If I could keep a day in a bottle......

After leaving my lungs in Baltimore, I went home long enough to do laundry and then back in the car for Nashua, NH.

More details about that trip on my other blog.

I don't like English Breakfast, either

Confession time.... I am not in love with Sex and the City. I saw parts of a few episodes and discovered that they were not exactly my cup of tea.

I did, however, read One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell and am mostly neutral about it. Positive: it resolved well. Negative: one of the characters often referred to Sex in the City. Isn't that like having two imaginary friends who start talking about you behind your back? It just felt a little off to me.

I left my lungs in...

Baltimore!

If you have the chance to go to Baltimore in the fall, jump at it! The weather and scenery were fantastic, but the trip overall was a story of good news/bad news.

Good news: I stopped at the Baltimore Museum of Art on my way down.

Bad news: It cost $7 to park

Good news: The museum was free!

Bad news: I only had 3 hours

Good news: They let me take photos!

Bad news: There were so many gorgeous mosaics from Antioch and the museum is hundreds of miles away.

Good news: I still have the photos!

When I saw the mosaics for the first time, I actually cried. My heart was pounding wildly at the thought that I was going to have to leave and not see them again for a very long time. I stopped hyperventilating only when I found out I was allowed to take photos.

Bad news: The traffic was insane

Good news: I began a brief yet passionate love affair with lettuce wraps at The Cheesecake Factory.

Bad news: The traffic was still insane

Good news: The hotel was really, really nice

Bad news: Apparently the hotel room air conditioner had some mold in it. When I returned home and went to the doctor, he actually said, "Good news! It's not Legionnaire's Disease." It was, however, the renewal of my acquaintance with asthma.

Good news: After a month, the medications have it mostly under control.

Bad news: It's still not much fun.

Good news: I taught at a really cute shop in the Historic Savage Mills and met some really fun quilters.

Bad news: I didn't have extra time to check out all the shops.

Good news: I did see a gorgeous painting in the hallway from one of the galleries. It was a painting of Peruvian musicians and it was the first time I've ever wanted to purchase art.

Bad news: I didn't buy it, and the lung issues were beginning to make me very, very tired.

Good news: I stopped in New Jersey on the way home to go to church with old friends.

Bad news: I won't see them again until spring.

Good news: I didn't get stuck on the George Washington Bridge

Bad news: the whole "I'm coughing" thing didn't get stuck on the bridge either. It followed me home.

Good news: Other than the whole sick thing, I loved my trip to Baltimore and hope to go back in the spring.

Because one can never have too many vampires

When planning my recent trips I prepared folders of hotel reservations, directions to quilt shows and quilt shops, airline reservations, local attractions and addresses of local restaurants. I also went to the library and checked out all of the Sookie Stackhouse novels in paperback.

That series by Charlaine Harris is like candy. I kept a book tucked into my purse at all times and instead of dining alone, I dined with Miss Stackhouse. Argue with me if you must, but after reading all of her eight books in a short time, I decided she should definitely stay with Bill.

I read on Ms. Harris' blog that her books were made into a series on HBO. True Blood. Even though we recently subscribed to cable television, we did not subscribe to HBO. But, good news! I spend a lot of time in hotels and hotels usually have HBO, do they not? I looked online and saw that the series is aired at 9pm on Sundays. I made a mental note to turn on the television in hotels on Sunday nights. Since it was a mental note and not an actual note on actual paper filed in my oh-so-organized travel files, do you think I remembered to tune in? I forgot the first Sunday night. And the next. I remembered the following one, but that hotel did not have HBO. What the heck?!?!?!? And the Sunday night I spent in Houston? Once again I forgot.

I will have to wait to see Sookie on dvd. I'm not terribly interested in watching the series. (Reference Dexter and Edward). I am just astonished by the casting choice of Anna Paquin. I liked her somewhat in The Piano, but have pretty much hated her in every role since then. I think I just wanted to see her try to be Sookie for 2 minutes so I could continue hating her, this time for mis-representing my beloved dining companion.

Has anyone actually succeeded in watching the show? Should I stop fretting about seeing the show and continue hating her now? Or might I be pleasantly surprised when I finally watch the dvds?

A list of cities

that might explain my absense from blogworld.

In early October I went to Salt Lake City for a week. Since then, I've been to:

Baltimore, MD
Nashua, NH
Portsmouth, RI
Charlton, MA
Houston, TX
Monroe, CT

and probably a few other places that I'm not remembering right now. It was a weird month full of fun places, but I'm glad that I'm going to be home for a while now.

Now that I've officially started the annual "Twere the Quilts Before Christmas" countdown I don't have tons of time for blogging, but I hope to tell fun stories and share photos from my recent adventures in the near future. Due to the countdown, I'll be listening to a lot of books. Plan on a few book posts as well. Quite a few book posts. Like a book-a-day book posts.

Oh, Edward

I have to admit it... I was suckered into reading Twilight. Pages turned and then I had to read another. Then another. Then I had to wait a long time to read the last. I finished just in time to see the movie trailers FOR A MOVIE I SHALL NOT SEE! No offense to anyone who is excited about the movie, but Cedric is not my Edward.

After I saw the disappointing trailers, I read another Stephenie Meyer novel, The Host. It was nice and long.

Any rumors of another Stephenie Meyer novel?

Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

Not dead, just blindingly busy. New posts coming soon!