Back to Once and Stitching (well, sort of)
I am fully back to Once Upon A Time...after a week of watching every single horror movie left in Amazon Prime's arsenal of junk horror (and, believe me, it's a massive arsenal). I found where they have added "Wings"...one of my favorite shows from the 80's, and one of the few American sitcoms I ever watched. I tried to watch it, but I noticed that, in the middle of season 1, I was suddenly in season 2 and then back to season 1 again, only to jump back to the episodes of season 2 they had already played. I gave up and just decided that was my clue that it was just time to settle in and watch Once again. I have "Wings" on DVD anyway, so it's not like I can't watch it anytime I want, it was just kinda cool being able to stream it!
Anyhoo, by Sunday afternoon, the stitchy bug struck again and, even though I didn't do much, I guess it's better than nothing! I don't usually take my Ritalin on the weekends and it's harder for me to focus on anything when I don't take it, so I can't really sit still for too long without getting distracted by some other weird task. I left off here last time back at the end of May:
And a couple of hours later, I managed a bit more fill in (but still on the same color):
I thought about changing projects, but I was honestly just too lazy to switch out the projects on my lap stand! So sad!
On the trip front...I'm still working on my New Mexico/Arizona solo trip. I have to get it down to four days, which won't be easy when I keep adding stops, but I think I've narrowed it down enough. I can always go back and do the northern-most parts of those states and go further along later. There is nothing that says I have to do it all this trip (and yes, I am saying that as more of a reminder to myself more than anything...I'm still not getting the message just yet)! The whole purpose of this trip was just to go to Meteor Crater, but then I realized all the cool places I could hit along the way like Roswell, the Large Satellite Array, White Sands, and dozens of others. Then I figured out how close the Grand Canyon was, so I ended up adding that. But then I also realized that Hoover Dam wasn't that far away from the Grand Canyon either and things just kept getting out of control, so I just went back and started deleting stops one by one until I had a workable trip. It's still pretty scattered road-wise, but I can make it work (I hope!). Hoover Dam will just have to wait until a future trip unless I somehow make excellent time on this trip. I would at least like to cross over into the Nevada border to cross off another state on my map.
But the weekend before I was meant to leave on that trip, my Sister has to go to Chicago on business and she asked me if I wanted to go with her. Since my above trip hits a lot of Route 66, and I've been at the very end of Route 66 at Santa Monica when I went to California in 2015, I suddenly had an epiphany! I've been through Chicago before, but never actually seen the start of Route 66 sign, so I had the idea that I could drive up to meet my Sister (she is flying, of course) and then I could drive Route 66 all the way to my destinations, just extending my trip out a bit more, maybe going through Marcelline, etc on my way down. But then logic kicked in...that's a VERY long trip...too long to be away from home. It would just be easier to fly up with her to Chicago, do some bus tours while she is in meetings, then us have a couple of days of doing things, come home and a couple of days later leave on the trip I have planned. I can still see the Route 66 sign whether I drive or fly. If I did the full road trip, I do have puppies that would have to be boarded, it would be more gas and more hotels than I was expecting to pay for, whereas my Sister's trip is already paid for. One of these days I'm going to learn moderation...I'm not sure when, but someday!
Speaking of "the map", did I tell you guys I bought one of those maps that you scratch off all the states that you've visited? It's one of the reason's why I have such a hankering to travel lately. I thought I had been to way more states than I actually had, but when I got to scratching, I realized I really haven't traveled the U.S. nearly as much as I thought I had. I knew the West was lacking, but I was surprised to find that middle America (other than the South) was pretty lacking too! And some states up North that I thought I had been to, apparently I was mistaken there as well. I did scratch off all the coastal areas that I have hit, which is apparently more than the land areas, but those maps are extremely scratch sensitive and it was very easy to scratch too deep and take all the color off. I may get another one just because. I also didn't like that you couldn't scratch off just part of a state...some states I've covered every square inch, but others I've just skirted or just hit one or two towns. That may be because the states were small because I got one with Canada and Mexico on it, since I've been in both (again, just a quick drive through and it felt weird scratching off all of Ontario when I've only ever been to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls plus a couple of hours drive through the countryside and Mexico was basically crossing over through a store that was half in Texas and half in Mexico...it was the very early 80's), but that was WAY before you needed passports to visit either. But when it comes to the unscratched-off states, oh well, trip goals! Although, nothing about this new trip will help other than Arizona unless I manage to somehow cross the Nevada border.
Anyhoo, by Sunday afternoon, the stitchy bug struck again and, even though I didn't do much, I guess it's better than nothing! I don't usually take my Ritalin on the weekends and it's harder for me to focus on anything when I don't take it, so I can't really sit still for too long without getting distracted by some other weird task. I left off here last time back at the end of May:
And a couple of hours later, I managed a bit more fill in (but still on the same color):
I thought about changing projects, but I was honestly just too lazy to switch out the projects on my lap stand! So sad!
On the trip front...I'm still working on my New Mexico/Arizona solo trip. I have to get it down to four days, which won't be easy when I keep adding stops, but I think I've narrowed it down enough. I can always go back and do the northern-most parts of those states and go further along later. There is nothing that says I have to do it all this trip (and yes, I am saying that as more of a reminder to myself more than anything...I'm still not getting the message just yet)! The whole purpose of this trip was just to go to Meteor Crater, but then I realized all the cool places I could hit along the way like Roswell, the Large Satellite Array, White Sands, and dozens of others. Then I figured out how close the Grand Canyon was, so I ended up adding that. But then I also realized that Hoover Dam wasn't that far away from the Grand Canyon either and things just kept getting out of control, so I just went back and started deleting stops one by one until I had a workable trip. It's still pretty scattered road-wise, but I can make it work (I hope!). Hoover Dam will just have to wait until a future trip unless I somehow make excellent time on this trip. I would at least like to cross over into the Nevada border to cross off another state on my map.
But the weekend before I was meant to leave on that trip, my Sister has to go to Chicago on business and she asked me if I wanted to go with her. Since my above trip hits a lot of Route 66, and I've been at the very end of Route 66 at Santa Monica when I went to California in 2015, I suddenly had an epiphany! I've been through Chicago before, but never actually seen the start of Route 66 sign, so I had the idea that I could drive up to meet my Sister (she is flying, of course) and then I could drive Route 66 all the way to my destinations, just extending my trip out a bit more, maybe going through Marcelline, etc on my way down. But then logic kicked in...that's a VERY long trip...too long to be away from home. It would just be easier to fly up with her to Chicago, do some bus tours while she is in meetings, then us have a couple of days of doing things, come home and a couple of days later leave on the trip I have planned. I can still see the Route 66 sign whether I drive or fly. If I did the full road trip, I do have puppies that would have to be boarded, it would be more gas and more hotels than I was expecting to pay for, whereas my Sister's trip is already paid for. One of these days I'm going to learn moderation...I'm not sure when, but someday!
Speaking of "the map", did I tell you guys I bought one of those maps that you scratch off all the states that you've visited? It's one of the reason's why I have such a hankering to travel lately. I thought I had been to way more states than I actually had, but when I got to scratching, I realized I really haven't traveled the U.S. nearly as much as I thought I had. I knew the West was lacking, but I was surprised to find that middle America (other than the South) was pretty lacking too! And some states up North that I thought I had been to, apparently I was mistaken there as well. I did scratch off all the coastal areas that I have hit, which is apparently more than the land areas, but those maps are extremely scratch sensitive and it was very easy to scratch too deep and take all the color off. I may get another one just because. I also didn't like that you couldn't scratch off just part of a state...some states I've covered every square inch, but others I've just skirted or just hit one or two towns. That may be because the states were small because I got one with Canada and Mexico on it, since I've been in both (again, just a quick drive through and it felt weird scratching off all of Ontario when I've only ever been to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls plus a couple of hours drive through the countryside and Mexico was basically crossing over through a store that was half in Texas and half in Mexico...it was the very early 80's), but that was WAY before you needed passports to visit either. But when it comes to the unscratched-off states, oh well, trip goals! Although, nothing about this new trip will help other than Arizona unless I manage to somehow cross the Nevada border.
Comments
Linda
I have one of these scratch-off maps as well (a world map), but haven't scratched it yet as I have a few issues to ponder first. For one, Felix and I got it together as a wedding gift, so what to do about countries only one of us has visited? (my vote is doing them in stripes so we can scratch off the other half if the other one ever goes there too). Then,there are no state lines for the US...we've both been to California, but is that enough to warrant scratching off the whole country? But then the same is true for every country really (especially the bigger ones)...to be honest, that's giving me more anxiety than it should, haha!
The trip sounds pretty epic, look forward to hearing all about it.
The map looks great too, very pretty!