quickly.

I don’t have a weigh in to report this week because I wasn’t able to make it to my Weight Watchers meeting yesterday. I’ve had a bit of a setback with the recovery from my knee surgery. It started hurting again about a week ago and has just gotten progressively worse. By the time yesterday morning rolled around, I knew I needed to stay home and keep my knee iced and elevated. Thankfully, I have an appointment with my surgeon on Tuesday for my one month post-op checkup so I can hopefully find out what’s going on with it.

In other news, did anyone get out to take in the Supermoon on Saturday night? Being the space geek that I am, I couldn’t resist getting out on my patio with my camera and snapping a couple of photos.

Canon EOS Rebel T3i - F/22 - 1/800 - ISO 3200

Canon EOS Rebel T3i - F/22 - 1/640 - ISO 3200

While I was home this weekend, I also took the opportunity to give myself a manicure. The color choice du jour was Mistress by Ciaté which I purchased online from Sephora. I LOVE this red!!

Ciaté Mistress

I pretty new to the Ciaté line of polishes. I recently ordered three colors and I’ve tried two of them so far. I have to say that I’ve been very pleased with them so far. They wear really well! I normally start feeling like I need a touch-up after 3-4 days when I use my beloved OPI polishes. With these, I don’t start getting that feeling until around the fifth day which is awesome! When doing my own manicure, my standard method is one coat of base coat, two coats of polish, and topped off with one coat of Seche Vite dry fast top coat.

Until next time …

Jan 16 2012

Viva Las Vegas! (Part 1)

Posted on 16 January, 2012 by TheDailyMel

Sorry I haven’t posted in several days. I was off having an awesome weekend in Vegas with friends. We had an a.maz.ing time and even all came away winners on the gambling front to boot! We all won at least $100 or more. I was up $222 at one point, but ended up gambling a bit more and came home “only” $180 to the good. Given I usually break even or lose a bit, I’ll take it.

We all arrived in Vegas pretty late on Wednesday night, so we pretty much just crashed at the hotel. Thursday marked the day the fun stuff began! To kick things off, Terri surprised me while we were still in our hotel room with an early birthday present since we won’t see each other next month for my real birthday. It’s the Chocolate Sampler design by Jean Lea who owns the Attic Needlework shop in Mesa, AZ.

We then headed downstairs to meet up with Annette and her mom, Pat. We grabbed some breakfast at one of the hotel restaurants (remind me sometime to tell y’all about the vegan shrimp cocktail! ) and then headed out to Stitcher’s Paradise for some stash shopping!

Since I’m on a stash diet, I limited myself to only what I needed for the Chocolate Sampler. Ok, ok, I know I shouldn’t have even bought that, but it doesn’t really count since it’s for something I got as a birthday present, right? Annette also added to the birthday stash list by gifting me with the couple of charts on the left as well!

While we were at the shop, I saw an adorable finishing idea for a piece I have stitched! It’s the Lizzie Kate 2007 Special Edition Christmas piece. I’ve had it stitched for around four years, but I’ve never finished into anything. Well, they had that same piece on display at Stitcher’s Paradise finished as a chimney stand-up made using brick fabric. So, now my quest is on for some brick fabric so I can duplicate this idea. I wish I could’ve gotten a better photo, but the piece was on a shelf almost at the ceiling. Anyway, isn’t it just awesome?!

After the stash shopping fun, it was back to the hotel for some stitching time. Unfortunately for me, I realized I made a HORRIBLE error on my Celtic Christmas piece and had to do some massive frogging. In fact, frogging was about the only stitching time I had while we were in Vegas. At least I’m ready to start making some forward progress again. By the time it was all said and done, I had to frog about 580 stitches to get myself back on the right track.

Ok, that’s about it for part one of my Vegas trip recap. I’ll post part two about the trip in the new few days. I’ll leave you all with this photo which I’m also using as my entry for this week’s PhotoHunt theme which is circular. Given I was in Vegas, it seemed only appropriate. This is the Wheel of Fortune slot machine which was definitely a favorite of our group this weekend! I think we all played on a WoF slot at least once over the course of our stay.

I know I’m several days behind in my 30 Day Blog Challenge. I’ll try to get caught up on those over the next couple of days, too.

Until next time …

Jan 7 2012

Saturday PhotoHunt: Bling

Posted on 7 January, 2012 by TheDailyMel

This week’s PhotoHunt theme is *BLING*. Given my love of needlework, one of my favorite forms of bling is stitching designs with lots of sparkle and embellishments. This is the Letter M fairy designed by Nora Corbett. As you can see, she’s definitely blinged out.

I have a Flickr account that houses all of PhotoHunt photos. If you would like to view them all, you can find the set here.

Today’s assignment for the 30 Day Blog Challenge is posting about your dream wedding. Given I’m twice divorced, I think I’ll sit out on this round.

Until next time …

Dec 31 2011

Saturday PhotoHunt: Gather

Posted on 31 December, 2011 by TheDailyMel

The Saturday PhotoHunt theme for this week is gather. All week I had been planning to use a photo of some small stitched pieces I’ve received from friends over the years. I recently gathered them into a wire basket to display on my coffee table. I thought it would be a great photo that would work perfectly with the theme. As always, click to biggify if you’re interested.

Well, that plan went right out the window last night when I got home from my work. My cat, who normally keeps her toy mice strewn all about my place, had left them all gathered into a neat little pile next to one of the legs of my coffee table. As soon as I saw it, I knew this was the perfect photo for this week’s theme!

I also have a Flickr account with all of PhotoHunt photos. If you would like to view them all, you can find the set here.

Until next time …

Dec 28 2011

ABCs of Travel (Photo Heavy)

Posted on 28 December, 2011 by TheDailyMel

Travel ABC's

I saw this really fun meme today on Cynthia’s blog. Since I love to travel, I thought it would be something fun to do. A lot of the questions are about international travel. Even though most of my travel has been domestic (I’ve been to 47 of the 50 U.S. states so far), I decided to play anyway. As always, you can click each photo to biggify it.

A: Age you went on your first international trip: Ok, this is a little bit of a sad way to start, but my first international trip was in 2005 when I was 41 years old. My friend Tracy and I went to Mazatlán, Mexico together. Loved it!

B: Best (foreign) beer you’ve had and where: I don’t think I’ve ever drank beer in a foreign country. I’m not much of a beer drinker. When I do drink it, it’s generally Guinness. I blame it on my Irish heritage.

C: Cuisine (favorite): This one is really difficult. I love so many ethnic cuisines — Mexican, Italian, Greek, Indian, Thai, etc. The list could go on and on.

D: Destinations — favorite, least favorite and why: One of my favorite destinations thus far has definitely been Hawai’i. I went to there three years ago with my BFFs Terri and Tracy (I keep hoping if I link to her enough that she’ll start blogging again ). It was just so gorgeous there and we had a blast! Here’s a photo of the sunset at Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. That’s just a raw photo without the use of filters. It really doesn’t do it any justice either!

One of my least favorites would probably be Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It’s not because it’s wasn’t beautiful because it clearly s as evidenced in the sunset photo below. The reason I didn’t care for it was due to the inundation of people selling things on the beach. Literally every two to three minutes, another local would come by trying to sell some sort of trinket. I realize they rely on the tourists to make money, but it was just a bit much. It made it very difficult to have fun. Once you got away from the beach, it was much less intrusive, thankfully.

E: Event you experienced abroad that made you say “wow”: That would probably be on a Mexican Riviera cruise I took in 2007. I ended up with a horrible case of Montezuma’s Revenge and missed out on a couple of days of the cruise, including our port of call and planned snorkeling excursion on a private beach at the edge of a rain forest near Puerta Vallarta. I was stuck in the stateroom on the ship sick as a dog. I just kept saying, “Wow, I don’t remember the last time I was this sick.” These photos are courtesy of my traveling companion who I insisted should still go on the excursion since we’d already paid for it. It was bad enough that we were going to lose my money for it, no need for both of us to throw away our money!

Dec 24 2011

Saturday PhotoHunt: Surprise

Posted on 24 December, 2011 by TheDailyMel

The theme for this week’s PhotoHunt is all about Surprise. Given it’s also Christmas Eve, I’m sure lots of folks will be posting pics of the shocked faces of their children opening gifts and such. Well, there’ll be none of that here since I don’t have any children and my cat refuses to open Christmas gifts.

My take on this week’s theme is definitely all about surprise though. My long-time online stitching friend Erin surprised me yesterday with a lovely little package. When I opened it up, it was this beautiful Temari ornament.

Isn’t it gorgeous?!! Thanks for such a beautiful Christmas surprise, Erin!

I also wanted to let everyone know that I’ve decided to use my Flickr account to store all of PhotoHunt photos. If you’re ever interested in going back to view them all, you can find the set here. You can also subscribe via RSS directly to my PhotoHunt Flickr set well.

Until next time …