In honor of our 1 year, 1 month and 1 day wedding anniversary, I have decided to finally take advantage of my Flickr account and upload honeymoon photos! All of the photos I have uploaded today are from the first day of our honeymoon. We flew from Houston to London, took the train from the airport into London, took a cab to our hotel, crashed and took a much needed nap, and then went walking about South Kensington - to Harrod’s, Wagamama’s, and just general sightseeing.

Hmmm… I guess I could have uploaded wedding photos first. Oh well. I was looking through honeymoon photos, so I went with them.

I’ve got about 2000 more to add, but you can view the first ones in the Honeymoon - London album. The Paris photos will follow. And then some wedding photos. I didn’t take many wedding photos, since I was sort of busy with everything else that day.

Enjoy the pictures!

Update: As of 9:30 pm Central Time, I have uploaded and captioned the rest of the day 1 photos. Whew. The scary thing is, that is probably the least photos I have for any day of our trip, and I have been weeding out the duplicates and ones that just aren’t very good. This could take awhile, but it is worth it!

Also, some of these will eventually end up on Pixelog, which I plan to start updating again next week. (After I clear out 6 months worth of spam comments.)

Yesterday I received my new 2005-2006 Stampin’ Up! Idea Book in the mail, and I LOVE IT!!! I love the new colors they have introduced along with the 120+ new stamp sets, and I was so excited when I went to the site earlier today to place my customer’s last minute retiring orders and I spotted the new stamps & colors on the main public website!

I can’t wait to see what the July special will be. I have a feeling my wishlist is going to grow! I did really well and passed up several of the retiring stamp sets. Instead, I ordered the adorable monkey stamp set from the Summer Mini catalog with the free merchandise I earned.

I think tonight is a good night to sit down with the new catalog and work on placing post-it flags on all the goodies I want to get!

Playing with the Flickr Montager is a lot of fun.

Yes, I have other things I need to be doing. Back to work. And posts to write later. But for now, I’m playing with the Flickr Montager. It’s all MJ’s fault.

Fine, some of you might not enjoy playing with the Montager as much as I have. How about checking out the videos at Geek Fantasies? I think #5 is the most amusing.

Mullets Rock!

We had a great time in Kentucky, but after being gone for almost two weeks (counting my retreat and the trip to New Orleans), it feels so nice to be home again.

Well, nice and frustrating, because I’ve decided that I want to rearrange the storage bedroom into my crafty room so that the dining room can be a dining room again, and I need to have Salvation Army or someone come and pick up this old couch (anyone need a cream-colored leather couch that has a broken spring? If you are willing to come to my house to get it, you can have it.) So, it is nice to be home, but I have so many things I want to do that I almost don’t know where to begin. I guess it is time for a list, so I can set some priorities.

Speaking of priorities, being offline for two weeks with the exception of work has definitely changed mine. Down time with my family is definitely a top priority, followed by household tasks I want to accomplish, and then the creativity need to be a better photograph (and post some of my photos for a change) and knit more goodies. It has been a good thing. If you miss me, feel free to write - but my posts here may slow down somewhat. Or they may change to fit my changing priorities. Whatever strikes me as the right thing to do. I was worried about this at first, then I realized that is a sure sign that the blog is controlling me. I can’t worry about that.

So as I started to say - our trip to Kentucky was *wonderful*. It was nice to have a chance to visit with Mike’s parents in a calm setting. I’ve only seen them in person twice before this trip - once was the first time I met them (yeah, like THAT isn’t stressful) and the second time was the wedding. I didn’t get to see them the day after the wedding even, when I was a little more sane than I had been in my sleep-deprived state the day of the wedding. So this trip? Niiiiiiice. Calm. Relaxing. I think our entire family needed that.

The rundown of our vacation is coming soon. First I need to go and do more laundry.

Sunday morning, I left the Mom’s retreat early to head home, take the dirty clothes out of my suitcase, put clean clothes into my suitcase, and then we were back out the door and on the road by 1:00 pm, heading east to New Orleans. It was a good day for the drive, and although there was traffic it wasn’t too bad. When we arrived in town, we went straight to Mike’s Great Aunt Yvonne’s house. She is 93 years old, but you would never guess it by talking to her. She is in great health, and always has been - in the 40+ years that she worked, she never missed a day of work because she was sick. Not a single one. That just boggles my mind. She said the last time she was sick, she was 23 and had the flu. Amazing. If only the rest of us were so lucky.

After a great visit with her, we headed to our hotel on the edge of the French Quarter. Well, first we headed to the other Marriott hotel. It seems that there are two of them on Canal St., just a block apart. So we drove in circles (lots of one-way streets) to get to the next one. It was a nice hotel, with a great view of the Quarter and the Mississippi River in the background.

Monday morning, Jason & I got up to drive Mike to Norco, where the Shell refinery he was working at for the trip is located. Then we went back to the hotel to get ready to go on the CEMETARY TOUR! Whoo hoo!!! I finally got to go on the cemetary tour. I can’t tell you how happy that made me. I will advise future visitors to New Orleans - go on the tour in the winter. Maybe the spring or the fall. New Orleans is *hot* in the summer, and the cemetary has no shade at all, and all the white tombs radiate heat. I’m glad the tour guide made a stop at the A&P in the Quarter so that we could pick up a second round of water to take with us. Aside from the heat, it was really cool. Interesting to learn some of the history of New Orleans as a whole, and of the cemetary itself. I have a whole new appreciation for the city.

After the tour we stopped at a small shop that had prints of paintings of the French Quarter, and I picked up a small cemetary one to go with my collection of other prints. The air conditioning was a nice break, and the shop owner was so helpful. (I have his card at home, so I’ll add the shop name later.) From there, we went to the ice cream shop to get some ice cream, then to the Quarter Stitch to get a yarn fix. Ok, I got a yarn fix, Jason just enjoyed the fact that he could sit and relax and be cool. They had a great selection of Koigu, which is my latest yarn fetish of choice. From there, we stopped for lunch, then walked a bit, finally heading to Cafe Du Monde for beignets. Mmmmm… After that, it was off to the local Lush store. I had spotted it on the way to the cemetary tour earlier in the day, but the shop wasn’t open yet. It was fun to have a chance to sniff all the goodies in person, but it was a much smaller shop then the last ones I visited in London. They definitely did not have the full selection of bath bombs, bubble bars and other goodies. It was still nice, and Jason even picked out a bubble bar for himself. We headed to Hard Rock Cafe across the street to get Kathy’s t-shirt, then it was back to the hotel to rest.

Mike was able to get a ride in from the refinery with his co-worker, so when they arrived back at the hotel we headed out again to the Quarter to find something for dinner for them. (Jason and I had picked up food on the way back to the hotel earlier.) We went to Bubba Gump, and I had some of the best key lime pie *ever*. I was told that their shrimp dinners were good too, but I was all about that key lime pie. After dinner, Mike’s co-worker headed off to the casino, and we walked back to Cafe Du Monde so Mike could get some beignets. Jason & I weren’t up for a lot of walking by then, but it was Mike’s only chance to visit Cafe Du Monde, so we couldn’t pass it up.

Tuesday morning, Jason & I slept in, then lounged around the hotel. We went to their fantastic breakfast/brunch buffet and had great omelets and other goodies. Afterwards we decided to head for the pool for awhile since the hotel was nice and let us arrange a 2:30 pm check-out. We left the pool around 1:30 to get showers and pick up the bags before heading out. After we checked out we headed back to Lush in the car. I managed to get in and out of Lush with just one Karma Shampoo Bar, the one item I went into the shop to buy. As we left, Jason asked if we could return to the ice cream shop, so we walked a few blocks to get another cool, refreshing treat. While we were there, Mike called to say that they were done at work, so we went to pick him up and headed back towards home. It was a nice uneventful drive home, although it seemed to take us longer to get back to Houston then it did to get to New Orleans.

I did discover a fresh appreciation for New Orleans this time. The last time we were there was over the 4th of July, and the French Quarter seemed… dirty. I saw trash everywhere, it smelled like trash, it rained every day we were there, it just wasn’t living up to my image of New Orleans. This time, the French Quarter was beautiful. I didn’t see trash, the tourists seemed to be more families … it was just nicer. I had a great time. I didn’t take a ton of photos, which is surprising. I think it was just a matter of being hot and worried about keeping Jason cool. Our next trip over definitely needs to be in a different season. I’ll post what pictures I did take later on over on Flickr.

Now we are in Lexington, Kentucky, visiting Mike’s parents. We haven’t done a lot so far - just relaxed and talked. Today we’re heading out. The weather is gorgeous - it is soooooo cool! So I can’t wait to get outside. It is supposed to warm up next week, so I need to enjoy it while I can. It has been nice to have a chance to visit with his parents without the chaos of a wedding going on, or the nerves of the first time I met them overshadowing everything. Much more laid back. It’s really nice. (Gee, could I use nice any more in this paragraph?)

Originally uploaded by bpc.

St. Louis 1 cemetary, New Orleans.

Originally uploaded by bpc.

Cemetary tour in New Orleans

Whew! The next two weeks are going to be quite a whirlwind!

We had planned some time ago to go to Kentucky to visit Mike’s parents this summer. I’ve never been, so I’m really excited! I’m sure it is going to be beautiful there. Plus there is a farm that sells the fiber from their flock not too far down the road, and in the other direction there is a company that makes spindles. I mean, we need to get out and see the countryside, right?

So that trip starts next Wednesday. This weekend I have a retreat/getaway with the MOMs group from church that I’ve planned on attending since this spring. The moms in the group are great, and it has been a nice way to meet new people now that I’m working out of the home full time. Social contact is a good thing, and I tend to be a hermit way too often.

Then yesterday, Mike called me to let me know that work wanted to send him to New Orleans on Monday & Tuesday. Being the swift thinker that I am, I asked if they would pay mileage and let him drive instead of flying over there, so Jason & I could go also. He checked, and they said it was no problem at all. So we’re taking my car over to New Orleans, which will give us to visit his Great Aunt Yvonne. I met her a few years ago when Mike & I went to New Orleans, so it will be nice to get to see her again. Monday, while Mike is at his work meetings, Jason and I will go on the cemetary tour and see the sights in the French Quarter.

Because, damn it, this time? This time I get to go on my cemetary tour.

What a whirlwind! We will basically get back, wash clothes, and leave again the next morning. But we will have a good time!

I feel like our vacation is starting today though - because now we are off to go to the Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science! It sounds really cool - you get to see yourself as a hobbit or a wizard and more! I can’t wait!

I’ve been on a cleaning mission today, which included clearing out my e-mail and the blog comment spam. Spam can be so amusing sometimes. I received an e-mail with the subject line of “absolutely last mortgage spam EVER!” Uhm, right. I appreciate the honesty though, admitting that it is spam.

Then going through my comment spam (can I get a whoo whoo for the WordPress moderation feature? It is slick…) I discovered about 300 spam comments where they forgot to put their URL anywhere. I’m thinking that spamming doesn’t do you a lot of good if you don’t include the link to your site, you know? Because a comment from “Poker” telling me how great my site is isn’t really going to help their search engine ranking without that link.

Spammers. Serious rocket scientists, I tell you…

Ok, ok, so on my SP5 survey I said I was going to start some socks. Then, somewhere on Saturday, I started looking at the Koigu. It was longing. Waiting. Ready. And so I did it - I started my Charlotte’s Web shawl. I just transitioned from color number 3 to color number 4. Now that I’m down in the wider section, it is taking a lot longer to do each row. However, I just have 3 repeats left (I have already done 6 repeats) so it should go pretty fast - I hope to have it done by this weekend.

Yes, I am a knitting machine.

I’m participating in the Secret Pal 5 exchange, so to help my Secret Pal out, here are my responses to the survey:

1. Are you a yarn snob (do you prefer higher quality and/or natural fibers)? Do you avoid Red Heart and Lion Brand? Or is it all the same to you?
I was informed today by Christina that I am a yarn snob. I will add though that I’m about to make some socks using the Lion Brand Magic Stripes yarn, but in general my yarn comes from the knitting store and I tend to go for the wools.

2. Do you spin? Crochet?
I am a new spinner, with a very basic top whorl drop spindle and a bit of Lincoln, Corriedale and (new!) Merino roving. I’m doing pretty well with it though, and I love doing it. (All props for my mad spinning skills must go to Mac and Eilatan.)

I tried to crochet again back at Christmas, and it was a bad experience. Holding a crochet hook makes my hand numb. (I have the same problem with trying to write with a pen.) No crochet for me.

3. Do you have any allergies? (smoke, pets, fibers, perfume, etc.)
I can’t handle floral perfumes. I don’t like smoke. And Noro Kureyon sends me into fits (stuffy nose, puffy itchy watery allergy eyes) when I knit with it for more than an hour, so making my Booga Bag was pretty slow. I am not normally allergic to wool though, and all of my other wool experiences have been fine. I’m also allergic to Vicodan, which was important to the dentist during the root canal experience, but probably doesn’t matter too much to my secret pal.

4. How long have you been knitting?
Since February. However, I’m in - hook, line and sinker. I’ve got the socks and the Clapotis to prove it.

5. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
Yes, I do. It is linked over there in the sidebar.

6. What’s your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products etc.)
Vanilla for candles, vanilla or citrus scents for bath products. And Lush “Karma” Bubble Bars. Mmmm… Lush. No florals (unless it is a mild floral vanilla blend) because the florals make me sneeze and give me a headache.

7. Do you have a sweet tooth?
Not much, I generally prefer my candy sour rather than sweet. I do love Reese’s minatures, but I live in Houston. Sending me chocolate anything would result in chocolate soup by the time it arrives during the summer months.

8. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do?
I cross-stitch, although I have neglected the needle for some time. I stamp, but since I’m a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, I’m pretty covered on the stamping supplies. So it’s really all about knitting and spinning for me.

9. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)
My computer and the iPod can play mp3s, and I will listen to almost anything. I’m not too big into country music these days, but really - anything. My iPod is very eclectic.

10. What’s your favorite color? Or–do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can’t stand?
When I pick up yarn at the store, I tend to go for blues, purples, greens and … of course … pink. I am not too big on orange.

11. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?
I am married to Mike. We just had our 1 year wedding anniversary. Not only is he a fabulous husband, but he supports my knitting habit. That makes him even better. I have a son, Jason, who is 13. He has no interest in knitting whatsoever, unless they came out with a Xbox game that involved knitting. Then he might care. I have two cats, Murphy and Mona. Fortunately, they ignore my yarn.

12. What are your life dreams? (really stretching it here, I know)
To travel around Europe. To visit Alaska. To see my son graduate from college, and to survive the experience.

13. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with?
Right now, I would have to say Koigu. It is so deliciously yummy. But really, I haven’t met a yarn I didn’t like.

14. What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
After knitting my Clapotis with a cotton yarn, I don’t think I will be picking up cotton any time soon. However, the only thing I would say I absolutely do not like would be nasty, scratchy acrylic yarn. $1.57 at Wal-Mart acrylic. *shiver*

15. What is/are your current knitting obsession/s?
Socks and wraps/shawls/stoles.

16. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
Anything involving yarn and needles.

17. What are you knitting right now?
I’ve had a recent flurry of finishing things - the merino lace wedding wrap, the Clapotis, my first pair of socks, and two scarves. I have nothing on the needles at the moment, but will be casting on for a pair of Entrelac Socks (from a past issue of Knitters magazine) in blue/purple/pink Koigu after I finish this survey. I also need to finish spinning my dark blue Lincoln wool.

18. What do you think about ponchos?
I will admit that I’ve seen some cute ones, but I don’t think I would ever wear one myself. I’m all about the wrap.

19. Do you prefer straight or circular needles?
I do almost everything on circulars, including my sock knitting. (Magic loop knitting a sock on 1 circular needle rocks!)

20. Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?
Lately, I’ve been all about the Addis. I like my Denise set, but the Addis? Mmmm…

21. Are you a sock knitter?
Yes, I have completed a pair and they matched even! Now I can’t wait to make more.

22. How did you learn to knit?
I took classes at Merribee, here in Houston. I was taught to knit using the English/throw method, and then by watching Knitty Gritty on DIY, I taught myself how to knit Continental.

23. How old is your oldest UFO?
My needles are empty. I still haven’t felted my Booga Bag though, and I have yarn for upcoming projects - but I have no UFOs. When I start something, I want to plow through until it is finished.

24. What is your favorite animated character or a favorite animal/bird?
Uhm, yeah. I don’t have an answer for this one. Wait … I giggle whenever I see Hello Kitty stuff at the store. She’s not really an animated character, but she makes me smile. I don’t really have a favorite animal or bird.

25. What is your favorite holiday?
All of them.

26. Is there anything that you collect?
I collect yarn.

27. What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?
Right now, none. I’m considering Interweave, Vogue and Knitters, but I haven’t committed to any of them yet.

28. Any books out there you are dying to get your hands on?
Actually, a book on dyeing. How is that for ironic? There are always books that I come across though that I would like to own, so I’ll keep the wishlist up to date.

We got the DVD of the “print-ready” photographs from our wedding photographer when we arrived home from our anniversary trip to Galveston. As I went through the images, this one jumped out at me. Somehow I had overlooked it before, but tonight it caught my eye. I love the moment that it captured.

I’m a lucky, lucky woman to have married such a wonderful man. He is simply fabulous, and I can’t say that enough.

Mom’s fluffy scarf! Plymouth Yarn “Parrot” in color #4. Hand wash, dry flat. 2 skiens used, along with an eyelash yarn, knit with a US 17 needle. Started the first 5-10 rows a few weeks ago, did the majority of the work on it today. Fast knit, took just 2-3 hours.

(From the ball band: 50g = 28 yds; 2 sts = 1″ with US 15 needles.)