Remember this needlework project? We had our first proper stick-on-the-ground-and-accumulate snowfall this past weekend and it made me want to pull out my "February" sampler and get back to work on it. The area where the horse is will be filled in with white (snow), so it seems only fitting that I should finish it now that the real thing is here as well. I don't have much left to stitch so perhaps I'll fill in the rest before the end of the year.
And a little close up of the bottom section where I am working now. The little guy that looks like a brown frog next to the date is actually going to be a groundhog holding a little flag. He's looking a little weird here but once I get the rest of him filled in and his whiskers stitched he'll look more like himself.
I've not spend much time with my "Tortoise and the Hare" sampler, but give me a few weeks of cold and snow and I'll be ready to pull out something with summery colors! I was contemplating starting a couple of very small projects that I could give as gifts for the holiday, but considering how slowly I am working these days that may be a little too optimistic. The year is quickly slipping away and I am not going to think about how little I have accomplished.
Many thanks for all the wonderful suggestions for something humorous to read. In the end I chose a Stephanie Plum novel by Janet Evanovich, Two for the Dough. I read my first Stephanie Plum novel last year and thought it was pretty hilarious. Stephanie is a wise-cracking bounty hunter living in the wilds of Trenton, New Jersey. She seems a little ill-suited for the job, but she somehow makes it work.
"I religiously went to the range to practice, but the truth is I'm hopelessly unmechanical. I harbor an irrational fear of guns, and most of the time keep my little S & W empty of bullets to I won't accidentally blast the toes off my foot. On the one occasion I'd had to shoot somebody I'd been so flustered I'd forgotten to take my gun out of my pocketbook before pulling the trigger. I wasn't eager to repeat the performance."
This time around she is working with vice cop Joe Morelli with whom she has a love/hate sort of relationship (it's always amusing when the sparks fly between them) to bring in a local who's just murdered his best friend and jumped bail. I'm really looking forward to seeing the movie when it's released next year, though I have to say the actor they chose for Joe Morelli is nothing like I imagined him! Check out the trailer here. So the Stephanie Plum novels are not really high art, but boy are they fun and yes, laugh out loud amusing, which is just what I needed. In the wings I've got P.G. Wodehouse and Miss Mapp waiting.
I've started watching the Inspector Murdoch Mysteries series by the way. It's my stitching entertainment (maybe why I don't make as much progress stitching as I'd like--too busy watching TV). The series has been adapted from the novels by Maureen Jennings, which are set in Victorian Toronto. I fully expect to read the books at some point as each episode is less than an hour, so I am sure there will be much more to the books, but I'm enjoying the TV adaptation.
If you've not yet had a chance to check out the Best Books of the Year as chosen by book bloggers posts that Kim has put together at Reading Matters, do go check it out. Kim put together four posts filled with really wonderful books that top other readers' favorites lists. Apparently she only came across one duplicate in the over forty choices. The books are very eclectic and I've already noted down quite a few titles that I'd like to read myself. You can find my own choice there as well. Can you guess which one it is?