Dec-Jan-Feb-Mar

Where have the first two New Years (read: Western New Year & Chinese New Year) gone?! I haven't posted since December, and I haven't even stitched- not one, single stitch!- since December. Suffice it to say that the new job is keeping me very, very busy. Fortunately, tomorrow is the last day of the first term, so I will get a little time to stitch & just relax.

Some catching up...

In mid-December, I went to Perth for a few days. It's a beautiful city with friendly people, and I wish I could have stayed for more than two days.



While I was there, however, I did pop into Needle Ny-dle Noo, which is a fantastic little shop! The owner was so nice to me & convinced me to give crewel work a try. Mind you, I haven't actually gotten around to this yet, but I WILL! She also has a Cat's Whiskers pattern that I really want (I'd have to change the colors to match my other projects, but still...), but I decided to buy a pattern with a local connection to remind me of my trip. Apparently, fairy wrens are native to Perth, as is Cat's Whiskers!

La Roseraie by The Cat's Whiskers
(The one I still long for!)

There are Fairies at the Bottom of my Garden...
Splendid Fairy Wrens that Is! by The Cat's Whiskers
(The one I bought)

I highly recommend stopping in, if only to browse, if you happen to be in Perth.

The main purpose of popping on over to Australia for the weekend was to attend a U2 concert. It was fabulous, and I loved it. As usual. Sometimes I think they should stop releasing studio albums & just release concert albums because the songs sound SO MUCH better!

















I left Perth on a Sunday, spent Monday in Cambodia, flew to Korea on Tuesday, spent the day there, then flew out to the States on Tuesday night. Three continents in three days can be a little exhausting, but it was worth being home for the holidays!

I finally finished Moody Blues for my mom. She loved it as we have an ongoing joke about how I want her to kick the bucket so that I can have her Moody Blues CDs.







I framed And Nature Sing in the States, & brought it back to Cambodia for my roommate. She really liked it & put it on the bookshelf in our living room.



So I started the new job (and survived the first term! [I only thought of becoming a scuba instructor and/or Formula 1 racer and running away to join the circus a few times!]), but the best part of that deal was my new boyfriend. He's so sweet & respectful that I sometimes feel like I need to pinch myself!

This is us at CamTESOL, pretending to be responsible adults. Mind you, this was after a day of sleeping & lazing about for me & a 12 hour work day in the beautiful Cambodian sun for him.



And this is his cat, PC.



For Chinese New Year, we went to Kratie, in the northeast of Cambodia, because I wanted to see the quickly disappearing Mekong Irrawaddy dolphins. Kratie is a tiny town with nothing to do, but I had a grand time seeing the dolphins & hanging out with the boyfriend.

There be dolphins, I swear!

So that brings us up-to-date. Tomorrow are my last classes, then I am just going to do whatever I feel like for term break- stitching, sleeping, beating the boyfriend at Clue, wandering the streets of Phnom Penh, going to some provincial town on a spur of the moment whim...whatever strikes my fancy.

We start back to work on April 8th, then Khmer New Year is from 13-17 April, so I am flying to Phuket to meet my dad & go scuba diving. W00T!!!

I really like having a New Year every month- it's like if the month was awful, you can just start over again! Unfortunately, this only goes on through April. The rest of the year you have to suffer with your decisions!

I wish you all a joyous & wonderful weekend!

Fare well,

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,