A Sort Of Homecoming

A Sort Of Homecoming

And you know it's time to go
Through the sleet and driving snow
Across the fields of mourning
To a light that's in the distance

And you hunger for the time
Time to heal, desire, time
And your earth moves beneath
Your own dream landscape

Oh, on borderland we run
I'll be there, I'll be there tonight
A high road
A high road out from here

The city walls are all come down
The dust a smokescreen all around
See faces ploughed like fields
That once gave no resistance

And we live by the side of the road
On the side of a hill as the valley explodes
Dislocated, suffocated
The land grows weary of its own

Oh come away, oh come away, oh come
Oh come away say I
Oh come away, oh come away, oh come
Oh some away say I

Oh, on borderland we run and still we run
We run and don't look back
I'll be there, I'll be there
Tonight, tonight

I'll be there tonight
I believe
I'll be there so high
I'll be there tonight
Tonight

Oh come away, I say
Oh come away, I say

The wind will crack in wintertime
This bomb-blast lightning waltz
No spoken words, just a scream, oh

Tonight we'll build a bridge across the sea and land
See the sky, the burning rain
She will die and live again
Tonight

And your heart beats so slow
Through the rain and fallen snow
Across the fields of mourning
To a light that's in the distance

Oh, don't sorrow,
No don't weep for tonight, at last
I am coming home
I am coming home

- U2

Birthmas Giveaway

Jolene is having a Birthmas Giveaway!!



Fare well,

Cat Biscornu

Since I finished And Nature Sing, I decided to work on Moody Blues, as I previously mentioned. However, the light in the living room was not conducive to backstitching, so I pulled out the Cat Biscornu instead.

Here is where I left off:



And here is where I was as of last night:



Now I'm off to find some mindless TV & continue stitching!

Fare well,

Mel is celebrating her 200 followers by having a giveaway at Epic Stitch! There are two prizes- check it out!





Fare well,

The Winner is...

Deborah!!!! Congratulations!

Fare well,



P.S. The weather gods are mocking me. It's supposed to be dry season and yet it's pouring rain. In the middle of December. In Cambodia. So not cool!

Non-Christmas Christmas Giveaway

In honor of an unexpected Christmas gift from my mom, I am having a non-Christmas related Christmas giveaway! I will be gifting Lizzie*Kate's Sisters Forever to one lucky person!



I was going to have a 200th post giveaway, but I'm feeling the Christmas spirit (even if it is 88F outside!), and I want to offer it now. The giveaway is open to anyone, anywhere in the world.

Please leave a comment with your name and email address (very important!). If you would like a second entry, please post a link on your blog & leave a comment letting me know.

The giveaway closes at midnight (Cambodia time [+7 GMT], which would be...uh...9:00am Pacific time) on 13 December 2010.

Good luck!



P.S. My unexpected Christmas present was a return plane ticket HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME for Christmas & New Years!!!! WOOOOO! I am SO excited!!!

And Nature Sing- Finished!

I managed to finish And Nature Sing with many hours to spare before the roommie gets back from Thailand!



Fare well,

And Nature Sing Update

I've almost finished And Nature Sing. Record fast stitching for me! I hope to finish it today, as my roommate returns tonight.



After that I *plan* to finish Moody Blues for my mom. I'm soooo close to having it done & I would really like to give it to her for Christmas.

Fare well,

Christmas Stitching & Other Things

It's a lovely Saturday morning, the heat is minimal, and my roommate is in Thailand. It's that last one that's really important. In October, I ordered the Halloween and Christmas issues of Just Cross Stitch & had them mailed to my dad's house. So when I was in Thailand, he gave them to me. All of this is just a roundabout way of saying that I'm stitching a present for my roommate for Christmas. It's supposed to be an ornament, but I didn't have any fabric that was small enough, so it's going to be a something-that-isn't-an-ornament.

I am stitching And Nature Sing by Little by Little Design Co. from the JCS Christmas 2010 issue. It's supposed to be stitched on brown fabric, which I don't have, so I had to use an oatmeal shade, which is actually rather nice, but the white doesn't show up that well. Whoever thought I'd be longing for brown fabric?!

So here's it will look like once it's completed:



And here is what I have stitched so far:





My roommate has actually seen it; she asked me what I was making & I told her an ornament-that's-not-an-ornament. She just doesn't know that it's for her. I hope she likes it.

For my dad, I bought some Kampot pepper (Cambodia's first Geographic Indicator certified food!) from Kurata Pepper. Kampot pepper is spicier than normal black pepper & comes in four varieties: green, black, red, & white. I know that green is fresh off the pepper "tree", but I don't know the difference in the others. I also got him a little bag of Kampot salt & ground Kampot pepper and a tasty bag of cashews with lemongrass, chilies, garlic, shallots, and bergamot leaves (they tasted like Kaffir lime leaves to me, but what do I know?!).



For my mom, I bought a handmade, silk Christmas tree ornament, a little bag of Kampot salt & pepper (she doesn't like spicy, so no big bag of pepper for her!), and Kampot pepper essential oil. Apparently this will be a food themed Christmas!



And for Shelley, I bought........ha ha! Both you & she will have to wait to see what it is!

At the Christmas fair at the Intercontinental Hotel, I got myself this cute little elephant, whom I've named Alphie. He's sitting up against my Tiny Kampot Pillow. (There's a lot of Kampot in this post!)




I also got some nice, hand-painted cards as well.



That's all for now. It has occurred to me that I never blogged about my trip to Kampot- it was quite interesting, so I'll have to do it one day. Right now, I need to check if the water guy has delivered the water. I'm leaning towards no!

Fare well,

More Christmas Giveaways

No, no, not from me. :) Rebecca at A Gathering of Thoughts is having a giveaway for Christmas. She is giving away a lovely Christmas pillow, so head on over & sign up!



And Terri is giving away two Christmas baskets full of surprises over at dixie samplar designs.



Fare well,

ABCs of Me

ABCs of Me

A - Age: 30

B - Bed size: 2cm shorter than my roommate's (that's what the landlady said & I'm
sticking to it!)

C - Chore you hate: Cooking (it's the only chore I do here)

D - Dog's name: Rocky, Monty, Sidiqi

E - Essential start your day item(s): Caffeine

F - Favorite color: Purple, but blue & green are close seconds

G - Gold or Silver: Silver

H - Height: 5' 6"-ish

I - Instruments you play: "Mary had a little lamb" on the piano

J - Job: Teacher

K - Kids: None

L - Living Arrangements: An apartment (with a/c, so I'm allowed to stay) & a roommate

M - Music you love: Brainwave music that makes me go to sleep- it really works!

N - Nicknames: None

O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: Yes

P - Pet Peeve: Being lied to & being treated differently because I'm female

Q - Quote from a movie: "This is WAR, Peacock!" (Col. Mustard, Clue)

R - Right or left handed: Right

S - Siblings: None

T - Time you wake up: 6:30-7:00AM (NOT by choice! It's that darn sunshine.)

U - Underwear: I own some & I often wear it.

V - Vegetable you dislike: I'm not too fond of the cucumber.

W - Workout Style: Imagining it in my head

X - rays you've had: Ankle, Mouth

Y - Yummy food you make: Sausage Skillet (It's the best!)

Z - The best place to visit: HOME!

And now you know my ABC's, won't you play along with me?

Tudor Themed Nail Polish

Will someone please win the lottery & buy me these Tudor nail polishes?!

Catherine of Aragon:



Anne Boleyn:



Jane Seymour:



Katheryn Howard:



They still need to make some polish for Anne of Cleves & Katherine Parr. Not very nice to leave them out!

Fare well,

I'm watching a SciFi movie on the tube- Polar Storm. Who cares, right?

Since the SciFi logo is in the lower right corner, I decided to look it up & see what movie I was killing my brain cells with. Turns out that Polar Storm doesn't air in the States until Saturday! Who would've thought that I could be in Phnom Penh, watching a SciFi movie that hasn't even been released yet?!

I find these things much more amusing than they probably are!

Fare well,

Carol is having a giveaway on her blog. The winner gets a really cute scissor fob!

Fare well,

New Books!

Since I am headed home for the holidays, I decided to order some books to bring back to Cambodia. I'm a nut for Tudor history, and two new books have just been released! I ordered them both & can't wait to read them: one on Catherine of Aragon and the other on Katherine Parr. *Happy Dance!*





I can't wait! I love new books & especially new Tudor books! Today I finished reading Wolf Hall, recommended to me by Shirley from ILCS.




I found it in a second hand bookstore in Kampot, Cambodia, which was slightly odd, but I was happy! A really good fictionalized read about Thomas Cromwell if you're interested.

Fare well,

Christmastime in Cambodia

Today, my roommate and I went to a Christmas fair at the Intercontinental Hotel in Phnom Penh. I got an oil incense burner and a little stuffed elephant for myself and a couple of Christmas cards.







And yes, we did get a picture with Santa!



It was fun! Next weekend, there is a Christmas village at Le Duo, where Shirley and I had dinner during her visit. Looking forward to it!

Fare well,

For American Thanksgiving, my dad, my roommate, & I went to Freebird on St. 240. I had a chicken shwarma- very American!!! It was great to spend the holiday-that-wasn't-officially-a-holiday with my dad! (And my roommie, too, of course.)

The arrival of my dad heralded the final batch of ILCS Birthday Club gifts- floss that I ordered with my gift cards. Silks and more silks!



Melinda sent me the cutest little scissor fob, but all of my scissors have fobs, so I put it on my keychain. Isn't it adorable?!



Thank you again, ladies, for the great birthday!

Want some floss? If you go to Hand Dyed Fibers, you can get a free skein! Just click on the link beneath the Mission Statement. Below is the color that I received- I love it! The lighting in my room is terrible, so the real color is somewhere in between the colors in the two pictures.





I tried to go to the cross stitch store in Bangkok, but it wasn't there! ACK! The place where the store was supposed to be was actually a shipping place. They put me on the phone with the shop's owner, but I couldn't really figure out what she was telling me, except that I could email her if I needed anything. Which is cool, but I really wanted to browse! It was alright, though, because we got to the airport pretty early, and my dad bought me a foot massage- awesome!!!

Fare well,

Thailand

The best part of Thailand? Seeing my dad!



The second best part? Petting tigers!









I saw this guy at the River Kwai, and I thought he was a statue.



He wasn't!

This is the River Kwai and the Jeath Museum.





It was a full moon last Sunday, so it was Loi Krathong and there were fireworks and krathong floating down the river. It was really pretty.





On the last day we were there, we took a boat ride on the river, which was a great way to see Bangkok.



Our boat driver/ tour guide gave us a loaf of bread to feed the catfish outside of this temple.







Our only stop was at the Temple of the Dawn, which is amazing!













All in all, a great vacation!!! But I do miss my dad.

Fare well,