Current Stichin' Projects

Since cross stitching has helped bring me to a happy place lately, I've been quite prolific in creating works.  You've already seen some of what I've made since February or so, but here's a more complete collection (in rough chronological order).

And before I bombard you with photos - yes, I would be happy to make something via request ... pending size and subject matter.  Meaning: I don't want to take on anything too huge, and want to make sure it would be something fun for me to make as well.  

If you have something in mind, let's chat!

FYI - this was a commission!

Yes, this one is still pending ...

I needed a break from it when I realized I was off a stitch in the rocket outline.
I haven't picked it back up yet.

This is my current "in process" project.
It's fairly large, and when finished will fill a matted 8x10 frame.

When I do larger projects like this, I usually pause on it and mix in smaller pieces like the below.
Switching projects helps me avoid burn out on one specific piece, and lets me 
feel the joy of finishing something small and quick occasionally as well.

This last set of skulls is kind of fun.

I did several because the mandala shape was repetitive, which became somehow relaxing. 

Below is a little case study showing how much of a difference color can make.

Favorite Teacher's Birthday - Extra Mom 2019

Right around the beginning of each new month, my son's "school" (daycare) sends out a month in summary packet.  In the packet, they lay out the educational themes they have planned for the upcoming weeks, the lunch menu, and various other details relevant to parents ... including classroom birthdays.

At the end of April, I grabbed the packet to take home and had a moment of glee.  My son's favorite teacher, and also a favorite of myself and my husband, was having her birthday a matter of a few weeks after our son!

A little background: now that my son's three, he's finally starting to put things like Christmas, birthdays, etc. together.  It's really getting fun because he understands the concept behind celebration, the purpose of gifts, special foods relevant to the festivities and so on ... and he gets so excited for the little things, no matter how ridiculous or trivial they might seem to an adult.

Waiting until we got home and settled into dinner, I opened a conversation with my son and husband about the upcoming birthday.

Me - So ... Ms. Kristen's birthday is coming up soon.
Husband - Oh, that's nice.  Will you bring her a present?
Son - YEAH!
Me - So, what should the present be?  Do you think ... we should bring her birthday cupcakes?
Son - YEAH!  (even more excited this time)
Me - OK, so what kind should they be?
Son - Chocolate.

Well ... technically this is a valid request.  Though not quite where I was going.

Me - (attempting to redirect) OK, chocolate sounds good.  But how about ... what should be on TOP of the cupcakes?
Son - Cream.

Again ... valid request.

Me - (let's try this again) Well, all cupcakes have frosting on them.  But remember how your cake at your birthday had construction trucks on it?  What do you think Ms. Kristen would like on top of her cupcakes?  Maybe flowers, or rainbows, or unicorns?
Son - (a brief pause for consideration, and then a very definitive statement) Astronaut Doggies.
Husband - SOLD!  We have a winner.

And so began my saga of trying to find an astronaut dog cake design.  Let's just say ... well ... you Google astronaut dog cake and see what you find.

Let me know when you find something that you can just print out and bring straight into a baker for reference.

I'm waiting ...

Yeah, thought not.

Doing a bunch of digging online, I found the best photo references I could and complied them into a wish list of sorts for the Target bakery cake decorating staff.

Since my son was so excited, he hand delivered the "instructions" (as he called them) to the baker at the counter, firmly saying "I want astronaut doggies birthday cake for my teacher".

I have to give the baker credit.  She very kindly smiled at him and said "that sounds like an EXCELLENT idea".  LOL!  Even I couldn't keep a straight face, and I knew what was coming!  Haha!

While the above "instructions" were in the works at Target, I let my son go wild at Claire's ... with some coaxing on my end.  You can probably guess what items he insisted on, and which ones I "encouraged" in the selection.

Note the birthday "crown" to fit the theme - LOL!  I thought it was kind of cute at least.

In addition to a gift, my son was insistent that he pick out a birthday card.  So, back at Target, we scoured the card isle.  Much to my surprise, my son found this one all on his own.  And though it was much more than I'd like to spend on a card, the technology inside was enough to make me cave and purchase it.

With a gift and card settled, all that was left was the errand of picking up the pull-apart cupcake cake from Target.

I'm sure you're dying to see how that turned out, so here's a picture:

And the rest was history ... as were the cupcakes, so I'm told.  LOL!

St. Pat's Extra Mom 2019

Ok, ok - I'll admit.  I'm WAY behind on this one.  But since I documented St. Pat's in 2018, I feel like I should at least keep track what I did in 2019.

Even if it's almost two months late, and solely for my own mental sanity, so that I don't forget and duplicate it again next year.

#momsLOSINGit

For 2019, I kind of procrastinated on the whole St. Pat's teacher gift thing.  I had picked up some stuff on 2018 clearance, but up until the night before, I didn't really know how I would tie it all together into a presentable gift. 

ZERO PLANS.  HOORAY!

In somewhat of a tizzy, I ended up rushing to Target with my son to "help pick out a present for your teachers". 

What a great mom I am.  We ended up in the liquor store.  Hooray!  Because, you know ... that's a totally appropriate place to bring your almost 3 year old child.

Whatever.  It's not like I was letting my son drink the stuff.  And besides.  Booze is the universally appreciated gift on St. Pat's.  Prove to me I'm wrong.

To be honest though, I did try to put some effort into a non-booze gift, but Target wasn't helping me much with inspiration.  Not to mention, when I saw strawberry Smirnoff full sized bottles on clearance in their liquor store for about $5 each, with a cartwheel coupon for $15 back on a purchase of three bottles or more, with no clause about clearance ...

I mean, the 4 bottles I needed cost me about $5 plus tax.  And girls like fruity drinks, right?  So how could I refuse?

With bottles in hand, I headed home to sift through my St. Pat's clearance stash for something to pair with the bottles.  Eventually I settled on a headband tied to the bottle, which I wrapped in gold foil tissue. 

The end result was this:

Not too shabby! 

And as an added bonus, between this gift and the Reddit Gift's item I sent back in February, I used up all 5 of the headbands I had bought - so I didn't have a lone straggler leftover.  Score!

Ah, the things I celebrate now as an adult.

Well, there you go!  I'm all caught up on extra mom posts again ... and just in time, because my son's favorite teacher's birthday is next week, and the cupcake design he wanted to give her is a real doozy. LOL!

Reddit Gifts Colors and Rematching Gifts

After doing the Reddit Gift's St. Pat's exchange, where I didn't get shafted and actually ended up with a pretty neat gift for my son, I decided to sign up for the next round of matching to see what would happen.

As is with each round on Reddit Gifts, I had tons of gift themes to choose from.  But of course, you know me and "colors".  So that was the exchange I opted for.

The premise of the colors exchange was basically - name your favorite color, some of your likes and interests, and see what kind of magical color themed gift you get.

Some people gifted really neat assortments like this:

But unfortunately, the partner I was assigned to was somewhat limited in the scope of what they were interested in.  Since I wasn't really excited about sending  $30-40+ "collectible" china figurines of My Little Pony or Care Bears, I decided to settle for some books on their Amazon wish list that were relevant to their career and closer to the $20 spend goal of the exchange.

It was a little disappointing to me to send such a basic gift.  But, I figured what I sent was at least fair enough, as my assigned partner mentioned in their profile that they wanted more "useful things", liked all colors, and saw white of more of an accent.  Given that the books looked like this, I felt like it was meant to be (regardless of how not very fun to shop for):

While I was working on the above color exchange, I also sent a make up gift so someone who got shafted in the St. Pat's exchange.  Being that the gift was going to arrive far past the holiday, I used St. Pat's history of snakes and the connection of pigs to Irish lore as the backdrop of this gift, and then threw in some toys for their pets as good measure.

Unfortunately there was a system glitch and this giftee's feedback didn't come through.  So ... hopefully they liked it?

As you can tell, I'm excited to have an outlet to gift my smaller cross stitch works.  Honestly, I've really been enjoying being able to build a gift around a cross stitch that I think a stranger might appreciate.

This being said, when I signed up to send a make up gift for someone in the colors exchange, I feel like the stars aligned.

My match liked turquoise, purple, fitness, makeup, "cat lady stuff" and all things hand made / antique / shabby chic.

Looking at their Amazon wish list, I saw they wanted a yoga knee pad and weight lifting gloves, so of course the fitness geek in me HAD to buy those.  In addition to that I threw in a makeup brush cleaning tool, a facial exfoliation set and some makeup sponges that went well with their color theme ... plus a cross stitch to match!

Do you think I nailed it?

Let's hope so!!

Hiking to the Hollywood Sign

As you know, I like to blog.

Duh, you obviously know that if you're here, reading my blog.

What you might not know is that in addition to writing my own blog, I follow a handful of bloggers myself.

Most of those I follow I try to read on a regular basis; one of whom is WanLifeToLive, a blog written by a woman who lives somewhere near LA, likes to run occasionally (or less occasionally, as she and I are both struggling on that run thing recently), has a family, and likes to write about doing fun things.

About 5 or so years ago, WanLifeToLive posted about a hike she found near her home.  Going through a local park, she did a 6+/- mile hike that took her out and back to the Hollywood sign.  After reading that blog, I thought "huh, that sounds fun".  But, not having any real desire to go to LA, I kind of filed the story in the "good to know" category of my brain and forgot about it.

---

Fast forward to 2018/2019 ...

In the last 6 months or so, I had begun to debate what I wanted to do for my birthday.  In years past, I've used that date as an excuse to do things like run Bay to Breakers, go see Beyonce at a local outdoor stadium, and even have a girl's weekend in Vegas.  

With a lot of hemming and hawing, I started to get frustrated.  No cool local concerts were grabbing my attention, I didn't want to do Chicago again, and I also didn't want to spend a ton of money on a plane ticket (and thus have no fun money for the actual trip itself). 

I kept digging and digging at flights to various cities, but at $500-800 per ticket, I just couldn't justify it.

Until I saw that I could buy a ticket to LA for basically $150.

Suddenly, the Hollywood sign hike blog flooded back to my fore and I knew what the plan was going to be in an instant.

Spoiler alert.

Oops, too late if you scrolled down fast.

Heh.

---

Ok, so let's recap this hike from the beginning: research phase.

Using the resource in Wan's blog, I started poking around and reading about how to hike to the Hollywood sign.  As I started reading about various routes, I found out that there's another point of interest on the trail system called the Wisdom Tree.

Being interested in the superior views that climb was supposed to offer, I started researching the trail to determine how I could get from the tree to the sign, and back down again, in the most efficient manner.

This is when things got political.

Turns out, the locals aren't fans of the tourists who hike this trail, and they've successfully lobbied Google to remove portions of the trial on their mapping software.  Essentially, Google will only route any walk request it receives to the Hollywood sign through Griffith Park, and that's it.

True story - if you Google Map a hike from the Wisdom Tree to the Hollywood sign, you get this 20 minute hike:

And if you Google Map a hike from the Hollywood sign to the Last House on Mulholland, you get this 1 hour and 45 minute hike:

Does that even make any sense to you?  Look at the white road that goes down from the Hollywood sign trail and directly to the Last House on Mulholland.  It's fully paved and perfectly safe to traverse.

I'm not even joking.  Go try Google Maps right now.  Private residents have essentially gotten public land, taxpayer supported park areas, hidden from view.

While I understand the reasoning for this (let's face it, the general public is a bunch of assholes - and to make matters worse the streets in that area are exceedingly narrow, basically leaving no room for emergency response vehicles, etc.), I really struggle with this.

Rather than hiding access to trails I want to walk to, wouldn't it make more sense to just have the driving portion hidden - PLUS - city supported no parking zones throughout that whole neighborhood ... and simply enforce them?  I've been to plenty of big cities where there are essentially entire tow truck fleets drooling at the opportunity to impound illegally parked cars.  I know it's possible.

Regardless, this is not the time or place to discuss the rights of public land versus the private home owners.  I understand the struggle on both sides.  Especially because honest to God, as I was walking back to my hotel after this hike - I saw a guy in a rented Mustang stop in the middle of Beachwood Drive, park at an angle blocking two lanes, and have his girlfriend get out to take a portrait of him with the Hollywood sign in the background.  What the hell!?  So yes, since I am one of an unfortunate few "non assholes" in the general public ... well, I get it.   But I still think there must be a better way for responsible hikers to be able to access public parks.

Let's get back on topic.

Since I could obviously tell there was some sort of trail that went down from the Hollywood sign to the last house on Mulholland, I started digging.  Thankfully, I found a few different bloggers here and here and here who noted that it is in fact a public trail, with access.  (Note the residential feedback on that first link - not friendly).  Piecing that together with this group of young women who successfully completed the trail, and this young man who appears to hike the more aggressive part of the path on a regular basis ... well, I felt fairly confident that I could make the voyage.

In fact, my only reservation was the easiest part of the hike, as I wasn't 100% sure I would be able to access what looked to be a winding road leaving the Hollywood sign and successfully walk back to my hotel.  But, worst case scenerio, I figured we would be forced into Griffith Park for an extended walk out of our way, at which point an Uber could take over.

SO!  With my plan B in place, and my sister coherced to join me, it was time.  Let's go!

---

At 6 am on Sunday morning, we hailed a Lyft from our Best Western Plus Hollywood Hills Hotel and headed for the Wonder View trail head.  (FYI, that's what Google called it as of today's post, though I hear it may have been changed to something like the Burbank Trail or ... ???  Since this is hardly published as it is, I don't even know what to take as truth anymore to be honest.)

Our Lyft driver seemed fairly surprised by our drive request, but was game to take us where we needed to go.  Though he did seem to hesitate wanting to leave us when we saw our first wild coyote walking down the road about 1/4 of a mile prior to hitting the trail head.

I will admit that made me second guess myself, and ended up asking "so, do a lot of people hike this trail?"

His response "This is actually the first time I've ever had this request" odd look on his face "and I'm not 100% sure where I'm going."

About 30 seconds after that comment, we started seeing little packs of 1, 2 or 3 people clearly beginning their morning hike and eventually our driver pulled to a stop.  "Strength in numbers, right?" I said to my sister as we hopped out and headed to the gate prior to the trail head.

Shortly beyond that gate, we found the official trail head that was at one point properly marked, but now sadly only has the rock that once held a bronze plaque.

Just before beginning the climb, I began to wonder what I was getting in to ... the climb looked much more aggressive in real life than any photos can lead you to believe.

Are we seriously going to go up that high?!  Oh well, we're here now!  Onward.

Hold on, I just swallowed a gnat.  Just give me a second to cough gag that out of my system.

OK, we're good.

Depending on what you read, this climb covers anywhere from 550' to 850' of elevation in a 1-1.5 mile distance.  The trail itself is extremely rocky, steep, and uneven.  Using this photo for illustration, you can see that making it to the top would be no small feat.

So of course, when I finally reached the Wisdom Tree, I took a photo pretend dry heaving.

Yeah, so what if in real life I was a little sweaty and breathless.  It was hard work getting there!  And since the morning fog still hadn't burned off, it wasn't like I could get some sort of yogi-esque photo of me meditating as I looked off into the distance.  So may as well make an ass of myself, right?

After reaching the first summit, and a brief water break, we headed on to our next way point, Cahuenga Peak.  Since the passage from Burbank is fairly simple, this went quite quickly.  Soon enough the geological marker was visible.

With no relief from the morning fog, it was time to continue on to Mount Lee.  This is where sh!t got real.  With several large drops on the trail, I had to test out my competencies in reversing down rock faces.  Sometimes there was little to nothing to hold on to to maintain balance, and some places had very narrow landing areas with steep drop offs on the edge.  Though I questioned my own personal sanity several times during this stretch, finally I found something that made it worth the effort.

We made it!  And we even found the Hef plaque.

Thanks for the cool $1 mil, dude!

By the way, I just want to point out in the above picture, where I'm pointing at the Hollywood sign, how dirty my palm is.  This only goes to show how much I was literally climbing around en route.  To be fair, my ankles aren't the best so I have some stability issues (that I manage via conservative decision making), but I am pointing this out to demonstrate that this hike is no joke - as this sign at the end of the hike demonstrated:

With the scariest part of the hike behind me, at this point I relaxed and felt like I could enjoy the fruits of my hike.

Following the winding asphalt road down from the Hollywood sign, eventually we found this gate.

To the side of the gate, there's a pedestrian door you can exit.

As you continue onward, stay to the side where the trail is obvious (the more sandy portion).

And as per my research, we were able to follow the trail out and around to the Last House on Mulholland.  The walk was picturesque and framed the Hollywood sign through the trees.

After leaving the trail system, we were somewhat stranded in a random neighborhood.  To make things more difficult, there was no sidewalk, and the roads were winding an narrow.  As I would even in my own neighborhood, I walked tightly to the curb and allowed all cars right of way to pass by.

Interestingly enough, on our walk back to the hotel, we passed the Atlas Obscura point of interest called the Garden of Oz.  This was an added bonus, since I had read about it but figured I'd not have time to afford visiting.  What a nice surprise.  And even better to not be disspointed to have dedicated a trip out specifically for that, as it was not much to see from street level and I do not have the privilege of owning an access key (it is private property, DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT PERMISSION).

Finally, after about 2.5 hours from entering our Lyft, we had made it all the way back to our hotel on foot.  Sweaty, thirsty, and dirty, but happy for the experience.

And somewhat disappointed that my brand new shoes were already totaled.

Oh well!  Disney the next day made it all better!