Happy Halloween!

BOO!

Oh we stamp and crush through the underbrush!

The elephants were back at Pete's Pond this morning. I heard a bunch of splashing and looked up to see two little ones rolling around in the water, having themselves a great time. They were so amazingly cute! Not the best shot here, but that's one of them laying in the water. When it was time to go a big, leader-type male elephant stood away from the pond, facing the trail, and waited while the rest of them gathered around. They started down the path, stopped for a moment to blow dirt on their backs, then lumbered off together. I seriously <3 me some elephants!

Home again, home again...

It been a loooooooooong week for for me. My mom called a couple of weeks ago to let me know her latest PET scan wasn't good so my brother and I got together and coordinated a trip down to visit her and my dad in Florida. I wanted my kids to be able to see her, too, so flying there was out of the question. We just don't have that kind of money. It's a 1200 mile trip so I split the drive over two days, spending the night some place in Mississippi. I think the hotel was next to a drag strip but we were so exhausted it didn't faze us a bit. We got to my parent's house in Lakeland around 7:00 pm the next day. We stayed for three days, just hanging out and watching the World Series playoff games on TV. My mom is a HUGE Tigers fan so that's our team. We headed back home Tuesday, stopping for the night near Hammond, LA and finishing up the drive yesterday. Let me tell you, it's good to be home!

It's traditional for us to put together a jigsaw puzzle when we visit my parents so here's the crew with our completed puzzle. I can't say I was much help with this one! From left to right is my mom, Tammey (sister-in-law), Evan (son), Sarah (daughter), and Steve (my older brother). If you look close you'll see my two nephews and other brother in the photos on the end table.

My dad got us all hooked on Pete's Pond so check it out! If you're patient you might get so see some interesting critters. We saw a herd of elephants there this morning, and we've seen monkeys and lions, too. Not at the same time, thankfully!

SBQ

This week’s SBQ was suggested by Vash and is:

Which way do you stitch, i.e. do you stitch /// followed by \\\ on top, or the other way around \\\ followed by ///? Are you left- or right-handed and do you think that this affects the way that you stitch?

I taught myself to stitch and it just felt natural for me to go \\\ first and cross my stitches going ///. I use my right hand for the big things like writing and throwing and whatnot, but I also use my left for quite a few things, too. I know I stitch the opposite way from most people, so I was always hesitant to participate in round robins because of this. As I became better acquainted with the online stitching community I learned that it wasn't such a huge issue, there were many ways to stitch and no one method was "correct" as long as all your top stitches were going in the same direction. The only time I have switched the way I stitch was when I participated in stitching a baby afghan for an online friend. We were repeating several patterns for the afghan squares and I wanted my section to match everyone else's. :-)

I know it's October when...

My favorite flavor of Blue Bell returns!

MMMMMMM!!!