A hectic couple of weeks

I can't believe that it has been just over 2 weeks since I last posted anything here. I've been doing plenty of stitching, but haven't had much computer time. It all started when I realized that I needed to have the oil furnace serviced at the country house. That meant taking 2 days off of work-- okay, it really meant only one day, but I was greedy. We were in the country on Friday & Saturday and returned home on Saturday evening. On Sunday I had to fly to Nebraska for the week, where I spent the week teaching and had extremely limited computer time.

Getting to Nebraska was painful. The trip began with a lengthy delay at the airport, after the plane had been boarded. They said it was something to do with the hydraulics. Whatever it was delayed us for roughly 2 1/2 hours. Getting delayed in the airport is bad, but being stuck on the plane NOT MOVING for all that time was much worse. I was supposed to have 3+ hours to connect in Chicago, but that was reduced to under 30 minutes. And as always, the flight to Chicago landed at a C gate and the flight to Lincoln departed from F. F11 to be exact-- all the way at the end of the terminal and then downstairs. I was sure that my flight would be in the air by the time I finally got to the gate, but I was lucky and it was running just a few minutes behind schedule.

On this trip, I decided to bring my stitching in my carry-on luggage. I always put the project itself in my carry-on bag (there's no way I'm going to trust the airline with all of my hours of hard work), but I normally leave the scissors and other supplies in my checked bag because I'm never quite sure what can go through security. This time, I substituted a pair of nail clippers for scissors and took the entire project along in my carry-on bag. It worked great, and I will certainly do this again in the future. Sadly, I didn't have access to my stitching while we were delayed on the ground-- I put the bag in the overhead compartment and didn't want to climb over people to get out. I doubt it would have done me much good anyway, because I was seated in the middle seat, firmly wedged between two fairly large men. I'm sure that if I had tried to stitch I would have ended up poking them with my needle. I did manage some in-air stitching and it went well enough. I only worked on "mindless" sections like the straight edges on the border sections.

I'm generally so worn out after teaching that I don't feel like doing much, and there isn't a lot to do in Lincoln anyway, so I was able to spend some quality time stitching. Even though I'm not crazy about being away from home, I have to admit that I enjoy not having anything to distract me from my stitching for a few evenings. I got a lot accomplished, but there is still a lot to do. I don't think I have even hit the half-way point yet.

Since my arrival home, I have had a hard time getting motivated to work on The Castle Sampler. I don't know what it is-- maybe boredom? That would surprise me since this project has so many different things to work on that I rarely become bored with it. When I am truly bored with it or simply can't focus, I usually work on the borders and get still make some progress without it being too taxing. I did pick it up again last night and am trying to finish the last bits of stitching in the lower left quadrant of the piece. So far, so good!