Weekly Stitching and Reading

I'm not sure what kind of stitching steroids I was taking this past week but, considering I didn't stitch three whole days, I still managed to somehow finish almost two full pages of a HAED...seriously! Granted, I do buy large charts, but still, even I'm amazed at that! If I would have stitched for another three hours tonight, I probably could have finished the second page. I left off here last week:

and here is where I had to make myself stop tonight:

Actually, that V part is about a third of the way into the third page. Since I'm still waiting on orders to come in for my new projects, if I keep up this current rate, there is a good possibility I could finish this row in three weeks, maybe less. Besides, I still have to go to Hobby Lobby and get thread and scroll rods.

Since I decided to join in on Jo's 18 in '18, I still have to come up with five more projects for the year (which means more thread and more scroll rods). I have plenty of stash to choose from pattern-wise, but I thought I'd go through all my cross stitch magazines that I've collected to see if I could find a pattern in one of them. I must be keeping them for a reason other than my hoarding issues. So I spent Friday night going through magazines instead of stitching and there was only one pattern that said "maybe".

I definitely do not like the fabric used with this...it fades out too much with the colors of the glasses and there is a special Caron's color at the base of each glass that you can't even see on the picture, so I'm thinking a silver or maybe purplish-gray might be better. I'm still not sure I'm going to do this one yet, but what do you guys think?

I also kind of made a sort-of New Year's resolution to read more, but nothing definite or by any fit schedule. I just finished my first book of the year:

I was keeping it in my purse to read at work because I also said I was going to start taking breaks and a lunch. I never get to do either because someone else is always either on break or lunch, so I'm always left to hold down the fort. No matter what job I've ever held at the lab, that has always been the case. If I do get to eat at work, it's usually at my desk and I'm usually answering the phone while doing it. I do tend to do more receptionist duties than I.T. duties and that aggravates me (especially since receptionist is probably the one job I've never had there and Asper's aren't known for our people skills), but I have to just keep in mind that it's important to make sure I stay indispensable, you never know what could happen in the future.

But I'm digressing...needless to say, I managed one lunch and two actual breaks since Jan 1, so it took me a while to get through the book. Luckily, I had to take my car to get those pesky nails out of my tires before taking a work trip the other day, and I managed to finish the entire thing in less than an hour. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is another one of my geek crushes, so of course I adored this book! It was a super-fast read (once I had more than 10 minutes) and, as per usual Neil, it was hilarious in the weirdest places (I still disagree though...Pluto IS a planet!). Granted, there wasn't anything in the book I didn't already know, but he just has a way of making everything fun. He makes me want to learn more.

I wanted to read one book a week, but I might be looking more at one book a month, maybe two if I'm lucky. Since The Conjuring is on Netflix now and I've been watching it a lot, I remembered I have one of Ed and Lorraine Warren's books, so I'm going to read that one next. I may have read it before, but it had to have been 20+ years ago because I don't remember and I've probably had it that long. Plus, I just got in Stephen Fry's Mythos, so I guess that will be next or maybe another Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I'm going to try to be diverse. I just don't want my reading to distract from stitching, which I guess I'm also trying to make more diverse. I'm trying to expand my very tiny universe as big as I can within the constraints that I'm comfortable with. It's not much, but it's a start!