BLOG TRANSITION!

Ok! It's up and running!

I have a blog that I am posting on for the year and a half that I am serving the Lord in the Tennessee Nashville Mission!

(click click click!!!)



So come follow this new blog for regular uplifting posts. I hope it will be a spot of sunshine in your day!

Dearest Followers

My dear friends and family of blogworld,

I have loved sharing so much silliness, craftiness, seriousness, and whatever else spills out of my brain through my fingers on this blog. I'll be leaving this week to serve the Lord on an 18 month mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and not posting to this blog during that time.

Good news: I will be serving in the Tennessee Nashville Mission where there is a blogging pilot being tested right now, so there is a chance that I will still be writing! If I am selected to participate I will share a link here on Latest Endeavor so you can keep following me if you like.

If I am not then please don't give up hope on this little space in the internet. I'll be back. I just have bigger and more important things to do and turn my attention to for the time being. I love you all and I have been so uplifted by your comments! Seriously, comments are the little bursts of energy that make blogging exciting sometimes. Its nice to know there are eyes out there and I'm not just chattering off to myself (although that might be safer sometimes.)

If you'd like to write me a letter or you know, send me this hoodie (jk) you can find my address under "contact". Please keep in touch friends!

November 2012 will be here before we know it and I'll be back!

Love love love,
Elle

Cross My Heart

In February I tackled the world of cross-stitch. Here are the results of my effort!

Little deery turned out the most like the pattern that I was working from

This one was inspired by an image that I found on Pinterest. I loved the simplicity of the outline but I had a lot of fun playing around with the colors! 

♥

Oh please please please don't judge me by the left side of this heart!!! I have no idea what happened! Somewhere in there I must have gotten off on a row and never found my way back! This was the first one that I did so that's a good enough excuse. I think. A purist/perfectionist would go back and unpick and fix it. But have those words ever been used to describe me?

And some embroidery for good measure. 

This pattern is from Sublime Stitching. (Sexy Librarians/Secretaries)

Strip Pictures!!!

Fiction Is My Friend: Part IV

Allons-Y!
(This post is bigger on the inside)

Currently I'm obsessing over Doctor Who. Obsesses is an understatement.
The aliens can be kind of dumb (they remind me of the idiot bad guys on Power Rangers) and the graphics aren't that great, but I love the idea of a time traveler that goes around making all of the wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff work out the way its supposed to.

I think the big reason that I love the show so much is because of all the figuring out that has to happen. Its a constant mystery of what is going on. Everything is always changing. And its not just in the story that has twists and turns. The show has been on for 32 seasons and I only started watching it on the 27th. But it works. Ok, well I'm not here to rattle on about how the show itself works, but more to proclaim my love of it. And what better way than with things I've collected on Pinterest.

"There's a plan?"-River Song
"I don't know yet. I haven't finished talking."-Doctor

"That's a fairytale"-Doctor
"Aren't we all?"-River Song

Eccleston was a good intro Doctor, but it was really David Tennant that made the show fun. He's a ball of energy that just feeds off of ridiculous situations. Regeneration is a great part of the show because it's about self discovery. Tennants entrance was 

"An amalgam of the races they've conquered"
Yay! Use of the word amalgam!

"Go sit in the back of the class with the safety scissors and glitter"-Mickey Smith

"Expelliarmus! Good old JK!" (silly doctor going ahead in in time to read book 7)

The 11th Doctor has my favorite fashion sense. But I'm sick of all of the hipster crap about him. Except that Matt Smith is totally a hipster.

This genius kicking around in a Cyberman swimming cap. 

DELETE!

Remember what I was saying about Tennant? It's necessary to enjoy his silliness and the evolution of the show. I'm really soaking up how Series 5 has a distinct plotline, but its kind of like Smallville, how you have to enjoy some of the stupid nemesis episodes of seasons 1-3 before the serious stuff kicks in and ruins the fun. Oh wait. What TV doesn't do that? Chuck sure has. Getting off topic.

When the new theme song plays it makes me want to dance like this. I LOVE the updated theme song!

But Matt Smith your Doctor is just so picky and hilarious!

Can you see my internal struggle yet?

Trust me. If you start you'll never want to stop. 

[Insert the rest of these quotes now]

Life Goes On

Life has been hard this week. 

Nasty not fun hard.

But the Earth keeps spinning. 

And I've thrown myself back into action.

Remember this toadstool quilt that I crafted up a few months ago? Raya was the perfect girl for it! I was finishing up the ragging on a little blankie for Marshall and she gave me this sad look and said, "Why does Marshall get so many blankets?" She's been really great at sharing attention with him, hard when you've been the queen bee for your whole life. So I treated her with some cozy quilt loving. 

She made up a song about it. 

And that made my day.

*I Love You Kitty Boy*

Our sweet kitty boy passed away today.  We noticed a few weeks ago that he was looking thinner and getting a bit lethargic, more than normal for a house cat, but didn't think much of it. He was happy and getting along great with our older cat Niles. We only had adopted him in mid February and wondered if maybe the weight loss was from adapting to a new environment.  

We took him to the vet when we realized just how significant his problem seemed to be. The result was that he had a fatty liver and his muscles were deteriorating because he was too nauseous to eat.  He was also severely dehydrated.  He was given lots of fluids and after an ultrasound revealed no tumor or anything funky like that it was suggested that we take him home, force feed him until he started eating again on his own, and bring him back if nothing was improving. When the vet shaved his belly for the ultrasound we saw just how jaundiced his poor little body was. So yellow. 

He spent a few days at home over the heater vent licking up a teaspoon or two of water, but it was obvious that things were getting worse.  He went back in to the kitty doctor the next day and a biopsy of his liver was taken and more fluids were injected. That was on Friday and Saturday afternoon he hid under the far corner of my bed, something he has never done before.  He finally was coaxed out by lots of cozy hot air coming out of the heater vent.  I gave him lots of loves and had a little talk with him that if he was ready to go home we didn't want him to suffer any more.

Sunday he was breathing fast shallow breaths and not moving. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen. It was like all of the life was sucked out of him and he was just breathing out of habit.  His sweet playful personality was long gone at this point.  We called the vet and she agreed that the most humane thing to do was to put him to sleep so he wouldn't have to suffer through the rest of the night, or who knows how many more days. She did an x-ray of him and will tell us the results of the biopsy tomorrow so we may know what took our sweet boy from us. She said that the rapid decay of his back leg muscles and lack of reflex response signal that something neurological was going on as well. 

Whatever the cause may have been we know that he was a wonderful, loving, playful little boy (only about 6 years old) and that the 3 months we had with him were well worth it. I miss my little furry guy more than I can even express.
I love you Tosh Guster Chocolate Moose Colombo ♥

Traditional Blocks

I have branched out into the hard stuff! Here are my first 3 traditional pieced quilt blocks! I have finished one more but it isn't pictured. My flying geese points get better with each one! I love that each block has a slight flaw and that they are obvious representations of my learning curve. If you can spot them keep it to yourself and just give me some motivating praise ok? :)

I don't remember the name of this one

Christmas Star

Waterwheel

Dumps Like A Truck, Truck, Truck

Phone pictures that have just been lying around collecting virtual dust

Not long after I went red. And apparently the rest of the world did too.

Urban Outfitters has some pretty bomb sweatshirts.

Salty plum candy in Japantown. I needed Sarah to tell me which one to get.

"World's Most Perfectly Developed Man"

Fiction Is My Friend: Part III

Harry Potter was a majorly influential chunk of my childhood

We must have been about 9 and 10 (and 10) on a visit to Charly's parents in Eugene. Read: 6 hour drive to hang out in the chilly mold spore infested basement with The Jetsons and a dollhouse with no dolls.  Ok it wasn't really that bad but the cold basement will always be a vivid memory.  Grandma and Grandpa Van gave us each a book in a series that was getting popular fast. Since there were 3 books and 3 kids, we each got the one that matched our birth order, meaning I was thrown right into the action of Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets.

I was in the middle of a world I had never imagined. It helped me conquer ridiculous fears. I was afraid of everything as a little girl and I felt brave if I was able to read about giant serpents who turned people to stone and werewolves with no self control. (How cool is that comic??)
I have heard some people say that they don't like how "dark" the story gets as it progresses.  When watching the first half of the 7th movie I realized that I'd honestly forgotten that Harry even lived in the cupboard under the stairs. Although the plot thickens, becomes complicated, and in the end seems nothing like the simple book that it all began with, isn't that like life? As we read along with Harry and Co. growing up his challenges must get deeper and complex. And just how boring would 7 years of same old school get?
Perhaps it is because I grew up with Harry and had to wait for each book release that the story became age appropriate with me. My 10 year old sister read the whole series within a month and I think although she may have enjoyed them and the thrill of such an accomplishment she missed so much material that will make more sense in 10 years.

We didn't just read the books though, we lived them.  Kristin and I made spell books and school uniforms (although they were nothing as cute as that apron), wrote editions of The Daily Prophet, and even made our own concoctions of butterbeer.
Summer of 2007 I was working at Border's when The Deathly Hallows was released and the party was a lovely moment of my summer. We all dressed up as Hogwarts students and other characters. I fancied myself a Luna Lovegood dopleganger, radish earrings and all! Wouldn't you know it that the pictures from that night also died in the computer crash of 2010? Hopefully I can dig up all of these nerdalicious goodies that have disappeared.

I truly believe that a tiny idea sparked in JK Rowling's head has changed a generation. And it won't stop with us. Her writing is exquisite and captivating, a true piece of literature that will be classic and relevant years to come.  As this little poster says, Harry Potter is a gateway drug to hard literature. It teaches those who find no enjoyment in reading that it can be an adventure and a lifelong journey that will become a necessary addiction.

Now for a little joy that I found on the interwebs:

If a man proposed to me like this I would undoubtedly say yes. 

Seriously. Beyond awesome.  

(click through for 18 more!)